Before You Go
by: MissWeather95 
 

title (4/10)

Formatting first, the "..." is unnecessary. As for the title itself, it sounds really common and there's nothing special about it. I just typed it into the search bar and more than a few fics with the exact same or similar titles popped up. If I were scrolling through the tags and your story came up, I would keep scrolling.  I can't comment on how well it represents the story because we're only 7 chapters in.

description (2/10)

This part is the strongest:

"He opened his eyes only to see that his life ended.

She closed her eyes only to see her life unraveled. "

After that, it falls apart. You give away too much. Telling us that they don't get along at first but then grow close and become fond of each other is too much information for just the description. Yes, there's a promise of some great secret to be unveiled and a greater mystery behind it all, but that's it. And now, as a reader, I'm not even sure if the secret is worth reading for now that one of the most vital pieces of the story (the relationship between the protagonists) has been spoiled for me. I now get the impression that the relationship between the two protagonists will be rushed in favor of getting to this great big secret; which it totally was. But, there's more on that in a later section.

The description could've been better if it went something more like this:

"He opened his eyes only to see that his life ended.

She closed her eyes only to see her life unraveled. 

Y/N moved into her new apartment with all the excitement of finally living on her own. Imagine her surprise when a grown man was in her face not even half-an-hour later, going on about how she had to leave---and all she wanted to do was water this stupid plant. They came to an agreement: she could stay as long as she made herself as scarce as possible. She didn't so much as breathe in his direction and everything would be fine.

However, Y/N sensed that behind his unsavoy personality he was harboring a dark secret...if his waking up screaming in the middle of the night screaming meant anything.

(Y/N reckoned it certainly did.)"

Give the readers the setting and something interesting to hook them; but, leave the real plot for the chapters. 
 

plot (10/30)

I can't give an accurate score for plot since the story isn't finished. I can, however, judge what I'm seeing so far. Overall, everything is just too rushed. The relationship between Jiyong and Y/N was already spoiled in the description. So, truthfully, I wasn't looking forward to much in that regard. I've read dozens of "enemies to lovers" fics. A few of them have actually surprised me. Most fell extremely short. I'm sorry to say, yours falls short for me as well. Or, at least, it's falling short for me at the moment and I see nothing that could possibly save it in the future. You really do need to go back and re-write huge portions.

Your story goes like this: (numbers don't correlate with chapters, they're just bulletpoints)

1. Jiyong and Y/N meet, Jiyong hates her immediately (or hates the idea of anyone moving in, therefore hates Y/N pretty much by association), within one minute Jiyong allows her to stay under some very icy conditions. He really doesn't have to just be ok with a random stranger staying with him, especially when she isn't even paying him rent. He should've at least called this Seunghyun person to talk and sort everything out. But, he didn't. This is in extreme conflict with his character. You write him like he's a really bitter recluse (even though his friends apparently have keys to his apartment??) who doesn't give a crap about other people's circumstances. He should've fought harder against Y/N staying.

2. Literally nothing has changed but Jiyong is suddenly acting like he can stand Y/N for some reason and is acting all protective, Y/N is harrassed by a stranger, chased by that stranger, calls out for Jiyong of ALL people (instead of just screaming 'HELP!', which would have been a better bet), and he actually appears (with no explanation of where he was walking to or from). He literally just popped up out of nowhere. You're really abusing the reader's suspension of belief here. There should have been some explanation of why he shows up. Like, when they got back home he told her he was on his way to the store or on his way back from the store when he heard her screaming or something. Also, why does Y/N call out for Jiyong? They're not close enough yet (at least they shouldn't be) for her to automatically think of his name when she's in danger.

3. Y/N has a random nightmare and Jiyong comes rushing into her room to comfort her. Again, it's too fast. At the very most, he can go knock on her door and hesitantly ask if she's okay, if it sounds really bad. But, him just swooping in and saving her from the big, bad scary dream is too intimate and totally out of his character, period. Then she's reprimanding him for being mean to her? The Jiyong you introduced so far shouldn't have come into the room at all. But, if he did, he should've stormed out right after she caught an attitude, grumbling about her being ungrateful and a brat for not appreciating his concern. He's too invested and he shouldn't be. Not yet. 

4. There's a flashback and Jiyong's mystery dream girl is revealed to be Eunrin, his ex. It's the most interesting thing that has happened so far. Then, after that, Jiyong and Y/N go on a random picnic and his excuse for going is he doesn't want her going by herself and "looking like she just got dumped and wants to be alone"? Even if that were the case, why is Jiyong so invested? Why does he care? What's happened so far (besides Y/N being attacked and Jiyong popping up out of literal thin air to save her) that warrants him to want to be so involved? Then he's acting like her wingman? I can't ask this question enough: why does he care? 

5. Then, Jiyong has his nightmare again during the blackout. Which we can now assume is about Eunrin and their bad breakup. This is actually a nice opportunity for Y/N and Jiyong to grow close. It's a little cheesy and overdone, but effective. The problem is the two are already prematurely close. When Jiyong has his nightmare, Y/N rushes to his aid and Jiyong tells Y/N he loves her. I can't describe how confused I was when reading this. By chapter seven, he's already confessing that he loves her? Nothing much has happened to alter their relationship for him to be confessing so soon. At the very most, he should've been saying, "I don't hate you anymore. Wanna go bowling or something? Don't take it as anything serious, though! I'm not into you like that. I just wanna apologize for being an before. That's it." But, love shouldn't even be apart of the equation this early. It's just unrealistic and rushed.

**I'm getting the feeling that Jiyong's "dark secret" is that he cheated on Eunrin or something and they had a bad breakup because of it. Y/N is going to find out, overreact, and their already fragile and rushed romantic relationship will crumble. But, please prove me wrong.**

characters (5/25)

Jiyong: Most of the points I gave are for Jiyong being the only character you made a solid foundation for his personality to build up from. Unfortunately, for the sake of advancing the plot, he's made to do things out of his character. There is no transition between "I literally couldn't care less about you" Jiyong and "I thought I told you to be safe, Y/N" Jiyong. He's the character who had the most potential for a strong, consistent personality from the beginning. But, the potential is never realized because he's basically used in every which way to speed up the romance between him and Y/N. 

Y/N: She doesn't even have a personality. It's a "you" character, which I realize. But, I can't relate to her in the slightest. I don't know much about her past other than the fact that she became close to Jisoo though their moms being old friends. I don't know what she likes and dislikes, any of her hobbies, or even what she's studying in college. She's not a character I want to invest my time in.  

Jisoo/Jennie/Lisa/Sehun, etc.: Basically all of your secondary characters feel like props to help the protagonists with whatever they need. When reading conversations between Y/N and her friends, Jisoo, Jennie, and Lisa feel like the same person to me. I can't distinguish them. They feel like puppets manipulated to support a really flat, extremely 2-dimensional female protagonist who doesn't have any distinguising factors or unique quirks of her own. 

grammar (3/10)

You wanted me to pay close attention to grammar, so I'm really going to unpack it. Your story actually has many grammatical errors. Awkward phrasing can't be taught like grammar can. You just have to read and speak in order to learn when something isn't necessarily grammatically incorrect but sounds really awkward to the ear regardless. There are grammatically incorrect portions I can point out, though. I'll highlight some of the concepts I saw more than once.

Excerpt from Chapter One-

Original:

Jiyong woke up to the sound of a woman screaming. He jolted up from his slumber, with sweats trickled* down his face.
"It's only a dream." He told** himself. 
The room was chilly despite the fact that the fan was not even switched on. The sun rays hit his face as he sat up, resting his elbows on his knees, Jiyong*** then, buried his face in his palms. It was the same every night, the same voice, the same scream, the same dream. He didn't know what to do to make it stop. It had been going on for so long that he forgot when it even started.

Revised:

Jiyong woke up to the sound of a woman screaming. He jolted up from his slumber, with sweat trickling* down his face.

"It's only a dream," he told** himself. 

The room was chilly despite the fact that the fan was not even switched on. The sun rays hit his face as he sat up, resting his elbows on his knees. Jiyong*** then buried his face in his palms. It was the same every night, the same voice, the same scream, the same dream. He didn't know what to do to make it stop. It had been going on for so long that he forgot when it even started.

*: Sweat is singular, so it should be followed by a verb with the "ing" suffix. You may have also written 'sweat beads' making the sweat plural. Then it would have been followed by a verb with the "ed" suffix, like 'trickled'. This is called noun-verb agreement.

**: If the verb directly interacts with the dialogue inside the quoation marks, this is how it's formatted. Anything like (blank) said, told, shouted, sang, screamed, etc. should be formatted like this. The only exception is when what follows the quoation marks doesn't directly interact with what's inside them. For example, "It's only a dream." Jiyong swung his legs over the edge of his bed and slid his feet into his slippers. It's related, so it can stay on the same line. But knowing Jiyong puts on his slippers after saying what he said doesn't further affect the dialogue. As a geneal rule, (blank) said or any other talking verb is formatted like this: "Blah blah blah(,)" Jiyong said. While if the dialogue is followed by an action or a thought, it's formatted like this: "Blah blah blah(.)" Jiyong put on his slippers.

***: This is just a run-on sentence. If you really want to connect them you can create a compound sentence by adding a semi-colon (;) (not to be confused with a regular colon (:)), between knees and Jiyong like this:...knees; Jiyong then buried... But it's totally not necessary to combine them.

2. Excerpt from Chapter Two-

Original: 

"You got a really nice house here, _____" Your friend Lisa* nodded her head in approval.
"It's not really my house, I'm just renting here." You replied her, carrying some of your boxes into your room. 
Jennie, Lisa and Jisoo were there to help you unpacked, while Chaeyoung was late as usual. 


Revised:

"You've got a really nice house here, _____." Your friend, Lisa*, nodded her head in approval.

"It's not really my house. I'm** just renting here." You replied, carrying some of your boxes into your room. Jennie, Lisa and Jisoo were there to help you unpack; while Chaeyoung was late as usual. 

*: Lisa is between commas because it's excess information. We don't need to know her friend's name is Lisa to understand the sentence.

**: Another run-on sentences.

Things I corrected without highlighting are either simple grammatical errors or were already discussed.

narrative ability (1/15)

My biggest problems with this story are the lack of imagery, the neglect of establishing setting/time, and the switching point of views. At chapter seven, I have zero idea how much time has passed since the first chapter. Has it been days, weeks, or even months? Who knows? There is no indicator for time. Giving the reader a sense of time and a solid setting is imperative. Maybe it has been months and Jiyong is only just beginning to open up room in his heart for Y/N. It does feel like it's only been about a week. But, I can't be sure because there is no indicator for time.

As for the imagery, there is none. Your descriptions are seriously lacking. What does the apartment look like? How is the school set up? What does Y/N's workplace look like? There are no physical descriptions despite your story having quite the laundry list of characters. I understand some people won't bother with physical descriptions of characters because it's a fanfic and we already know what these idols look like. But, maybe current Jiyong has fiery orange hair, and you want him to have black hair in your story. Or somehting like that. It all matters. I want so badly to fall into the fictional reality you're creating, but I can't because I don't know where we are on the timeline and I have no idea how anyone or anything looks like.

The most pressing of the three issues for me is the switching of point of views. I'm generally not a huge fan of multi-pov stories to begin with. Mainly because it's difficult for unseasoned hands to execute well and it ends up being a mess if it's not water-tight. And I'm referring to stories that switch pov's every chapter. You switch pov's at least once within the same chapter and that's a huge writing taboo. The way you're utilizing pov switching just makes your chapters messy and unorganized. It seems like the purpose of mutiple pov's used here isn't variety of narration, rather for the purpose of conveniantly telling the reader what different characters are thinking right in the moment. Mystery is magic. Not knowing what a particular character is thinking could be what brings someone to read the next chapter. I would strongly reccommend rewriting the whole fic from either Y/N's or Jiyong's point of view in entirety. However, if you're set on multi-pov's, it'd be best if there's only one pov per chapter.