Sky Steel: Capture & Rescue

Hey IceWinnifredd. I know this is an older piece, but you asked for a Lucy review and I was having a hard time picking which work to review so I picked a random one.
I am going to write this review while I read. So when I comment on a section I haven't read what comes after it yet. At the end I will go over the piece as a whole. For now I want to give you an idea how your work comes off in-the-moment. I know this is a bit of an unusual reviewing tactic so I thought I'd let you know before hand.

You caught my attention right away. You immediately gave me some questions I wanted answered. (such as, why does Ethan need to calm himself). Very good opening line from a reader's perspective.
From the perspective of a writer the two adjectives next to each other (plump and elderly) gave it a slow feel. I would recommend you avoid using more then one adjective at a time to prevent that. I feel particularly strong about that in this specific case because both of those are things you can easily get to later (the reader won't mind if you don't tell them the man's size until the third paragraph, there is no rush). There are some cases when if you're going to give a certain description it would have to happen at a certain time, but this is not one of those so I would advise you hold on to one for just second rather then put a very slow feel in your first sentence.

Now I feel even stronger about the first sentence after seeing you do that same thing again in the next two sentences. If having multiple adjectives next to each other in one sentence can slow down the pace of your writing, then can you imagine how quickly it will build up having it happen again and again? Just three spots isn't that bad, but if you aren't careful you could end up making your writing very sluggish. I would recommend that in all three cases you remove one of the adjectives. The first two it doesn't matter. On the last I would keep "piercing" and remove "dark brown".

Ethan's anger really shows well in his next line. Good job on that.

In the next paragraph you do an excellent job at revealing a lot of information about the old man without falling into the adjective trap. Great job here, try to do something like this in the prior paragraph.
I will comment on how you introduced the young woman. It feels like either I missed something or she popped out of no where as soon as she was needed. This can easily be fixed, and if done right can fix something else too. Right now this scene is kind of a blank slate. I hardly know anything about what things look like except the old man (who you described very nicely). If you added a short paragraph before this one that had a very brief (you don't want to put a really long one at the beginning) description of the surroundings then I can get myself into the story better and you can reference the fact that there is a woman there so that when she talks it's not coming out of no where.

I'm going to point out a pet peeve of mine. I don't know if most people notice this or not, but it's something that bothers me. Your naming scheme needs to match. Now I don't mean you need to have a theme that all your names follow. But it does have to make sense why all of your names are in the same world. Caleb and Ethan are more normal-ish names, whereas Oasis and Hael are quite unusual. Because you only have four names I can't really say any of them are out of place. But as you introduce more characters if you fall more to one side or the other then you need to explain why the other characters don't fit. For example, if you go with more normal names then you'd have to explain how Oasis and Hael got their names (without it they just seem really random). That can easily be done by saying Hael was actually from a different country, in which case it would make sense for his name to follow more of what you would expect from that country. It is a lot harder if you go the other way and have the unusual names be your main theme and the normal ones the ones that don't fit in. I have yet to figure out how to do that without it bothering me.
Now that bit could just be me, I dunno. I just thought I'd point it out.

I found that in your fourth paragraph the word "still" was repeated quite a few times. I haven't seen you do that anywhere else yet so I won't go into it much.
I am incredibly curious as to why Oasis was stern when she asked Hael if he needed help? Either there is a history with him not wanting help and you are doing some awesome hinting at it, or it's just something you added in there. I recommend that you either take advantage of this or get rid of it.

In the next paragraph there are two more times where you have two adjectives next to each other.

I like this next bit. It is engaging to read. Although I'm not entirely sure if we've changed scenes or not... There was nothing to indicate that we did but you never mentioned a cave and if the fire was still going it wouldn't be a blue-white light.

I really like your descriptive passages. I think you should make better use of this talent (just, you know, don't overdo it, no more then a paragraph or two at a time). Right now I'm reading Eldest by Christopher Paolini and it almost had me to the point of never ever wanting to describe anything in my writing ever again because it's so boring. But reading this makes me want to do it all the time because it's so delightful.

I can be a bit nit-picky sometimes so I just want to point out that I am actually really enjoying this piece even if it doesn't show. It is wonderful.

I want to warn you about using the name "Dragoons". I don't know what they are right now, but it sounds an awful lot like you're making a play off the word "dragons". If the creatures you're talking about are dragons, then calling them another name will seem kind of silly. If they are just dragon-like then you should make sure to mention some of the differences so people don't mistake them for dragons. If they have nothing to do with dragons then I would recommend trying to find a name that isn't so closely related to dragons.

Okay, now I'm confused. How old is Oasis? We know that Hael is old because you said he was elderly, you told us Caleb's age, and because of the way he talked about Caleb we can assume Ethan is older then Caleb, but you haven't hinted at Oasis's age. I had just assumed she was a similar age to Caleb and Ethan. But now I read that she doesn't even come up to his shoulder, which either implies he's really tall or she's relatively young. You should clarify this.

"The crutch wobbled under her weight." What crutch?

I like how you wrote this part about Oasis's... attack? spasm? I'm not entirely sure what to call it. Anyway, I find a lot of people end up making scenes like this seem very cheesy and you didn't do that so good job.

The incantations look cool but you have to be careful with them. Reading over things you can't understand is kind of boring so you don't want to make it to long. I think what you have here is kind of long. So if at all possible you should shorten it.

Now I understand the crutch. I don't recall you mentioning Ethan's leg was injured.

The ending is kind of unsatisfying. I don't really understand the story. You still haven't told us who Caleb was fighting, what the Dragoons are, what was wrong with Oasis, how Hael got Angel's Tears, how Ethan injured his leg, or who the main character is. At first I assumed it was Ethan because he's the character the beginning focused on. But then after that everything focused on Oasis. So I really don't know.
I think this would make a wonderful first chapter. But it doesn't fit as a short story. I still felt like I was being introduced to the story when it ended. Don't get me wrong, it was lovely and I enjoyed it a lot, but it's not done. Or at least I don't feel done.


I know I spent a lot of time pointing out little things and not much time telling you what you did right. But trust me, you did do some things right. This story held my attention well, made me care about the characters, and was generally enjoyable to read. I really did like it and I hope you continue to work on it until it's the best you can make it.

I hope you find this review helpful. Till next time!

Another amazing beginning! This time, I noticed a couple mistakes, but I assume this story was one of your first ones published on the YWS. Even at that, the story was great! I'm personally not a huge fan of fantasy, but I enjoy the odd book. Anyways, you have once again pleased me to an extreme with your story, and there's something I'd like to ask you because of it. I've carefully taken notice that you and I have the same writing style, and creativity when it comes to story writing. Therefore, I'd like to know what would happen if we combined our skills and wrote a story together. Just an idea. You can read some of my stories before deciding, so there's no rush. Otherwise, keep bringing the stories! I need to read them!

Okay, this has some serious potential. I'm expecting a sequel soon! It seems like a prologue to a book. What are your plans for it?

Things I liked:

The incantation. I ran it though Google Translate, just out of interest, and was glad to see it wasn't just gibberish. I think that sort of thing is cool.

The setup is very strong - you hint nicely at the powers in this world.


Things to work on:
Is this taking place in our world? That doesn't seem to be what you set up, but when you had one of the characters take Christ's name in vain it threw me off. While there are fantasy books that use our swear words, and that usually works okay, having a character use the name of a religious figure from our world as an epithet is off-putting. Personally, I always find it fun to make up new swear words for my fantasy worlds. Just something to consider.

You need to proofread your work again. There are quite a few grammatical errors that caused confusion for me. Darkthorn got most of them, but you should read through it again to catch the rest.

Also, Hael's dialogue felt unrealistic to me at times. Mostly it just seemed like an overuse of the phrase "young ones." While it would work fairly well for people he's not related to, it just didn't seem to me like he'd be likely to use it for his grandchildren.

Overall, great stuff here! I hope to see this as a book eventually!

The story has an amazing amount of potential, and even as it is its quite a nice story.
However some mistakes in it made for a laborious read.
For example:

In the second paragraph, the first sentence: "The lean, dark-haired boy scowled at him and seized his pacing."
I'm not sure if its just myself over here, but I find it might be a bit easier to read as "The lean, dark-haired boy scowled at the geriatric..." or "The lean, dark-haired boy scowled at the old-man..."
It might be the fact that your use of pronouns here create a somewhat confusing element. Also, in the second half of the sentence, you use the word "seized".
The word you need there is "ceased", as "seized" is used to show that someone or something is grabbing, taking or doing something in that same idea of motion e.g: "He seized the moment and confessed to her."


In the third paragraph you introduce "the young woman". Once again, it might just be me, but her intro itself seems a bit hurried. It would have been slightly better if you had introduced her in the second paragraph,
even if it's just to show where she was standing e.g: "Ethan glanced up at the young woman that stood against the cave wall, watching them.".
You might also want to look at the second to last sentence: "She leaned forward and reached for a tea of hot jasmine tea.". I'm pretty sure that the first 'tea' should have been 'cup'.


In the fourth paragraph, you make a repetition mistake with the word 'but' at "...but he is still but seventeen". You could switch out either of the two for better words. I would leave the conjunction as it is and switch out the second 'but' with 'only'.
Also, the sentence that follows: "He is still a child." can be strung onto the first, so that it reads as: "He may know how to wield a sword like a true swordsman, but he is still only seventeen; still a child."
The sentence where you state their grandfather's "walking stick" is a "wooden can with a hidden blade inside." could also be reconstructed as follows: "Hael sighed and reached for his 'walking stick'; a thick wooden can which housed a hidden blade."
Also, she wouldn't exactly ask her grandfather if he needed help sternly; worriedly would be a better emotional adjective to use.


In the next paragraph, you state that Ethan "returned to the crackling, red-orange fire." Personally I, once again, find it easier to read as: "Ethan sighed and returned to the crackling heat of the red-orange fire.", and
in the sentence that follows, "... danced off his agitated, anxious face." the two adjectives don't fit, though I'm not exactly sure what to replace them with.

Sorry for cutting it short, but this is as far as I was able to read. Though not for lack of interest, rather for time constraints on my end.
Honestly, this would be a very, very good story. I do plan on reading and reviewing it again. I am quite interested in it already.