Title: My On Flight Boyfriend
Author: singingintherain Genie Reviewer: Pararae
Story Title: 3/5 It suited the story alright, but the most important thing to see in a title is its tendency to attract readers and how interesting it sounded to someone. To all your reader it must have sounded great and to be honest it is to me too, but I just thought it needs a little more sparks. I always search for a title that could make a ‘boom’ in my head, but your title just lack of that. Having it fit to the plot alone is not enough and it takes me to read the whole story to find it interesting. In short, for a first impression, the title did not fill the bill.
Appearance: 6/10 The poster is alright…just…alright. (sorry, designer) I have seen a better poster than this. But I gave you marks because it kind of fit the mood of the story; not too emotionally gloomy and not too happy either. The girl’s picture is alright but I can see that the boys’ pictures are not in high quality. The poster is quite plain and need a little touch-up. I cannot say much because this site does not allow the writer to design for background, because if you have one, I could imagine the story would look nicer.
Forewords/Introduction: 5/10 The foreword is short, very short to the extend that I can’t find anything in there except for characters, summary and teaser? Try to write the basic info such as genre, background, type of story, etc… or maybe a quote to make it look better. Try to write more in foreword without giving out too much but enough hint to make the reader feel intrigue. The empty spaces are meant to be filled with words. If I would to run around with happy feeling in my heart, searching for random story to fill my time, I would have not read your story at all because the first thing I check is title and the forewords. But, why I give you 5? Because at least, you have linked your foreword to your title and basically, because you wrote a summary.
Plot: 17/20 I love your plot. There, I said it. I love your plot, I love your joke, I love your sarcasm, I love your dialogue, I love the way you play with scenes and manipulate it into a storyline that make me laugh like a mad woman and made my cat run away. I did not know who’s the characters are to tell you the truth because Shinee is not my favorite singer, because I listen to Big Bang, 2NE1 and Super Junior, but congratulation! You have made me like them in your story. *applause* What I’m trying to say is that, you are a fantastic plot maker, a great story-teller and have a definitely awesome idea and imagination. But why didn’t I give you full mark? It’s because some of your scenes are rushed and jumpy. I know this should go under ‘flow’ section, but let me tell you this, once you messed up with flow, you messed up with plot and characterization. Your scenes are somewhat scrambled together as if you are trying to packed everything up, maybe you did it without you knowing it, or maybe you just wanted to make sure the 72 hours of flight is full filled with action, scenes, development of characters, feeling and attachment of one character to another. So, take a deep breath, develop a scene/character one at a time slowly and make sure you elaborate it will enough to call it a complete scene before you go to the next one and do the same thing again, ok. Also, I was hoping that the girl would end up with neither of them because I’m angst-lover, but oh well, *shrug* I guess I could be happy if she end up with Jonghyun anyway (at least he didn’t make someone pregnant lolz).
Characterization: 7/10 Your characterization is acceptably enough, but, I would suggest to add more scenes between the level of the main character’s relationship with Jonghyun to enhance the characterization and form a solid ground to their feeling. To tell you the truth, when I read that Jonghyun confessed his feeling, I kind of feel it is somewhat surreal. Make sure you elaborate on each character’s habits, doing, and special behavior so that I understand why they would fall in love with each other that fast. Always elaborate because no story survives without elaboration. It is an important key to one’s story. Elaborate on the characters before you think about the rest. Forming of a complete, real character could be through dialogues but try to balance it up. Overflowing dialogues would not make the story look better without a proper explanation. I can get the character’s personality but how about the rest? Onew is still ambiguous to me. Why Jonghyun’s parents are so eager in sending him to Korea ? Even though you keep saying that Onew loved Miyoung but the prove? I’m not talking about the present, I’m talking about the past. Maybe some flashbacks about Miyoung’s good time with Onew will be nice too.
Creativity/Originality: 3/5 Nothing in this world is original about love story. Hands down, people! I mean, a girl who broke up with a guy who coincidentally wanted to propose her but couldn’t because he found out that a girl who he slept with (accidentally) was pregnant, but after he ended it all, he found out that the girl was lying to him for some reason that I couldn’t put my finger on. So, one day he knew that the girl was going to Korea and somehow followed her just so he could claim her back to be his’. I’ve seen this a lot of times and the fact that you use ‘fake-boyfriend-to-make-him-jealous’ theme is kind of old. But I can see that you are trying to come up with a creative scene yourself, so one mark for that. And the rest goes to your creativity. You manipulate your scene well, the various activities those two loving couples did to make Onew jealous are splendid and the fact that Jonghyun is a very dedicated faker is awesome too. You played well with your imagination and as I said before, you are a great story-teller.
Spelling/Vocabulary/Grammar/Punctuations: 5/10 I know I said you are a great story-teller, but you are writing it down so you need to be a good writer too. There are few mistakes that I spotted and it actually recurring mistakes that you did a few times. So, watch out for your grammar, spelling and punctuations. Also, I realized that you put ellipsis (…) as (….) or (..). Do note that ellipsis can only exist in a set of three, not two, four, five or six.
"You have to wait for you boyfriend, Miyoung."
-It is supposed to be your boyfriend.
he said smirking at me. I paused.
-Do not chop your sentences. Join them whenever you can. For example: he said, smirking at me as I paused.-
"Then let me be it."
-After then, your need to put comma, and it supposed to be ‘one’ instead of ‘it’ because he is a human being not a thing. For example: “Then, let me be one.”-
He smiled at me. Then his smile faded and he shook his head.
-As I said, don’t chop. Example: He smiled at me, but it faded and he shook his head.-
AND THEN when your lost your ring, we had to go on a crazy scavenger hunt for it before we boarded the plane.
-Spelling error; ‘your lost’ supposed to be ‘you lost’-
There really sending me away when I ended everything for them
-I don’t really get this sentence. What do you mean ended everything for them? Do you mean, he has done everything for them? And it should be ‘They really sending me away…’
Hannah got herself pregnant. With another man.
-Do not chop sentences-
"You know it's for the best." dad said, looking into the rearview mirror.
-‘Dad’ should be capital letter-
We drove off the driveway and to the airport….
-Check your ellipsis-
"Just trust me, this flight to Korea will be worth it." my mom whispered into my ear.
-‘Mom’ should be spelled capital letter.-
Her arms we crossed and she was continuously bending/extending her leg.
-Her arms WERE crossed-
"Why are jealous?"
-Its either “Why are you jealous?” Or, “Why? Are you jealous?” because with the way you wrote it, I could tell it fit the second one better, but I couldn’t be sure what are you trying to say.-
"Guess. EVERYTHING is starting to surprise me.
-You miss the closing quotation mark-
I stated Jonghyun rubbed the back of my hand.
-I don’t get this at all.-
As Jonghyun said this a man, who was apparently drunk walked down the aisle towards the restroom
-Please separate your words with correct punctuation mark so that it can give a better understanding to the reader. Example: As Jonghyun said this (,) a man, who was apparently drunk walked down the aisle towards the bedroom.
He waited till JJong was not her!
-watch your spelling. Example: He waited till JJong was not here!-
I went back to looking at the couple.
-I went back to look at the couple-
She shook her at me.
-You mean, she shook her head at me?-
Flow: 6/10 Your flow is kind of fast. Actually it is very fast. I wonder what type of person would fall in love in a matter of three days. It doesn’t make any sense. I have heard of love at the first sight but this is just too…fantasy-like. You need to put break between the levels of their relationship. Make sure you elaborate well enough on the main character’s relationship with Jonghyun as a fake boyfriend and girlfriend, before you could take them to the next level. What I can see is that both of them is taking their relationship at a starting level and suddenly, was thrown into a serious one and it happened so fast. Even if you want to make sure they fall in love in a matter of three days, you need a great elaboration skill to twist it up. You must elaborate on their feelings, the scenes, how their activities is so important to them because this is a matter of emotion and everyone know emotion could go haywire sometimes, but you need a solid ground in making their relationship serious. Don’t do pranks or jokes or any tricks to make Onew jealous as a start of their feeling. There is a different between relationship, helping a person out for the sake of fun and falling in love. When I found that Jonghyun cried because he thought the main character still love her ex-boyfriend, I felt weird somehow. Remember, a writer is the one who write, a good writer is the one who can bring his/her story into a vivid picture, but a great writer is the one who connects reality to his/her idea and bring it to life.
Writing Style: 10/15 Your writing style is very confusing and interesting at the same time. It is interesting because of the jokes, the sarcasm and the author notes you places in brackets. But it’s also confusing when you didn’t double-space the dialogues. Sometimes, I have to read a few times to get who’s talking to who… Not only that, because of your punctuation, your messy and unrevised words made it worse. Next time, when you write dialogues, make sure you double-space them so that the readers can differentiate between the first character’s words and the second character’s words. Also, your paragraph are not arranged neatly. Sometimes, its long and stacking all the dialogues together but sometimes, it is neatly versed in elaboration. Keep it simple! Different dialogue, different paragraph. Elaboration is needed after the dialogue unless it is recurring so that the reader would not be confused of who is talking and who’s listening. Keep it in paragraph no matter how short the dialogue is unless it is spoken by the same person, ok.
Overall Enjoyment: 4/5 I enjoyed your story so much that I can’t stop reading and ended up reading it all in one day, but the only reason I deducted one mark because there are too many errors in writing style, spelling, punctuations and grammar that I mentally corrected it in my head. It disturbed my reading, so please recheck your story before posting. Don’t rely on the spell-check in Microsoft Word too much because it is better if you re-check it yourself or maybe find someone to re-read and correct it for you. I hope you did not take any offense in my comment and I hope you can improve more to be a better writer. Idea must come with skills and imagination must flow in a constant pace so it can be more realistic. Always sharpen your skill everyday and learn new things because you got what it takes to be a great writer but it must all come in effort. So, good luck!
Total: 66/100
