Calling for omgrainicorns

"Of Math and a Kitten"

Author: omgrainicorns

Main Characters: Kwon Hana (OC) and Luhan (EXO)

Genre: Comedy, Crack, Fluff, Friendship, Romcom and Schoollife

Status: Completed

Description of Story:
Kwon Hana needs to get an A for Math. She needs help desperately and found herself under his porch ringing his doorbell.

        Critique:

Story Title: 3.5/5

"Of Math and a Kitten" - I'm not really good with assessing story titles from a collection like yours. Titles like that are usually based on a format wherein they should all start with the preposition 'of', right? Or not? Either way, the title was indeed relevant to the story as Luhan and Hana started to get closer because of the kitten incident, and they officially became closer after Luhan tutored Hana in Math. However, I'm not exactly sure if that's the best title for your story. It wasn't necessarily appealing in my opinion. It didn't exactly sound romantic as well, which is the main genre of your story. I hoped for a crazier title to be honest since Hana was crazy, in a bit of a good way, but yeah. However, since this is a collection, you are free to name your story titles with whatever you like/want as long as they are relevant to the plot.

 

Graphics: 0/0

I don't know why you included this section from the over-all grading as your story didn't have any official poster whatsoever, so I decided to remove this section from the grading. If you can though, please get one. Graphics may help you attract more readers as some users her tend to inspect a story's posters first before reading them. I'm not really forcing you to get one though. This one-shot is a part of your collection though, so if you can get your graphics, make sure that they match all genres that you will portray. Either way, graphics would make your collection look less dull.

 

Characterization: 4/10

This section came out to be a bit difficult for me to grade as the confusion was present whilst I was reading your story throughout. Let's start off with Hana(s). At the very first part of your story, you introduced two Hanas, right? Well, I expected a bit of a comparison between the two of them, but it turned out that I was wrong. In fact, the other Hana had no participation in the story whatsoever. That itself lost half of my interest in your story. It was as if you destroyed the anticipation of your readers. Always remember that you should never start something that you can never/will finish. What was the point of introducing a character that had no use in the plot? Moreover, your introduced them as if they had something to do with each other, then later, you just cut them off with an author's note. If I were to advise you, please prevent yourself from doing stuff like that as it may turn off some of your readers.

A bit further from the first part, you introduced Hana's hurdle in her fencing hobby and such. She came off as a tough and competitive girl with a high temper. I didn't sense any childish aura from her at that point. Moreover, she appeared to me as a very sensitive girl that has a lot of things bottled up inside her. Moreover, she did seem a bit disappointed at her parents from preventing her from joining the fencing competition that she so badly wanted to do. She appeared tough from the other eyes' as well especially from her juniors that she had trained as they were scared at her.

After that, Luhan came to the picture. Hana because a bit of a nice girl that even Luhan didn't expect since apparently, the two of them were always arguing a while back not after Luhan got into a relationship. She was then introduced as an animal-lover as she had helped a cat that Luhan had found. She also knew of the dog that chased Luhan before. This maybe considered as the good side in Hana's personality though. However, it came a bit off for me since I didn't necessarily cope up with her sudden change in behavior. Nonetheless, all is good at this point.

This part now goes to the over-dramatic and over-excited Hana. This part was the one that made me extremely confused with her personality. It started with her pestering the boys for Luhan's address. She was too over-excited, which extremely contradicted the serious personality she had at the first part and the nice personality she had on the next part. She became the overly excited girl for the next few scenes again, especially when she got a high grade from her Math exam because Luhan tutored her. She screamed her lungs out at the soccer field, and she even did a few twists here and there. I was like, where did that came from? A few scenes showed her being the talkative girl that you can't even comprehend if she got exhausted or something after talking that much.

I've got no issue with Luhan though except that his characters seemed a bit too typical for my liking. He appeared as the prince-like characters in the story that seemed to have minimal flaws. For instance, he was smart as he even tutored Hana and helped her get that high of a grade. He was even a soccer player. I didn't really find any flaw from him. As for the other characters, it was a bit hard to keep up with their appearances as there were many side characters. The story might be understood by EXO fans as I'm definitely sure that they know all members by name; however, the same does not go for non-EXO fans. Truth to be told, not all readers here know of EXO. You should always prevent yourself from introducing too much characters next time, even for stories with completely original characters involved; moreso for one-shot stories like this. Please do keep that in mind.

 

Plot: 20/40

The first part was confusing, mainly because of the tenses. There was this scene wherein you were stating some facts about Kwon Hana and her competitiveness, and the next thing I knew was that she was fighting against one foreign competitor. The tenses kind of got in a way, as well as the flow of events. This confusion of mine had something to do with the characterization and elaboration as well. If you briefly described the environment as well as the present characters' actions, emotions and/or appearances, then it might have been better for me to understand what was happening. It was like I was still absorbing the facts that you had stated beforehand yet you were already on to the next page. In other words, it was a bit hard to keep up with your pace. For instance, if you want to state the facts first, then state them. However, if you want to introduce a particular scene for the characters, then you might as well end the statements of facts so that things would be understandable. 

The next few parts got more confusing that the first. For instance, there was a scene where Hana's mother woke her up vigorously, and she and her parents talked about the finals and her upcoming competition at dinner. She wasn't permitted to compete since apparently, her 'Math' is getting worse. However, I got shocked yet again when the scene flew from dinner to Saturday morning. Like, what the heck? Okay. Here's the thing. You just have to end scenes properly and in a more understanding manner. Let's take the dinner scene for example. To end that scene, you could've added a few sentences or paragraphs stating how Hana felt about her parent's refusal. You could've put how she felt so suffocated and controlled, etc. Then, you could've put something like she got frustrated and left the dining room in a haste after dinner, locked herself on her room and fell asleep right afterwards. Then the scene from the next Saturday morning can come up next. 

I have pretty much said everything at the characterization section though. Anyway, in conclusion, I wasn't a fan of the plot at all. The plot wasn't something that's original. In fact, most of the scenes were predictable aside from the fact that Hana's personality changed from time to time. Moreover, I didn't really find a