My name is Terry Nolsten. I have been a slave most of my life. Untill he came, that is. Shin Ak. The savior, the Legend.
He was nothing but a spectre when he first appeared. Some have even seen him as one of them, the demon. How could you else imagine a man with a skin colored crimson with a wooden mask over his face and his body chained all over?
He burst into the halls of the Blood castle and slaughtered the dark emperor's guards all on his own. He stepped before the emperor with one proposition: chance for humanity to fight on an equal grounds.
Thus, the World contest was made. Champions of both light and darkness were to clash each year and the winner would take home everything; freedom to do with the world whatever he wants. Shin Ak fought for the humanity, and he defeated every single demon ending with emperor Mordecai himself, to give people one year of freedom, to teach us what a painless world looked like.
Prior to that, I never saw myself as a weakling, but that's just what every human was.
Shin Ak then took a young man as an apprentice and disappeared from eyes of humanity.
Champions light, the strongest of people and the best trained soldiers then failed to grab a victory for nine consecutive years. The words of Shin Ak's death spread through the world and the future now looks grim for humans.
I could do nothing but withstand whipping once again. I can't comprehend this feeling of helplessness without my eyes briefly watering. Once again I wish I could have been stronger.
Emperor Mordecai is smiling, satisfied, looking down to this year's challengers. Killer brothers are motionless sitting behind his neck.
This will be one more year of hell.
Where is the Legend's student?
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139,447 Literary Works • 672,564 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
First Impression: Okayy...well I do see the point about these things not quite connecting up to each other but being sort of in the same universe...and are linked a bit. Its an interesting style here, and I'm loving this so far.
Anyway let's get right to it,
Okay...wow, that is quite a start there...hmm, well, this certainly makes for a nice starting point here with the first chapter...and well, looks like we now have a name for our protagonist finally, and this legend. And well, he definitely appears to be of a different sort there, with that description, certainly not the sort of description I've seen before, now wonder he was mistaken for a demon initially.
Okay...dark emperor I am assuming is perhaps some sort of demon or just one of the supervillain humans maybe, I don't quite know, since you did say these don't necessarily connect to each other, this is a little tough to try and figure out exactly what's going on here at the moment.
Okayy...that does sound pretty cool, that whole paragraph actually seems like the story that I want to be reading right now cause that sounds like it could be an amazing little story there with all the fights and the fact that it is for the freedom of all of humanity, which is some pretty high stakes there...and then of course they actually win which would mean they win some pretty crazy battles there.
Okay...interesting move there out of the blue, this one just manages to grab someone as a student and vanish there for some reason, well it certainly makes things interesting for humanity there, and it potentially doesn't actually end to well for the humans themselves either there.
Well, the future certainly got quite grim there...oh wow, the loss of this one champion and the fact that no one is able to match their abilities makes it seem like one hand, humanity just seems to be in quite dire straits if there's just no one able to be as good of a fighter as this guy, and also...well, it appears once that year of freedom is up, things are just going to keep getting worse.
Well, looks like the emperor there is quite satisfied at the very least, someone is enjoying the current state of things although I guess that means things are just extremely bleak for the poor humans there.
Ahh...well, another year of them not being free I suppose, pretty intense ending there...definitely very appropriate for a chapter one there, well, I think I may just hop over and see what comes next too here...this is certainly ending off a bleak note here at the start.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall, we've got a pretty neat story here too, and it looks like this one is based on quite a bleak note here...and well humanity just doesn't seem to be all that well off at all. Well, hopefully in the next one things get a bit better for the humans.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Harsh review, I like this!
Though, let me try to put some reasoning behind your critique:
What I'm experimenting here is a series of flash-fiction stories that are also linked together, so I might call it a novel, or might not. There is even a "Prologue" before this, but most of the stories won't really be linked together too much.
About nonexistet grade about characterisation, this is absolutely fine. This was no place to depict Terry Nolsten. So far, he is just a normal guy talking about big events around him, no one cares about him at all. So far. xD
Fast paced writihg is absolutely a purpose. No description, no pretty words, just slapped in information. It was intention. Though, I never had a feeling voice was bad, so I guess I will have to work on it, this critique is really in place.
I'm not sure what do you mean by revision; though this WAS just slapped together but not in hopes for praise but simply because I really had a fun slapping it. xD
Ahh, that's it. Thanks for the review, I will work on that voice the most, I guess! You can also find a few more stories/chapters (however you like to percieve them)!
Nitpicks and corrections:
"I had been a slave most of my life until he came. Shin Ak, the savoir, the legend." If you write it this way, it flows better.
"How ELSE could you imagine a man with crimson skin, a wooden mask over his face, and his body chained." Better phrasing, plus it's less awkward this way.
"He stepped before the emperor with one proposition: [a] chance for humanity to fight on equal ground.
"Shin Ak fought for [humanity] and he defeated every single demon, including the emperor Mordecai himself, at the very end. The defeat of Mordecai gave the people one year of freedom, to teach them what a painless world would like like."
He then took a young man as an apprentice and disappeared from [the] eyes of humanity.
"The champions of humanity failed to achieve a victory for nine consecutive years. The rumors of Shin Ak's death spread through the world and the future looked grim for the humans."
General Notes:
There were a few times when you went from past to present tense in this piece, and numerous times when the phrasing of your sentences were awkward. This made the presentation of this piece seem somewhat strange.
I would advise you read over it carefully and make changes to fix the different phrasing issues. Other than that and a few small grammatical errors, this piece was entertaining.
As always, keep on writing.
Wow, thanks. English is my 2nd, please understand my foolishness! XD
Like others have mentioned, this has some fascinating potential. It reminds of Brandon Sanderson for some reason, but also none in particular, so don't follow up on that! Well, basically, this is fairly confusing, and when people are reading your work you don't want them to be confused.
- "Thus, the World contest was made." -
This is the part that confused me the most and what followed. I have a loose idea of what's happening, but I think we need more explanation as to why the world contest was created and how its premise is to be used for good. And why would Emperor Mordecai agree to it?
How did Shin Ak die? It just randomly mentions word of his death spread, but you first said he disappeared, so these seem to conflict each other. After Shin Ak died, why didn't the World contest fade away as it seemed in his honor? Not to mention that humanity failed nine times, so Shin Ak's death would deal the final blow to the institution.
Besides the inconsistencies, I think this has a lot of potential, but you need to build on it and polish it up. Otherwise, I wish you good writing!
*blushes* Brandon is my favorite fantasy writer, though I really didn't write this under his infulence actually. xD
Well, how did Shin Ak die is one of those things not to be revealed sooner. Though it seems like I will have to work a bit on clarity here. Basically what happened is Shin Ak burst into Emperor's pallace, killed all of his guardians alone and made a proposition: World tournament or you die. Now it is somewhat complex to explain it this way because of the style I'm trying to write with.
And why the contest kept happening after Shin Ak's death? Well, it was never confirmed that he died at all, and second, humanity challenger were so pitiful it didn't really matter the way Mordecai would establish control.
Thanks for reading!
This has an intriguing sort of potential, but it needs a bit of work.
Firstly, the nitpicks. You have only a couple pf spelling errors (at least I think they are spelling errors) that could easily be polished off.
I'm a bit confused about Emperor Mordecai. You when you first wrote about him, you implied that he was a bit of a tyrant who was oppressing the humans. ["He burst into the halls of the Blood castle and slaughtered the dark emperor's guards all on his own. He stepped before the emperor with one proposition: chance for humanity to fight on an equal ground."]
Later, you wrote that Shin Ak fights the demons WITH Emperor Mordecai. Then, again, you write that Emperor Mordecai is "smiling, satisfied". That sentence kind of bodes that he is still a tyrant. So if you could could clear up which side the emperor is on, that would be great.
I think that you could and should expand your story line a bit more. It seems like you tried to fit lots of information into tiny sentences and paragraphs, and it all seems a bit confusing. Don't be afraid to spend time on specific aspects, such as Shin Ak's infiltration of the emperor's palace. Spread the information out a little.
So, like I said, you could definitely make something out of this. You just need to clean it up a little. But you're off to a good start, so don't end it here, keep writing!!!!
Thanks for the review!
Anytime!!! Thanks for writing!!
Hello.
Kanome here with a review for you.
This first chapter of this story is very intriguing to me.
I love the how the names of your characters are so original. Plus, it starts off with the main character's point of view, which I love most about some stories I read
A few nitpicks has come into mind while reading this story ..
Okay, I love your characters, but they need more description. What do they look like? How are they like?
For example, Terry. How is he a slave?
Also, how is Shin Ak "The Legend"?
You also mentioned someone named Emperor Mordecai ...
What does he look like?
What is his role in this story?
Your chapter needs more imagery and description. It will help the readers visualize about what they are reading, and enjoy more of the story.
Lastly ..
Just a little change in this sentence. It was a sentence fragment, so I hope this change will help you.
Anywho, this is a great piece. Keep up the great work. I can't wait to read the next chapter. c: Good luck.
- Courtesy of Kanome -