Review for Breakout

Story Tittle: Breakout
Story URL: http://www.winglin.net/fanfic/cheche/
Author: cheche
Reviewer: xiaoxi

Title: 3/10
Since your story was not completed when I was sent the review request, I figured that the linkage from your story to title only appears in the later part of the story. All in all, I failed to see any connection of ‘Breakout’ in the story. I suggest you start creating the linkage, otherwise the title would not fit in with the story.
Is it So Hee breaking out of her shell? Or did somebody break out in cold sweat? A break out of zits?

Foreword: 4/10
I always find it important to never reveal the plot in forewords. The readers basically know what is going to happen, and because you also provided brief characteristics of the characters, it leaves readers with very little space for finding out more of your story by themselves. I would say readers won’t really be anticipating each update as much because they know what will be happening. It was a relief you’ve excluded the ending from your plot. Instead of directly telling readers of your plot, I suggest you slowly build it up through the chapters and lead the readers into understanding the plot by themselves. Not to mention, you are depending all on the given plot to lure readers. Why not include an excerpt from the story?

It was a bit confusing how the names differ from the ‘main cast’ list and the ‘plot’. take for example, under the main cast list, Ye Eun was spelt with ‘Ye’ but under the plot, it was spelt with ‘Yae’. it is also the case for Hyun A (Hyeon A) and Sun Ye (Sun Yae). As I am familiar with the characters, I don’t really find it much of a problem. However, if your reader happens to be someone new to them, they might find it confusing why their names are spelt differently. Is it a twin sister? Or is it the same person?

I also suggest that you create another section under ‘Author’s Notes’ - or simply A/N - to interact with your readers, instead of using ‘BTW’.

Appearance: 7/10
The poster gave a pretty good idea who is going to be paired with whom. However, the background did not really match the colours of your poster in my opinion. I didn’t really deduct a lot of marks since the text colour was still readable against your background colour.

Plot: 9/15
The plot wasn’t exactly original, but overall it was enjoyable.

Flow: 6/10
‘Breakout’ seems to be a day-to-day life of So Hee and her classmates, but the pace is a little quick. Taking for example Yoo Bin’s realization of such a mean person she has been. If she has been with her clique for that long, it’s going to take more struggling and self-convincing to leave them, but it was all summarized into a few paragraphs.

Originality: 7/10
Not exactly a fully original plot, but hey, who can really come up with a 100% original plot nowadays? The little twists in your story makes it interesting to read, although sometimes the flow is a little too quick.

Spelling/Grammar/Punctuation/Vocabulary: 3/10
The first alphabet to a new sentence should always be capitalized. You also tend to jump between your past and present tense. Perhaps these are all careless mistakes, but the occurrences are too frequent. I suggest you proofread your work after typing them. You can try to type in Microsoft Words before copying and pasting onto Winglin. Microsoft Words will be able to pick out and minimize your mistakes effectively.

Your story also changes between writing in paragraphs and writing in script form. For writings, never use script form! What are the chances of you stepping into a bookstore and picking up a random book to find that it is in script form? Stories are not meant to come looking like scripts. You’re writing a fiction here, not a script. Even if that whole portion of the story is based on dialogues, you should use quotation marks (“…“ or ‘…’).

I found it amusing how So Hee was “crying again and again” in Chapter 2. Did she stop in between her crying? Because after she cried “again and again”, she talked to her friend and “cried again, but this time it was hard”. Seems like she has been holding quite a number of crying sessions. Also from the same paragraph in Chapter 2, you said:
“The 2 of them stayed there. Sun Mi is comforting her. And she was crying, releasing her anger from what happened awhile ago.”
The reason why I picked out this portion was because numbers below ten should always be spelt in full when you are writing, therefore instead of ‘2 of them’, you should use ‘two of them’. Notice also that there was an abrupt change in tense. ‘Stayed’, ‘was’ and ‘happened’ implied that it was past tense, but you wrote “Sun Mi IS comforting her”.

You said:
“So Hee’s eyes was still filled some droplets of tears.”
I suggest:
“So Hee’s eyes still sparkled with tears.” OR
“So Hee’s eyes were still brimming with tears.”
You cannot actually count the droplets of tears in her eyes unless they fall onto her cheek drop wise. “Sparkled” or “brimming” would be a good substitute as they still allow the sentence to hold its actual meaning.

You said:
"I left them because I thought I was happy being with them."
Why would Yoo Bin leave the group if she’s happy being with them? I get that you are trying to say, but it was phrased in a rather odd manner.
I suggest:
“I stayed with them because I thought that was true happiness. Now I realise how wrong I’ve been.”

You said:
"geez--Thanks :D"
This was So Hee’s reply to Yoo Bin when the latter offered her a ride. The reason I picked this sentence was because you failed to capitalize the first letter (which I’ve pointed out to be occurring frequently) and it is actually impossible to have a smiley face in your speech. You don’t actually say “Geez, thanks. Colon D” when you’re talking to people, do you? Therefore, it should be:
“Geez, thanks!” So Hee grinned.
Take note to leave your smilies out of your other dialogues. I noticed you often tend to place a smiley in a sentence.

Characterization: 6/10
I understand it was challenging to develop all the characters of your main cast.
Since you have so many people in your main cast, I shall not go into each and every character. I’m focusing it on Hyun A and Yoo Bin here.

Initially I saw Hyun A as a member of the ‘good girls’ of the class, but suddenly she was the mastermind of the attack incidents happening to Sun Mi. The change in character was really too quick. If it was because of how she’s jealous of Sun Mi, shouldn’t the jealousy build up over time? Therefore, it would have been better if you built up the growing tension instead of shocking your readers with a surprise attack. Or maybe you just wanted a cliff-hanger type of effect? I suggest you build up the tension and leave readers to wonder what Hyun A might do when she can’t take it anymore. That way, it wouldn’t come too abruptly.

As for Yoo Bin, didn’t she already realise what she has been doing all along was wrong? Which was why she did some soul-searching and decided to leave her clique? It was confusing how she had been reflecting upon her own actions and yet disclosed embarrassing photos of So Hee, Sun Mi and Hyun A. If she had wanted to stay mean, then the self realization should be excluded.

Writing Style: 7/10
A day-to-day based story, easy to comprehend. However, try not to change the way you spell their names because it gets confusing, as I’ve mentioned earlier. This is especially the case for TOP/Seung Hyun. For Sun Ye, Ye Eun and Hyun A, readers can still guess that it is them because of the similar names. But TOP and Seung Hyun are two different names altogether, so take note.

Overall Enjoyment: 2/5

Bonus: 1/5
I like authors who take the time to reply to comments :)

Total: 55/100

Reviewer’s note:
Please don’t be disheartened by the total score you’ve received. You have a very interesting story there and I believe it is unfolding into something worth reading. However, you have to work on your Spelling/Grammar/Punctuation/Vocabulary as it is this section which is pulling you down. Bear in mind what I have pointed out, because this is meant to help you to improve.
Before I forget, you have to make a linkage back to your title of ‘Breakout‘! It is essential as your title represents your story, but I cannot see the linkage as of yet. Good luck and thanks for requesting!
Xiaoxi, loves.