Baby Romance
written by DarkJustice
reviewed by Moelolz

Title: 7/10
Your title is cute and simple, which corresponds to the similarly simple plotline of your story. Also, based on the fact that this story is part of a series, I think you made a good choice in choosing a title which isn’t too complicated. However, your title does not stand out to me, and if I were to see your title alongside other fanfictions, there is a high chance I wouldn’t have noticed it. A title can be simple and catchy, and I think it would benefit your story more if you chose a more original, or perhaps a more eye-catching title.

Plot: 17/25

                6/10: Setting
                There were clear settings in your stories (the house, shopping mall, convenience store), but there weren’t many descriptions on them. If this was a proper, chaptered story, then perhaps I would’ve asked that you really do add more meaning to your settings, but considering that yours is such a simple one-shot that doesn’t really even stand on its own as a complete story, I personally don’t think it’s absolutely necessary to do that. But nevertheless, I do think that more thoughts could’ve been put into your settings.

I’m not suggesting that you need to go as far as to add depth and meaning for each setting, but you definitely can give your readers more descriptions on them. Right now, you do give me enough hints to allow me to understand where your characters are at, but my impressions on your settings stop exactly at that; I know that they’re in the house, but I have no idea what kind of house it is. There are two ways to change that problem:

1. You could write a few sentences introducing the setting before you go into the action. For example: 
   • Original:  "Baekhyun oppa is so considerate!" Tiffany giggled hitting Taeyeon playfully, they were at a shopping mall- eating after shopping for hours. "Yeah, he really is." Taeyeon shyly smiled and admitted making Yuri punch her. "Aigoo, this love struck girl."
   • Suggested: "Baekhyun oppa is so considerate!" Tiffany giggled, hitting Taeyeon playfully. After hours of shopping, the girls had decided to take a rest at a small, vintage café in the shopping mall. After settling down in the warm and peaceful atmosphere of the café and ordering food that came in exquisite china plates, the girls began gossiping. "Yeah, he really is." Taeyeon shyly smiled and admitted making Yuri punch her. "Aigoo, this love struck girl."
   • Over here, I inserted a brief description of the setting that the girls are at which only really took up around 2 short sentences. Not too much details was given way (and for such a simple and light-heated story like yours, you don’t really need to focus too much on heavy details), but enough was written so that your readers can get a brief idea about the setting.
2. Or you could simply just add a few adjectives before objects:
   • Original: "But, it's kind of settled now, so... I thought of something for mommy." Baekhyun with Taeyeon in his arms walked outside their room and down the stairs where he put her on the kitchen table.
   • Suggested: "But, it's kind of settled now, so... I thought of something for mommy." Baekhyun with Taeyeon in his arms walked outside their spacious room and down the stairs where he put her on the black kitchen table.
   • Though not much detail was given here, but at least it can leave a deeper impression on your readers on what the objects look like, and hence build up a stronger image of the setting in their mind. Personally, I would suggest that if you choose to do this, don’t overdo it. Just add an acceptable amount of adjectives in places where you deem appropriate.

                2/5: Originality
                To be quite honest with you, your story follows a rather clichéd outline. I’m not saying that having a clichéd story is always bad, but it would always do better for your story if you had an original one, since originality in a story really jumps out to a reader. In my experience in reading/writing stories, a clichéd story only ever really jumps out to a reader if: One, there’s a twist in there; Two, the author has amazing writing style and can basically rewrite a clichéd story like their own or Three, the clichéd plot is a plot that a lot of readers like to read, so they don’t mind it being clichéd.

For your story, I’m not sure if the ‘clichedness’ of it is a good thing or not, I have mixed feelings about it. For me, it’s kind of in the middle of the road – whilst I can accept and understand why it’s clichéd (after all, this short one-shot only seemed like it was written to portray a day in the lives of the family and well, how original can a day in their lives be?), but then again, after reading your story, it didn’t really strike out or jump out to me.

                9/10: Believability
                Your story follows a reasonable timeline, and the events are quite believable. It’s also nice how I can imagine the events of your story happening in everyday life; I have nothing more to say in this section, good job.

Characterization: 21/35

                2/5: Presentation
                If I may be so honest, and I do apologize in advance if it offends you, but your presentation of your characters are more or less 2-dimensional. Of course, you did give your characters emotions and I’m not saying that your characters seem lifeless or that they don’t seem real, but your characters don’t have clear individual personality. When I think back to your characters, I find myself unable to precisely name each character’s traits. The only one character that seemed to have a little something more about him was Baekhyun – but then again what I thought was his personality kind of contradicted itself.

When the story first started, you portrayed Baekhyun as a very uncaring and insensitive guy who doesn’t help out his wife at all and only cares about his work. But all of a sudden, he suggested to take care of the baby, and later on in the story Taeyeon even agreed to her friend’s comment that “Baekhyun is considerate” with a smile on her face. Though it’s plausible that he took care of the baby to repent for not helping out before, but what really threw me off was when Taeyeon agreed that Baekhyun was a considerate husband when only a night ago, Baekhyun was mentioned as a husband who “never helped around the house- not even with the children.” Maybe it’s just me being picky, but I felt like Baekhyun’s character was just a bit inconsistent.

                5/10: Development
                Personally, I am not too picky on development when it comes to simple one-shots like yours. With your story being a short snippet of a day in Baekyeol and Taeyeon’s family life, I don’t expect to see your characters being fully developed and what not because after all, only a day has passed in the story.

Therefore, I gave you half mark in this section; five marks off since there is not apparent development in your characters, but I added five marks back in since I don’t see character development as being overly important for your story.

                16/20: Diversity/Purpose
                Despite being unable to find personality in them, there is diversity between your characters, and each character does have a purpose. Honestly speaking, it is quite easy for your story to build diversity and purpose for your characters, since they are already placed in a family setting where each character plays a different role from the other: there’s the father, the mother and the baby son.

With each character already placed in their role in the family, that automatically sets them apart and they are instantly given their purpose; that is, to act out their role as the father, the mother or the son. It was nice to see that each character did act their role out, and though their interactions with each other and their purpose in the story is quite plain, but then again (as I have repeated many times), your story really is just based off a day in the lives of an ordinary family. Therefore, I have nothing against the mundanity of your character’s purpose in the story. In fact, it may even be a good thing since that makes them more realistic and relatable to everyday lives. However, it would still be nice if they had a little something more about them that makes them more attractive to your readers (reference to personality section).

Writing Style: 22/30

                8/10: Narration
                Much like everything else about your story, your write simply. You don’t have the most elegant or beautiful writing style, but the way you write does suit the genre and the mood of your story. In fact, I would even say that the simplicity in your writing was a good thing for the story; the simpleness of it made it an easy read, and also allowed it to be more light-hearted and comedic.

One thing I would suggest though, is I think for your future stories, you can really think on how to increase your vocabulary and write more…I guess beautifully? I’m not saying that every writer needs to have elegant and poetic writing, but I also recommend going on “adventures”. So, have a read at some stories with elegant writing, learn from them and try to write a story yourself in that kind of style, and if you really don’t enjoy writing that way or prefer to write simpler, then by all means go back to your original writing style. But at the very least, you’ve tried other things and I’m sure that would also help you grow as a writer.

                7/10: Consistency/Flow
                Your ideas and writing flowed in a decent manner, but I think it could’ve flowed better. Though I could read through your writing easily, but I just felt like it was missing something that really made it felt absolutely comfortable. I think it really all just comes down to the way you narrate things; your sentences could be made just a tiny bit more sophisticated, and your ideas could’ve been presented in a more metaphorical manner (instead of writing everything out literally). Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling you to make everything really poetic, as I still think that the simpleness in your writing does add to the simpleness of your story, but there should still be sophistication in simpleness.

For example:

Original: There were inside their room, looking at each other with love.

Suggested:  They sat snuggled next to each other inside their room, their eyes twinkling with warmth and affection.

I didn’t change the meaning of your words, but I made it just a tad bit more descriptive. Instead of literally pointing out that they were ‘looking at each other with love’, you could instead describe how they looked at each with love. Of course, I’m not saying that you have to do this to every single line you write, but if you could experiment with this, I think it will merit you very much in your writing as well ask making your words flow in a much more sophisticated and descriptive manner.

One other thing, is that I noticed that sometimes you don’t break your character’s speeches apart, which cuts off the flow for me since it makes it hard for me to read clearly and comfortably when four speeches are crammed into one paragraph. I suggest you break these apart, for example:

Original:  "Mwommy!" Baek Ho cried and cried. "W-what t-to d-do?!" Baekhyun hit himself on the head, "Why did I have to say that?!" Baekhyun felt himself wanting to cry too. Then something hit him- literally. Baek Ho grabbed the book he was reading and threw it on Baekhyun who grunted in pain. "I have to hide this!" Baekhyun picked up the novel and darted towards his room- to hide away the book.

Suggested:

"Mwommy!" Baek Ho cried and cried.

"W-what t-to d-do?!" Baekhyun hit himself on the head, "Why did I have to say that?!".

Baekhyun felt himself wanting to cry too. Then something hit him- literally. Baek Ho grabbed the book he was reading and threw it on Baekhyun who grunted in pain.

"I have to hide this!" Baekhyun picked up the novel and darted towards his room- to hide away the book.

By separating your character’s lines, it makes it easier to read, as well as making easier for you readers to distinguish which character is speaking.

                10/10: Spelling/Grammar
                This may just be a cause of careless mistakes or not editing your story, but I found quite a few small mistakes littered here and there when I was reading your story which sometimes interrupted the flow. Nevertheless, your spelling/grammar in general is pretty decent, so I think these mistakes may just be a case of rushed writing and not checking back on it. I’ll just correct a few I found below:

Original: “Oh it must be that new group, BlackPink.” He said with a hint of happiness. Suddenly Baekhyun found him veryinterested in the TV.

Revised: “Oh it must be that new group, BlackPink.” He said with a hint of happiness. Suddenly Baekhyun found himself very interested in the TV.

Original: Baek Ho shook his head firmly. “Then…you don’t have any taste in women, my dear.” the father told his son in a as-a-matter-of-fact tone.

Revised: Baek Ho shook his head firmly. “Then…you don’t have any taste in women, my dear,” the father told his son in a matter-of-fact tone.

Original: "Aigoo! That sure was sweet." Baekhyun tossed the ice cream cup aside and throwed his head back on the couch all three of them were sitting on.

Revised: "Aigoo! That sure was sweet." Baekhyun tossed the ice cream cup aside and threw his head back on the couch all three of them were sitting on.

TOTAL: 69/100

Overall, it was a short and simple read. It was enjoyable to a certain extent, but I would’ve liked to see more from your characters, and perhaps just that something extra in your writing! Also, I do like to apologize in advance if I came off in anyway as harsh or rude in the review, and I hope this review was helpful to you. Good luck in your future stories!