Friday, January 11, 2013

itsme456's Something Better

Author: itsme456
Link: http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/349888/something-better-angst-oneshot-sweet-originalcharacter-exo-exom-kris



Your fic was well written, but it does not satisfy me as a fanfic reader. I know Kris’s name and recognize his face/eyebrows, I’d be okay with reading a fic about that man. This wasn’t a fic about Kris though; it was about some random girl. As a stand alone story, not a fanfiction, it’s okay. All I got from it is that a girl broke up with her boyfriend and she is upset but becomes hopeful that the future will be better.

The message is there, but it is very quiet. I see that the OC lady person had some sort of epiphany, but there isn’t a reason for her to have one. Just looking at a happy couple and thinking, “Oh, maybe they were meant to be,” is not going to suddenly change her pessimisms. In the first place, it seems like she’s just overly grumpy instead of in a state where any sort of self-realization even matters.

You didn’t delve deep into her emotions, so her transformation turns out superficial. Literally, all she did was put her head down and suddenly her spirit is reborn and ready for anything. The only thing I actually saw change about her was her smile. It went from business and fake to genuine. I wish you had expressed the thoughts behind those stiff smiles.

When a fanfic is short like this and you want to make an impact, try to connect with the reader and lay on the cheesy romance, the sincere fluff, the heartfelt sadness, and the bitter anger we’ve all felt at one point. The only sentence that really expressed emotion was the one about the parlor being empty and something about insecurity overflowing like a faucet. That one sentence doesn’t even directly relate to the conflict the girl is having.

If we ignore the fact that this is a fanfic, your fic is quite anti-climactic. It’s very safe. You didn’t try to add any extra drama (other than her ex-boyfriend) and didn’t engage the reader.

For a story written in first person, it lacked quite a lot of voice. There wasn’t any personality in it. She just broke up with her boyfriend, where is her deep bitterness; her loathing for happy couples; her attitude? There is more to characterization than just physical aspects. How do they think; how do they talk; how do they interact with the other people?

With oneshots it is very important to get across even the bare minimum details. How did her ex-boyfriend treat her; how has her life changed without him; how has she changed; what was so special about the couple that made her transform? The reader won’t feel moved when there is nothing substantial in the story to move them in the first place. This story is very empty.

What exactly made her change?

Even as a fanfic, this is overall plain boring. It’s about a girl that I don’t even care about, and she’s acting kind of upset, then she’s not, and she serves them pizza. This is supposed to be a fiction about what you are a fan of. I understand you liking pizza, but putting Kris’s name on a male body does not appeal to readers and makes this quite uninteresting.

In a oneshot, focusing on the OC girl is not cool. Chaptered fics at least offer the promise of having the idol come in later and playing a larger role, but in oneshots it’s either now or never. By the end of a oneshot, unless everyone is dead, the reader should want to know what happens next. What happens next in your story? I don’t particularly care; this girl doesn’t matter to me.

At least the girl wasn’t annoying, especially when this was written in first person. An overly dramatic weeping girl would have driven me mad. I just wish this had focused on Kris instead of the girl. My biggest advice to you would be to practice developing scenes and characters. You don’t make rookie mistakes like POV changes and obnoxiousness, but you also don’t do what makes so many fics popular, and that is, write about anything the readers have an interest in. You haven't quite grasped what makes a fanfic a fanfic, so practice that. Um, look at chapter 17 of Why People Hate Your Story for a reference?

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

itsme456's Rainy Day

Author: itsme456
Link: http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/348547/rainy-day-angst-bigbang-oneshot-top-originalcharacter


1)      Title-5/10 pts
a)      It’s pretty simple title, pretty boring, no particularly eye-catching, kind of generic
b)      But it isn’t bad. It’s not a crazy or super cliché title, so that’s good.
c)      It matches with the mood of the story
d)     But there were better things you could have pinpointed. The fact that it was raining when the accident happened doesn’t affect the story and doesn’t connect to the reader.
2)      Foreword, Description, Tags, and Introduction-12/15 pts
a)      You didn’t make an dreadful mistakes
b)      But it didn’t invite me in to read. Because your title is not interesting, the only thing selling the fic is the description. It got the point across, didn’t reveal too much, and sounded good, but it wasn’t enough to make me want to read the fic.
c)      While, yes, the function of the foreword is to just leave a note or something, I urge you to put maybe a paragraph from the actual fic so the reader has something else to grasp at. At least try and explain the mood of the fic or explain your writing style. There are two ways I can take your writing and it really depends on how you intended it to be.
3)      Basics-29/30 pts
a)      POV: No changes, good.
b)      Font: A little change, but it was Times New Roman so I don’t mind much.
c)      Structure: This is good too.
d)     Alignment: No changes, good.
e)      Dialogue: Didn’t tell the story, good.
4)      Proper Grammar-10/10 pts
a)      Yup, you can write English properly.
5)      Character Development-20/50 pts
a)      Well, you showed me TOP is sad, but you didn’t show me who TOP is. How does he act outside of his guiltiness and mellowing? You had the opportunity to include just a paragraph about TOP recording the variety show and killing the audience with his funny personality.
b)      Showing how TOP struggles with his inner turmoil while keeping a strong façade for everyone else would have really upped the effect of his angst.
c)      TOP could be switched out for anyone else and the story would have been the exact same. The person in your story isn’t TOP, he is just borrowing his name.
d)     His emotions and reasoning are demonstrated fairly well, but they were rather lack-luster, as if you were describing the color gray.
6)      Originality and Predictability-10/35 pts
a)      As nothing really happened…
b)      It did seem kind of cookie-cutter, everything was obvious. As soon as TOP asked to go to the hospital the entire story is easy to predict. You didn’t offer anything other than the main part of the idea.
c)      Hospital fics are quite common, especially with that never-getting-better, about-to-die, and morose situation the loved one is usually in. This is a very typical hospital fic.
d)     Because it is obvious that TOP is sad because he loves her and she is hurt and that is all that happens, the story does not spark any interest. If there had been more to the story that could have perhaps thrown a twist into their love story that I think they have, it would have been better.
7)      Focus ad Flow-15/25 pts
a)      Because you intend for your story to be linear, it did not flow that well. You broke things up that didn’t need to be.
b)      From the very beginning, after telling the driver to take him to the hospital, TOP could have watched the raindrops on the window and remembered his lover.
c)      The dream was not incorporated smoothly.
8)      Plot -20/50 pts
a)      Sticks Plot: TOP is sad and stays sad, watching his lover.
b)      Understandable: It is easy to understand. I can summarize it for you. TOP is sad, his lover was in an accident. TOP is sad.
c)      Interesting: No, it wasn’t that interesting. It felt like I was watching someone roll around in bed and finally get up to pour a cup of coffee for themselves. With angst fics, you can’t just describe things as simply as “his face showed fear and grief.” Angst is emotions and confusion and heartbreak. To really capture the essence of angst, it would have done you better if you had demonstrated the difference in TOP’s lifestyle with and without her and showed why he cares for her. More in the note.
9)      Realistic-50/50 pts
a)      I suppose it is, though nothing really happens.
10)  Author grew as a writer- 1-5
a)      Invalid as it is a oneshot
11)  Readers’ comments- no points awarded
a)      Invalid as there aren’t any comments

171/275
62%

Here’s the thing, it’s your first time writing fics (so I believe) and you haven’t quite grasped what a good angst oneshot needs. A oneshot is the perfect place for angst because oneshots don’t need all the finer background details and angst just focuses on emotion. What you did is just focus on the physical aspect and included no details at all, forget the finer ones. You see it is all about TOP crying, his lip quivering, and walking and moving, but not about what he was feeling and why he was feeling it.

He is sad because the person he loves is in a coma. Why is he sad? Because he loves her. Why does he love her? Then it is blank. If I don’t know why he loves her, I don’t actually know why he is sad, and the entire point of the fic is lost. The purpose is to express TOP’s agony over seeing his lover suffer, but all you did was show a man who is waiting anxiously for his lover to wake up.

Oneshots can be choppy and out of synch, angst ones all the more so, but because you wrote it in a linear format where you described what was going on one at a time, you lost the poetic choppy flow and just made it choppy. Really, just moments of TOP taking a step back from what he was doing and thinking, not in a thought, but as part of the narration, the flow would have been smoother.

A full review is not suited for a short oneshot like yours. This type is for stories with at least a plot that doesn’t focus on exactly one thing. I suppose I could create a new scale for artful literate fics, but I haven’t yet. Oh well. You should have asked for a helping review; I would have done a better job explaining and could offer constructive criticism. 

The biggest thing I need to get across is that you need to explain WHY TOP is sad and distraught. Not to infringe on your creative style, but it lacked that necessity to be a TOP fanfic. Without the why, the fic is quite boring as both a oneshot and an angst.

popgirl345543's The Endless Seasons


Author: popgirl345543

The title is fitting.

The description is beautiful

Summer: Scent of sunshine and freshly picked blossoms. Sound of fireworks cascading down the velvety sky, the smell of burning wood in a hot campfire, the feel of a cool breeze on those warm nights. The melody of the turning of crisp pages. Among the smell of written memories, fingers traced the same characters. He forgot that she couldn’t follow if he wasn’t holding her hand.

She’s blind and your charming imagery clued me in.

To be honest, I don’t really see any problems with your fic. It’s very well written and makes me feel things. It’s not cheesy, it’s fluffy. The entire fic had a warm sentimental feeling to it (save for the part during the winter when she felt helpless), and only touched on the angst when Kris died. It was more like surprise angst that I knew to expect. Angst fics don’t need to be angsty throughout the entire work; that is when it turns out cheesy.

If you had instead gone that route, making everything angsty, the fic probably would have lost the ability to move people. Seohyun suffered for being blind her whole life, then her true love bit the dust and just as she gains the ability to see, she can’t look at him. Then she died. That would have been terrible. I am so glad you focused on what made her happy instead. You built up the suspense of Kris’s death and the impact it had on her at the time.

If you really wanted to go full blown angst and really crush all the warm happy feelings the readers get (and have them hate you), then you would nee to show how Seohyun that couldn’t enjoy the stars, or reading, or the winter anymore. I feel like the little bit you did at the end of spring was enough. It would be overkill otherwise.

Considering this is a very short fic, one that doesn’t need to be any longer, your flow was fine. Because these are all of Seohyun’s memories, and memories are just thoughts and moments that our brain chooses to remember, the flow of the story is fitting. It matches her stream of consciousness, as if she was really thinking all those things. Our memories are not linear emotions that flow like a gently streaming river. Memories are abrupt and shifty and we get lost in them.

The story itself was actually kind of linear. All the flashbacks, which you incorporated very well, led into the next flashback. Summer was when they were kids, autumn they were growing up, winter their relationship was reaching the next level, and spring they were separated, epilogue she dies.

Characterization, once again, fine considering the fic is so short. Kris might have seemed a little perfect, but that was just how Seohyun remembered him. She loved him; therefore, she remembers him in a loving way. Seohyun was very developed and deep, and I was able to understand her from the imagery and feelings that were described.

I really liked this fic and I don’t know what you’re asking me to help you with. Maybe I’m just biased because this is the type of fic I like to read, but you did a good job.

I tried to look at the other review you got to see what they said, but everything they marked you off for is crap and the reviewer doesn’t recognize good literature. They were mad because you paired Kris up with Seohyun? If anything, they should be mad that Seohyun was paired up with Kris because the story is about her not him.

Five chapters is the perfect length for this. What more could you write for each season? And spring was when she graduated and left all her friends behind. Spring is death. All the important parts of her life were there and it made for a great short ficlet. The ficlet can’t even be described as rushed because they are memories and they are ephemeral thoughts in one’s head. In fact, when you actually took time to describe in greater detail Kris’s accident, I felt it was odd, but even then, tragic moments are easier to remember than happy moments.

They were too blind and ignorant to recognize that Seohyun was blind in the very first chapter, don’t know what they are complaining about.

It’s all a big oneshot to me, and I have a great appreciation for oneshots. Easiest review ever.

Friday, January 4, 2013

mafalda's 집 - Home

Author: mafalda
Link: http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/211532/home-action-amber-family-kryber-krystal-romance-home

I apologize about the formatting. Because I copied the Hangul, it got messed up.

I just want to point out that the other review you got was bullshit. They shouldn’t have graded you on your graphics because reviews are for what is written. I also think they focused too much on your grammar and sentence structure when that is clearly not your strong point. It was almost bullying the amount they pointed out. It’s all crap that she said you had a good plot but took off points because there have been movies about it. There have been movies about practically everything so that shouldn’t deter you. And I could easily say that I didn’t enjoy your fic (not that I am) because I don’t like to read about homosexuals (which isn’t the case) and I think it’s ridiculous that their enjoyment of the story is part of the grade. I think the only thing that review could have helped you with is your grammar, and even, then, it would just be easier to get a dedicated beta than make those changes and try and match it elsewhere.


The title of your story, while simple, is actually quite nice and the added Hangul makes it ever so slightly eye-catching. In the description, I was pleased to see that you defined immediately and gave me an idea of the what the story was about. It would have helped to tie what the story is about to home besides the definition, but it is nothing to fret over. So far, I dont see a clear reason as to why the story is called Home. I can small reasons, but not really.  

Your foreword is okay. It set up the story, yes, but as I was reading it I felt overwhelmed. I wasnt overwhelmed in a sense that I couldnt read anymore, but I didnt know who Jack and Frank are. There are several ways to start a story, and one of them is to throw the reader into the action. I dont know if you were trying to do it that way, but if you were, you werent doing it quite correctly. You want to throw them in at the most crucial part of an action scene.

If you were just trying to be suspenseful while setting up the back story, you bored me because you didnt mention Amber or Krystal. This is a story about these two girls, so I dont particularly care about the father and other men. It would have been better to describe Krystal being followed and how she doesnt know what is going on but she feels like she is in danger (or just something related to Krystal) and then smoothly switching to Jack who discovered that she was being tailed and is informing Frank on what to do. This scenario, or something similar, which focuses on Krystal or Amber first would have caught the readers attention more.

But you didnt really do anything wrong, those are just suggestions for improvement. Im so glad you didnt do any character profiles or include pictures. I am questioning why you changed the font. You didnt need to

Ugh, you have text selection turned off.



The flow of the story is a little messed up. You include a lot of things, but you don’t take time to make them significant nor do you elaborate them. For instance in Chapter 2 when the setting is being introduced, you briefly mention things like the traditional houses or the door opening.

 

A few minutes later, something on the door moved and a rectangular open appeared, revealing the eyes of an old asian lady.

 

This sentence is rather awkward. I don’t exactly know what you mean by “something on the door moved and a rectangle open appeared” but I have a guess. Here is an example of how you could have embellished it.

 

A few minutes later there was a click of a switch and they could see a rectangle outline before it slid open, light shining out of the slot to reveal the wrinkled almond eyes of a woman whose lids were already sagging into her line of vision.

 


It sounds more sophisticated than saying “an old asian lady.”


Then you should take a moment to describe the atmosphere more. How is Krystal feeling? What is the weather like? Windy, cold? How does the old woman act besides the smiling? Her posture? Compare this house to the other houses, is it any different?


If you don’t take the time to describe actions, feelings, and thoughts, the story sounds rushed and doesn’t leave an impression. Make everything significant, or at least sound important.
Also, try to use mature language.


 

The main sliding door was open, revealing a some kind of living room with a long table in the middle, a lot different from the tables Krystal was used to see back in America: this one was really low and dark, contrasting with the color of the whole house, which was all built with a pretty, light-brown wood.


Here is my example. All I did was change a few words and rearrange the sentences.

The main sliding door was open, exposing a living area containing furniture that Krystal was not accustomed to seeing in America. The long table in the middle of the room sat low to the floor, the dark surface contrasting with the color scheme of the house as most of the other furniture and walls were a light-brown, mimicking Oak wood.

Something that will really help the flow is transitions. For instance, directly after the description of the house, Krystal puts on the slippers. Simple follow up on the house by mentioning that Krystal glances at the elder woman taking off her shoes and putting on the slippers. Smooth transitions help ease the choppiness of the flow.

How did she not wake up when they took her from her room? I wake up when someone even walks up the stairs. Please reconsider revising this detail. Maybe include how they might have drugged her or used some other method to ensure that she remained unconscious.

Be creative with your words. While I’m not suggesting that you use a thesaurus and use any word that might mean the same thing, do try to change it up. You may use a thesaurus and use different words if you know what they mean. To describe the “old asian lady” you could use “aged” or “elderly.” “Old” is a very simplistic word.

You are confusing the function of a colon (:) for a semicolon (;). I don’t really know the function of a colon; a semicolon is used to break up two or more related sentences.

Your sentence

Creepy, at the same time nice; the old lady was always smiling.

Corrected:

Creepy yet, at the same time, nice; the old lady was always smiling.

You might feel that the flow is slow because you are including a lot of information, but in reality you are not including many important parts, nor do you make those included important parts stand out from the normal description. As the author you probably feel like you want to tell everything you can think of about the story to the reader, but you always want to progress with the actual storyline. The reader wants the story to progress too.

I want to see Amber from the get-go.

You spent too much time describing the settings (in the early chapters) and not enough focusing on the plot.

The development of the story should have several components. There is the plot, the characters and their relationships, and the different settings. It’s great that you can picture the settings of the story very well, but you also need to pay greater attention to the actual plot. What I get from the first three chapters is that Krystal is in danger and is now in Korea. I shouldn’t be able to summarize the three chapters in one sentence.

Because you generally write paragraphs that are only one to three lines long (through about chapter 11), I suggest that you try not writing long paragraphs. Well, your long ones are not really long, they’re pretty average, but in comparison to your average length, they are excessively long and make me want to skip them. I just know as a reader that if I am used to reading short paragraphs, the longer ones either intimidate or look to long to read and I skim through or skip them all together.

So characters and their relationships. None of the characters make me want to rip my hair out and you have the basics for them down. When you are describing their expressions and actions, you also have to make it flow smoothly. People don’t wear masks that change instantaneously depending on the emotions they are feeling.

Amber really make me feel this. Your characters lack life.

Krystal might ask herself what the hell is going on, but it really feels like me, the reader, is asking all these things. What does Jack do? What’s the deal with this gang? Why Korea? What’s wrong with being gay? While there is clearly something going on, Krystal asks very simple questions, and all you’ve shown is her confusion. You need to develop the other aspects of her. I’ve seen confusion and only confusion. It was mentioned that Krystal felt homesick and lonely, but you didn’t really show it. There is more to characterization than just mentioning thoughts and saying things.

To give Krystal some life, show more of how she is adapting to Korean culture. You always seem to cut it off just as she is embracing these novelties. Also, give Krystal some more personality. She might be arrogant, spoiled, and clueless, but I can’t really tell because her actions do not expand on who she is.

With Amber, she seems to be angry then laughing in seconds. She too lacks actions to support her. The only thing I get out of her is that she has a habit of running her hand through her hair.

In reality, the only things you have characterizing them is their conversations and the background information paragraphs. I know that Krystal and Jack are like siblings from the info you spouted out, not the childish banter they could have had (I don’t consider their normal banter as childish because it seems too serious instead of playful). I know Amber is lesbian because of the picture on her phone and how she admitted it. She hardly ever has thoughts about girls, doesn’t act any different from a normal girl (not that they do, but I’ll explain this in a bit), and only just recently started to express feelings for Krystal.

I’m saying that Amber doesn’t act lesbian because she doesn’t show even the bare minimum signs of her being Amber; she’s just that blonde girl who also previously lived in America and happens to like girls. The only time you ever described Amber’s clothes she was in her uniform. Talk about Amber’s fashion sense! How she wears pants! You haven’t mentioned that a single time. It would be overkill to repeat her attire every single time they meet, but at least do it once. Another part of Amber is that she seems like a very confident person, so you should use that to portray her as a strong, level-headed, masculine female.

Now onto your plot. What is it? You have set up this story about gangs and getting killed but you also have this romance story with themes of homosexuality and coming to terms with it. This could easily be a story about either of those elements as a singular story, and so far, you haven’t combined the two together efficiently. If you are going to add these things to the story, make them an important part of your story.

The other reason your flow feels off is because you mention at one point that Joe might be a traitor, then a few weeks later they are dropping Krystal off at school. You made absolutely no connection between Krystal’s school life and relationship with Amber to the danger she is in and the bodyguards and all that fun stuff. The closest you get to this is having the bodyguards follow Krystal around, Jack disrupting their fun together, and Amber witnessing it. They don’t find Amber a threat after one dinner with Jack? Amber’s life hasn’t faced any danger?

To add more to Krystal, tie her relationship with Amber to the gang situation, and even connect the story to the title, really show how spoiled Krystal and bratty is with how she acts towards her guards/Jack/her grandmother, and also show how she adapts to living in Korea. The more she demonstrates interactions with protection from the gang (and I suppose inquires more about what Jack and her father do) and the more she changes, the more you can say the Krystal finds Korea her new home.

You have to tie things together and you have to do that by developing the story. Develop your plot and characters with actions and emotions; stop relying on dialogue and splashes of information. Don’t tell the reader, show them.

About the originality of your fic. It’s not really original, there is a plethora of other stories/movies/books/things that could follow similar lines as this. So that people aren’t telling you “Oh, I saw this in a movie. Someone else wrote something similar,” you need to… do exactly what I said, develop it. Just by developing those generic topics, you have already made a different and unique story.

Oh, and your English is a big problem. Because English and Portuguese do not translate completely smooth, I recommend finding someone that either speaks Portuguese and English well or someone that is willing to sit down with you and really revise your sentences. I’d say that, yes, your grammar and confusing wording is probably a factor for why you might lack readers, if you felt that was even a problem.

You did it so many times, you confused “in” and “on.”

IN means inside, within, into.
An example sentence, “She was wrapped in the warm sweater.”  

ON means on top of, lying on, resting on.
An example sentence, “She was walking on the surface of beach.”

Your story is not bad at all. It has all the basics a fic needs and doesn’t make many errors other than not focusing on KryBer for the first few chapters and introducing the story too abruptly. Everything else here is just to make your story better.

Smothers you with feels, I love The Man from Nowhere