 Ken Xiraka 2007-03-18 . chapter 1Hm... True to my word, I read it today, and it was very good, indeed. Personally, I saw very few flaws (I'm not one with much ability to critique literature), the ones that do exist being grammatical errors that weren't really noticeable or shouldn't be of much concern. I might actually put aside other stuff that I do to continue reading this when new chapters come up. Y'are on my story alerts list. |
 Jaynin 2007-03-15 . chapter 1 I'll begin by saying that critiquing this kind of story is not likely to be my strongest suit as it's not usually the kind of story that I write myself. But I think I can offer a little bit of advice that will be useful in a general sense.
The first thing I noticed is that in some cases your choice of words is a bit awkward or off, and it detracts from the drama you are trying to create. For example, this passage:
"The beatings she took, the tortures she endured, the yelling and screaming she sat through. The malnutrition she fought, the drugs she used to forget, the alcohol she used to assist."
"To take a beating" is a colloquial expression generally used to mean "to lose very badly." It would be better to use "endured" for the beatings and then change the verb associated with "tortures" to "suffered" or something along those lines, which would make that part "The beatings she endured, the tortures she suffered..."
The other nouns, malnutrition, drugs, and alcohol, all have odd verbs associated with them. It seems that you want to move this along quickly to create a rapid impact of sensations to the reader, but sometimes you have to use verb phrases to get the right feeling for your words. You might exchange "malnutrition" for "hunger" as it would give you a wider range of verbs to choose from, and also communicates a state of emotion common to most any reader; "malnutrition" is a very clinical term. "The drugs she used to forget" is an awkward phrase, as we're not sure what she's trying to forget, nor what the alcohol is supposed to be assisting in.
That passage was just the example I chose to illustrate as I felt it was the one that was most glaring to me. There are a few other places in the story that could use similar tweaking of the words used. The "alike" in the passage "How it was like she was the one being pillaged and plundered, with her sister so much alike her." or using "weariness" instead of "weary feeling" in "When she didn’t wake Demos to take him with them, he grew worried and his weary feeling left his body."
The second point I wanted to raise is a bit more subjective and you're free to make of it as you will. I know you want to create a story where suspense is created through lack of explanation and things are only revealed as you go further into the story, but I think you may have overused the literary device a little bit in this chapter. I found myself getting lost and confused because far too many things that lacked explanations were being introduced all at once, and it became difficult to focus on any single one of them. I would either cut down on the number of elements that require mystery, or fill in the mundane details; the names of the characters, the school environment, the dorms, the general area in which these encounters are taking place. Without any fully described touchstone to base the story in, it seems as if all of the conversation and plot is taking place in a vacuum.
Where I felt you wrote best was Kimia's death scene, when Shadow finds her just as she has stabbed herself. Things seemed to flow much better at that point, and create the proper amount of dramatic interest while leaving questions unanswered.
I hope the review is helpful. |
 bad_volcanoes 2007-03-14 . chapter 1 this is kathleen, i hope i remembered my name right.
i really like it, it's emotional and sad :[ i cant wait to read what happens throughout the rest of the story |
 SeabreezeSwiftdeath 2007-03-14 . chapter 1This is a very interesting story. ^-^ Good to see you back and writing, since it's been a long time. I do have one line to point out, though.
*Opening out into a chamber pale purple chamber, the only thing other than pale tile was the platform in the middle of the room.
I think you meant for it it be "into a pale purple chamber". I think that's the only thing that flew out at me. Other then that, I didn't see anything else that needed correcting... I can't wait to read the next chapter, when it comes out. Keep on writing it, since it's very good. ^-^ |
 SirenThird 2007-03-13 . chapter 1I made this troublesome sort of vow to myself that when people ask for my opinion on their work I'm a hundred percent honest, period. So just know that even though I haven't written my review yet, I'm absolutely terrified that you'll get all angry as most people are prone to do when they're criticized, constructive or not.
So! Just thought I'd put that out there first. :p
Critique:
-At the beginning there was a bit of what seemed like scene changing that threw me off. It went from "he" to "she" very quickly and I was left for a moment like "Wait, where'd the girl come from?"
-The paragraph where we recount everything Kimia went through to bring her to this point seemed to go on a bit to long. I got frustrated. "Yes yes, woe is you girl. Now shoot yourself or don't but stop whining." (Maybe I'm just a **. *shrugs*)
-The whole piece seemed to move very fast and contained -a lot- of information and characters for just the one piece. It almost gave it a smooshed feel, like you must-get-the-whole-story-down-in-this-one-chapter-or-else! You might try breaking it into two or three chapters, expand a bit, give us a bit of time to figure out who all these people are. The name to face ratio was roughly 2/1 with alot of hints as to who the unpictured people were. I almost started backchecking to make sure I was keeping track of who everyone is.
Me trying to work it out: "Ok, so boy fails to save girlfriend. Boy runs into girlfriends sister(?) and finds out other friend is also dead. Roommates(?) girlfriend(?) shows up later and leads boy to meet up with his dead mother who basically predicts his inevitable doom. Right, I think I've got this."
-I also notice you use pronouns a lot to start sentences. "She. Her. He." This can flatten out a piece like woah.
-When I got to the end I was left kind of like. "This isn't the beginning of a story, what happened before this?" I sat here and tried to piece together who all the passover characters were like Yukari and Demos. They all fit in somewhere but we don't get to know much of anything about them before we jump to the next thing.
-In this paragraph:
Sadly, I am not here to visit you on good terms,” she used the word that he didn’t recognize again. “Reminding you of your fate is what the Void has allowed me to do, so I could see you one more time before fame claims your soul.”
I think "fame" might be a typo, since you reference "fate" a moment later.
-Everyone seemed to have crazy emotions. Calm to panic to hopelessness. Annoyed to sad to angry. Helpless to annoyed. Then Shadow goes and makes with the not grieving after the whole drama of the actual death that I'm just like: O.o
-While I was entertained by the bit about Demos devouring souls accidentally, I failed to see its relevance to -this- piece in particular.
-Kaydence, Kimia and Kalli. This is more of a curiosity, K theme intentional? If so, why?
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The nice stuff:
-I actually like the ideas you have going here, they have a lot of potential.
-There were some places where I was just like "Oh! That's nice!" As follows.
*The scene where he's sort of learning her blood, how he could taste who she was in it. And how she coughed it onto his lips, that was just sexy.
*When she realizes the gun's empty and she tears apart her room for something sharp. I liked that part because it was real. During my stop and go cutter time there were a few times when I didn't have any blades ready and I was just like... needing. Like, breaking half of your fingernails tearing apart a razor to get the blade out. The desperation there was deliciously tangible.
*“I love you!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, breaking out of her body-bind and jumping up.
Sometimes the drama can be overshot, scenes aren't written clearly or give to much detail. This line was lovely. Vivid. You could hear the way her voice scratched as she put all her air into the scream.
*Kaydence has a lovely character design, it isn't often you get girls who go out of their way to hide their features but who are still pretty confident. She didn't occur like she was trying to hide her features even, just like that was how she dresses and screw you world.
*“You are certainly not your fathers’ son.”
“Thank you,”
I just liked this bit, it's such a contrast to most things you find out there.
*Then she bent to her knees and slid so she rested on her hip, her hand propping her up.
This was a very clear line, no fussing words, just tells us what she's doing. Very easy to picture.
*12:17am, September 17th, 2017.
This was nice, I laughed here for no particular reason.
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Right, so now your eyes are probably bleeding from this long ** review. Hope I didn't strike any nerves with the critique. :O
Laters hotstuff!
~Bean |
 Choclov 2007-03-13 . chapter 1 This is a great piece of writing! 5 Stars! |
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