Sunday, November 13, 2011 Review for My Heart's Birthday (by pinaywriter)   Review by aingeal1004@ ❥angels*rain☂ Site: http://with-angels-and-rain.blogspot.com/ AFF Profile: http://www.asianfanfics.com/profile/view/74229   Title: 5/5 -          I haven’t seen the title anywhere before (credited for originality). -          It would successfully catch the reader’s attention as it’s creative. -          You showed how it relates to the story, so it made sense.   Description/Foreword: 8/10 -          In the Descriptionsection, you could have mentioned the Genre, the Main Characters and/or the Minor Characters (the Band should have been stated here). It’ll be neater if they were all written together. The Excerpt was fine. -          Although in reality Forewords are written by people other than the main author of the story, the Forewordsection provided in AsianFanFics is mostly for authors themselves to fill. You could mention where you got your inspiration from, etc. Basically, make use of this section to communicate with your readers. -          It was a little lengthy, but you managed to provide the necessary information without revealing too much. Good work on that(: -          You are able to interest the readers as they would want to find out how Sungmin would handle the problem at hand. A reader’s interest is VERY important.   Characters: 13/15 -          Readers are able to get to know the characters on a surface level. This is important, and this is basic. You managed to meet this requirement – be it through the characters’ likes and dislikes, their emotions, or the feelings they have for others around them. -          Readers are able to see the personalities of the main characters, but more depth is needed. The characters’ flaws shown were really minor and it was as if they were near-perfect. This would give a sense of distance between the reader and your characters.   Plot: 20/30 -          The overall storyline was common. Writers forget that in their stories, their stars need not be stars. Why not let them be ordinary people instead of trying to find ways and means to pair your characters with stars? It becomes really unrealistic because there’s simply no reason why your star would see you as different from their other fans out there (happens in fan girl fantasies only). Furthermore, a boss-employee relationship is mostly impersonal, and a boss wouldn’t just pick an employee to marry his son like that. -          Perhaps you could try writing a more realistic story as arranged marriages nowadays only happen in third world countries, etc. Frankly speaking, fan-fiction writers overuse it. To force someone modernized and forward-thinking to marry nowadays is quite impossible. Tycoons’ sons have their own free wills too. Blind dates are fine though (even internationally-known stars like Rain have also been asked to go on blind dates before). Wealthy people sometimes make their children go for matchmaking sessions too. Note: wealthy. [Yeah, life is fair, but reality isn’t.] -          The ending was predictable. If you’re going to have a predictable ending, it’ll be better if there was a twist somewhere. Give the readers a surprise. Go for something unexpected to spice up your story. I strongly encourage new ideas. Who cares how crazy it might seem? Go for it~ It shows that you have an imagination(: -          On a whole, the plot was well-planned. I could see that you added your own details, and that was excellent ^^   Flow/Pace: 5/5 -          The story moved along smoothly as there was no missing information. -          It neither moved at a pace so slowly it bores the readers, nor did it move so quickly the readers feel breathless. Keep up the good work!   Writing Style: 6/10 -          I liked how you did not use dialogue tags in excess and kept it simple. -          You did show how the characters felt, etc through descriptions, but it would be good if you let the description itself show the readers instead of going on to explain it yourself. See the Correction under Chapter 11 for an example. -          You are able to switch between different characters’ point of views smoothly, but you have to work on stating clearly who was speaking at that point of time. -          For example, you wrote in Chapter 2: {“Okay, I am in.” Mrs. Lee hugged her in gratitude. “But this would be a chaste engagement…"}. You have to mention that Jans was speaking here or it'll seem like Mrs Lee is the one speaking. -          You added actions and body language into conversations, which is a major plus ^^   Originality/Creativity: 4/5 -          Marks were awarded as your story wasn’t copied from other sources. -          Arranged marriages are manipulated too often in stories to fulfil fan girls’ fantasies. Avoid it. -          However, I liked the fact that your characters’ band is unique. This idea is, without a doubt, yours. How you added it into the story was creative too~   Punctuation/Spelling/Tenses/Grammar/Vocabulary: 10/15 -          There were quite a lot of spelling errors. -          There were also some punctuation mistakes here and there but I assumed them to be typographical mistakes as it was not recurring. -          Check for your tenses. The two most important tenses you should at least have a grasp of is the present and past tense. Master this two and things will go more smoothly in your writing. -          You have a basic foundation vocabulary so that’s fine. However, try to avoid using difficult words if you’re unsure of their connotations. For example, the word ‘renegade’, which you used in Chapter 7, has quite a strong connotation. It can’t be used to describe a fan girl. True, she gave up supporting her star, but she isn’t a rebel/outlaw. Renegade is used for people who desert a certain religion, people who go against the law, etc. -          Take note of singulars and plurals. E.g. One woman; many women. You wrote in Chapter 2: {I am sure there are a