Calling for YongShin02

"Oppa, I'm a boy"

Author: YongShin02

Main Characters: Kim Myungsoo and Lee Sungjong; 2nd main: Lee Sungyeol

Genre: Romcom, Schoollife

Status: On-going

Description of Story:
Sungjong is always mistaken as a girl because of his looks and his s-line. Many girls envy him because he looks more feminine than them. One day, he applied scholarship in Woolim Academy. It is one of the prestigious school in South Korea. The boy's dorm is already filled with many high school boys so he was forced to stay in the girls dorm. He wears girls uniform, and stay's on the girls dorm. Only the president knows about his little secret. Teachers nor his dormates knows nothing about it. But due to his clumsiness, he cross a playboys path named "L". What if he falls inlove into a guy and he guy also falls inlove with him. But what if this "L" guy knows about his secret. Will they be still together?

 

  Critique:

Story Title: 1.5/5

In all honesty, I don't fancy your title. It's too common. It's not unique, and although it's extremely connected to the plot of your story, it's too typical. I don't think it's that appealing  to attract readers. It's true that your title has to be unique. It can be a handful for your readers to differentiate your story with others, plus, seeing that your title has similar, existing story titles in AFF, it might be hard to remember your title, and the "word-of-mouth" method might be hard to execute.

Here are some tips I'd like to share to you:

(1) Make sure your title is easy to remember. Help readers out by making the title of your work memorable. You could use an alliteration, like a poem-type of title. Have you ever noticed that poetry is easier to memorize than prose? It has rhytym. ex: Wildflowers from Winter. You could also make a short title, although in a way, this isn't always true, but I think it's best to try and keep a title to four words or less.

(2) Make it interesting. In a way, many of the same things that can be said about what makes a character interesting can also be said about titles. You can make it via contradictory qualities such as "War and Peace," or "True Lies." You can also make it by being descriptive. If you could make the descriptive title imply an action so much the better. Of course, again, that's much easier said than done. For example: Gone with the wind

(3) Make sure the title indicates the genre. Of course this is important. In your case, this is a romcom-slash-schoollife, right? Make sure the title fits these genres.

(4) You could make it "funny." If you can do all the above and make it funny, you've got a winner. If, that is, humor would fit your genre. In your case, a somewhat funny title suits your story.

S o u r c e  ( x )

I know that there's high possibility rate that you won't change your title, and I'm not saying that you should change it either. I'm just saying that I didn't find it unique. The tips below might be useful for you in the future, or even now, that's why I included them in this review. If you don't plan on changing it, then I suggest capitalizing the word boy, since it's a noun and nouns should be capitalized in titles.

 

Graphics: 0/0

Since you have no poster nor background at the moment, I'll exclude the grading for this one. But, if you obtain one, please inform me so we can add it to this review. I suggest getting them ASAP, since these graphics will help you gain more readers, I tell you. Why? Because commonly, when someone cross paths with your story, they'll see the poster after the title, and if the poster is worth-seeing and that the reader is attracted, they might read the story since it caught their interest. I know because I, myself, am not font of reading story without posters.

There are a lot of worth-requesting poster shops out there, so you won't have a hard time requesting for one. If you want I can recommend you some. Just tell me.

 

Description and Foreword: 5/10

Before I start, I just want to tell you something regarding the characters you put. You put "Infinite, Myungsoo, Sungjong, Sungyeol." It wasn't appealing to me at all. You didn't have to put Infinite since it's already understood that they're a part of the cast. I suggest something like "Kim Myungsoo & Lee Sungjong; + side: the rest of Infinite," or simply "Kim Myungsoo & Lee Sungjong." Still, it's your decision. This is just based on my opinions anyway.

Your description was fine I guess, although I think you gave out too much information than needed. A description must contain only the necessary information because if you put too much, it's like you're giving out the plot, and that's a bad thing. Your readers might get bored in the story since you already let out almost all the twists in the story. I suggest removing some parts. For now, I'll correct some of the mistakes I saw on your foreword (grammatically). Here's my version:

(Revised Version) Sungjong was always mistaken as a girl because of his looks and S-line. Many girls envied him because he looked more feminine than them. One day, he decided to apply for a scholarship in Woolim Academy, one of the prestigious schools in South Korea. The boys' dorm was already full so he was forced to stay in the girls' dorm and wear a girl's uniform. Only the president knows about his little secret. His teachers nor his dormmates knew nothing about it, but due to his clumsiness, he accidentally cross paths with a playboy names "L." What if he falls inlove with the guy, who also falls in love with him in return?  What if this guy knew of his secret? Will they be still together?

I replaced the verbs on the first to middle part with past tenses, since you're kind of relaying something from the past there. Also, when you put "boy's dorm," you're kind of implying a dorm of a boy, meaning only one person owns that dorm. On the other hand, if you put it like "boys' dorm," your implying a dorm full of boys, which is what you're supposed to imply in the first place.

For your character chart, I suggest removing it, since it really is irrelevant. You already put the bulleted information on your description, and putting those again would seem too redundant.

The overall appearance seems too dull for me. I would've preferred if you use dividers for additional, and adding the fact that you don't have any graphics seems too disappointing for me.

 

Characterization: 5/10

Your story was character-driven. In character-driven stories, characterization is all-important. It has been said that 'character is conflict'. This means that the conflict in the story comes out from who your character is and what they do. In your case, it's Myungsoo and Sungjong. Characters should come across to the reader as real people with whom they can identify. That means that what the character thinks, feels, and does should feel to the reader like how a real person thinks, feels, and acts. You're lacking a bit on this part. Maybe you should reach out with their personalities to make it more realistic?Try elaborating their thoughts, their feelings, and their actions, like explaining what they wear and what they think about what they're wearing. Something like that.

Most of their personalities were typical. Even though this is a story, assuming that Sungjong is the girl, his personality was way too typical. He was the somewhat cheerful (?) person who gets caught in an unfortunate situation just to get to school. On the other hand, Myungsoo was the typical rude and arrogant prince in the story; rich and famous. It was way too typical that at one point, I was literally dozing off. I would've liked it more if there were particular twists and differences that will make your story more differentiable to other similar stories here on AFF. 

 

Plot: 20/40

A story isn't interesting without a plot. It is what draws readers closer into the story. It is what makes a story. The theme, the meaning and the message all comes across via plot. Characterization comes across via plot; plot is a vehicle for characters to demonstrate their natures. The more interesting the plot is, the more your readers will continue reading your story. I'm sorry to say this, but your plot wasn't satisfying for me. I have read a story like this before. I remember the title but I won't mention it here. The characters are the same as well as the plot. I'm not saying that you plagiarized, rather the plot was similar, that's why I got bored. (Sorry if I was harsh) This idea is not fresh at all. I would have prefered if you made Sungjong a rich guy who was forced to cross-dress as a girl because of a certain situation, and Myungsoo is the poor but arrogant guy, who is famous but has family/financial problems