Young Writers Society

Hey there deadman!

Mmm, medieval fantasy. Nice. Lots of action-packed chapters? Very nice. Since Searria covered the grammar, I'll be focusing on other aspects, mainly the action scene, as I do like critiquing fighting.

First, however, my general impression on the character -- he is obviously more than what he appears, to have butchered an entire camp of beasts on his own at twelve, something which is normally impossible. I also gather that the Zarareth possess superhuman abilities, because what your character alone did was impossible, let alone what your character did at twelve. They must also have incredible armor and weapons, because no ordinary weapons and armor could do what Slate's armor did. But I'll get to that in a second. Back to my opinions on him. As I said, he's more than what he seems. His fighting spirit is great, but he also appears to be kind, and doesn't give himself a lot of airs. CLICHE alert. I've read about so many heroes like him, give me something more original, man. On the other hand, my first first impression of him was a positive one, here:

My blade danced upon their filthy skin, and created elegant lines of red.

To me, that just screams sadism and battle-lust. That line was gorgeous. Gorgeous I tell you. Now if only Slate had stayed that way for the entire chapter, I would have been far more pleased. But oh well.

Now, to the combat. I like the detail you put into it, not everyone does that. However, lots of detail creates the possibility for flaws or confusion, which were, in this case, augmented by the unpleasant flow in some paragraphs caused by improper use of commas. However, that can be easily remedied by reading the offending paragraphs through again. Just a tip: when writing combat scenes, keep your sentences short and to the point. Action-reaction is a good chain. That keeps the tension up. Bonus points if images flash into the reader's heads, which sort of happened here, and that was good.

The group of them charged me, there was maybe ten of them. The first one to reach me was using a polearm. I grabbed the shaft of the pole and pulled him into my blade

Quick nit-pick, that should be were. The subject is plural. But anyways. What puzzled me here was the grab. There are many polearms in existence, but I'll assume we're talking about the 13th century halberd. Halberds were a long wooden shaft with a blade on one end, topped by a spike. And yet he grabbed it. Now, to be able to do that, he grabbed the shaft. But to do that, he would have had to be rather close, within striking distance, let's say. Furthermore, if this beast was charging with a halberd, the momentum would have impaled Slate, forget grabbing. And if they were too close to build enough strength, the one with the polearm wouldn't have struck first. Even if he did, the other two would have encircled him, the one with the halberd keeping him at bay, because nobody rushes into a spiked point. And he would have been in trouble then, forget against six others. So yeah. Oh, they also don't seem to be wearing armor, which is odd.

Now, naturally, comes the bit where I halt and wonder. How the heck do these guys keep raiding cities and towns? Now, usually, big cities are protected by walls, and patrolled by guards. Towns on the outskirts okay, those make for suitable raiding material. And yet, they would still have guards. It seems to me, however, the Zarareth function like a cross between Pratchett's Watch and the Claymore from the anime. They're obviously a peace-keeping organization, so Slate must have come from the city. To go from a city to an outlying town that quickly was odd. I must have missed a passage. You may want to include where they come from and why they raid, and possibly covering up why nobody's ever done anything about them.

I glanced down quickly to see and arrow sticking out, from what I could tell it wasn't deep thanks to my armor.

...no. No armor is fast enough to hold out against an arrow, especially at that range. Maybe 16th century plate armor, okay fine. But if Slate's wearing that, his movement would be greatly impaired, and there would be no elegant sword-dancing. Same with the boots, below. Even if they were made of sturdy leather and with steel-plated toes, the arrow would pierce Slate's foot almost clean. Or maybe not, as the foot bone is rather tough. It would hurt like hell though, and severely impair his movement, making him easy game for the rest of the rabble.

This was an elite fighting style called, last resort. Last resort puts you and your partner literaly back to back.

Nit-pick, that should be 'literally'. Yet another nit-pick, there shouldn't be a comma after 'called'. Now, about this fighting style. Granted, it looks cool. I can imagine it looking cool. I can see this in an anime. But really? It doesn't work. They'd just be encircled and hacked apart. Furthermore, your characters (were they fully human, which I doubt) would be dead tired by now, in serious trouble, probably dead. Also, their swords -- sword edges can only take so much impact, be it skin, armor, or other weapons they're blocking. And then what happens is, they break or blunt. It's why knights favored flails or mornigstars, sometimes axes. And why they used horses in melee.


Overall, you need to flick through this and correct your flow -- watch those commas. Secondly, your description. I want the readers to taste the blood, hear the screams, feel your character's bloodlust. I want to really, fully, truly experience things. Description, description. Nevertheless, overall, this works! I can't wait to read more from you.

Hope this helped
~Ita

Hey there, Deadman!
Couple things to get out of the way before I go into the review:
1) Nice avvie.
2) I spent a good two minutes saying "Zarareth" just because it's that much fun.

Anyway...Quite an action-packed piece you've got there. I think you handled it well, and I appreciated the amount of detail you included. Your character's were distinctive and your dialogue seemed pretty natural to read. Yay!

I have a few nitpicks. I'll start with grammar first, then go to general comments.
Grammar:
Be careful with your tenses. You sometimes switch between verb tenses. I think most of it was in past tense, and then you switched to present tense sometimes , so just be careful to keep it consistent. You might go through and highlight all of your verbs to make it easier to see them all.

I didn't have time to think about it because it wasn't long before the one that had stepped back was attacking me. He would swing violently causing me to step back, then when I pushed forward he pulled away.

For example, "would swing" should be "swung" to keep the past tense.

Be careful with your commas. It took me a long time to get the hang of them, and I still put them in the wrong places sometimes. You are already doing some of these, but here are some general guidelines I can think of off the top of my head:






That's all the comma stuff I have off the top of my head. But if you have any questions, please feel free to ask me. There are also a lot of great comma websites out there for reference.

General:
While I really liked your attention to detail in the fight scenes, you might experiment a bit more with sensory imagery. Describe what your MC feels, smells, sees, hears. It will make it a lot more engaging for the reader.
The first few paragraphs felt a little info-dumpy. I understand how difficult it is to create a new culture and throw your reader into it without explaining everything. See if you can slip in the information more subtly in the flow of the story. It's harder, but you'll keep your reader's attention longer than if you force them to absorb a large amount of information all at once.
You might go through and look at every sentence in which you use the word "because." You give some sort of statement and immediately it to your reader. Try making it a little more subtle so the reader can come to his own conclusions and actively learn about your characters and their pasts.
Sort of along the same lines, when you describe Dash, let his actions and words speak from themselves. Let the reader gather his playful nature from his interactions rather than just taking it from the author.

Overall, this was a really fun piece to read. If you have any questions about my ramblings (seen above), please don't hesitate to shoot me a PM. I'm always happy to help as best I can.
Happy writing!
-Sea-