"Fathers in Love"

Author: signup

Main Characters: Kai and Kyungsoo

Genre: Romance

Status: Completed; One-shot

Description of Story:
Father Kai and Father Kyungsoo were priests who deeply fell in love with each other. Love between them was forbidden, but nothing would hinder their marriage.

Story Title: 3.5/5

Your title came out very interesting for me. At first, I was like, "Oh. Here's another cliche story coming at me." But then again, you proved me wrong. I was utterly surprised after I read your description. The realization just came right up me, and that is really a good thing. I thought that the story was about two literal fathers falling in love with one another, but I was wrong. You meant fathers as priests! That was really surprising.

The story was too simple for me though. It did scream out romance for me a bit, but it was still too simple. It doesn't really attract attention in my opinion as most readers here tend to go after sophisticated and unique story titles. Trust me. From my almost one year of reviewing, I have come across a lot of readers, and they do indeed go after sophisticated titles. I, for one, prefer titles like that, too. Anyway, the title is fine I guess, but it doesn't really attact much attention. It's your decision whether to change it or not though.

Graphics: 3.5/10

I'm not exactly a fan of your graphics. It was too bright and fluffy for my liking. Your story didn't really scream that much fluff. It actually screamed more romance and a bit of angst, so too much fluff is not that much preferable for the poster. First of all, again, the poster was too bright, and I don't see any significance with those colors from your story. Second of all, why were those pictures used to portrayed Kai and Kyungsoo? They didn't look like priests at all. They actually like more like idols, if not, like literally actual fathers who have their own children.

Lastly, if you take a glance at that poster, it doesn't really relate with the story at all. Like what I've said before, from the pictures used for Kai and Kyungsoo itself, you can't tell that they're priests. The smiling cloud on top didn't really say anything, too. It was pretty much insignificant for me as well.

A darker poster would do the thing for me, though not that dark. A poster that will make them look like priests or something would do that thing. I would like their expressions to be dim and a bit sad as well as the story had its downs, too. 

I do understand that you didn't even make the poster yourself, but since you included this in the grading critique, I had no choice by to grade it. No offense to the designer though, but really, the graphics weren't matched with the story at all. I don't know if you had a misconnection or a misunderstanding with your designer, but yeah. Your readers might even get confused with your poster, so I highly believe that you should request for another poster. It's your choice though in the end.

Description and Foreword: 6.5/10

I probably repeated what I've said from my past reviews for you, so please excuse me if I did somehow repeat me words again. I like your description. It was short as it merely consisted of two sentences, and even though it was like that, you did get straight-to-the-point without giving out that much information, which is very important in stories especially in one-shots. However, as straight-forward as you may sound by then, I felt like it didn't connect with the whole story. Why? Well, this has something to do with the plot. Your first sentence stated that Father Kai and Father Kyungsoo were priests who fell in love with each other. That was stated in past tense, right? Introducing a story with that introduction would seem like you would explain why and how they fell in love with each other.

I don't think that makes any sense, but take it like this. Try reading your description again. By the sound of it, it was like a third person speaking to the reader as if he was about to relay the past. It sounded like "This is a story where A and B fell in love with each other..." By the sound of that, the reader would assume that how they fell in love will be explained in the story. This is actually contradicting to the actual story itself as you didn't explain how they fell in love, literally. They just confessed with each other, which was way ahead. I hope that made sense now. 

Anyway, the description and foreword didn't really look good that much. It was unorganized in my opinion, and it looked utterly messy. I think I've told you this before, but there were spaces in between your lines that were deemed unnecessary. You can align them in the center, you know, to create more effects, and do remove the spaces in between. As for the credits, the links would be better off if they were hyperlinked with texts like 'Click here' and such, or you can just hyperlink it with the text determining those shops' names. 

Apart from that, I think you should add a few information or maybe some designs on your foreword just to fill it up a bit. At first glance, I wouldn't really read your story. It gave me a feeling that the story was lacking, so why would I read it in the first place. I'm so sorry if I was harsh right there, but that was really how I felt. You could even add a few quotes and such just for added effects, and you can even put pictures, or even introduce some terms and such, like maybe you could explain what inspired you in writing a story like that by providing an author's note.

I don't really recommend character charts, but if you do want to put that, just make sure not to give more information than necessary. You can maybe just put their names and maybe some quotes, but never introduce your characters. Always remember that your story is a one-shot, which is a very very short story, so introducing your characters or your plot too much would ruin the whole point of writing a one-shot in the first place. Nevertheless, what I wanted to point out was that you should at least make an effort in designing your foreword so that you'd be able to give a great first impression with your readers, as if telling them to acknowledge your effort just for them to read your story. It does sound a bit desperate, but designing your story wouldn't do any harm not, won't it? Just give it a try.

Characterization: 6.5/10

It was actually really hard to grade this section as well as the other sections, too. First of all, it was really hard to really say that they do love each other indeed as the information is extremely lacking. How did they even develop their feelings for each other? How did they even meet? I mean, Kai accepting Kyungsoo's confession was utterly surprising and unbelievable as well. Why and how did he even just accept the latter's feelings? It doesn't really make sense. It was like the story just flew right to the , until the resolution and came and boom! Here's the ending!

Apart from that, your ways of describing their personalities were also lacking. First of all, it is also important to describe their appearances. I