Gun&Blood ( Prologue and 1 chapter )

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Wolferion
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Points taken, thanks a lot =) I'll remember this well once I get to writing next piece, as for this Prologue, It was maybe a mistake but I made another topic where I posted the "fixed version" which is Prologue + Chapter 1, I spent half of a day working on it, cutting speech down and trying to supply background more, even though I've got a bit of feeling like I'm describing a picture at times. Then after analyzing the previous version better I found out that it's sometimes a bit "childish" maybe? Both yours and cottonrulz explanations truly opened my eyes on the matter , greater thanks for that. Also I feel more confident now at writing, your encouragement played it's spell :D

I believe I should leave a link here for that fixed version so there's no confusion on about which is the one I'm going to write next chapter from.

Fixed version : http://www.youngwriterssociety.com/topic56595.html

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Tim L.
Review
Tim L. wrote a review · Tue Jan 05, 2010 12:00 am

Hey Kyousuke! Now, I'm going to be honest here...although there are glimpses of writing talent within this piece, it still needs a lot of work. Cottonrulz was right in their comment about cutting this post down to one chapter, and that's all I can really analyze in one post.
So, let's get down to business here. As far as the prologue goes, the introductory paragraph as a whole worked fine.
"Sun has already passed this city, lights of human creation fight the dark in this place."
This sentence, however, I had a bit of an issue with. It's not that it didn't get me interested, but the formatting was a little off, and it seemed sort of repetitive. The comma between "city" and "lights" should become a semi-colon, separating the two related ideas, because they don't really fit together in a sentence. My issue with repetitiveness stems from the tail end of the second half of the sentence, "fight the dark in this place". Seeing as you already stated that the "Sun passed this city", the need to label the city again within the same sentence just makes it less effective and it almost becomes a run-on sentence. If the sentence was "Sun has already passed this city;lights of human creation fight the darkness.", then it would become more interesting and draw in the reader.
I personally have never heard of or seen the use of asterisks (*) to note that a person is thinking something, other than in anime or on AIM. I'm not saying it's wrong, but it is a technique that I have seen in neither classic nor contemporary works of literature. Usually when something is not completely 'in' on the writing scene, it's best to stay away from until you've recieved notable merit for writing and choose to innovate, or unless it is artfully done. This just appears sloppy, and I'd recommend just using a tag to point out that the main character is thinking.
As far as positive aspects of this prologue go, the dialogue is up there. In some of the sentences, I felt like I could actually hear the character saying the words aloud.
'It's unbelievable just how much can something can change the way you live... Who'd think that there exist people with supernatural powers, even monsters, among us. It's just they appear in the world of humans as killers, in their own world, what is it like?...'
The above is an excellent example of what dialogue should look like in a story. In some other places, it was shaky, but these little spots where the dialogue shines lets me know you'll create some great pieces if you continue to work on and shape your craft.
Overall, it did it's job as a prologue. It hinted at what the story will be about, which is vampires, but didn't give away too much critical information. The dialogue was well written in some areas, but appeared too widespread in the text. Space it out by stopping the action and supplying background information, direct characterization, etc. Keep writing, I'd love to check in and see where this goes!
-Tim L.

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Wolferion
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Thanks a lot for the comment ^^

About matter no.1 , I actually thought myself that there's kind of too much dialogue in comparison to the other parts in story, I think that I made it that way in first place , because I thought that interaction between characters is important, so we can find out about their personalities, then I tried to pull off some lightening moments or maybe even funny, as example are moments when Mary's angry at Kyousuke. I'll look at this matter though and see if I can find a solution, thanks a million for that =)

About matter no.2 , well you got it right, ** indicate for thoughts, "" are for normal speech. Once I get the free time (Study week is starting tommorow... hell I may say) I'll definitely break it all down to "" only, with word explanation of what it should be after the "", f.e. "So what should I do with her?" thought Kyousuke while Mary was unconscious.

I'm sorry that It's rather long, It must be tiring >.< I'll cut 2nd chapter from this topic as you had suggested, once again thanks a million for the comment, I'm truly happy for the help ^^

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Cotton
Review
Cotton wrote a review · Sun Jan 03, 2010 7:30 pm

Hi! I'm not going to very helpful, so I apologise in advance for that. This is really too long for one post... so I would suggest removing at least chapter two and doing that separately (I know the feeling though - wanting to get the most out of your points, but it is really difficult for us readers to comment on such a long piece).. (my concentration really isn't that good right now, either).

I think I have a couple of helpful comments for you:

1. You have a lot of speech in this. A lot, a lot. I used to do that a lot in my writing, and it took a while for me to break the habit but it is a good one to break. See if you can break down some of the speech into more descriptive and longer paragraphs.

2. You use these "* *" quite a bit. Am I right in thinking that they denote thinking? A better way to show a character's thoughts is italics, or maybe using 'Oh my!' she thought, instead of "Oh my!" she said. I use both, depending on how I'm feeling.

Hope I helped in some small way :)
~*cottonrulz*~



If you can't get out of your comfort zone, you'll never find what you're looking for. Don't make things quick and easy to feel better short term. Make a change and then you'll feel better longer term.
— Frinderman