chances
Story by gahafag
Reviewed by amber_rose

Title [1/5] 
The main theme of your story is about regret and repentance, but the link between that and the title is not strong. Other than the lyrics in your foreword, I felt that the main bulk of the story had little to do with the concept of chance. Using the plural of the word also suggests that there should be more than one possibility explored in the story but there wasn’t. It was more about Yongguk wanting a second chance at making things right.

Description/Foreword [2/5]
It was a good idea for you to go for a short and pithy description, and the way it has been positioned in the form of a quote could have been a good concept. However, the issue is that the quote itself does not appear anywhere in your main story, which begs the question of where exactly did that quote come from? A quotation should come from a particular source and quotation marks should not be added purely for visual purposes. The content of your description is definitely relevant to the story, especially the bolded words of never taking things for granted, which essentially summarises the gist of your story. There were some grammatical errors in the way the description was formulated, which made it less impactful than it could have been. 

“Sometimes, it takes a while for us to realize [... I feel like something is missing here] and by the time we did [do], it was [is] already too late and what’s left was [is] the warning we had long forgotten; never take things for granted.” 

Since you started off the quote in present tense, I have revised the rest of the blurb to match that. Be sure to make sure that the tenses you use are consistent throughout, instead of switching from present to past like you have done. The use of a semicolon here is also inappropriate, because semicolons are meant to link two independent clauses so as to connect closely related ideas. In this particular case, you could either use the colon (:) or the em dash (--) to emphasise the phrase at the end of the sentence instead. Below is a suggested revised version with the corrections made.   

“Sometimes, it takes a while for us to realize what we have and by the time we do, it is already too late and what’s left is the warning we had long forgotten: never take things for granted.” 

As for the foreword, it’s fine if you choose to plug song lyrics from an Ariana Grande song into it, however they should have a clear correlation to your story. In this case, I can see the vague link between the lyrics and your story in that they reflect Yongguk’s regret, but I am not sure that the ‘many possibilities’ and ‘many chances’ were portrayed in the story itself. As it is, the way you have arranged the foreword definitely makes it look artistic, but I would have preferred if the lyrics had been accompanied by something else, perhaps a short blurb to make the link to the story a little tighter.     

Plot [5/30]
The theme of your story definitely came through quite clearly and I could tell the sort of emotions that it was meant to evoke by reading through it once. It’s good that you had a clear concept for the story because it can do wonders to help guide the way the story flows and ensure some form of coherence. Your plot is rather straightforward, being about Yongguk reminiscing about the past and regretting what he did before. It is more challenging for stories with a simple plot to be able to catch a reader’s eye, as it requires a higher level of sophistication of writing and command of language in order to make the story stand out. Also, it is often difficult to develop plot well in a one-shot, mainly because you’re limited by the length of the story and you need to be extremely on point with structuring the entire story. Currently your story lacks depth and come across as merely skimming the surface, hence the theme was not properly developed and it was difficult for the reader to form an emotional connection with the character.

In terms of depth, one way you could work on that would be to expand on the flashbacks. The flashbacks in your story are of utmost importance because the level of warmth and happiness that radiates from them acts as a contrast to the loneliness that Yongguk feels in the present time. The sharper you make that contrast, the more likely the reader will feel his pain and angst at having lost that chance for happiness. As it is, the flashbacks are extremely brief and barely give a glimpse into their shared past, hence it was difficult for me to understand why he would be feeling so regretful about having given up this particular relationship. Every single flashback has to have a purpose and that purpose should be to make the reader go ‘oh god why did you give up a girl like that’, which is the same thought that should be running through Yongguk’s mind as he reminisces on that moment. That way, every flashback will serve as a build up of the angst and regret that he feels, and spur on his desire to be granted a second chance. When it was mentioned that Yongguk was nothing more than trash before he met her, I thought it might have been good to introduce a flashback about when they first met, to show how she made the positive impact in his life. That would further highlight what a stupid decision it was for him to have let her go.   

One aspect that I felt wasn’t developed properly was the reason behind their break up. From the flashback, it sounded as though Yongguk was cheating on her (just an inference, not absolutely certain here) and he was entirely unremorseful about doing that because he was already bored of their relationship. More detail could have been included here to paint a more complete picture behind their break up, since it was a critical turning point in their relationship. As it was, all it did was make me feel unsympathetic towards Yongguk, which is not useful because it means that the reader is less likely to feel sorry for him and agree that he deserves this second chance.

As for the ending, I was not entirely sure whether the girl he bumped into was the same girl that he let go, or if she was just a girl who reminded him of her. My guess is that it would be the latter, since she didn’t seem to recognise him. I felt like the story would have ended better if it had indeed been the same girl, which would give him the perfect opportunity to start anew. Perhaps it could have ended with both of them looking at each other with that flicker of recognition in their eyes, followed by the finale lines that you have about him being willing to correct the mistake that he once made.         

Characterisation [6/25]
The only character in the story was basically Yongguk, since we don’t see very much of the female character except through his flashbacks. I was mildly confused by Yongguk mainly because of the stark difference between the Yongguk in the flashback (when he broke up with her) and the Yongguk that we see for most of the story. There were little things that he did during that particular flashback which made him come across as a bit of a heartless bastard, such as the shrugging of shoulders and smirking, yet everything else seemed to point to him being somewhat a sentimental sort of person. It was difficult for me to reconcile those two conflicting personalities within the same body. Also, the way Yongguk was portrayed during the break up also made it odd that he would even feel the least bit remorseful about it, at least not immediately, but the last line of your flashback showed that he already felt some form of regret at that moment in time. It would have been alright if you wanted to portray Yongguk as feeling remorse over his decision, but ideally that should only take place in the present and not in the flashbacks, since it would introduce some degree of inconsistency to Yongguk’s character. People do change and mature over time, so for him to be looking back on his own past and second-guessing the decisions he made would make sense, but you have to give some time for that change to occur.

For this particular storyline I felt it was important for the contrast between Yongguk’s personality in the past and the present to be showcased quite clearly in order for the story to work. There was a good attempt to bring across his guilt and regret in the present, but it could have gained more mileage if the idea of him having matured and grown over time was highlighted more evidently. You could have done that by making use of the flashbacks and having more of Yongguk’s character come through in those scenes.     

Language [4/15]
I understand that English isn’t your first language, so don’t worry too much about it. Your command of the language will improve the more you write, as long as you continuously seek feedback so that you can get pointers on where the grammatical flaws are. In any case, from the way you are writing at the moment, things are really not as bad as you may think they are.

Firstly, you would need to pay attention to the way you use prepositions of movement and position. This refers to words such as ‘through’, ‘along’ or ‘on’ that indicate the way that the subject is moving towards a particular direction, or that indicate the subject’s position with reference to his surroundings.

E.g. “The cold wind blew past him as he walked briskly through [along/down] the slippery path.”

The preposition ‘through’ suggests movement from one side of an enclosed space to the other side. However, in your context, walking down a path is not the same as walking through a door from one room to the next, since there is no enclosed space we’re talking about. The preposition ‘along’ could be used because it refers to movement along a particular line, which fits the context of walking down a path. You could also choose to use ‘down’ instead, which would give a sense of direction in which the subject is moving.

You have used italics quite heavily throughout the story, however the use of italics has not been consistent throughout, making it difficult for the reader to gauge what the italicised words actually represent. There are times when your italicised words represent the thoughts that are running through Yongguk’s head, but at other times they seem to be there to emphasise certain phrases. I would recommend that you only make use of italics for one purpose so that it doesn’t create confusion on what italicised words and phrases are supposed to mean.  

E.g. “Sometimes, he let his mind wonder and thought, how much did I miss?.”

In this particular case, the italicised words represent a thought. (You have an extra full stop at the end of that sentence by the way.)

E.g. “He leaned back on his seat and closed his eyes. Suddenly his mind was flooded with memories, a lot of emotions surfaced and his heart clenched.”

This time round, your italicised words are simply for added emphasis. Even then, the emphasis feels a little awkward because the image of a heart clenching in itself is already quite a strong one without requiring additional highlighting. The awkward emphasis appears more than once throughout your story. Besides, you have also bolded some words and phrases for the purpose of added emphasis, so it would be better to just stick to one or the other and not both.    

E.g. “But nothing compared to having her by his side.”

If italicised words represented thoughts in Yongguk’s head then they should be positioned from the first person POV, since they should be spoken through his own voice and not a third party narrator’s voice. However, in your story there are several occasions where italicised phrases contain the third person (he/his), which gives the impression that these are not his thoughts.

Another thing to pay attention to would be the choice and positioning of punctuation within sentences. There were several occasions where your commas have been placed in awkward positions, which break up the sentences unnaturally. For the two examples below, the commas should be removed as they chop up the sentences unnecessarily. A resource for the usage of commas in writing can be found here.   

E.g. “He noticed, her features were sharp and the look she gave him radiated a familiar vibe.”

E.g. “Those brown eyes, made his heart skipped a beat.”

There were also instances where you used the semicolon incorrectly. Semicolons are supposed to be used to link two independent clauses that are closely related. The two independent clauses should read as logical sentence fragments on their own. If what you have before the semicolon does not seem to make sense when read independently, then you likely shouldn’t have placed the semicolon in that position.  

E.g. “Even after jamming his hands in the pocket for a long time, they were still cold, his pale; slightly pinked hand reached for the door and he pushed it ajar.”

In this case I reckon you could have meant for the semicolon to be a comma since what you are doing is using punctuation to separate two adjectives. Also, there is a run-on sentence going on here. Run-on sentences occur when you place a comma between two sentence fragments that should have stood independently. There should have been a full stop instead of a comma after ‘they were still cold’, in order to break up this run-on sentence into two shorter sentences.   

E.g. “Though few things hadn’t change [changed], like; the chalked menu on the blackboard and the place of the café in his heart.”

Again, the semicolon is in an inappropriate place, since the text before the semicolon doesn’t seem complete if read independently. In this case the semicolon is unnecessary and should be removed altogether.

In general there are some awkward sentence structures and phrasing here and there, but the best way to solve problems like that would be to read more widely so that you get more accustomed to the way things should be phrased. Other than writing more, the only trick to improving quickly is to read a whole lot more as well! AFF may not be the best place to do that, you would likely need to read some proper literature in order to gain more exposure to proper grammar usage in writing.     

Structure and Style [3/15]
As there were flashbacks interjected within the story in order to surface Yongguk’s memories of the good times that they spent together, the placement of these flashbacks become a critical component of the structure of this piece. For the most part, you did it by letting a particular location that Yongguk visits trigger the flashback, which is logical and would make sense to the reader. The one flashback that I felt was positioned somewhat inappropriately was the break up scene. The break up flashback came slightly too early in the story, such that it was sandwiched between different happy flashbacks. This comes across as awkward because the angsty section was abruptly slotted in and there was no particular value in it being at that specific position. A suggestion would be to rearrange the flashbacks such that the happy flashbacks come first (e.g. the hot chocolate, the jacket, the indie record), so that it builds up the curiosity in the reader regarding what happened that led to their separation. The break up flashback should then come at the end, as a culmination to explain why the happily ever after fell apart. In that way, the flashbacks would also follow some sort of a chronological flow and become a more coherent whole.

Writing style is something that a writer develops over time and it is difficult to do so if your command of the language is not quite there yet. As you continue writing, I would suggest that you try to begin lengthening your paragraphs instead of having many ‘paragraphs’ that only consist of one or two sentences and barely take up an entirely line on the page. Technically each paragraph should consist of sentences that are coherent and develop upon a particular central idea. If your paragraphs are only one sentence long (especially in fiction), it suggests that insufficient development or description has taken place and there’s room for improvement. This is not to say that one liners should not be present at all in your writing, but there should be more variation in paragraph structures.     

Personal Enjoyment [2/5]
Yongguk fics are not common these days, so it was a breath of fresh air to see a Yongguk fic pop up on our request list! It’s a pity that the plot was underdeveloped and the structure of it made it less effective than it could have been.  

Total Score: 23/100

Reviewer’s Comments: I think the main issue with the story is the flow of events, especially with the flashback placements. That probably detracted more from the reading experience than the language issues. It’s not easy to tug at readers’ heartstrings through a one-shot, so all in all it was a good attempt so don’t be too discouraged by the score! As for the grammar, just keep working on it and these things will improve over time. On a sidenote, I think the poster is gorgeous. All the best!

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