Young Writers Society

Hello, mptigers, Wolf here for a review.

Alright, so I've read your previous chapter along with this and well, I can't really say I'm engaged really. The very full narration of 'She did this. She did that.' is really choppy and not very interesting to read. Where's the emotions? The feelings? Really pour a part of yourself into your chapters and make the scenes come alive. At the ending action scene it just seemed so dry and void of any emotion. Frankly, I'm not even sure where they are! Most action scenes don't make any sense unless the scene around them is estished, and everything moves so fast. I really doubt a grown man would go down so fast from a punch in the gut. Make these things more realistic.

Another thing, slow down. Everything is happening so fast. She just joins the group and BAM she's in? How does she adjust? What's everything like? What are all the people like? I kind of feel like everyone is a basic carbon copy of each other with tiny differences in appearance and personality, but not so much the latter. Once againf realism comes into play. What makes this girl fit in so suddenly? Draw out everything, because I guarantee this girl will not just waltz right in like she owns the place. Also, how does she get her name? What does it even mean? Details are very important.

It also really surprises me that she got over her parent's death so quickly. She was sad one moment and the next they aren't even on her mind anymore? If she's so busy that she doesn't have time to think about them, then show us that! Don't just skip a week, this is this girls first week! What's the place like? Now I'm just repeating myself, but I'm really trying to drive the point home that everything here is too fast paced.

Still, your topic seems a common one and I'm interested in seeing what you will do with it. Maybe you can develope your characters more because right now I feel like this girl is just some robot sent to watch with the bare minimum feelings and emotions. I suggest you work on that. Sorry if I sounded harsh, but I said what needed to be said. Happy Review Day and Keep Writing,
~Wolfare

Me again, lovely. Let's see what we have here.

First of all, your description in this chapter is more of the same. "This happened. Then that happened. This is what it looks like. This happened now." It's very dry, and I don't find myself interested at all in what's going on. Even at the end of this chapter, I'm not invested at all in the action, even though I feel like I should be wondering why, exactly, this is a mission? Why are they killing a random guy in a shack? (That's a question I'm counting on being answered later in the story.)

I also feel like you're setting up Redstreak and Blight to be the standard Bad People to counteract the Good Person you have made Exiurim (and seem to be making Gray Moon). Exiurim is automatically Good for not wanting to hurt the man, so those two are automatically Bad for doing so; it makes it feel more and more like Exiurim is an author's darling, a favorite, because she tags along on a mission and doesn't have to do anything, and in fact outright disagrees with it, serving little purpose in the story. I would much rather read about Redstreak and Blight than Exiurim and Gray Moon, because so far, they actually do things - also, if it only took two people to take the man out, why would they send four?

Your words are very stilted, and your diction seems to be heavy in broad descriptors, without getting into specifics (happy instead of joyful or blissful, afraid instead of terrified or distraught, etc). You break past tense sometimes, which is a big no when it comes to writing - if your story is written in the past, then you can't have sentences like "Well, not really, but they talk sometimes", because that's present tense. Is the story taking place in the past, or now? You'll have to make up your mind and do some decent proofreading to make sure you catch all of those instances.

Your characterization is as bland as your description, I'm afraid, which means it's about as delicious as a mouth full of sand. So far, Exiurim has no motive to be doing anything, and we have no idea what makes her 'tick' - the same goes for Gray Moon, who seems to exist only to agree with Exiurim and be a standard Good Person. Redstreak at least has some kind of character in that she's harsh and cruel, and Blight is a braggart, which is more than we see out of Exiurim or Gray Moon. Even if they're Bad People, I find myself sympathizing with them, because they're human. All people have flaws, and I'm not seeing any in Exiurim or Gray Moon, just standard quietness and Goodness, and Goodness gets boring.

You also have a number of grammar and spelling mistakes, and I suggest proofreading twice, and perhaps asking a friend to proofread, before you post to make sure you get most of them. No one's perfect - plenty of people have grammar and spelling mistakes in your works - but once it gets to a degree where it takes a reader out of the story, then it's distracting. Almost a third of your sentences are fragments, meaning they don't have a subject and a verb, they just have the object. Or they start with a conjunction, like this one. Used sparingly, fragments are very helpful tools of description, but every few sentences, they lose their impact and just look lazy.

That being said, this chapter moves extremely quickly, too, and I almost missed the "it's a week later" cue in the fifth paragraph. That was very confusing, and it took about five reads to get it right, as well as the description of Abyss and then the door opening again to Redstreak after we completely forgot about Abyss because of the long, dry paragraph between them. I would definitely recommend that you try and spice up your diction, as well as adding more in-depth description to slow down the action, because otherwise, readers will lose interest and close your story.