The Best Laid Plans…
Written by Annyong & Reviewed by enlightened_

 

Title: 6/15

Honestly, if I was browsing Asianfanfics and I was met with your story title, I wouldn’t read it. It doesn’t have this – adventure-like title, I think? And I really, really suggest people to never use ellipsis on their titles. It seems unfinished and very unprofessional. I would suggest something like “Rebellion” or “The Start of our Freedom”. But in all honesty, it doesn’t lure me that much before I read the description and foreword.

 

Description & Foreword: 8/10

It definitely lured me in. Definitely. Although, I kind of felt a hint of The Hunger Games there… But what made me squeal in delight was the mention of the Overlord and teams. But what made me put off was the character chart in the Foreword. You could’ve just said;

Team B, known for their merciless hearts and uncaring attitude, consists of 6 members: Bang Yongguk, Himchan, Youngjae, Daehyun, Jongup, and their Maknae, Zelo. Each member has different unique powers – Daehyun is a shapeshifter, Youngjae has the power of Telekinesis, Yongguk has super strength, Jongup has the power of invisibility, Zelo is a Fire Adept and Himchan has super speed. Not much is known about them, except for their strong cooperation skills and a thirst to spill blood on the arena.

And I always find pictures in the description/foreword area to be very distracting, though that will be elaborated in the presentation part later in the review.

 

Plot: 25 points from two categories

• Originality: 10/15 points

I haven’t seen any fanfiction like this! Even if I still feel the little bit of Hunger Game-ish feeling on the story, I feel really refreshed by this type of stories (where there’s an original character that just saves the day but no, there isn’t anything like that in this story).

The thing that irked me that this really looks like it’s based on The Hunger Games. The whole tribute-and-overlord thing is basically the same as the tribute-and-president-snow and the whole crowd-cheering-for-the-tributes is as same as the citizens-of-capitol-cheers-for-tribute.

But there’s a new one in here, it’s divided in groups and you get in the ‘arena’ where it is really a real arena, like a stadium. It’s like gladiators fighting. I like that idea very much.

• Believability: 6/10 points

Honestly I can’t believe anything that’s happened. So there’s no persuading? There are no arguments? Come on, they are enemies. They don’t trust each other in the first place. They just can’t talk and go ‘okay-yeah-let’s-work-together’ in just a few hours. There’s bound to be fights (both physically and verbally) and there will be someone who completely disagrees and just distance himself from any of the other members. As I quote from you, ’nothing goes as planned’.

I absolutely love when you killed some of the characters! It’s completely realistic and true.

 

Presentation: 4/10

The bolding wasn’t needed and the ‘line-breaks’ (these ‘*****’) wasn’t needed. At all. Truthfully, the bolding hurts my eyes, but since you used the typical (and absolutely perfect) Arial font for the writing, I let it pass. In all honesty, the picture for every character when the POV changes just made me irritated because some of the pictures were broken and, yeah, it turns me off.

For the line breaks I suggest you to use a center-aligned dashes/asterisks with just five- or maximum of 10. The people reading in their iTouch of phones would not be comfortable for excessive paragraph breaks.

The ‘SuHo, SeHun, and LuHan’ part somehow irks me off, too. Their names are just “Suho, Sehun, and Luhan’ respectfully, or “Su ho, Se hun, and Lu han’.

 

Characters: 7/15 points

I couldn’t understand them. Not at all. Maybe it’s because you didn’t delve deeper into them, you didn’t tell us how this particular person acts, what this particular person feels about, what this particular person thinks. Some of the characters are just someone, just shoved to fight, while we don’t know anything about them. You didn’t delve deeper into their past, to their dreams and hopes. You just can’t make me feel pity for them.

I personally thought that all of The Boss characters were like elders, though. And EXO and B.A.P are like kids-in-training.

And I honestly didn’t mind you killing off the characters because again, it’s completely realistic.

Oh my god, it’s Hunger Games again, Mentors and their tributes. Plus points for not including an OC Girl that is flawless and just save their asses off!

 

Spelling & Grammar: 7/10

I’m never usually bothered that much for spelling and grammar (since my tenses are just awful and you could maybe see some mistakes up in the review) but I definitely spotted a few typing mistakes from some of the first chapters.

Sorry if you expected more, but spelling and grammar is not my area of expertise. I focus more on the plot and the whole story itself.

 

Writing Style: 5/10

A bit awkward, if I must say.

 The POV changes massively confused me. It’s a big no-no for me. Omniscient 3^rd Person POV would be nice for this story, like what you used when it’s not the character’s POV.

Another one was the transition between informal writing and formal (can’t and cannot). I guess that I really would love if the ‘younger’ characters (B.A.P & EXO) would just use the ‘informal’ ones to keep the ‘sense’ of them being rookies and The Boss to use ‘formal’ ones, but it’s just my preferences though.

 

Flow: 4/10

Whoa, hold it right there. Too fast and too rushed. I can’t get a grip on their feelings, the whole setting itself, and so there was no pity I felt for the characters that died and the whole planning just basically was rushed. These typical plans needs to last about- months, I think? The flow was basically too tight, and I just couldn’t get a grip. When I clicked on the ‘next’ button, I still keep wondering, ‘that was too fast’.

 

Enjoyment: 9/15

Most of what I enjoy/not enjoy was in the respective sections up there. But I definitely enjoyed reading this, because this was a refreshing break from common stories here in Asianfanfics (I’m not practically overjoyed by the implied here, tho.)

 

Bonus: 3/5

Definitely deserved extra points. I honestly like your idea and the plot itself. The Overlord seems extremely cool, too.

 

Total Score: 62/125 = 77.5%

 

Extra:

I am very sorry for this very harsh review! But in all, I honestly liked it very much. Although I did not know very much about The Boss, they seem very fitting for the role of being the ‘knowing’. I wish you good luck in your writing!