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Dormant Chaos


Karino
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a group of red-colored Bloodhounds.

Stating "red Bloodhounds" instead of "red-coloured" would have sufficed. Perhaps "red coated" or "red fur" might have been better if you really wanted to add something after red.

Without hesitation, Haes drew a saber from his back, lifted his hands above his head, and thrust it into the belly of the thing.

This sentence feels a bit too long for an action scene. How about:

"Without hesitation, Haes drew a saber from his back. He lifted his hands above his head, and thrust it into the belly of the creature."

It fell into the snow, a pool of red surrounding it.

Wouldn't "a pool of blood" be a bit more appropriate?

In general, I would advice to keep an eye on how long some of these sentences go on for. Trying dividing them up a little be more.

But overall, that was decent.

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A couple of pointers to help you out:

1)

---Vasalion Village---

It is generally a bad idea to do this. Try giving a proper description of the setting; create a certain atmosphere.

2)

Doroon finally came into full conciousness, and shook his head to wake himself up.

This line feels really contradictory. He comes back to full conciousness, but then has to wake himself up? It might have been better to cut out the first part of the sentence, and just describe him fully waking up.

3) Try to avoid using too many adverbs and dialogue takes. For example:

"Yes," one Elf began haltingly, "you... human...?"

This did not sound very good in my opinion. It would have worked better to have the Elf perform some kind of action. Here is something that might help you:

4) Dialogue tag + adverb= NO, OUCH. I'm not a big fan of exotic dialogue tags in the first place. A few "murmured" or "muttered" or "sang" dialogue tags can ease the monotony of "said" and "asked," but when the author never uses "said" or "asked," he's always forcing me to pay attention to the dialogue tags, and sometimes giving me extreme trouble picturing how the characters would really get the information across. (I am looking directly at you, R. A. Salvatore). But at least I've learned to put up with them most of the time.

I have never yet learned to stop flinching when I encounter:

"Come on! They're just over the hill!" he yelled urgently.

"We can take them! Come on, Seris!" Hulinda shrieked meaningfully.

"I'm coming! Hold your horses!" Seris exclaimed crankily as she staggered after them.

Cut out the adverbs. Please. They're distracting; dialogue tags should be as invisible as possible, which is why "said" and "asked" are wonderful. They're lazy; they tell me that Seris is cranky instead of showing me, and in the case of something like "meaningfully" they don't even allow me to make up my own mind about whether Hulinda's observation is meaningful or just stupid. They're overexposing; this is another place where the author's tendency to skydive without a common sense parachute shows up. I've seen characters "exclaim" things "quietly," "hiss loudly" without sibilants (how do you hiss a shout without sibilants?), "spit dryly," "bark calmly." You want me laughing at the humor in your story, not you.

Taken from: http://limyaael.livejournal.com/202437.html

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Overall, it appears to be going alright. Good luck.

Edited by Shuuda
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