Calling for asdfghjm14

"Fate Often Mistook"

Author: asdfghjm14

Main Characters: J-Hope (Jung Hoseok) and V (Kim Taehyung) from BTS

Genre: Drama, Friendship, Romance,

Status: Completed

Description of Story:
“It’s so sad when people mock you as a gay when you are actually not.”
“It’s sadder when you are gay but people ship you hard with a girl, including the person you like!”

 

  Critique:

Story Title: 4/5

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.

The title was a bit original I guess. It was definitely relevant since it was pertaining to Hoseok getting mistaken as a gay. Am I right though? Nonetheless, the title was original in its own way. My first impression was good actually. It was easy to remember, and it wasn't too cliched nor too common. The easier it is to remember, the better for marketing via word of mouth, so it's good that you avoided simple and nonsensical words for your title. You kind of related it and made it as a hint at what happens in the story, which, in general, is the general plot of the story. It didn't sound dull to be honest. It even sounded fancy. I guess your title is perfect for your story. My only issue would be that you title might be grammatically wrong, and not to mention that it sounded wrong. If you say it out loud, it would sound like 'Fate Often Mistook'... [?] What did fate often mistook? There wasn't any subject to be pertained to. I think the title would make more sense if it was 'What Fate Often Mistook', to which it pertains to a certain thing you didn't want to mention. By then, you're already creating anticipation for your readers for them to identify what was that 'What' you mentioned in your title. You could use other words though.

 

Graphics: 6.5/10

I like the color blending of your poster. The colors were soothing to the eye, and it looked fancy to be honest. The characters, or rather, the picture used for the characters though was a bit weird. I mean, it looked like a stolen picture. What's the purpose of that though? I mean, it's cute that they wore matching clothes, but they both looked distracted, and it doesn't look romantic for me. I would consider the headphone and Hoseok's phone as well. It would've been better if those two things meant something in the story; like a symbolism of some sort. Sadly, there's no connection, so yeah. The poster did look fancy, but the pictures weren't connected with the plot. You didn't have a matching poster as well. It would've been better if you had one to make your page look better. I mean, no matter how good your poster looks, your readers won't stare at it all the time, right? By adding a background, it would add some colors on your page, making it look less dull. You could also add some of your own tricks like picture dividers on your main page to make it look more attractive. Since you made the poster yourself, I think it wouldn't be hard? You could also make yourself a character chart to add for the attractiveness.

 

Description and Foreword: 5/10

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. In your case, the quote you put was fine to be honest. It was relatable to your plot. However, it contained some errors.

(Original Version) “It's so sad when people mock you as a gay when you are actually not." "It's sadder when you are gay but people ship you hard with a girl, including the person you like!"

(Revised Version) "It's sad to see people mock you as a gay when you're actually not. However, it's sadder to see how people ship you hard with a girl when you're gay, including the person you like."

So for this one, I combined the two lines since it's a dialogue that the same person is saying, so it's better to combine them instead. You should also remove the wide spacing you placed in between the two lines. You should remove it, and divide the dialogue in two lines, but remember to put the only two quotation marks at the beginning and at the end of the sentence. Now, I'm not completely proud of the changes I made, but I think it sounds better than the previous one though. It's your choice whether you change it or not though

Below is my revised version of your prologue. I didn't include your version since it's too long though. Anyway, I didn't make that much changes although I badly wanted to. There were a lot of errors to be honest. Your main problem would be redundancy.You tend to drag the idea for too long even though the idea was already obvious.

(Revised Version) Jung Hoseok liked – uh, loved – a girl named Yoon Jihye so much. He tried his best to make her interested. Normally, who would hate Hoseok? He was a guy with a good attitude and a handsome face. Whatever he had inside his wallet made everything seemed better as well.
He tried to confess to Jihye whenever there was a chance. He would always pick her as the girl who would do everything with him in the truth or dare game. He would've liked to take her to prom, too.
Jihye didn't hate him, but she definitely didn't love him as well. He thought that his effort would make him closer to her. However, everything didn't went well because of a perception his friends had made – not only his friends, but almost everyone.
In their eyes, Jung Hoseok was gay. He got mocked as a gay with his best friend, who was actually just a best friend for him, but people would always think the opposite even when he tried everything to prove his point. Actually, it was 100% incorrect. Sadly, Jihye thought that Hoseok was really gay.
…
Taehyung, on the other hand,  had liked that person for such a long time. Kim Taehyung, the crazy guy who didn't even care about his love life, had actually liked someone, and that person was Jung Hoseok, his super best friend whom he had known for years.
He tried to look good in front of Hoseok. He even tried to help and accompany him in times of need. He simply tried to make Hoseok like him. But he knew that Hoseok had fallen into the deepest hole of love for that girl named Yoon Jihye. Everything inside Hoseok's head was Yoon Jihye this and Yoo Jihye that. Whatever Taehyung did, he would never make Hoseok like him.
Everyone thought that Hoseok was gay. However, Taehyung knew. Taehyung knew he wasn't. People often thought that he and Hoseok were gay together because of the latter's gayish aura. However, he was the only one who knew the truth, and the worst part was that Taehyung got really shipped with Jihye.
People would mock him together with Jihye, but whatever Taehyung did would only make people think they were indeed together, when the fact was that he wasn't that straight and that he would never fall in love for Jihye.

I'm not 100% proud of my revision. First of all, your sentences were way too redundant. I had a hard time revising your foreword, and honestly, I want to change and replace a lot of things, but that would be disrespectful on your side since you're the author. You tend to drag the idea around. I mean, you tend to prolong it when it was already clear. You should learn to summarize your words. Another thing is that you plainly gave out the main plot of your story. You could've just stated that he likes him and she likes him; however, you just gave the general plot. You even introduced the characters. You should really restrain yourself from giving a lot of information beforehand. It ruins the element of surprise. Also, some of those sentences were a bit weird as well. For instance, I don't remember anything about Hoseok flaunting his wealth or something. Well, not necessarily him flaunting his own wealth, rather I don't remember anything about Hoseok and his wallet. I do remember that he was indeed wealthy when Taehyung visited his house, but that's just it.

Also, you placed a really brief summary under it, the one saying "this is a tale..." You should just remove it to be honest since it was obvious from your foreword. Other than that, you could place an author's note stating your inspiration in making this story and whatnot. You could also place your credits and acknowledgements under it. All in all, you have a lot of editing to do. I suggest getting a beta-reader to proof read your work.

 

Characterization: 7/10

Characterization, is the "drawing" of the personality traits of the people involved in the work.  This can be done by a discussion of what the person looks like, or by exploring how they react to certain situations in the plot, or in many other ways. Now, let's start off with how good you made your characters. First of all, you should make good speeches. This one's on the positive side since the dialogue used for their conversations were well-relayed. I mean, those lines created more sense to the situation in-hand, and they were the exact type of measure for dialogue. Secondly, they should have depth, perhaps hidden depth, of character. They should be complex, many faceted, not just two-dimensional, not simply good or bad. This might a bit wavering in your case since I didn't find any complex qualities among the characters. Most of their personalities were too good to be true as well. I can't even remember any bad side on their personalities. A perfect example would be Taehyung's personality. He was too soft, and although he glares from time to time, they weren't much of a glare in the first place. His character came out as the typical shy and reserved character in the story. There weren't any side stories for him as well (and for the other characters as well) so it was hard to decipher their characters developments since I didn't accumulate enough background information.

I didn't spot any character developments as well. Actually, nothing changes except for the fact that Hoseok eventually recognized his feelings for the latter. There wasn't any wow factor as well. Perhaps their behaviour is sometimes unexpected? Perhaps they act "out of character" at times? Unfortunately, there was none. There weren't enough conflicts as well. Well, there were minor conflicts here and there such as Taehyung getting drunk and accidentally blurting out a confession. Conflict is an essential feature of plot. Without it there is no resolution, indeed nothing to resolve. Remember that readers lose interest quickly if they feel no sense of anticipation that something unexpected will happen, or if that sense of anticipation remains unfulfilled for too long. Good plots depend on the exercise of friction that might at any moment result in conflagration. A perfect type of conflict for your story would be a reality-based one since your story is relatable to most readers; particularly for unrequited love. You should mind the inconsistencies between the thoughts and actions of a single person and people's behaviour towards one another. In addition to that, your conflicts were too cliche. Moreover, the fact that those conflicts weren't original created less anticipation, which honestly made me a bit bored.

Let's start with the individual character assessment. For Hoseok, well he came out as the carefree person for me. He didn't seem that affected with people considering him gay as well, which was a bit questionable if you ask me. Although your story contained a lot of fluff scenes, you have  to think dynamically. There should be some side stories as well to make them more interesting. In Hoseok's case, it would've been better if he had a better reaction to people teasing him as gay. It would've been better if his feelings for Jihye were that intense in the first place since he was really assured to himself that he really likes her from the very start that he even tried to deny his feelings for Taehyung eventually. That way, a better conflict would've been evident since both sides were as intense as well. His character was confusing as well at the middle part of the story. For instance, he was the first one to initiate the kiss when they watched the sunrise. However, he acted as if nothing happened the next day. In fact, you didn't necessarily point out a few scenes where he felt a bit weird with Taehyung around. It was questionable to be honest since he was the one that kissed the latter. He should've questioned himself why he did that afterwards. It should've been awkward for the both of them. Most situations like this made me think that Hoseok was too dense; too dense that it was almost unbelievable. I don't know. I'm dense, but I would've felt a tad awkward after kissing somebody I didn't think I had feelings for in the first place. Anyway, he did think of that kiss eventually, but it a really really late reaction. Also, the reason as to why people as a gay was rather lacking. I mean, you just based it on natural skinship. Most guys I know, who are straight of course, are comfortable with skinship. They would sometimes wrap their arms on the others' shoulders as well. I'd see them hug sometimes as well. I don't know. I just think that their reason should be more reasonable and evident.

For Taehyung, well I have to hand it to you. His character was the most portrayed one in the story. His emotions were well-elaborated, that I felt like the scene was really realistic. One of my concerns though is that his character was a bit of Mary Sue. It was typical. He had a tough exterior, but on the inside, he was soft; most of the time when Hoseok's around. His actions were a bit soft as well, such as rushing to Hoseok when his knees bled. I have nothing against that scene though. It was just that he was too soft for my liking. I didn't find anything that toughen him up actually. He did play the female's part in this story. However, I was expecting a tougher personality from him. It would've enlightened the plot as well if he was willing to fight for the one he loves instead of just blushing all the time. One thing's for sure though. He's just madly in love with Hoseok, which brings