Two things are going to hinder you as a writer: demanding reviews that way (which goes against writer's etiquette and is just generally rude anyway -- not all of us have time to review, and a lot of us that don't get many reviews are a bit more patient) and saying that you'll only write a new chapter when someone reviews. I see the latter a lot on FFNet, and it's a little funny, I think. You're setting yourself up for an abandoned fanfiction because there's always a chance that someone will
not go ahead and review what you have to say, and really, you should be writing for the sake of getting your story across, rather than for the sake of fishing for reviews. I'm personally tempted to leave it at this because I'm just a bitter, vindictive person, but I figure I might as well go in and leave a review.
Also, what Hanako says is correct. If you're going to write a fanfiction on a message board, please don't format it. Right now, I really don't know why you center-formatted this, but it's a little difficult to get used to. Likewise,
tiny print means that I actually have to quote the post in order to read what you're trying to say. Font formatting is good for any other post, but just don't do it here.
That said, since grammar's already been covered, I'll read through this for the other elements (storyline, characterization, et cetera).
It was quiet for quite some time. Until a scream broke it; a flock of swellows swiftly flew into the sky with calls of terror and hopelessness.
Your description was all right (albeit leaning towards purple and a little odd with the personification of the clouds) until you hit this part. While I said I wouldn't do grammar, I'd like to say that this breaks the flow of the story a little. It's the "until a scream broke it" part. It's associated with the image in the first sentence (the atmosphere being quiet for some time) more than the latter sentence. In fact, the latter sentence should probably stand on its own. A semicolon really wouldn't do to join those two images together, as semicolons are mainly used to join together
very closely related statements. These statements are more along the lines of cause and effect, rather than two images that basically state the same thing.
That said, you have three options:
1. Have "Until a scream broke it" stand on its own. The problem with this is that it
still breaks the flow of the story in that a sentence fragment like this is meant to jar the reader's attention to focus on an important piece of information. Because this is at the very beginning of the story (and because you're describing the atmosphere), you may not want to create a choppy feel so soon.
2. Drop the period and the capital so that the sentence now reads, "It was quiet for quite some time until a scream broke it." The problem with
this, however, is that
now the sentence is too blended together. You
could pull off using this method, but it bears with it a sort of calming effect. Everything is smooth when you read it, rather than with a sort of dynamic. For a beginning paragraph, you actually want to have this sort of feel (smooth, leading the reader along -- unless, of course, you have a battle scene or a scene filled with a lot of action in general), but I get the feeling you've intended to have a bit of a punch to your writing here.
So, then, you
could try...
3. Drop the period and replace it with either the ellipsis ( ... ) or the dash ( -- ) so that the sentence becomes either:
"It was quiet for quite some time... until a scream broke it."
OR
"It was quiet for quite some time -- until a scream broke it."
The difference between the first method and the second method is just how it's delivered. The ellipsis in the first one implies that the speaker is trailing off a little until the second statement. This gives the latter a bit more bite in that the reader is led to see the first statement as trailing into a sleepy, peaceful tone before getting hit with the thing that disrupts the narration and forces the mood of the story in the opposite direction.
The second method just has the second statement be a parenthetical. That is, it would be, if spoken aloud, read with a softer tone.
You could do any of the above, and I encourage you to experiment with all of them to see which way you think it's best for it to have it be read. Try reading it aloud and pausing appropriately at the punctuation marks. That way, you can figure out which way is best for your story.
Pain struck at his face as the raven colored scyther repetitively striking with his scythes, scarlet eyes glowing devilishly.
A few things you need to watch out for in this statement.
1. Having pain
strike at his face and the scyther
strike at him sounds a bit repetitive. You may want to try another verb to avoid breaking the flow of your story.
2. You'll need a hyphen between "raven" and "colored" because you're using the phrase as one adjective.
3. Beware of misplaced modifiers. Basically, when you have a comma followed by a dependent clause (a clause that can't stand on its own a sentence), most of the time, the clause refers to the first noun before the comma. So, right now, you've conjured the image of a pair of scythes with red eyes. You'll want to rearrange your sentence so that the dependent clause follows scyther to avoid any confusion.
But even as the little girl cried and cried;
This be not the proper use of a semicolon. You'll want to drop it in favor of a comma. This would be a dependent clause (of four or more words) serving as an introduction to your sentence, and a comma is the mark that blends the two together. Semicolons are
only used between two
independent clauses (or, well, items in a series that have commas in them to avoid confusion, which this isn't either) that are closely related.
There for he wasn't allowed to.
I know it's a bit of a homophone, but the word you want here is "therefore," not the words "there" and "for." "Therefore" means "thus" or "as a result of" or generally "the thing after this word would logically come after the thing before this word."
Blood dripped from the little girl's father's cheeks and forehead to the grass, dulled out, blue eyes wide as if they were to pop out.
Mmm. While I realize that "dulled out" refers to his blue eyes, I feel as if it breaks the flow of the story. Because you're using commas to separate the actions of the parts of his body, I feel almost as if you've created a list because of the second comma, meaning at first, I read this as "dulled out" being another item in the list.
Not to mention you may want to just leave the image at "dull" and replace the comma with something that joins the dependent clause to the end of the sentence without it becoming a misplaced modifier. I suggest using "with his," but play with it to see what you come up with.
Lastly, I think you may want to add in "going" before "to" here. Leaving it at "to pop out" implies that they were
meant to do so, rather than that they were going to do so
very soon.
But none the less, they stood in place.
First off, "nonetheless" is the word you want here, not the phrase "none the less."
Second, who are "they"? You could be referring to the man and the scyther, although the last image you've mentioned referred to his eyes, which would be
really odd to imagine eyes
standing in place. (You could use "remained," however.)
The man shivered; wanting to cry for help,
Drop the semicolon and go for a comma here again.
that who ever commanded the scyther
I'm not sure what your penchant for using the individual words in place of the actual, full word is, but here, you want "whoever." It doesn't have the same meaning as the phrase "who ever," which is really a nonsensical statement (same thing with "none the less" and "there for").
So he stood there,
"So" would be an introduction word here, so you'll want a comma to separate it from the rest of the sentence.
taking the pain as best as her could -- wincing and gasping.
Hmm. This
could work with a dash, but dashes tend to offset parenthetical, as I've mentioned before. Here's a situation where you might be better off using a comma, as it implies that he's doing that
while taking the pain, rather than that the actions are just an afterthought.
The other reviewers already pointed out the bit about dialogue tags and when to (and not to) capitalize, so I'll leave it alone.
Light, grey eyes scanned the area as he examined the man.
First, this might do better as its own sentence, as you've just gone off on a new topic (what he's doing, as opposed to what he's saying).
Also, he can't do both. O_o He's either scanning the area
or examining the man, but not both at the same time (which is what the word "as" implies) unless he has more than one pair of eyes or can focus one eye on him while the other one rolls around like he has lazy eye.
You
could, however, try using time words, like "before" or "after." Either will work in this situation. It just depends on when you wanted him to look at the man.
The male was tall; lean and slender.
First off, drop the semicolon again. You could go with a comma to offset a list of traits, but here, I think I have a pair of better suggestions:
1. Drop "lean" and leave the sentence as is (lax the semicolon again).
2. Drop "slender" and move the "and" where the semicolon is.
The reason why is because "lean" and "slender" mean exactly the same thing. You'll want to go with one or the other to avoid a repetitive feel (or at least the feel of a Mother Goose rhyme), and it avoids having to deal with commas breaking up the flow of description.
He was quite the skinny type
You've said this already. Twice.
and had the appearance that he wasn't the strongest.
You'll want a noun to follow comparison words like "strongest" (or generally anything ending with -est) because you're comparing nouns. You
could rephrase the sentence and say, "did not appear to be strong" or just generally anything that uses the word "strong" instead.
As a note, yes, "had the appearance" seems a little off when I read it. It's just that it's a bit wordy for what you probably want to do. Yes, you're talking about appearances, so it really doesn't need to be said that you're still talking about appearances. Likewise, it just doesn't convey the same sense of uncertainty about his person as, for example, "didn't seem to be." If you wanted to lack that tone of uncertainty, then okay, maybe it's fine as is.
At this point, I'd like to say that I'm going to stop pointing out misuses of semicolons. You can Google guides to that mark of punctuation, but I recommend reading Wikipedia... or just not using it at all. It's a difficult mark to master, and nine times out of ten, young writers use it incorrectly.
heart breaking cry
Whenever you have a phrase that's meant to serve as one adjective, you'll most likely want to hyphenate it to show that it's one trait.
He said slightly angered;
Because you're describing the way he goes about doing an action (in this case, "said,") you'll want an adverb, the adjective of verbs. So, it should be "angrily," unless you want to stick a dependent clause in there to make it an adjective. (For example, you
could say "with a slightly angered tone," and it's kosher.)
silent witnesses in which
Drop the "in" in this case. "In which" is a phrase that would offset either:
A. That something is inside something else.
B. That the word after this phrase would be "case," and the phrase following it would be an independent clause. (While the phrase following "in which"
could be an independent clause, it doesn't quite stand on its own correctly without something following "of." That and "which" is supposed to refer back to "silent witnesses" either way.)
The soles of his shoes scrapped
I'm thinking you want "scraped" here. "Scrapped" means that he's making scraps out of his soles. It's logical, but I don't think you want that here.
It was an average day for Tsukasa -- the sun barely above the hills of the forest.
While this
could be a parenthetical statement, I think the part about the sun would be best as its own sentence, considering the fact that it refers to a single moment of his day, rather than his day in general.
He hadn't slept through the night, for he did most of his work at that time. When the towns and houses were peaceful. Sort of pleasant to hear the cries of mercy more audibly.
Mmm. This isn't really a situation where you would best use sentence fragments. Usually, sentence fragments are used when you want the reader to stop because you're either abruptly changing directions or because you've just said something that's
incredibly important and want the reader to know that it's incredibly important. Here, you want more of the softer flow I spoke about at the beginning of the review, so you'll need to drop the period and the capital at "when" so that the sentence now blends together fairly nicely like so:
"He hadn't slept through the night, for he did most of his work at that time when the towns and houses were peaceful."
See how it keeps the story flowing?
As for the second fragment, you'll probably want to use the phrase "it was" (and maybe add in "to him" after "sort of pleasant"). The character isn't speaking, so the less of a voice the narrator has, the better. Right now, you're implying that the
narrator enjoyed those cries, rather than Tsukasa.
He felt tense, but knew that he should rest; his back against the oak tree.
Hoo boy.
First off, the comma should not be after tense. This is not a compound sentence, evident by the fact that "knew that he should rest" is not a sentence on its own.
Secondly, semicolon problem again.
Third, I think you should probably leave off the part after the semicolon or at least make it its own sentence. Right now, you're implying that he knew he should rest with his back against the oak tree, rather than that he should rest in general.
For a moment, his eyes were closed and he seemed relaxed; shoulders lax.
And here
is a compound sentence.
If you're ever confused about when compound sentences occur, try this: write down a sentence with a conjunction in it. Then, cover up the conjunction and everything after it with your hand and read the first part aloud. After that, pause for a few moments and then cover up the conjunction and everything
before it and read the
second part aloud. If
both parts sound like their own sentences, then the entire thing is a compound sentence that needs a comma before the conjunction. If one of them sounds awkward as its own sentence or lacks a subject
or a predicate, then chances are, it's not a compound sentence.
That said, notice how "his eyes were closed" and "he seemed relaxed" sound as if you could capitalizes the H's, put periods after their last words, and have both be sentences? You've got a compound on your hands.
Also, you may want to replace the semicolon with the word "with" to avoid a semicolon error and to tie in the image of his shoulders being lax with the rest of the sentence.
That was, until he barely felt the silent vibration that rung into his coat pocket; making his silver eyes flutter open, head perked swiftly.
Mm. This would be better as two different sentences. First off, you'll want an abrupt feel to the first sentence because it's breaking the relaxed tone that you've made so far with Tsukasa lulling slightly. So, put a period where the semicolon is right now, and it should have that blunt feel to it.
The second sentence, meanwhile, should start somewhere after the semicolon, but to do it, you'll need to rephrase what you have right there. You could say "it made" instead of "making." Alternatively, you could take out "making" altogether and say the following:
"His silver eyes fluttered open, and his head perked swiftly."
Personally, I think a compound might allow this image to flow better than just putting in "it made" (because the phrase "it made" doesn't apply to the part about his head), but play with it and see what you come up with.
Either way, the sentence as it stands now is a bit too long to pack the same sort of punch you probably are looking for.
"Damn, what is it now?"
The invective would have more power if you put an exclamation point after it instead of a comma. Otherwise, it feels like he's addressing Damn.
The seventeen year old
Hyphenate "seventeen-year-old," as it's one noun.
long, slender fingers flipping it over.
Here's a case of what I've mentioned not too long ago. In this case, your sentence has become so long that your reader feels a little confused as to what's happening. Right now, you've implied that the device has long, slender fingers, rather than Tsukasa. What you'll want to do, then, is separate this part, preferably in a new sentence, as you have a new action (unrelated to the fact that he's taking out his mobile device) occurring here.
Tsukasa blinked as he nodded to himself,
This is actually not a dialogue tag, as there's nothing here that implies that he's speaking. So, you'll want to drop the comma for a period.
"Yes, I'm near. Yes." to who ever he was speaking to.
The phrase outside the quotation marks seems like it's trailing there for no reason. It's already implied that he's speaking to whoever's on the other end, so you can actually just drop the phrase altogether. If you
must have it, though, drop the period after "yes" and go for a comma (because you're associating the statement within the quotation marks to the dialogue tag occurring
after the closing quotation mark) and insert the phrase "he said" just before "to."
Really, though, you're probably better off just dropping the phrase altogether, as you've already got a dialogue tag in this paragraph. Unless he's started talking to Reap, it's unnecessary to have another one.
Eyes stern now on his odd pokemon,
This phrase is generally a little awkward. Try reading it aloud, and you might see what I mean.
That said, I'd suggest rephrasing it, possibly to "with his stern eyes" or generally using a phrase that
doesn't have the adjective following the noun.
hands running through his milky white hair.
...Okay, yeah, I'm not sure why you're making this a sentence fragment. There's really no need to emphasize what he's doing, so you'll want to rephrase this to be its own, full sentence (keeping the part about his eyes as an introductory dependent clause if you'd like).
"Goldenrod. 3636 Ill Wood drive. Right." He said and then with a shrug to The Reaper, he shut the phone off with a "beappp!".
I'd suggest dropping the exclamation point. The reason why is because periods and commas
always go
inside quotation marks, and it would be heavily awkward (and actually a little unnecessary) to double up on ending punctuation marks like that.
it seems time was on their hand luckily.
This sentence feels a bit awkward as it is, with the adverb dangling at the end. I'd suggest moving it to somewhere closer to the verb, possibly before the prepositional phrase.
Though,
Drop the comma here. You don't want to separate this word from the rest of the phrase, as it's interrupting an entire introductory clause.
It meant money; which meant life.
Comma instead of semicolon here.
A sigh escaped through his mouth; grey eyes solemnly surveying the busy city.
Wait, huh? They were
just in Cherrygrove. While I acknowledge the fact that in the game, one could travel through the entire region of Johto in less than a day, it seems a little weird that they were
just in a forest at the eastern edge of the region (assuming that they were in Cherrygrove the night before),
just received their orders to go to a completely different city, and suddenly, somehow wound up at the
western edge of the region.
In other words, at least explain that there's going to be a time lapse. Otherwise, this seems incredibly convenient, which is something you definitely do not want to have happen.
But lady luck
Capitalize Lady Luck. The reason why is because while it's the personification of a common noun, Lady Luck is accepted as being her own person. As in, it's an actual name.
must also be on his side; because the old,
Drop the semicolon but don't replace it. "Because" is really a word that needs no punctuation to tie it to a sentence.
"Ill Wood drive"
Capitalize Drive in this case because it's part of the name.
He could hear the faint sirens of the police; but knew they weren't quite so near enough.
Drop the semicolon but don't replace again. This is not a compound sentence at all, so it doesn't need any form of punctuation to tie "but" to the rest of the sentence.
with his acute senses,
I'm sorry, but red flags are going up for the classic Gary Stu. First off:
1. Unusually colored Pokemon for seemingly no apparent reason. Is there
any specific reason why you wanted a weird scyther in the first place, or are you just going for a cool factor? Because, really, green scyther can be just as scary as any other.
2. Odd eye and hair color. Normally, this wouldn't matter in Pokemon, but it's usually used to find Stus in general when it comes to original characters.
3. Apparently angsty past, although you've yet to elaborate on this other than the fact that he's been put in a situation where he has to kill in order to survive.
4. Storyline feeling a bit convenient for him (as explained above with the reader getting confused about time lapses).
5. Acute senses/generally traits that place him above the average human being. While it's possible to have a human that has acute senses, generally, you'll want to be aware of downsides to this or explain how or why he has these traits, rather than give them to him when the situation calls for it. The reason why is because of the fact, again, that it makes things sound incredibly convenient, where potential problems are solved fairly easily. Additionally, it gives you time to set up boundaries for your character to make him seem a bit more believable. For example, he's in a city. Isn't he bothered by any other noise that he hears, what with his acute senses?
The above, of course, doesn't necessarily define Tsukasa as a
definite Gary Stu, but it leads him down that path a little and are classic points that most people like to isolate when they're Stu hunting. Additionally, even if he
was, the story could possibly work with one as long as you didn't do anything over-the-top (like being the Chosen One to save the world). If, however, you're looking to
avoid a Gary Stu, try to put limitations on your character and give him situations where he'll need more than one or two traits to dig himself out. Alternatively, remember that your characters are generally human in personality and that even if they're not physically, all characters have weaknesses of one sort or the other. Take your character's basic personality and try to put yourself in his shoes and imagine what the world would be like without any of his abilities. Then, slowly add on to his list of abilities, keeping in mind that he needs to obtain them first. (i.e. Come up with a logical, non-broken way that he might've come across an oddly colored scyther or trained his senses until they became sharper, if that's how it happened.)
His hand reached into his coat pocket; solemnly pulling out something that seemed to blend into the darkness with it's black metal coat; a small "click" was heard as he fond his legs once more rushing him swiftly.
O_o
Comma instead of the first semicolon. The piece following that part is a dependent clause, so a semicolon can't introduce it.
Period instead of the second semicolon. Otherwise, this would be a run-on, as the last piece has nothing to do with the first sentence.
The Reaper not to far behind.
Was not. Or
followed not. This should not be a fragment, as there's really no reason why it should be. So, you need any verb that tells us that he's following Tsukasa.
Also, there's a difference between "to" and "too." "Too" indicates either quantity or a replacement for "also." You're looking for the former, as it's meant to indicate a quantity of distance. "To," meanwhile, refers to a place, person, thing, whatever that the action of the sentence refers to. It can also be the introduction to an infinitive. Both cases do not occur in this sentence.
And when he heard no sound, not even a shuffle near inside, and felt himself putting more wait onto the dark wooden door.
First off, reread this sentence aloud. Yeah, a little awkward, isn't it? Seems to be made entirely up of sentence fragments.
But we can fix it!
What you need to do first is look at the last clause, where he felt himself put more weight into the door. That's your independent clause, the heart of the sentence. Now, we need to figure out how to make it into an actual independent clause.
Well, it seems to be missing a subject, so rather than put "and" in there, try putting "he." Sounds more like a real sentence now, doesn't it?
Now, this part is optional, but you don't really put more weight into a door unless you're leaning on it. What he's doing is
knocking. So, you may want to say something about applying more
force or knocking a little
louder, rather than actually leaning into the door.
Also, you really need to get your homophones straight. Here, you mean "weight" instead of "wait." "Wait" is a verb, so you really can't put more of it on an object.
It was small,
What was?
chalky,
You may want to drop this word altogether. First off, you already say that his hair is white, so you really don't need to say it twice. Second, chalky implies that something has a dusty quality, so right now, you've just implied that Tsukasa has really bad dandruff.
and immaculate look.
People can look clean at any age, really.
I'm thinking you mean "innocent" here. "Immaculate" more refers to the term "spotless," rather than "without sin."
Tsukasa couldn't think of anything else to say.
This might actually do better as the start of a new paragraph, as you've just changed topics again.
"Oh, hello Nidorino."
There should be a comma after "hello" to indicate direct address -- as in, Angel is speaking directly to Nidorino.
"This man is no harm.
Because "no harm" is a phrase referring to a noun, you really can't use it as a trait describing someone. You
can however, do one of two things:
1. Replace "is" with "means" to indicate that he's not about to do anything that would inflict harm on her.
2. Replace "no harm" with "harmless" to indicate that he won't inflict harm
ever (and to use the phrase as an adjective).
Instead
Comma after "instead." It's actually an introductory phrase.
she awaited for him to apply what he was hear for.
*flinch* Have you been using the thesaurus a lot? If so, then try not to. A lot of the times, the thesaurus might give you a list of words that
could but
not quite be used as a synonym. As in, they might mean the same thing
if the word you were looking for was used in a different sense. This is the same way (as is the word "immaculate"). Here, you mean "state," rather than "apply." Since she doesn't know what's going to happen (or I'm assuming she doesn't), she's not waiting for him to take the action that he came there to perform (which is what "apply" implies). Instead, she's waiting for him to
tell her what he wants, which is a completely different sense.
Also, again, you're off with homophones. Hear is a sense; you
hear sounds. Here, however, is the word you want because it refers to a place. He's
here for something.
"I'm sorry."
Begin a new paragraph after this point because you've begun a new topic -- what he's doing and Angel's reaction.
"What.. What are you doing?"
You
really want to begin a new paragraph after this point. If you leave it as is, you're implying that it's Tsukasa who says this, rather than Angel, because Tsukasa is the one who takes the action right after this quote is uttered.
Overall, it was okay. Decent, really. The description was okay, and it had a decent amount of action and drama. However, what killed it (other than the red flags of Gary Stuism going up, as I've explained already) was the delivery, and unfortunately, the delivery is half the battle.
What you really need to do is be careful about what you write. Try not to use marks of punctuation or words if you're not absolutely, 100% sure you know how to use them. Otherwise, if you use them incorrectly, then you could alter the meaning of a passage or lose the tone that you worked so hard to create.
Also, don't rely on sentence fragments. Use whole sentences unless you're going for emphasis, and certainly don't do it in every paragraph (or, for that matter, every sentence). This also kills the tone that you're working hard to create. When in doubt, read your sentence aloud to see where you've made a mistake or what parts of your story sound odd to you.
As for the storyline itself, while you're taking your time with explanations, you also seem to be rushing things regarding time. For example, the entire thing about skipping from Cherrygrove to Goldenrod and from the edge of Goldenrod to the house he was looking for just made things a bit more convenient for your character, even though a lot of interesting scenes could be just getting from Point A to Point B. Right now, I have the image of your character running at superhuman speeds, which is probably not an image you want to create. Take your time and space the events in your story out in a logical manner or at least explain time lapses to the reader.
Lastly, I'm waiting for a bit more characterization out of Tsukasa. You're obviously having the story focus on him, yet he only seems
slightly hesitant about killing a girl -- one that's younger than him, at that. I'm assuming you'll show his full reaction later on or at least explain his lack of reaction as the story goes on.
Simply put, it was a mediocre read with potential, but there's a lot you can improve on.