Intro:

Opposites Attract was written by BlackLily_17. It is a Stray Kids fanfiction following Seo Changbin alongside other members like Lee Know, but the focus is on Changbin and his situation with a mysterious stalker and a woman he suspects to be said stalker, Soomin. However, after it's revealed that Soonmin isn't the perp, more chaos breaks out, and maybe even a romance blooms.

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Detailed Feedback

What Worked:

This might be one of the only stories where the miscommunication in the beginning didn't make me want to take a pacing break and log out. I despise miscommunication so much, but the way it was handled here was entertaining, made sense for the story, and also a little sad when you think about it. The desperation to find Bin's stalker feels real, and although the scene is humorous, you can't help but feel a sense of sadness on Bin's behalf because he's going through such a serious situation. It's an intense opening few chapters to see Changbin convinced that Soomin is the stalker, and it also hints at a far deeper problem in Changbin's mentality.

That leads me to my next point: the story idea and the realistic depiction of stalking. I loved how the longer the story went on, the more the cracks showed and the humor and fluffy feel of the book turned very dark. The facade chipped away to show the true hardships of being an idol, and the way Changbin feels is very realistic. I don't want to get into personal details, but I relate to Changbin's story, and everything he feels is exactly what I went through, making it extremely realistic and an accurate depiction of stalking. He's constantly checking his surroundings, feeling scared to so much as step outside for a second, is prone to lashing out when he doesn't mean to, wants to get away and goes almost an hour to a mall just to hope he won't run into any stalkers there, etc. Everything about the stalker storyline is depressing because it's real and presented in a realistic way. Changbin as an individual is an engaging character because of his realistic emotions. None of the characters here are perfect. They're struggling with their own emotions and have no idea how to process them, and I loved reading about that. My favorite characters are the kinds who struggle to comprehend their own emotions and end up falling deeper off their path because of that, so that's why it was entertaining for me to read about Changbin. Okay, maybe that makes me sound like a psycho considering it's a stalker storyline and I'm openly admitting to finding that entertaining, but I think you know what I mean, haha.

Along with that, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Soomin. At first, I wasn't sure how to feel about her, but then the story continued and I began liking her a lot. That amplified when you revealed the Daisy storyline and how Daisy has so much control over Soomin. Soomin is struggling around every corner because Daisy is around every corner. She can't even go on a date without Daisy interrupting, and it's all because of Daisy's hatred of her and superiority complex. She puts Soomin down to make herself feel better, and it's a realistic depiction of "sibling" rivalry gone way too far where Daisy is now just bullying Soomin and doing whatever the frick she wants. It makes the readers hate Daisy and want to see Soomin succeed. I'm also glad you gave Soomin like 0 victories over Daisy. Daisy is literally around every corner to the point where even the small victories go to Daisy. That means when Soomin hopefully eventually overcomes Daisy, it'll feel so much sweeter since we're so used to seeing her lose. Even beyond the Daisy storyline, I liked Soomin as an individual. She's fun to read about, and I think she bounced off Changbin well. Speaking of...

Lastly, I enjoyed the dynamic between Changbin and Soomin. They started off on the wrong foot to say the least, but they softened up over time. However, even though they softened up, I love how they still have their banter and jokes, and they poke fun at each other. They take care of one another, like Soomin cleaning up the glass outside his apartment and Changbin coming to her aid when she was drunk. Despite their dislike of one another, it shows in their actions that they care even if their minds aren't ready to accept that they do. Considering they're both going through struggles, it makes sense that they're each other's rocks. Again, even if they don't mentally admit it, their actions speak louder than words and show that they're growing attached to one another and learning that they understand each other more than they may realize. This is one of the few times I've read an ongoing story and gotten to the end of the published parts and thought "Rats, I wanted to see what happened next." It's very rare for me to get invested in these relationships as I'm more of a sci-fi girl, but I was super onboard with Soomin and Changbin. What I love most is that you took the time to flesh them out as individuals before fleshing them out as a potential couple. In other words: because they work as individual characters, they work as a couple.

All in all, Opposites Attract attracted (I'm fricking hilarious) me from its first chapter and continued to hold my attention throughout the entire runtime thanks to its complex themes, realistic depiction of the impacts of stalking, and enjoyable main characters with an equally enjoyable dynamic with one another!

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What Didn't Work:

I have three core suggestions: tweaking the grammar of dialogue tags, using less tags + not using actions as tags, and limiting adverb usage. Let's jump right into it.

So dialogue is formatted wrong throughout the story. Keep in mind dialogue tags are continuations of the dialogue, not new sentences. That means tags are always lowercase unless they are a proper noun, and the dialogue can end with anything other than a period/full stop when you're using a tag after it. Tags are part of the dialogue, so they must be treated as such. Let's break that down with an example of correct dialogue tags:

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I missed you," she said.

"Where were you!" he shouted.

"Hey," Raven said.

Raven is the only one capitalized because it is the only proper noun, there are no full stops/periods, and even when there's special punctuation like ? or !, the tag is still lowercase because it is seen as part of the same sentence. You wouldn't randomly capitalize a Word that's not a proper noun in the middle of a sentence. It's weird that I capitalized word there, right? The same applies to dialogue tags.

Moving more into tags, I'd suggest using less tags since you use a lot, and you also use actions as tags (like he smiled, he chuckled, he laughed, etc.), which I would suggest not doing. But before I get into that, I'd suggest the 50-30 advice of dialogue for you, which states that of your dialogue, 50% or less should have tags, and of that 50%, 30% or more should be said or asked. The reason is because tags are telling over showing, so any time you can limit using them without confusing the reader is recommended. You can omit them by relying on the back and forth speech pattern readers are used to, introducing who's speaking with tags, relying on speech style to show who's speaking, etc. As for why we prefer said/asked, it's because they're the least distracting tags that call the least amount of attention to themselves. What's the most important thing about dialogue? The dialogue! So if you have distracting tags that are too out there for their own good, it takes away from the dialogue. However, I don't think you had that problem, but since it's part of the 50-30 advice, I figured I'd explain it anyway.

Moving more into actions as tags, I'd recommend not using actions like he smiled, he chuckled, he laughed, etc. as tags because they're unnatural. Tags tag dialogue, not people, so by saying "he chuckled," you're almost giving the impression the words are chuckling. You can say words, ask them, shout them, whisper them, etc., but you can't really smile them or chuckle them. That's why it's seen as unnatural. However, there's a simple fix. Instead of saying "he chuckled," consider using "he said with a chuckle," or doing this:

He chuckled. "*Insert dialogue here*."

Now we know the "he" is speaking since you gave an introductory action there, and it's also not being used as a tag so it's still natural.

Lastly, adverbs. Adverbs are telling over showing, and they're also not engaging, so that's why I suggest downsizing on how many adverbs you use in a chapter. They're fine to use here and there, though if you can limit them, I'd say go for it. Most times, you can remove them from the sentence without changing anything else and the sentence will make sense, so that's one way you can remove them, but you can also reword sentences to not need them. I would suggest plugging your text into a service like Google Docs or Word and using the find and replace tool to look up ly. From there, consider deleting a bunch of words ending in -ly. You don't have to remove all of them, but consider removing as many as you think aren't vital to the sentences. Sometimes adverbs like "just" and "still" give extra impact to a sentence, so I'm not saying remove all adverbs, but the ly adverbs in particular tend to not serve much purpose, so that's why I'm bringing it up. Some writers like the 300 advice of trying not to use no more than 1 adverb per 300 words. I personally disagree and think it should be more like no more than 1 adverb per 500-1,000 words, but it depends on the context since it's fine to use more than one at one time as long as there's a purpose for it.

Just to break it down, I counted for a few chapters, and these are my findings:

- About 30 adverbs in chapter 6

- About 40 in chap 1

- About 30 in chap 13

- About 47 in chap 10

I hope when I isolate them like that, it makes more sense why I'm making the suggestion to cut down on adverbs. In general, I hope all my suggestions made sense!

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Summary:

- This is like the only time miscommunication is handled well

- Realistic depiction of stalking

- Soomin is an interesting protagonist

- The dynamic between Changbin and Soomin was fun to read

- Dialogue tag formatting

- Consider using less tags

- Consider using less adverbs

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Overall:

Opposites Attract is a fun Stray Kids fanfic that, although humorous, provides a deeper, complex narrative about sibling rivalry taken to the extreme and the dangers of idol life with stalking. The longer the narrative goes on, the more these complex themes are explored and the facade of humor is slowly stripped away. If you're someone looking for a unique Stray Kids fanfiction, 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 when the shop reopens, 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.