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Title: Jebal...For the Last Time

Author: onlyblueZELOver

Title
Yes, the title was definitely relevant for the story. The phrase can be seen repeated a few times in the story itself. Is it the best title though? Well, I personally don’t think so. Reading the title, half of the story has already been told. Firstly, the word ‘jebal’ (which means please in Korean – almost like a plea) alludes to somebody begging. It is a word used in despair, hence suggesting that the story will have a scene of agony. The second part, ‘for the last time’ usually suggests the concept of departure (and departure bears strong connotations of death). Hence if you piece the two parts of it together, you can sort of see where the story is going.

What would I suggest? I would suggest that you highlight the desperation of the characters and not give any attention to the separation that would soon happen. I would thus recommend the shortening of the title to just “Jebal” (or similar meaning phrases – like “I Beg You”).

Second thing that I want to highlight is the grammatical aspect of the title. First, do take note that ellipsis (…) has three dots – no more, no less. If you observe carefully; the ellipsis between ’jebal’ and ‘for’ has only two dots.

I believe you are using ‘Sentence Case’ as you have only capitalized the first word of the title. While there is nothing wrong with you choosing this particular case, your title requires a little tweaking. This is so as an ellipsis is not a full-stop (or period). Hence, there’s not need to capitalize the word after the ellipsis. This means that the title should be: “Jebal… for the last time”.

Foreword/Description
I got to say that I am impressed for the effort that you have put in to construct both a foreword and description. This is fairly hard to find as people tend to dump a character chart in the foreword and call it complete. So regardless of how I grade this portion, I just want you to know that I am immensely proud of how you have taken the effort to write both a Foreword and Description! ‘A+’ for effort!

Before I begin and look into both the foreword and the description, let me just say that the description sounded a little bit like the Foreword. 

Well, one thing to take note is that a ‘Foreword’ in literature is used as a platform for the author to interact with their audience (readers). However, in AFF it is socially accepted for authors to use the Foreword section as another platform to sell their story to the readers. Hence, while it is not as clear cut the explanation as to why your Description would be more appropriate if placed in the Foreword, it is easier to explain it in the opposite manner. The word ‘description’ is, well a noun, and it comes from the verb ‘describe’. Hence, you can infer that the description is meant for the author to ‘describe’ the story. Using this explanation, doesn’t it make sense for the text in the description and the text in the foreword to switch place? Hahaha.  Think about it!

That aside, let’s look at the two components.

Description:
I would say that the description is well written. True, there is not an ounce of narration. However, who said that Descriptions had to come in the form of narrations? In fact, I find that dialogues make better attention grabbers as it is not only quick pace, but also gives the author the freedom to mask and conceal the identity of the speaker – hence holding back some of the plot details.

In your case, you were unable to mask the speaker’s identity fully because you have used the word ‘hyung’ in it. As your demographic is mainly kpop fans, half of them would have been able to accurately guess that the speaker is Junhong. Being able to make that connection will also allow them to infer that Junhong is most likely going to die.

Foreword:
The Foreword was poorly constructed. I have a hunch that the flop was due to your poor command of English. As this is not the portion to comment about your command, I will look solely at the points for this particular segment. 

After reading through and extracting the points, I feel that you have a brief idea of what you want to be included in the story. However, you are unsure of how to phrase it (or perhaps your command of English is unable to carry the ideas). While the first two paragraphs were fine, things started to become slightly incomprehensible from the third paragraph on. Note that it is not terribly incomprehensible, but it was definitely difficult to keep up and while it seems that I can get what is going on, it also seems that I don’t. So that’s pretty dangerous. 

Appearance
Overall, I really liked the appearance of the story. The font was pleasant to the eyes and at least visually, it looks really professional. Really nicely done!

Plot
The plot was in no way interesting /laughs. I am very sorry dear, but this kind of story has been around for ages. What makes it disappointing is not the fact that you did not have an original plot, but rather that you did not inject in your own flavour. I understand that it may be difficult for you to do so with your limited command of English, however just like how you have tried to do so with your Foreword, I would have appreciated some signs of effort.

Grammar
Grammar definitely is not one of your strong points. There are so many errors that I can’t even start. Well, let us just discuss the basics of grammar here. I highly advice you to engage the help of a beta-reader as you are evidently not alright on your own.

1) Capitalization:
I hope that it is just a typo, but whenever you type ‘i’ you need to capitalize it.

Examples:
- I lazily pick it up as i just woke up from my dreamland.
- I mumbled to myself as i pick my cell phone up.
- My eyes just automatically bright up as i see JunHong’s name on the screen.
- “yah~! how many times do i have tell you! I’m not a chipmunk!” i replied,pouting on my comfy bed.

2) Space after a punctuation
After every punctuation mark, you have to include a space.

Actual: Bird chirping happily,the sky is blue,the wind coolly breeze over Yeol Hyeon chubby cheeks.She is sitting under her favourite tree.Looking up the sky,remembering him.
Suggested: Bird chirping happily, the sky is blue, the wind coly breeze over Yeol Hyeon chubby cheeks. She is sitting under her favourite tree. Looking up the sky, remembering him.

As noticed, by including a space after the punctuation, it makes the text look less cramp and also easier to read.

3) Be consistent in tenses!
I would highly recommend you to write in past tense. In fact, I believe you are writing in past tense. This can be seen by how you naturally tend to write you verbs in the past tense. Saying that, your tenses are fairly inconsistent as can be seen from the following examples:

Actual: I lazily pick it up as I just woke up from my dreamland.
Suggested: I lazily picked it up as I just woke up from my dreamland.

Actual: “Morning chipmunk~” he said cutely as I pick up the call.
Suggested: “Morning chipmunk~” he said cutely as I picked up the call.

Actual: I mumbled to myself as I get out from my bed […]
Suggested: I mumbled to myself as I got out from my bed […]

From the above examples, you can see that the underlined verbs are in the wrong tense. How I know that they are in the wrong tense is from the verbs that are italicized.

Currently, these are the few issues that I think you should take note off. The rest can be dealt with at a later time. For the time being, I would suggest that you employ the help of a beta-reader and ask him/her to focus on your sentence structure as well as tenses.

Flow
It is difficult to say how well the story flowed as the story kept changing point of views (POVs). Also for some portions, you would repeat the same happenings in a different POV. This creates repetition and may catch the reader off guard. 
Even if there weren’t any repetitions, the constant changing of POV makes it difficult for the reader to concentrate on the plot. Instead of enjoying the storyline, the reader spends more time figuring out where you are in the story, and what happened before said part.
In addition, due to the high level of switching of POVs, it constitutes to a lot of scene cuts which creates a lot of disruption to the story. However, I have a feeling that even if there was not a great number of POV switches, the situation will not see a huge improvement. This can be due to the story poor paragraphing and punctuation.

A) That was Daehyun oppa.He lovingly approached me as he kiss me on the cheecks.I casually replied his kiss.We do this everyday.Its normal between us siblings.
B) I turned and saw Daehyun (oppa) approaching me, his eyes filled with adoration as he leaned in to give me a peck on my cheek. Giggling, I responded casually to our daily act of affection with an equally endearing kiss.

A) I arrived in front of Hyeon house and rang the door.I feel excited about meeting her.Just thinking about her make me smile.She is the perfect girl i ever met! Then the door opened revealing Daehyun hyung.
B) I arrived at the front of Hyeon’s house and rang the bell. Excitement was coursing through my veins as I waited impatiently for the door to be opened. Hyeon was like the perfect girl I have ever met and just the sheer thought of her makes my insides shiver with anticipation.

If you compare (A) and (B), you can observe that the words in (B) flows better compared to (A). Of course, I have included in several additional textures to improve the flow. However, if you noticed not only did I increased the number of words per sentence, but I have also included a space after each punctuation (something that I have already mentioned under Grammar).

How you type a sentence would determine how the reader reads it. The shorter your sentence, the more likely the reader will read it in a more hasty pace. Likewise, the longer the sentence is, the slower the story may seem. Hence, for the flow of the story to be smooth and suited for the style of your story, you need to nail the punctuation – as it is the punctuation that creates the pauses.

Flow is a very intuitive thing, so do not be impatient (with the story or with yourself) and just take your time to slowly figure things out. The key to mastering flow is to never force things. Let it just take its natural path. The best way of grasping the correct flow is to allow it to just flow. Don’t rush it, don’t try to hinder it, just let it flow.

Characterization
Alright, so here is where things can get a bit confusing. From the way the description is written, it almost seems as though the hyung (Daehyun) has a very large part to play in the story. If we actually count the number of times you mentioned ‘hyung’ in the description, it is five. Yes, five. And you only have 8 lines. Seeing this statistic, people’s first reaction will be to think that the hyung mentioned will play a major role. However, if we pay attention to the story, we will discover that Daehyun does not actually play such a significant role in the story.

Sure, he did stop Zelo from meeting Yeol Hyeon. But the question is what else did he do? Did he help enlighten Zelo, or psycho Yeol Hyeon to not forgive Zelo? I do not know, but Daehyun’s involvement in the plot is a little vague.

Okay, so enough with Daehyun. Let’s talk about Zelo and Yeol Hyeon. To be very honest, I do not know much about them. Well, let us list down what I do know about them:

i) Zelo loves Yeol Hyeon
ii) Yeol Hyeon loves Zelo
iii) Yeol Hyeon has an older brother – Daehyun
iv) Daehyun knows Yongguk
v) Yongguk knows Zelo
vi) Zelo knows Daehyun
vii) Zelo is sick and going to die à able to infer on Zelo’s sacrificial nature…? 

Personally, I do not think that this is enough. Of course the argument will be how much do I want to know about Zelo or Yeol Hyeon? Practically half of the stuff that makes them, them would be irrelevant! Well, that’s not entirely true. How a character behaves is very heavily dependent on the character of the character.

This means that you can tell A LOT about your character just by how you describe his/her actions, speech and thoughts. Sadly, what happened in your story is that you focused a lot on the speech but missed out in the details of the action. Even if you did incorporate all the aspects, the meaning and impact was very easily lost in the sea of words.

All in all, I would say that while you may have attempted to flesh out the characters, it did not come true. Characters were pretty one dimensional – you only know about their love life and that’s all. This is a pretty sad thing considering how your story is about an emotional plea of a character and there were barely any description of how the characters felt. 

Comments/Enjoyment
Overall, I would not say that I hated it. It was a fair story, tilting more to the boring side. For stories of your league, I would say that your story is average. Sure, you have things to brush up on, but the overall charm of your story is there. It is not well written, and was definitely lacking in so many areas. But look at it this way; I managed to complete reading it. In what state of heart I was is a different issue, but I completed it and for an author, that is the first step.

I always believe that authors should know their strengths. I believe that your strength lies very heavily in the charisma that exudes from your story. Be careful not to lose it! Harness it and make it grow – this will bring you far.

Saying that, it is also crucial for an author to improve their writing abilities. For you, I find that your major problem is the language barrier. And to be very frank, when it comes to language, there is no easy way out. But trust me when I say that the result will be worth it. Right now, I recommend that you stick to simple plots and just focus on perfecting your grammar. Your vocabulary choice seems to be fine. Only problem is grammar. So practice your sentence structure, practice tense conjugation, and more importantly practice how to use punctuations properly. Practice, practice, and practice. Don’t worry about making mistakes and just write. For writing, many things will you only learn when you are daring to write and make mistakes. So definitely don’t back down and continue pushing on. Also, you should engage the help of a beta-reader to assist you with your grammar. Encourage you to be inquisitive and bold. Fighting for your upcoming projects. I’m sure you can do it! <3