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Reviews For: Avalant as for now - Reviews: Page 1 of 2
ChristianAngel01 2008-06-10 . chapter 10
Ohh my gosh so she has voices in her head too lol
This is really funny
Solemn Coyote 2007-01-23 . chapter 10
Here again.
1) Love the intro. Great transition from the last chapter. Somehow, it's just the right mix of scatterbrainedness and actual worry.
2)Not too much I can critique here. Too busy reading. Take that as a compliment, please. I really look forward to hearing more about this.
Solemn Coyote 2007-01-23 . chapter 9
Alright. Only one left.
1)"Though Avalant hadn’t seen the boy called Kereel follow her when she’d fled for home, she somehow managed to bump into him the next night too. Literally ‘bump’. Avalant suspected Kereel had done it on purpose." Sometimes a lot of time passes between your chapters. They feel more like scenes from a movie than individual chapters.
2)"‘What are you doing on my roof?’ she said as she got up again, brushing off the dust on her clothes." The exchange here is cool, too. Your dialogue is always good.
3)"yelled Ilûna as the paranoid person she was." 'Yelled Illuna, the paranoid person she was.' What you have is correct, but it sounds a little stilted.
4)"‘Yeah. Your eyes change colour, and your face gets all these weird expressions. Like there are different people inside of you with different opinions.’" That's eerily perceptive.
Solemn Coyote 2007-01-23 . chapter 8
Let's see how many of these I can get through before my inbox is bowled over by the replies.
1)"b) start spam mailing me until I give in and write a new chapter" Consider yourself warned. It could happen.
2)"Tiami and all the others became quiet and receded to some dark corner of Avalant’s mind where she couldn’t reach them" That's cool. So they can get away from each other when they really need to.
3)"Her sanity can sometimes rival Tiami" "rival Tiami's" actually, since her sanity is rivaling Tiami's sanity, not rivaling Tiami.
4)“Of course it isn’t! But life’s never been fair! Just look at Kína! Murdered when she was six years old! By her own parents! For what?! As a sacrifice to Gwiandel so that they would get a boy instead! That’s life for you, and Avalant is really better off with us than without!” That flowed really well. It was also good dialogue, and it revealed an interesting bit of backstory. Cool.
5) Nicely done with the backstory. Proof that this story can be serious when it chooses to be. Not that I would've minded a pure comedy, but something epic seems to be brewing.
Solemn Coyote 2007-01-23 . chapter 7
Hey. Back to reviewing.
1) A little note about author's notes: sometimes it's better to throw the whole thing into italics. When you write the author's note the same way you write the rest of the story, it's easy for the reader to get a little bit confused. Italics usually fixes this.
2)"while all the time Tiami had just sat back, listening, enjoying it all as she watched the commotion." I have to admit, grudgingly, that I like Tiami. Yes, she does stir things up a lot, but she's one of those interesting villains.
3)"When Avalant awoke," that could actually be 'when she woke', since you just used 'Avalant' in the last sentence.
4)"'I will not shut up. You will be silent when I am talking to you, peasant!' said Tacritan." Love how Avalant's personalities are effecting the conversation.
5)Absolutely love the invisible conversation between Avalant and her personalities. Sometimes it can be hard enough dealing with roommates. Dealing with freeloaders in your head must be awful.
6) Again, you might want to lose the capital letters when a character yells. It's not a huge thing, but some people might object.
7)"Nope, Tacritan obviously didn't know how to use a doorknob..." Nice. Finishing and ending the scene with the same concept.
Solemn Coyote 2007-01-20 . chapter 6
Back to my reviewing.
1)"(figures, as she was the only one who could back away)" This might be a little better if you took it out of the parenthesis. It's a valid point, but when it's in parenthesis it feels like you're whispering it into the story. Which breaks the fourth wall a little bit.
2)"Avalant was running, not aware of where she was going, nor what she was doing." Over the past couple of chapters, I've noticed that your writing is fairly light on scenery. It's there in a general sense, but it doesn't get a lot of description. Of course, that matches Avalant's mood here. And your story is very character-driven, so it makes sense that you'd concentrate more on the people than the places they inhabit. Still, a little bit of description here and there might be a good thing.
3)“He is not! Besides, if you’re going to make a move on anyone, it’s not with MY body!” Good point. I doubt any of the personalities would see the body as belonging to someone else.
4)‘OFF!’ Not a huge critique here, but a lot of writers frown on using capital letters for shouts. I don't think there's anything inheritly wrong with it, but it's one of those things that isn't generally done.
5)"'Oh, would you two just shut up!' came Ilûna. 'Kína is trying to sleep here, you know!'" I love how everyone watches out of Kina.
6)"‘What are you doing on my roof?’ Kereel asked.‘Um, running and jumping?’" Nice.
7)"‘Well, it’s terribly dark here,’" I like how their conversation turns from accusing to...well, conversational.
8)"‘Go ahead.’ He crossed his arms over his chest as if to brace himself for the impact." another nice line.
9)"'Do yourself a favour and convert to homosexuality, Kesher,' was Ilûna’s dry comment. 'You seem so obsessed about them anyway.'" He's stuck in a women's body, surrounded by women, and now they're, um, doubting his preferences. He has every ounce of my pity.
10) Another cool chapter. The conversation between Avalant and Kereel was almost desperately normal.
Solemn Coyote 2007-01-18 . chapter 5
"I’ve never written anything sexual before, so tell me how this one worked out... not that it is sexual, but anyway, read and review!" On an apprehensive note, I guess I'll start the review.
1)"(that’s right, he can do something as long as he thinks that he will gain something on it)" that broke the fourth wall a little bit. Having the writer step in an say something jolts the reader a little bit. Reminds him that he's reading a story. Which isn't exactly a good thing. Besides, in this case I think what you wrote was implied, anyway.
2)"As he was about to demand the entrance to the roof to reveal itself this instant," He even tries to command inanimate objects. Cool.
3)"She was nonchalantly leaning to" 'leaning against', I think. You mentioned that English was not your first language, and I can sympathize. Well, okay, English was my first language. I grew up with it. But I've studied Spanish, and I'm working on learning Japanese. Figuring out when to use which prepositions is a continious uphill battle.
4)"Of reasons unknown" 'for reasons unknown'. I hope I'm not being too nitpicky with these.
5)"‘My name, peasant, is Prince Tacritan,’ he said, trying not to notice how much of her bosom was actually showing." He really makes a valiant effort. Most guys would be reduced to staring, open-mouthed.
6)"For one second they were staring dumbstruck at each other, eyes locked in an inseparable stare." Story-wise, that's a good device for getting Avalant and Tacritan to kiss, which they can later deny that they enjoyed. But, on a more basic level, that might've been one of the funniest seduction-sequence I've read. Okay, maybe I haven't read a lot of seduction sequences. Like seven, tops. But this was a well-written scene, anyways.
7) Another chapter reviewed.
Solemn Coyote 2007-01-18 . chapter 4
Still here. Still reviewing.
1)"Avalant didn’t make herself ready to go out and do a break-in in a fancy house with lots of jewels she could sell that night." This sentence is just weird enough to be really good. It's kinda artistically run-on.
2)"or the ‘rat hole’" I like how Tacritan is completely ungrateful for being saved.
3)"had also insisted on Avalant to respond to" 'had insisted that Avalant respond to,' maybe?
4) Absolutely love Avalant's conversation with herself. The color of her eyes marking which personality was in control of her.
5) "even if they are barking" The phrase might be 'barking mad', but I guess 'barking' could be short for it. I've never had much cause to use it, so I don't really know.
6)Avalant, Iluna, Kesher, Kina, Keila...I'm starting to see why the title is 'Avalant as for now'. Lovely.
7)"'Stop it, both of you,' though Avalant. 'Don’t wake the others.'" Oh, my. She has quite a stable of personalities, doesn't she? Cool.
8)"That was little Kína, drowsily and grumpy." Since 'drowsily' here is describing Kina, not the way she's speaking, it should be an adjective instead of an adverb. 'drowsy'.
9)"You will drive a man mad with all the chit-chat about boys!" One of Avalant's personalities is a dude. Another one is a little girl. Avalant might just be one of my favorite characters on fictionpress.
10) This chapter was excellent. Hands down awesome.
Solemn Coyote 2007-01-18 . chapter 3
Another review.
1)"I am Son of Necúiel reborn and am immortal." Oh, wow. He was the son of a god. Very nice.
2)"Avalant dragged the protesting boy into what she liked to call her home. She closed what served as a door" I'm a little curious about this. It sounds like her home isn't quite the same thing as most homes, but you don't explain why this is.
3)"‘Stop it!’‘Why?’‘Because I command you to!’‘Has no effect on me, apparently.’" I've never been able to do bickering properly, but you have a gift for it.
4)"With a lash from the boy Avalant was surprised to see that he’d learned some martial arts." Your sentences are always just a little bit weird, word-order-wise. They're distinctive. Sometimes they work, sometimes they sound just a little bit off. Here, you might try "When the boy lashed out, Avalant was surprised to see that he'd learned some martial arts."
5)"He freed himself and lashed again." Maybe 'lashed out?' Just 'lashed' works, but it's a motion usually reserved for whips.
6)"Then her eyes changed to green again and she got a horrified look in her face." And now I'm really curious about her. Her eyes and personalities seem to change at whim. Very cool.
7) I'm really enjoying reading this.
Solemn Coyote 2007-01-18 . chapter 2
Here’s the review.
1)“‘Quite dashing, really,’ thought Avalant. She decided to try to wrench him out of the claws of the city guard.” Nice line. I like that her decision to help is motivated purely by his attractiveness. I also like that the dashing male lead is getting rescued by the girl, instead of vice versa. You might want to change ‘she decided to try to wrench’ to ‘she decided she would wrench him from the claws of the city guard. Avalant doesn’t strike me as the type who would ‘try’ anything. ‘try’ implies that she might fail, and it doesn’t seem like she’d even consider that possibility.
2)“You silly boy! Didn't I tell you not to go anywhere?! Didn't I tell you to stay close to me?!” She can’t be much older than he is, and there she goes, pulling the Aladdin trick on the city guard. Come to think of it, the situations are pretty similar. Only with a prince instead of a princess. Cool.
3)“'And when we come home,' Avalant continued. 'We can see to those strange, itchy boils you have on your left arm.'” When all else fails, threaten contagious disease. Nice.
“'I have certainly not got abscess on my arm!' the boy said indignant.” And you named the boils, too. Not knowing what to call them, I would’ve just left them as boils. I haven’t a clue what abscess is (or it’s just slipping my mind), but it sounds like an old fashioned sort of disease, which adds a little bit of detail to your world. I approve. Not too many fantasy writers talk about diseases other than the plague.
4)“'I am not following any mortal peasant,'” The ‘mortal’ bit feels a little redundant, unless the royalty are supposed to be descended from Gods/immortal. Maybe you could make it ‘mere’?
“There was almost an audible snap as the reason revealed itself. 'If she is embarrassed over her boyfriend, she should just dump him,'” And that had me laughing aloud. All that build-up, and then a ludicrous conclusion. Very nice.
5)“If he had been more present, he would've noticed that he'd been striped for all his belongings; all that was left was his underwear and the helmet.” Maybe ‘if he had had more presence of mind’? It doesn’t sound quite right, and that’s throwing off an otherwise good line.
6)I still like this. I’ll read another chapter later.
Solemn Coyote 2007-01-16 . chapter 1
Here's another review. Maybe you're not writing anything at the moment, but this story has the most chapters of any of your works. I figure I can review it ten times before I have to go back to waiting tentatively for you to write something.
1)"If I were to tell you that Avalant is as normal as a girl can be, I would be lying," You're good with opening lines. No lie.
2)"Well, anyway, enough about the hair." I like conversational narrators. Sometimes it's a little too easy for them to break the fourth wall, but they're an excellent way to add a bit of humor to a story. Here, for instance.
3)"well, actually it does happen often, but it's just a part of being Avalant." I think I've had sort of a low-key snicker going the whole time I've been reading this. That's a good thing. It's the same snicker I get when I read Terry Pratchett.
4)"but at work she would take off the bright yellow shawl" Little bit of a tense change, there. Maybe you want 'but at work she takes off the bright yellow shawl'? "That was what she looked like" There's another tense change here, too, but it seems like it might fit, if you had already outlined a situation in which she was wearing that outfit.
5)"she had done some needlework to make it fit, as it was something she'd pinched off someone's clothes" You're building a perfectly amazing character out of little details. I might not know anything major about her, but I've come to the conclusion that Avalant is cool.
6)"seeing as it was too well-guarded to rob and the walls around it prevented her form being able to admire the architecture, which, according to everyone she'd met, was astounding." Another good line.
7)"Being a thief and criminal, she should avoid being near commotions as commotions could attract city guards." You've got another tense change, here. You can keep the 'should' if you put a 'have' after it and change the 'avoid' to 'avoided'. Also, you might want a comma after the first 'commotions'.
8) Well, that's one out of nine. I'll review again in a bit.
Nat Nair 2006-09-23 . chapter 1
been a year since you uploaded anything new. why? too busy making out? UPLOAD SOMETHING NOW.
Barbados 2006-07-16 . chapter 3
Avalant certainly is an interesting character. I enjoyed this chapter the most so far. The flash of her green eyes was interesting, and her witty attitude/remarks are fun.
Barbados 2006-07-05 . chapter 2
I just realized that it's been over a year since this story has life, and so decided that after this review I'll probably stop, since it's possible you're past caring. E-mail me if not.The part with the boils was clever. I was confused with the part, "I am not following any mortal peasant." Is the boy then immortal? The part with the gaurd reasoning it out and the coming to a completely incorrect conclusion was funny. That's really all for now.
Barbados 2006-07-01 . chapter 1
Hello! This is a curious and interesting piece. It's also well done, with regards to spelling and grammar/punctuation. I'm afraid I don't have much else to offer, since there is little plot. More to say as I read on then :)
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