Her tears fell, causing a ripple effect which went on for a moment only to fade away as had her cries for help in the night, and because of that she also was angry.
I tripped over this sentence. It’s needlessly clumsy and rather hard to read: you might wanna revise it. Here’s my personal suggestion , to give an example:
‘Her tears fell, causing a ripple which went on for a moment only to fade away, just as had her cries for help had faded away, and for that she was also angry.’
In that moment also, birds began to take flight from the brush and trees and she knew without a doubt that something was about to go terribly wrong.
The bolded part is too passive for my liking. ‘bird took flight’ is far more active, and reads better. =)
The countdown reached zero and the ground [s]upon which she stood[/s] was destroyed by [s]the power of[/s] the collision of nuclear missiles. The last thing she saw before her body was destroyed[s],[/s] was the eye of the white raven, as it flew down toward her and sucked [s]into itself[/s] her spirit into itself. And she became the white raven.
Suggestions above. Bolded is stuff I suggest you add in, striked-out stuff I think should be removed.
Not even the third that survived truly made it through [s]truly[/s], because [s]one[/s] half of them underwent genetic mutations that left them less than human, deformed and without any sense of right [s]and[/s] or wrong.
Again, suggestions above.
For them it was only what was right for their collective—those that were like them and even then there was a great deal of treachery and deceit amongst their ranks.
Sounds the same as normal humans to me, to be honest.
It was the white raven who had selected [s]there[/s] their king and even right away the people themselves did not accept him.
Typo: you used the wrong ‘there/their/they’re’.
[s]There were still fights[/s] They still fought amongst themselves, as well as [s]amongst[/s] against those of the badlands, which made it [s]nearly[/s] impossible for them to sleep without watching over [s]your[/s] their shoulder for [s]your[/s] enemies. [s]and in some cases even those you viewed as friends.[/s]
Okay, I’ve made some pretty extensive suggestions here, so I guess I’d best explain myself. =)
1) I changed ‘there were still fights’ to ‘they still fought’, as the sentence didn’t actually make sense as it was. Read it again to yourself to see what I mean.
2) I assume those of the badlands are not the same as the collective ‘themselves’, so I changed the ‘amongst’ to ‘against’.
3) I deleted the adverb ‘nearly’, as qualifiers like this usually aren’t needed. I think the sentence reads better without it, and has a greater impact too.
4) It felt very odd that you suddenly started using a ‘you’, especially since you’d been using a ‘them’ just prior to that (the ‘fights amongst themselves’ bit), so I toyed around with it a little to change all the ‘you’s into ‘their’s.
5) I deleted the final part because it didn’t actually make sense to me. You watch over your shoulder for those you view as friends? Surely, if you view them as friends, you wouldn’t watch over your shoulder for them, even though really you should.
This senseless way of life went on for two years, until the people began to come to their senses, nearly too late to save them from those of the badlands who sought to pose war against them.
1) Repetition of ‘sense’. You might want to change one of them.
2) ‘Pose’ war? I mean, it’s technically correct (pose is indeed a synonym for ‘create’), but it strikes me as a weird way of saying it.
mustering enough power to drive those of the badlands back behind the mountain, which was their marker.
They searched high and low for the white raven until the day when a boy found [s]the white raven[/s] it, dead, four eggs beneath her wings.
Avoid needless repetition.
Immediately after this discovery, the eggs were taken to be protected; with the thought [s]in mind[/s] that the lack of their presence would eventually mean that the people would forget her.
all that is, except one.
------
I thought this started off interestingly enough, and then it fell into an info dump of backstory, that I think you really don’t need. Personally, if I were you, I’d skip this introduction altogether, and start the story with its actual beginning (which will presumably be the next part?) and reveal this back story throughout the course of the novel.
Also, watch out for weird sentence structures that can trip up your reader. Oftentimes, simpler is better.
As I said, the opening was good. Very weird, almost trippy as Pattycakes put it, and I really enjoyed that part.
Keep on writing. =)
-- Sureal
Points: 9907
Reviews: 506
Donate