"Looking Back"

Author: soomin94

Main Characters: Lee Sungmin & Cho Kyuhyun

Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe, Angst, Psychological

Status: Completed

Description of Story:
Sungmin had a sheltered childhood in a small town so he never had to worry about doubting kind strangers.
So when he accepted a seemingly kind gesture from a stranger he didn't think anything of it until the situation had gone too far to return back to normal.
Nothing would ever be normal for Sungmin again.

Story Title: 5/5

The title is perfect to me. It’s short, simple, isn’t too common, but not so obscure that no one would remember it, and it directly relates to the story. It’s especially wonderful to me simply because I have a thing for short, one or two word titles.

Graphics: 10/10

The poster is absolutely gorgeous and from the description, it seems to fit the story perfectly. My only thought for it is that it may have been better to choose a different picture for Sungmin, maybe one where he seems smaller, more of the innocent youth he is in this story. Nonetheless, the poster is wonderful, so great job.

Description and Foreword: 7/10

The description isn’t too bad, but the way the sentences were put together really threw me off and didn’t make me want to read this story.

For instance, the first sentence.

“Sungmin had a sheltered childhood in a small town so he never had to worry about doubting kind strangers.”

I feel like the reason this sentence throws me so much is that it feels like it’s an entire paragraph poorly condensed into a single sentence. I, myself, would have written it more like “Growing up in a small town, Sungmin had never had to worry about the seemingly kind actions of strangers. It was a sheltered childhood where sweet smiles weren’t hiding devious intentions; where a friendly gesture was just that; where everything didn’t come with a price.”

From there you could go on to say that growing up that way is what got him into this situation, where everything has just spiraled out of control. And then end it with the simple “Nothing will ever be the same for Sungmin again.”

Despite disliking the description, I really enjoyed the excerpt you gave us in the end of the description. It really brought everything together and it was intriguing enough that even if this weren’t a request, I would have kept reading after reading the excerpt.

Characterization: 8/10

There isn’t a lot of characterization, of course, since this is a one-shot, but what characterization there was was constant. Sungmin was definitely a little too trusting and slow to catch on to the