{The Hidden Truth by travellingIdeas}

Story Title (3/5)

The Hidden Truth is quite a common title. I searched it and many other stories came out. It did attract me, though, but I thought it was all rather a little bleak. The title has a connection to the story, and I assume the hidden truth would be the fact that Jinri was the girl that was Minho's friend in the photo?

Graphics (3/5)

I thought the poster was made really nicely. The background matched the mood of the story and the fact that the creater made Sulli and Taemin's lower body like a ghost's, enhanced the whole poster. However, I thought the character's emotions and faces didn't match much with the story. The feel I got from your story was that it was kind of sad and lonely, angsty like, but your characters were all smiling and they looked happy. I haven't really encountered a scene where everyone was happy in the story. 

Description and Foreword (7/10)

Your description conveyed pretty much the whole idea of your story, and it gives the readers a clear idea of what to expect. However, there were some grammar mistakes in the description:

Not having a single clue about her past and heck she has to deal with a bossy yet caring friend day by day.

C: Not having a single clue about her past and heck, she has to also deal with a bossy yet caring friend, day after day.

Unfortunately there are several things that make it harder for the spirit:

C: Unfortunately, there are several things that makes it harder for the spirit:

the human doesn’t know she exist at all, it risks a bond that already existed, 

C: The human doesn't know she exists at all, and it risks a bond that already existed long ago,

(Without the 'and' between both the statements, it made me confused as I thought that both the points were supposed to be linked, but they ended up being separate points.)

{Story Plot}

Characterisation (18/20)

I can see that Sulli is a thoughtful girl. She knows that Taemin cares about her, but yet she decides to go against his wishes and defy his instructions for her to remain safe and not wander into town. She makes Taemin very worried during the occasions where she escapes to town to look for Minho, and I thought she was a little insensitive at that. Even when she knows that Taemin really wants the best for her, she still decides to argue with Taemin knowing it will hurt me. It's as if she's taking Taemin's care for granted.

Taemin appreciates the people he has around him, like Mina, and Jinri and his dad. He probably has an experience of losing someone before, that's why he's so worrisome towards Jinri, right? He doesn't want to lose another person close to him anymore. Him checking in on Mina also shows his loving character. I think Taemin might be my favourite character in the story after all :P However, you started off introducing Taemin as a 'hot tempered jerk', which I thought was pretty off-point since he wasn't hot tempered or a jerk at all. Introducing a character like this is bound to make the readers have a slight bad feel about the character since you described him in such a negative way, so it wasn't really accurate since Taemin is such a nice person after all.

I thought Minho was quite a cold lad. Even though he doesn't have interactions with Jinri because he cannot see, feel or hear her, the way he talks strikes me as he's quite nonchalant about many things. 

Originality (6.5/10)

I can't say that this is very original. Many stories have the same storyline as yours; girl dies but meets her boyfriend again. Although there is the added Taemin, it seemed like something I could find very easily. 

Flow (3/5)

When she and Taemin are arguing, one second she would be extremely annoyed with Taemin, but the other suddenly, she thanks Taemin for being by her side. It seems unrealistic that when somebody is so annoyed with another, she would be thinking of thanking him. Other than that, I thought the flow was okay as your sentences weren't too short or too long. Nothing was choppy and it was perfectly alright for me to read. 

I thought that writing 'Taem' in the story itself was rather weird and improper(I'm sorry I think weird things) but of course, if it is your style. ><

Conflict twists (8/10)

I thought the part where you revealed that Jinri was actually Minho's 'friend', quite interesting. It spiced up things a little and it made me think like 'whoa'. Although I already kind of guessed it in the starting, because you dropped hints that the ghosts couldn't see any image of themselves, it was still kind of fun when I discovered that it was indeed Jinri who was in the photograph with Minho. That conflict twist is bound to change the storyline a little, and I'm looking forward to how Jinri will react, and Taemin if he knew about it.

Content Descriptiveness (7/10)

Although you didn't use much vocabulary, your content was more or less describe well because you described a lot of the thoughts and emotions of Jinri, and I felt closer to the character thanks to that. In chapter one though, there was this part where you wrote:

"So?" he gave me 'that look'.

What look was it? You should've explained what look it looked like- was it a look irritated Taemin would give? Or sad Taemin? Happy Taemin? Or you could relate incidents where Taemin gave that look, so we get a clear picture what Taemin is trying to convey through that look.

Grammar (5/15)

Sometimes, you tend to put a same character's speech in different paragraphs continuously. For example, 

"He approached the mirror, "oh god, look at me, I got a bag under my eyes" he touched the mark with his finger.

I must have been sleep deprived, it was the one that caused the hallucination" w-what? Wait, you don't say he didn't believe- sudden frustrations washed over my body."

Since you didn't specify who it was speaking in the second paragraph, I almost thought it was Sulli. This mistake is constant throughout your story and it makes me very, very confused. To be more clear, you could write it like:

"He approached the mirror. "Oh God, look at me. I have bags under my eyes," he touched the mark with his finger, "Must be sleep deprived... probably why I had hallucinations."

W-what? Wait, don't tell me he didn't believe- sudden frustration washed over my body."

The above example was one that was completely corrected, let me point out the other mistakes you had in that two paragraphs. 

For one, at every single starting of a sentence, the first letter of the first word MUST be capitalized. In speech, and even not in speech. You didn't capitalize 'oh god,' and it made your sentence look very sloppy like you didn't care to put in the capitalization. 'w-what?' also needs a capitalization, since it is the starting word of a sentence after a speech after all.

Secondly, at the end of a sentence, you need to put either a full stop or a comma. 'I got a bag under my eyes" he touched the mark with his finger.' is one example where you haven't. Same goes for 'it was the one that caused the hallucination" w-what?'. If the whole paragraph ends with that sentence, the speech should end with a full stop followed by a closed inverted comma, and if it doesn't, it should end with a comma. 

Also, I was confused as of what you meant by 'it was the one that caused the hallucination'. Which 'one' are you talking about? It sounds weird altogether, and I guess going with 'Must be it that caused my hallucinations.' sounds better.

Some of the other grammar mistakes in Chapter 1:

'I was one of those spirits who could not rest in peace

So I was here, to finish my purpose on earth

The oddest part was I don't know my purpose

Why couldn't I remember a thing?'

This shouldn't be in past tense because by right Jinri was carving it when she was a spirit. If it's in past tense, it means that she is not longer a spirit, but she still is one, right? 

C: 'I am one of those spirits who couldn't rest in peace;

So I am here, to finish my purpose on earth.

The oddest part is that I don't know about my purpose...

Why can't I remember a thing?'

'letting out an exasperated sigh, I let my hands fell down weakly against my sides as I finished my carvings on the old wooden tree. The uneasy feeling I had still exists in my head, lingering as if it didn't have any purpose at all. I thought if I let out what I felt with writing, it will decrease the throbbing pain but in fact, it doesn't.'

C: 'Letting out an exasperated sigh, I let my hands fall weakly at my sides as I finished my carvings on the old wooden tree. The uneasy feeling I had still existed in my head, lingering there. I thought the throbbing pain would decrease if I let out what I felt with writing; but it didn't.'

'My eyes widened when I felt the air becoming colder behind me, it was tense too. I didn't have to look back to identify who it was.'

'it was tense too.' sounded like a add on you made because you were too lazy to edit it into the previous sentence. By right, it should be in there, and 'it was tense too' is something I would write on a composition if I felt too lazy to correction tape my previous sentence and add it in. To make it sound less awkward:

C: 'My eyes widened when I felt the air become colder and tense behind me. I didn't even have to look back to identify who it was.'

' "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" He sounded irritated. Yes, this jerk, the hot-tempered Lee Taemin.'

Instead of caps-ing everything you want to emphasize, you should make it in italic instead.

C: ' "What do you think you're doing?" An irritated voice rung in my ears. Yes, it was that jerk- the hot tempered Lee Taemin.'

' "oi" he hit my head.'

C: "Oi!" he exclaimed, and hit my head.'

' "Oh of course, this is the deepest section of the forest, they will find it easily" I said with sarcastic tone.'

C: ' "Oh, of course they will find it so easily. This is the deepest section of the forest after all," I said with a sarcastic tone.'

There are many many more grammar mistakes throughout the story, and I think finding a beta reader would be good. But if you want to find your mistakes yourself and edit it, it is, imo, good too because it shows that you want to improve and learn. Good luck!

      Taste of the Story (5/10)

I honestly wasn't much attracted by the story. Your story was also very confusing because of the grammar mistakes and since I'm a grammar nazi, it turned me off even more. Don't give up though, I think the conflict twist in your story is about to become very interesting.

Score: 65.5/100

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