Title :: Psychopath

Author :: Jin_forehead78

Reviewer :: Nola (SURREALGGUK)

READER INTERACTION :: 2/5

I only see about 2 or 3 people commenting on your book, and they seem to enjoy it.

COVER :: 4/10

The font choice can definitely be better. Taehyung’s face claim does fit the vibe of a ‘psychopath’, but the film overlay doesn’t. In fact, the film overlay just tells me that this story is going to be set in the past, which I don’t think is the case. Perhaps another overlay would be better, like blood for example. If a subtitle is placed in the cover, that’d be much better too. An example of a subtitle could be ‘What kind of truth is hidden in your heart?’ Our community has a cover shop with graphic designers more than willing to help you, so if you’d like to, you can give them a try!

DESCRIPTION :: 3/5

I did roughly understand what the story was going to be about, but it’s way too vague for me to have any impression. Who are the characters involved? What will they be doing? The story seems to be centered around a psychopath, but what exactly will happen? In addition, the description already has multiple grammar mistakes, which will most likely deter readers.

I really didn’t know where to put this, so I’ll put it here in the description section. I know you were trying to add in BTS’s discography into your story outline in the DISCLAIMER chapter, but half of them don’t even make sense. What is [Blood sweat and tears goes On and No]? It doesn’t make sense at all. 

TITLE :: 6/10

In a sense, it goes with your story. However, people are never going to find your book by simply searching ‘Psychopath’. There are tons of other fanfictions (or fiction, actually) with the same title as yours, and you’re not only competing with fanfiction authors, but fiction authors as well. Your title needs to be unique in order to stand out to readers.

PLOT :: 1/10

I still don’t understand what the plot is and where it’s going after reading everything. There’s no climax or anything, and it just seems like this book is written to satisfy your own fetish for gore, or your hidden desire to do all this to people. What exactly does Taehyung have to do with the story? He is the face claim in your cover, so you have to include him more in the storyline. Right now, I have no idea what the plot is. It just seems like a book glorifying torture, and I definitely wouldn’t want to read it. In addition, I’m pretty sure that no matter how hard they bullied Y/N, no one deserves to be treated like what you described in your book. The fact that you are justifying it in the comments is weird to me, because since Y/N is a ‘psychopath’, I can let it go.

GRAMMAR/VOCAB :: 2/20

Starting off this section, I’d like to remind you to STOP using ellipses inappropriately. Ellipses represent a break in the sentence, and the word coming after that should not be capitalised as the sentence hasn’t ended yet. You typically use ellipses to indicate omission between two sentences, or to add a pause before the end of the sentence. The way you used ellipses fit none of the two criteria, so I suggest you remove them and write in prose instead. 

Please, please, please write in complete sentences. You’re breaking paragraphs inappropriately when the sentence hasn’t even ended yet. You may think it looks nice, but trust me, it really doesn’t. 

If you want to write in past tense, then please STICK TO past tense. Don’t switch to the present tense unnecessarily because it messes up the whole flow of the story.

For dialogue, dialogue tags SHOULD NOT be capitalised, unless it’s a name. Please keep that in mind always, as it’s the most common mistake authors make in their writing.

If you want to write ‘bitch’, or any form of vulgarity in general, just spell it out. There’s no point censoring it as it just ruins the vibe of the book. Also, I’d like to remind you that the plural form of bitch is bitches. 

Here are some of the many mistakes I found and how to correct them: 

[And this room smelled like a fresh blood…] is wrong here. Blood is uncountable, so using the word [a] is definitely inappropriate. Instead, the sentence should be [And the room smelled like fresh blood..]

[You don’t have to say sorry towards me] is wrong as well. Depending on how you want to phrase it, some words must be removed or replaced. This sentence can be corrected as [You don’t have to say sorry] or [You don’t have to be sorry towards me]. 

[Aww, looked now who’s crying]. The tense of [look] is wrong, and the positioning of the words are wrong too. The sentence should be [Aww, look who’s crying now]. 

[...tears foaming in his eyes] is wrong. The word [foaming] is used inappropriately. [foaming] means producing a mass of small bubbles or frothing, which is definitely not suitable for describing tears. Instead, this part of the sentence should be [...tears forming in his eyes].

Overall, I can obviously tell that English isn’t your first language. But that is definitely not an excuse that you can just pull out whenever someone calls you out for your grammar. Since you’re writing this book in English anyway, you should put in much more effort than native English speakers. Writing is a long process, and it requires an intensive amount of research and learning for not only the plot, but the language use as well. I suggest you read books outside of Wattpad (as Wattpad books generally don’t have good grammar anyway) to improve your grammar and build your word sense. Then, if you’re unsure of what you’re writing, please search it up. There are tons of writer’s blogs online meant to help writers with their books, so please use it to its fullest potential.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT :: 3/10

From the first chapter, I already found problems with Y/N’s character. Why would she just sigh when cold water is poured onto her head? Sure, she may have experienced this many times, but the impact of cold water touching your head would surely cause you to jerk no matter how many times you’ve experienced it, and even if you are a ‘psychopath’.

For Y/N’s character, I did feel something from her. She gave me a hint of Nanno’s vibes (Nanno is the main character of a Thai series, Girl from Nowhere.). However, even if she were a ‘psychopath’, she should be alarmed if Taehyung is talking to her like he knows something about her. Taehyung was blatantly acting like they’d been friends for long, and the fact that Y/N doesn’t feel suspicious about it and is happy instead is weird for me.

As for Taehyung’s character, why would he pat Y/N’s head for no reason? The two of them aren’t even close, so in order for me to accept this interaction, it’s going to have to be explained in the later chapters. 

Overall, you need to put in more work in terms of character building. Right now, it seems like your characters are just puppets that you’re dictating in order to make the story flow better, and because of this, I can’t really feel anything for your characters. Your characters need to be relatable in order to draw readers in to read your story and root for your characters. 

https://theeditorsblog.net/2011/01/30/creating-emotion-in-the-reader/ is a good website to learn how to build characters and descriptions such that the readers will be immersed in your story.

ATTRACTION :: 0/10

Like I said in the plot section, this book really seems like some sort of book meant to satisfy one’s sadistic desires. I didn’t feel like reading anymore after realising that there really was no plot, and the relationship between Taehyung and Y/N also wasn’t mentioned or developed, so how is this going to be a dark love story like you mentioned in the description? The plot was extremely underwhelming to say the least.

WRITING STYLE :: 1/10

Author’s notes should be left at the end of the chapter such that the flow of the story does not get disrupted with your own opinion.

The inappropriate paragraphing was just too much for me to handle, and the fact that you overuse ellipses just made it worse as well. There was not much description of the appearance of a person, of an action, and little to no dialogue tags with descriptions of action following it. In order to have a descriptive writing style, I suggest that you remove the ellipses and inappropriate paragraphing first, then, as you write dialogue tags, try to include some descriptions of actions done by a character after they have spoken. The more times you do this, the better your descriptions will become, and you’ll be able to successfully allow readers to visualise the characters and their actions.

In addition, the fact that you had to upload a picture in order for your readers to visualise the person you were describing clearly shows that you are lacking in this aspect. Instead of uploading pictures, which, by the way, is very lazy behaviour, you should try your best to describe their appearance because this is what writing is all about. You should allow your readers to visualise your characters and their actions as best as you can to allow the readers to immerse themselves into the story and its characters.

OPINION :: 1/10

I would have stopped reading after a few chapters. This book highly seems like a book a 12-year-old would make, and the reading experience was just bad with the writing style and grammar. Also, I find it really disturbing that you’re justifying Y/N’s behaviour. No one, and I mean no one, deserves to be treated like this. No matter what they did. I thought you wrote all these because of Y/N’s psychotic persona, but for you to actually be justifying her actions is just wrong.

OVERALL ::

Your story needs A LOT of work. From the cover to the plot, everything needs some work here and there. I was incredibly disturbed from your work, to say the least. This seemed like some sort of Yandere Simulator plot, except Yandere Simulator had some sort of solid storyline and justification as to why the main character loved torturing others. I’m really sorry if I came out too harsh, especially in the grammar section. I’m really particular about grammar, and I get really angry when authors simply tell their readers to ignore the grammatical mistakes. Writing is, like I said, a long process. You need to put in a lot of hard work into your work in order to have people recognise your efforts. I hope my review helped you, and I wish you all the best in your writing journey.

TOTAL SCORE :: 23/100