Young Writers Society

Awww, I feel dumb too, I didn't notice you'd replied. O_o

When I say awkward, I usually mean that the sentences are phrased in an awkward way. A lot of times awkwardness comes from using five words to say what could be said in one, or sometimes it just comes because you just don't know how to say what you wanna say. >_> I suffer that problem a lot too... just try to be as straightforward and clear as possible.

So. I'll try to review in a way that hasn't been done a million times before. It keeps our relationship fresh so we don't have to see a marriage counselor. Divorces can be so expensive. And no one thinks of the kids.

EASIEST PROBLEM TO FIX: The semicolon. People are bringing back the semicolon like they're bringing back retro toys. The problem is that people still remember how to use the toys and have forgotten how to use the semicolon. You don't know how and you often connect partial clauses or too many clauses. The average person can manage only a few (two) clauses per sentence; the rest becomes "just too complicated." (And "would have" is NOT the same as "would of")

HARDER PROBLEM TO FIX: You have a hard time with verb-tense, boy-O. Why no one has pointed this out sooner is a mystery to all of us. The part of the narrator is obviously working in the present tense (talking to the reader) and then the story seems to be written in a past tense, but you overlap a lot.

Normally I don't endorse skipping around with tense (skipping around in time is fine) mostly because it's so easy to mess up unless you're incredibly careful and a master at weaving. You're not that masterful.

CHARACTERS: Other than your characters not really having any personality for the reader to adhere to (a trait, habit, striking feature... we don't know where they live or how old they are!), you don't deal with juggling them well. It seems like you're okay when you've got your idea of what you want to happen between two characters down, but what happens to that character when Takato moves onto his next interaction? Those moments are valuable times for you to create a PERSON there and you discard them.

EXAMPLE: The scene in chapter 2 where Takato just wanders off to talk with Toji and discuss stuff and leaves Rena. There could have been commentary on how he saw her after she says the whole, "tail, wings, monster" bit and now he's trying to find out more from the only other person who might be able to help him.

DESCRIPTION: I have no idea what I'm looking at with these people. What does their landscape look like. Their school? Homes (other than big)? THEM? You describe one girl's hair and some other girl's clothes. But all we know about the crazy wings and tail is that the wings are "neon green" and the tail is "longer than he thought." Don't you think you could give us a little more on that?

On the other hand, you often describe in place you don't have to. Why do you describe the morning routine? We all know what getting up to go to school looks like. Describe what's out of the ordinary for us - Takato's thoughts on the mundane, perhaps.

AWKWARDNESS: I agree that some of your writing is REALLY awkward sometimes. A lot of this is because of long sentences (run-ons, semicolons, commas, etc). Some of this is because your sentences are passive when the subject just needs to be put towards the front making the point a lot clearer (location, location, location). A LOT of the problem is word choice. Your vocabulary is good for someone your age, but you should run the sentences by someone older to see if they make practical "everyday, speaking" sense.

TONE: Get rid of any sentence or clause you try to start with, "thus..." (a more common one was a second clause linked to a first clause that began with "for...") with only the RAREST (and I do mean, "Hey, sorry! Jimmy Hoffa was actually just eating Cheezits with Jesus behind the couch the whole time!" rare) do you do that. It's far too formal for a story like this and makes the author look out of touch. In an academic paper or some kind of lit. crit, maybe in a pinch. But not here.

MISC: For someone who likes video games, you don't pay much attention to your fight scenes. Curious. It could have been fine but as it was, I was just confused.

- I only noticed this once, but a good rule of thumb for the "who vs whom" thing? Ask yourself "Who is doing whatever?" If you answer with "he is", use "who" in the original question; if you answer with "It's him", use "whom" in the question. Sounds difficult but it can become as easy as the "Me vs I" rule.

NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER: Please, if you change nothing else, change this: don't info-dump like you did in chapter 2 and then just shove the character out of the way. It's ridiculous. Either feed us tasty morsels of info over long periods and trust us to trust you (harder for you) or info-dump in a tricky way that does not seem like info-dumping.

Hint - this would preclude the huge "info-dumping paragraph" method.
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Up to chapter three. Unlikely to read any more unless you feel any particular personal interest in my help (I'm guessing you won't).

Thank you for your somewhat-kind review (lol, i really don't care if you're harsh). If you wouldn't mind, just skip to chapter five and read a few pages. You see, between chapters 2 and five is an area of about four months of improving. I was wondering if you would compare and contrast the two, and see if i really did "improve". You want a "good" fight scene? Read a bit of chapter four.

This would help me out a ton.

thx in advance,
~Otaku