I need someone to read this and tell me if it's any good. This might have ended up a comic or whatever, but I have no artistic talent, so I'm writing it instead. https://www.wattpad.com/story/52574460-inset

Commas. Commas, everywhere.

Please be aware that this is going to be extremely long. I don't mean to be harsh or terrible, just to constructively criticize. This is only based off of the first four chapters, but I assume you published most of them at around the same time. I do think the entire concept of your world is wonderful, though.

If it were me, I would expose the history alongside the story instead of just throwing all of this at the reader. Though it can work, I'd tend to stray away from long exposition and actually get the reader interested in the action of the story beforehand.

Also, I'd like to point out a few frequent grammatical/formatting errors I've spotted:

-You use too many commas, as Lurker said before. Maybe split up your large ideas into smaller sections. Believe me, I had this problem before my English teacher got fed up with me and told me to fix it. Commas aren't bad, sometimes they help sentences flow along better. When a story's punctuation is comprised of over 90%, though, that's a problem. Stick to two commas a sentence on most occasions unless you are making a list of some sort, that's my basic rule.

-Begin a new paragraph when another character speaks, otherwise it gets confusing to read and the paragraphs get unnecessarily long. Also start a new paragraph when something interesting happens

-To show yelling, you don't need to use capital letters. Just a simple exclamation point will do. Use capitals only for things like loud onomatopoeia and a few other occurrences of which would probably take too long to explain.

-Don't pause speech too much, but I think it adds some more authenticity to the way the characters speak instead of just having a continuous string of sentences. Just pause when someone would normally pause when speaking, and try not to do it for every instance a character talks. I'd also suggest using this as an opportunity to add a little more of the character's emotion into the writing (Ex: "Hey Caroline," He said, rubbing the back of his neck and blushing intensely. "I have to tell you something" over "Hey Caroline, I have to tell you something")

-I've noticed that you are good with grammar, but still have grammar errors in your writing. I've seen many times where you use the correct grammar in one situation, but in the same chapter you disregard that same grammatical rule. I'd suggest sifting through it for most of these grammatical errors before publishing.

-Some of your chapter titles were missing capitols and had some unnecessary punctuation.

Now, ending with those, I shall go onto your writing style. Even though I vaguely know what is happening, it doesn't fully submerge me into the story and puts me more into the shoes of someone listening to a story being told and less like someone who is actually there.

I'll give an example. Instead of saying "Then James jumped off the balcony himself, and everyone let out a gasp, but he was fine", start off a new paragraph and say something like "Then, James took a few steps toward the balcony. He didn't hesitate, as if this movement was natural to him. Nobody expected the next step to lead him hurdling to the ground. A gasp was heard from all around, as a few looked down to see that his entire body was perfectly intact."

Not a perfect example, but just a way to further draw your audience into the story and not leave them the wrong kind of confused. If you want people to remember that about that character, you can't just throw in a sentence in the middle of a paragraph. Make it dramatic.

Again, don't take this criticism to heart as I wasn't meaning to sound aggressive or harsh. I'm not a master of writing in any way, shape, or form, but I can help you improve. Even if you plan to turn this into a comic anyways, I'd still suggest that the writing be strong as well.

As for you not having any drawing talent, start now. I see way too many people giving up because they don't naturally have the talent. People are stupid for teaching us at a young age that things come naturally. Believe me, it's much more satisfying when you have full control over your comic instead of hiring someone.

Anyways, I should probably stop before you die of boredom or annoyance with me. So if you would like to talk more about writing, email me at leena.dollars@gmail.com, 'le~!

I’ve read your prologue, and I shall be honest.

It was boring, I pretty much had to force myself to read it. But know that I did because I love editing, and helping another who is novel of heart.

Now for your prologue I get that you’re trying to achieve an Avatar-like opening. You know “…and I believe Aang can save the world”.

If you’re going to introduce yourself, do it properly. Don’t just say “my name is Terra”. So your name is Terra, we got that, but what are you? You say your name but do not say who you are—there is no point in that. So, instead, try: “My name is Terra, and I’m a…”

Next, your paragraphs are in a mess. I could barely understand what you were trying to say. This Land, that Land, those Lands, blah blah blah. You wrote “Pyra was born in a place known as the Land of Swords, along with his two best friends, Regen (…) and myself.” Take out the clauses and you have “Pyra was born along with Regen and myself”. So the three of you were born together?

Here is the rest of the paragraph as it should grammatically be:

“The land of swords was the youngest nation, but still it was strong, and basically more harmonious than any other nation. The Land of Swords had two other names—the Land of Blades and the Land of (the?) Future. “

The word “basically” was a horrible word choice. Not only is it lame, wrong, and overused, it produces a very informal tone. Why is it “basically more harmonious than the other nations”, and not just “more harmonious than the other nations”? If you don’t need a word, discard it, because it will hinder flow.

The Land of Swords (I don’t know why you put a comma here) rose up and was born after the war broke out between the two great nations—the Land of Waves and the Land of Shuriken. (At this point reading the Land of… became very, very annoying. You really only have to say their full names once. Also, you stated that the Land of Swords “rose up and was born”. Do they not mean the same thing? If you were trying to say it was born in that time and then rose to power it should be “The Land of Swords was born and eventually/subsequently rose to power”. If so, you should explain how it rose to power. The world was at war and this nation birthed and rose to power? It would sound absurd, so you would have to explain it. Did they have a capable leader? Powerful aegises?

Next, you said “In the beginning”. Why this was there I do not understand. If you’re going to have a lot of this happened before this happened and then a “in the beginning” before you can talk about whatever you really want to talk about which is Pyra, don’t talk about Pyra at the start. The content of the second paragraph is not where it should be.

Let me show you how you can make your paragraphs more coherent.

First, talk about “in the beginning,” then talk about whatever then transpires, then talk about the wars, THEN you talk about the land of the swords. Eg:

“In the beginning, there was one nation alone—the Land of the Lotus. It was a thriving nation, but the people proliferated in the nation’s prosperity and eventually there was an unmanageable surfeit of people. (Why did they fail to manage the population?) The lord of the land began to grow old, and when it was time for him to take his place with the other rulers of the past, he divided the nation in twain and gave them to his two sons. His sons renamed their lands. The first son, , renamed his to Land of the…, and the second one, , renamed his to Land of the… The two lands lived in peace for many years, until the two brothers, too, took their place with rulers passed. (So the two brothers died, and whoever came after failed to lead the people from war, or did they actually incite the war? Here is where you can introduce the main antagonists of the story.) The lands then turned into yin and yang (is this supposed to be a metaphor?) and then war broke upon the shores of the nations.

It was during the war between the Waves and Shuriken that the land of Swords—the birthplace of my dearest friend, Pyra—was born, from the leadership and ambitions of a man known as Tensi. (Then you go on to talk about Tensi.)

And here was where the tale of Pyra—so great as to become a legend—began.”

I’ve pointed out many things that needed explanation because they are very unconventional. Your prologue was the first insight to your world and I can see you’re trying to feed your readers with the background of your story so you have to tell these things. People lose interest if you just vaguely explain it. People want to read your background and go “oh, there’s actually a lot of depth in this”. There is a lot of information in your prologue and so you MUST make it interesting and captivating from the very beginning because many, many readers have the terrible tendency to skip prologues.

I skimmed through the first chapter and I agree with much of what Leena has said, but your grammar was not consistent. Perhaps alternating from the real world and into your world, trying to link both worlds in your story, was very demanding for you. Know that when you’re writing your story, use past tense. Lastly, don’t make simple mistakes like confusing “there” with “their” etc.

I cannot talk about the other aspects of narrative writing in your story yet because I have not read the other chapters, so this is all I have for now.

I appreciate all your honesty, and the fact you just came out and said what was wrong with it. But in all actuality, this is all just practice for me. That story, and none of my other stories, are ever going to be published nor given much thought when I'm done. I am only 15 after all. I'm glad you made the comment about the commas because i never would have noticed that. Thannk you for your feed back.