ALL RIGHT, TUCK, I have asked for a novel from you and you have (somewhat) delivered xD I wish I was reviewing on something that wasn't a year old, but alas, I'll take what I can get to repay you for reviewing The Forgotten (WHICH IRONICALLY I HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN). To start off a bit, my reviews tend to be a bit short but they have overall thoughts and rambles. Sometimes I talk about something specific that I noticed, but most of the time I talk about action/pacing/story and sometimes characters. My reviews tend to be harsh BUT I am not a harsh person, I'm just direct 
Sweat dripped down Skyla's neck as she pummeled the punching bag, one fist after the other, tapping out her own rhythm. She adjuted her feet and continued to hit it rapidly and relentlessly.
One of the things I look for when reading novels is their beginnings. Whether it's the beginning of a chapter or the beginning of a novel, beginnings are important. As far as they go (the mispelled word aside), this beginning is so-so. Your first sentence is pretty good, but how can you describe the sweat with more visceral detail? You have a strong verb with pummel, so good job there, but the second sentence is weaker, as you have a weak verb with two adverbs attached to it. This article on verbs is probably the best writing advice I have ever seen and I continue to give this advice to basically every piece I review. My reviews should basically be sending that article link and nothing else haha. But, in my experience adverbs actually make a weak verb even weaker, and I also don't think you needed that second sentence to convey anything besides what you conveyed with the first one. OKAY I have spent far too long on the first paragraph, ONTO THE READING!
Darien said from the other side of the punching bag, but his voice barely permeated Skylar's brain. She was laser-focused on this target, on striking it in time with the rapid beating of her heart. She stayed light on her toes and shifted from side to side, each punch strong enough to break bones.
Another strong message I've received (that I don't actually know if there's an article for) is about showing versus telling. Verbs play into that, of course, but I think this paragraph is the perfect example of you telling us versus you showing us what's going on. You say that Skylar's not paying attention, but how can you show us this?
Skylar shot back as she wiped her face.
She wiped her face two paragraphs earlier.
Skylar lunged at Myra, waiting for Myra to take a swing or adjust her posture, and when Myra did lift one first,
Skylar kicked her in the side just hard enough to drop her. The kick connected, and Myra winced and shifted her weight to the other leg but stayed upright.
When Myra didn't respond, Skylar closed the gap between them and swung firmly at Myra's head. As Myra raised her arm to block the punch, Skylar aimed a solid punch at her chest, hard enough to make Myra collapse.
OKAY let's take a look at your action. I love action, and I think action is absolutely important in like 99% of novels to set some kind of fast pace to contrast the slow pace. Now, you have character-focused novels or things like romance that have no action, but I digress. Action is immensely difficult to write, because writing is slow compared to other visual mediums like television or movies who can do action just so well. My first step when doing action is to visualize it and write an outline with step-by-step instructions of everything that happens, with no detail left untouched. After that, I refine the action to make it a bit more realistic. Then, I look up action verbs. Seriously, I do that. Because those verbs are important. Then, I try to look for repetitions in the action, like a continuous spar or punching right after each other, and remove those or change them, because repetition is boring. So, let's look at the three quotes above.
1. A common misstep that I see a lot of writers do is focus on the character's reactions or thoughts during action, which is a natural thought process, right? Your pov is on this mc, so you want the action pov on them as well, right? Wronnnnng. You want to describe the action including the other actions as omniscient as possible while still keeping it to your mc's pov. I like reactions as well, but only when dodging. So, here you talk about Skylar trying to predict Myra's moves, but you really don't need to tell us that. Instead, just show us. Also, Myra lift one what?
2. You repeated that Skylar kicked here. We can assume the kick connected, so no need to write that. Let's just move to the next action set piece.
3. Adverbs are deadly in action pieces, as in they kill the pace. No need to mention that it's a solid punch or a firm swing. We can assume those are solid or firm unless the person just does not know how to fight or are deliberately making them weak. Focus on verbs and short sentences, and your action scenes will be oh so much better this way.
Okay, so let's talk about chapter endings as well! Chapters, even half chapters, shouldn't end in the middle of a conversation or the middle of an action scene, unless it's a minor cliffhanger. There should be some sort of natural conclusion to your chapter piece, and while I think this is a bit of a natural conclusion, it also should make the reader (me) want to read the next chapter, or give some kind of hint to what's going to happen in the next chapter, and this unfortunately doesn't. Also, as a first chapter, you don't really set anything up. This is a pretty basic scene of them training and sparring, but what else does it give the reader? Is there mystery, or hints of any larger plots here? Not really, and that's something I really would like to see. However, I do want to read and review the rest of this, if only to see more of it. I hope this review has helped!
Points: 3775
Reviews: 378
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