Username  
SmilingDaze
Profile link  
http://www.asianfanfics.com/profile/view/897077
Story Title  
My Lovely Doll

~ Reviewed by Joongdok ~

First impression (8/15)

Title: 2/5

Honestly, the title bored me. It seems common and like a K-drama that people needed to translate the title for. In a sense, it makes me wonder whose doll it will be (which perhaps you thought about? Sehun’s, Tao’s or the father’s?), though I doubt it. I am not a fan of this kind of thing and I think you could have done a better job with it.

Graphics (additional, not graded)

Cutesy and boring, though I suppose that it goes with the story. Kind of. The poster confused me a little, but more on that in the writing section.

Description/foreword: 6/10

What you have right now as your description works, but it isn’t really that eye-catching. The first sentence contains some negatives, which I suggest you change to one or none in order to not confuse the reader. This doesn’t really run smoothly to read, and needs to be changed. As a reader, I get what the story is about and I see the point of it, but it isn’t appealing to read it the way that you’ve written it. Check it out:

“The life of a doll is neither fun nor exciting, and for Go Mi Young it isn’t enough. After a whole life as a doll, emotionless and left without interaction with humans, she has become tempted to see what it truly means to be human. To laugh, to cry, to hurt, to just… Feel. Her father, the Toymaker, promises her that he will make her into a real human for one year, but only on the condition that she finds true love. If she fails, she will spend the rest of her life as a doll, never to see or talk to another human ever again.”

However, I’ve got some beef with you that I’ll talk about in the plot section – the contents of which is that this description isn’t relevant to the story because you wrote the main character wrong.

The character descriptions. Let’s just break it down here – these are not necessary. Really, they aren’t. In your story there are very few characters, in fact, there are so few of them that you don’t have to present them to the reader at all. The first chapter should not be “Meet the characters”, it should be a first chapter. I can see that you’ve spent a significant amount of time on your layout and color schematic, but this shouldn’t obstruct the view of your story to the reader. The only reason you should have character introductions is if you have a lot of characters which all matter to the story in one way or another. Right now, you’ve got a lot of unnecessary information that isn’t relevant to the reader. I don’t need to know their favorite songs, TV-shows or celebrity crushes. As a matter of fact, nobody does, because it isn’t relevant to the story. At all. We don’t need to know their ages, we’re supposed to figure that out from reading the story. Also, you’re spoiling the story by showing characters who aren’t even a part of the 6-ish chapters you’ve written so far. More on this in the plot section.

Language: (13/20)

Sentence structure & grammar: 8/10

This part is fine. You’re only making some small mistakes here and there, but if you proofread (slowly) then you will find them and take care of them. Also, I’m not so sure about the word “animation” in the way you’re using it. I think perhaps a more accurate word would be “production”? Then again, I’m not sure. You do as you please with that one.

Vocab, punctuation & spelling: 5/10

Okay, look. There is something that you do along with a lot of other people which genuinely makes me angry. You use Korean words in your story, but you do not only use them incorrectly, you also misspell them. I do not approve of this. Here’s the deal: no matter how short or long people may have been a fan of K-pop and Korean dramas, understanding the words they use make out the exception – if you’ve studied it, that makes you even more rare. Furthermore, your choice of using Korean words in exchange for other (better) words reflect a narrow vocabulary and an incomplete understanding of literary functions.

(Bonus rant! In my native language, “ne” means no. “Appa” also means to apply, which alters the meaning entirely when I read “ne, appa.” See what I mean? It obstructs my view as a reader, preventing me to smoothly read your story. Sunbae is a term which reflects superiority within an organization, company or a school. Prior to Tao’s knowledge of Mi Young going to a high school (to which Tao doesn’t even go anymore), she refers to him as sunbae or sunbaenim, which is incorrect. They do not know each other closely, and should thus refer to each other as “Mi Young-sshi” or “Tao-sshi”, prior to even using the term sunbae. They are not close or associated. However, I don’t think that you should use Korean words at all. Korean words are not good. I get it, you’re tempted to get closer to the culture by using “oppa” and other cutesy stuff like that, but it doesn’t help your story progress.)

You are switching between POVs inside the POVs. In the last chapter, you not only announce the POV change (shame on you, you’re not supposed to do that), you also switch in the middle of it back to Mi Young’s. Nonono.

You use too many commas and you have a ton of misspellings. I recommend you to proofread your stuff one more time before you post it, and to write in a program which offers spell check. I can tell that you’re a native speaker because you have a better grasp of the language than many other authors on here, but you still need work. I have feeling that all you really need to do is proofread your stuff or at least get a beta reader.  

Storyline (14/35)

Plot and flow: 12/30

Things I disliked about your story:

---- In the description, you say that Mi Young’s father promises to make her human for one year on the condition that she finds love, otherwise she will turn into a doll forever. This is a giant giveaway as to what will happen, though that’s not the biggest problem – over the course of six chapters and almost 14 000 words, you still have not introduced this part. In the final chapter that you’ve posted, you’re hinting at what is about to happen, but the buildup to get there wasn’t all good since there are more plot holes.

---- Mi Young sneaks out while her father is asleep – she repeats this process for a few times since she keeps hanging out with Tao, but her father doesn’t suspect a thing? Does he go to sleep at like 7 every evening or what?

---- About her lying and saying that she goes to Cheongdam high school – during the course of an entire month that Mi Young and Tao hang out, the “maknae line” seem to not notice the fact that she’s never there. This bugs me a lot, since you’d think that a bunch of guys who oohed over her prettiness (and I quote “Yeppeuna!”) would kind of hang out with her or at least be aware of her presence (or lack thereof) in school.

---- Why does Tao lean in as if to kiss her only to immediately say that he won’t kiss her? Why? I just???? What’s the point of th