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9 Public Reviews Given
9 Total Reviews Given
Public Reviews
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Review of Greywolf  Open in new Window.
Review by Napalm Writer Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.0)
It's interesting and there is some character development, but there are some issues. The sentence structure gets repetitive. There's lots of exposition. It's better to describe things than to explain them. Also, it gets a bit wordy at times. Examples:

"The tips of his fingers glowed blue and white with arcane energy and life flowed from him."
-- It lets the cat out of the bag by explaining what he's doing from the start. Would be better to show what his powers do to the spider (visually) than to explain to the reader that he's giving it his life force. Show the spider, not moving. Make it clearly lifeless. Then show the druid touching it, his fingers glowing. Don't explain what he's doing, just show the spider starting to come to life. It has a greater effect on the reader that way.

"The younger druid, still in the form of a dire wolf, knelt to let him mount."
-- Don't tell us that the druid is in dire wolf form. It would be better to let us wonder how the other man is talking with a wolf. It increases the reader's interest. Just show the wolf crouching for him to mount instead of explaining it. Later, you can have the younger druid transform back to human. It creates an element of mystery.

"The older druid buried his legs into the warmth of the beast’s fur and clenched a fistful of coarse hair with one hand and the long heavy shaft of his war spear with the other."
-- Wordy. It's better to be concise. You don't need to go show every single detail or action. You could simply say something like: 'With his heavy war spear in hand, he climbed on the dire wolf's back.' It basically says the same thing but is a lot smoother and not so long winded.

"The beast leapt forward and pounded the newly fallen snow on the trail into hard tracks beneath its massive paws. Cold bit the rider’s face. He bent low over the canine’s back and sheltered behind its massive head to escape the frigid whistling air."
-- Wordy. You don't need to explain how the wolf's paws pack the snow down, it's a given, Unless it somehow advances the story, just describe the action. Also, watch your word choices; "leapt" and "pounded" sound like it's just jumping. It's good to use descriptive, active verbs but you need to use words that accurately convey the action: 'The wolf bounded forward in the newly fallen snow.' The other sentence is heavy on the adjectives. Massive paws. Hard tracks. Massive head. Frigid air. It's good to want to get descriptive, but adjectives and adverbs are like salt on your food; a little is good, but too much makes it unpalatable. You already established the cold air, no need to belabor the point. The wolf is big enough to ride, that implies it's huge without having to describe every part of its body as massive. It's better to just say it's big once and then leave it at that: 'The rider bent low on the huge wolf's back, shielding his face from the biting cold."
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Review of Mage Chapters 1-3  Open in new Window.
Review by Napalm Writer Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (1.5)
Overall, I found it very difficult to get into the story. It seems very cartoonish, for lack of a better word. For a satirical story, I didn't find much humor in it, but that could just be a matter of taste. From a writing stand-point, I feel it needs a lot of work. There's far too much exposition; it reads more like a synopsis instead of a narrative. The point-of-view is all over the place; sometimes it reads like it's from one person's perspective, other times it's like an omniscient narrator. Makes it feel disjointed and confused. Character development is negligible.
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Review by Napalm Writer Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
In general, there's too much exposition and not enough description. The first nine paragraphs are pure explanation without any action or setting. It explains a lot about The Shop, but doesn't paint a picture for the reader to see. For instance, what does Giggles even look like? Show, don't tell. There's a lot of backstory just dumped on the reader right from the start. Take it in small bites, and do it with action and description, rather than exposition. Instead of explaining to the reader that 'Patrons called him Giggles because he couldn’t crack a smile without breaking bones,' there could be a dialogue between him and Athenais where she cracks jokes at him, and he doesn't answer or change his expression or really seem to react at all. Okay, maybe that would be a monologue ;) But, the point is that it shows what kind of guy Giggles is without having to explain it. It gives the reader something concrete that they can imagine instead of just taking your word for it. There's a lot of places like that throughout the piece. Instead of saying the beverages got the job done, describe how they taste to her and how they make her feel (or not, as the case may be) as she drinks it. Keep the narrative in the context of the POV character as much as possible so that the reader has someone with whom to relate. That will make the story much more personal and easier to get into.

It's also a bit wordy. There are a lot of places that could be trimmed down and made more concise. The more you say with fewer words, the greater the effect on your reader. 'He was clean and did not carry the overpowering stench of most males who worked in space.' I'd say something like 'he was clean and didn't stink like most spacer men.' It gets the point across but is more concise. As an aside, I'd watch out for the word 'male.' Although it is often used as a noun, it is technically an adjective.

'The front of the Shop was almost completely empty.' The word "completely" is a needless modifier. It sounds like you're really trying very super extra hard to emphasize how almost empty it is. Think about it: if it's empty, it's completely empty. It one of those words that either is, or it isn't. Try putting it in front of the word "dead." If you're dead, you're completely dead. "Completely" doesn't add anything to it; it actually takes away some of the emphasis.

There are also some instances of "supererogatory loquacious circumlocution"... in other words, places where big, long, intelligent sounding words are used in place of plain, simple, direct ones in order to make it sound new, exiting and/or intellectual. Usually, the simplest word is the best word, unless you really need to pull out the big, important sounding word to make a specific point. Otherwise, the big words end up sounding pretentious. I'd replace 'beverage' with 'drink.' Also, 'negligible mammary glands'? Skip the anatomy lesson. 'Small breasts.'

Other specifics that I noticed:

'Athenais’s butt hovered over her seat'
FRS? Floating Rump Syndrome? :) Describing a character's actions in terms of what his/her body parts do usually comes off sounding awkward. I know that the intent is to show a picture of what is happening without saying "she did this" and "she did that" all the time. Unfortunately, it usually sounds like the body parts in question are acting of their own volition, like her butt suddenly decided it was done with the stool and wanted to float in mid-air for a while. Instead, just stick to the action. 'She shifted forward, perched on the edge of her seat in case the fists started flying' ... and therein lies an example of how to make body parts do things without sounding awkward; 'fists started flying' is a metaphoric use, and reads much better than the literal use of hovering butts.

'Her voice was naturally loud from commanding a shipful of selectively deaf space pirates'
Again, lots of explanations that could be worked in better. You could follow her dialogue with 'she said, using the same voice that she used to command her selectively deaf crew.' That conveys the idea that you want without the abrupt exposition. It turns it into a description instead of an explanation.

'it cut through the silence like a knife.'
Cliche. How about 'like a laser?' Less cliche and it adds a "spacey" tone to the simile.

One thing I do want to say is this: THANK YOU for not including a trite, hackneyed bar fight to show how bad-a** your character is. Very much appreciated.
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