Voiceless Scream
written by KangminBread
reviewed by -ericsnams & Meleodiseu

Title: 2/10
As far as I’m concerned, nothing about Youngwoon is very silent. He voices his fears and what scares him, albeit with little success at times, but he’s not a suffer-in-silence kind of guy, at least not all of the time, and neither is Sungmin, especially not if you’re trying to portray him as the vocal one of that relationship. I don’t feel like the title matches the story particularly well, to be honest. It’s setting the tone for a really angsty story, but it doesn’t add up to the content your story delivers.

Plot: 9/25

                3/10: Setting
                I feel like this section has a lot to wish for - and I don’t mean that just for the sake of being a nay-sayer of the finest caliber (I’m really sorry about that, by the way), I sincerely have your best interests at heart. In the beginning of the first chapter, when Sungmin wakes up with the handcuffs on, you take your time to describe the surroundings of his and Youngwoon’s apartment, but that’s… Pretty much it. Most of the time throughout your story it kind of feels like your reader just floats through the different scenes of your characters’ conversations without really taking the appearance of their surroundings into consideration.

                3/5: Originality
                I truly do appreciate your portrait of a relationship in crisis. I don’t want to get too political, but in today’s society the number of people with a diagnosis or a health issue of one kind of another has skyrocketed, and many writers are focusing on the significant other or the diagnosed individually rather than focusing on their relationship to each other and how that progresses. That’s a great idea!

                3/10: Believability
                While I do believe that people suffering from haphephobia truly have a hard time living a normal daily life as opposed to ‘regular’ people, I preserve the right to think that you’ve kind of went a step too far concerning your portrait of the disease. I know very little of haphephobia, but something about Youngwoon’s shifty moods make it seem over-the-top and a little bit fake to me. And, of course one might add, this very thing is what your story revolves around, so there isn’t really that much more to go on.

The conflict in chapter 7 seems so unrealistic and set up that I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. No police officer would ever act like that. And concerning serious accusations like kidnapping, you can bet your behind that the joined forces of the entire force would investigate every possible thing forwards and backwards for real proof. There are so many things wrong with the perception of how a kidnapping scandal is taken care of in this thing that I have to deduct you for it. I’m sorry.

Characterization: 16/35

                2/5: Presentation
                I happened to encounter the psychiatric system last year for a multitude of tests and whatnot, and the most important thing I learned from that period of time is that there is a difference between living life /with/ a diagnosis and living /as/ a diagnosis.  Living with your diagnosis effectively means that you accept your condition and try to - forgive the expression - make the best of it, while living as your diagnosis means you excuse your actions and behaviorism with the diagnosis - in other words, you make yourself a type rather than a person. I feel like this is actually the case with Youngwoon. And maybe that’s a coping mechanism, but even if it is, it can be portrayed in a way that still makes him seem less flat and damsel-in-distress-like than what he is right now.

Now, Sungmin… Sungmin is an . I’m not even saying that to be rude, but he is. He’s self-centered, shifty, has a relatively short fuse and he is so far from being the ideal next of kin and/or significant other to someone like Youngwoon with his phobia with the way he’s behaving like a spoiled brat. I don’t like him at all.

It seems like he hasn’t really grasped the idea of his boyfriend’s trials and tribulations - like he doesn’t really want to, because every time he talks to someone (Leeteuk, Doctor Jung) he goes into full defense mode and actually protests that his visibly shaken boyfriend doesn’t need the kind of therapy that would ultimately put an end to at least /some/ of the challenges they face together. Just… ugh, no.  To be completely honest, Dr. Jung is probably the most sensible person in the entire story, and the fact that you play her out against Sungmin really tears at my heart strings because what significant other would turn down therapy - improvement - because of their own selfishness?

All in all, I feel like your characters lack some substance, because right now they seem pretty flat, like I was on about in ‘Settings’. And that’s really too bad.

                4/10: Development
                I actually think this is pretty unusual, because this has got to be the first story in I don’t know how long where I sit back with a feeling of being rushed. When your chapters end with “xx milestone overcome”, I sit back with a feeling that you’ve skated over some major character development, and all it does for you is that it makes your characters seem unbelievable and shifty. But there /is/ some development, and I’ll give you that.

                10/20: Diversity/Purpose
                With the flatness of your characters comes also a sense of doubt regarding the diversity of them. I reckon that your characters all have their distinctive traits, but none of them are very well worked out, save for Youngwoon’s phobia which - I have to say it - lies on the brink of over expulsion. But I can definitely see the parts your characters play, both Dr. Jung, the guys, Kyuhyun and even Leeteuk, although I would give anything to see some more substantial characters.

Writing Style: 15/30

                5/10: Narration
                You do a decent job at switching between Sungmin and Youngwoon, although it’s evident from the way you’re writing that the reader’s sympathy should be with Sungmin, who doesn’t really need it. I like your portraits of you character’s thoughts, in fact especially Sungmin’s although I don’t always agree with him. When concerning Youngwoon’s thoughts and actions, they clash with his phobia from time to time - and you’ve described this as ‘a milestone’ and ‘development’, but it needs some more in depth description and TLC to really seem that way.

                4/10: Consistency/Flow
                I’ve been around this earlier on, but that’s just me being unstructured, but the pacing in this is a tiny bit off. It moves forward too fast. And like I stated, the quick flow of things make it seem like you’re skirting around some pretty substantial character and setting development. But it’s not all bad; just a tad too fast for my taste.

                6/10: Spelling/Grammar
                All in all, your story has some spelling errors from time to time, but in all honesty it isn’t that much, and they can easily be spotted and changed by a quick run through of your story before posting your chapters. This in general is actually something I recommend people to do, even though I forget it myself 9 out of 10 times.

And it seems that you - like me, actually - have a thing for using the word ‘but’ when you’re starting a sentence. Overusing this word makes your sentences look and feel stumped when you read them, and switching it out with the occasional ‘yet’, ‘however’ or ‘still’ wouldn’t do drastically bad things to the way you’re portraying things. Diversity is always good! And while we’re at it, many times your periods could easily be switched with commas or semicolons to make the sentences longer, which, ultimately, would lead to a more smooth flow of your story in general.

TOTAL: 42/100