Young Writers Society

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: OKayyy, wow, this chapter managed to exceed my expectations with the fight scene. I wasn't expecting things to suddenly get this serious with the very first fight scene, but it certainly did and I love to see that. It really shows how serious this situation is and how things might go very wrong for all of them. Its a lovely start to chapter 14.

Anyway let's get right to it,

Before Ilami could say anything, Haka leaped forward, earth-armoured hand raised, ready to strike. The Master shifted his position, avoiding the punch. As Haka’s fist hit the floor, a wave of vibration and cracks spread from it. The glass cases shook.

Ilami watched it with unblinking eyes. This was the first time she saw Haka fight with bare hands. During the time they spent sparring with each other to prepare for this, he always used a weapon to level the match since she herself used one. He didn’t need anything - his fists alone were his strongest arsenals.

‘Slow, boy,’ the Master said, fangs showing. ‘Too slow.’

OOoooh, well here we go, we finally get to see Haka in a fight and I love it already. The fact that his hands are supposed to be better than any weapon seems like quite a claim there too, cause that means he's got to be ridiculously strong and this earth body armor has to be really powerful. Well, anyway, the opening blows have been exchanged and things are underway and I'm very excited to see where this ends up going.

Haka retreated quickly, not wanting the Master to take advantage of their close distance. The Master charged forward, his movement so fast Haka couldn’t avoid him quick enough. He slammed Haka with his head and upper body, pushing Haka to the wall. A thump was heard and Haka groaned.

The Master raised his paw, claws gleaming under the little light the room permitted, and struck down on Haka. Haka managed to block it with his gauntlet arm and pushed the Master away with it. When the Master was still within striking distance, he kicked the Master.

The Master hit one of the glass cases containing a bladed artifact, cracking it. He stood up. His breath wasn’t ragged and his appearance was still the same; he didn’t seem to receive any damage. He turned around to see the case and shook his head.

Hmm, this is not a bad starting exchange here. The fight scene is off to a pretty smooth start, and I like how everything is currently laser focused on the fight. We are in Ilami's POV and yet we are seeing only the Master and Haka being described, and I like that. It gives us a good view of the blows being exchanged and we can see better in case Haka ends up injured or something like that.

‘You’re making quite a mess, boy,’ he said. ‘I don’t like cleaning things.’

Ilami blinked. She wasn’t good at hand-to-hand combat, but she did have knowledge about it. What could be said when the battle was between someone who used a sharp object and another who used mere fists? Haka had armoured himself up using a Lio’s spell, but how long could it bear the piercing effect of the Master’s claws?

The Master, on the other hand... Ilami shuddered. Haka’s enhanced attacks didn’t seem to injure him sufficiently.

‘I don’t care. [insert spell],’ Haka said.

Okayy...well The Master's comment there suggests that he is not concerned in the slightest about what's going on here. He is taking Haka quite lightly at the moment and barely breaking a sweat while it looks like Haka is doing his best to try and cause some sort of injury to him.

Cracks were heard and a few blocks of the floor floated, surrounding Haka and the Master.

‘This spell is what made him a fighter genius,’ Gael whispered. His eyes were focused on Haka. ‘With this, he’s unstoppable.’ There was a hint of desperation in his voice, making Ilami suspect Gael might be convincing himself.

Haka jumped onto one of the blocks before moving into the other. With the blocks under his control, he was able to move around with them, and since he wasn’t quite on the ground, the Master wouldn’t be able to get to him easily. He was turning the battle area into one that favoured him.

Hmm...that's a pretty smart move to make in a fight, I will give him that. I have a feeling the extra effort of maintaining two spells will make both spells weaker than they would otherwise be, but they do seem to have a good effect on the fight so far. Also Ilami's observations are helping quite nicely here. It is very clear that Gael in that moment is genuinely worried and trying to reassure himself there.

Without any warning, Haka jumped towards the Master, his hand raised. The Master dodged his attack, but another block was waiting behind the Master and Haka stepped on it before jumping towards the Master again. With every evasion the Master made, another block floated readily to give Haka the ability to change direction in an instance. The Master wasn’t able to compose himself once he avoided Haka’s attempt as he was forced to make another dodge.

Expertly controlling your body to land on the blocks and use them as a starting point for a charge was one thing; attacking while maintaining the spell was another. No, two spells, Ilami reminded herself. Haka’s earth armour was still attached to him firmly.

Oh yes, that is definitely quite the display of skills and this fight scene is progressing quite nicely so far. We first had Haka doing somewhat more blind attacks and the Master having the advantage as he was having no trouble dodging, now we see Haka's new attack with these blocks making the Master get a bit on the backfoot and making him play defensive.

‘You should help him,’ Gael said, grabbing her shoulder. ‘You’re not good at hand-to-hand combat, but you can still help him with other ways. Like, distracting the Master.’

Before Ilami could reply, Aleveri said, ‘No, it’s too dangerous. I’m not an expert in fighting, but with the way I see it, Haka’s design a battleground best fitted for one-on-one battle.’ She bit her lower lip, glancing at Ilami. ‘Too dangerous.’

Gael didn’t say anything and instead moved away from them. He made sure to not get close to Haka and the Master, and Ilami realized he was heading towards the sword artifact.

HMm, ahh, I love that this is Ilami's perspective and it happens to be maybe the most neutral. Haka's would be too focused on the fight to acknowledge much else, and Gael here is too afraid for any injury to Haka to really notice if Haka is winning or not. Here we can see from Ilami's view and know exactly how the fight is going and we can see a bit of Gael panicking for his good friend being in a pretty tight spot. It does look like maybe now that Ilami and Aleveri pointed out Ilami helping is not a good idea, he's about to do something even stupider and charge in himself. This is certainly going to get interesting.

What’s he thinking? she thought frantically. He wants to use that on the Master? With his lack of experience? He might as well injure himself! She wanted to yell at him, warning him the danger of handling the sword without knowing how to do so, but she was afraid it would attrack the Master’s attention and made him focus on Gael instead.

Ilami shifted her attention towards the battle unfolding in front of her, hoping Gael knew what he was doing. The fight didn’t seem like it was going anywhere. No matter how many times Haka tried to attack the Master, the Master managed to avoid it. It baffled Ilami. Why didn’t the Master try to attack Haka?

Hmm...these are some good observations coming across. I love how Ilami's trying to reason with everything that she's seeing here and it really is doing a great job of bringing across all the viewpoints that are in question here. We get a very good look at exactly what Gael might do and how Ilami is smart enough not to call attention to it, trusting Gael to know what he's doing and then also how she notices that maybe its not just Haka being good at attacking, but the Master most likely using the "tire the opponent" out strategy there.

Her eyes widened as Haka stopped his attempts. The blocks dropped. The Master smiled. Ilami suspected that in normal circumstances, Haka would’ve beaten his opponent at this moment. He didn’t anticipate the Master’s speed, enough to dodge his barrage of attacks.

‘Well, well,’ the Master said, the animal growl thickened in his voice. ‘It seems like I’ve given you enough chances.’

The Master lunged forward, sending the glass cases in his way away from him. He was a blur as he hit Haka on the chest with his head, throwing Haka to the wall. He opened his jaw wide and bit Haka’s shoulder, triggering a scream from Haka. He growled, perhaps pleased with the sound, before releasing his bite. His fangs glistened with blood that came from holes of Haka’s shirt.

Oh wow, that escalated quickly, I did not expect the Master to be quite that powerful right off the bat. Phew. Haka stood almost no chance there. The Master waited for him to run out of energy there and then just in a lightning fast move the Master has the upper hand and Haka is now severely injured.

Ilami felt like she couldn’t breath as the Master raised his paw and stabbed Haka on the chest with his claws. He didn’t a few times before Haka’s scream died.

‘No!’ Gael screamed as he pierced the Master’s back with the sword he carried. He plunged it deeper and deeper until the tip of it jutted out of the Master’s chest. The Master turned around to see him before his eyes seemed dead, his body not moving.

Whoa...that almost went a bit too fast but I think in the end, this is a fairly realistic direction this fight ended up going on. I really liked it. We have Haka, whose great at fighting, but still very much learning falter, the clearly much more powerful Master attacking and taking him out in a flash, then Gael using the distraction and probably the adrenaline from seeing his closest friend almost die to then catch the Master by surprise. I also love how there was a slight stalemate in the fight when Haka attacked but then things happen very fast with no warning. Its exactly what you expect from a fight and I loved it.

Aleveri acted quickly. She ran towards Haka, muttering some spells Ilami couldn’t recognize, and put her palms on his chest, glowing faint blue. She closed her eyes, frowning and sweating.

Haka’s chest started to move.

Ilami went to them, still absorbing what had happened. She watched as Aleveri healed Haka and Gael crouching on Haka’s side and holding his hands. Tears spilled out of his eyes without any intention to stop, his whole body trembling.

Hmm, well its a good thing that the Master ended up getting taken out there. I have no idea what kind of far reaching consequences this could eventually end up having as a result of all of this, but this now allows everyone to react to this Haka scenario properly without worrying about that. Aleveri charging in to heal is a nice moment here and now seeing how as she does that, Ilami simply tries to process things and Gael cries really captures the kind of connection that those three share with Haka.

Aleveri kept healing Haka. She didn’t seem to make his wounds healed, but rather, she was sustaining his life force. And at what cost? Ilami feared the worst as she watched the blood draining from Aleveri’s face, her posture weakening. Her breath came out slower than before.

‘Stop it, Aleveri!’ Ilami said, shaking Aleveri’s shoulder. ‘If you keep healing him, you’ll die!’

Aleveri shook her head. ‘This is what I do,’ she said. ‘I heal. And I will heal no matter what.’

No, Ilami thought. Hot liquids started to form in the brink of her eyes. Haka died and Aleveri revived him. Now, she was dying in order to do so. Ilami couldn’t imagine the thought of losing Aleveri, her first true friend. And for what? There was nothing they could do for Haka. She couldn’t lose Aleveri.

OKayy....well, now we see Ilami reaction to Aleveri potentially ending up dying herself and you can see the clear difference in how she reacts to that. It puts in perspective this dynamic in the group rather well and of course now the stakes are very high for both the two that aren't either dying or trying to heal. Its creating a very interesting situation here. I don't think anyone will die, its way too early in the story to expect that, but the fact that you show us their mortality and just what kind of consequences their actions could have is a lovely touch.

Gael leaned forward to Haka’s eyes and whispered something to him. Ilami couldn’t catch what he said, but there was no time to dwell on that. She had to do something. She couldn’t be useless. She saw her diamond on the floor and reached for it. She placed it near her mouth.

‘Jax - Jaxin, help,’ she said, sobbing. ‘I - I’m in the Restricted Area and my - my friend are wounded. He - help us.’ She closed her eyes, hoping Jaxin would appear once she opened them.

Well...that is actually what I was hoping would happen. I was going to point that out just in case either of these passed out from exhaustion or something....and I love. I was wondering all this time whether maybe this diamond getting that spell on it would end up causing some issues with the communication abilities or something like that, but I really love how you do pay off that setup you created so long ago when Jaxin told her to call him in times of an emergency.

Seeing Haka and the Master brought flashes of Zivil’s death to her mind. The one stab she made to the man couldn’t compare to the ones given to them. The Master killed Haka out of malice while Gael killed the Master out of revenge. Still, the sight of blood flowing out of them reminded her of the horror, of lives destroyed. The Master stayed still while Haka was barely alive. Ilami watched them, stunned.

Well...this is really nicely poised here at the point that you break this chapter. Nothing is concrete as of yet. They could I suppose theoretically both die...but I don't see that happening especially with help coming. At any rate, here we've sort of got all the possibilities laid out and some very good and very strong emotions showing through and I'm very excited to see where things will go here.

Aaaaand that's it for this one.

Overall: Overall, this chapter is really off to a very exciting start and I can't wait to turn this page and find out what's to come next here. Things are on quite the cliffhanger here in this piece and that's a great sign, cause I do find myself worrying about whether either of these two might actually die. Anyway that's it for this piece here.

As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.

Stay Safe
Harry

Hi, Lightsong. Happy Review Day! Pan dropping in for another review. Same drill as usual.

Small Comments

He didn’t need anything - his fists alone were his strongest arsenals.

Expression is a bit odd here. I don't usually expect to see 'arsenal' pluralised, because it refers to a collection of weapons rather than individual weapons. Maybe have this:

his fists alone were a powerful arsenal.

He slammed Haka with his head and upper body, pushing Haka to the wall. A thump was heard and Haka groaned.

Generally speaking, it's a good idea to avoid passive voice in action scenes - it feels limper and has less impact. You could have something along these lines if you wanted to passive-ize it:

He slammed Haka with his head and upper body. Haka thumped back against the wall and groaned.

Or something like:

He slammed Haka with his head and upper body, pushing him against the wall.
Ilami heard his head thump against the stone.

What could be said when the battle was between someone who used a sharp object and another who used mere fists?

I found this bit odd. I just didn't get what point you were trying to make, and it didn't seem to fit that well with the surrounding sentences.

Cracks were heard

Again, avoid the passive. Either tell us what is cracking (e.g. the floor cracked) or tell us who is doing the hearing (e.g. Ilami heard the ground crack). Just saying 'cracks were heard' completely removes the sense of the viewpoint character and doesn't give us much detail as to what the source of the noise is.

‘This spell is what made him a fighter genius,’ Gael whispered. His eyes were focused on Haka. ‘With this, he’s unstoppable.’ There was a hint of desperation in his voice, making Ilami suspect Gael might be convincing himself.

If you didn't have the bold, I would have thought Gael was saying this with conviction. It would be better if you made his anxiety more apparent in his actual dialogue; he could stumble over his words a bit, maybe, or repeat himself. You shouldn't just rely on the surrounding prose to indicate how your characters are speaking.

Ilami suspected that in normal circumstances, Haka would’ve beaten his opponent at this moment.

This makes it sound like this is the point in a normal battle where Haka would strike, but I think the meaning you're trying to get across is that Haka normally defeats people long before he loses his stamina. Am I right about that? In which case, maybe phrase it like this:

Ilami suspected that under normal circumstances, Haka would’ve beaten his opponent by this point.

The Master lunged forward, sending the glass cases in his way away from him.

As with what I said in my previous review, beware limp verbs. 'Sending' makes me think of sending emails or letters - it doesn't conjure and image of tossing glass cabinets aside or trampling through them.

Ilami felt like she couldn’t breath as the Master raised his paw and stabbed Haka on the chest with his claws. He didn’t a few times before Haka’s scream died.

‘No!’ Gael screamed as he pierced the Master’s back with the sword he carried.

Personally, I think it would flow better if you deleted the bit I've struck out. It doesn't really need to be there, and Gael's scream would seem more instant and uncontrollable if it happened the moment that Haka was first stabbed. Placing the dialogue after Haka has already been stabbed a few times makes Gael's reaction feel delayed.

Hot liquids started to form in the brink of her eyes.

Just call them tears. No reason not to.

Overall Thoughts

1) How's about that for a dramatic chapter! When I first read this (I've read some of the next chapter now, so I do have an inking of what happens) I was genuinely afraid for Haka's life. What if he died before Gael even got the chance to tell him how he felt? It didn't bear thinking about.

It is good that you've managed to make me worry for your cast, because usually in novels I just sit back and think 'nah, they'll be fine'. No matter what danger they end up in, I always know they'll get out of it somehow. However, because you have quite a lot of viewpoint characters, it's perfectly possible that the story could continue without any member of the main quartet. Which means, potentially, that any of them could die. I like the suspense of that possibility.

2) The writing seems a little more polished than the previous chapter, but there's still a lot of odd expression and a few tense slip-ups. I've not drawn attention to them too much, as I respect that that's something you'll have to work on for yourself in your own time. I'd rather comment on the story itself.

3) The actual fight with the Master could be described more clearly. I didn't always get a good sense of where the onlookers were positioned in the room, and I couldn't visualise how Gael managed to get to the cabinet without drawing attention to himself.

4) You handled the outcome of the battle with the Master really quite well. If Haka had somehow managed to turn it around and beat him outright, I'd have thought it really unrealistic, but having Gael stab him in the back while he was distracted felt both dramatic and realistic enough to work. It's helped by the fact that Haka has been almost killed - the battle was costly enough that I don't feel like they made it out easily. I do wonder what on earth is going to happen now, though. Gael killed the Master. Surely there are going to be repercussions for it? What will Venaria do?

It's all getting exciting. I'll try and review the next chapter today as well and get completely up to date.

Keep writing!
~Pan

Oh. Oh, wow. I... wasn't expecting that. I really wasn't expecting Haka to actually beat the Master, but I wasn't expecting him to be so severely injured either. And Aleveri sustaining him like that... wow. I'm actually not sure if both of them will be able to live.

So this was good. Seriously. It was easy to follow what was going on and it was definitely a super intense scene. However, I know you can make this even better, so let's talk about how to make fight scenes more emotional and exciting!

Master shifted his position

Cracks were heard

Let's start with these two quotes, since they nicely demonstrate the problem: passive sentence structure and weak verbs. "Cracks were heard" is a passive sentence. You can read about passive sentences here. and although they're useful in formal writing, in action scenes you almost never want to use passive voice because it slows the pacing and takes the focus away from the main character, which is where your focus should always be in the action.

"Shifted" is a weak verb, meaning that it doesn't have intense or emotional connotations, nor does it express a very specific or clear image. In this case, "dodged" would be a better word - it expressed the quick, small movements necessary to get out of the way of an attack. In fight scenes, you always want to choose words with the most emotional power and clearest connotations. You do a pretty good job - words like "struck," "charged", and "stabbed" are all excellent, strong verbs. But you still have some weak ones, and those diminish the tension.

My other main critique is that this part is from the point of view pretty much the only person who both does the least and has the least emotional investment in the scene. Haka's doing all the fighting, Aleveri is struggling to heal him by the end, and Gael is especially upset at all of this because of his feelings for Haka. Only Ilami has nothing to do and no reason to be even more afraid for Haka than you would expect. Generally, when writing a scene like this, you always want it to be from the point of view of the person with the most investment in the scene. Ilami standing around and watching removes the reader from the action - we're on the sidelines instead of in the arena.

Also:

His fangs glistened with blood that came from holes of Haka’s shirt.

The blood is coming from inside Haka, not from his shirt, so saying it came from his shirt is unnecessarily confusing.

And that's all I've got for this part! Hurry and write the next, because I'm waiting very impatiently to find out if poor Haka survives.