"Talking Eyes"

Author: mialafrave

Main Characters: G-Dragon and Yumi (OC)

Genre: Friendship, Romance, Idol's Life

Status: On-going

Description of Story:
The keypoint of the story is that the main characters aren't able anymore to hide well their feeling.
And these feeling started to bother someone really dangerous

 

 

  Critique:

Story Title: 4/5

This is how I grade a title: automatic 1 pt for having a title, then 1 pt each for originality, appropriateness to the genre, relevance to the story, and impact to the reader.

Your title is original. I’ve googled it, and I didn’t find a title similar to yours. It is also appropriate with the genre, and it’s somehow relevant to your story. (minus 1pt) I’m sorry, but your title didn’t have that much impact on me. When I saw your title, I was just like ‘okay.’ This is just a personal preference though. Reviews are never objective anyways.

 

Graphics: 8/10

I based your score here on the following: automatic 2 pts for having graphics, then 2 pts for each of this: poster content, attractiveness, appropriateness and relevance, and organization.

( - 0.5) A fic poster should have these basic contents: title and the image of the main characters. I’ve found them in yours, so congrats. So why did I deduct half a point? It’s because the quote that you’ve put is in wrong grammar. If you’ve fixed its grammar, or you just did not put the quote, I might have not deducted point. The poster will set the first impressions of the readers on your fic, so you should make it free of errors as much as possible.

( - 0.5) Your poster is actually not attractive. When I first saw it, I was like ‘meh.’ And now, I was like *insert Sehun’s poker face here*. I also didn’t feel the romance, you know. I think it would be better if they were at least looking at each other, or leaning to each other, or something like that, you know. However, I really like the idea of making it look like an actual book cover. I love what you’ve done with the description’s graphics. 

( - 0.5) Why is the color violet? Violet is a sad color, and it does not quite suit the story. The story is more on light scenes, so why deep violet? Your background too, why deep violet? Maybe you can make the shade lighter if you want to pursue violet. Just don’t make it that deep, because the mood gets sadder, when actually your story is not that sad. Violet is a good color for romance tho. But, the violet that you should use is not in deep shade.

( - 0.5) Well, when it comes to organization, I can say that it’s good. It’s simple, and it’s friendly to the eyes. I’ll say this again: I really love the graphics of your description. I don’t know…I just love it. The reason why I’ve deducted half a point was because of the ‘Are we so easy to read’ phrase on your poster. It was placed awkwardly. It would look better if you would place it lower. So for the graphics, that’s it!

 

Description and Foreword: 5/10

(Grammar corrections:  -1)

Description:
I won’t write the original version here. I’ll just write the revised version and you find the things I’ve changed, okay? I’ve made the changes in bold font, and I’ll explain the corrections below.

Revised Version:
Everyone knows that idols can’t really say everything about themselves and sometimes, they have to lie about their private lives too. Two people aren’t able to do that though. One is Kwon Ji Yong, better known as G-Dragon, the most famous and wanted guy in South Korea. The other one is Lee Yun Mi, a normal girl who dreams of becoming a singer. She indeed realizes her dream, but falls in love with that one guy at the same time. The feelings are mutual, but they both know that they can’t show anything to the public, because his sasaeng fans may deadly harm her for jealousy. So they have to lie, just like everybody does to protect themselves. But it’s more difficult for them to do so, with their eyes betraying them all the time…

‘Everyone’ is considered singular, so it should be ‘knows’, not ‘know’.
‘Sometimes’, not ‘sometime’.
‘lives’, not ‘life’, since you are pertaining to more than one.
After ‘Korea’, it should be a period, because the sentence would be too long if you would just put a comma. Plus, you did a run-on sentence on this part. A run-on sentence is a sentence with two or more independent clauses that are joined without appropriate punctuation or conjunction. In your case, you put a comma when conjoining two clauses, which is wrong. Run-on sentences are only considered right in action or murder scenes, but since yours have no action, your run-on is wrong.

I’ve replaced ‘person’ with ‘one’. There’s actually nothing wrong with grammar here, but it just sounds better if it’s ‘one’.
‘Who dreams’, not ‘that dream’. First you are pertaining to a person, so it should be ‘who’, not ‘that’, unless you are cursing that person (e.g. that ing bastard!); ‘dreams’, not ‘dream’, because Yun Mi is singular.
After ‘singer’, put a period. Your sentence was too long. Your readers’ head might ache. My head actually ached on this part. I was like “What?”
‘May’, not ‘might’. Since you’ve started in the present tense, observe parallelism. All your verbs must be in present tense. 

For the last punctuation of description, an ellipsis consists of three periods (…) and not just two.
Okay, so you have said in your profile that I should not concentrate much on the grammar. But yeah, you know, in writing, grammar is really an important part. I’ve corrected errors so you will learn something, and not repeat the same mistakes in the future. 

(Misplaced Prologue: -1) The description section in AFF is just for the description of your story and nothing else. As you see in published novels, the description is what was written on its back cover, and the story’s prologue is not put at the back cover. Consider the description section as the back cover of books. It is the thing that people will read first. You don’t really put a prologue there.

This is just my personal say, but the prologue and the other stuffs are better placed in the foreword section. You also have grammar errors on your prologue, but just figure them out yourself. I suggest that you search for grammar lessons on the net. Study them well, and apply them on your fic. Practice and practice until you master it. Just like our beloved idols, they practice and practice until they reach perfection. So let’s do it too.

(description not catchy: -1) Your description is not catchy. Personally, it didn’t grab my attention. It is so common. If I won’t review your story, I won’t read it. As you gain experience in writing, you will get more creative in playing with words. Catchy descriptions are often made by experienced writers, so if you keep on writing and gain experience, you will be able to write an interesting description someday. You will be able to write a great fic someday. That is if you will keep on writing.

Foreword:
(Character Chart: -1) This is my personal opinion: AFF authors must not put character charts on their fics, like yours. Why? It’s because of some things. First, because of the images. Images on charts don’t give readers the freedom to imagine the picture of your characters. Literature is about imagination, wild imagination. So authors must not limit the readers’ imagination by giving the exact picture of their characters. Make your readers’ imagination go wild. Imagination is the thing that makes reading pleasurable. Just put enough description for your characters, and let the readers interpret it on their own. Let them create the image on their own. That’s the magic of reading. 

Second, because oftentimes, charts give out too much info. Okay. So the name, age, birthday, sibling, job, are actually okay to put. But the personality and family situation? No. Why? It’s because it is telling, not showing. Those details must be just within the chapters of your story. You should not give too much details, because readers might feel that they already know your story and will eventually choose not to read your fic. 

In story writing, you should know the SHOW, DON’T (JUST) TELL rule. I’ll elaborate this later. By the way, read the article on this link for you to understand the rule better: http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/creative1/showing/

Okay. I’ll briefly discuss why you’ve violated this rule. In Yun Mi’s personality, for example, you put ‘She was a bright and active girl before the accident.’ Here, you are telling and not showing. In writing, you must show so that things will not get boring. Show how bright she is, and don’t merely tell. I really suggest that you remove your character chart, because it is unprofessional, and it really violates a very important rule in writing.

(YunMi’s name and her sibling’s name: - 1) Is there a name like that? Lee Yun Mi Maria Martelli? As far as I know, such a name does not exist in reality. It is either Lee Yun Mi or Maria Martelli. Maybe you mean, her Korean name is Lee Yun Mi and her Italian name is Maria Martelli? If that’s what you mean, it should be written like this: “Lee Yun Mi (Italian Name: Maria Martelli)”. Don’t put them together, because it is weird.

 

Characterization: 9/10

I mainly base the score for this section by how well you describe the characters. I give automatic 2 pts for having characters (lol what?), and then 2 pts for each of these: physical appearance, dialogue, actions, and personal thoughts. Congratulations, you got a high score here! You describe the characte