Calling for pearlytears

"Holding Onto Her Heart"

Author: pearlytears

Main Characters: Baekhyun x You

Genre: Angst, Psychological

Status: Completed

Description of Story:
You meet Baekhyun and both of you become closer.
He likes to hang out with you and you love it whenever he is beside you.
You fall for his charm.
What if one day he achieves his dream and gets his Miss Right?
Will Baekhyun leaves you or will you leave him instead?
What if what you think is happening is not what actually happened?
What will you do? What will the others do for you?

 

  Critique:

Story Title: 2.5/5

A title is a story’s first impression. People make a first impression with appearance, wardrobe and body language. Stories do it with a title, that's why titles are extremely important. A title creates anticipation and expectation or, perhaps, disinterest. Often the title is what will determine whether or not someone reads a story. Remember that titles have always been important. Everyone knows that. The problem is deciding just what constitutes a 'good' title – keeping in mind that fashions for titles change at least as frequently as fashion for shoes. Furthermore, a good title must fulfill multiple functions. It must have some relationship to the content of the story it designates. It must be notable, comparatively unique, attractive to potential readers, and nowadays, it must also work-well for on-line search engines.

Okay. I don't really get your title. In all honestly, I don't know the relevance of that title with the plot. Whose heart were you pertaining to in the first place? Was it Baekhyun holding onto Miss Right's heart, or You's? Other than that, it wasn't particularly unique as a lot of stories have that same title anyways. It wasn't appealing as well. I wasn't really interested when I read it; mainly because it didn't sound unique, so I basically assumed that the plot was typical as well. In my opinion, a not-so-creepy title would suit your story. Maybe it's something that describes your story, yet it should sound creepy at the same time, to which you'll give a slight hint of what's to happen in the story. Actually, being obsessed is somewhat grabbing a hold of something onto your possession. It would've made sense if your title was 'Holding Onto His Heart', right? Single but deep words would do as well such as 'Besotted'. But then again, it's your choice. I'm not forcing you to change anything. I just think that you should have a deep title since your plot was really deep, and the moral of the story was awesome.​

 

Graphics: 0/0

Since you don't have a poster not a background, I will be removing this section to the over-all grading. I suggest getting some graphics though. Most readers here are attracted to fancy poster and backgrounds to be honest. In addition to that, it would make your main page attractive, so why not give it a try. I mean, there are a lot of graphic shops here on AFF to be honest, and they'd be more than willing to do the job for you. Make sure to request for one to which complements the mood of the story though. For instance, it'd be good to make the girl's appearance a bit gloomy and sad, or she may be smiling yet at the same time, her expressions says otherwise. Either way, it's your choice. I extremely suggest getting them though. Oh, and don't forget to request for a complementing background as well. Make sure it complements your poster.'

 

Description and Foreword: 4/10

Descriptions and forewords are important factors since you are mainly marketing/attracting your potential readers into reading your story. A description is your chance to speak directly to your readers about why you wrote the story, what it’s about, and why it’s important. As it is an introduction to your story, a description should include information about the plot. For instance, you should give a brief description of the story; the main characters, or themes. There should be minimal mistakes too. In your case, well, you did introduce your story, but there were grammatical errors though. It wasn't that appealing as well since you didn't really make it sound interesting and exciting perhaps. It would've been better if you made it sound sad or something, complementing the mood of the story. Instead of starting off with the present tense, start it with the past tense instead since you're somehow describing how you and Baekhyun met in the past. As for the proceeding questions, they should remain in future tense since you were asking questions pertaining to what could happen after you and Baekhyun met. As an illustration, I made a revised version of your description as seen below.​

(Original Version) You meet Baekhyun and both of you become closer. He likes to hang out with you and you love it whenever he is beside you. You fall for his charm. What if one day he achieves his dream and gets his Miss Right? Will Baekhyun leaves you or will you leave him instead? What if what you think is happening is not what actually happened? What will you do? What will the others do for you?

(Revised Version) You and Baekhyun met each other and instantly became close. He liked hanging out with you whereas you loved it whenever he's beside you. What if he achieves his dream and gets his Miss Right one day? Will Baekhyun leave you, or will you leave him instead? What if what you think is happening is not what had actually happened? What will you do? What will the others do for you?​

As seen above, I changed a couple of things; mainly the tenses, and some words. As for the questions though, I don't think they're related with the story. For instance, you asked 'what will you do' and 'what will others do for you'. I don't remember any scenes in particular which pertains to those questions. I take it that it's for the ending? I can't quite relate it though. Maybe it's just me, but yeah. It's a bit blurry for me. I get the question though pertaining to what if what is happening today isn't what actually happened. It's true since weren't not so sure ourselves that what the media said were what exactly happened in the first place.​

Other than that, I think you should more the table/summary with the title, pairing, genre, etc. to your foreword, as well as the author's note and the acknowledgements. It's common to put the brief summaries and introductions, as well as character charts, in the description section. Author's notes, sneak peeks, credits, and acknowledgements go to the foreword. That's commonly how it's formatted here on AFF, but then again, it's your choice, so don't feel bothered by my words. Who's angelili95 though? You did state that the idea came from her, right? Just curious tho.​

 

Characterization: 8.5/10

Characterization is a crucial part of making a story compelling. In order to interest and move readers, characters need to seem real. Authors achieve this by providing details that make characters individual and particular. Good characterization gives readers a strong sense of characters' personalities and complexities; it makes characters vivid, alive and believable. In your case, it is very important that your the scenes coming from your story are believable since there was a lot of drama and it was based on reality. It's important to relate your readers to your story.

For me you really did well on this section. You portrayed every dream a typical fan girl has; that is to meet their ultimate bias and have some sort of relationship and whatnot, right? It was really well-portrayed in your story. You started it off with 'You' not making it for her exams, but Baekhyun helped her in. It was a cute scene to be honest, but I think that what you wanted to imply there is the skinskip and the ba-dumps she received through the whole wall-climbing thingy. The story progressed as well with she and her bias getting closer, and she eventually develops some feelings for him. It was good that Baekhyun was a singer/actor (because of the theater/musical). It was really related with the actual scandal since tickets were actually redeemed because of the issue.

'You' was the typical fan girl, I must say. There's nothing wrong with admiring a person, but it was evident that she was obsessed with Baekhyun though as it was explained at the last chapter. Her feelings were that of someone who you picture yourself in your daydreams of meeting your bias and whatnot, right? I know since I tend to daydream too, although I will absolutely let myself commit suicide just because of scandals like that. It would've been better if you elaborated her feelings though. For instance, since you're using the second person's point-of-view, you could easily focus on her emotions, and that is to voice out her love for Baekhyun, perhaps? Baekhyun, on the other hand, was the typical boy-next-door as well. I have nothing against that though since it was basically what 'You' pictured him to be. She was basically lost in her own world. My only issue for Baekhyun would be that he should've looked more depressed at the end since he did receive some hate. In addition to that, you could've explained more about his feelings regarding the issue; not to literally take his side or anything, but to make it realistic. In the story, he only confronted 'You' of her ignoring him and whatnot, and about the jealousy 'You' obviously felt. I think it would've been better if Baekhyun explained Miss Right's side as well; like what happened to them after the incident and whatnot. I like the ending for the fourth chapter though, where 'You' said that she'll back off for the sake of their relationship. I was like "Awwww..."

 

Plot: 36/40

Your story was... wow! In all honestly, I've been looking for stories like yours since that Baekyeon incident. At first, I thought that your story was the typical girl and boy meeting, but you definitely proved me wrong! The plot wasn't exactly unique, but it was clearly based on reality, and a lot of EXO stans, specifically Baekhyun stans, would understand your story. It was really fun to see how you let your readers connect the dots at the last part of the story. It was fun, to be honest. There were a lot of symbolism used as well, such as 'Baby Don't Cry', the piano, the wall climbing, etc. Basically, the introductory phase of the story was a bit too cliche for me, but you enlightened me with your ending. A great ending is key to readers'