Calling for pandoralacey

"Heart of Hearts"

Author: pandoralacey

Main Characters: Kayleen (OC), Lee Jongsuk as Seon, Moon Chaewon as Mio

Genre: Angst, Family, Friendship, Morbid, Psychological, Torture, Tragedy

Status: On-going

Description of Story:
When stranger from an orphanage came to fetch her instead of her mother,
a truism line was cruelly drawn in Kayleen's heart. Despite all the pitfalls plummeted in her life, everything pulverized in one corner after she met her, who was far more sinister than the secrets she had kept ever since the incident two years ago.

        R/N: This is my first time in writing a non-graded review,
hence I'm deeply sorry and I truly understand if this will not be up to your expectations.
~ yeolwho05 Critique:

Story Title

"Heart of Hearts" -- It's probably not the best title suitable for your story, but it was indeed enticing. I love the fact that you connected the title with the story in entirely, and the fact that you elaborated the meaning of the title in your description. It was well-thought, though originality-wise, I might think otherwise. A perfect experiment in judging this part is by searching your title in a search engine. I searched it in Google, and guess what; a lot of stories with nearly the same and exactly the same title appeared. Moreover, I have read a story with the same title before. I'm sure of it. That itself lessened the sense of originality of your story, and by then, your readers would find it hard to differentiate your story with the others. You just have to do well in making your story remembered. I have to say though, your title did intrigue me; in a good way of course.

Nevertheless, story titles are not copyrightable, though is a sense, it's really hard to find a 100% original title considering how many stories are all over the world. This leads us to the question of where to find a good title. Now, I'm not saying that you should change your title. Rather, your title suits the story. Relevance-wise, your title interacted with the story in an interesting way.

 

Description and Foreword

First and foremost, I applaud you for making an astonishing introduction. That symbolism you used to introduce your story was outstanding. However, I didn't quite understand the thought that you wanted to imply with that. You stated that the arrow and the infinity in their heart of hearts symbolizes those stated below it. However, I didn't see the 'heart of hearts'. I only saw the arrow and the infinity. That itself made me confused because there wasn't even a heart in the symbol. Moreover, you included it in the brief explanation below, yet it wasn't included in the symbol. Why is that? I'm sorry, but I'm a bit slow when it comes to this, though the idea was fresh, and I like it. Regardless of those, your description had a grammatical errors as well.

(Original Version) In their heart of hearts, an arrow, and an infinity symbolizes...

(Revised Version) In their heart of hearts, the arrow and the infinity symbolizes...

A comma wasn't needed before the conjunction 'and'. Moreover, the article 'the' should be used instead of 'a/an'. Why? When we are talking about one thing in particular, we use the. When we are talking about one thing in general, we use a or an. The nouns you were talking about were particular as they talked about the particular arrow and infinity in 'their heart of hearts'; thus, the article 'the' should be used.

(Original Version) When stranger from an orphanage came to fetch her instead of her mother, a truism line was cruelly drawn in Kayleen's heart. Despite all the pitfalls plummeted in her life, everything pulverized in one corner after she met her, who was far more sinister than the secrets she had kept ever since the incident two years ago.

(Revised Version) When a stranger from an orphanage came to fetch Kayleen instead of her mother, a truism line was cruelly drawn in her heart. Despite all the pitfalls that plummeted in her life, everything pulverized in one corner after she met her, who was far more sinister than the secrets she had kept ever since the incident two years ago.

Your version had a few grammatical errors. First of all, it's important to state the proper noun, Kayleen, before placing a pronoun. The way you stated in your description was sort of confusing since we didn't know who was the 'her' your were talking about. I kind of changed it since I think that it may be more understandable to state the proper noun first, though it might be just me. In a defense, it sounded like the noun on the first part wasn't Kayleen, and by mentioning her first, it might have more sense, that is, for me. I'm not forcing you to change anything though.

For example, you forgot to use articles like 'a'. There are also instances wherein subordinating conjunctions were needed, yet you didn't use them. For instance, 'that'. The subordinate conjunction has two jobs. First, it provides a necessary transition between the two ideas in the sentence. This transition will indicate a time, place, or cause and effect relationship. Take a look at my revised version. Did you see the subordinating conjunction, 'that'? It reduced the importance of one clause so that a reader understands which of the two ideas is more important. The more important idea belongs in the main clause, the less important in the clause introduced by the subordinate conjunction.

As for the foreword, well it was really meaningful. It held a really deep meaning behind it. However, the grammatical errors within it kind of ruined the whole point of the story.

(Original Version) First and love, when combined, it depicted a vague line – one side was white, and the latter was black – white signifying pureness while black denoting to stain. It was all about trial and error; like when we did something wrong; we held in our breath, kept apologizing, and refused to stop until we clicked the right tone of "sorry", then everything would revert to neutral.
First love was supposedly like that – a reversible mistake – a lesson. "But some lessons were only delivered in the form of pain" – Tablo.

(Revised Version) First and love, when combined, depicts a (vague) line – one side was white, and the latter was black – wherein white signifies pureness, while black denotes a stain. It's all about trial and error. For instance, when we do something wrong, we'll hold our breath, keep on apologizing, and refuse to stop until we click the right tone of "sorry", then everything would revert to neutral.
First love was supposedly like a lesson – a reversible mistake. "But some lessons were only delivered in the form of pain" – Tablo.

First of all, I find it hard to understand the adjective 'vague' in your first sentence. It was meant to describe a line with two different sides, right? But why use 'vague'? Vague means an uncertain, indefinite, or unclear character or meaning. In a sense, it's weird to use that adjective. Maybe you should think of replacing that with another adjective. Other than that, I also corrected a lot other things, as seen on my revised version.

Secondly, rather than talking in past tense, I think you should consider talking in present tense instead (for the foreword), preferably because you weren't talking about the past. Moreover, talking in present tense will make it seem like you were kind of lecturing the readers of something that might make sense anytime. Did that made sense though? Other than that, all the other parts were well-organized, though I have to point out the arrangement of the credits' section. You should keep the banners in the middle as it kind of ruined the lay-out of that particular section. I think it automatically becomes like that when you put a link in a picture though, so maybe you could just remove the banners, or maybe keep it, but remove the linkage on the banner and place the name of the shop you want to credit and link the link there instead. Other than that, all is fine, but the line spacing is kind of bothering me though as there were too much unnecessary spaces.

 

Characterization

Let's talk about the characterization in general first. First and foremost, what is the setting of the story? I have to question t