Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for language and violence.
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Hi there! Lucrezia here for a review, as requested.
Okay, this is a really, really good first chapter, I must say. The pacing was fast without being overwhelming, the descriptions were good, some parts were downright shocking (the MC's siblings being shot so suddenly, for example), and it was quite addictive to read.
Well done!
Now for some technical nitpicks:
"Bathtub" should be one word.
Should be:
'"Come on out, little ones. Mommy says the wound isn't that bad."
A different voice, female and almost identical to my mother's, cut in to say, "Yeah, it's not that bad. Just a little cut. Come out . . ."'
I changed the exclamation point at the end to dot-dot-dots for suspense and dramatic purposes, though that's stylistic.
What I changed here that's most important is the paragraph break between the man's dialogue and the woman's. As dragonofphoenix already pointed out, it's crucial to always put in a paragraph break before a different character starts speaking. Remember that in the future.
This is something of a run-on sentence, the D in "daddy" should be capitalized, you left out some punctuation, and overall it's just clunky. An example of how to change it:
'I was staying in the tub as I was told to, but suddenly I felt my little siblings get up and head for the door. They were there within seconds, before I could even attempt to stop them.
"Yay, Daddy, you're all right . . ."
That's as far as they got before he shot them.'
Your entire family, not "you."
"On," not "one."
Again, this is kind of clunky and not a very smooth description. Also, calling him the "male" instead of just the "man" is a bit off-putting and took me aback for a moment.
You might want to change it to:
'The man was tall, which I could tell even though he was kneeling, and his eyes were a deep (and sinister) red. His skin was a bit darker than his eyes, but not much.'
I don't know why the quotation mark is there at the beginning.
So, I think it would be fair to say the technical stuff is not your strong point. Luckily for you, that's really not a big deal. The most important thing is having a good story; the rest of it just comes with practice and learning.
And I can say it seems this story is going to be very good. It's intriguing, mysterious, fantastical, and held my interest the whole way through. I'm looking forward to reading chapter two.
Nice work!
ThNk you for pointing those out, I would have never seen them. And you are correct I suck at grammar and all that :/
But thank you again for taking time to read the story
Wow, this was a very powerful piece that I couldn't stop reading!


Onto the writing!
I don't have any things to suggest that dragonfphoenix hasn't already, but I'd also suggest to try and break things up a bit more. For example, the speech parts and the fight scenes. Make it more dramatic if they're punched or kicked by starting anew line, and really making a massive impact almost when the reader is just reading, get it?
Other than that, great job, I like your work a lot and I shall follow you and like this piece! Your characters are good and the emotions your main one displays are realistic in the sense they'd be angry that their family had died and they're want to fight.
Welcome to YWS by the way, it's rather fantastic here!
-CFG
Thank you, i appreciate it!
Knight Dragon, here to review!
Technical:
This was a really awkward opening for me. On the technical, that first comma should be a period, that second comma should actually be after "up" and there should probably be an exclamation point after "X". Then the "She" should be decapsed, and there should be a comma after "said."
Now, a comment on your main character's name. "X", to me, isn't a name, it's a letter. And that letter seems to stand as a placeholder. Reading it felt like you haven't taken the time to pick out a name for your main character yet and just wanted to write the story. Unless that's a part of your world's system and how characters are named, I'd strongly recommend changing it. Even if that is how your naming system works, I'd recommend changing the letter of the alphabet.
Reading "little, dim lit" was a mental mouthful. I felt like little wasn't exactly necessary and only cluttered up the mental articulation.
Hyphenate "dim lit", and that third comma is a comma splice and needs to be a period. Style recommendation--put "or something" in parentheses, if you keep it at all. That "it" should cover the "or something", but if you want it for narrator style, then I'd put it in parentheses.
This is a major "tell" sentence that broke in on the reading flow. It really wasn't necessary and detracted from the "show" of the next sentence. If listening in on the struggle is such a feat, then readers will pick up on it. But right now, it's not that big a deal. They're in an apartment, and most apartments have thin walls that let sounds through easily. This is well understood, and you don't need hyper-hearing to listen in on a fight outside.
I would recommend cutting this sentence completely. It's a technical mess as is, and detracts from the story.
Your verb tense shifted here. Keep is in the present, and should be kept in the past. Also, I'd recommend changing "as the person was walking" to "while the person walked."
Punctuation seems to be a struggle. There should be a comma after "Honey", a period after "me", a comma after "please", and perhaps a period instead of a comma after "out."
That "Stay here..." should start a new paragraph. Decaps "My", and change that last comma to a period.
Capitalize 'yeah', move that comma from after 'cut' to after 'bad', and put a period in its place.
That first 'were' should be 'where', that "yay" should be capitalized, and there should be a comma or an explanation point after it. Also, 'alright' is spelled "all right."
Story note: why in the world didn't your MC try to stop their siblings??? Seriously, they're older, and they have a very good reason to believe both parents are dead. Killing off the siblings just to show how evil the demons are is unnecessary. The demons have already killed both parents, and we intuitively understand demons are evil.
Just noting the 'alright' there. Now, for the punctuation. A comma after "alright", a period or comma after "out", a comma after "forever", change that comma after "know" to a period.
Another thing: all dialogue should start a new paragraph, unless it's the same character speaking. Then it's okay to leave it in the same paragraph.
The "that" that's all by itself in "hard to do that when" makes the sentence flow awkwardly. I'd recommend deleting it.
Same section, except that's the entire sentence. That's a really long sentence. I'd recommend breaking it up into smaller sentences.
I had to go all the way back to the beginning and stop and think about what this 'thing' was you were referencing. The thing that really threw me off was that your MC's now looking in a mirror. When I read this sentence, I wasn't thinking, "Oh, that's what was in the bedroom earlier." Honestly, at first I had no idea what you were talking about. What 'thing' from earlier? Please make this a little clearer, perhaps emphasize the thing in the bedroom a little more.
Typo there. That "it's" shouldn't have an apostrophe.
You have an extra verb and word in "but it was also the thing was". Also, please put a comma after "horror".
Comma after "mirror," please.
Multiple comma splices. Please fix those.
Same note as before.
Okay, just note that that entire paragraph contains many comma splices and needs attention.
Misspell. "that" instead of "than."
You have enough information to start revising. When you do, look through from where I stopped and see if you can spot the some of the errors I pointed out earlier (they're in there).
Hope this helps!
Thank you for helping, I knew I had grammatical, spelling, and punctuational errors, I never knew how many I had though. On regarding the MC, I explain later why his name is X. But again, thank you, I will try to revise it the best i can, and put it back up in a couple of days.