Hey, Hikarufire! It's Quill, here with a review.
I haven't read any of your book thus far, so take everything with a grain of salt. I'm mostly looking for grammar or those kinds of issues, but I'll comment on finer details later on.
Let's dive in, shall we?
Edits are quoted below in bold. (Look carefully for commas and the like! I'll try to bold a whole sentence if there is punctuation changes, but still, keep an eye out!) Anything in [] is my personal edits or ideas!
After leaving the Gemini village with Kipper, we walked through the jungle to reach a cave in the west where a monster that was terrorizing the Gemini village lived. Kipper, who was jumping from rock to rock and branch to branch, stopped on a rock and raised his floppy ears as we caught up to him.
“Kipper, why did you stop? Is something wrong?" I asked. He turned and twisted his body as he looked around the jungle. He looked to the north and slowly picked up a rock on the rock he was already on and hurled it at the bushes.[Maybe, "from the rock he was already on?"]
The rock went through the bushes with a splat, but an eerie chill traveled up my spine when I remembered that rocks do not make a splat sound when they hit bushes or anything[I don't think you need the descriptor of "in this case".] in this case. I ran toward Kipper and yanked him off the rock he was standing on and jumped back[Suggested change: "... jumped back, landing beside Marl and Rick."] and landed beside Marl and Rick.
“Here it comes!” I shouted. The bush shook violently as did the trees bear it[Bear it? What do you mean here?] and suddenly a giant slug-like monster busted through the trees and bushes with the thrown rock lodged in its right eye.
“Well, now we know where [Did you mean 'what'?] that rock went splat at,” said Marl as she spun her Bo[Is a 'bo' staff a type of staff? Is it a proper noun? Is it a person? Should it be capitalized or lower-cased, is what I'm asking.] staff around. Rick grabbed the boomerang on his belt and threw it at the slug monster.
The boomerang hit the slug but stuck in its slimy side, despite its appearance it flailed around violently and charged at us.
“Get out the way!” I shouted, we jumped to the side as it charged by and slammed into a tree.
“I guess attacking it physically is out the question," said Rick as he stretched out both his legs in preparation for the next attack.
“We're gonna have to attack it with some Kinesis attacks and find some way to kill it for good!” I raised both my arms and conjured up a decent sized blue fireball. “Try this on for slime, Frost Fire!”[Haha, cute.] I pulled the blue fireball into two smaller ones and hurled either one at each side of the slug and on contact; the sides of it became frozen solid to the ground, immobilizing it.
“Ok,[I suggest using either 'O.K.', 'OK', or 'okay'.] so now that it can't chase after us,” Marl said as she put her Bo-staff[Is Bo-staff supposed to have a dash? You didn't use one last time.] back in her bag. “How do we kill it?”
I scratched my head and walked closer to it. “That's what I'm trying to figure out. It's too big for us to constantly attack it with Kinesis attacks, because we would just use up all our power and get tired.” I looked to Kipper and as he picked up a blue gemstone that was lodged in the ground. “Hey Kipper, where you did you get that from?” I asked him. He looked at me and opened his hand toward me.
“It's a sapphire from one of the Gemini that the slug ate.” He closed his hand and clasped both of his hands together before suddenly devouring the sapphire without any effort.[Oh my goodness.]
[You need to show more surprise! Maybe, "Wha -- why did you eat it?!"]“Why did you eat it? I thought it was the sapphire from one of the deceased Gemini!” I felt my stomach start to turn as he crunched on the last bit on sapphire in his hand.
“I don't know about you guys, but in our culture, when you find the Eye gem of a fallen one, you must consume it to gain that Gemini's gem power then you seek out the murderer of that Gemini and use the power gained to get revenge for that fallen Gemini!”[Remember your pronouns! And your periods.] As he finished his explanation, the color of his gem eyes changed to a sapphire blue color. Rick pulled on his Boomerang that was lodged in the ground after the slug slammed into the tree.[Maybe you should've described that happening.]
“Well, I guess getting some info from defeating this slug thing won't be the only reward we'll be getting; it'll help Skipper[Is this supposed to be a joke? Since his name is Kipper? I'm not sure, wasn't too clear.] over here get some new powers!”
Kipper dashed past my legs and dive kicked Rick in the knee before falling flat on his nose. [Enter.] “Ow! What was that about?!” he cried.
“My name is Kipper and don't you forget it!” [Oh, I get it. Rick forgot his name. Got'cha!] said Kipper as he rolled over and got on his feet. Rick held his knee with both hands as he rubbed it in pain.
“But you didn't have to do an emerald dive on my knee!” [If Marl didn't say this, enter and put this description on a new line.] Marl put her side bag around her neck and started walking.
“Well, we can't just stand around here while that slimy slug is out ramming stuff with its body! Let's track him down before he covers the entire jungle in slime.” I slapped my hand onto his wrist and pulled him up.[Wait! I thought he was immobilized with that one guy's spell? Right? Am I missing something?]
We trekked through the jungle, pushing giant leaves and branches out of our way with no easy way of cutting them. “Hikaru, why won't you let Rick cut these stupid branches out of our way so we can get through this jungle faster?” Marl whined.
“Because if Rick uses his wind attacks to cut through the jungle it could tell the slug where we are with all the bursts of wind! If we just walk through the jungle like this, then we can catch it easier without it noticing us.”
I stopped and turned to the group. Marl blew a little of her hair out of her face as she huffed, she then reached behind her head and took her scrunchy out and tried to fix her hair back up but only to mess up again.[I don't know what setting this is taking place in, so it may be fine, but if this is in the past, Marl should not have a scrunchy.]
“Ugh, Hikaru, can we stop and take a break? It's been awhile since we stopped,” Marl said as she let her hair fall in a frustration. “Besides, I need to fix my hair, and Rick probably needs to sit down after walking for so long with that busted kneecap of his.” I scratched my head and thought for a second.
Marl was still struggling with her hair as parts of it were stuck to her sweating forehead, Rick was using multiple sticks and sturdy branches to keep him up and walking after Kipper dived into his kneecap. I felt a weight outside of my backpack and looked onto my back to see Kipper clinging to the side.[Hahah, cute visual!]
“My legs fell asleep and I think my arms are next,” he said in a soft voice. One of his arms started to quiver and let go as he looked back up at me. I looked up into the sky partially covered by jungle trees and saw the sun starting to set.
“I guess we should really take a break from all this walking, so what do you say, guys?”
I suddenly heard the crackling of fire, and when I turned around Rick and Marl were already sitting on logs in front of a decent fire.[HAHA! Funny. Good job at creating humor!]
“Umm, we were gonna take a break regardless even if you said no, so, yeah,” Marl said as she patted the spot next to her on the log for me to come and sit down. I took off my backpack and set it down next to me, Rick opened his strap bag, pulled out a bag of marshmallows, and broke the stick he was using as crutches into smaller ones before sticking the marshmallows on them.[Enter here. Also, where's Kipper now?] “Where did you get marshmallows from, we never stopped at a store?”
“I always have camping food with me in case I don't make it home before it gets dark.” He passed three of them to us before putting his in front of the fire. I stuck mine in the ground and arched it toward the fire and so did Marl and Kipper.
“So, what do you guys wanna talk about?” Rick said as he pulled up his warm marshmallows and took a bite out of one. I looked around as if looking for a topic of talk and I hear Marl announce one.
“Let's talk about ourselves! We barely even know each other, other than our names!” [Enter!]Kipper shot his hand up and started jumping up and down on the log.
“Oh, oh! Me first!” [Enter the line about Marl. A quick rule of thumb: sentences directly following a spoken line should describe more about who's speaking and what they're doing. If it's about someone else, separate it with an enter!] Marl laughed a bit as she pointed to him to go first, we moved over to the log Rick was sitting on as Kipper stood on the other one alone.
“O.K., so you may not have noticed, but I really like pie, and things that have lots of colors, and bad guys exploding in a comical fashion, and pie.”
Kipper stood there with a bright smile and a random pair of sunglasses on his face. I raised my hand and Kipper pointed at me.
“I also share that 'bad guys exploding' part because I always thought that was hilarious.” I looked to my side and saw Marl and Rick giving me serious stares. “What? I don't know where I got it from! I just laugh at stuff like that.” Marl rolled her eyes with a smile and clapped her hands together.
“Alright, who wants to go next?”[Enter!] Rick stood up with a smirk on his face.
“I'll go next; I don't want you guys to just think of me as a village hero or anything,” he said, as he pointed at himself. [Enter!]“O.K., go for it,” Marl replied.
"Well, I like riding on my nimbus cloud on really windy days, racing other animals in the forest, and hunting for fresh fruits and vegetables.” I was a little surprised at the last thing Rick said liked to do and saw that even Marl herself was a little wide eyed.
“Wow, Rick I didn't think you liked picking fresh foods,” she said.
“Well, I used to do it with my mom all the time when I was younger,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “Until one day when I was looking for fresh blueberries and I found this Nimbus cloud flying low to the ground and it turned out that it was sick, so I hid it from my mom as I took care of it until the day it got better and the day-”[Haha, how do clouds even get sick?]
[I suggest reworking this to: CRUNCH! We all turned in surprise, hearing loud crunches and munches coming from our right, to see Kipper eating a bag of popcorn.] “*Crunch!!!*” Suddenly we heard loud crunches and munches coming from our right and we all turned to see Kipper eating a bag of popcorn, loudly.
“Where did you get popcorn from?” I asked in an annoyed voice. [Enter.] He shrugged and took another clump of popcorn and shoved it in his mouth. A pulse of wind suddenly blew the bag of popcorn out of Kipper's hand and a slash of wind sliced the bag in half as one last gust of wind blew all the popcorn into the jungle.[Be careful with your use of the word 'suddenly'!]
“Hey, what was that for? I didn't even get to finish it!” Kipper yelled angrily at Rick.
“Well, first of all, that was for destroying my kneecap! And secondly, you interrupted me with all of that munching! Thirdly, I really don't care.” Rick lowered his hands after the wind stopped and took a deep breath.[Or did the wind stop because he lowered his hands?]
“Anyways, after the Nimbus got better I tried to get it to leave, but it wouldn't. So I ended up with the ball of puff as my transport.”[Where is it now?]
“Nice to finally know how you got your nimbus, Rick. O.K., Hikaru, what about you?” [Enter. Consider reworking to: I sat up quickly, hearing my name. I began to hesitate.I sat up quickly as Marl mentioned my name and started to hesitate a bit.
“Um, well, there isn't much to really say about myself. I like machines and mechanical things; I like to take kendo lessons. Oh, and my favorite foods are bacon, steak, ham, beef and pork.” [Lowercase all of these as they aren't proper nouns.] I started to daydream about the days when I used to eat Mom's cooking with all those meat seasonings and sauces; I heard a snap and my eyes locked onto Marl's two fingers in front of my face.
“Hello! Earth to Hikaru! [I would have him respond and say something like, "Sorry, what did you say?", so it makes more sense as to why she explains herself here.] I said, 'So it's basically everything in the frozen meat aisle, right?'” [Enter.]I paused, and nodded. I felt a little embarrassed about daydreaming about food in the middle of a conversation.
“Yeah, basically, I guess. Say, why don't you say some things about yourself?” [Enter.]Marl looked surprised for a second before her [b]cheeks turned red.
“Well, um, I really like -- ”[Good. This is a very believable way to play a common trope. Good job.] [Also, enter.] A sudden crash and thudding of falling trees interrupted Marl as she was about to speak. We jumped to our feet and stood ready.
“That Slug thing is back!” Kipper yelled, her[Does Kipper go by 'her' or 'him'? This may be a typo.] eyes changed to a burning, ruby red.
“Get ready, and remember it's too sticky to attack physically!” [But didn't the boomerrang work just fine?]Just as expected, the monstrous slug emerged from the crushed trees and bushes and made a loud gurgling cry.
“Spark Shot!” Marl shot a large strike of lightning into the Slug's chest and sent it rolling back.
“I got it, I got it!” Kipper shot from behind me and jumped off a log high above the turned over Slug.
“Spit them out! Sapphire Slicer!” Kipper spread his arms wide and did a crescent chop in the air as he shot a crescent blade of water at the Slug's stomach. It hit the slug as it squirmed to get back up. Instead, it began to rock back and forth on its back until it practically started to roll. It swayed back as far as it could before rolling straight at us.
“Frozen Guard!” I shot both of my hands forward and the shards of thin pieces of ice formed a round shield. As the Slug slammed against the shield, I felt the strong force of it pushing against the shield.
“Hikaru, the shield is starting to crack!” Rick yelled. I looked at the shield and saw the inside was forming cracks as the Slug started pushing with more force. I tried to put more concentration into the shield but it continued to crack until I heard a shattering sound like glass breaking and I looked to see that my shield had shattered into fragments of ice.
My heart sank and my feet went numb as the slug charged at me while rolling.
“Hikaru, get out of the way!” [Enter.]I felt something pushing on me and looked down on my leg to see Kipper trying his hardest to move me. [Enter.]“We're gonna get crushed we gotta move!”[Enter.] I felt the numbness in my feet disappear and realized the slug was still rolling at me. I grabbed Kipper's hand and tried to jump out of the way, but I jumped too late and got hit on my side and sent spinning to the ground. I landed with a hard thud.
“Ooow. That didn't go well as I thought it would.” I groaned in pain as I got back on my feet.
“What happened?! I thought that shield was unbreakable! We fell from a giant slope on that thing!” cried Marl as she held her Bo staff [Bo-staff or Bo staff?]in front of her while standing in front of me, beside Rick.
“Well, I didn't say it was 100% unbreakable! I didn't even know its limit until now!”
“Well, let's see if this slug has a limit! Aero Slash!” Rick launched a slash of wind at the Slug and landed a hit on its back as it stopped rolling; it swung its body around to face us and made a low gurgling sound. Its eyes started to glow and a yellow beam shot along the ground.
“Autobots, roll out!” Kipper ordered. [Enter.]We rolled to the side as it covered the ground in a strange slime. This slime started to sizzle and smoke before bursting into flames melting into the ground.
“Did that thing just shoot a magma beam at us?” Rick cried, dusting off his knees. [Enter.] I looked at its eyes and saw that they were a burning red instead of its normal black.
“Wait... did it just...” I remembered Kipper's eyes turned the same color when using the power of the ruby. “It can use the power of the Gemini's gems!”
“What are you talking about? Only we can use the power!” Kipper said, defiantly.
“Look at its eyes! They turned red and shot out hot magma! I think he's using the dead Gemini's gems as fuel for his attacks!”[Enter.] I watched as Kipper's whole body turned white and he started to quiver.
“We have to kill it fast before it uses another Gem power! Hikaru, you have any ideas?”
I looked at Marl, then at the Slug, and a plan came straight[As opposed to coming curvy to you?] to me.
“I got it! You and Rick go distract it while me and Kipper go for the head!” [Enter.] Marl nodded, and she and Rick ran to either side of the Slug and began attack it with Electricity and Wind. I ran up to Kipper, who was still shivering. [Enter.]“Let's go, Kipper! We have to kill this thing!” [Enter.]He shook his head and started holding himself.
“I can't, I don't wanna go near it. What if it eats me and uses my gem[Are gems words that you want to capitalize in this story, or not?] as energy? I don't want to end up like some [/b]empty, used-up doll[/b] in its stomach.” He covered his head with his arms and crouched down as he shook in fear. “I thought it was just some simple, small slug that was getting lucky at killing the others, so I told everyone I would go kill it and be a hero like my brother. But now, I know what happened to him when he went missing [Suggest taking out the word 'one day'.]one day.” Tears started to stream down his eyes [Down his cheeks? Face?] when I heard a blast and saw the slug's eyes turn an emerald green. A green beam went across the ground and the ground shot up into columns of rock.
I felt Kipper stop quivering and turned back to him. He was pointing at the slug's now green eyes. [Enter.]“T-that's his gem, the Emerald gem.” [Enter. I'm also loving this emotion from Kipper. I'd add in also talking about what the other fighters are doing in this situation -- as it's not that clear.]I grabbed his arm and shook him a little.
“Hey, listen! I know you weren't ready for something like this, but you have to keep it together! What would your brother say if he saw you crying in a fight like this?” [Enter.] Kipper's tears started to slowly stop as he looked up at me. Another blast that seemed closer blew a tree down, which smashed the makeshift camp we had made.
“Well, he would say stuff like don't be scared, and be brave.” [Enter.] “Well that's what you have to do right now. I was like you when I started. I was hesitant and didn't even think I could make it this far, but thanks to Marl and Rick and my friends back home, I did. They helped me make it. And now, I want to help you make it through so I need you to help me end this Gem-eating freak!”
I clasped both of my hands onto his and watched his tears started to dry up. [Enter.] “I'll try, what do you need me to do?”
I stood up with him and formed a blue fireball in my hand. “Just follow my lead!”
I charged at the Slug monster with Kipper on my back and frost fire on my hands. [Enter.]“Get ready! Frost Fire!” [Enter.] I threw the fireballs at its two eyeballs, freezing them in a chunk of ice. It shook its head around violently to get the chunks of ice off, but failed.[Enter.] “Now Kipper, hit it with Sapphire Slicer!” [Enter.]Kipper jumped from my backpack and jumped off my head with his arms spread wide. [Enter.]“Sapphire Slicer!”[Enter.] Kipper sent a larger slash of water from his arms and, just as I planned, the sharp blade of water sliced through the Slug's eye stocks. It swung around insanely as its eye stocks began to dry up.
“Even though we took away its power, it's still alive, and we don't have any salt on us to dissolve it.” I felt a tug on my shorts and looked down to see Kipper holding the chunk of ice with the Emerald in it.
“I've got a plan, but first, could you crack this open for me?”[Make it clear who is speaking. And enter.] I nodded and took it from his hands. I then chucked it into the air and hit it with my Iron Shinai, cracking it and shattering it. The Emerald fell to the ground and Kipper, as his culture tells him to do, ate the emerald to gain its power.
His changed to an emerald green and he raised his hands up to the sky. “See ya later and good riddance! Emerald Earth!” He slammed both of his hands into the ground. The earth rumbled violently, before it rose slightly and sent the slug like a shot into the sky. I watched the slug fly higher and higher until it was out of sight and gone.[Again -- choose to capitalize the 's' in 'slug' or don't. Keep it uniform.]
“I hope you're happy now, Kepper,” I heard Kipper say, softly.
“Hey, nice one, Kip!” I turned my head to see Marl and Rick stepping over the raised part of the ground and running back to us.
“Well! That went well. Now, let's head back to the elder and find the Medallion,” Marl said with a smile.
We headed back to the Gemini with proud smiles on our faces and went straight to the Elder's house. [Capitalize the 'e' in 'Elder' or leave it lowercase. Choose one.] Kipper kicked in the door like a SWAT soldier and stood in front of the Elder, who was sitting in his chair.
“We took care of the problem, boss,” he said, in a mobster accent.
“Good. And thank you. Now we can live in peace, and without fear of getting turned into a snack bag for the slug monster. We, here at Gemini Village, thank you children for saving our lives. We wouldn't have made it another year if you three hadn't come along.” The elder jumped down from his chair, pulled something from his beard, and handed it to Kipper.
“I know that you probably found out about what happened to your brother, so I want you to have his weapon. This is what your brother used to fight with when he was your age.” Kipper looked down at the item before turning around with it in his hand and rose it up above his head to show it off.
“I, got, his, club!” he said, in a musical tone.
“Good for you, Kipper! Now you can really fight!” I said happily. He held his stone club hammer close and smiled.
“Thanks Hikaru, you really helped me out.”
“No biggie, it was all you.” I went to walk out with the others when I felt a weird feeling in my bag before it got lighter all of a sudden. I turned to the elder and saw that he was chuckling softly.
“A little thank you gift for helping Kipper out. The medallion you're looking for is in Mount Mawr at the end of this jungle to the north.” [Enter.]I smiled and nodded before closing the door and meeting the others at the village entrance.
“Ready to go?” Marl asked.
“Yeah, we got a long way ahead of us!” I replied.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Rick said, putting his arms around our necks.
“Then here -- we -- go!” Kipper shouted as he hopped onto my head and into the air. I pointed to the journey ahead.
“Mount Mawr, here we come!”[Who said this line? Make sure to tell us.]
Some Things at Which You're Wonderful
1. Characters. You've got your characters, their likes, dislikes, and opinions down to a T.
2. Humor. You can really, easily, and simply create funny situations. It's entertaining and likeable.
3. Idea. You've got a strong idea, and the story you've created feels and sounds believable.
4. Relationships. I can tell the relationships of the characters just from this one chapter, and it's a fantastic thing to read and see!
5. Style. Your style is very readable, and many people would easily be able to read what's going on in your story and find out what's going on. It's not description-heavy, hard on the eyes, or anything like that.
Some Things to Work On
1. Grammar. You have a few small grammar issues. For example, comma splices. A comma splice is when you put a comma between two complete sentences and do not connect them in any way. (For example; I went to the store, it was sunny out. I smiled at her, she looked lovely today.) You can rectify this with a period, semi-colon, or simply using conjunctions, such as "and" and "but". You also write run-on sentences, sometimes (sentences that last very long with no punctuation), and miss a few opportunities to put in commas (like before prepositional phrases). Spacing out your story through 'enters' is also going to be big in cleaning up the overall look of your story. Occasionally, you also repeat the same word over and over, which can be boring to read. Look up thesauruses and use synonyms to clean that up!
2. Showing and not telling. Most commonly, you tend to tell us what happened, rather than show. Excite your readers more by showing! (Telling would be, "She likes books," rather than, "Her room is covered in books and, even now, her eyes are glued to the page, body drawn tightly around the pages in her hands.") Take more time to describe what they're doing, rather than just telling us.
3. The five senses. (Most) people and characters have five senses -- smell, touch, taste, sight, and sound. Use these all to your advantage. What are your characters seeing? Smelling? Tasting? In every instance? You can explore so much through that!
4. Spacial remembrance and awareness. Sometimes, it's not clear where items, characters, or places are or have gone. You can easily help this out by always making it clear where items are set, characters go, or how far away everything is. If this is something hard for you to remember, just act it out or draw it -- then you'll see where things truly are, and you won't forget as easily!
Good job at having the bravery to post your chapter! You're already all the way to chapter 8, too! Most people quit long before this point, so you've obviously got determination, and that's great! With some refining and editing, I think you've really got a great story on your hands!
For future reference, if a chapter is long, upload it in parts. If it exceeds 2,000 words, put it into 2,000 word parts, so that it's easier to read, review, and edit!
Anyway, this is great! Keep at it!
Always keep writing!
Points: 11482
Reviews: 144
Donate