Return to the Labyrinth(R)

Ok, I decided on trying to write stories here again. From now on to avoid any hard feelings if I think people are being rude I just won't answer you at all. There's a difference between giving advice and being rude. If your going to give advice you should do it nicely, like saying,"But your fic does sound nice though." at the end of your comment. But that's just my opinion.

Chapter 1

Jamie, was sitting in class listening to another boring lector her teacher was giving. She yawned and laid her head on her desk,"Ms. Samus! No sleeping in class!" The teacher said banging her fist on Jamie's desk startling the poor girl awake.

All the students bust out laughing at her. Jamie sighed. Sometimes she wished she had never been born in Tokyo. Sure they had great, cartoons and all. But at what price? Parents hated there children and school was always too tough. Thankfully the bell rang just then.

Jamie's teacher assigned them loads of homework that night. 'Oh well,' she sighed. It wasn't as if she had any friends to hang out with anyway. Being very short at 4" 5" she was easily picked on and bullied a lot in school. Just last week, some kids had locked her inside her locket. She banged on it for two hours before janitor had let her out.

Jamie's stomach growled very loudly as she walked home. She hadn't had any lunch that day either, as some kids had stolen her lunch money. And now here she was loaded with homework. "I don't know how much more of this I can take!" she screamed. Even her parents and older sister beat on her. She had scares and bruises all over her body.

But as Jamie lived in Japan, no one really cared what parents did to there children. She cried as she walked home. Unknown to her a white barn owl was sitting on a tree watching her. It was like it was staring at her cuts a bruises wondering how she got them. It started to rain on the way home. Jamie cursed her luck.

By the time she got home, Jamie was soking wet, from the rain. But there was no time to rest as soon as she got inside, her parents screamed at her to clean her room. She cursed her luck again as she ran upstairs and to her room. Her older sister, Angel tripped her up. She laughed as Jamie fell flat onto her face.

"Hey! That isn't funny!" Jamie screamed at her. Her mother heard her and thought she was bad mouthing her sister and came upstairs with a whip and whipped her until she was all bloodly. Jamie cried, as she went into her room, and sobbed. It had always been like this since she was born. Her parents loved and fused over Angel but hated her.

Sometimes Jamie felt like Cindarella in this house,'I bet she never got whipped though,' she thought. She got to work cleaning her room before her parents could whip her somemore. Just for that she didn't get any supper. Jamie was forced to stay up in her room. She sit at her desk and laid her head down on her desk, and sobbed,"I don't get it. Why!? Why don't my parents love me?" She sobbed.

Right outside her window sit the same white colored barn owl. It was perched on a tree next to her window. Jamie decided to watch a movie to make herself feel better. She got the movie,'Labyrinth' down from her self. She popped it into her Blu-Ray player. She sit though and watched the whole movie. And just when she was about to watch the special features, her sister knocked on her door,"What do you want?" Jamie called.

"Mother wants, you to clean the bathroom," Angel told her. Jamie growled at that. That was it! She couldn't take it anymore. She remembered the movie, at the beginning where Sarah had made a wish and the Goblin King Jareth had granted it. So she screamed just as a thunderstorm started, it was already dark out too,"I can't take it anymore! I wish, the Goblin King would take me away from here! Right now!"

Just then everything around Jamie froze. It was like time stopped. She looked out her window. It was like the rain drops were frozen in mid air. Everything then went dark. There was another flash of thunder. It lit up the room, as Jamie saw the white barn owl trying to get into her room. Just then a lot of strange little creatures started running about in her room. Jamie screamed in terror.

She looked back at her window as it felt open and the owl flew at her. She grabbed the nearest thing, getting ready to defend herself. Just then though the owl changed into a man,'It...it can't be!" Jamie grasped as she reconized the man before her as Jareth, the Goblin King, from the movie. Jareth grinned at Jamie's shocked face.

"I suppose you know who I am already, don't you Jamie?" Jareth grinned again. "Yea, but how do you know my name?" Jamie asked him. "Jamie, Jamie," Jareth sighed,"I know everything about you. I've watched you for a long time now. For five years, since you were 10. So, you wish to be taken away from here, huh?" Jamie looked down at the floor and sobbed,"Yes," she cried showing a few tears, that fell onto the floor.

Jareth laughed as he snapped his fingers and they both disappeared. They reappeared in the underworld, in front of a large, Labyrinth, which was the Labyrinth that surrounded, Jareth's huge castle, in the Goblin City. Jamie was still crying though. So, Jareth made a crystal ball appear and threw it to Jamie. She caught it,"Keep this, Jamie. And all your wishes will come true," he told her.

Jamie stopped crying at once and rubbed the tears from her face,"Thank you," she told him. "It, seems as if you wished yourself away Jamie. If you wish to free yourself, you must make it though my Labyrinth within 48 hours, otherwise you'll have to remain here with me," Jareth told her. Jamie kinda grinned at that,'That might not be so bad,' she thought. But before she could tell him that, Jareth was gone. "Guess it's the Labyrinth then," Jamie sighed. With a big sigh, she walked towards the Labyrinth to begin her long journey, not even caring if she made it there within 48 hours or not.

Okay. So first when I saw this I thought, "Labyrinth fanfiction? Great!"

But then I read the author's comments. You're going to ignore reviews if they don't sing praises for your story somewhere? This made me extremely dubious, and I felt pity should you ever find yourself putting this on Serebii. So I sighed and continued reading, hoping that the story was going to redeem its author's shifty views. Keep in mind I will be explaining my thoughts on the matters at hand, but they have not been injected with warmth and fuzziness on the way from my brain to your screen. Also keep in mind that I will not repeat the same thing over and over again if you make the same error in multiple places in the chapter. Let's dissect, shall we?

DISCLAIMER: My current mood is 'so-so'. This is so you can't blame me for being harsh on you because I'm in a bad mood, in the event that I say some irritated things during this review.

Jamie, was sitting in class listening to another boring lector her teacher was giving. She yawned and laid her head on her desk,"Ms. Samus! No sleeping in class!" The teacher said banging her fist on Jamie's desk startling the poor girl awake.

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First few words and we have a comma error. 'Jamie' is not a proper sentence, and therefore cannot have a comma after it. However, something like 'Jamie was sitting in class, listening to...' would be better.

*Lecture, not lector. Try writing this in a program other than Notepad or your favorite Internet browser so that you can check for all spelling or grammar mistakes.

There should be two presses of the 'Enter' key before someone speaks. I suffered from this on my first story too, and it's not one of the most pressed-upon concepts in the field of grammar, but it's still incorrect and needs to be dealt with.

Is her last name honestly Samus? O -o Is that an actual surname or did you just pick the name of a cool video game character and used it? Behind the Surname says it's not a name, but eh.

Also, we need to observe your speaking sentence-structure more. Imagine the quotes weren't there...

Is 'The teacher said banging her fist on Jamie's desk startling the poor girl awake' a full sentence, ignoring the tense and comma errors? Nope. And here's why it didn't work so well: quotes, in a sentence, change nothing. They're just there to mark what's speech and what isn't. That means that if I ignore the quotes and write the sentence correctly, the sentence should come out as:

Y'know, I'm going to have to agree with Giratina about the lack of research on Japan.

Jamie's teacher assigned them loads of homework that night.

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Well, a lot of homework means that the students can't participate in the mandatory school clubs. And I think I read somewhere that Japanese schools only assign an hour of homework, which is generally much less than American schools.

Just last week, some kids had locked her inside her locket. She banged on it for two hours before janitor had let her out.

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First of all, "locker" is the word you're looking for. Second of all, there aren't large lockers in Japanese high schools. Large enough for a pair of shoes, yes. Not large enough to stuff a person inside. Third of all, there really aren't janitors in the schools, since the students do the majority of the cleaning.

She hadn't had any lunch that day either, as some kids had stolen her lunch money.

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Japanese school lunches are paid for by the parents at the beginning of each month. There's no daily lunch money needed. Lunch is provided by the school, thanks to the parents' monthly payment and help from the government.

She had scares and bruises all over her body.

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I haven't really researched this, but a quick Google search brought up an article that said that child abuse is being reported more in Japan. Something would have been done if she had "bruises and scars all over her body".

If you're going to write about another country and its culture, do the research. Otherwise, it makes you seem sort of racist to have a character blame all her problems on Japan and its culture when you got the culture wrong. There's all sorts of research you can do on Japan on the Internet and in books. Use it, so that way you don't annoy potential readers who can really only see how you're not getting things right.

And yeah, Jamie's life of woe is a little over the top. I was rolling my eyes at the whole "I'm bullied and my family hates only me! And the homework is just too much! And I can't eat!"

As for the names, yes, I have a Japanese character with an English first name. But he does have a Japanese surname, and a pretty good explanation as to why he has the name he does have. Unless Jamie was born in Japan and her parents came from elsewhere, she would have at least a Japanese surname (since American names are beginning to leak into Japan).

...But your fic does sound nice, though.

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Seconded.

OOC: Yea, I did that on purpose. I knew that I was wrong, but that's the way I chose to write the story. It leads up to the main plot of the story which is really good.

I'm not terribly familiar with the original movie, but I will try my best to review this fiction. In fact, it doesn't seem like I'll need too great of a knowledge of the movie to produce a thorough review. However, before I begin, I would like to address your introduction.

Ok, I decided on trying to write stories here again. From now on to avoid any hard feelings if I think people are being rude I just won't answer you at all. There's a difference between giving advice and being rude. If your going to give advice you should do it nicely, like saying,"But your fic does sound nice though." at the end of your comment. But that's just my opinion.

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First of all, welcome back. I myself have recently become active on this site after nearly a year of absence. It does feel good to be back, does it not?

Formalities aside, I believe I should address the remainder of this introduction. I understand that you have received some rather thorough reviews in the past, but you must realize that the reviewers, for the most part, are trying to help you. Leaving a five page review for a two page chapter doesn't necessarily mean that they don't like it, it just means that there were plenty of errors. They can't pick and choose which errors to show you and which ones to hold back, since holding back any information does nothing to help you grow as a writer, and that is the ultimate goal of a reviewer. They want to see you improve on your narration, your characterization, your plot development. They want to see you improve on all of that, and more.

It may seem that some reviewers are a little rude in their reviews, but be assured that they generally don't mean to be. When a reviewer has spent an hour or so quoting proofreading errors, the tone of their review seems more irritable. It isn't something the reviewer does intentionally, it just happens.

Anyway, I've rabbled on long enough. On to the review!

For the sake of space and sanity, I'll quote whole paragraphs that contain errors, not just words or fragments. Words and/or punctuation marks that I bold are those that require revision. Underlined words are those that don't necessarily need to be changed, but are those that I will recommend a better alternate for.

Jamie, was sitting in class listening to another boring lector her teacher was giving. She yawned and laid her head on her desk,"Ms. Samus! No sleeping in class!" The teacher said, banging her fist on Jamie's desk (and) startling the poor girl awake.

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Not a terrible start, but there are some things that need fixing. First, a comma after "Jamie" is grammatically incorrect. Placing a comma there separates the subject from the verb, which completely warps the meaning of the sentence. The second bold word should be spelled "lecture", not "lector". I would suggest replacing the first underlined word with something less awkward, such as "conducting". However, it isn't necessary.

The comma after "desk" should be a period, and space should be added as well. I would also suggest making everything after "desk" a new paragraph, but I doubt it is grammatically incorrect the way you have it now. The next few bold items I placed in there are required, although you could substitute a comma in place of the "and" I inserted. The word "awake" is unnecessary and redundant.

All the students bust out laughing at her. Jamie sighed. Sometimes she wished she had never been born in Tokyo. Sure they had great, cartoons and all. But at what price? Parents hated there children and school was always too tough. Thankfully, the bell rang just then.

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The beginning of this paragraph was written well. I thought the tone you set here was fairly strong. Now, for the nitpicking.

For the first underlined word, I suggest using "not" instead of "never". It isn't something that needs to be changed, it just happens to be overused in this context. The comma after "great" needs to be removed; you separated the adjective from the noun that it is modifying. The period following should be a comma, since "but" is a coordinating conjunction and joins clauses together rather than separates them. I suggest using the word "cost" rather than "price". As with the use of "never", this tends to be overused. I underlined a complete sentence for two reasons. One, you don't follow up on the idea presented by supporting it in any following sentences. You just leave it to die, and state that the bell rings. Two, it's a hasty generalization. A hasty generalization is where you state that if something or someone belongs to a particular group, then it must possess a particular quality. Here, you essentially state that "if a parent is Japanese, then they must abuse their children". I'm positive that not all Japanese parents are like this. There are most likely as many loving Japanese parents as there are loving American parents.

My last nitpick with this paragraph are the words "just then". In all honesty, it only drags the paragraph on a little longer and presents information we already know, not to mention making it feel awkward.

Jamie's teacher assigned them loads of homework that night. 'Oh well,' she sighed. It wasn't as if she had any friends to hang out with anyway. Being very short at 4" 5" she was easily picked on and bullied a lot in school. Just last week, some kids had locked her inside her locket. She banged on it for two hours before a janitor had let her out.

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There weren't a lot of grammatical errors in this paragraph, which leads me to believe that you just needed to get into the rhythm of writing in the previous paragraphs. The only real nitpicks I have here is a content one. I am rather confused about the main character being 4'5" tall. To be considered a midget legally, you need to be something like 4'10" or shorter. For anyone not a midget, 4'5" is something like third or fourth grade height. Although you haven't given us an age on the character yet, I suspect she is more than eight or nine years old.

On the grammar side, "locket" should be "locker". I think there should also be a more gradual transition to the last sentence as well. You could describe her fear, the tightness of the locker, her claustrophobia, or anything else relevant. The more details you give us, the better we can see it in our mind. In that last sentence, you forgot to include an "a" before "janitor", and the "had" isn't necessary.

Jamie's stomach growled very loudly as she walked home. She hadn't had any lunch that day either, as some kids had stolen her lunch money. And now here she was loaded with homework. "I don't know how much more of this I can take!" she screamed. Even her parents and older sister beat on her. She had scares and bruises all over her body.

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This paragraph jumped around quite a bit, to tell you the truth. There wasn't a single idea carried through from the beginning to the end. The transition between ideas was also done poorly.

For errors, "either" isn't needed, since nothing that would constitute the use of "either" was used before it. The first sentence I underlined not only jumped out of nowhere, but wasn't quite complete. I believe there wasn't enough bawwing. The latter two sentences of the paragraph were the most out of place. It kind of went from "Jaimie walking home and screaming about how much her life sucks" to "her parents beat her". I think the is the bawwing I was talking about earlier in this paragraph. If you place the last two sentences before her scream, then I think it would be sufficient bawwing and better sentence structure.

But as Jamie lived in Japan, no one really cared what parents did to there children. She cried as she walked home. Unknown to her, a white barn owl was sitting on a tree watching her. It was like it was staring at her cuts and bruises, wondering how she got them. It started to rain on the way home. Jamie cursed her luck.

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Not bad again. A few minor nitpicks here as well. You used the wrong form of "there", should be "their". Again, you should be careful of including hasty generalizations in your fiction. It may offend your readers.

There should be a comma after the phrase "unknown to her". You could rewrite that in an active voice rather than passive voice, so it reads as "A white barn owl sat unseen in a tree and watched her walk by." Although not necessary, it adds to the consistency in your voice. The next error I saw was a typo, where "a" should have been "and". Following that is a missing comma after "bruises". The comma is required because that sentence is essentially two clauses, the main clause being "It was like it was staring at her cuts and bruises" and the subordinate clause being "Wondering how she got them." Since "wondering" is a gerund acting as the subject of the subordinate clause, there needs to be a comma.

By the time she got home, Jamie was soking wet, from the rain. But there was no time to rest. As soon as she got inside, her parents screamed at her to clean her room. She cursed her luck again as she ran upstairs and to her room. Her older sister, Angel tripped her up(?). She laughed as Jamie fell flat onto her face.

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Big improvement from your previous paragraphs. You should have "soaking" instead of "soking", but I imagine that this was a simple typo. There is a comma after "wet" that doesn't belong. You forgot a period after "rest", and should capitalize "as" as well. I wasn't sure what you meant by "Angel tripped her up". Perhaps you could elaborate further. Other than that, it was a well-written paragraph.

"Hey! That isn't funny!" Jamie screamed at her. Her mother heard her and thought she was bad mouthing her sister, so she came upstairs with a whip and whipped her until she was all bloodly. Jamie cried, as she went into her room, and sobbed. It had always been like this since she was born. Her parents loved and fused over Angel, but hated her.

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The first problem with this paragraph was the omitting of a comma and bad diction. The first bold part is my suggested correction for this error. The next error was a spelling error, where you added an extra "l" to "bloody". After that was an unnecessary comma after "cried" and the inclusion of the unneeded "and sobbed" following it. "Always" makes it a little awkward to read, and judging from the tone you've kept through the previous paragraphs, this sentence should be shorter anyway. Afterwards, you spelled "fussed" incorrectly and forgot to include a comma after "Angel". My response to the content: o.O

Sometimes Jamie felt like Cindarella in this house, 'I bet she never got whipped though,' she thought. She got to work cleaning her room before her parents could whip her some more. Just for that, she didn't get any supper. Jamie was forced to stay up in her room. She sit at her desk and laid her head down on her desk, and sobbed,"I don't get it. Why!? Why don't my parents love me?" She sobbed.

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"In this house" isn't needed. It states what we already know and interrupts the flow of the paragraph. Also, you should have a period instead of a comma before her thought. "Got to work" should instead be "began". "Got to work" isn't a strong phrase on its own to begin with. When you use it to modify a full sentence, it becomes even weaker. I think "some more" would be better as "again". It's another one of those phrases that are overused these days. There should be a comma after "that", since that particular sentence is used in the passive voice. "Sit" should be used as the past tense "sat" to keep the tenses consistent with each other. You don't need to state that she laid her head down on her desk, since you already told us that she was sitting at her desk. I wouldn't expect someone sitting at their desk to lay their head down on a heat vent or something of the like. >.< The last usage of "sobbed" isn't needed, since you already told us she sobbed before her outburst.

Right outside her window sit the same white-colored barn owl. It was perched on a tree next to her window. Jamie decided to watch a movie to make herself feel better. She got the movie,'Labyrinth' down from her self. She popped it into her Blu-Ray player. She sit though and watched the whole movie. And just when she was about to watch the special features, her sister knocked on her door, "What do you want?" Jamie called.

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There were several instances where you used the wrong tense of "sit". They should all be past-tense "sat" instead of the present-tense "sit" you used. I indicated every instance you did this in bold. The adjectives "white" and "colored" should be joined by a dash since they are equal adjectives describing the same noun. The part about it being perched on a tree next to her window can be omitted, and if not, it needs revising, since you basically say the exact same thing in the sentence before it. The word "movie" isn't necessary either. You can easily get away with saying "She got 'The Labyrinth' down from her shelf." Within that sentence, you spelled "shelf" wrong. The next sentence generates some confusion for me. You describe her parents as hating her, yet she has a blu-ray player? Blu-ray players aren't exactly cheap, and I doubt that parents like them would let her have one even if she bought it herself. Odds are they would take it from her. Aside from that, you made one more comma error after "door". It should be a period instead of a comma.

"Mother wants, you to clean the bathroom," Angel told her. Jamie growled at that. That was it! She couldn't take it anymore. She remembered the movie, at the beginning where Sarah had made a wish and the Goblin King Jareth had granted it. So she screamed just as a thunderstorm started, it was already dark out too,"I can't take it anymore! I wish, the Goblin King would take me away from here! Right now!"

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You had an unnecessary comma after "wants". These unnecessary commas are making me imagine the characters speaking as robots. XD The phrase "at that" should be omitted, as it's understood what she's growling at. It makes it seem more dramatic if you keep the sentences short in the climax of the chapter, anyway. Cookies on the exclamation point. Good use of punctuation can do half the work for you when you're trying to convey emotion in writing. I have a little nitpick with the Goblin King, however. If you're going to call him "the Goblin King Jareth", you should include a comma after "King", as Goblin King is his title. After the introduction of the character into the story, you need not refer to him by his full title and name, but either by "the Goblin King" or simply "Jareth". After this, I thought it was quite random that she happened to scream just as a thunderstorm culminated. Quite coincidental, as well. You don't need to remove that sentence by any means, but it does need some revision to work grammatically and for your plot. The only other error after that was an unnecessary comma after "wish".

Just then, everything around Jamie froze. It was like time stopped. She looked out her window. It was like the rain drops were frozen in mid air. Everything then went dark. There was another flash of thunder. It lit up the room, as Jamie saw the white barn owl trying to get into her room. Just then, a lot of strange, little creatures started running about in her room. Jamie screamed in terror.

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The first error was a missing comma after the first "then". The fifth sentence doesn't need the word "then" in it. In fact, having it say only "Everything went dark" will make it easier to control your readers emotions. The comma after "room" should be a period. The word "as" isn't grammatically correct when used in that context, and the sentence works fine without it. There are other words you can substitute if you don't want to begin the sentence with "Jamie", though. There were two more missing commas after that, which I showed in bold.

One thing I noticed in particular about this paragraph is your excessive use of "just then". When used at the right times, this phrase can have a powerful effect. However, in order to use it at the right times, you must also use it sparingly. Mix it up a bit by trying out different phrases that mean the same thing.

She looked back at her window as it felt open and the owl flew at her. She grabbed the nearest thing, getting ready to defend herself. Just then though the owl changed into a man, 'It...it can't be!" Jamie grasped as she reconized the man before her as Jareth, the Goblin King, from the movie. Jareth grinned at Jamie's shocked face.

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I believe you meant to use "fell" rather than "felt" in the first sentence. The word "getting" should be omitted. It's another one of those overused things. Instead of using "though", you should have a comma after "Just then". The comma I placed in bold should be a period instead. "Recognize" was spelled wrong. I like that you separated Jareth's real name from his nickname, or title, or whatever this time. You should make sure you do that more often.

"I suppose you know who I am already, don't you Jamie?" Jareth grinned again.

"Yea, but how do you know my name?" Jamie asked him.

"Jamie, Jamie," Jareth sighed, "I know everything about you. I've watched you for a long time now. For five years, since you were 10. So, you wish to be taken away from here, huh?"

Jamie looked down at the floor and sobbed, "Yes," she cried, showing a few tears, that fell onto the floor.

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First off, if multiple characters are speaking in a part of a story, each speaker gets his or her own paragraph. That paragraph extends from where the character began speaking to the end of their dialog. If a new character starts speaking, then you start a new paragraph.

Next, I hope the misspelling of "yeah" was an accident. If not, then note that what's good for texting isn't always good for writing. Nine times out of ten, it won't be. The rest of your errors were comma errors, which I have placed in bold above.

Jareth laughed as he snapped his fingers and they both disappeared. They reappeared in the underworld, in front of a large, Labyrinth, which was the Labyrinth that surrounded, Jareth's huge castle, in the Goblin City. Jamie was still crying though. So, Jareth made a crystal ball appear and threw it to Jamie. She caught it, "Keep this, Jamie. And all your wishes will come true," he told her.

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The comma after "large" is unneeded. There's also no need for the part "was the labyrinth that", since you already told us about the labyrinth in the first part of the sentence. You don't need a comma after "surrounded", nor after "castle" or "it" later in the sentence.

Jamie stopped crying at once and rubbed the tears from her face, "Thank you," she told him.

"It, seems as if you wished yourself away Jamie. If you wish to free yourself, you must make it though my Labyrinth within 48 hours, otherwise you'll have to remain here with me," Jareth told her.

Jamie kinda grinned at that, 'That might not be so bad,' she thought. But before she could tell him that, Jareth was gone. "Guess it's the Labyrinth then," Jamie sighed. With a big sigh, she walked towards the Labyrinth to begin her long journey, not even caring if she made it there within 48 hours or not.

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As I stated earlier, if a new character speaks, you start a new paragraph.

The comma after "face" should be a period. The comma after "It" in the following paragraph shouldn't be there. The comma after "that" in the third paragraph should be a period.



So there is the grammar portion of my review. Now, here comes some additional notes.

-You tend to be repetitive. You're definitely not alone, though. Many writers, myself included, have a bad habit of repeating certain words over and over throughout their writings. You just need to be a little more attentive when you're writing and look out for problem words.

-You have problems using commas correctly. Don't worry, though. Commas are one of those things that take time to learn to utilize correctly. There are countless guides online where you can learn how to correctly use commas. All it takes is a Google search!

-You allow too many proofreading errors to slip through. We're all excited about releasing a new fiction or chapter, but you shouldn't let that keep you from reading through your written product once or twice before posting it. You wouldn't believe how many errors you can fix even skimming through! It also helps if you type your fiction in a word processing program or a browser with a spell-check feature. By paying attention to the red squiggly lines underneath words, you can cut a majority of your errors away.

And finally, I'll rate different aspects of your fiction with a number out of ten. With these numbers, I'll supply the reason I rated it so.

Plot and Development: 5/10 - While your plot seems to be good, the pace at which you're accelerating it isn't. Slow down, gradually work your way to the climax and resolution, and work to paint each scene like a beautiful work of art.
Description: 4/10 - While there wasn't a lot, the description you did use was used fairly well. Try to show the reader everything you see, smell, taste, feel, and hear in each scene. You've done a decent job in some parts with sight, now try to incorporate the rest of the senses.
Characterization/Character Development: 2/10 - Your characterization was poor. Jamie spent a lot of the chapter bawwing over her life, and didn't develop at all. She was essentially an anti-sue. Her parents and sister were extremely two-dimensional, possessing only traits of a generic abusive family. Jareth wasn't described well enough for me to include him, so I don't know.
Grammar: 3/10 - The commas and improper tenses really hurt you here. A little more work on these and you should see a vast improvement in the quality of your writing.
Literary Devices: 7/10 - The foreshadow with the owl was done well, and you effectively used hasty generalization, although that may not be a good thing. What hurt you the most here was the lack of variety in your devices. You used hasty generalization twice, and foreshadowing at least twice. Although not necessarily incorrect, you don't want to give the future events away to your readers too early.
Proofreading: 2/10 - The middle of this fiction was the only place that looked proofread. Everything else swarmed with easily avoidable errors. I advise you to read future chapters at least twice after writing them and before posting them to pick out a majority of those errors.

...But your fic does sound nice, though.

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Thirded.

Konekodemon said:

OOC: Yea, I did that on purpose. I knew that I was wrong, but that's the way I chose to write the story. It leads up to the main plot of the story which is really good.

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How does 'the main plot of the story which is really good' justify a rather silly-looking lack of research? Is it so that if she gets magically transported to America where she can fit in perfectly? Is she going to be quizzed on the basics of Japanese schools and fail miserably?

Also, just a little note: try not to add in little things like '...which is really good' that really serve no point except remind the reader that your story is awesome. Actually, I've noticed this a lot in the one chapter you put up - you worded it as if you're trying to feel very strongly for the main characters, and as if you're expecting us to suddenly feel for her too. It seems like you're trying to force your opinion on the reader, which isn't good in any type of writing. They might feel angry or insulted at you trying to make them feel things they don't really believe... and personally, I don't think you need more people angry at you right now. You could have conveyed the same message with simply 'It leads up to the main plot of the story' without making you seem like you've got a swelled ego.

And also, POB: The whole 'going through the Labyrinth' plot and owl foreshadowing were ripped almost directly from the movie, with the only exception being that Jamie asked Jareth to whisk her away instead of the irritating sibling of the work. I just thought it ought to be mentioned.

Konekodemon said:

OOC: Yea, I did that on purpose. I knew that I was wrong, but that's the way I chose to write the story. It leads up to the main plot of the story which is really good.

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It really doesn't reflect well on your story or on you as an author if you don't do the research, or don't research just for the plot of the story, when the information is readily available.

Does Jamie really need to go through a horribly abusive childhood/school career only in Japan? I mean, if you're going to not use the basics of Japanese culture and the way their educational system works, and write as if Jamie is living in America and going to school there, why not just write about her living in the correct culture? Or is the fact that she's horrifically out of place in a Japan that isn't Japanese part of the plot?

It just bothers me that you make it seem as if Jamie's life is so horrible because she lives in Japan. POB brought it up in his review:

A hasty generalization is where you state that if something or someone belongs to a particular group, then it must possess a particular quality. Here, you essentially state that "if a parent is Japanese, then they must abuse their children". I'm positive that not all Japanese parents are like this. There are most likely as many loving Japanese parents as there are loving American parents.

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There are most likely abusive parents/families all over the world, in various cultures. School can be pretty difficult in all sorts of countries. If Jamie was born in another county, her life could still be difficult. But the way her thoughts are, it makes it seem like "I was born in Japan. My life sucks because I was born in Japan. If I was in any other culture/country, my life would be better." I could see her wishing to be in a different family, since there are good decent wonderful families in Japan.

Yeah, that's something that's not making me comfortable.

I'm hoping that you do have a good reason to write about an entire culture like this.

I don't care about Japanese culture, or any culture,at all. I'm just writting in a way that's fun for me to write. And I don't care if people hate it and I never get any reviews at all. I'll still write it the way I want to, even if it sucks and doesn't make any sense I'm writting the way that makes me happy.

Konekodemon, one thing you need to understand about the Internet is that whenever you post things here, other people are allowed to come onto your thread and read your story and tell you what they think about it. If you don't care about getting feedback on your story, then why on Earth did you post it in the first place? Just to increase your post count? To get mindless praise? Since you didn't do it for the most common reason, as you just said, then why?

Konekodemon said:

I don't care about Japanese culture, or any culture,at all. I'm just writting in a way that's fun for me to write. And I don't care if people hate it and I never get any reviews at all. I'll still write it the way I want to, even if it sucks and doesn't make any sense I'm writting the way that makes me happy.

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Although this bugs me for several reasons, the hasty generalizations in your fiction aren't the only things that troubled me. I'll make this post short and concise.

First, you seem to lack the understanding of what a review is. A review is more than just bubbly praise for a fiction. Reviews are constructive criticism aimed at helping the writer hone their skills. Reviewers don't just go into random fics and try to make the author look bad, we try to point out your mistakes so you can avoid them in the future. Trust me, if I wanted to make your writing look awful, my review would have been much, much longer.

A review is also more than a short paragraph saying "OMG I luv ur fic. I feel so bad 4 Jaimie and I think Jareth shuld marry her!!! ;)" Those aren't really reviews, since they don't address more than general content and don't suggest how you can avoid mistakes you have made through the passage.

The second thing I wish to address is your lack of proofreading. Whether or not you're writing in a way that makes you happy, you should always re-read what you have written before thinking about pressing that post button. If you type your chapters in a word processing program, or even a decent browser, the red squiggles will show you errors that proofreading should pick up.

Finally, your attitude towards reviewers is slightly unnerving. Imagine how I must feel, spending three hours sifting through proofreading errors to leave a quality review that was only ignored. I'll tell you, it doesn't feel very warm and bubbly. If you continue to ignore the advice reviewers try to give you and pretend that the "rude" replies don't exist, then you'll find that the number of people willing to read or comment on your fic will significantly diminish =\

TL;DR: Proofread what you type before posting it here, find a guide that explains what reviewing is and is not, and realize that posts longer than your chapter aren't necessarily rude.

Post Office Buddy said:

Imagine how I must feel, spending three hours sifting through proofreading errors to leave a quality review that was only ignored. I'll tell you, it doesn't feel very warm and bubbly. If you continue to ignore the advice reviewers try to give you and pretend that the "rude" replies don't exist, then you'll find that the number of people willing to read or comment on your fic will significantly diminish =\

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Or imagine how I feel where I took the time out of my extremely busy night, when I could have been working on my own stories, to do the research for you for your fic to help you improve. And all you can do is blow off everyone's reviews with a "I don't care!"

If you don't want reviews at all, then don't post. Like Giratina said, you post online, you're going to get people posting their opinions whether positive or negative. Posting here at PC, you're going to get constructive criticism, telling you how you can improve your story. That's just the way we work here.

Really, if you say "I'm just writting in a way that's fun for me to write. And I don't care if people hate it and I never get any reviews at all", then why are you posting? If you don't want reviews, then don't post. Because if you do post (especially a story where you post wrong things about an entire country and its people that do not make that country look good [which already had problems in American history being mocked] that could have easily changed with a quick Google search), then people are going to leave reviews. And those reviews might be positive "OMG RITE MOR JARETH X JAMIE OTP!!!!1" all the way to a multi-page review where your mistakes are pointed out and corrected.

I mean, I know other people that posted who didn't really care about reviews. But they still acted civil to the reviewers that they did get. There was no "I don't care!" responses.

I think I'm just going to close this thread. Nothing good can come out of it being open. I suggest that if you would like to post your story, find another place to do so (especially one that does not have a rule in favor of constructive criticism, which is what you received). This really has escalated far beyond the point of return.