TROUBLEMAKERS - iamsobizarre (Reviewer: teuteelicious)
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Title: TROUBLEMAKERS
Author: iamsobizarre
Title [6/10]:
At first I thought this story is about HyunA and Huyngseung (yeah, seriously). Anyways, since they’re not in the story, I figured the main characters must be troublemakers. I think it doesn’t really relate to the story though. The capitalization bothers me a bit (I have OCD).
Description/Foreword [2/5]:
I’m fine with the description. It’s very simple and straightforward, but it leaves an interesting impression behind. It makes me wonder whom she’s going to end up with, so good job! The only problem it has is grammar. Also, your description is in present tense while your chapters are in past. Please fix it into past!
“Soo Hee arrives Seoul for the first time.” A preposition describes how a noun/pronoun is related to another word in a sentence. We know Soo Hee is arriving somewhere and we know that Seoul is the city, but we don’t know that she’s arriving there unless you insert “in” after “arrives”. “Arrives” and “Seoul” are like two bones, you need a joint, in this case, the word “in”, to connect them together so the reader know exactly what Soo Hee is doing.
“She enrolls a public high school after a few years of hiatus…” The same problem also appears here. We know she’s doing something in the public high school and we know she’s enrolling somewhere, but we don’t know what she’s doing in the school and where she’s enrolling. That’s why you need a preposition to make it clear that “she enrolls into a public high school”.
“… and without knowing she becomes friends with Shin Dong Ho…” “Without knowing” what? What exactly does she not know? Well she has no clue about anything; so just put “without any knowledge, she becomes friends…”
“However she develops a strange…” There must always be a comma after “however” if you use it as the first word of a sentence.
“… Choi Seunghyun, where he helps her to value the most important thing in life: love.” The word “where” describes a location, not anything else. Since “Choi Seunghyun” is a person, you must use “who helps…”
Moving on to the foreword. Since none of the description are sentences, why not bullet them and remove the semicolon at the end instead?
“hot and pretty, however innocent” Whenever “however” is used to compare and contrast two things, you must always have a comma after it. This problem also appears in Dong Ho’s description.
“… is really popular between the girls…” “Between” is the space between two things. I’m pretty sure you didn’t mean he’s squeezed in between the girls. He’s actually popular to a general crowd, so use “amongst girls”.
“the hot, 25 years-old teacher…” Whenever the age number is describing a noun/pronoun, you must always write it as “year-old”.
Originality [11/15]:
Love triangle is a pure cliché. Tough yet gentle main character is also cliché. The cute bad boy is also cliché. But a student falling in love with a teacher is so… strange. I’ve seen stories like this before so I can’t give any higher marks.
Characters [10/10]:
Love each and everyone of them (especially Dongho because he’s adorable). No complaints! Amazing.
Plot/Writing [19/20]:
Your writing and plot is terrific. I would’ve given full marks if you actually blend the memories into your writing instead of stating it clearly. I don’t know how to explain it. Instead of writing a side note about the flashback, why not write a lead in transition into the actual story itself?
Grammar [15/25]
Please note that everything in below may appears more than once throughout the story, but will only be mentioned once due to the limited space.
Rules on Commas
1. Always place a comma, before and after extra information, to separate it from the original context. Please note that the sentence above is complete without the “before and after extra information” part, but we don’t know what “it” implies to; that’s why we have the middle part to clarify any confusions.
2. If a sentence starts with a prepositional phrase, always put a comma after it. Look up a list of prepositional phrase. Unfortunately, there are many of them to memorize.
Example: At the dark corner, the cat sat and ate its food.
Example: The cat sat ate its food at the dark corner.
Example: The cat sat at the dark corner and ate its food.
3. If you read the sentence out loud and there are too many unnecessary pauses from the commas, remove it. If the sentence doesn’t have the commas where the pauses are, add them.
Chapter 1:
“[Soo Hee POV]” It’s her point of view, so you must make her name possessive.
“Every single person around me started running as if the world as going to end, while I kept at my own pace.” Remove “at”. It’s unnecessary and does nothing in the sentence.
“I haven’t used uniform in a while and it’s not that I had missed using it.” You’ve been using past tense up until now, fix it to “I had not” and “it was”.
“I adjusted my black eastpak backpack and after hearing…” Eastpak is a brand; you must capitalize it.
“A young men was standing in front of the class, most probably the teacher and I stood by his side.” “Men” is plural; make it singular. The phrase “most probably” doesn’t make sense because “probably” is an adverb, and there’s no verb in this sentence for it to describe. Make it “most probable”, now it would describe the teacher. Put a comma after “teacher” to separate the original sentence from the extra information.
“… but he seemed to ignore.” This is the same problem with what you have in the description. What is he ignoring? Of course about Soo Hee not bowing. We don’t want to use the same words in a sentence, so just let “it” take the place. In other words, “… but he seemed to ignore it.”
“He pointed to two empty seats in the back, by the window and I made my way there.” The comma doesn’t need to be there. It’s pointless in the sentence.
“From the back seat I could see everyone.” The first four words of this sentence is a prepositional phrase. Whenever you start with a prepositional phrase, you must always put a comma after it.
“… so obviously my class was only made of girls…” This sentence feels somewhat awkward. Try making it “made up” instead.
“He decided then to start math’s class.” The class doesn’t belongs to math; it’s the noun that math describes. Therefore, remove the possessive.
“The things my mom makes me do…” I don’t get what you meant with this part. Sorry.
“… he glanced at the teacher who was looking like she was about to die in madness, coming on his direction.” Put a comma after “teacher” because your description interrupted the original train of thoughts. Instead of “on”, write “toward” so it’s more definite that she’s storming to him.
“Men, she’s abusing!” The correct way of writing this slang term is “man”.
Chapter 2:
“As I was getting off the bathroom a boy ran through me, pushing me.” Firstly, she’s not on the bathroom, she’s in it; so she must be getting “out the bathroom”, not “off”. Secondly, “a boy” has nothing with getting out the bathroom, so there’s obviously a comma separating the two parts. Thirdly, he’s not a ghost, he physically can’t run “through” Soo Hee, but he can surely run “past” or “into” her.
“But he totally ignored me…” This sentence is incomplete because there’s no beginning part for “but” to compare and contrast to. Either insert “I yelled” at the beginning (remember to make “but” lowercase), or just plainly remove “but”.
“The same teacher that in the early morning was scolding a kid appeared out of nowhere, trying to catch him.” This sentence is awkward because of the word order. Switch the order around to “the same teacher that was scolding a kid earlier in the morning…”
“… an orange motocross bike passed really fast through me...” This is another awkward sentence. Replace “through” with “by”.
“But this is definately boring.” Change the word to “definitely”.
“She kept lied on there, without moving.” Don’t conjugate a verb after an already conjugated one. The comma and “on” are unnecessary to the sentence. It can survive without those things. So, make it “She kept lying there without moving”.
Chapter 3:
“Teacher Seunghyun was leaning on the wall, right in front of the stairs, with his hand digged on his pants’ pockets.” Firstly, remove the comma after “wall” because the context after it is related to the subject (wall). Secondly, “digged” does not exist in the dictionary. Past tense of “dig” is “dug”. Thirdly, you can’t dig your hands on your pockets, but you can dig “in” it.
“I retreated a bit, holding my head That hurt!” You need a punctuation mark after “head”. If it’s a comma, make “that” lowercase. Also, “that” is describing a singular action, you must change “hurt” to “hurts” to make the subject and verb agree.
“They were laughing, showing their ugly yellow crooked teeth.” Whenever you’re describing something with more than one adjective, please put commas in between them. Like this, “…showing their ugly, yellow, crooked teeth.”
“the man backed off, embarrasses…” There’s more than one man, so say “men”. Also, “embarrasses” needs to be an adjective, so turn it to “embarrassed.”
Chapter 4:
“… tou’re dead meat now.” Just a careless typo, fix it. this is also another careless error, “Your mom is always sick, then.”
Chapter 5:
“Since she was always under the Sun back in Jeju-do…” Just make “sun” lowercase.
“Between all that noise and comments about her…” Since “comments” is plural, also change “noise” to plural.
“Some people never get to enter this office, Soo Hee entered in the beggining of her second week on this school.” First, change “get” to past tense. Second, “beginning” is the correct spelling. Third, change “this office” to “the office”. Fourth, change “on” to “in”; there’s a difference between them.
Chapter 6:
“He was short like every korean you see out there, and was probably in his 60’s.” Capitalize “Korean” and spell out “sixties” since it’s a number that goes by ten. Also type out numbers that are less than twenty.
“Both os them hate being scolded and the worst of it…” Fix the small error to “of”.
“… I still know what I do, mr. Principal.” Always capitalize Mr., Mrs., and Ms.
Chapter 8:
“… clearly affected my Teacher Seunghyun’s look…” You already directed the specific name of the teacher, no need for “my”.
“… and there was no soung on the whole school except for those two.” I don’t really know what “soung” means.
Chapter 9:
“‘morning, mom!’ I said, while I was entering the kitchen.” Capitalize “morning” and remove the comma after “said” since this is a simple sentence.
“Besides, not long ago you absolutely dispised me.” Change “dispised” to “despised”.
“I locked the room’s doo rand…” Remember to double check before posting!
Chapter 13:
“He hided his milk behind his back…” It should be “hid”.
“The pit fire still had some lit…” “Lit” is past tense of the verb “to light”. Make it an adjective by plainly writing “light”.
“… with things e might need.” Change “e” to “I”.
“He smiled and started pulling m to the hiking path.” Add “e” to “m”.
Chapter 14:
“Soo Hee bursted out laughing.” “Burst” is one of the irregular verbs that doesn’t need to be conjugated in its past tense. Just simply remove the –ed.
Chapter 15:
“I just lied there, on my bed.” Past tense of “to lie (down)” is “laid”. Also, the comma isn’t really needed here.
Chapter 16:
“I got off the ed and went to the kitchen to drink to water.” Of course, add “b” to “ed”. Remove the second “to” because it makes the sentence meaningless.
“… and threw muself on the bed…” This is another careless mistake. Please fix it. Also, fix this, “Soo Min went to buy the ticket for hr husband…”
“Leaving both in disbelied…” It should be “disbelief”. Also fix “we” in “If wee keep like this…”
Chapter 19:
“Soo Hee caught the big orange ball and ran to the basket, and then jumped to pu the ball inside.” The words seem right, but the shade of the sentence doesn’t sound too flowing. You need a better word that “put” to fit the context. Maybe “slam” or “dunk”?
“… the best scholar baskaetball team of Seoul!” Remove the second “a” from “baskaetball”.
“… hiding her real personalitu.” Please fix the “u” to a “y”.
Chapter 20:
“Dongho peeked inside to see Soo Hee lied inside, sobbing.” Dongho is the main subject here, so his action word has to be conjugated (and it already is). But Soo Hee’s actions are just naming action, not performing. So you have to change “lied” to “lying”.
“He slided his back on the chair and leaned his head backwards closing his eyes.” The past tense of “slide” is “slid”. Also, put a comma after “backwards” because the context in the last part of the sentence are describing what he’s doing, not what he is currently doing. You must separate naming from performing action verbs.
Chapter 22:
“‘Help me deciding!’” Change “deciding” to “decide” because he’s directly commanding someone.
“… reaching his fingrs to his lips…” You misspelled some words… again.
“… so he could see you read his ears were.” I’m guessing you meant “red”.
Other [10/10]
I freaking love this! Why didn’t you make a sequel? Don’t leave me hanging here! I’m still fangirling about Dongho in this fic. You seriously have to write more. Seriously though, this is great. Somehow I feel like Seunghyun is the main character since you described him a lot. I don’t know… I just like Dongho. Yeah, I’m squealing like a pig right now.
Extra [4/5]:
Your format is extremely nice and neat. I love it! Your poster is fine, but it bothers me how the girl’s head is cut off. I know I’m just randomly ranting here, but her head does look awkward.
I wonder why you didn’t put chapter titles, but put “TROUBLEMAKERS” instead. I think I would like it better it catchy and interesting titles.
Total [0-100]: 78/100
Your overall scores combined.
A: 90-100
B: 80-89
C: 70-79
D: 60-69
F: 60-
Sorry for taking a long time. I’m really busy lately. Sorry if the results aren’t satisfying enough.
I really think you deserve a B but there are many grammar mistakes. They’re not huge mistakes, but they just come up often (including typos). But it’s all fine since English isn’t your first language. You write extremely well! You better tell me who the guy is… now! I’m dying to know! Hahaha just kidding, I’ll let my fangirling brain decide who’s the main character.
Remember to double check before posting! Hopefully I helped in some way! You can always contact me for any confusions/questions. ~teuteelicious from **Starlight Review Shop**
PS: Keep up the good reviewing work! Welcome to the family :)
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