Intro:

Closer Than This was written by AestheticYN7. It is a BTS fanfiction following main characters Y/n and BTS member Park Jimin in a fantastical world full of kingdoms, war, greed, and more. However, things take a turn when Y/n and Jimin start to become closer than anyone would've thought, leading to some overwhelming feelings the two must address in the midst of war threatening to tear them and everything they love apart.

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Detailed Feedback

What Worked:

I like to start small and then work my way to the larger things, so let's keep that format here.

I think it's only fitting to start with this: I like how you start your chapters (no pun intended... kind of). Every chapter starts with a snappy first line that pretty much sums up the themes and plot for the chapters, giving us a sneak peek at what's coming in a narrative way. It's eye-catching since it's just the one line instead of a whole paragraph (not that there's anything wrong with starting chapters with paragraphs, though the one lines tend to naturally draw more attention due to the format), so it immediately calls attention to itself and makes me transfixed on what's happening. It's a clever strategy to keep readers, well, reading. It may seem like a small thing, but it's what will get readers to want to stick around, both in terms of the first chapter's opening line hooking them in, and in terms of the rest of the opening lines convincing them to stay to read just one more chapter before they go to bed (and then they end up reading the whole thing). That when combined with the chapter length makes the story very easy to digest in terms of its readability, which will get more readers to want to stick around.

While on the topic, the next thing I wanted to mention is the chapter length and overall pacing, and I think both of those things are good throughout the narrative. The chapter length isn't too long and also isn't too short. It's about the average length for a book, which makes it Wattpad-algorithm-friendly. But beyond the chapter length adding to the strong readability of the book, the pacing of the plot events is good. You have a mix of both fast and slow pacing depending on the chapter, and it blends in a way that makes it easy to follow. The plot gets moving right off the bat, which is a good thing since it immediately sets the reader in the core concept of the story, but it also doesn't go so fast that I'm confused or left wondering what's going on. I still understood everything and had no questions about how things worked and things like that, which is a good balance. You make sure not to waste a single minute of read time, making the readers feel rewarded for paying attention and reading closely, and also adding to the readability I have mentioned before and will continue to mention throughout the review, as I think that's an important part of books, especially on Wattpad, where too many books look really jumbled and hard to read. So when it comes to readability and pacing, you got that down.

Another thing I'd like to mention is there's quite a bit of angst here, and I think that works in the story's favor, particularly with Chancellor Kim and his relationship to Jungkook, leading to the chapter 10 cliffhanger about Jungkook's whereabouts. This ties in with the pacing since the angst is well-paced and doesn't overwhelm the audience, but also makes its presence known throughout the narrative. You have moments of humor, love, and brightness, which makes the dark that much darker, and the bright that much brighter. The balance is what gives the story more life and well-roundedness, a word you'll see me use again later in this section since I think this book implements all four of the core storytelling elements (world, themes, characters, plot) well.

I saved him for last, but of course you know I have to talk about Jimin, or King Park in this. I like how, at first, he's extremely elegant and formal, but as the story progresses, he becomes more... erratic? I don't know if that's the right word, but I mean that he gets less formal and becomes even gentler than he already is. He still has his elegance and formality, but around Y/n, he's more relaxed and down-to-earth in a way that makes him look more like an average civilian than a king, and Y/n is the one who gets to see that side. However, as much as Jimin is so Jimin and so cool in this with his clear personality and motivations (and also his softer side that's always cute to see), I think all the characters work here, and as a BTS fan, I personally drool over seeing them called King Park or Commander Jeon or Chancellor Kim. It just makes me bark like a hyena, okay? I'm a simple girl: I see Jimin as a king or prince, I click. You can't go wrong with that, y'know? But in all seriousness, they all work, so does the Y/n, which is a character who's hard to get right, so good job there.

All in all, Closer Than This provides an entertaining narrative with many emotional beats, often resulting in angst, character death, and quieter moments for the characters to build and bond. Those elements make the narrative feel well-rounded and engaging. Along with that, this story has strong readability with good pacing, good opening lines, and good chapter lengths that will convince you to stick around for not only the cool plot, but also the ease of reading, which is an added bonus, especially on Wattpad, where many stories end up feeling jumbled or like they're trying too hard to shove a bunch of images and aesthetics in there. So, overall, Closer Than This is a solid read, and it does a good job getting the reader invested.

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What Didn't Work:

Let me start with the smallest thing: the prologue isn't really a prologue. Keep in mind prologues serve a very specific purpose, and what you have there is more like an extended summary. Prologues typically take place in the past (hence the prefix "pro") and don't include the main character, or include them at a different phase of their life (i.e., as a baby). It's typically a narrative-based chapter that gives backdrop information for the start of the story, though this prologue is more of a brief description that feels more like an excerpt or an extended blurb. It doesn't give what I would expect a prologue to give, hence why it feels more like an introduction or an extended summary. It's not a big deal since it pretty much just boils down to a title change, but still worth mentioning.

Let's move into the core of the review now by saying that there are some grammatical issues. Most prominently, end punctuation issues. Throughout the entire story, you don't have end punctuation for dialogue unless it's special punctuation like ? or !, though you don't often use commas or periods/full stops when they're needed. When using a tag, you need anything other than a period/full stop, though typically a comma. When not using a tag, you need anything other than a comma, though periods/full stops are most common. For example, this is how your dialogue is written: "Hello boys" YN said (chapter 1). In this scenario, you need a comma after "boys" and inside the quotation marks. So that's an example of the lack of end punctuation with tags, but there's also general dialogue needing end punctuation. For example: "They're going to see us now anyway" (chapter 5). There needs to be a period/full stop inside the quotation marks after the "anyway." You sometimes don't have end punctuation in general. Also from chapter 5: "Why the hell do we have to wear green?" she asked

There's no period/full stop there, but there needs to be a period/full stop after the "asked." Without end punctuation, it means the sentence keeps going and doesn't stop, so even though you intended for the sentence to stop after the "asked," without the end punctuation, the next line is considered part of the same sentence, so that's why end punctuation is so needed.

While on the topic of grammatical issues, the last grammar thing I'll mention here is there are frequent comma errors, particularly with -ing verbs. For example: "Chancellor Kim asked receiving a lazy shrug..." (chap 5). There needs to be a comma before receiving and after asked. While you don't always need a comma when there are -ing words, you typically do for this format with dialogue tags, which is where I noticed the error most. In simpler terms, if you use a tag and then an -ing after the tag, you typically need the comma. Here are some random examples:

- Jimin said, glancing at Raven.

- Jimin asked, shooting her a glare.

- Raven shouted, narrowing her eyes.

- Raven said, embracing him.

Those are a few random examples, but of course there are countless, endless more.

The last critique I have is more creative but it also has some technical stuff in it too: consider breaking up the paragraphs/sentences more. There are times you'll have really, really long paragraphs and sentences. I'm not saying don't write them since there's nothing inherently wrong with long paragraphs and sentences, but the problem becomes the long sentences in particular since many of them are run-ons that are grammatically incorrect.

For example, from chapter 7, there's a big paragraph right at the start that has this sentence: As if on cue it started pouring outside, the fresh earthy scent seeped in through the edge of the window as the soft, the steady pitter patter of droplets against the glass helped Y/N calm down, weird since most people hated the rain but Y/N found it comforting until a loud boom echoed through the rainy night, her entire demeanor jumping at the sound, as much she loved the rain, she had always had a fear of thunder and lightning since she was a child, and tonight wasn't of any help, especially when her eyes caught a glimpse of the flashing light of lightning, tiny whines escaped her lips as bad memories came rushing back to her as if they took place only yesterday, tightly wrapping her hands around herself, Y/N could only think of one place, or rather person to go to for comfort, why you may ask?

This is one sentence, and line-wise, it's longer than the average paragraph. It's about 9 lines long on my laptop, which is a lot, and like I said, grammatically incorrect since there are many, many areas here the sentence needed to stop but didn't, like the "as much [as] she loved the rain" needed to be its own sentence, but there are also plenty of places prior to it where the sentence needed to be broken up. Don't be scared to take your time with describing things, places, and emotions, and you can space it out by splitting up the paragraphs and sentences more, if that makes sense. This was most prominent during fight scenes. Consider splitting the paragraphs/sentences in action scenes up to increase the tension. A tactic many writers use is to make action scene paragraphs/sentences shorter and choppier to make the reading speed faster and make the pacing faster in that scene, which I think is an interesting strategy and one to consider trying in the future to practice breaking up paragraphs/sentences more. I hope all my suggestions made sense!

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Summary:

- Cool chapter starts

- Good pacing

- Angst 🤌

- Jimin 🤭🤭🤭

- Consider tweaking the prologue

- Some grammatical issues

- Consider splitting up some paragraphs/sentences

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Overall:

Closer Than This provides an entertaining narrative so far with many emotional beats that will make you feel for the characters and want to see more from the story. It has many strengths like its world, characters, emotional beats, and readability. If you're someone looking for an angsty read with good readability, then this is the perfect book for you.

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Thank you for submitting your book. If you have any questions or would like any additional reviews, please let me know.

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I'm going to start leaving this new note at the end of all reviews since Wattpad removed pms.

If you would like to keep in contact with me and ask me for more feedback on your work, I have a Discord server for all readers, writers, and friends. I'll leave a link in the inline comment here for anyone who would like to join.