Reviews for Crossing - FictionPress.com

Reviews For: Crossing

Ramona122003 2008-02-23 ch 5,	It is a nice story so far. Your story, however, suffers from some basic grammar problems. Also, you tend not to tell who is talking in most of your quotes. You may also want to consider breaking up the long dialogue a little. The person talking some times across as long winded to me. Other than these pet peeves, nice job. I hope to read more from you.
Narc 2008-01-11 ch 1,	The beginning is too much of an info-dump. You're trying too hard to explain the whole situation all at once. Show what's going on instead of telling it all in one paragraph, otherwise your reader is going to be lost. 'Which was theirs no longer' Awkward. It sounds to me like you're trying to be poetic, but this isn't the place for it. 'No longer theirs' makes a lot more sense. The dialogue's a little awkward. It doesn't flow well. Take this sentence, for instance: 'It shows disrespect for Fidayeen who from now on will be our representative in the adult world until you become of age.' Does that sound natural to you? Try saying it out loud and imagine you're actually talking to someone. Compare it to this: 'It's disrespectful. He's in charge until you come of age.' Also, you tend to have large chunks of un-broken dialogue. Generally, when someone is speaking, they're not just standing there stating sentence after sentence. They're doing something in-between, or they're having an exchange with someone else. It always helps me to go through my dialogue out loud, even miming out some of the motions that the characters might be doing whil they're talking.
A.R.B 2008-01-11 ch 4,	Do continue! I've been looking for stuff like this, but it hasn't been updated in a while, and it's no use reviewing something in depth that the author isn't even planning on finishing. But really, I'd like to see more.
MaDMaS22 2007-10-22 ch 1,	First review in quite some time. Anyways... Starting with a funeral, rather unfortunate :) hm a suggestion. When you are describing the agony or the sorrow of a character it is always exceptionally better to describe to the reader what the character is doing to convey to us that they are morning or are filled with sorrow. Even if you describe it and at the end of the description there you write, She was in mourning. is there a reason that you have chosen to use partial quotes instead of full on quotation marks just wondering. "but at the same time" I think just the word yet would sound a bit better. "felt less dislike for the poem" Again a tab more show and a little less tell. Interesting beginning. I liked the poem very much. I think for the most part you have a grasp of the basic concept of writing in your style. Just again try to weave more description into your style. so the reader can know the surroundings whet they look like and so on.
ecwix 2007-05-08 ch 1,	Interesting chapter. I can see how it is setting the background for the rest of the book. There were a few grammar errors, but I won't point them all out. My notes: -"The conventions failed to express her sorrow, as it was not just an uncle which she had lost but a future too." "An uncle WHICH she had lost". "which" is used for things, "who" or "whom" for people. I'm guessing that the uncle is a person, so "which" should be "whom". -"Uncle Rhoe had been kind, had let her study but left them now in the care of his friend “Uncle” Fidayeen." Here, you use the pronoun "them", but there is no specified antecedent that the reader can refer to. Afterwards, the reader can assume Acadia and her brother, but it causes confusion at first. -"Her brother, Estovers didn’t understand what she missed so much about studying but he had never enjoyed them much anyway." "Them" is once again a questionable pronoun. Here, I think you are using it to describe "studying", which is singular. Therefore, "them" should actually be "it". -‘You poor things, come inside, it’ll be the last time you’re able to before you go off to the Fidayeen’s house where only one sheet is allowed for fear of luxury.’ Firstly, this dialogue sounds really fake. Who says "where only one sheet is allowed for fear of luxury"? Second, "you're" is shifting tenses within the sentence. Although that may just be a purposeful mistake to reflect the education of the cook, it may also be an error, and I'm just being cautious and pointing it out. Since "it'll" is future, I feel as though "you're" should also be future. So, "you'll be able" instead of "you're able". -‘Everything will be alright, just don’t worry. This is just one change of many. We have already lost mother and father, so this blow is softened by the ones which have come before.’ Again, the dialogue doesn't feel realistic, although that isn't really a TRUE problem, I mean, just look at Nathaniel Hawthorne's dialogue ("Behold, verily, there is the woman of the scarlet letter; and, of a truth, moreover, there is the likeness of the scarlet letter running along by her side! Come, therefore, and let us fling mud at them!" --Chapter 7, The Scarlet Letter--). Those were the words of some little kids who were making fun of Hester and Pearl. I seriously doubted anyone actually talked like that, no matter what time period, but that's beside the point. Also, you don't identify the speaker, or give any hint of who is speaking whatsoever. Although the reader can guess after reading the next line, making him/her wait until reading the next line before figuring out what the previous line means can sort of be annoying. -"Acadia followed Quelea up the stairs to the small fusty room which she considered to hold great knowledge." Typo, "fusty" = "dusty"? "Grabbing a book from a shelf they spilt onto the open page." I'm not sure what "they" is referring to. This sentence just doesn't really make much sense to me. -Overall, this was an interesting chapter, despite being devoid of action. There is instead what can almost easily compensate, emotional tension. -I have one question about the setting of this. Does this take place on Earth sometime in some unspecified time? If it does, I have no real objections apart from wondering where the heck this society that the main characters belong in came from or what happened in the future to cause a regression back to medieval-like technology and times. If it doesn't, then I'm wondering how a poem from Andrew Marvel found itself into the world. -The passage as a whole is not lacking in too much except, although this is a personal preference, commas. Some of your phrases and clauses just run right into each other without any pause or delineation. -Good job, and keep writing!
They call me Tamara 2007-05-08 ch 1,	'The conventions failed to express her sorrow' This is a fantastic line, so descriptive yet to the point. My only slight observation is the names, as I dislike names that make me think about how to pronounce them, it disrupts the flow. But that's just my opinion. Also, there are a couple of occasions where you could use dialouge rather than description. Other than that, good. ~ Tamara
Abdul Alhazred - John Brewe... 2007-04-30 ch 1,	Where I live many people write fiction, and a few even try to tackle fantasy, which is daunting at this age to say the least. The themes that you are developing from the very beginning have great potential for the coming chapters, and already the characters are deepening. I see the element of repression toward a female character often, but you have handled it admirably... Of course this is only the first chapter, so hold onto that flow and let me read more!
The Ferrett 2007-04-20 ch 2,	I keep on ending up refering to alice in wonderland as this is curiouser and curisouser. fida is shady and kind which is an odd combination, the brother seems now to be impulsive and the girl is... well I haven't worked her out yet. language is good, plot seems to be open-ended and that's about it. Want to see more though.
The Ferrett 2007-04-20 ch 1,	A sad start to the tale. I like the characters but the real question is... what happens next. I promise I'll do a better review next chapter but i'm about to dash out so ::))
Dani P 2007-04-18 ch 2,	hmm...interesting so far. i like the quotes in the begining and the poem you used to describe love. The chapters are short (but then again I write loonngg chapters so maybe it's just me). I can't say much in the way of grammer because mine sucks, but I must say I'm interested to read more. good job.
Rozovian G 2007-04-17 ch 2,	At first, I feared this was a rip-off of a book which I've seen the movie of, and unfortunately don't remember its name in english. But it doesn't seem that way. You've done a nice job creating the two protagonists, but all the other characters are a little obscure. You've set this is a world that's difficult to place. You've made it fantasy, but I have yet to find the fantasy in it, it currently seems like a historical fic. It could be set a generation or two ago, or it could be something from the late medieval ages. The names are pretty nice, although the name culture isn't very consistant. Most, if not all, are real-world derivations, which was interesting, but they don't sound very alike, some names seem very foreign from Acadia, which is easily pronounced and read in english, which is also is a commonly found fantasy name, with its variations. The story is pretty good, and it's a good idea to begin each chapter with a quote. I know I've used that method in defining chapters in some old story I didn't feel like publishing. It looks like you've found better quotes than I had. Overall, it's a decent story, so far so good. It didn't really peak my interest until the brother vanished, stories that have a hook early on usually fare better than stories without. As this didn't happen until late in the second chapter, you might consider revealing that earlier in your future stories. So far so good. :)

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