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.