I kind of said the same thing about the first chapter, but "show don't tell." Go back through this chapter and find all the scenes, the places where something happens. In my mind there are three scenes: When Raiku runs into the demon playing with its child, when Raiku gives the baby demon to Lucien, and the big battle at the end. Expand on these scenes, make them vivid to the reader. Unlike TV the audience can't see what's going on, and so you have to dictate every single thing that happens. For example, you write an entire fight in less than two paragraphs. Instead of telling us what happens, show us the fight. Write about how Raiku swings his weapons, how does he know that the arrows are poison tipped, how does Kait fight with a bow at close range? You need to show us the events. To help with this, take each of the scenes and set a word count to hit (I would try around 1,000) before you are finished. Don't add events onto the scene but expand it.
I have almost no issues with this piece. There are a few very nit-picking things that I found, but their not even minor.
"...dragging armloads of merchandise from the derelict remnants of the general store."
I just think that should either remove or replace the derelict. To me it implies that the object has been neglected for a long time. I thought it was unneccissary, as you have already painted such a vivid picture that we don't need a modifier. Besides I thought it threw off the rhythm of the paragraph
"Muscles bulged amidst the emaciation, trembling beneath skin the color of ink."
I think you should at "his" at the begining and change "amidst" to "despite".
The one last thing I have is with "it depths were limitless and brimming with despair." Because I think you may have used this same description in the second part of the series. I think it was after the Indigo Man was released and Fran's brother (whose name eludes me) pulled his gun on Fran. Nonetheless it's a great description.
Those were the only things I had any issue with, and even then I had to really try to find these tiny problems. Very good work! I look foreward to seeing how this unfolds!!
You have a very beautiful writing style, your sentences are gracefully eloquent. You do a great job of establishing the mood. Every single word you choose conveys something more than what the dictionary says it should. My only problem is that because the prose is so beautiful, the dialog seems jaring. As I'm looking over it, what I think the issue is that the dialog is not broken up. The power of the peice comes from your descriptions. I would put some prose in between the dialog to keep the rhythm of the peice. That's my one critique of this, because other than that I really loved it.
Good story! I think that you do a good job with the pacing of the tale. You put enough description to satisfy the reader's curiosity, but not so much that it feels like an ADD kid forced to write. There are a few minor gramatical errors though.
"The storm with it's heavy rains the week before must have opened it up"
First off, there shouldn't be an apostrophy in it's. The possessive form is "its." Also this should be broken up by commas.
"Thinking it was maybe a small sink hole he was astonished when he looked down to see it was more of a cave opening then a hole."
There should be a comma after "sink hole". Also you should use "than" instead of "then."
"Agreeing Mike told him he would be there in a couple days."
There needs to be a comma after "agreeing."
"Mike was trying to determine just how big this cave was, and wandering if this was a system of caves."
I think you meant to use the word wondering instead of wandering.
"I'm good, but I think you need some other people besides me to check this thing out." Mike hollered back.
"I'm untying from the rope for a couple of minutes to look around." Pulling himself free from the rope Mike began his exploring.
Not any grammar issues that I can tell, but if I were you I would not break these into different paragraphs. When I was reading I thought that they were said by different people, and it threw off the rhythm of the piece.
There are some other things, but these are the ones that stuck out to me the most. After a few edits I'm sure that all the issues will be fixed. Good work!
The reformatting makes big difference, I found much easy to follow visually. Which help me take in the story some more. I love this idea of the different races inhabiting earth, and I really want to know how they all got to earth. I hope you keep writing these because I'm seriously interested
You did a good job building suspense there at the end. Some of the characters' exchanges are a little confusing. Particularly with Anges. I wasn't quite sure at the beginning if they knew each other or not. I thought it was strange for the two of them to have such a heated exchange without any history. That's really all I have to say. The story flows well and is easy to follow. Your narrator is believable and has depth beyond just a gambling addiction, and I find that creating characters is more than half the battle.
First of all you should break this up into more paragraphs. As it is now, I find it hard to keep track of all the dialog. When you leave it together in a big jumble it is very hard to follow. Other than that, its very good. You do a good job setting up the scene and creating the characters. Granted there are a few typos and a few run-on sentences, but nothing to be overly worried about. Once you've done these things you'll be able to see other things to change and improve. Good job!!
You have me intrigued. Its a good draft, a little bit rough, but a solid start nonetheless. I have a few things to critique so far. Here we go:
1. Use indents! It's a small detail that makes a huge difference to the reader. They make your work appear more organized and easier to read. Also there is an option to double space between paragraphs, that helps too.
2. What you are doing right now is simply throwing information at us, rather than telling us a story. Try to turn it into a narrative to whomever is supposed to be reading Raiku's message. Ask yourself "Why would Riaku have to list information that everyone alive would know?"
3. "Show don't tell." This is something that my professor drilled into my head when she had us write stories for her. Don't tell us what happens, show us what happens. I'm sure you've heard it before too.
These are just a few things to consider when you write. But I think most of your problems stem from the fact the format you wrote it in does not coincide with your goals for the first chapter. If you want some more specific help, feel free to send me a message. I think you have a great idea in mind,
I like what you have, but I have some questions as to length. To me this seems awfully short to be two chapters. With that being said, I have no clue as to how long you intend the finished product to be. But what I recommend is to add more bits about your protagonists thoughts. Let us get inside of his head. Have him talk to himself, just little mumblings that show what kind of person he is. Is Jack an man easily annoyed? Or is he the type to put up with stuff for a while? Also I think that the mirror is a great symbol and (I hope I'm right) foreshadowing. If so, describe Jack's reflection the way Jack sees it. You, the narrator, could paint an accurate description of Jack's looks. Then have Jack describe himself, as a way of giving the reader more insight into who Jack is. In all I really like your writing style, it's very suited for what you've done thus far. I hope that you stick with it, and let me know if you put out more of this novel. I'm more than happy to help you out.
First of all let me just say that this is very well done!! At no point did I ever think that this was anything less than proffessional. You have great, believable characters and what appears to be a well planned plot. One thing that I did find lacking was descriptions of the settings. Part of what makes Westerns such a great genre is the way harsh environment interacts with the conflicts between the characters. I personally love in the old westerns when they give the audience those beautiful shots of the desert landscape. You did a great job with describing the characters and their actions, which might be why I felt like there wasn't enough about the setting. Please upload further installments of this story, you can count on me to read each one to see how it all comes together in the end. To misquote a famous movie, "If you write it, I will come."
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