I’d like to point out that using informal words such as ‘gonna’ is not appropriate for writing. Contractions are suitable for first person, of course, but not words like the one I pointed out. In addition, dialogue tags SHOULD NOT be capitalised unless the start of the dialogue tag is a name. This is the most basic rule of writing dialogue, and also the most common mistake I see in almost every book.
P.S. Dialogue should always be in a new paragraph.
P.P.S. [Mirror image] can also be replaced by [reflection].
Here are some mistakes and how to correct them:
[How come this happened to me?] is informal English. It should be [Why is this happening to me?] or [How is this happening to me?]
[I am still speechless to the class president…] demonstrates the wrong use of the preposition. Instead, it should be [I am still speechless at the class president…]
[Our CCTV camera is out of date.] doesn’t make sense here. I’m pretty sure there’s no way a CCTV camera can be out of date, so maybe you were going for a different phrase here?
Overall, your grammar is pretty good for a non-native English speaker. You still have room for improvement as the mistakes you make are usually really common mistakes that can’t really be seen but are still there regardless. I’m sure you’ll get there eventually, tough, so I’m impressed!
ATTRACTION :: 7/10
The eventual inclusion of the other main character, i.e. the Jungkook behind the mirror definitely did spice things up a little and kept me interested in the story.
CHARACTERS :: 6/10
Let’s start with the introduction chapter. I’m honestly not a big fan of the whole concept of introducing your characters at the beginning of the story, mainly because it ruins the fun in reading. We read to immerse ourselves in the story, and also to explore the characters on our own, and slowly figure out what kind of person they are. By giving us your characters’ personalities from the start, it takes away the opportunity for readers to find out about the characters themselves, because whatever they can find out is already written in the introduction chapter.
Other than that, I like that you gave readers a lot of room to explore your main character. The descriptions, though a bit too much sometimes, allowed me to try to immerse myself in the main character’s role and figure out how he feels. However, I’d like to point out that in the first chapter, he mentioned that he thinks his parents need to fix his ‘bunny teeth’, but he finds it cute. This didn’t make sense to me, because why would you want your parents to fix something about yourself if you yourself find it cute?
Overall, your characters were fine, and I was given good enough information to explore the characters myself even if I ignore the introduction chapter. There is a lot of room for improvement, though. I believe that the conflict can be developed better, because right now Jungkook’s drive for suicide seems a bit childish to me after reading the conflict scenes. I suggest that you amplify those scenes in order to better justify why Jungkook feels that way.
WRITING STYLE :: 6/10
I don’t know where else to put it, but I think here’s the best place to. The fact that you have to put faceclaims in order for readers to visualise what your ORIGINAL characters look like already shows that your writing style is inadequate in describing your characters. You should be able to vividly describe your characters such that your readers would be able to visualise how your characters look like, instead of just showing them a faceclaim, as this really defeats the purpose of you having to write a book to communicate to your readers.
The paragraphing was appropriate, and I was able to follow the flow of the story. However, I’d like to point out that there are way too many descriptions. Sure, descriptions are good for readers to visualise scenes, but it seems like you’re overdoing it here, which can backfire. I suggest that you shorten the scene a bit such that the descriptions can be minimised, but at the same time still allow readers to visualise whatever is going on.
Overall, I enjoyed the writing style. I don’t usually see a book written in both the first person perspective as well as in present tense, so that was a really interesting read. I’d like to suggest that you mention Jungkook’s name somewhere in the first few paragraphs of the first chapter, because I forgot whose perspective the book was in and started thinking ‘I’ was a girl, which could potentially confuse other readers too.
OPINION :: 7/10
The story definitely has the potential to succeed. The plot is unique, so readers will definitely be attracted to this aspect. You should work on the grammar and characters more in order to make the story more perfect.
OVERALL ::
I wouldn’t say I enjoyed the story, but I wouldn’t say I didn’t enjoy it either. So far, it’s more of a so-so story for me. This doesn’t mean you’ve failed though. You have a lot to work on, especially for the characters. I’m sure the story will be a great success one day. Have fun writing!
TOTAL :: 66/100
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