Darling, don't take this the wrong way, but I have to ask: do you have anything recent? ._. It seems like you post primarily old stuff, and that's really not a good gauge for your current writing skill. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but usually, writing communities also function as places in which writers learn how to
improve and refine their work. It doesn't really help us to help
you if all we get is basically stuff from years ago that you acknowledge isn't your best work.
Moreover, I'd hate to say it, but the more fragments you post instead of full stories, the more I feel a little on the disappointed side. For example, your latest fragment was okay, but that's really the problem. As Bay said, it looks like a decent opener for a fantasy, but it stops just short of actually
being something. All we get is an introduction that could really go with
anything, and as a result, it's not possible to connect it to anyone's situation and feel impressed by how heavy and profound it is. It's like saying someone dies but stopping short of telling us who or how. So, the opening ends up feeling a little hollow because, well, there's just no story there.
Going backwards, let's talk about something that isn't a fragment: that last prologue. Now, I'm not sure why you're afraid of creating a new thread for what might just be a full-on story. Clearly, you're not as bad as the kids who create nearly unreadable prologues thanks to an incomprehension of what a paragraph or proper formatting in general are. You
could make this be a full story if you push yourself to pursue it, and as an aspiring author, one of the challenges you'll want to face is pushing yourself to finish
anything past a chapter in length.
In terms of content, this prologue brings up a few issues I mentioned the last time I reviewed your work. To start off, there's the dependent clause issue. Let's take a look at a sample:
A startled squeak came from the nighttime scavenger as he passed, one of the rattata scurrying off. The young man's pace slowing when he rounded a corner, a hand dropping to the cold steel at his waist.
To refresh your memory, what I said earlier about dependent clauses is that it's a good idea to avoid using them to splice in thoughts that are technically unrelated to the rest of the sentence. In many cases, this produces a
misplaced modifier, a phrase that describes something that isn't the closest term to it. In other words, look at the first sentence. The phrase "one of the rattata scurrying off" describes what produced the startled squeak and what the nighttime scavenger was. However, because the last pronoun before the comma is
he, the subject of the dependent clause becomes whatever "he" refers to. In even shorter words, it's a lot like saying a phrase like "the ball was caught by the dog red" instead of "the red ball was caught by the dog." The adjective suddenly applies to "dog" instead of "ball" because it just happens to be the closest thing there.
(Note: This is a very complicated explanation.
This offers a better guide with visual aids, and
this has links to more.)
For a better example, look at the second sentence. We have the character rounding a corner, and a hand grabs the cold steel at his waist. While we can assume that it's the character's own hand that's doing this, it could really be
anyone's, including a potential attacker. The lack of a sensible noun right before the comma (i.e., corner doesn't have hands) generates a vague mental image that's pretty much up to interpretation.
Moving right along, it feels like the focus in this piece is on how something is being said instead of what's being said. I know that's overly blunt, but I mean to say it sounds very poetic, but there's an instance here and there where it feels like you're using flowery language without really saying much at all. For example, in the first paragraph you have the sentence, "It seemed that they only thought they were proficient." However, to be proficient, you must be proficient
in something. This is because "proficient" means "to be skilled in a particular field." It's literally the exact same thing as saying you're an expert but never actually mentioning what you can do. This is, of course, ignoring the fact that you never specify
who is proficient, so we don't know who this sentence is talking about. As a result, it's more or less a nonsense sentence because it doesn't say anything to us.
Then, you have a number of sentences that are just fragments. Bay went over how you can turn fragments into full sentences, but I'd just like to continue on with that thought by pointing out these:
Offering a high pitched and wavering whistle as clear footsteps reached his ears, idly stroking the dainty dratini lying across his shoulders. Earning soft draconic coo in return for his gesture, briefly nuzzling his hand before raising her head.
I can tell you wanted to heighten drama and the poetic nature of the prose by conveying your ideas in fragments, but you stop short of communicating what you mean. We can assume that the man is offering the high-pitched (yes, it's hyphenated) whistle, but it could be a device he's using (given the mention of steel), the scavengers, his footsteps, the hallway itself, something he found… it's pretty vague. Meanwhile, the second fragment is clearly about Dratini, but it feels incomplete and awkward because there really isn't much of a reason why it's a fragment in the first place. I mean, if you added a subject, you'd get the same descriptive effect, and right now, it just feels like it's missing something.
To be a bit more helpful here, fragments are typically only used in prose when the author needs to create a sense of urgency, to highlight something extremely important, or to lend a choppy, jerky feel to the narrative. The reason why is because a fragment is an incomplete thought, so there must be a reason why it's not complete – either because it's the voice of the narrator or because the information contained in that fragment
has to be on its own. Here, there's really no reason.
…And this all is just the first paragraph, so I'll try to make this as quick as possible from here on out with a list-formatted bunch of notes.
1. The other three what? You don't mention any other people before this point, so the readers are left to assume that there's only Pokémon and the young man in the hallway up until that point. The other people just sort of appear out of nowhere, and you don't mention that they're actually people until you describe their clothing. (Even then, they could very well be Pokémorphs or something else for all we know.) While they might
have appeared out of nowhere, the main character's reaction seems to imply that he saw them as soon as he turned the corner, but you focus first on his reaction and
then on what elicited it.
2. "Come hell or high water" is a phrase that means that no matter what, you
will do something, not that no matter what, you
won't do it. Think of it like this: hell and high water are what are standing between you and your goals. If you're persistent enough in pursuing your goals, neither will matter to you. Hence, the idiom.
3.
"Pity. Because, as I said," Susannah began, "F.M. doesn't take 'no' for an answer. Someone might get hurt …" she added softly, her voice barely audible.
While you punctuate dialogue correctly at first (remembering to surround the tag with commas because it breaks up a complete sentence), the last portion isn't necessary. In fact, it's actually a fragment itself. The reason why is because you already have a dialogue tag, so you don't need another one. Additionally, the closing quotes (due to the presence of the first dialogue tag) signals the end of the sentence, so you end up with a phrase that really isn't attached to anything.
In simpler terms, just remember that only one dialogue tag can attach itself to each individual quote. You can't add more without splitting that quote up into different pieces – that is to say, without closing one part of the quote, sticking in a dialogue tag, and opening a new part. Or, in even simpler terms, doing something like this:
"Pity. Because as I said," Susannah began, "F.M. doesn't take 'no' for an answer." Her voice became barely audible as she added, "Someone might get hurt."
Note that each dialogue tag is associated with only one part of the quote. The original has "Susannah began" associated with
all of the quote, leaving nothing left over for the second tag.
4.
Testing the Tamer – Signaling her team to move.
A dash is not an ending mark of punctuation. In fact, it's actually the opposite: a signal that whatever comes after it
must be united with the rest of the sentence, if that makes sense.
Alternatively, think of it like a colon. You don't capitalize after one of those, either.
5. A fight scene is always a nice way to open a story because it shows the readers that they can look forward to a lot of action. And hey, I can't argue with a character who threatens the people whose tails he just kicked. You also ask the right questions and entice the reader to continue. We want to know who F.M. is, who this character is, what F.M. offered to him, and how he managed to tick off this many people, among other things.
However, I must say that the fragment problem is what really hinders this piece. There's a lot of fragments running around, and you have a lot of instances where you include thoughts that aren't really related to the rest of the sentence. Example for the latter?
Only to be slammed into the ground, a large wolf leaping from the roof above.
We're assuming that the wolf is what slammed him to the ground, but that phrase about it leaping from the roof above isn't even describing any noun in this sentence. As a result, it seems out-of-place and random, especially because the sentence reads that the character is being slammed into the ground
before the wolf comes into the picture.
Beyond that, it feels like a jumble, so the fight scene just doesn't flow all that well. You avoid subjects whenever possible, which makes it a little difficult to imagine who's throwing which punch. (It doesn't really help that we're not treated to the gender of each subordinate before a blow is delivered to them, so we don't even know that the grab that the character is twisting out of is coming from a man.
Also, it doesn't really help that a lot of your descriptions are vague, so it's hard to imagine what moves characters are actually using. For example:
He sidestepped, sliding back with their lunge. A fluid parry sending one sprawling behind him, only to flick his hand around an oncoming grab. He jerked another step back, a sharp twist earning a hiss of pain from the subordinate. Only to lash out in attack – His merciless kick to the back of the man's knee bringing him down to size. Gleaming steel flashing in the moonlight as he tore it from the sheath, sai cupping the man's throat. A thin red hair offering all the promise they needed.
Let's start off with the parry. A parry is simply a block. While it could refer to a fencing term, we don't know if the character is actually using any sort of weapon anyway. (There's the metal that he was handling a few paragraphs ago, but we don't know what it
is. I'll come back to that in a moment.) Also, a parry doesn't necessarily lead to anything that would result in someone being thrown. It is, as I've said, quite simply a
block. You can do one with your arm (by blocking a punch), your hand (by diverting a strike through pushing the arm aside or grabbing the limb and throwing the opponent), a weapon (by using the weapon to do the same thing as either your arm or your hand), or anything else you can think of. So, to say a character uses a fluid parry doesn't really say much of anything.
Then, there's the sharp twist. There's two ways to read that. The first is that the character twists the arm (which in itself is vague because it could result in a break
or just an Indian burn, depending on what kind of twist is being done and the strength of the character doing it). The second is that the character turns and throws the attacker.
Side note, but "bringing him down to size" is an idiom that means "to deliver a blow to one's egotism." It's better if you just said that the man dropped to his knees or to the ground. First, that allows a reader to picture the kind of pose he's taking. Second, it avoids using a cliché in your narration.
Finally, the thin, red hair. (Note the comma in that phrase as well.) What promise is it offering? That they'll die if they screw with him? That they'll die anyway because he's a loon? That they'll regret something to do with him? Again, while your mileage may vary when it comes to flowery prose, never
ever sacrifice meaning for it. If you insert anything into a story, it must say
something rather clearly at the same time. Otherwise, it doesn't lend anything to the story, so it ends up feeling superfluous.
All of this together just means that the fight scene was rather vague. It's important in action sequences like these to be as clear as possible when it comes to who's doing what and what they're doing because that moment is reliant on those actions. Your reader needs to be able to picture what's going on in order to feel engrossed in your story and to experience that moment when they feel as if they're right there, watching the action. If you start going vague, you're not producing a fast-paced flow. Rather, you're slowing the reader down as they try to figure out what's going on.
Overall, don't get me wrong. It would definitely work as a prologue because, as I've said, you ask the right questions and have the right ideas. After all, you're opening with a fight scene. Fight scenes are dynamic, which means they make the reader want to keep going. After all, if Exposition Central – that is, the beginning of a fic – starts off exciting, then that says a lot about what else they can expect from here on out.
However, you've really got to work on how you deliver your content. Avoid fragments unless you absolutely need them, be careful with your dependent clauses, and most importantly, don't be vague. If you have a flowery sentence that says absolutely nothing or comes off as a jumble of words, that's the worst thing you can do. It causes your prose to come off as pretentious, and it turns a reader off if they can't really get a grasp of what's going on.
Good luck with future work, however. I know that you want to learn, so I do have a sense of hope for what you can do. You just need to push yourself to work beyond the safety zone of incomplete thoughts, if that makes sense.
