Suicide Notebook
http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/717820/suicide-notebook-jaeseop-kiseop-soohyun-ukiss-sooseop-hoonmin-rkpyoshi

About: Soohyun(Ukiss)+Kiseop(Ukiss), angst, romance, family, high school

Katrina
Finished 7/12/14
Note: I apologize for the long wait. Thank you for not canceling.

Title: 4/5 Your title relates too directly to the story, but it also doesn’t deal with the actual plot. It feels like you made a title just for the sake of having one, that you didn’t put any thought into it. You have a notebook, which is not exactly the MAIN focus of the story, since Soohyun’s relationship with Kiseop takes up most of the story. I don’t understand what “Suicide Notebook” would be the title if it’s not related to the main focus. I know titles shouldn’t relate DIRECTLY, but they shouldn’t relate to a minor topic. You can use a symbol or something small in the story that points to Kiseop and Soohyun, but it’s not obvious.
Besides this, your title is somewhat attractive, so I guess you get a four for that.

Foreword: 7/10 Let’s start with the things that are good in your foreword. Your foreword, the diary entry, serves as an introduction to the mood, which helps a lot, because I know what tones to look out for. Your entire foreword is medium length and clean, so that’s a bonus. It allows the readers to read it without getting distracted by pictures or other things.

The bad thing is that, like you said in your specific advice, your vocabulary seems off. There’s something off-putting about your description. First of all, you have some awkward sentences, such as “what had happened that was so heartbreaking for him when he was 10 had made him change completely.” That sentence is too long and has a lot of information squished inside. I think the real reason why your description feels so weird is because you have a lot of stuff pushed into a single sentence. Try to separate them and use different words instead of the same. Below, I changed your description to what I see is best fit.

He used to be popular (the reason I took out “before” is because “before” and “used to” are of the same meaning, so there is no need for both) and well known for his bright smiles and confident personality. Then, tragedy struck, and before anyone knew it, he had changed completely. What remains is a shell of his old persona.
He lost his smiles- his confidence, his happiness.
All the while, he struggles to stop himself from running back to her. He knows that she doesn’t want him to be like this, so he tries his hardest to stop- but he can’t. He can’t take it anymore.
Then, he finds something that takes his mind off his predicament- but he hates it. It’s pathetic that it is the only thing keeping him from the edge of insanity.
It is merely a black book, that he calls his Suicide Notebook.

Does that sound better? I tried to use different verbs and adjectives to show you how different words of the same meaning can work well together.

Plot: 19/20 At this point, I’m not sure in which direction your plot is going to go, so I can’t give you a good judgment. I even skipped ahead to chapter eight, but you still don’t have a lot going on there. You do have a lot of family drama, and you show the different events through each character, so that plays out well. Your plot started with a cliché outline, but it flows well. The relationships develop well enough for the plot to stand out by itself. Everything occurs realistically, so there aren’t a lot of problems. I like how Soohyun became the intimidating mute instead of turning into an unpopular nerd. Yiseop is also a very different love interest since he has dyed hair, but he seems like more of a hipster than a gangster.

The one thing off is that, despite how well your plot flows, I can’t feel an atmosphere. You have a tone and a mood, kind of, and I can feel what you’re trying to convey, but I can’t see an atmosphere. It’s all pure bonding and normal activities to this point. For the atmosphere, I wouldn’t suggest a seasonal one, because that doesn’t match your tone. I suggest that you focus mainly on trying to emphasize Soohyun’s want to actually suicide and Kiseop’s curiosity about him. Like have Kiseop wonder about Soohyun, while the latter is stuck in a world of depression. I’m not saying you have to make Soohyun think of killing himself every second, but highlight his anger and longing for his past.

Characters: 20/20 Kiseop and Soohyun are very detailed and emotional. You show their insides in each chapter that they’re featured in and present how they establishe relationships with other characters, specifically themselves. You write with your own emotions in the words, which really brings your story to life. Both Kiseop and Soohyun are very realistic.
At first, I thought you were only going to focus on Kiseop and Soohyun’s POVs, but you switched to Hoon, which really took me off guard. I like it though. I love it when writers give an insight to minor characters which allows for the readers to take a break from the main plot. It gives them more characters or side-plots to root for, allowing for a better enjoyment.

Grammar and Spelling: 19/20 You don’t have a lot of grammar or spelling mistakes, except for the occasional awkward sentences.

Chapter one P(aragraph)18 “…save me from the willing urge to see…” should be ‘…save me from the urge to see…’ Willing is voluntary, so saying willing here is like saying that he WANTS the urge.
Chapter two P2 “…alarm clock for not at least making him stir…” should be ‘…alarm clock for not making him stir…’ 

Specific Advice: About your vocabulary, it’s pretty good. Not much change is needed. What you do need to work on is to stop using common words like “make”, for example. You would write something like “He fell, making him scream.” Just write “He fell and screamed.” The “make” makes your vocabulary level look lower than it actually is. Another example is that instead of writing “grab, take, yank” you write “get” which is a really common word. Using different synonyms can change the way your story looks.
Besides this, if you really want to increase your vocabulary range, I suggest that you find a site for daily vocabulary and copy down ten words a day, or so. My friend increases her range by keeping a list of words besides her as she writes, and she makes sure that she uses most of the words on the list in each chapter. I, personally, don’t think that’s the best way to go, but it works very well for her. One thing you need to keep in mind though is that you should focus more on verbs instead of adjectives, because your main goal is to shorten your sentences and make them clean, not cluttered with unnecessary adjectives. For example, “She quickly turned around, her bright, blue eyes shining mysteriously in the illuminating moonlight of midnight, and ran down the long, paved street that reminded her of a majestic dragon’s back.” While this may sound beautiful, it’s too much. You’re not making SAT questions, so you don’t need all these information to confuse the readers. You can just write “She pivoted on her feet as soon as she heard the unknown footsteps and slunk into the unlit road on the opposite side.”

Flow: 14/15 The first two chapters didn’t flow well. First, we had the diary entries to introduce everything, then the background information, but then we suddenly transitioned to the current timeline and the introduction of Kiseop. Having a lot of background information revealed for the readers is good, but not if you give everything in one chapter.
After that point though, the story started flowing very well, and you do a good job of switching from Kiseop to Soohyun easily without confusing the readers or yourself. Many writers tend to forget about the timeline and end up writing contradicting events.

Enjoyment: 5/5 I enjoyed this for the detailed characters.

Structure: 4/5 In stories, when you write numbers, always write them out in word form, so “2” would be “two”.

In chapter one, you shouldn’t have told everyone Soohyun’s background information in one chapter and then blend it in with the current timeline. It didn’t transition well, because in one scene, Soohyun is thinking about his past and how he got the book, and then, all of a sudden, we are snapped out of his thoughts and into the classroom. Maybe you should have started with the classroom and slowly, give bits of his past here and there. It also creates a mystery for the readers.

I’m not going to take points off for this, because this might be my computer’s fault. In the middle of chapter five, your font suddenly changed to the basic font, instead of Times New Roman, or whatever you were using. If you forgot to make it Times New Roman, you should make it match the rest of your story. I’m pretty sure that either you forgot the change it, or maybe my computer’s acting up again. Another thing is that in the end of chapter six, it was in italic, but it was just normal dialogue.

Specific Advice: About your sentence structure, sometimes you pour a whole bunch of information into one sentence. I already explained this in the foreword section, so I’ll move onto your other problems. One example that I didn’t use is “Kiseop had dyed his hair to platinum blonde, then orange, then…” you included all of his hair colors in one sentence, but you could shortened it to “He dyed it multiple times.” If you wanted to point out the colors Kiseop preferred, you could say “He remembered when his hair was blonde” which could also serve as a time reference. For example, when he says “my hair was orange back then” could signify that he’s talking about middle school, or something.
From time to time, I see really awkward sentence such as “Kiseop pouted which made Hoon get Kiseop’s timetable.” How did Kiseop’s pouting allow for Hoon to get his timetable? Or was it because Hoon didn’t want Kiseop to pout, so he grabbed the timetable? I think the sentence would make more sense if you write “Kiseop pouted, and Hoon grabbed his timetable” instead of saying that it “made” Hoon grab it.

Overall: 91/100 There’s not much for me to say about the plot, except that it’s realistic. Your detailed characters also helped a lot, and your flow is great. In fact, the overall story is a good read. You can improve this even further by changing your vocabulary, since your range is not that large