Title: SUG4RPOP
Author: laineejosephine
Reviewer: CoffeeAndSilverInk
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SYNOPSIS
What would you do if you were offered the opportunity to achieve everything you'd ever dreamed of, and all you had to do was take one chance?
That is the question Byeol Seong is currently asking herself. Stuck in a dead-end job, living at home with her controlling mother, and at her lowest, Byeol is given the chance to finally take ahold of her life-long dream of becoming a succesful musician.
The girls of SUG4RPOP offer Byeol opportunities and options she'd only ever dreamed of. With her new band, Byeol is given the shot at fame she's always wanted, but what will happen when a foolish mistake threatens to tear all their hard work apart and send the new band spiraling?
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Note: The following review is written by someone with no real writing credentials (uni degrees and anything of sorts), only the experience of many years within the wattpadian writing world and having written over 50 reviews in the past 2 years. Please note that reviews are subjective and not law, that they're opinions and should be taken with a pinch of salt. If the following review in any way offends you, please note that that is not the goal and it is one person's view of your story. You are entitled to agree or disagree with the raised points. If you are hurt and need to leave hate comments to feel validated, please don't. The reviewer doesn't care.
Title and Cover:
The title uses the name of the band that the story follows, therefore it's perfect. I am not the biggest fan of the cover. In my opinion it would look better if the whole title was written in the same font and the glow font was used on top. Obviously I haven't seen it that way, so I might be wrong. The colours of the background image are eye catchy, which is great, and the fonts picked also match. I suggest making the author's name smaller so that there is space between the beginning/end letters and the end of the cover.
Blurb:
The big spaces between each paragraph make them seem independent and blurbs should be consistent.
The blurb introduces the main character and her current life, as well as the main issue, very well. I think it'd be good to develop it more, but so far it is good and works.
Plot/Flow:
This is the story of a girl with a dream that finally manages to accomplish it, but that dream comes with costs. At first I thought it didn't make sense that the band was hiring when they were about to crumble, but I'm a huge Step Up fan and I know this is a plot that works. The "struggling to keep the dream alive" kind of plot is nothing new, we know it works and it has made some really great stories, so it would be naive of me to point out a flaw that is actually important to the plot. Besides, they needed a guitarist to call themselves a band and start working properly.
Openings are the most important part of a story, and this one could be improved. Instead of saying "pretty woman", try describing her. Also, don't introduce Byeol in such a detached way as "...song that the young woman, Byeol,...", because adding her name in the middle of the paragraph instead of saying her name right away makes it less meaningful, and "in question" is not the best sentence to use in storytelling when you're doing third person omniscient, it's too formal for this type of book. Also, avoid saying "her radio" because it's already implicit that it is hers.
Starting a story with the character waking up is one of the biggest writing clichés. In this book, there's no need to establish a routine for the character so I would start the story somewhere else. The lunch break is when she finds out about SUG4RPOP so I suggest starting there. The first chapter establishes how she dislikes her job and how her mum doesn't approve of her dream, and those points can be made later on in the chapter and avoid the waking up cliché.
Byeol is the main character, however the story is focused on SUG4RPOP, so it'd be interesting to show more of the rest of the girls. They have their own bits of the story in later chapters but those parts that follow them could be introduced as soon as they join the story so that we get to see more of the characters.
I wonder how she works at a travelling agency at eighteen. I don't know how that works in Seoul, but in my country you need a university degree to have that kind of job.
The flow is slow, which is not bad because it allows the relationships between characters to be established and to introduce each character in depth. However, that wasn't accomplished in the best way possible. I'll go back to that in Characterization.
When Byeol decides to be a part of the band, she has a fight with her mum, but even after that she is having trouble making a decision. That fight is significant to her decision but I think it could be more obvious. Byeol is having doubts, but that could be more developed before the fight, so that once the fight happens she has no doubts anymore, because that's the breaking point.
Obsydium is an important band in the story and they are introduced early on through a magazine. Because they are characters that will interact soon, the magazine scene could be more significant. Maybe one of the characters could read an article or Byeol could be wondering about them and asking questions about them to their bandmates. Prepare the readers for their debut per se.
Byeol's mum showing up outside the club in the middle of the night is weird. It was late and there's no previous knowledge that would back up having her out of the house and in that part of the town. Unless she was looking for Byeol, and in that case it should be more explicit that she was out searching for her. She's right to be worried but when Byeol left her she should've known she wasn't coming back.
Descriptions:
The descriptions are good, but they are lacking in places where they should be. There are many scenes in which "Show, don't tell" would've come in hand, such as saying that her mum yelled at her instead of actually having her mum yell at her, saying she was feeling a certain way instead of showing it.
The place and character descriptions are good but there are lots of characters and places that were never described or barely described. Descriptions are the soul of a book and make reading more pleasant and paint a picture in the reader's mind.
Characterization:
There's an issue with introducing many characters at the same time because for the reader there are names but they aren't associated with any set of characteristics in particular. If each character had a more meaningful introduction (or even a later on scene) it would make it easier for the reader to know who is who.
In the first chapters past the audition, Byeol spends a lot of time with the girls, but the interactions solidify their relationships without really getting in depth about the characters' personalities. Later on it was easy to know Kaen is petty and Lisa has social anxiety, but during the beginning chapters I kept confusing everyone. They definitely need to be more fleshed out in earlier chapters and make lasting impressions.
Byeol seems a sweet character but she also lacks depth. I can't summarise a single character's personality because I feel like they all have unexplored potential. The idea is there, they all have sets of characteristics, but I can't grab onto them.
They said Byeol lacked confidence but she was charismatic. Confidence is a form of charisma, or rather charisma stems from confidence, so I don't understand how she can lack confidence while at the same time being charismatic.
The mum's the easy character. She has a victim mentality in the last chapter. She can't support her own daughter's dreams and always victimises herself with the whole "Am I that awful?" and quotes of sorts in which she blames herself for Byeol's refusal to live with her. It's about Byeol, but she needs to make it about her. She's quite the narcissist. I was thinking the development was heading to them making up, but I'm not sure anymore.
The Obsydium boys are children. They have the same issue of being introduced all at the same time (except for Xander and later the one Lily ran into). Their interaction was funny and we got to know how their dynamic works but I also found them a bit childish. They're also pretty dumb for signing the contract so easily. They barely thought about it, they just signed because they thought it would bring them fame but it's a terrible deal and fame is not worth having no life, so I'm having a hard time understanding why they signed so easily.
Writing:
I like the header quotes in the beginning, they give the story a special touch.
In chapter one, the word "flowing" was used to describe a melody. That doesn't make much sense in terms of vocabulary. It was also said Byeol had an audition "tomorrow", however the text is in the past tense, therefore, to make grammatical sense, the expression should be "the next day". Similar issues happen throughout the story. When writing in the past tense, stick to it and avoid expressions that indicate the present tense.
Weak adverbs should be avoided in storytelling (e.g. really, very, clearly, obviously,...). To increase readability, I suggest putting the translations in front of the quotes (e.g. "Omma, galkkeyo!/I'm going, Mom!". I put some of those quotes on Google Translate and it gave me different translations from the ones used, however Google Translate cannot be trusted.
There are misspellings, sentences that make no sense, randomly placed full-stops and punctuation issues throughout the book, but nothing that can't be fixed with a reread and edit. Some parts of the text are mechanical and could be improved. There are also many 1-liner paragraphs that decrease readability. The expression "as she" is also overused in the beginning chapters.
Using verbs like "felt" or "watched" when what happened could be said straight to the point make the text less concise and the flow less cohesive. (e.g. "She could feel a drip of cold sweat..."(chap 3)/She felt a drip of cold sweat; "she felt her ears ger warm" (chap 7)/ Her ears got warm.)
Some quotes are breaking the fourth wall, which is fine if that's the intended writing style, but it doesn't seem likely. This is a type of writing that should be embraced and used every time it's convenient, but the majority of the story does not follow that style.
In chapter 3 there are two paragraphs that start with "On the other hand", one after the other.
For dialogue, here are some rules:
When it's the same person talking don't split the paragraphs.
Dialogue should always be between quotation marks.
For punctuation there are two ways to finish dialogue
E.g.
"Lara likes honey," said Brianne. (US) or "Lara likes honey", said Brianne. (UK)
This is when the quote ends in a dialogue tag, a continuation of the sentence. Every time we finish the quote with a dialogue tag we place a comma after the quote.
"Lara likes honey." Brianne frowned. (US) or "Lara likes honey". Brianne frowned (UK)
This is when the quote ends and a new sentence begins. "Brianne frowned" isn't complementary, but an action unrelated to the quote, so we put a full-stop on the quote before the new sentence.
Here's a link to a dialogue guide:
In chapter 9 it says that Xander took "long drinks" when he is drinking with Byeol, I think it's supposed to be "long sips".
When writing numbers, write the word instead of the number.
Overall enjoyment:
I was starting to really get into the story by chapter 5. I found it an amusing read with no big emotions so far (though I assume there will be drama related to the boy's contract and also Xander and Byeol). The plot is interesting and I'm curious where the story is going.
I think we're having a sort of enemies to lovers between Xander and Byeol, but it's for stupid reasons, because Kaen is acting out and personally I'm not a fan of hers.
Good luck with your future projects and thank you for choosing me as your reviewer.