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Printed from https://shop.writing.com/main/profile/reviews/codytrev
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35 Public Reviews Given
41 Total Reviews Given
Public Reviews
1
1
Review by Miara Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
You're grammar and punctuation seem fine.

I don't fully understand why an Irish family is from Wales. The Celts inhabited much of the British Isles before the Angles and Saxons, but not all Celts were Irish. If the ancient relative later moved to Ireland, then a phrase such as "in Northern Wales, from which our family hailed prior to crossing into Ireland."

Otherwise, it's an intriguing story that leaves the reader wondering "what does this mean?"
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Review by Miara Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.0)
First off, if you expect a publisher to read past your cover letter, you need to have your title spelled correctly. In the age of spell check, editors don't have time or patience to overlook poor spelling in a writer. When I entered "preminition" in the search box at Dictionary.com, it asked if I meant "premonition - a psychic feeling of a future event" or "premunition - relative immunity to a severe infection."

They got to another set of doors and they slid open. Luthor led the way inside and motioned to his right. “Here they are,” he said. -- The word 'they' is used three times in this paragraph to refer to three different nouns. Maybe "The group came to another set of doors which slid open."

Dinah jumped towards the first Lilymomentum to bring her right foot around to the left. The toe of her foot hit the second Lily on the chin, hard enough to spin her completely around. -- These two sentences need a lot of clarification. Did Dinah strike the first Lily during this maneuver, or was it a feint to throw the second Lily off her guard? You introduce a target in the first sentence, but then a second quarry receives the action in the second. Hand-to-hand combat can be difficult to describe, but you need to do your best to describe everything (Dina jumped toward the first Lily, leading with her left foot. On impact, she spun to the left and kicked the second Lily with her right foot. Dinah dropped to a squat as she landed and lunged toward the third Lily with the dagger, etc...)

The gloves, once they are out on, respond directly to your thoughts. -- I think you probably meant 'put on.'

“This,” Luthor said, “is a plate of steel. It is a foot and a half thick. I want you to push through it.”
 -- You just told us at the end of the previous paragraph that a plate of steel has appeared. Something more appropriate might be: "This plate of steel," Luthor explained, "is eighteen inches thick. I want you to push through it."

more damage to yourself that the plate -- 'than' not 'that'

quarters after they initial tests -- 'the' not 'they'

And, leaving them with that thought, he turned and left them. -- Redundancy. A reader is going to say 'Duh!' to this one. How about, And, with that thought, he turned and left the room.

I went over this pretty ruthlessly. I feel like you have a pretty good story in mind, although there is very little story development here. All a reader sees in this excerpt is the introduction of weapons to those who are presumably going to be the heroes.
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Review by Miara Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (4.0)
I like it. Short and sweet. Nothing extraneous.

Rather they screwed, or not she would get paid -- 'Whether' is the better word, and the comma would be better placed after 'not'

Yet oddly there was no air conditioning to cool it down. -- Surround 'oddly' with commas to indicate that this is an interjection of sorts.

Wich of course kept it a secret. -- Since the clients are presumably people, 'who' is better than 'which.' Also, offset 'of course' with commas.

flow few her body -- did you mean 'through?'

This guy was amazing she thought. -- like spoken words, thoughts need to be indicated somehow. This can be used with apostrophes (') to bracket the thought instead of quote marks (") or by simply placing a comma before the attribution. Also, since she should be thinking in the present tense, the structure of the sentence should reflect this by using 'is' instead of 'was.'

There lips pushed -- homonyms can be a pain in the neck, especially since spell-check usually doesn't catch these words. 'Their' is the better word here.

didn’t pull back not that she cared. -- comma placement. Put one after 'back.'

Good luck.
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Review of The Burning Fear  Open in new Window.
Review by Miara Author IconMail Icon
Rated: ASR | (3.5)


Technical issues:

* Dranyen turns to Ivan facing him directly. * -- 'Ivan, facing'

* closest they have been, Ivan had no * -- replace this comma with a period for easier reading and better flow.

* "It is possible that this creature is trying to lure us into a trap." He says aloud, so all could hear him. * -- when attributing a quote, replace the last period inside the quote with a comma, then use a lower case for the first letter of the attribution. "Aloud" means spoken. If he says anything, he is saying it aloud as opposed to thinking it. If he is saying it loudly, then he can bellow or boom or say loudly.

In the middle of the fourth paragraph, the verb tense changes from present to past. It continues to be fluid throughout the story.

* "What do you think that was Ivan?" asks Brotal. * -- 'was, Ivan?" asks'

* "I don’t think so Ivan, this building was well built and * -- Separate this into two sentences. 'Ivan. This'

* "About three full pieces we had seven to begin with, Ivan." * -- Separate. It leaves a sentence fragment at the beginning of the quote, but that is acceptable in informal speech. 'pieces. We'

* Azamash suddenly outbursts. * -- 'outburst' is a noun. Try 'rages' or 'growls.'


Style issues:

For clarity, it's best to double-space between paragraphs on wdc.

*Walking with swords held in front of them and behind Brotal, their best point man, they were quite confident the creature they were tracking would be located, and the bounty on its head collected.* --
This sentence is convoluted and difficult to follow. This is a suggested re-write, and it probably needs some tweaking of its own: 'Brotal, their best point man, led them. Swords before them, they were quite confident they would soon locate the creature and collect the bounty on its head.'

When the beast attacks Brotal, I find it unbelievable that out of 8 remaining mercenaries, none have the fighting wits to pursue a fugitive. I would find it more believable that 7 underlings all run after the creature and Ivan has to recall a couple to him to care for the injured man.

* Ok, this place will work, Dranyen and Kyltin , I want you two to set up a guard at the corridor, light up every torch on that wall, I want to be able to see that thing coming at us well before it’s here. * -- Here, Ivan is giving orders. These should be short sentences that can be barked quickly. A military commaner doesn't meander while giving instructions, which is implied by using so many commas and a very long sentence. eg: "Okay, this place will work. Dranyan and Kyltin set up guard at the corridor. Light every torch on that wall. I want to see that thing coming well before it's here.'

Personally, I find Ivan's "We're all scared, kid" speech cliche and unnecessary.


Overall, it is full of action and has an interesting ending.
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5
Review by Miara Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (3.0)
"In fact, ‘Lassoing Courtyard 10A’ had formally been of many spiritual gathering places for the now-extinct dwarves" -- maybe something more like 'had formerly been one of many'

This definitely has a teen feel to it. There are sentences with implied words, like the one excerpted above. There are sentences with contradictions like the following:

"And they had just the type of thin, twitching faces, skewed noses and rangy, emaciated figures characteristic of warmongers."

In the sentence prior to this, you are describing people who don't want war. In this sentence you call these same people 'warmongers.' A warmonger is someone who wants war, someone who is willing to jump at any perceived insult as an excuse to fight.

I can tell you're really excited about your story, and that's a very good thing. Contest judges and publishers look for more than writers who are excited about their stories. They look for writers who have a strong grasp of language, grammar, and spelling. Please don't think I'm calling you a bad writer. You're spelling looks good. To improve language and grammar, keep a dictionary handy. If you're on the internet while writing, try dictionary.com.
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Review by Miara Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (3.5)
Your story's structure does a good job of conveying the sense of urgency inherent to battle.

"It’s ruins" -- possessive form - its

"tall plumb of orange" -- I think 'plume' is the more appropriate word here

"pain never cam" -- 'came'

"By dawn’s early light" -- nothing technically wrong with this, but it is a cliche and you may want to find another way to indicate the time of day.

You've created a world with mythic creatures and modern structures and weapons. This is a good thing. What I would ask for would be a little more description in some form regarding the armament the dragons carry and wear.
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Review by Miara Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.0)
You have an elegant-sounding style to your story-telling. It seems as if you posted this for review before doing any self-editing, however, so there are a lot of technical issues listed below.

prophesy -- verb - to foretell
prophecy -- noun - a prophetic utterance

"the beasts neck" -- beast's

"horse and it rider" -- its
Possessive nouns are usually formed by adding apostrophe+s ( 's )to the end of the word. "Its" is different because "it's" is the contraction of "it is."

"move along soundless riding" -- soundlessly

"fleeing deeper in the tree and brush" -- is this a hollow tree they are fleeing into, or did you mean 'trees?'

"creep amongst the fauna" -- fauna refers to animals, flora refers to plants

"the intruders legs" -- if plural, intruders'

"Entire section of fence are missing" -- sections

"The iris’ of his eyes" -- this is plural, not possessive so the word should be 'irises'

"well passed" -- past

"Together there were" -- they

"father has his" -- had

"each once causing" -- each one

"exits the he hut" -- remove 'he'

The story itself is engaging and leaves the reader wanting Chapter 1.
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Review by Miara Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (4.5)
I love it. It's delightfully creepy and amusing.

For readability, it would help to double-space between paragraphs.

You have an unncecessary hard return in the middle of this sentence:

"I collected so much material I'd madeThe
Times bestseller list in less than a year."

Another typo is in the last sentence -- "yyour."

The only other thing I would mention is one of personal choice. You use the word "it" to begin several sentences that have ambiguous subjects. You might want to take another look at these sentences to see if there's another way they can be worded that is less ambiguous.
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Review of Island Prison  Open in new Window.
Review by Miara Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (3.5)
You've created a frightening landscape for your prison, and so far Derlin is a likeable character.

One point that makes reading items on WDC easier -- double space between paragraphs.

"didn’t cover her soft blue eyes that stared" -- 'cover the soft' works better when followed by a descriptive phrase like this.

"She didn’t look how Derlin had last pictured her." -- This sentence just doesn't read well with the rest of the paragraph. Another version: 'She didn't look the way Derlin had last seen her.' For one thing, the exposition is about how she looked when she was last seen in person rather than how he had imagined her.

"The enourmous sand desert" -- 'enormous'

"Two guards, sitting opposite Derlin watched" -- missing a comma: 'Derlin, watched'

"How could I hurt them?" -- The paragraph that begins with this sentence needs to be reworded. It's a clumsy read as it is.

"obscuring Derlin’s eyes" -- 'vision' would work better here since the next sentence starts with his eyes

"but Derlin could tell by the guard's voice that he was human. It held a trace of hilarity, as if he thought Derlin’s eyes and bleeding cuts were nothing more than a joke." -- again, this could use better wording. Maybe something like: 'but the sadistic humor tinging the voice belied the speaker's humanity.'

This promises to be an exciting story. I look forward to finding out about the prison itself, why is Derlin there, and what is he going to do to escape?
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Review of Ashling  Open in new Window.
Review by Miara Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Beautiful. This definitely qualifies as a short story. I seem to remember a story in one of the lsat three or four issues of Asimov's Science Fiction that was of an approximate length with this one. It's a wonderful little tale and has an amazing twist.
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Review by Miara Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (4.0)
I found this really compelling -- after the lecture on the history of physics. If the lecture doesn't have any purpose than to introduce your characters as smart students, you need to cut it out and start with the three friends teasing each other as class ends.

I tend to pick up on problems of spelling and grammar when I R/R, and here's a list of things I found:

"You’re boy" -- 'Your boy'

"easing the strain baring down" -- 'bearing down'

"actually came of as more of question than an answer." -- 'came off as more of a question'

"Terrans could dominate the planet is they so chose" -- 'if they so chose'

"were standing near a water fountain, shielding by a partition wall." -- 'shielded by'

"about a mile of the coast of the Cydonia Peninsula" -- 'about a mile off the coast'

"They had already lost the City and the Fort and where determined to finish their work" -- 'were determined'

"as a sizable number Mythics accumulated" -- 'number of Mythics'


You've done a good job of introducing different threads that will spool out over the course of the book.
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Review of The Delivery  Open in new Window.
Review by Miara Author IconMail Icon
Rated: ASR | (4.5)
This is an amazing story. You've managed to capture the essence of a cantankerous old man without diminishing his likableness.

I found one spelling (or maybe typing) error:

"rhumy" -- 'rheumy'

Great story.
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Review of The Reasons Why  Open in new Window.
Review by Miara Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
I found this a very compelling beginning.

The only real technical point I found in this piece is this one:

"stamping of the carpeted" -- 'on' works better here than 'of' - or maybe even 'stamping my feet to settle the boots into place'

I look forward to seeing more of this story.
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Review of Golden  Open in new Window.
Review by Miara Author IconMail Icon
Rated: ASR | (4.5)
Beautiful. This story is so poignant. In just a few words you've managed to capture a life-time's worth of love and devotion. Cancer is such a treacherous disease. Your characters show so much of the agony of advanced cancer on both the sufferer and the loved one.

I love this story. I hope you get it published somewhere.
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Review of Amran Chapter 1  Open in new Window.
Review by Miara Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.0)
First the technical things I noticed:


Probably a typo: "not a soul that could here him" -- 'hear'
Also, this phrase demonstrates a personal pet peeve. When writing about people, the word 'who' is better than 'that' because 'that' implies an object, a thing -- book that, a table that, a car that.

Another typo: "sent threw" -- 'through'

This phrase has some redundancy: "a greater weapon than any piece of weaponry a soldier" -- 'a greater weapon than anything a soldier' will get the point across without repeating yourself.

Typo: "holding he stupid" -- 'the'

"the cell eyes half" a comma would work well between 'cell' and 'eyes.'

"these days there almost as many whites as there were Arab and Africans." -- 'these days there were almost as many whites as Arabs and Africans."

More redundancy: "She opened the door and walked up to the counter where an Egyptian teen stood at the counter." -- you could remove the last prepositional phrase and end the sentence with 'stood.'

Some roundabout wording here: "His speaking of English did not surprise Layne in the least because before America’s slump it all but made English the universal language." -- Perhaps you could try something like: 'English had practically become the universal language prior to America's slump, and it remained common today.'

I found this interesting. I enjoy stories about ESP. I've seen enough here to wonder how we go from Layne in Egypt to Amran in a prison cell.

Keep writing, but also keep rewriting.
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Review of Golfetery  Open in new Window.
Review by Miara Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
I loved it. I know some golfers who would buy into a deal like this.

A technical point:

"Make them one in the same" -- 'and' is the preferred word over 'in'

You've set a very playful tone with your narrative style. You've also left me wondering -- what can we do with that clubhouse?
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Review of Extra Tuition  Open in new Window.
Review by Miara Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (4.5)
Technically, I couldn't find anything regarding grammar, spelling, or punctuation that needed correction.
I found the POV an interesting choice.
I hope that as the story continues, there is some sort of discovery plotline developed. While sexcapade after sexcapade may be accepted at large, I find it less than fulfilling.
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