so..umm

[BlueFire]

I'm making a fanfic which I probably might not finish :D....It's entitled Kyo's Chronicles.

I have the prologue ready...if you want to read it....:unsure:

http://bluefire00.esmartguy.com/pro.txt

I guess post your comments in here. :errr:

[Revival]

It sucks.

Ok, I haven't read it.. yet..

[BlueFire]

*bump*



anyone? :(

[Xantar]

What happened to the other one?

Oh, and don't worry. I'll read your prologue sometime this weekend and give you a critique.

[BreakABone]

Originally posted by Xantar
What happened to the other one?

Oh, and don't worry. I'll read your prologue sometime this weekend and give you a critique.

That should be good.. but for now I'm off to PVG.. Xanny should know why....

[BlueFire]

Originally posted by Xantar
What happened to the other one?

That other one? Oh .. uh.. *cough* um...school got in the way, so I got rid of it. No one read it anyways. :errr:

[BlueFire]

Now on Chapter 1

http://bluefire00.esmartguy.com/1.txt

[BreakABone]

Hmm read your prologue not bad but you need to work on a few things....

Most people prefer to make dialogue seperate from the prose of the story. It works a bit better.. You can do it either way but ...

You need to work on dia;ogue well atleast getting quotes right. You don't put a period after the quote if you will say someone said it... like

"Billy is my friend." said Marth...
You would use
"Billy is my friend," said Marth....

Other than that the prologue isn't bad and it has my favorite quality.. it's short....

[BreakABone]

Well now I'm done with chapter 1...

Same problems as before with the quotes and the dialgoue but I guess you would since you wrote it before anyone else read it....

Well there are some minor errors in these chapter.. like the use of a pronoun that doesn't fit anyone in the first paragraph.....

The chapter isn't half bad but now it seems like the prologue was more of chapter 1 then it was a prologue since the story picks up right after it.....

We get the first trace of a plot in these chapter also....

And you need to be a tad more descriptive....

[Xantar]

Ok, here goes. Don't take this too hard. It's just that in a critique it's more useful to point out things you can improve than to point out things you did perfectly well. So just because I write a critique that's longer than your prologue doesn't mean I hate it. If your writing actually sucked, I wouldn't even bother.

Another occasional grammar mistake that you make is tense errors. Take a look at the sentence below that I lifted out of your prologue.

Kyo was a man who lives in the West Wing of the village in Atlus.

See the problem? "Lives" should be changed to "lived." You have that problem every once in a while. You have to make sure that all your verbs are in the same tense.

Now, onto the actual story.

Is Kyo a man or a boy? You call him a man, but his behavior strikes me as a boy's. It's hard to pin down exactly why, but the fact that he seems to need to travel with an elder relative and doesn't pay his own taxi fare seems to indicate that he's at least not an independent man.

As a general rule of thumb, don't use the first person in your narrative unless it's clear that the narrator is tangible. I'm talking about this sentence.

I should’ve mentioned that Kyo did have a rival.

Is this story supposed to simulate somebody talking to the reader? If so, make that clear right from the start. The style of the story from the beginning gives the impression of a factual account of the events rather than a narrative. You should decide which one it is, because a narrative gives the impression of partiality.

BreakABone mentioned that you need more description which is correct. I'm going to give a few examples of how you could be more descriptive.

At one point in your prologue, the announcer says, "Put on your armor" or something like that. You should then tell us that Kyo did actually put his armor on. Dialogue cannot substitute for actions in a story. There are similar situations throughout your work where you need to tell us what's going on instead of just having the characters talk and expect us to know what's going on. In the same vein, it's not enough to simply say that some power is "immense." Truthfully, that kind of description might have been okay at one point, but these days, there are so many things in literature that are immense, unimaginable, powerful, invincible etc. that the words simply lose their meaning. Instead of saying Kyo felt an immense power when touching the sword, try telling us about the effect that power had on him. Tell us that he gasped as he felt the power surging from the sword to his fingertips, down his arm and striking his heart so violently that he was afraid that he would faint. Okay, maybe that's more powerful than you intended, but you get the idea.

Another general rule: show instead of tell. Is Kyo proud? Don't just say he's proud. Have him stand up tall and walk with a bounce in his step. Does he miss his dad? Have him think wistfully about all the good times they had together.

And straight out of Strunk and White (which should be required reading for all writers): Never use a big word where a little one will do.

I'm referring specifically to this sentence.

Kyo took one look at his grandfather’s countenance.

Instead of "countenance," you could have just said "face." There are times when you should use "countenance," but it takes a lot of writing experience to figure out those times (and a lot of reading of good books if possible).

Finally, your problem with pronouns is you have to be more careful in telling us whom the pronoun refers to. We all make mistakes, but I want to call your attention to this sentence.

Kyo was puzzled when he did this, but it all became clear when an army of Morrocon soldiers were all standing and waiting on the country-side, ready for the signal.

The word "he" refers to Kyo, but you didn't intend it to. You intended it to refer to the Morrocan thief. Remember that a pronoun refers to the nearest noun.

I'm not going to talk about your plot because very little of it is revealed so far. I'll instead advise you to work on your writing style. In general, you rush too much and don't spend enough time telling us what's going on. As a result, we don't have a complete picture of what's going on. Some people do this deliberately, but that kind of thing only works if you really know what you're doing. Slow down. Kyo isn't going through the entire story sprinting, jumping up the stairs and racing in cars. He can notice more details than just what's relevant to the story.