Great job, it flows even better then the last version and I didn't notice anything that you cut. Overall wonderful, it's still a touchingly sad story.
I don't know if it was in the last version but I really love this line- "the High Protector’s pure white wings took on the colour of blood, and his son’s dark eyes reflected nothing"
Critique, Part 1 of 2arkan2September 24 2007, 14:32:27 UTC
First off, very well done. You’ve tightened it up quite a bit, and I think it reads a whole lot smoother. I still think some of your transitions are rather jarring, but on the whole, it’s a big improvement. The very first paragraph shows how far you’ve come, you did an excellent job rewriting it. Again, well done.
All that said, nothing is perfect. While I think the overall structure of the story is in much better shape than it was in the previous draft, there are still some details I want to bring up. So here we go:
A long time ago(,) Nex was its identical twin; but now it was stunted and dark, as if the formerly beautiful landscape had been twisted in a great disaster.
It also sported a river mouth, one that joined the Great River further down, making a large ‘Y’ between the mountains.From the wording of the previous sentences, I’m not sure whether the “it” in this sentence refers to Nex or Lux. I can’t tell whether it follows the subject of the two or three preceding sentences which was Lux, or whether it refers to the very
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Critique, Part 2 of 2arkan2September 24 2007, 14:36:11 UTC
Had another Winged One been present, he or she would have fallen in love with the dark-haired youth immediately. Again, this strikes me as very Mary-Sueish. “Love at first sight” sort of thing. I guess what you mean is that they would’ve fallen in love with his singing voice, which is less melodramatic. But as it’s worded now … I don’t know.
He spotted a grassy plateau nearby and swooped down tried to land gracefully. Taken literally, this makes very little sense. I have a hard time explaining the problem, but I think it’s that you’ve got two verbs of the same form where you should only have one.
Collapsing onto the soft grass, the fifteen-year-old fell asleep to the sounds of grass whispering in the breeze and gurgling water.Okay, this is all a matter of opinion, but I think you sometimes go a little too far out of your way to find alternate descriptives for Addo. I think alternate descriptives are rather like synonyms for “said”: a little creativity goes a long way, more than that, and it just gets distracting. I think “the
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Comments 5
I don't know if it was in the last version but I really love this line- "the High Protector’s pure white wings took on the colour of blood, and his son’s dark eyes reflected nothing"
^_^
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It was, and I've always liked it ♥
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All that said, nothing is perfect. While I think the overall structure of the story is in much better shape than it was in the previous draft, there are still some details I want to bring up. So here we go:
A long time ago(,) Nex was its identical twin; but now it was stunted and dark, as if the formerly beautiful landscape had been twisted in a great disaster.
It also sported a river mouth, one that joined the Great River further down, making a large ‘Y’ between the mountains.From the wording of the previous sentences, I’m not sure whether the “it” in this sentence refers to Nex or Lux. I can’t tell whether it follows the subject of the two or three preceding sentences which was Lux, or whether it refers to the very ( ... )
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Again, this strikes me as very Mary-Sueish. “Love at first sight” sort of thing. I guess what you mean is that they would’ve fallen in love with his singing voice, which is less melodramatic. But as it’s worded now … I don’t know.
He spotted a grassy plateau nearby and swooped down tried to land gracefully.
Taken literally, this makes very little sense. I have a hard time explaining the problem, but I think it’s that you’ve got two verbs of the same form where you should only have one.
Collapsing onto the soft grass, the fifteen-year-old fell asleep to the sounds of grass whispering in the breeze and gurgling water.Okay, this is all a matter of opinion, but I think you sometimes go a little too far out of your way to find alternate descriptives for Addo. I think alternate descriptives are rather like synonyms for “said”: a little creativity goes a long way, more than that, and it just gets distracting. I think “the ( ... )
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