Calling for TeamBottomLuhan

"Say Something

Author: TeamBottomLuhan

Main Characters: Luhan and Yoona

Genre: Angst, Comedy, Fluff, Romcom

Status: On-going

Description of Story:
Luhan, the deer from exo has captured Yoona's heart the moment she laid her eyes on him.
It was a case of innocent love at first sight,
as well as a case of a one-sided love.
Yoona never bothered to hide her attraction and adoration for the boy.
Yet, the boy never bothered to hide his distaste and hatred for Yoona.
Will Yoona give up on her first and true love before he realizes his feelings?

    Critique:

Description and Foreword: 6.5/10

The first thing that I noticed as I scrolled down your description and foreword was that there were a lot of unnecessary space. I mean, a few lines were aligned at the left, some at the right, and some of them were aligned at the center. All in all, the lines were scattered all around, and it didn't look that pleasing in my eyes. For instance, the first eight lines aligned at the left and right were all understood as Yoona and Luhan's dialogues, to which they were kind of arguing about Yoona's feelings and Luhan's reciprocately hatred in exchange.

In my opinion, those dialogues were unnecessary. Why can't you just state a short dialogue or two from the both of them. They were typically too long, and to be honest, I believe that a simple dialogue from them like Luhan stating that he hates the latter would be better. It would be short, simple, yet straight-forward at the same time. You don't really have to state it all. It would make it seem like you were relaying too much information than necessary as well.

Anyways, the actual brief description was fine, although I found a lot of grammatical errors within it. In your case, you divided it into lines, making it seem like a poem or some sort. I, however, think that you should just state it in a paragraph rather than in a poem form. 

(Original Version) 
Luhan, the deer from exo has captured Yoona's heart the moment she laid her eyes on him.
It was a case of innocent love at first sight,
as well as a case of a one-sided love.
Yoona never bothered to hide her attraction and adoration for the boy.
Yet, the boy never bothered to hide his distaste and hatred for Yoona.
Will Yoona give up on her first and true love before he realizes his feelings?

(Revised Version) 
Luhan, the deer from EXO, has captured Yoona's heart the moment she laid her eyes on him. It was a case of an innocent, yet unrequited love at first sight. Yoona, however, never bothered to hide her attraction and adoration for the boy, but the latter never bothered to hide his distaste and hatred for Yoona. Will Yoona give up on her first and true love before he realizes his feelings?

First and foremost, you should properly capitalize the proper nouns that you used. EXO should be capitalized as EXO; not exo. Make sure to place two commas between parenthetical phrases as well. Commas shouldn't be placed after coordinating conjunctions as well. For instance, you placed a comma right after "yet" above. That's wrong. Commas go before conjunctions. As such, I also removed a few words along the way and replaced them as I believe that your wording was too redundant.

Now, importance and relativity-wise, your description was fine. It did briefly explain what the story was all about, but then again, it wasn't really that enticing if you ask me. Rather, it was too simple, too cliche, and too typical, just like a typical description that you'd read in a typical story. In other words, it didn't sound intriguing enough. Truth to be told, there are a lot of stories with the same plot line as yours. I believe that you know that. Think about it. From that numerous stories with the same plot as yours, wouldn't it be better if you provide your readers something special so that they'd be able to differentiate your story with the others. As such, it doesn't just go down to the twists and cliffhangers that would help you with that problem. You also have to make sure that all the other elements are enticing enough.

If that doesn't make sense, then here's the thing. You just have to make everything as flawless as possible. Let's face it. It's hard to produce a 100% original idea in this generation. There are numerous stories in the world as of today, and the fact that there are a lot of internet and fanfiction sites like Wattpad and Asianfanfics doesn't really help with that problem. That is why it's important to grab people's attention as much as possible. 

Your story has a poster, right? Think about getting a matching background to top it off. Don't worry. That's not going to affect my critique for this section.

Foreword:

As for your foreword, what I disliked the most was the fact that your character chart gave a lot of information away. I am not a fan of character charts, and although I do use them, I don't provide facts like that. It's better to provide those facts to your readers in the actual story. Stating it in your c. chart would only spoil the fun and twists that would've been better if stored.

Again, like what I've said before, your foreword also had a lot of unnecessary space. If you want to provide a character chart, make sure to use as much as space as possible, but of course, you have to actually balance it. Try removing the line spacings. See if that's better. Try aligning the pictures and the text at the center as well. Also, try using picture dividers for added effect. They'd look good, actually. You just have to choose the right dividers, and ua-la.

 

Plot: 26/40

Basically, the plot line was too cliche. I am very positive that I have read stories like yours in the past; in fact, they had the same points as yours. I'm not saying that you plagiarized or something though. You have your own originality with your version; but the things is, they're not enough. I do understand that the story has yet to progress, but still, it would be better to give us something explosive from the start that would make us feel attached with your story.

So far, the story had yet told us everything that the characters had been going through. That's actually a good thing. Revealing the whole story behind the conflict would be boring, because blowing it all in one go would ruin the whole point. I'm also glad that the plot had focused on Yoona's side of the story, although it was relayed in a third person's point-of-view. You didn't delve deeply into every character as well. The characters who are central to the story end up being central to the plot, and if you find yourself spending a lot of time on secondary and tertiary characters, consider whether you should edit out those scenes.

I had a problem with the secondary and tertiary characters though. Truth to be told, there were a lot of them, like the EXO and SNSD members. Although AFF is a K-pop fanfiction site, not all readers know SNSD and EXO members by heart. Setting that aside, even if they do know them by heart, it would still be difficult for them to assess each and every character. From my perspective, it seemed like the EXO members had something to do with Luhan and Yoona's lovelife in the future. Kris seemed to flirt with Yoona, to which I believe that there might be a possible love triangle in the future.

Chapter 1:

It was revealed that Lee Seunggi and Yoona were fake dating to gain each other more popularity, which SM Entertainment agreed upon as it was a win-win situation. I'm actually glad that you incorporate true-life events for your story. It makes us relate with the events more, and it makes us feel like they really are happening in real life.

It was a shame that you just revealed that they were fake-dating though. This is also a matter of showing us rather than just telling. Wouldn't it be better if you provide us a scene where they were maybe getting interviewed about their relationship and whatnot, and how Yoona was feeling at that very moment? It would help us understand Yoona's character more as well. Was she irritated, nonchalant, happy, or something at that situation?

Nonetheless, Yoona was strong. She even believed that even whenever Luhan brought his girlfriends at their dorm, he was only making her feel jealous. She did feel hurt on the inside though, but she just kept it within. Luhan even pushed her off the bed and slammed the door in her face. She kept the feelings inside her, even though she felt like dying, and kept an unfazed expression on the outside. At least the EXO boys were concerned, though they were already used with that kind of scene.

Chapter 2:

"I'm lonely whenever I'm in the shower...wanna shower with me instead Yoong?" Kris flirted. Yoona squeezed his left cheek. 

"Go with Tao." She said playfully, causing the others to burst out laughing once again, and the giant to put a blank face on.

This was a scene when Yoona offered to shower with Luhan. I was kind of shocked that Kris had flirted back that openly. It made me think that maybe he had a small affection for Yoona. There might be a love triangle in the future chapters though, but yeah. That's just a prediction. It was kind of funny though when Yoona told him to shower with Tao instead. I remember that on some Chinese show (I forgot the title) that Tao had been showering with the boys from time to time since he was scared and whatnot. It was funny. I'm glad that you incorporated that.

Apart from that, there was also this scene where Baekhyun and Yoona had chased each other since the latter of his habit in front of Taeyeon's poster. It was a very cute and hilarious scene. I mean, Yoona had practically seen his mojo! That was totally unexpected. Nonetheless, you made me happy with that.

Chapter 3:

In this chapter, the girls and boys were seen in a plane, to London, I think? It was revealed that Luhan was afraid of heights, which was also very true in real life. Baekhyun and Yoona were both proven to be very erted as they talked openly of how big Luhan's mojo was and how perky his was. I laughed when I read that. It was definitely hilarious.

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