Art of the Saber

Chapter 1
It is a time when old meets new. When horse meets car, and sword meets gun. History was becoming a forgotten knowledge. Things in the world that are not in history books, nor taught in school, but have been passed down through the generations of families are fast becoming discovered. It is a time when mystical things were locked away, awaiting the light of their escape.

“I know you can do better than this! Strike me!” A man exclaims forcefully as his hands move smoothly, effortlessly over a young woman’s strikes, manipulating them to his will.
The deeply tanned young woman is clearly the least experienced of the two. Her long, chestnut hair sweeps around her waist as she moves out of her sparring partner's way. He is just taller than her, and appears to be only a few years older. He grins, adjusting the blade at his side out of his way. The setting sun catches his hair, shining gold on the brown. Sweat beads on the man’s cinnamon colored skin as he pushes forward. She stumbles, her hakama catching on her katana, but she recovers herself and throws a few punch-kick combos, he blocks them with incredible ease.
“I…I’m trying Sempai,” she pants, exhausted from the long fight. She takes short bursts of breath, causing her to be on the verge of hyperventilating.
“No! You either do or you do not, there is not try!” She throws a punch at his face. Boredom strikes across his sharp features, he tilts his head as he grabs her arm. Using her lunging motion against her, strikes her in the abdomen with his elbow. The impact causes her to lose all breath as a silenced scream of pain shoots from her mouth. Spittle and blood fall from her gaping mouth, as she is thrown back, landing on her face.
“You’re distracted. Met, clear your mind, only then can you obtain the peace of mind to see my motives, my actions. Now, stand and take your stance!” Blood drips from her mouth as she staggers to her feet.
“Hai, Sempai.” She grunts as she attempts to support herself, the sun catches her body and illuminates the cuts and bruises on her body. Seeing the condition of his student’s body, he changes his mind.
“No, that’s enough for today. Let’s go in.” He lets down his guard, dropping his hands down to his sides. He walks towards her with a grin on his face. “We have been sparring for long enough now. Even the sun says that it is tired.”
A little taken aback, she raises to stand in front of her teacher and friend. “Domo arigato gozaimashita o shiate kudosai.” She bows.
The man bows back approvingly, “and thank you for teaching me a thing or two.”
They both share a quick laugh as they walk toward the house just off on the edge of the clearing.
“Kyori. I have been thinking a lot about the past lately. There are a few things I just can not get out of my head.”
Kyori halts as she speaks, a look of concern on his sweat drenched face. “Is it about when you came to study with me?”
“Well, not that night. More about between then and—the fight you and Ryo had.”
“How about we talk more about this in the morning? You need to rest, and I am quite tired myself.”
They walk up to the house together in shared silence. Both remembering those difficult years of both pain, sadness, and joy.

Hello again. I think you meant this one, yes? Okay...

It is a time when old meets new. When horse meets car, and sword meets gun. History [s]was[/s] is becoming a forgotten knowledge. Things in [s]the[/s] world that [s]are[/s] were not in history books, nor taught in school, but [s]have[/s] had been passed down through the generations of families are [s]fast becoming discovered[/s] being unearthed and learnt again. It is a time when mystical things, that were once locked away, are now awaiting the light of their escape. [You had a few changes in tense here and I just thought I'd try to tidy that up but these are just suggestions remember.]

Using her lunging motion against her, strikes her in the abdomen with his elbow. [This is slightly confusing. Perhaps 'Using her lunging motion against her, he strikes...' would be better.]

She grunts as she attempts to support herself, the sun catches her body and illuminates the cuts and bruises on her body. [Don't use body so much. Change one to torso or something.]

They both share a quick laugh as they walk toward the house just off on the edge of the clearing. [Maybe change this to 'as they walk towards the house that lays not far from the edge of the clearing.']

Both remembering those difficult years of both pain, sadness, and joy.[Remove the second both. It's not needed and suggests two emotions rather than three.]

________________________

Overall, I like the descriptions of your characters and I can see that your female character (Met? Perhaps mention the name more than once.) is very determined but a touch inexperienced. Kyori is a little harder to understand. He's quite a harsh teacher and yet he's also a caring friend. A complicated character but that's good. I like in-depth characters. Other than that, perhaps describe the scenery a little more but a nice start and I look forward to reading more.

“I know you can do better than this! Strike me!” A man exclaims forcefully as his hands move smoothly, effortlessly over a young woman’s strikes, manipulating them to his will.
The deeply tanned young woman is clearly the least experienced of the two. Her long, chestnut hair sweeps around her waist as she moves out of her sparring partner's way. He is just taller than her, and appears to be only a few years older. He grins, adjusting the blade at his side out of his way. The setting sun catches his hair, shining gold on the brown. Sweat beads on the man’s cinnamon colored skin as he pushes forward. She stumbles, her hakama catching on her katana, but she recovers herself and throws a few punch-kick combos, he blocks them with incredible ease.

In this paragraph, you really info dumped physical appearance. Try breaking it up, and usually it is best if it is described while doing some kind of action so that the action of the story isn't stopped. Because about 1/3rd of this paragraph is physical description, or working towards physical description it makes the action stop. Also, you don't always need physical description to make them real. I like to be able to envision a character, but that doesn't always mean looks. I try not to use looks, or use some general things that might get the idea of my character's looks, and let the reader make it up from there. It saves the pain of having to describe physical characteristics, which is always difficult.

Both remembering those difficult years of both pain, sadness, and joy.

cut this, it is all telling.

You should add breaks between your paragraphs for ease of reading.

The only problem I had with this was it's lack of conflict and how you tried to add conflict right at the end - and it didn't work. I feel like this chapter should be farther into the book. 1. I don't know anything about any of the characters mentioned 2. I don't care about them 3. there is nothing to make me care about them. As a result of all these things, if this was a first chapter in a book, I wouldn't finish it. Try finding a better conflict to start with. Maybe work your story through the Elements of Plot user group, which has some very helpful tips and things.

Otherwise, nothing.

to tell you the truth, I liked the idea but I am not sure exactly if I like the writing. I didn't notice too much that the others haven't already pointed out...all in all, keep working on this.

Hey, SoCalCub!

This was totally a cool story for me- I'm a martial artist and I speak Japanese. ^_^ And, if it was not enough that you combined two of my interests into a story, you made it kick a little butt. That's always a good thing, right?

Here are a few things I found to ramble about:

- The beginning was the kung-fu movie brand of clichèd. The point of a story is to reach a pretty wide audience with it, and by beginning it this way you've not already automatically ruled out babies and blind people, but also Vonnegut fans, people over thirteen, and women in general. That's like, ninety- five percent of the population- and when you've got a good story coming up, you want people to read it. So, my advice? Simply get rid of your first paragraph. It's cheesy and you don't really need it.

- Take this quiz

http://www.onlyfiction.net/marysue.html

for each of your characters. They have Japanese names, but they're, erm...tan. The Japanese don't tan a whole lot, and they definitely don't have chesnut hair unless they dye it. By making your girl character stereotypically "hot", you've made her a Mary Sue.

- Show that the other person is less experienced- sparring is quite fun. Usually the less experienced person is the one getting injured...I've got bruises on my cheeks and cuts on my arms. It's a lot of fun watching me get new ones. XD

- In Tae Kwon Do, we say "sukasinita", which is basically Korean for "thank you" or "honored" or something like that. There's not a lot of rambling involved.

"Doomo arigatoo gozaimashita o shite kudasai", which I think you were trying to say, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. "Please be have thanked me" is basically what it is- and you've mixed up tenses. -te verbs are present tense verbes, and you've used the past tense of desu. Doesn't make a ton of sense, and it's kind of a burn, if you think about it...asking the person to thank you.

Also, can you read hiragana? If you can, make sure you spell things correctly when you transliterate. "Domo" isn't spelled right, because it's spelled どうも, which is technically transliterated to 'doumo', but English readers won't understand it, so you simply lengthen the o's. Doomo. Or do̅mo, if you wanted to make sure people aren't saying 'dumo'.

'Thank you' sounds like a verb, but it's not...so 'shite kudasai' is "thanking me, please". Why use a PL4 "humble" verb (gozaimasu) when you're going to ask the person to do something? It's not...humble.

Also, 'sempai' is supposed to be 'senpai'. There is no singular 'm' in hiragana, so if there was an 'm' it'd be spelled 'semupai', which could mean something naughty, for all we know. XD If you want to use a language in a story, make sure you know the spelling pretty well. I wouldn't want to go about making names for my Russian characters with 'x's in them, because there aren't any in Cyrillic.

- Don't use a lot of technical jargon towards the beginning of a story- you use the word 'katana' and 'hakama' in the same sentence, and most people won't know what those are. Introduce jargon as you go along so that people aren't so confused.

__

Pretty cool story, SoCalCub. ^_^ Feel free to PM me if you've got any questions or want me to take a closer look at something- I'd be honored. Ja, mata!

Mmkay, so in the first paragraph you change tenses too much...

As far as the rest of the story, I do think you should have done more introductions and expanded this a little bit. I don't know anything whatsoever about the characters at all, so I really don't care who fights who or anything. But definitely work on even here making the characters more defined...aaaaand I'm not sure what else to say about this except that the idea behind this is nice, and everyone else's review seems pretty accurate...