4 Name: Jalexander : 2016-01-06 07:06 ID:RapoVdau [Del]
All right, I’ve read your work, so let me give you my comments and opinion.
Story wise, I think it’s ok. There is a novelty in the idea— magic, abandoned castle, lost royalty etc etc. Many things that lead to a background with great potential. I was taken by surprise by the sudden gore (lol) I’m very bad at watching and reading gore.
What I want to talk about is your technique and sentences. You consistently attempted to be descriptive, which is good, but your imagery didn’t really come out well. Not because you’re bad at it—that’s not where I found you lacking—but because your sentences did not flow or your clauses or sentences as a whole often contradicted how you had defined your sentences to be.
Here’s an example. In your opening you wrote “All (that) could be heard was the soft whispers of the wind, followed by the rustling of the dead leaves blown by the soft breeze.”
You wrote “All (that) could be heard…” but went on to say the sound was followed by the “rustling of the dead leaves”. Also, these sentences do not flow. You see, you had to mention the wind twice, and had to find a variation of the word and an adjective. It’s a waste. It’s always better to find a means to shorten a sentence whenever you can as it would most likely contribute to flow. A better sentence would be “There was the rustling of crisp, dead leaves and the soft whispers of the wind that was stirring them/that had stirred them.” It’s one sentence with only a comma to separate the adjectives. It’s quick and it flows.
(You also used “the dead leaves”, it’s usually better not to use an article before something you had not mentioned, especially in this case.)
You went on to introduce more sounds like horse hooves and your heartbeat (although I don’t know how the character could have possibly heard that, or anything, especially when it was described as “soft”)
You then wrote “In this silence, time seemed to be frozen in this place, as if it was also the victim of the great fire.” You said “this silence,” so discard “this place”, or vice versa. So it’d be: “In this silence, time seemed to be frozen, as if it too were a victim of THAT great fire.”
I was intrigued when the story started because I really like forlorn settings. But I felt you didn’t efficiently bring out the sadness of the place. I had expected to see elaborations on the character’s feelings as he returned to that place. Surely there was nostalgia? Surely there was pity for what that place—a place so much a part of him in his youth—had become? I was surprised he felt nothing as he looked at the castle.
I thought the way you described him looking at the castle wasn’t very well written.
This is how it should be with right grammar:
I gazed upon the chateau THAT (this sentence needed the clause your “which” connected and hence it should be “that” instead) used to be the residence of the Xernus Royal family. The walls that used to be white had changed as ashes from the incident painted them grey.
I felt the last sentence could be manipulated to achieve a more dramatic effect that could also bring out the character’s feelings towards that historical incident. What I thought of was this “The wall that had once been white had changed, painted grey by the ashy remnants of that terrible incident.”
Next, I’ll talk about unnecessary conjunctions. Leave out “then”, it’s too often unnecessary. It’s not needed. Start your sentence. You’re not telling readers “alright, this happened and then this happened,” you’re showing them it happened, how it happened. It has to play out in their mind. Also, leave out the “other than that”, before “everything seemed lifeless. It has no effect—it doesn’t do anything but hinder the flow.
Also, don’t write “I wondered…”, “I wondered which one was an act” write “Which one was an act?”
Don’t write “I immediately had the feeling of bile rising up my throat,” write it as so:
“The room was dark, but candles soon lit up, revealing Sil.
And then I felt bile rise up my throat.”
Moving on, I want to talk about bringing out effects and feelings. At the start of the 2nd chapter the character was in a very confused state. But you did little more than simply state he was confused, which is not in compliance with the cardinal rule of narrative writing “Show, don’t tell.”
So how could you have shown it? The easiest way to show confusion is the use of ellipses. So, instead of “my empty eye sockets felt back to normal but it felt a bit different than before…” try “My empty eye sockets felt…normal? But somehow…different that before.”
You went on the mention his eyes (again). It’s better not to separate it like that. Anyway, a way to show his uncertainty in the following paragraph is “What had happened? My eyes—what should have been empty, gaping and empty pits now felt…full? As if what had been taken had been returned; as if nothing so gruesome and horrible had happened to them.”
Now onto describing someone’s feelings, attitude. I noticed you kept repeating the same words bored, he was bored, she was bored. Don’t. If you’re not going to show it, at least use a variation of the word. There are many ways to show boredom. You can say her eyes were fixed somewhere else or she was fidgeting. Describe her bored expression—“her eyes were half-open”, “her facial features distorted by the hand she was resting her head”. Needing variety also applies to dialogue tags. Yes, said and asked are convenient and common, but don’t ever overuse them. There’re several variations of them. (Also, to avoid telling after dialogue tags like “she said, with a nervous voice” try “she said, her voice quavering”.
Your grammar should be consistent, I could tell from reading your writing that you know what should and shouldn't be in a specific tense. I advise you to reread yoru story. There were also other grammatical errors but I thought listing them all would be more than you have asked for (lol).
Good luck with your story.
5 Name: Anonymous : 2016-01-06 11:02 ID:1NCsyZSS [Del]
Thank you for your advice, I realised most of my mistakes after you pointed them out :3 I'll try my best to re-write them, I hope they'll be better than before XD
It was difficult to get these type of advices/reviews from people you know since their opinions will be biased, hearing your opinion actually motivated me to improve it (^ ^) I'll need to put more effort then XD
Sorry for the gore though (0.0;) that traumatised one of my friends XD
