I will admit, that's an incredibly creative title on your part and as soon as I saw it, I began wondering about the meaning of it and its connection with your story. It's fairly catchy, definitely something that would catch my attention. I'm not sure if this is intentional or not but the the symbolism behind that title is evident to me as well--Ha Yi is a rose; gentle, delicate but bitter. She's an albino in the sense that all colour and joy have been drained from her life, leaving her bland and hence in that respet she's an albino rose. One thing I found myself questioning was calling it 'alibno roses'--my interpretation leaves me thinking of Ha Yi as an albino rose and the plural form generates the impression of their being more than one, obviously. There's also the significance of white roses to Ha Yi, so overall, a wonderful title! I would however like to point out that albino roses are not the same as white roses and that makes your title a tiny bit misleading. I can see the significance of the albino portion to your story, though the imagery of white roses clashes a little with it. This may be me scrutinising more than anyone would, but it's important to have your title be accurate. Regardless, it's still a title that captures attention and relates to your story.

Now, the description was fantastic; it generates an aura of mystery to your story which I appreciated without giving away too much of the story, but at the same time summarised the story quite beautifully. The comparison between love and a red rose is rather cliche and I'd suggest you keep that in mind; though the way it's written is elegant and would still attract readers, there are sceptics who would consider it cliche and leave. Perhaps a different flower? Perhaps some form of poison? If it's absolutely necessary for you to include the roses then go for it, it's a rather minor thing after all. Even with the comparison between love and a red rose, I found the description to be intriguing and eye-catching.

The foreword put me off however--I think you intended for it to be structured in a manner similar to the description and capture the same suspenseful feel, but it came off as more vague and confusing which usually does not help the quality of a story. For instance "Those albino roses were stained with their orginal color and became furious." in particular confused me--I wondered what you meant by them becoming furious and if that had anything to do with Ha Yi's pent up anger. Or was it her mother? Did her mother become angry? Or was it Ha Yi becoming angry? It's a bit confusing because they're both albino and who you're referring to is unclear. This is only after I've read the story--can you imagine how confusing it might be for someone reading it for the first time? The word choice and sentence structure greatly affects the musicality of your writing, which in turn attracts readers; so when you compound your confusing foreword with your clumsy sentence structure, it's easier to be confused than curious.

To expand on what I mean, I'll give you an example: "Feeling like a weight on her mom's chest, she seeks for forgiveness." The structure of that sentence is awkward and it affects the flow of your writing. Maybe changing it to something like "feeling as if she was burdening her mother, she seeks forgiveness" would help it flow better. When you've edited your foreword such that it's not so clunky anymore, you'll be surprised at the difference--it'll definitely seem more eye-ctaching and will be less likely to confuse people. 

You have a rather simplistic style so I wouldn't say I struggled to read anything--that being said, I felt like our plot was more rushed than I would have preferred and it was hard to keep up with it as a result. For instance, around when Ha Yi and Jongdae went to Garden Dale, the happenings became somewhat difficult to understand. I was confused by what was taking place and even after learning the truth later, I wasn't fully convinced by it. What I mean is that everything regarding the white spirit and her mother confused me and left me wondering if the story was a supernatural one. The explanation in the last chapter about it being a hallucination further confused me. What did happen to Ha Yi? I understood that her brother led her to her death, but didn't her brother pass away in the same car crash that took her mother's life? What about Ha Yi's illness and hallucination? They were the result of a drug given to her after the car crash? If the driver had enough time to drug her, then surely he had enough time to kill her as he intended to. I'm not sure if this is me misunderstanding your story (and if it is, you could look into clarifying things and making the sequence of events in your story clearer without compromising on quality) but from where I am, there appear to be some rather big plotholes in your story.

At times your sentence structure is odd and this makes me question if you're a native speaker or not; if you aren't, then well done because for the most part your syntax and diction were correct and appropriately used. "It was as if all of the lonely Ha Yi felt was pushed right back into her" should have been "It was as if all the loneliness Ha Yi felt was being pushed right back into her"; in addition to a few more mistakes of the same sort, you had tense errors throughout the story (such as "Can I tell you a story about my mom?” she asks him. Ha Yi wanted to talk to Jong Dae more she admitted.") which really irked me, sorry to say and made it slightly hard to understand what had already happened and what was taking place. One means of fixing this problem is MS Word, though even Word doesn't pick up on certain errors--your best bet to fixing awkward sentence structures and tense changes would be a beta reader.    

Upon dividing your characters into major and minor characters, I've determined that the protagonists would be Ha Yi and Jongdae whilst Suho, Ha Yi's mother and Juniel would be the supporting ones. I'll begin with Ha Yi--I found Ha Yi to be ... flat, to be honest. As readers we see so little of her through the story; we never really see her thoughts, her opinions, her views of anything and there's not a lot we can infer regarding her personality, other than the fact that she's incredibly withdrawn. What is she afraid of? Is she angry at anything? Is she just passive and the sort of person to accept things as they come? Isn't she even vaguely concerned by the fact that she can hear Suho whilst others can't? If not, then why? There's also the fact that Ha Yi generally tends to be a damsel in distress which when coupled with her quietness makes her a bland character; what Ha Yi needs to seem more 3D is spice! Quirks, opinions, stronger traits, balance--anything that will make her seem more human and less like a plot device. What sort of habits does she have? Has she ever confided in anybody regarding Suho's existence? What about crying or throwing a fit/tantrum? What would drive Ha Yi to doing something like that? What about showing Ha Yi's grief and how she mourns her mother's death? We only see her saying that she misses her mother to Jongdae, but maybe having her dwell on it in private or reacting to it in some other way would help her seem more human. 

I find that as a reader, I'm quite detached from Ha Yi; for one, I don't really even know what sort of illness she suffers from and her actions are so bland--there's so little reasoning put behind her decisions that it's hard to fully understand and empathise with her as a reader. I couldn't really even tell what she was feeling; you seemed to miss out on a lot of important character development opportunities as well, such as showing the transitions between love and friendship--for example, how does Ha Yi slowly see Jongdae as more a lover than a friend? How does she feel right before their date? Is she nervous? Or maybe, why is she so withdrawn from people? This is something we never really learn. Is it because she doesn't trust people after everything that's happened to her? Or is it because she is insecure about her illness? Is it because she doesn't want to get too attached to people, lest she's forced to leave them?

Moving on to Jongdae ... he's equally as bland. We only see one side of him and that's the overly-nice side he gives Ha Yi; though it's understandable as well as somewhat relatable, it's boring, stereotypical and flat and since he's one of your protagonists, he definitely needs to be more complex. What makes him fall in love with Ha Yi in the first place? Is it pity? Has he known her before? Does he feel obliged to save her? What makes Ha Yi different from Juniel? It would definitely help to have Jongdae express these sentiments to develop him as a more well-rounded and wholesome character. In summary, you definitely need to build on his character more as well. I'd say expression of his thoughts would help as well--giving him opinions and flaws that contribute significantly to the plot would make him seem all the more human.

I didn't even see the significance of having Suho be Ha Yi's guardian angel aside from the fact that he's her only companion and he's somehow special to her, but you don't play on this fact either and turn Suho into a villain. Now it's alright for him to be the villain, though what separates a brilliant writer from a good one is the ability to blur the lines between good and bad; even if Suho is the villain, show the readers that they can end up attached to him. Allow them to empathise with him and then play with their feelings with a twist in the end or showing him as the villain in some other way. The important thing is for readers to empathise with him and feel for him despite his wrongdoings, or at least to understand the reasoning behind his actions and the Suho in your story was bland, to say at the very least.

I could quote more examples from your story but it appears as if this has been repeated throughout with every one of your characters--another example; Juniel. Even minor characters are necessary for a story so keep in mind that as long as you have a character who impacts on a story significantly, it's necessary to make them well-rounded and believable.

In short, very bland and one-sided characters.   

I'm not sure how to classify your story; it's not cliche per se, especially since you linked it back to that episode of the Beatles' Code 2; however some of the ideas in it aren't fresh either. The inclusion of the albino roses was quite intriguing, though you continually referred to them as white roses which are a species of roses and quite a natural one as well. I thought the albino rose theme was particularly interesting--the inclusion of an albino character is not one I've seen on aff very much, so kudos to you on that. I felt that you didn't exploit as well as you could have though and devled into more cliche realms like chronic illness and damsel-in-distress syndrome; it's interesting how female OCs are usually the ones who are chronically ill in stories as well. I'm not docking too many point of because the lack of originality did not detract too much from the story and it was not quite as unoriginal as a lot of other stories here. Though illness is cliche, it's not incredibly overused and a lot of good stories can still be born by using it as a plot device. I'd rather not take away points of characterisation seeing as Ha Yi andd Jongdae barely have personalities. As for the setting, well, seeing as it isn't a highschool AU, in comparison to some of the worst stories AFF has housed, it's not too bad.

I found that the plotline was more rushed than it needed to be and it made me wonder if you were operating on a tight schedule or a certain word count. The storyline just seemed to move around from a brief description of Ha Yi's background to her being poisoned, then hospitalised, then falling in love with Jong Dae when she didn't even talk to him before to going on a date and then nearly being killed? I think perhaps periods of transition were characters are given some 'down time' to reflect on their actions and face the consequences of them would help, both in making the plot easier to comprehend and also in helping provide your characters emotional development.

My only other critcism would be the vagueness of the ending--I've yet to comprehend what happened and I think one problem may be that I can't visualise it because there's not nearly enough detail for me to comprehend it as well as I can. The thing about a story is, there shouldn't be too much to think about--interesting little tidbits of information are fine but you know you've taken it overboard when every sentence is a mystery and readers can't enjoy the story because they can't understand it well enough. 

Your plot struck me as unrealistic, though this links in more with characterisation than plotline--since your characters are so bland, it's a little hard to see them as actual human beings doing actual things which takes away a significant chunk of realism from the story. In addition is the hallucinogen given to Ha Yi--why? Why not just kill her? What's the point in drugging her? There are a lot of ways to pass off murder as an accident in a car crash.

I think it's through your writing that you really allow your ability to protray your characters to shine through and since your writing was quite bland, it's no wonder that your characterisation turned out to be the same (sorry!). So, I've already mentioned that there were hiccups in your grammar and word choice that affected the flow of your work, but writing is not just about comprehension, it's an art form and hence it needs both flair and content. The first thing I noticed about your writing is the utter lack of detail--this is one of the regions you could include character development and also help in visualising your setting. For instance:

"Everyone in the house had thought Ha Yi was insane.  After her mother died, her father remarried. He was the one to put food on the table. Working overseas, never coming home, he lost the bond with his daughter. He didn’t even know she was considered insane—he didn’t even remember her birthday. Ha Yi’s father was a stranger to her."

Now this is a big plotpoint; it talks about Ha Yi's past and since it's the first hint we receive about Ha Yi's past, it should be in way more detail. Essentially this is what we form an opinion of Ha Yi on and maybe empathise with her; it's vital for sections like this to be written with mroe depth and detail because they're so significant to your character. Iwouldd have maybe written this as something like "Ha Yi was presumed to be insane since the death of her mother by all the inhabitants of the house--it was the isolation that the girl insisted on immersing herself in that led to this assumption and as much as it was considered a normal response to trauma, it was hard to not spread rumours or gossip about it..." You could expand on so much there! What kind of illness/insanity? How does she feel about her father having left her? How about how much she missed her mother or never truly recovered? How much of a stranger is her father to her? Does he ever visit? That sort of thing.

Remember to not include too much detail though, that's just a turnoff.

The second thing is style; though detail and content are important, the more artistic and poetic your sentences sound, the more likely people are to be captivated by your story. When you present information in a really bland manner, the first thing a reader feels is as if you're presenting them with a summary of the story rather than showing them the story itself. For example:

"Ha Yi opened her eyes and instantly she looked to the box. Tilting her head, she slowly sat up and rested her back against the bed board. By this simple move, Ha Yi began to feel hot. Gulping, she closed her eyes again. She wanted to see what the little box was for, but a weak person like she is, she couldn’t get it."

The aforementioned passage is quite bland and factual and I would rewrite it with a richer choice of vocabulary with imagery; it's always a good idea to weave in literary techniques into your writing, history shows that they tend to make stories more interesting to read. So anyway, I might write this like this: "Ha Yi's eyes fluttered open and on reflex gravitated to the box. Curiously she titled her head to the left as she sat up against the headboard and observed it. Heat crept across her skin, choking her as it intensified. She closed her eyes in an attempt to relax. Ha Yi wanted to see what secrets the little box held but her body betrayed her ..."

Something like that, you know? It's important to not include too much of either detail or emotion lest you bore your readers. It's also important to identify what sort of a story you're writing--is it more action or emotion oriented? The amount of emotional development vs. detail depends on whther it's the former or the latter, with obviously emotion-oriented stories needing more emotional development and action requiring detail. Just remember, balance is the key :)!

I'm giving you three bonus points for your inclusion of the albino roses theme which I found to be intriguing and unique; I could see the connection between the title and the protagonist and I wish you had exploited that connection better. Still, for having implemented it, you deserve points.

As a reader I'm sorry to say I didn't really enjoy your story; I'm not one for OC stories but I genuinely could not relate to your character and quite frankly, the extent to which both she and Jong Dae were impersonalised bored me witless. When you compound that with how rushed the plot was ... it was hard to like the story. As a reader I was incredibly confused and I would have liked to see some more emotional development in the characters as well as a story that flowed more smoothly and one that I could be immersed in. I can see that you had a clear idea but your execution of it could definitely be improved.

Now, I think this story was good, though there is a lot it could be improved on; my biggest concerns would be the lack of characterisation and the bland writing--should those two be improved, then the story will become all the more enjoyable. I feel like your biggest weaknesses were more or less those two sections, but they're major components of a story and they impact significantly on reader enjoyment. So yes, wholesome characters ftw~

Don't forget to credit back to our shop, link required!