★ Baby Don't Cry [53]

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FICTION BIO
Baby Don't Cry
by EXOBLAST
 
Featuring: EXO
Type: Chaptered
Genre: Drama, Fluff, Romance
Main Characters: D.O, Kai, Kim Seuk Hye (OC)
Status: Ongoing (reviewed with 5)
Rated: None
Warnings: None
 
DESCRIPTION
You and your boyfriend D.O, also known as Kyungsoo, have been together for quite a long time. Your relationship is about to get more serious when something unexpected happens. When everything starts to go to the best direction something tragic crashes the both of you and were left with nothing but unforgotten memories. (More will be revealed in the story)
What happens when both of you are stuck in a problem you can't get out of?
EXCERPT
“I love you so much, Hye Seuk. Don’t ever leave me.” He said before kissing my cheeks.
 
“It never even crossed my mind.” I said, kissing his right eye. He grinned and took me for another kiss as passionate as the previous one. He dipped me like one of those salsa dancers and made me giggle in the kiss. The dim sun rays glowed on our figure making our shadows form on the bedroom wall. This was the most unforgettable sun set I’ve ever had. Must be Kyungsoo’s too…
Story Review by Quicksand (53/100)
Title (3/5)
Hm, I can definitely see the connection between the title and your story and it does imply angst which fits your story as well however I feel like you've been rather uncreative with the title and it's most certainly not something that would ever grab my interest--an EXO song as a title for a story that features a member of EXO? Do you see what I mean by unoriginal? I would have preferred a title that was linked more significantly to your story and was unique and attention-grabbing at the same time. So it's not so much that it's a bad title, but not something that I think works in your favour. Perhaps something like "Frostbitten"? There are references to warmth in your story and imagery of winter as well, so the pain of love is equal to being frostbitten? Just a suggestion on my part.
Foreword and Description (5/10)
Ohhhhhkay, time to tackle this! Now I can tell English isn't your first language, I see some rather common errors here like 'unforgotten memories' (I'm not sure what you're trying to say here--memories you can't forget? That would be 'unforgettable memories'. Also, "your realtionship" not "you're relationship" and  "right direction" not "best direction".) and overall I wasn't curious to know what would happen. I felt like I could predict what would happen, though maybe not correctly. Let me break this down so I seem more coherent; your descsription, though articulate, doesn't captivate my interest at all. This may be because I'm rather jaded from having read one too many OC stories, but I think there was a factor lacking in your description, something that could make readers more interested in the story. One thing you could do is pose questions, maybe? Ask the readers what they think might happen, get them wondering what will happen? You could be extremely simplistic if you want which could make the readers wonder about the connections between those statements.
For example:
Chen watches from behind windows and from balconies teetering far above others, he always has. Kris vows to change that.
It's not the best example, I'm aware (sorry D:) but does it make you want to know what I meant by Chen watching from behind windows? And maybe how Kris is going to change that? And why? That sort of thing.
As for your foreword ... you don't have one. Now, I don't really know what a foreword on AFF is meant for, but I think you put a prologue or an excerpt from your story there--a snippet to give your readers a taste of your writing so theycan decide if they want to read more or not. Since as aforementioned your description doesn't really capture one's attention, an excerpt would be a good idea in my opinion. Also DO NOT put in character profiles. This is a big no-no; under no circumstances are you to do that. I'm glad to see you didn't put down personalities, however I feel like labelling them as the protagonists/antagonist in the foreword is redundant and unecessary; your readers aren't stupid, they do know who you're referring to in the story and they don't need it spelt out for them. In short, excerpts are good ^^!
Originality (4/10)
Now let me be honest--I found very, very little about the plotline original. There are plenty of D.O/OC stories floating around this site and when you couple that with a love triangle crisis, you have a mere-photocopied version of another OC story on your hands. I'm sorry to say that in terms of originality, I feel your story was severely deprived; I didn't find the characterisation to be different nor the sequence of events in your story nor any other element that somehow distinguished your story from others. The plot is quite common--girl and guy are happy, another dude randomly forces himself on girl, girl's relationship with her boyfriend is threatened, the two guys fight! I don't find the characterisations to be fresh either, to be honest. So yes, in short, nothing particularly stood out to me.
Keep in mind that cliches are not necessarily bad; as long as you add your own spin to them, they can be quite good and make for interesting reads. Seeing as your story is only five chapters long, I think there's still potential for you to maybe add a twist or add your own spin to this, so fret not!
Characterization (5/10)
I didn't really feel like I knew the characters at all or felt attached to them in anyway; to be honest, Kai seemed mentally ill and almost psychotic to me whilst Hye Seuk felt bland and like an animated carboard cut-out. D.O. was too ... cheesy for my tastes.
I'll start with Hye Seuk--considering that she's an OC, you need to be all the more careful to ensure you don't fall into the trap of making her a Mary-Sue. Of course, this is still a concern with idol-characters, but it's just more prominent with an OC. I ... can't really say I liked Hye Seuk. I admit that her thought processes are realistic--those are thoughts one might normally think and her reaction to being kissed by Kai was certainly understandable, however I still don't feel like I really knew her. I think one reason for this is because she's so perfect; she's obviously loved incredibly by D.O., as readers we see time and time again how perfect she is, Kai forces himself on her. She must be quite the woman for two men to fight over her, to the point where one claims she should be married to him and that her current husband doesn't deserve her. We see her as this absolutely flawless being and it's a little annoying. As a reader I would have liked to see more complexity in the protagonist. I don't really know how to explain this but there's just no ... spark in Hye Seuk, she's just so stereotypical, I can tell what she's going to do. One thing I'd suggest altering is how you write her--maybe include more of her thoughts and opinions rather than just her reactions to events around her. For example, JOngin forces himself on her; we know she's angry after it, but maybe taking the time to humanise her by showing her confusion at it and having her reflect afterwards would be good too--give her quirks or oddities or opinions, something more than just her reactions to events in her life.
Kai was terribly done, sorry. I know this story is only five chapters long, but I simply cannot understand Kai's reasoning at all nor empathise with him as a character. What catalysed his change? Will that be explored in the story? What makes him decide to steal Hye Seuk's ring and almost shoot D.o.? I understand that he loves Hye Seuk, but going as far as to resort to theft and threatening murder is extreme and the fact that he's doing both of these things make me suspect severe mental illness. I assume Kai plays the antagonist role in this love triangle, which is why his actions are merely meant to be negative and not generate empathy from readers? In any case, even if he is meant to be the antagonist, I don't really know how to react to the way he's been characterised aside from calling him deranged. It just seems like he has severe anger issues and trouble controlling himself from what I've read and if this is what you intend to protray, then I'd suggest doing it with a little more sensitivity. The way Kai baselessly and pointlessly ruins Hye Seuk's life just enhances Hye Seuk's Mary-Sue-ness.
D.O was the most balanced of the three characters but still too stereotypical and cheesy for my tastes. I cringed at every line he said because they've all been used time and time again before, especially those proposal lines. Once again, like Hye Seuk, he was just the perfect boyfriend and there was no complexity to him. To make matters worse, we never really see his side of the story until chapter five, which is a bit late. He was incredibly bland and though his thought processes/reactions were understandable, he was still rather boring. I don't think I can critique D.O.'s characterisation very much considering I haven't witnessed enough of it to fully understand it--maybe you could explore his thought processes in greater detail? Talk about his love for Hye Seuk, what drives him to approach Kai, his nervousness whislt approaching Kai, that sort of thing?
Readability (11/15)
I'm amazed; considering you aren't a native speaker, your vocabulary and sentence structure are amazing! You make use of some wonderful words, lots of beautiful imagery and you do phrase sentences rather well, though some of them are cliche/uninteresting ways of expressing a certain idea or image. I did however find quite a few awkward sentences--for example:
“I love you more.” He said, sincerity etched on each word."
It should be "etched into each word", not on. There are numerous other errors of the same kind in your story and even though they're not glaringly obvious and nor do they make it impossible to understand the meaning of the sentence, it sounds awkward to someone who speaks English fluently and at some points, it becomes necessary to read twice or thrice to fully understand what you're trying to say. As far as readibility goes, I wouldn't say your diction or syntax made it difficult for me to read your work, but they did hinder me slightly in enjoying your work. My only suggestion would be a beta reader--Word, as helpful as it is, won't pick up on such tiny errors.
There were lots of mix-ups between 'your' and 'you're'--I believe I mentioned one earlier. Once again, though this doesn't make your story impossible to read, you should work on understanding the difference betwee the two and fixing errors of this sort because they have really different meanings and can hinder readers in understanding the message you're trying to convey. Fear not, this is a really common error, even for native speakers!
Another incredibly tiny thing that makes your sentences a tad awkward--the order of adjectives. Because English is a weird, twisted language, adjectives have to be placed in a certain order so the sentence sounds 'correct'. For example: the red little car is incorrect whilst the little red car is correct. I found a couple of errors of this sort in your writing and whilst this doesn't make it hard to understand, it just sounds ... awkward, at least to a native speaker. "I grab a hold of his pillow and cuddled it, inhaling his intoxicating, sweet scent" should be "... sweet, intoxicating smell."
Quite a few tense changes, usually between simple past and simple present--for a reader thig can be a little jarring. I assume your story was meant to be in simple past, so quickly going back and editing all the instances of sentences in the simple present tense would really help. Again, it doesn't make your work incomprehensible, just awkward. If it's of any consolation to you, I almost missed a few of these errors--they're not incredibly noticeable. To quote an example from your story "He answered with the same words, still no emotion. Before I can say anything else, he beat me to it."
It should be "Before I could..."
And finally, the inclusaion of all the romanised Korean--I know it features a k-pop star and everyone imagines it to be in Korean, but adding random bits of romanised Korean makes it hard for people who don't know much Korean to understand; there's also a chance those words could be incorrectly romanised which confuses readers. It's not a huge problem in your story, however it's there and it could pose as a problem to some readers. I would also like to point out that the use of words like "oppa" or adding "-ah" to someone's name is fine, there's no English equivalent to those things.
So as far as readibility goes, I had no real trouble understanding what you were trying to say, but I did have to reread a few things to understand the specifics.
Plotline (9/20)
I'm going to be blunt and honest--the plotline was not one of the finer aspects of your story. To begin with, the idea of a happy couple being torn apart as one of them is forced into a kiss by an ex-lover and then accused of adultery is a grossly-overused concepts, but you also have pacing issues that really affected the plotline and the readers' ability to process it and be captivated by it. The first two chapteres are incredibly slow, to the point of boring the reader with the cheesy banter between D.O. and Hye Seuk--the only significant aspects in these two chapters was their engagement. From then on it just moves too fast with no real transition periods in between for the plotline to make sense. Suddenly Kai forces himself on Hye Seuk, then steals her ring and then pointing a gun at D.O.--the progression is too quick and there aren't any reflective periods in between where we see what the characters are feeling and how they're dealing with the situation. You also switch points of view too much in the fourth and fifth chapters (three times and in an irregular fasion) which can throw readers off. All in all, your plot was cliche and rushed.
Flow and Organization (4/10)
I have to admit that I love the appearance of your story--it's very visually pleasing and somehow calming; it makes me want to read your story, which is good. However, as far as the flow of your writing goes, I think you leave a lot to be desired. For one, your awkward sentence structure disrupts the flow of your writing--it's like coming across a speedbump in an otherwise smooth road and it's a little jarring as a reader. One way to combat it would be reading your writing out loud to yourself. Listen carefully to the rhythm and musicality of your sentences and if something seems unbalanced/odd, consult the grammar textbook to make sure your sentence is grammatically correct!
Another aspect of flow and organisation where I felt you lacked was the links between chapters. As I mentioned above, I think you're rushing your plot and you need to slow down and let your characters think things through. As a result every chapter feels jerky and like you really haven't planned this story out well enough or as if you're making the plot up as you go along. This is unfortunately quite a big problem--it makes it hard to follow your story and it also makes your story extremely unrealistic. It's just ... too rushed. I don't have more to say on the matter.
Overall Enjoyment (12/20)
Now though I don't like OC stories very much, your writing was your saving grace--I love your word choice and syntax, it certainly is unique and works in favour of your story. I can't really say I liked how rushed and cliche the plot was and when you couple that with your bland characters and overused plotline, suffice to say there's little to enjoy in it. I would have liked to see a more coherent and well-thought-out plot and more complex characters.
Additional Comments / Final Score (53/100)
Please don't be too discouraged by the score ^^;;! I'm sorry for how long this took and the fact that it's not as detailed as I would usually be. Feel free to ask for clarifications and once again, please don't be discouraged, there's plenty of room for improvement.
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peanutoast
#1
Chapter 77: Thanks for your reviwe of Lacrimosa! I just subscribed to it and thanks to you I´ll read very carefully <3
informantxgirl
#2
Chapter 35: I just read glitz. It was lovely, thanks for the rec! :D