Published January 2, 2010
This is what i have wrote so far... my mum read a bit of it and i guess there's work that needs doing. but hope you like what i've done so far... and in case you start to wonder what a Pteranodon is... - http://z.about.com/d/dinosaurs/1/0/6/C/ ... odonSD.jpg
That's it. 
here it is:
Chapter 1
The blue sky stood out against the ornate temple on the hilltop. There was a wide courtyard – containing bright red azalea, Cherry blossom, and many other beautiful flowers – to the entrance of the temple, and hooded figures stood around the gate into the gardens… nobody was allowed to step foot in the temple. (Unless they were a traitor admitted in the temple by one of the temple's own, member or Master amongst others.)
The men and women who did step in, they would be workers, maids and NINJA’S. Hard training ninja’s. They protected the temple from incoming attacks. The occasional sound of a clash and a bang would be heard of sword fights; Kayuki, a female ninja, sat on a bench by the temple doors and stared at the practicing trainee ninja’s in the courtyard.
Kayuki’s long black hair was tucked in her hood, and she folded her legs and scanned the skies for any Death birds. Death birds were long raptor like flying animals with long beaks, black eyes and sharpened patterns marking them on their wings, each unique to their breed. They were the Pteranodon’s sister, cursed and fierce fantasies. Their skin was like rubber, but when touched, could spike their victim with poison before flying away with them to their clan and devouring their prey. A few strikes from a sword could kill them, but a bow and arrow isn’t much good since the Death birds can deflect those with the inside of their wings which are coated with acid.
Each trainee ninja has to wear a red ribbon around their waist to mark their innocence. If they didn’t, they could be mistaken for a fully trained ninja and might be taken on a life or death mission.
It’s happened once before, and if anybody speaks of the unfortunate being that suffered several blows to vital organs, they will have to miss all three meals of the day. That is… if anybody overhears you speaking of it. Many people do talk of it.
Kayuki knows that for sure.
Rising to her feet, Kayuki fiddled with her harness and checked that her sword, knives and tranquilizer darts where all tightly secured. After checking them, she turned towards the fighting ring and bowed once to the guards who bowed back. They tapped their swords on the ground, Kayuki repeated this, and twirled to show her privileges.
‘Enter,’ the guard to the left of the fighting ring entrance said. ‘Blessed be.’
Kayuki nodded and stepped into the fighting ring. The breeze ruffled her cloak as she observed her opponent. He was lanky, cloaked with his hood down, but mouth masked, showing only his eyes, eyebrows and his hair, which was a dirty blond.
Kayuki lowered into her fighting stance, holding the sword firmly in her hands, arms raised over her head. Her opponent did the same.
‘Kayuki,’ she said, swaying slightly as she moved her foot forward, and halted.
‘David,’ her opponent said. ‘I’m English.’
Kayuki didn’t really care where he was from… but the name was important. It showed that they had fought together, and during sparring, it was important in case one was hurt. (Unlikely with the tips of the weapons being blunt.)
Any grammar mistakes and stuff, it'd help if you could review it. thanks!
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141,411 Literary Works • 674,390 Reviews
It's just too much too fast. There is not even a firm setting before we get into this absolutely weird fantasy. It simply runs, description, something special, description, something special, unneeded telly comment, description, etc...
My first piece of advice would be, slow down!
Describe in detail this temple, not simply its landscape. You want the reader to understand what and why this temple is important. Especially if you have such a different fantasy world.
Secondly, dramatic capitalization like 'NINJAS' and parenthesis is bad style. Explain without sounding crazy and readers will be able to take you seriously. Such things like dinosaurs should also be given some introduction of their own, after the other fantasy pieces have been set up. Generally one piece of information per paragraph, one important introduction per page, one important plot point per chapter. You rush everything and do not embrace its individualistic beauty and create originality. Something which must be done for ninjas and dinosaurs.
Best advice, describe more and be active about it. Give two hearty paragraphs of information on the setting, including history. Then introduce your main character Kayuki and ONLY Kayuki. The only thing her introduction should warrant is focus on who she is and why the reader should care to identify with her. Personality, personality, personality.
After about four or five more introduction paragraphs and set up, make a conversation point or some other set up to a secondary character, i.e. David. Let's have a friendly discussion, but not about combat.
Please do even mention these dinosaurs until you have established a setting and developed your own unique story backing. They will come later, i.e. a sudden attack or some happening that is routine, like a set hunting time or whatever. My guess would be that few would attack a known and fortified area anyways, they'd pick off travelers probably. Make sure you how they are a threat and use them during that threat, with cruelty and brutality.
Just go slow and build, build, build. Just roll everything together in a calm, serious way and the reader will be absorbed into the story.
Thanks and I always have trouble with tenses and ways of phrasing sentences. I'll be sure to fix all that later. Thank you anyway!
Ah, a nice, short piece. Hey, Tex here to review your work. I'm not the very best, or even very good at grammar, but I'll try to point out anything that I somehow know. I'm better at typos and word flow. Just as a warning, and I give this to everyone, I can be harsh. Don't take my criticism personally, it's just my thoughts on your piece and how you can improve it.
This is really long so I put in a spoiler.
Spoiler
This is bugging me. I think it's the way this is laid out. It doesn't flow well enough for me to get lost in the beautiful scene you have pictured. The way you broke it up with dashes makes you blink to another topic, and "to the entrance" makes you have to look back to the first half of the sentence. I think this would flow a little more smoothly if you used commas and added a word or changed the wording a bit, for example, here's how I would change it, changing it as little as possible:
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The wording here makes you think that the hooded figures are always walking into the gardens. I believe what you meant to say, although I could be wrong, was with another word, as in:
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I have multiple nitpicks with this. First, I these would be easier to read without the parentheses and as one sentence. I trying to figure out how to explain why that would be, but English isn't my best subject so I have no clue. It would look more like this:
That still doesn't flow quite right for me. Let's continue. The end, "member or Master amongst others," is confusing. I think what you meant to convey was that members, like monks or ninjas of the temple, or masters, like the teachers, and others are the ones letting the traitors in. I think this needs to be reworded to say that more simply. Example, though this may not be completely correct:
Also, why would a traitor be admitted? Who, or what, would they be betraying? This sentence is good at not giving you too much information, but it also doesn't give you enough. It leaves us with questions not answered, which can either be free range for the imagination, or really irritating. Here, I personally found it a bit irritating.
As I reworded the sentence, it looks like this:
As opposed to:
Doesn't that seem smoother?
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Hang on. Didn't you just tell us that no one could enter? Contradicting yourself confuses the reader, because you know what you're talking about, but we rely entirely on what you put on paper. If you say the grass is pink, then we will realize that in this world, the grass is pink. But then if you say it's blue in the next paragraph, we won't know which color it really is unless you elaborate or check yourself. Be sure to proofread your work for things like this.
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It's unnecessary for you to capitalize this word. Also, all-caps can make things seem immature (I used all-caps when I was nine and didn't think there was anything wrong with them). When you want to emphasize something, using italics is generally the more professional way to go. I read a book in which all-caps were only used in a single sentence, and it didn't seem wrong to me because of the intense situation. However, one time in one book in an entire series is as often as you need to do that. Emphasis is not needed for this word.
Also, cut the apostrophe. It would be used to show that "ninjas" is possessive, while without the apostrophe it's plural.
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Again, drop the apostrophe. Also, "Hard training" is a bit confusing. It could mean that they train well and hard, like you work hard, or it could mean that they train like a soldier, hard like tough and strong. I think this could be fixed by switching it to past tense like the rest of the story and adding a dash, becoming:
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The semicolon would make more sense as a period.
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Again with apostrophe.
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Of your third paragraph, the first sentence is wonderful. However, the rest is too much of an info dump. It's really hard to give all the information and details you have in your head without just giving it all at once. One phrase I heard all the time when I first posted my works on here was "Show, don't tell." The link is to an article written by CastlesInTheSky, one which I find very helpful. Show, don't tell, basically means that instead of you, the author, telling us all the details, have it shown to us in the surrounds, characters' thoughts and feelings, etc. This doesn't go for all the time, but it does apply to a lot of times. Like here. It wouldn't seem like such a encyclopedia entry if you showed it to us, for example, I would do it something like this:
Would end up something like:
It really puts you into the story and world this way, and makes things more believable and emotional.
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The fourth paragraph is great, but not really a paragraph. I think that the fourth and fifth paragraphs could stand to be one paragraph. It would make your paragraph longer and easier on the eye. (If I say paragraph one more time right now, somebody slap me.)
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In most of your story, you write in past tense:
"Bob had a lawnmower."
Here, you write in present tense:
"Bob has a lawnmower."
I like getting sucked into a story so that I can feel the breeze of the hurricane smashing the pirate ship to pieces or whatever. When you switch tenses, it snaps the reader out of that little fantasy world, making them remember that it's just a book and giving them a good point to set the book down. You don't want your reader to set the book down. Also, it makes your work seem amateurish, like you don't know to keep in one tense. A way to write this so that it doesn't change would be:
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First off, what? What a... unique... sign of respect, I think. I'm not sure what that is. If you could tell us, that would be a big help, because right now I'm just guessing.
Also, she twirled to show her privileges. Um, what are her 'privileges'? Does she had a sticker on her back or something to show she has these privileges? Elaborating on these things would be so very helpful. And it might make the sword tapping and swirling make sense.
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I don't have anything wrong with this, except maybe that with speaking you should use quotation marks ["Words."] instead of apostrophes ['Words.']. I really like this line, because it shows you what the ethical basis of these ninjas and people is. "Blessed be." I like that line. A lot.
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Again, I think these could stand to be put together, with the second "Kayuki" becoming a pronoun. Also, what I put in red is telling, not showing. Maybe she noticed the sweat sticking his dirty blond hair to his forehead? Or maybe she could hear his breathing through his half-mask? Either way, give us a little more description from Kayuki's perspective, not just a general description.
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You put things in parentheses in the beginning, too. I have the same nitpick here. That may just be me so you can decide, but I must comment.
Maybe you could elaborate why the name was important in case on was hurt. Why would these things need to be known?
Also, saying that it's unlikely someone will be hurt at the beginning of a fight isn't a chapter ending that makes me say, "Wow, what happens next?". Not every chapter end has to be a cliffhanger, in fact, not one has to be, but this end doesn't even make me want to continue. At least have them start the fight or something.
Overall, I thought this was really good. You have dinosaurs, ninjas, just a hint of plot in the beginning... This has it all for me! Aside from typos, info dumps and minor grammar mistakes, you have a really good piece here. Be sure to watch out for tense changes and contradicting yourself. I give it a 4/5, so I'm giving it a gold star. If you PM me or post in my 'Will Review For Food' thread (there;s a link in my signature) when the next part comes out, I'd love to review that, too!
Keep it up!
-Tex