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Forced
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Author :: Genius_MinSwag

Reviewer :: BerryStrawberryy

First Impression :: 3/20

The first impression is important in determining whether the readers continue with your story or not. You need a cover, title and blurb that are not only intriguing but also relate to the central theme of your story to give the viewers a general idea of what they're going in for. 

And frankly, at first glance, your story did not impress me in the least. 

» Cover :: 1/10

Any cover must check off two important factors at the very least—relation to theme and pleasant to look at. 

The main concept of your story was a ' loveless arranged marriage', and two halves of different faces, put together in a collage, represents that in no way. This same cover can be used for plenty of other books with different plotlines than yours. I'd suggest picking a specific moment from your book, or imagining a particular scenario for your MCs and trying to picture it… using that scene for your cover eventually. 

As for 'pleasant to look at', the image was not easy on the eyes. The font used for the title is a… bold choice, and not in a good way. It almost seems forcefully stamped onto the cover and the white colour used isn't helping, blending into the background and providing unnecessary emphasis to itself at the same time. And adding just 'Min Yoongi' as a subtitle was also not a good idea. Try something like 'A Min Yoongi fanfiction' instead. 

Instead of telling you to make tweaks in the current cover, I'd suggest changing it entirely. Try using a different image, colour scheme, font—everything. 

╰☆☆Tip :: Try submitting your book to our community's graphic shop, along with a small summary of your story. We have a lot of talented designers that can help provide you with the perfect cover for your story.☆☆╮ 

» Title :: 1.5/5

The title is neither unique nor interesting. If I were to search up this title on wattpad, I'm sure many books with the same name would show up. That's not necessarily a bad thing but your book is bound to get lost in the bunch. The readers may not be curious enough to open it after seeing the same title over and over again either. 

Also, the 'forced' factor doesn't stay intact in your story for very long either. The MCs made a deal at the very starting, deciding to break off the marriage within a year and willingly entering into it for the sake of the company and their parents. I wouldn't exactly call that being 'forced'. 

Same as the cover, try thinking of a title that is specific to your story only. The book is still ongoing, it could be anything—related to the latter chapters, the end conclusion of the book, the personal growth of one of the MCs, absolutely any moment from the book. 

» Blurb :: 0.5/5

Your blurb is not even 60 words. It's not even half of what it should be. The ideal length for a blurb is 130-160 for a full length story or a novella. 

Even if I were to overlook the length, there was no appeal to the blurb whatsoever. Starting from the grammatical errors to the unnecessarily excessive line spacing after the first line, all of it was a huge turn off to me as a reader. 

Again, I would tell you to completely change the synopsis, and maybe add a little bit more about the rest of the book instead of just the beginning and the commencement of their marriage. Maybe try vaguely summarizing what happens once they do get married. 

But if you still choose to go with your current blurb, here are some points to improve upon:

↬He came into her life(.) 
She came into his life(.)
(here, you need to add periods at the end of both the sentences. As I've done inside the brackets.) 

↬She didn't love/d/ him(.) 
He didn't love/d/ her(.) 
 (here, 'love' shall be used instead of 'loved', because when indicating the negative in a statement, the helping verb takes the tense instead of the main verb. And since you have used 'not' or 'didn't' in past tense here, the main verb will be in simple present tense.) 

↬She was nice to him(.) 
He was (c)old to her(.) 
(here, the word cold is in the middle of the sentence, hence, the C is supposed to be in lowercase.) 

↬They were (s)trangers for each other(,) (y)et they were forced into a marriage(.) 
(here, an ellipsis after yet and the line breaks aren't needed.) 

↬What will /be/ their life (be) after this loveless marriage? 
(here, the word 'be' will be used after life instead of will.) 

Beginning of a new start :: 1/10

I understand that the first five chapters were 'short intros' but they were still too short and quite unnecessary. Instead of adding 5 random scenes, you could take either of the first two chapters (one of which is a flashback and the other is foreshadowing I assume)—either the one where Ara breaks things off with Yoongi, or the very first one when a man assaults an innocent woman—and convert them into a full length prologue. This will not only help your story come off to a strong start, but will also reduce the unprofessionalism and randomness of 100 word chapters. 

The rest of the 3 intros (chapters 3, 4 and 5) can be converted into actual chapters, with the scenes about Yoongi and Ara's conversations with their parents about the marriage executed properly.  

Apart from that, I strongly disliked the way you chose to start the book. It was like I was reading a play instead of a story, I barely read a few sentences and the chapters ended. If I weren't reviewing this book, I would've left it right at the first chapter. And I get that you were trying to show the intensity of physical abuse in the first chapter, but it just came off as creepy and slightly offensive. 

↬He came towards her with a piece of paper in his hand, a creepy experience on his face.
(^^this is an extract from your first chapter. Firstly, please change the 'experience' to 'expression'. Now, what was this piece of paper? It would've been a good mystery to grasp readers' interest and unravel further in the book, but you wrote it in such a manner that this sentence was entirely concealed by the rest of your writing, which is impossible to do since there are only 5 sentences in your first chapters but somehow I, as am sure many other readers, missed it the first time. 
This is why I want you to convert this into an entire prologue. You can maybe narrate their surroundings, where the man and woman are, describe the woman's fear, make it a little poetic. Heck, talk about the weather to make it more intriguing. Just make it so that the mystery is created at the end, and this chapter remains memorable. Because even after 28 chapters, there's no mention of that piece of paper and now I'm starting to wonder if it belongs in this story at all.) 

I also couldn't help but notice that you included some 'summaries' as character introductions in the very first chapter. While this isn't a bad thing as it helps the readers with their imagination and increases their anticipation for the story, you have basically narrated the characters' entire personalities then and there instead of building them up further into the story. I suggest using some quotes/dialogues to describe their personalities instead of providing summaries about them. It really takes the fun out of reading the rest of the story. 

Concept and plot :: 3.5/25

Getting straight to the point, I was really not happy with the overall concept and plot of the book. There are a number of things in a plot that I consider in order to judge it correctly, let's take a look at them all:

The idea/concept: A loveless arranged marriage. Is that really unique or intriguing anymore? Every second book on wattpad is about a forced marriage. It's cliché, like you said yourself. But it's okay, coming up with completely new ideas is a very tough thing to do, so as long as you execute your central idea in a unique or appealing manner, I think it's fine if your concept is a bit overused. 

But the problem is… your execution was cliché too. 

Predictability: everything that happened in your story was textbook fanfic material. From the marriage for the 'company', to Yoongi already having a girlfriend, to the girlfriend cheating, to them falling in love. There was nothing that helped maintain my interest in the slightest because I could predict everything that was about to come. 

If you don't want to change your story, I suggest changing your writing, because sometimes a reader reads a book just for the emotions and the narration even though they might know the end result. While your book wasn't like that, I suppose you could start working on it. 

Pace and realism: The pace of the story did not make any sense. Everything was far too rushed. You left no time for any event to completely sink in. One moment Ara was prepared to run away from the wedding, the next she was caught by Yoongi, making a deal and standing at the altar. 

The speed at which they fell in love was also not very realistic. Sure, Ara was caring but there were little to no signs of Yoongi caring for her on more than a decent humane level. Also, how can Ara instantly love him back after he ill-treated her for so long? It just doesn't seem right. 

Try developing every aspect of a scene. Provide a base to every event that takes place. For example, if they're falling in love, then why? Write some scenes developing the chemistry between the two leads. 

I won't be writing any more for this section, since the story is still ongoing. So you have a lot of room for improvement, a lot of scope to turn things around. Just when I thought things were getting slightly more interesting with the entire Jeju Island storyline and Hyun-Woo wanting to kill Ara, things were left incomplete. It's difficult to judge an unfinished story because you might still prove me wrong by adding some interesting events further into the story. 

And I really hope you do. 

Characters and emotions :: 1.5/15

If we're talking about the characters, I didn't find any of them to be outstanding in any manner. We saw Yoongi being mean and cold, and Ara being submissive and naive (despite being described as slightly scary in the character intro). 

I would really like to see Ara as something other than a 'damsel in distress', like she was in that one scene where she hit a guy for flirting with her. I feel like you should explore that side of hers more. 

You also need to do a better job of providing Yoongi with a motive in the book. He is a really unlikable character for about half of the book, being mean and cold for no reason. Not only is that displeasing, but it is also something of a plothole. 

For any character to come off as real, it needs to be multidimensional. Everything that they do must have a reason. If the villain is evil, then there must be some sort of a backstory as to why. They need to be complex just like actual human beings. And Yoongi was not like that at all. He makes a deal with Ara one day, and decides to make her life a living hell the next. How does that make sense? Why did he do that? Why did he suddenly start caring for her if he hated her so much in the first place? 

You need to ask yourself these questions and answer them in your book with your writing. This is a very effective way of covering up plot holes too. 

And as for the emotions, I'm sorry, but not once did I feel any sort of an emotional connect to the characters. Though that may have to do more with your writing style than with your characters. I'll be talking about it in the next section, but one of the things that you can do to improve this point is to try and look into your character's minds and treat them as real people. Try analyzing what thoughts must be going on inside their head at a particular moment and then put it into words. Expressing a character's REACTION to some other character's ACTIONS is also a very important part of this process. 

Tone and Style :: 0.5/10

Forgive me if I sound rude but being totally blunt, there was absolutely nothing in your writing that I could classify as 'writing' much less a style. It didn't seem like you were narrating a story but more like you reported a series of events. 

I'd like you to look at the following two extracts closely:

☆…Soon, he left. I started washing the dishes. 

I was going to watch my Kdrama when a notification popped up in my phone. It was Lisa Unnie. ☆

☆ He left as soon as he was done with his food. Not even bothering to thank me, much less look at me, he made his way out the door leaving me to do the dishes by myself. Sighing for the tenth time that day, I dragged my feet to the kitchen, getting started with the never-ending chores. 

After what seemed like hours, I finished drying the last plate, instantly rushing back to the living room. Wasting no time, I plopped down on the couch, all set to watch my K-drama when my phone screen lit up, earning a groan from me. It was a message from Lisa unnie. 

Wondering what she needed, I unlocked the device. ☆

Here, the first one is an extract from your book, and the second one is a modified version of the same extract written by me. 
Do you see the difference? 
Don't get me wrong, I'm not advising to simply add more words to increase the length of your story, but you need to make your writing more descriptive in the right places to set a correct pace for your book.

The thumb rule for writing is 'showing not telling', paraphrased 'narrating not reporting'. Like, instead of continuing to say that 'Yoongi is rude' maybe you could show it. Here, I wrote that Yoongi left without thanking Ara, emphasizing on how rude he was to her in the earlier stage of their marriage. Then, I wrote about how she had to drag around and do all the work by herself, again, emphasizing on how unhappy she was. 

This way, readers can understand Ara's pain and exhaustion, and it also gives time for every event to set in. I mentioned earlier how your story seemed so rushed… Well, this is gonna help you solve that problem. Improving your writing style will also help with your characters and the portrayal of their emotions, making the readers understand them more vividly. 

In order to write in a narrative or descriptive manner, you need to consider every detail and every aspect of a scene. Like, if it's a dialogue then you narrate the narrator's reaction to other people's dialogues in first person writing; or if it's an important or triggering moment, then you should try to describe the characters' emotions, their thoughts and actions, maybe even their surroundings, vividly to highlight that moment. You should also use writing techniques like foreshadowing and flashback-ing (which you attempted to do and thus, got a 0.5 for it) and literary devices. 

Some of the things that you should avoid doing, is adding time and place indicators like 'after a few minutes' or 'at the airport'. You're writing a book, hence it's your duty to narrate the timing and state of the events, not plainly state them. Instead of a separate indicator like '2 days later', you can include it in your writing like 'Ara headed to the airport with her parents a couple days later.' 

And please refrain from writing dialogues between multiple characters like a 'play' or 'drama'. It is inappropriate. 

╰☆☆ Note:: this was just the tip of the iceberg. There are many other things that need to be said, but I think it would be more effective if you started reading more books and learning a little on your own. And I mean REAL books, not wattpad fanfics. ☆☆╮

Grammar :: 1/20

 The only thing I have to say about your grammar, and I cannot stress this enough, is that you must start learning from scratch. There was barely a single sentence in your entire book that did not have a mistake. Having good grammar is a very important criterion, the very base of your book. Bad grammar can be such a turn off to readers sometimes that it will affect every aspect of your story. Honestly, I believe your plot, tone and style, characters and even the blurb criteria could've gotten more points if it wasn't for your lack of grammatical knowledge. But it was very difficult to ignore these mistakes as an avid reader. Even one misplaced comma can change the entire meaning of your sentence. I feel like your efforts didn't fully reach out to me and that you weren't able to add complete meaning to your sentences due to this issue. 

Since I cannot correct/teach you about everything, I will list out some of the most basic things you need to learn about, and I will also be mentioning how/where you can learn them from. 

↬First and foremost you need to start with punctuation. You have been making constant spacing errors, leaving no space after commas or periods, using ellipses in the wrong manner, using the wrong dashes, lack of punctuation with action/dialogue tags and many more such mistakes. 

↬Rules about capitalization: you keep capitalizing random words in the middle of a sentence, sometimes using uppercase for entire sentences or words in one go, all of which is grammatically incorrect. 

↬Tenses: tense consistency is a very important factor. Some of the less critical readers may overlook punctuational errors for once, but tense inconsistency and tonal errors are never overlooked, because they either change the interpretation of sentences or render them totally meaningless. 

↬Parts of speech: this is another basic thing, and you may think you know it already. But PoS is something that will present a lot of new choices to you about how to frame your sentences. 

↬Literary devices: these will, once again, help you a lot with descriptive writing. Acting more like adornation and frame your story better, making it more effective. 

↬(US) or (UK): this is a secondary topic but once you finish learning about the points above, start with learning the difference between American and British English. Once you understand grammar, this will help you with your writing and what TYPE of writing you want to adapt to. 

Where to learn from:
You can use MLA or APA grammar guides; handbooks or print guides like 'Merriam-Webster's dictionary' or 'Garner's Modern English Usage'; or internet websites like grammarly. 

Extra :: it's not 'lovely wedded wife', it's 'lawfully wedded'. 

Extra Note :: I am sorry if anything I said hurt your feelings, it was not my intention. The review was a bit harsh, but you must understand that as a reviewer it is my duty to inform you about your mistakes. 

I also understand that English may not be your first language, in which case, I really appreciate your effort. I could see that you really tried your best. Keep trying hard like this and work patiently on everything I said above. I assure you, you will see a lot of improvement in yourself. 

I hope you don't get discouraged, and instead choose to take my criticism in a sporting manner! 

All the best! 

Total :: 10.5/100