✖ The story of the Sunny Girl ✖

By childoftheflower

Before I begin, since this is a contest entry I’m only going to pick apart your story lightly.

Title & Description:

To be honest, I think “The story of” is totally not needed in your title. It’s good enough like this: The Sunny Girl. (it’s more clean and short). you should more oomph into making good titles (laughs) even though they are hard.

First, in your description, get rid of “You're stronger than you think you are." since you’ve already put this quote down in your foreword.

And last, you should align your description to the left. If you study the layout of the contest you’re entering then you’ll notice you’re probably better off aligning it to the left/centre (brownie points).

Your Story:

(chapter one)

His hands roam everywhere, gliding over her bare thighs, running through her long hair, cradling her flushed cheeks and rubbing soothing circles onto her clothed shoulders.

-(over) sounds smoother and better here. after you fix that up, consider fixing up the italics (I made) to (along).

"Se Hun... I don't know if-"

-there’s no need for the space after the ellipsis.

 and she shudders on feeling the cool air hitting

-replace on to (from).

That kind smile, it never reached his eyes.

-I’m kind of iffy with this sentence. try: after all, the smiles he makes never reaches his eyes. but this has my writing flavour so maybe you should consider playing around with your sentence more.

Soon Kyu stood before her bathroom mirror, staring blankly at her reflection.

-should be (stands) since you’re using present tense and it’s not a flashback (right? I don’t think it’s a flashback)

stomach, wearing the expression one might have when looking at dead birds off the power line,

-(she wears the kind of expression) flows better

They made her ugly, undesirable.

-claps for you. this is a wonderful display of characterisation!

Soon Kyu's scarring

-scarring should be replaced with (scars)

the eye, trying to find something, anything in them

-(eye) should change to plural because you wrote “them” afterwards.

and kept her face as cold and emotionless as a mask

-since you said you wanted help with characterisation, try and compare emotions for more artistic themes e.g. instead of as cold and emotionless as a mask. try: as cold and emotionless as death. see? isn’t it like magic how more in depth it’s become? also it’s because death is a theme in your story.

please... Don't go...

-after ellipsis’ you don’t need to capitalise nor have space.

into her bed

-this is a cute mistake since you can’t go “into” your bed; fix for (onto)

She was just empty,

-take away the (just) since it makes the flow disrupted.

It was a sharp sting at first, one that made Soon Kyu wince and breathe in sharply. This faded to a dull, throbbing burning sensation. Soon Kyu watched in fascination as blood began to gather at the small incision, dripping out the corner. 

-to be honest, you’ve been from past to present, and then present to past. you should pick one and only one (that means, if you write in past you stay past; present you stay in present). if one of your judges happen to be a smart grammar Nazi you’d be in big trouble young lady.

Overall:

YOU SHOULD’VE PUT A TRIGGER WARNING IN YOUR FOREWORD SILLY. cause honestly, there are going to be plenty of readers who have no idea they’re going to be reading a story with suicidal themes. and if those particularly sensitive read your story, they’ll absolutely flip it. been there, seen it, never again.

your narrative structure flow is still choppy. try to use conjunctions to correct it (even though people say it’s not grammatically correct—who cares?) you can start with all the “and”s, the “but”s, the “nor”s, the “so”s, etc…

characterisation isn’t too shabby but you could’ve done much much much much better. elaborate more about Sunny, compare her to metaphors and similes. this is basic characterisation, others involves emotions-reasons for acting-way of speech. AND SPEAKING OF SPEECH I saw absolutely no unique colour in the way Sunny speaks (even Yoona did better) and she’s the main. give her flavours.

you write like most average authors. event-describes a little-storyline-sneak into emotions-event. yeah that’s how most author’s here write and you’re one of them so you shouldn’t worry much. your story&style is also directed to an audience of 15 year olds. but it could be 13-14 year olds with a mature mind but not much before or after that (laugh). your audience are probably kids in their early teens.

my last tip for you: proof read it again beacuase you never proof read enough. and also, there are lots of parts I didn’t mention because this is a contest entry though you shouldn’t stress or worry over it (laughs).

and lol, although I’m telling you to correct your work, the decision to do so is completely yours (think of me like a guide /laugh).

✖ review by white-sheep