My Heart's Three Pointer by Saraaaxxi

VᴇʀꜱᴀEᴍᴇʀɢᴇ ʀᴇᴠɪᴇᴡ ꜱʜᴏᴘ Archive。
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REVIEWER'S CORNER
I took me an hour to realize on the poster that Krystal had no arms and I laughed for a solid ten minutes because of it. Help me.

ANYWAYS, don't forget to credit the shop in the foreword (or somewhere there) and if you have any questions let me know.
my heart's three pointer
LINK
BY saraaaxxi


Title (5/5):
Since I did the description area first, I do think the title is the best thing so far. That can change hence the fact I haven't read the story yet but it might not. The title is different and somewhat unique. I haven't seen it before at least which is saying something considering how many fanfics I look at a day, so good job on that aspect. Whether or not it fits the story, I'll be finding that out soon. 

Description/Foreword (3/10):
Oh honey, the first thing I noticed that you should never do is use... a bright pink font. It's sore on the eyes especially mine. Also, the change of the font after each paragraph is god no. Especially using "sans" as a font, that's just a big no in general. Stick to one font, most people use Times New Romans or the one I'm using now since it's easy to read. The font should always be black, not colored. Colored is no, god no. I would really look into changing the font color, the font size to a normal standard 12 or 14 size, and keeping the font all the same (Times New Roman, Garamond, Verdana are all good ones). 

Moving on from that, this description already sounds kind of cliché. Doesn't really sound any different from the other school AU's I read since a lot of them tend to sound the same, so I don't really have that high of expectations right now. It really does sound like another generic school romance story that's already been done before but that's just a first judgement, that is bound to change possibly. If not, the plot section will talk about why. 

Also... Assuming the tutor is the oc female, why the hell would she be tutoring someone from a different school? That's not how it works. So that's unrealistic off the bat if that's how it's put. I'm not saying it doesn't happen but when a school looks for a tutor for someone, they look for students in the enrolled school that are willing to tutor. If they are in the same school, you definitely need to change your wording because you said "from the neighboring school" which is saying that the student is from a different school, not hers. > After reading a chapter, they seem to be in the same school, I don't understand why the description says from a neighboring school if he attends hers, there isn't any background story here or explanation. I don't really get what message you're trying to send since I am getting very mixed signals.


Also, there were a decent amount of typos and wrong grammar but I will talk about that more in the writing style section since that's for there.

Plot (9/40):
Just a warning: I am not reading all of the chapters. I don't have time to do that and I usually don't do more than five chapters unless the story is really that compelling. 

Since she's technically still a highschool student who most likely just hit the age of 18, how can she live alone and support herself? I don't think it'd be possible for her to have a full time job if she's focusing on school. > Update: so she does have a job but it's part time. A part time job wouldn't pay for an apartment so where is she getting money? Her parents? Because a part time job cannot pay for rent and bills, I had a part time job and I made less than 200 a month. Definitely not enough. This probably should have been a  little more specific.

"It's only two bus stops away from Ilsan which means that there are Goryeo boys lurking around the school all the time either just trashing around or trying to hit it up with anyone they see that is the opposite ." 

This is a sentence I kind of want to talk about since it's very generalizing. This makes it sound very unrealistic especially to Korea where, majority, of people are respectful and use honorifics towards people they don't know or people older than themselves. Not only that, but this is an overused concept and it's not original. Almost every School AU has one person, or a group of people, who are labeled this way and it's boring since it's been done so many times prior.

South Korean students are, usually, very keen on getting good grades and getting into the S.K.Y universities as well so this is just off from the mark. Sure, it's a story but I feel like if you're going to write a story based in another country, which is almost all of AFF, I like more accuracy then not and not a lot of people seem to really do research on Korea when writing, you can kind of tell.

The plot seems to be generic from the getgo as I mentioned before and it always starts with the tutoring, really. One person has bad grades, the OC doesn't so they are forced to tutor the other. I've read that before. Now I get that this isn't the whole story, if it was it'd be pointless, so I'm not going to criticize it too much but it starts off very generically. So far, there's nothing exciting happening and I feel like I'm not invested in the story. While that can do a lot with my picky nature of reading, I do think there's not much compelling me to read all of it.

This really just seems like a typical story you can find here on aff now that I read more of it. The "gang"-like type of stuff is so common in school AU's and they're not even logical. Mostly because they're not gangs... just stupid teenagers but that isn't the point. There just doesn't seem to be anything unique about the plot itself but... I guess people on this website like that which is why I don't read here (minus reviews). 

The plot is fairly weak here since there's nothing that makes it stand out from the rest. That's just merely an opinion based off of all of the stories I've reviewed over the years (which is probably over 500 God forbid).

Writing Style/Flow (8/20):
I do have a feeling that English might not be your first language (I'm not sure if it is or isn't) but there were a good amount of mistakes and stuff in the description. They're "minor" mistakes but they do stand out to me (possibly because I am reviewing but I would have noticed them anyways).

There were some misspelled words, I'll just write them down here with the correction to make it simple; these were all found in the description.
Misspelled words:
• Enlightement -> Enlightenment

• Delinquet -> Delinquent
• Appearence -> Appereance

Moving on from misspelled words, there's a lot of problems with the grammar (lack of commas, weird phrases, forgotten words) and so on. Good example would be the first sentence.

"To third-year high schoolers could there be more to life than just perfect specs, long all-nighters and plans about future?"

I'm just going to fix it and all changes will be in red.

"To third-year high schoolers, could there be more to life than just perfect specs, all-nighters, and plans about the future?" 

> You don't need to say that all-nighters are "long" because an all-nighter is staying up all night, that's implied already so it's pointless to keep long in. Second, you don't seem to use commas very often. Commas are important for splitting up sentences and preventing long run-on sentences. I added the "the" in because it's not "about future", it's "about the future" so, that's pretty simple. 

Moving on to the next paragraph of the description:

"Hwang Sera is a hard working student who experienced the enlightement to study a bit late and now is in a great hurry to fill her empty spec if she wants to get into the university of her dreams. With her dreams of becoming a well known author hanging by a thread called Min Yoongi Sera is expressing the biggest crisis of her 18-year old life. The sudden appearence of a cocky and annoying blonde haired delinquet from the neighbouring school just adds into the twists that change her ordinary life into a action spiced comedy."

There's a few things wrong with this one as well. Changes will be marked in red. I changed the sentences around because the first sentence, to me, makes little to no sense. Enlightenment has synonyms of: understanding, awareness, wisdom, and so on. There is no wisdom in studying late and rushing things so I'm removing that word entirely. Also, I'm not quite entirely sure what you mean by "spec"... I looked the definition up and I don't think it's what you wanted to use. Maybe using the word "requirements" or "prerequisite" would make more sense. I didn't think about it earlier but it definitely sounds strange and I've never heard someone use the word "spec" for what you're attempting to use it for. In truth, this paragraph isn't going to be that similar to yours because I'm really having a bit of trouble decoding some of it (or I might just leave it because I'm not sure).

FIXED:
"Hwang Sera is a hard word working student who studies a bit late and is now in great hurry to fill her empty prerequisites (or requirements) if she wants to get into the university of her dreams. With her dreams of becoming a well known author hanging by a thread called Min Yoongi, Sera is experiencing the biggest crisis of her 18 year old life. The sudden appearance of a cocky and annoying blonde haired delinquent from the neighbouring school just adds into the twists that change her ordinary life into an action spiced comedy." 

> You didn't add any commas as I said and some of the words you used don't make sense in the way you are using them. "Expressing the biggest crisis" doesn't make sense because she is experiencing the biggest crisis, not "expressing" it. 

And the last portion. 

"Due to his poor results in academics Yoongi is assigned a tutor. A sarcastic and quick-witted girl with quick comebacks and a hurtfully honest way of speaking, which causes continuous clashes between the two throughout their tutoring lessons. Can his tutor teach him more than just mathematic formulas and brutal history? Maybe a well needed life lesson?"

So... "Hurtfully honest" while the truth can hurt, I don't think you should word it that way because the truth isn't supposed to do harm, even though it will, it's to put a person into the right place. So I changed that. Changes in red.

FIXED:
"Due to his poor results in academics, Yoongi is assigned a tutor. A sarcastic and quick-witted girl with quick comebacks and a brutually honest way of speaking which causes continuous clashes between the two throughout the tutoring lessons. Can his tutor teach him more than just mathematic formulas and brutal history lessons? Maybe a well needed life lesson?"


CHAPTER ONE:

01. The word "bus" in the chapter name is spelled as "buss".

02. "Backbag" sounds quite weird, most people would refer to it as a "backpack" or "bookbag" rather than a "backbag". At least where I am from they do. I've never heard someone refer to it as a "backbag" before.

03. "Thankfully, after walking down the street towards the bus stop she went to every morning the white earphones were finally untangled."
> This needs a comma in between "morning" and "the white earphones"
Fixed: "Thankfully, after walking down the street towards the bus stop she went to every morning, the white earphones were finally untangled."


CHAPTER THREE:

01. There were moments when you left two character's dialogue in the same paragraph, that is a no-no.
"Yoongi’s eyes widened “You work?” “Well… part-time.”"
> There are two people speaking in this sentence and you do it another time after this in the chapter. I would avoid doing this since it causes confusion and is just incorrect. Everytime a new character speaks, you need to hit 'enter' just as you would a new paragraph. Maybe you didn't notice but try not to do this.

These are all the ones I will point out but I do think there were more. As I said, English may not be your first language which is fine, it's impressive that some people can even learn more than two languages in the first place considering I can't even learn a second language without forgetting everything in the first hour.

Not even that but the story is well written besides these things. You describe things, not to an extent but you do describe things, but it's really the plot that lost my interest.


FLOW:

The flow is uh.. I don't know. It's fast, to say the least. I mean things happen and new characters are introduced like nothing. I feel like we aren't getting enough background story. Like I said with Sera, where are her parents? I'm almost 20 and I still live with my mom while in college, I for sure as hell couldn't afford an apartment with a part time job, they don't pay that much especially because she has no degree, she can't get a job that pays well. So how does she afford the house? I don't really remember anything being mentioned besides the fact that she lives alone hence her saying that her apartment fit one person, which would be her, and there's no specifics on the location of her parents. She's still a highschooler, she has no career. So a little more background story might have been nice instead of going right into the "action" per se. 

Characterization (5/20):
I can tell Yoongi's character is going to be generic from the description. Every single school AU has a deliquent/rebel of some sort and it's old. His character right now seems kind of flat and that's not really good. He just seems too much like the other male idols that are used as "deliquents" or rebellious people.

Sera didn't stick out to me much either. I didn't really find her any different from other OC's I see in these types of stories. Maybe because there's a stigma of OC's for me but I didn't see anything special in the chapters I read. I didn't read many but I read enough to grasp the idea you were trying to get across. When looking at her as a character, I tried to find something that made me think "wow, I've never heard of that one before" or something like that but I just didn't really feel anything while reading her parts. I just kind of nodded my head as I read. Almost all OC's are made out to be "almost perfect" or just flat out a mary sue. She's no mary sue but I feel like there's not many flaws implemented into her either. Not ones that are obviously mentioned, at least.

Just from reading the small line I did of Zico, I could kind of tell he wasn't going to be special. A lot of people use the concept you did for him, and well Suga, and it becomes old as I said. Some people do use the concept in a unique way but.. they're just teenagers/new adults in school. Highschool even. I don't really see how this concept can play in properly in a school AU like this one. I don't really see why people even try to use "gang" concepts in school au's in general, it just... isn't that likely to happen.


Personal Enjoyment (2/5):
While I am purely not a fan of OC fanfics in the first place, it's the concept I knew I wouldn't like either. This whole concept, as I've stated, is just overused and I never see anything that stands out or goes "pizzazz" in a way that's new and refreshing. This concept is very popular, school au's with a mixture of wannabe teenage gangs, but... I don't feel like most of them are executed in a way that's interesting or new.

Besides the fact that I hate OC fanfics, it's mainly the plots that drive me away. There have been OC fanfics I adore, it's rare but it does happen (pretty sure Emilieee's story 'Sea of Flames' was one of those, I recommend). If it has a good plot, I will most likely like it but this plot is overused. So it's not the fact that it's an OC fic, it's the plot I'm not interested in since I've seen it a lot before. I love unique ideas and I do love reading but if the plot seems the same as another story I have read, I will lose interest very fast. 


The story, minus the few grammar issues here and there, was actually very well written it's just the plot that I don't find compelling enough to read full way through. The character's are another issue for me as well, they're not very interesting to me because, as I said, they're generic and not special to me. I won't remember them. The writing could be superb but if the plot isn't very exciting or unique in a sense, it may be overlooked (well... not on AFF, everything kind of goes here.)

Total (32/100):
While this isn't the score you probably wanted, I couldn't give 'pity points' even if I wanted to (because I tend to feel bad). I'm not saying your story is bad, it's not, there's just a good amount of flaws within it in my opinion. While the writing is good, the plot and characters fail to interest me as a reader. They don't feel unique or different, they kind of fit in with the rest of society, to say the least. 

A score does not determine the quality of a story.

Especially since another review shop may give you a different score (if you happened to request in several places). I try to be as honest as possible in my reviews because I'm here to help, I can't help if I sugarcoat everything. (I also don't know why I feel the need to explain myself every time I give a low score because I feel bad) but really your story is doing fine in terms of subscribers (I mean, that's not everything) so you're doing something right at least.

Not only that but it seems to be your first story which is impressive. At least first on this website. If it is your first, it's a lot better than my first (which I thankfully deleted...)

Anyways, I don't know what I am saying anymore so if you have any questions, please let me know and I'll get back to you when I can. I can offer advice as well but it'd probably be ty since I'm a ty advice giver (I try though...)

Please don't forget to credit the shop and thank you for requesting, sorry this became so damn long.

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