Reviewed by: Crazy @LordsSword
Book Title: Restless
Author's Name: hay_bangtan

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Title: 7/10

Your title gives a bold vibe in its simplicity, and it represents something important to your story, however, it seems to be a rather common choice. In addition, I do not think the vibe suits the genre of your story. Yes, the main genre of your story is 'fanfiction', but it could also fit the realistic fiction genre, and it is important to reflect that in your title/cover.

Tips:

Realistic fiction tends to have longer titles, so one possibility is to come up with a phrase that describes your character or story medium, or both, like Diary of a Wimpy Kid. You can go shorter too, if it's a vital part of your character, like Speak, but look up your desired title, and see if it's taken. If you get a bunch of books, pick a different title.

I would suggest taking a title from his alcoholism, since that seems to be what your main character struggles with the most. He's an insomniac too, I know, but we don't learn that until later on. The alcoholism we learn immediately, and it's the barrier between him and his love interest too.

Cover: 6/10

It's not bad, but it falls a little flat. It doesn't seem to draw the reader as well as it could.

Tips:

I think it would do better with a more dramatic color scheme, and maybe pose too. You might even want to go without the person altogether, and go for an object (perhaps a shot glass) against a white background. I would advise against an object though, since your story is a fanfiction. The characters are the draw, so using the person/people is good.

Blurb: 4/10

The actual blurb part is short, both in length and in drama. It needs spice!

Tips:

What you have is good for the start of a blurb. Your hooking statement.

After that, you need to describe your main character. Don't tell us everything, just where he starts.

Some points you should hit: he recently quit drinking; he can't find a sponsor; he recently committed a crime; and maybe vaguely mention that he has some sort of trauma related to sponsors.

After describing Yoongi, I would advise vaguely mentioning what changes ― which is Yoongi getting a sponsor ― and then stating the stakes. In this case, that's probably jail time.

Here's why that's the formula I'm suggesting. By starting with a hooking statement, which you already have, you grab the reader's interest. The goal is to make them go 'woah'.

After you've gotten their attention, an introduction of the main character is intended to make them invested in your story.

If you've successfully gotten their attention and investment, now it's time to spice things up. Tell them what changes so that they feel the disruption that the characters are going through. This amps the excitement for the next step.

The last step ties everything together. Now that your potential readers are invested in your story, and your character, and they've experienced an upset, your last step establishes risk. They should care about the characters by now, so stating what these characters stand to lose forces the hand of interested readers.

At this point, potential readers have a choice. Find out what happens to these characters or keep wondering. If you've done this successfully, potential readers feel invested enough in their characters to take the time

Plot/Flow: 17/20

There seems to be lots of points where you tell the audience important information that has happened, when this would have more impact if you showed it. Kind of messes up with the flow of your story. Besides that, since your story is only seven chapters, your introduction of the love interest (and the insomnia) comes a little too late.

Tips:

The earlier you introduce a character, the easier it is to get your readers to empathise with them. No matter how much love you put into a character, if you introduce an important character too late, they risk being seen as an intruder. This is partially because characters, especially in romances, that get introduced later tend towards being obstacles between characters and their goal.

If you're set on introducing him the way you currently do, you can try to mitigate this issue by making it so that the characters see him as an intruder too. That way, readers will travel with your other characters, through the distrust and to the point where they realize that they were wrong.

Please note that this doesn't always work, and it takes time to do it accurately. If you rush it, readers will notice, and it will kind of feel like a poor attempt to add drama.

You can really go with either option.

As for your other issue, I'll get deeper into it in a later section, as it relates to that as well.

Characters/Character development: 8/10

I feel like your character descriptions could use some sprucing and that you don't remind the readers of their surroundings often enough. However, even with those issues, I like the way you developed your characters and their relationships with each other. I especially like how you chose to have the main character forgo his love interest in favor of his mental and emotional health. That shows development, since at the beginning, he hadn't put much focus into that. His attempt at sponsorship at the end was a nice boost as well.

I think you could emphasize the change a bit more in the beginning and the middle, but that's not a deep-seated issue, just a small improvement.

Overall, I'd say this was almost an 8.5, but I rounded down because I feel lower numbers teach you more.

Tips:

If you want to improve your character development, I'd just advise on more drama. I don't mean this in a 'oh, gasp! Stuff happened.' kind of way. I mean, what does happen, make it bigger. He argues with someone? Maybe it almost comes to blows, especially since his crime was to hit a police officer. He rejects someone out of his life? Maybe he leaves them mid-conversation or roasts them or just loudly scream at them.

The first time I was given this kind of advice was in dance class, where I had to make my movements bigger and bolder, so the people in the back could see what I was doing. In this case, by making your arguments and emotions bigger, readers who are only half paying attention become riveted, especially the emotions part.

How your characters' reactions become 'bigified' depends on their personality. Select a reaction that also tells readers more about the character. Are they a quiet person? Maybe they leave and scream or sob later when no one can see. Maybe they squeeze their arm so hard it hurts. If you notice, each of those options also tell you how they react to pain. With rage? With tears? Or with an (unhealthy) reminder that they're alive?

As a warning, arguments need a counterbalance to make the characters likeable. Someone yells at another person, we feel for the person getting hurt ... but if the angry person silently breaks down later alone or berates himself for losing his temper, we can understand this person more.

(By the way, the middle part should have more of the breaking down, but also of him deliberately starting to take steps towards not falling to his darker nature. Make each small moment feel like a victory. Since we don't get to see a whole year, which I feel is fine but a delicate position, you need to make his development clearer in the middle.)

About the descriptions, I'll tackle that soon.

Writing Style and Grammar: 6/10

Well, your grammar's not too hot. You have a bunch of misuse and misspellings, but it's readable. Grammar rules can afford to be a little looser since it's a story not an essay, however, it is still important in certain areas.

Plus, descriptions could use some work. This goes back to both the Plot/Flow section and the Characters/Character development section. Basically, your story doesn't go as in depth as I feel it should. This is the bigger problem.

Tips:

For grammar and spelling errors, I'd suggest reading your story aloud. Are there word choices you think you use too frequently? Misspellings? Does something make less sense when you try to read it aloud or do you stumble over your words? Do you use passive verbs too often? These are the most important problems grammar wise. Try to catch them on a re-read.

You can also get additional help with a beta reader or a grammar checking app.

By the way, I consider the ranking for your word choices to be best if it's something like this: readability, drama, characterization, grammar. Keep that in mind while you're writing.

When it comes to a character's speech, it's less important to be good grammatically. Just don't have them all talk alike. If one fails grammatically, such as with the contractions one might find to reference an accent or with text-speech like acronyms, it should be limited to just that character and shouldn't happen too frequently. A couple times per chapter will do.

Over to your bigger problem. Your descriptions are okay. You have them, and that's more than a lot of people do. As I've said, they need some sprucing. Proper descriptions allow readers to visualize what's going on as if they are there. Make reminders of character and room descriptions more frequent. At least once a chapter.

To do that, you don't need a whole new character description. Just have a character mess with their hair, reminding us of its color or some such. That's all you need to do for a reminder.

In addition to reminders, your descriptions need sprucing.

For example, your description of Taehyung is that he's taller than the main character and has dark hair. Later, you say he looks ethereal, but readers do not get that sense from reading his description.

Done right, a description can tell you more than the physical appearance of something. They can tell you how the describer feels about what they are describing. That's what your descriptions are missing.

If Taehyung looks ethereal, use comparisons to show readers this ethereal-ness.

Maybe his hair is dark as the sky in the deepest of nights. Perhaps he holds himself tall and confidently, like a prince from a fairy tale or his eyes seem to be deep wells of secrets and power. His skin could be delicate, as if made from porcelain. If your main character is in awe, make it clear that he feels awe for this person.

Your last issue is in events happening off screen. If you have to say things happened, you should have covered it. That way they feel real to the readers. Instead of telling readers that, for instance, Taehyung and Yoongi got closer, show them hanging out. Instead of saying he met Jungkook, show him meeting Jungkook. Don't say Jungkook is funny, show him telling a joke. Things like that. If you're going to say something happened, show it instead.

Genre relevance: 10/10

Hard to mess up fanfiction relevance, and you remain relevant to subgenres I think you have.

Reader enjoyment and communication with the readers: 7/10

Your biggest problems with communication are in your descriptions, which I've already covered.

Overall: 65/100

This score does not accurately represent how good your book is. A lot of potential major problems, ones that need a major overhaul of your story, don't exist in your story. Bigger issues block smaller issues from being seen, so don't feel bad. Your story has a lot of potential.

To reiterate, your issues include: title and cover's low impact; blurb doesn't intrigue readers as much as it should; some important aspects are introduced too late; development needs emphasis; showing not telling; and grammar.

Despite all of this, the story gives a good, solid representation of the real-world and some of the struggles in it. It has a simple, amazing story. As I've said, I love that the main character chose to prioritize his mental health and realized he wasn't ready for a relationship. To me, that was the best moment in the story, and something I don't find in a lot of stories.

I hope this helps you improve.

Thank you for visiting "Scripturient : A review shop"

We hope you had a good experience!If you want to give your story for editing and enhance it, then please visit "Evermore : An editing shop" which can be found on our very profile. The link can be found here >>>
Do fill out a form if you're interested, Thank you!