Former & the Latter – TaeminIsBigHeart

Review by OutspokenGirl612

The Title  (3/5)

It is an interesting title; I haven’t come across one like this before. However, if you use the article “the” with “Latter” you have to add it before “Former” as well. There’s something I couldn’t quite get and it was the way it’s related to the story.

Description and Foreword(6/10)

I don’t know if it’s only in my computer, but the boxes where you added the information go long outside the original frame format of the Foreword, and it looks really wrong, not appealing. I suggest that you take out the boxes and leave it as usual. As for the description, the information you added is good, it automatically shows the readers what type of story it is. In the foreword, though, the information you added is like adding another description. You can leave it there, but I would suggest adding a fragment of the story that has action, maybe one moment when they discuss, or the thoughts of one of the main characters; that would give the reader an insight to your writing style and to the storyline you actually chose. As for the grammar mistakes I found, they’re on the Writing Style and Language section.

Plot and Originality (20/30)

The plot is a bit cliché, due to the high school rich kid in love with an older woman. However, it’s a romance story, so there’s no real way of escaping clichés when you’re working with that. Still, you have done a good work up until now in maintaining the plot, keeping it realistic to a certain point, good job.

Characterization (15/20)

A kid being infatuated with an older woman is totally believable, so good work with Chunji’s character. What I can’t dig, though, it’s that she can be starting to fall for him; I mean, it’s normal to miss someone if he/she is always insistent, but the factor that he still is in high school and it would be illegal to date him is always present in the persons’ mind.

Writing Style and Language (5/25)

I’m going to put up to 10 mistakes per chapter in this section, since there are too many.

Description and foreword:

1. Is it possible for fate to intersect the two people’s path even though how much the other one kept on avoiding it?- There are many wrong things here:

       a. “the two people’s”- take out the article “the”, you don’t need it there.

       b. “even though how much”- you either have to change “even though” for “no matter”, or take out the “how much”

       c. “the other one”- is there a third person involved? I don’t think so; in order for you to express that both want to avoid it, or only one for that matter, you have to change it to: “both”, or “one of them.”

2. Looks very contrast, right?- You have to add “ed” at the end of “contrast”: “contrasted.”

3. there’s something more you should know more than enough..-  This doesn’t sound right, but I can’t get the idea of what you wanted to say clearly. Were you directing to the readers or trying to direct it towards the characters? If it’s to the characters, change the “you” to a “they.” Then, the repetition of the word “more” is wrong; you have to eliminate the first one for it to make sense. Also, if you’re going to use suspense points, it’s supposed to be three points instead of two (…) .

4. When the two completely opposite people intersects path, what could have possibly chaos it may result?- I’m going to point out various mistakes:

        a. the two- You don’t need the article “the”, eliminate it.

        b. people intersects path- Eliminate the “s” in “intersects”. Whenever you don’t know if a verb needs “s” at the end, change the noun to a pronoun in your mind. In this case “people” can be translated to “they”. As you know by the rules, the verbs used with “they” never end in “s”, so now you know that any verb used with “people” shouldn’t have an “s” at the end.

        c. what could have possibly chaos it may result?- This question is wrongly arranged, you should change it to: what possible chaos may result?

Chapter 1:

1. Namjoo fix down her pencil skirt- The verb “fix” should be in past tense: “fixed”

2. The cafe was very cozy and gives you- the verb “gives” should be in past tense as well, cause you’re narrating something that already happened in the paragraph: “gave”. Also, note that “cafe” needs an accent in the “e”: “café.”

3. Variants of flavors wafted through the air: If it’s “flavors” then it can’t travel through air cause you feel a flavor in your mouth. To express the same idea, change “flavor” to “smells” or “fragrances”.

4. Not Minjoo- Who’s Minjoo? I think you mixed names there, fix it to Namjoo.

5. She was walking in a large strides, every motion was on a haste.- the preposition “a” needs to be removed, in both cases. And change the “in” to “on.”

6. only to be found that someone take advantage of her spot.- You have to eliminate the verb “be”, change “found” to “find” and change “take” to “took.”

7. The old lady who get her spot then glanced at her- Since you’re using “then” in the next sentence, eliminate it in this one. Also, change the tense of “get” to “got” (past tense).

8. Just then the door to his boss’ office blast open. – Once again, the verb tense, change “blast” to “blasted”. Also, fix the pronoun “his” to “her”., since Namjoo is a girl and not a boy.

9.  only to be fell on the ground and all her hardwork were all gone.- First, eliminate “be” and change “fell” to “fall”. Add a period or a semi-colon and eliminate “and” and the second “all”. Change the verb “were” to “was”, or if you prefer you can eliminate it too. And lastly, “hardwork” is actually two words, so you need to add the respective space in between them. If you want them together, you have to add a dash: “hard-work”.  

10. Move before I’ll yell here”- You have no need of the verb “will” here, since it’s in present. Just leave the “I” alone, instead of “I’ll”.

Chapter 2:

1. A will-soon-to-be fun- You don’t need the “will”, so eliminate it.

2. His workmates planned to have a (…)- Change the pronoun “His” to “Her.”

3.  Wow, you sure is excited- “you” always, absolutely always, uses “are” and not “is.”

4. She retrieved it back and again stick it out on her desk.- You have to change the verb tense of “stick” to “stuck”, and eliminate the “out”, it’s not necessary.

5. That is the exact reason why I went here, Namjoo.- If you say “went” it comes from the verb “go”, which means that you have to move to a place far away from where you are. In this case, Soomi walked into Namjoo’s direction and is already in the place, so it should be the verb “come” in past tense, “came.”

6. (…) but because they at some times they have this bestfriend fight- In this case, “some times” goes together because it means occasionally. “Bestfriend” needs a space in between the two words. And you need to eliminate one of the two “they” and the “at” that’s before the “sometimes.”

7. (…) each being organized base on their types before grab a hold on her bag. – “base” needs to be in past tense so add a “d” at the end; “grab” should be like this: “grabbing”.

8. Are you already start to head over heels for him?- “start” needs to be like this: “starting”; you also need to add “to fall” after “starting.”

9. Namjoo spit on her own spit upon hearing it from Soomi.- So, Namjoo went to her spit and decided to spit over it? Or did you mean that she threw out of her spit? Cause if that’s what you mean then you only have to say “spit” and don’t need “on her own spit”. Also, you need to eliminate “it from”, it’s not necessary.

10. He even arrived here a few minutes early than most of the days he went here. – You need to eliminate the first “here”, change “early” to “earlier”, and change “went” to “came.”

Chapter 3:

1. But something’s unusual happened today.- You don’t need the verb “is”, so eliminate “’s” from “something’s.”

2. (…) like he would always used to. – Eliminate the “would”.

3. But what making her bothered- Add the verb “is” like this: “what’s.”

4. Namjoo starred at the blank lame brown table ahead of her, absent-mindly. - The verb is wrong; if you say “starred” it comes from “star”, referring to being the center of attention. But you want “stare”, so just eliminate one “r”: “stared.” Also, fix “absent-mindly” to “absentmindedly.”

5. Shutup- Fix them all by adding the needed space in between the words: “shut up.”

6. If I were you, I would have hook on him right now.- Put the verb “hook” on past: “hooked”. Also, instead of saying “hooked on him” say “hooked up with him.”

7. Namjoo keep in touch in reality, she’s spacing out more than enough that the time slip by withot her taking notice.- I’m going to directly suggest a way for fixing this one completely: Namjoo kept in touch with reality; she had been spacing out more than enough to let time slip by without noticing.

8. She fixed the documents as immediate as possible so as to finish immediately.- Using a same word twice in a sentence is incorrect, try using a dictionary to find synonyms. You can fix this sentence like this: She fixed the documents as fast as possible to be able to finish immediately.

9. Namjoo just growled and rolled her time.- Rolled her time? I think you meant “rolled her eyes”, because there’s no possible way to roll time.

10. She step on the cold ground before kicking a stone on the ground and sighed, she can’t be but troubled.- Remember the verb tenses! Put “stepped” instead of “step”. Also, eliminate the repetition “on the ground”, you already mentioned it so it can be inferred that the stone is on the ground. The ending of the sentence should be organized like this: she can’t help but be troubled.

Chapter 4:

1. An intense and action-filled background music echooed.- It should say “echoed,” with only one “o.”

2. She gently closes the door gently, that’s when it hit Chunji that someone barge in though he hasn’t still knew who was the person since he wasn’t looking. – Ok, first change the verb “closes” to “closed” and, as I’ve said before, don’t repeat the same word in a paragraph or sentence, so eliminate one of the “gently”. Also, change the comma to a semi-colon cause you’re exposing two different ideas that could be separated into two sentences. Change the verb “barge” to “barged” and add a comma after the “in”. the ending of the sentence after that should be ordered like this: though he still didn’t know who the person was since he wasn’t looking.

3. (…) mistaken her for being Ljoe.- The verb should be in –ing form: “mistaking.”

4. Did noona went here?- I already stated the explanation for the problem with this verb in the corrections of the previous chapters so I’m sure you already know that it should be “come” instead of “go”. Also, whenever you use “did” in a question, the rest of the verbs will be in infinitive form, they don’t have to be conjugated.

5. Chunji sghed, still oblivious that her noona was just on her side. Finally, Namjoo sat beside her. – Pronouns! Change them to “his,” unless Chunji has become a girl now.

6. If she just know how much I miss her.- Change the verb “know” to past tense “knew.”

7. Actually, she doesn’t know why she found herself mumbling an apology to him when at the first place, they have no relationship, and that their current state hasn’t have any definitive label.- I’m going to put the fixed version for this one: Actually, she didn’t know why she found herself mumbling an apology when, in the first place, they had no relationship and their current state didn’t have any definitive label on.

8. Hey, I thought you’re angry.- The verb needs to be in past tense: Hey, I thought you were angry.

9. (…) Chunji let go off the grip even he doesn’t like to- Eliminate one “f” from “off”, and add “though” after “even.”

10. Namjoo was kind of sort out and wasn’t on herself.- I think it would be better to understand if it were this way: Namjoo was kind of zoned out and not on her right self.

Well, those are some of the mistakes you have, there’s really a lot, so I’m going to give you some advices on what I found:

1. You really need to work with your verb tenses; sometimes you write in past tense and sometimes in present tense. You can alternate them, of course, but you have to stick to the way you’ll be narrating the story: is it something that already happened? Or is it something that you are seeing develop right now?

2. Since English isn’t your native language, it’s much harder to write. Because of this, you have to give that extra mile, so that you can compete against native speakers. There are tools: use dictionaries, those are a writer’s best friend. If you have a doubt, check it at the moment to clarify; they also help in your vocabulary enrichment. There are a lot of good dictionaries online, like Webster’s for example; many of them provide a definition of the word as well as examples on how to apply it.

3. Read grammar articles, books and related to it; remember that the structure of the sentence can’t be translated in the same order from one language to another.

4. Search for a beta reader or a proofreader to help you check your chapters before posting them; if they suggest something and you don’t understand the reason then ask them, that way you acquire knowledge as well.

5. Always ask and investigate! Whenever you’re curious about a word, or a fact, search for information, ask people, do your stuff; being lazy on this takes its toll on the stories.

Flow(8/10) 

Since you use expressions like “after the weekend”, “two days later” and stuff like that, the flow works well. I don’t think the relationship is going fast, as opposed to what others may think because since the beginning you mention that he’s been insisting on her for a while now. As for the next chapter, be careful on how you get them out of this last phone conversation and how you make their relationship evolve.  So the flow is okay.

Total (57/100)

*I’m sorry for my lateness! I’ve been busy lately with all the paperwork and stuff for my enrollment on the U.S. Air Force. But I finally managed to finish your review, I hope you don’t think it’s too harsh, I tried to be condescending, but you really need help with your grammar, my biggest suggestion for you is to find a beta-reader and/or a proofreader whose main language is English or they have lots of experience working with it, so that your story can have more improvement.

Fighting!

Nat