Sparkatale

Please remember, these are just my opinions and suggestions, I will apoligise now if I sound harsh.

'My attention is drawn to the liquid swirling TV Screen. I am overcome with the urge to touch it. I reach forward to touch it. My hand doesn't meet solid glass as I predict. What the, my hand feels like I am covering it in oil, and it goes far past the distance it should have stopped."

'My attention was focused on the swirling telivision, the flowing was mesmerising. Overcome with the urge to see if the flowing felt as smooth as it looked, I hesitantly reached forward, my fingers spread. It was to my everlasting shock when my hand reached through the screen and into the oil-like feel, I began to panic when half of my arm became submurged.'

'I try to pull my hand out but it clings to me slowly pulling me in like quicksand. The slippery sensation slinks up my arm. A chill runs down my spine at the wrongness of it. Before long it covers me and I find myself no longer in the library.'
 

'I struggled now, desprate to get away from the telivision. But the liquid clings to my arm pulling me in deeper, it has engolphed my whole arm now. My blood turns cold, this felt wrong. I try to scream, but before a sound could slip past my open lips the liquid covers me, drawing into it's black nothingness.'


Would you like me to continue?

I find reading your versons of my story fun to read, but I will not be changing it. Your words for some reason don't fit my character as I see her in my mind. Somthing about them is to strong at this point of my story I see her as smart but weak.

Fair enough. ^.^ As I mentioned before, I am just giving my opinions on how to make your story flow a little better, it's up to you to take or leave it and me to smile, shrug and say "It is your story."

I'm glad you can still take what you will from my suggestions, that does make me happier. And also because I like your story I shall keep reading it =D

Ack I just realised how arrogent that sounded, but I assure you I am not. I know I am a far from perfect writer myself. ^.^; My editor yells at me all the time to fix my tenses and such so please don't misunderstand me as others have done. m(_ _)m

Thanking you and looking forward to more~

You are being overly critical with yourself you must stop that!

Thank you I appreciate it and I will keep that in mind =)

Oh, I forgot to mention... It is a good intro to what seems to be the bigginings of an interesting story. I am more then happy to continue if you wish.

Sorry for confusing you but the preface Is the real start of the story.

Because It wasn't capturing the atention it needed and I didn't know how to change it. I made this intro to hopefuly captrue readers and warn of copycats. The 'T.V. is actuly a preveiw of chapter two.

Oh feel free to keep puting in you sugestions, I  can not promiseto use them but they could give me Ideas.

I think your story does seem interesting, and I’m looking forward to seeing what is going to happen. However, there are a few things so far that have bothered me.

 ‘Annie is my best friend and she is as beautiful as I am plain. Annie has rich curly chocolate hair. My hair is a mousy brown. Her eyes are a warm honey. Mine are your average brown. We both have good skin tones. Ann is average height with Va Va Voom curves. I am a freakishly tall stick figure. God that sounds bad, but there is a difference between pretty and beautiful. ‘

This reads too much like a list. I found this a problem, in some of your other descriptions as well, but this moment was particularly jarring. Try and incorporate their descriptions into their actions, or at least blend some of the sentences together. I’m not that great at descriptions myself so I probably can’t talk, but still, it’s a good idea because it makes the story flow more smoothly. It’s funny though, your main characters sounds exactly like me lol (except my eyes are green :P). Especially the “freakishly tall” part XD. Also, this line ‘She is shamelessly flirting like the dumb bimbo that she is.’ TBH I think it’s a bit tacky, and judgmental on the heroine’s part. It doesn’t make her (the heroine) very likeable.

I know this isn’t in this chapter, but the note in the intro ‘she starts off as a crybaby but this story is about her growth’ I feel isn’t really necessary, this is something you should let the readers see for themselves ^^.

I will consider your thoughts about listing in the details. I have a hard time with describing the physical descriptions of the main character. I can't promise I will change it but I try rewriting it a few ways and see what works best for me. As for her coming off a little mean, I kind of want that for my story. I don't want my character to be to perfect, I want her to be jealous, angry, manipulative, and judgmental from time to time. Not on an extreme level but enough for the reader to see she is human  with flaws, making human mistakes.

Haha I see. I like characters to have flaws, don't get me wrong, but maybe it's just I've read too many stories where a character has been all judgemental towards another character but then they go and do the exact same thing O.o But if that's what you were intending, then I've got no problem with it :P

I enjoyed this preface, there is only one part I think would sound better written a different way:

'My foot hits something tripping me. For a few seconds I try to catch my balance. I realize instantly that I made a mistake as my ankle twists and gives way beneath me. Lightning sharp pain shoots up my leg.'

Something like... 'My foot catches and for a few heartstopping moments I try to regain my balance. Lightning sharp pain shoots up my leg forcing a cry from my lips as my ankle twists painfully.'

 

Ooo I like the

'My foot catches and for a few heartstopping moments I try to regain my balance.' part I think i will make that change.

Alright, I finished this chapter and although good I find your first sentance unbelieveable.

I know I for one when waking up from a nightmare I am sitting bolt upright on the bed, my heart hammering, scared from the dream and startled from the noise of the alarm clock.

Do you think her waking and calmly rolling over to turn off the clock logical? Even if she is not sitting bot upright, don't you think she would have atleast jumped?

Again this is just my opinion m(_ _)m

 

I'll think about it but, for me my loud alarm clock makes every thing fade into the back ground, when I wake up all I want to do is shut it off. Should I have her wake from the dream first and have the alarm clock go of after she is already awake?

That might be good, if you are saying she is a weak girl to beginwith have her wake up first, then she can jump at the alarm when it goes of or something?

Yes this could be fun. I work on those changes later.

Okay, here's a little run over of the first two little intro chapters.

I noticed in the summary you put 'savige' instead of 'savage.' Just pointing it out. ^^

"I am overcome with the urge to touch it. I reach forward to touch it." It feels like the word touch was repeated here and it made the sentence feel awkward. It felt like it was too soon to use the word again. I'd suggest wording it more along the lines of "I am overcome with the urge to touch it. I reach forward, intending to feel just what's there." Or something like that.

For the preface I can't say much, but I'd suggest rewording the last paragraph. The way you wrote 'just my luck' just felt a little choppy and off. Nothing wrong with it, I'd just recommend some rewording. ^^

Off to read the actual chapters now.

Oh, the dreaded alarm clock opening. It's perfectly relatable scenario yet I've found it's rather cliche, and in almost every teen fiction story you come across on the internet. I might suggest changing this, but changing opening are hard, so really it's alright where it is.

The transition from her wondering about what her Gram wants to discuss with her to directly floundering over a hot guy feels weird, and even though there's the page break I would suggest a little bridge between the two, like you know, her riding the bus and suffering through the day all summed up in a paragraph or so. Also, how would she know he has a sexy six pack? I'm sorry, but this just kinda irks me. I can tell he's going to be the main protagonist and all, and i get she's fawning over him, but he was described as basically a Gary-Stu. I'd suggest giving him flaws, like you know, he's short, his 'curly red hair' is too curly, or his nose has been broken so many times from football it's crooked. Little things like that. Give him more of a personality.

"The she-devil ‘Brittney worship me Carson’ tries to cling to Quinn like a leach." *leech. And I had to read over this line a few times to make sense of it. Also, when the MC calls Brittney a bimbo, I get it's from her perspective and all, but the way she worded it just sounded harsh. I'm also sick of the cliche where the girl who has the MC's crush is described as a bimbo.

Atleast Dakota doesn't seem like a mary-sue. You described her and gave her accurate flaws (physically.) No problem with that.

"Am I really so forgettable." There should be a question mark instead of a period there, but I also can't get over how unlikely this really is. No matter how invisible the student, they will always be in the yearbook- there's a list of students! Unless someone decided not to put Dakota in the yearbook she would have been there, but, from what you shadowed on, we are supposed to believe it's because nobody knows she exists besides Ann.

The whole exchange at the end confused me. I'd suggest starting a new paragraph every time there's a new speaker and making it more clear who's talking.

Overall, I really liked the direction the intro and preface were taking, but it feels like this chapter just threw me backwards. I get it, it's a first chapter and I know what they're meant to do, and it isn't bad by any means, but there's several things that could be fixed to make it better. There's a lot of grammar, prose, spacing and punctuation errors that I, as a grammar nazi, struggled to look past, but when I review I don't like to gripe about errors because what's so useful about that? I'd just suggest lots of proofreading to fix that.

I hope this really didn't sound too harsh- I don't dislike your story and I don't think it's bad or poor quality at all. I would suggest editing though, but what I saw here won't keep me from reading on, as I like the premise and the first 2 little blurbs were promising.

LOL Quinn will only apear in the first two chapters of this book. At the hall of mirrors where she finds herself into the other world he whent through a diferent mirror.

I wan't him to apear flawless in her eyes at first because she dosnt realy know Quinn she just watches him.

This book is about Kota's growth.

I plan the second book of this series to me of the same time span in his point of veiw. With this reader will learn about the true Quinn.

In my third book I will begin mixing their storys and begin their romance.

"Three mocha-lattes and two banana splits later, and I am still in the dumps."
 - " Even after three mocha lattes and two banana splits I'm still in the dumps."

I'm not going to nag about the whole "transformation over the summer" cliche because I think about everybody goes through one, and you just have the characters talk about it then immediatley skip to them driving off. I feel like there should have at least been something on them picking out new clothes for Dakota.

"Teehee!" A loud giggle catches my attention. I would suggest cutting out the teehee and just leaving it as "A loud giggle catches my attention." It seems kind of goofy like this, if you get what I'm saying?

When Quinn is writing the symbols and chanting I find it weird Kota isn't questioning if he's doing a satanic ritual or something. If i had been in her shoes that most likely would have been the first thought running through my head, or that it was some kind of cult. Her curiosity certainly does get the better of her in this case.

I will admit, I skipped over the part that was in the intro. Read it and reviewed already. I'm not going to suggest cutting the blurb from either chapter because it stands fine as is.

Nice descriptions of the world on the other side of the mirror, and the paragraph about the foods she was craving was perfectly relatable to about every person in the entire world, so good job there. The cliffhanger at the end there was good, but I've noticed all 3 of the chapters I've read so far end with something along the lines of "why me." They aren't always saying those exact words, but it can be based back to that. So I'd suggest tweaking and rewording just so it doesn't get repetitive.

Overall another good chapter, but the same grammar, spelling, spacing and punctuation errors as last time rise again. Nothing really worth nagging over because fixing errors doesn't help the story quality get better, just the grammar quality- I promise you I won't nag on it much, just some good proofreading will fix it.

Actually, I still don't have that much to say since it's still just the intro. I just noticed a typo in your first sentence which read "Dakota follows Quinn into another world. A savage world very differnt from ours." I believe it should have been "different" instead. So far so good. This story has taken my attention.

So far, there isn’t very much story to comment on, but I like what I’ve seen so far.

Editing:

• I think you mean lush jungle vegetation, not plush
• Lightning need not be capitalised, I think

BTW, if you’d rather I left your language alone, let me know, lest I annoy you to death with my nitpickiness on typos etc. :p

Dakota sounds like a very excitable and generally emo person. I understand how she could have a crush on Quinn based solely on appearance, the way you describe him (very hot!), but at the moment he doesn’t seem to have a very attractive personality. You have the high school setting down pat, anyway – perhaps from personal experience? It’s good to write about what we know, but writing can be about imagining new and never seen before settings too.

Editing:

• Today’s a big day, the king’s table (missing apostrophes)
• Spelling: leech not leach, principal not principle, where the heroine meets
• The “ after love potions is not necessary, it isn’t part of the dialogue

Ah, this is the chapter where we get the intro and prologue from. Actually, I think it’d have been nice if you’d repeated those two passages here. There’s an interesting Alice in Wonderland feel to this chapter, if Alice had ‘tude, that is. Some people don’t like chapters that end on a cliffhanger, but I’m ok with it – the natural thing to do now would be to read on to find out what happens next!

Generally there are a lot of punctuation marks missing. It’s not a big deal in that it doesn’t make the meaning less clear, but it does show that you’re serious and passionate about your writing if you take the time to edit your work before putting it up.

Editing:

• but it is now over
• call gran’s number
• Their clothes have an almost medieval look or Their clothes look almost medieval (no ‘a’)
• I believe it’s cobblestones (one word)

Well the story just keeps moving really fast! The Alice in Wonderland vibe continues, and now there’s Willy Wonka note as well with the description of the fantastic fruits.

One thing I found a little out of place is how the slaves seem to be taking things so calmly – no panic or protest or even despair. If the guards were portrayed as being sadistic beasts who savagely punish any would-be escapees, that would be understandable, but they just sound like bored office workers. It’s just, ‘Here we are, we’re slaves, ho hum. Oh, gather our own food? Sure. No point trying to run away while doing that, right? Cause we’re slaves.’ I mean, I understand that Dakota is playing it safe for now, but what about the others, who presumably know the land better? Are they all that helpless? A little more tension and grittiness would be quite in order here, IMHO.

Editing:

• where did you think you’d end up
• throwing me off balance
• the size of a volleyball

I didn’t list some other things, especially punctuation, which BTW can make a difference, eg this sentence: Like I need to be told that I'm not stupid! (one continuous sentence) which is rather different in meaning to Like I need to be told that. I'm not stupid! (two sentences).

You have to keep in mind the while she just joined the others ave been traveling for some time.

Right, so at least now we’ve been told the consequences of trying to escape. Dakota shows that she has guts along with her ‘tude. She’s also able to plan forward now that she’s settled down. Funny how she has accepted so quickly that she’s in another world, but that just goes to show how adaptable she is, I guess.

The last bit in italics was very mysterious and no doubt connected to the story somehow, but I can’t figure it out right now. I don’t recall this ‘Eric’ being introduced anywhere... Who was it that was talking about needing to put effort into understanding a story? :P

Editing:

• fed once a day
• Still too obvious. How else...
• They were being controlled too

The action just doesn’t let up! :D I like how you’re full of surprises. At this point, I’d say that I’m enjoying the unpredictable plot of your story, even if I may sound a little demanding in my comments.

Dakota remains true to her character – I LOLed at how the first thing she noticed about the boy who saved her was that he had ‘average looks’. Her delayed reaction (the bawling) is also accurate – the shock of a traumatic experience usually doesn’t hit straight away.

Editing:

• A burst of magic (how does she know it’s magic, incidentally? a burst of white light, maybe?)
• he is over the six foot mark
• ... on their prey to lure...

Was Eirnin (I like that name, BTW) one of the slaves? If he was, then referring to my remarks for chapter 3, I would have expected him to be one of the ones trying to escape or revolt. Right, so Eric is the boy in the dream sequence – yay, mystery solved. It’s good that you didn’t wait too long to reveal that fact – it’s hard work to have to hold random things in your memory while reading.

I’m surprised that Dakota turns out to be good at camping (making the fire etc) – I thought she was the typical city teenager who’d freak out at a broken nail and faint if a bug so much as looked at her.

Well, another cliffhanger ending... :) I look forward to more unexpectedness from you.

Editing:

• become used to this miserable means
• I’m injured I deserve rest, but Eric. This sentence feels incomplete somehow.
• claiming I can help more
• the supplies they stole had enough supplies for three : I suggest ‘the supplies they stole were enough for three’
• Who did you follow here?

As far as Eirnin I will broach this topic at an appropriate time in a later chapter

Okay I am thinking you are flipping between past and present tense.  Your on the bus thinking about the past and what grams said okay that works.  Then with the six pack and Quinn's description I think you could be bouncing back and forth.  Honestly this is something I am really careful with because I have been called out on it and had to edit a 40,000 + page novel because I missed my points of view up. Publishers, instructors, readers, and other writers notice so just a heads up.

Real nice story so far very imaginative.

I like this so far. It is moving a little fast, it would be nice to have some more details about the places she has been. 

Like, does the world she is in now look like ours. Is it more like the world of Lord of the Rings (I couldn't think of a better way to explain it). What kind of technology/tools are available? If they have cages, they have to have some level of skills. Or is it just a very dark, different world. 

Also, just a note about a previous chapter. You say the mirrors have images in them. Wouldn't that technically make them windows, not mirrors? Since mirrors are reflective. 

Also, you have introduced a lot of characters. (Well, a fair amount.) 

But they seem to disappear as soon as they appear. Her friends and family from the real world. Quinn and the random little girl. The girl she met whose name I can't spell without looking at it that was a slave. 

This is fine, but it does seem like it will make developing them later on harder. So, if the characters are important it might be good to go back over some of the things about them. Even if it is just her recollecting things about them.

Because, as an example, all I can really recall about Quinn is that she likes him and he sounds kind of like the stereo-typical, good looking popular guy at school. But, that doesn't explain why she likes him or who he is. 

I like the names for things and people. They sound very original and unique, which I think helps to show just how different this world is from ours. 

There are some slight grammar issues, but they seem like they would be noticeable if you read through it again. 

Although I am not done I am enjoying this read. The character are intriguing as well as the plot. I wonder what happened to Quinn.

You can find out by reading Quinn's Duty. Or you will find out after I get my next chapter out. I'm working on it now!

I really like the descriptions in the prologue. It is short and does not give too much away about the story. In a sense it kind of reminds me a bit of Twilight's prologue (I do not mean that in a bad way). I just meant that it was in the plot style of Twilight. Like we could see the future. As there is not much to the prologue I can't make any assumptions yet, but I will read more so I can say something about the characters and the plot and the setting.

I'm happy to hear that you like my prorogue. I also don't take offense to the twilight comparison. The Twilight book are not particularly bad. They are by no means my favorite books, and they got more of a hype than I think was really deserved,but you cant deny that the books are good and her ideas where her own. 

I really like your description of Quinn and how Dakota feels about him because I think it is super realistic. Most teenage girls do talk and think like this. The only thing I would recommend is perhaps showing more than telling.

I really like how you go straight into the plot. I am curious as to what exactly are their race. Are they warlocks? This chapter sort of gave me a Mortal Instruments vibe. If you haven't read the books I do recommend the prequel series to it.

In my mind they are all human just some have magical ability, I'll probably call them sorcerers. There will be a few races that have traveled to this world with the mirrors that aren't human but they will be a minority. I will introduces them later in the book. I haven't read Mortal Instruments but I'll try looking it up when I get the chance.

You used pretty twice in the beginning. It just doesn't sound as nice, but I suppose that is how most teenagers think.

I really think you did a good job with emotions in this chapter. We could see that she was frightened. I find her a bit reckless more than brave.

I want to show growth in her character she will start of a coward than she will gather courage and confidence as the story progresses.

I like the fact that you use creatures that are not as common like werewolves and vampires. It makes the story unique.

I was inspired to make a Ylee after reading a manga called Qwan. In it there is a tiger with the head of a man that crys like a baby to lure victims. Qwan the main character explains that demons that sound like babies are man-eaters. I wanted my demon to be more of an animal.

Ylee tend to be solitary demons, but In my story the demons are gaining strength and behaving differently than normal. I might go in to it in ether this book or Quinn's.

Most of the creatures I developed on my own but a few where inspired. Like the Ylee or the Oree in chapter 8.

I really liked the fact that you explained this new world just enough, so we won't be confused.

Looks like Kota's boyfriend is a big shot in the another dimension ;-)

The heroine of your book is likeable and I found it easy to relate to her. She definitely doesn't give off an impression of a damsel in distress, what is very good.

I think that your story would use a bit more descriptions, as those are rather scarce. Because of that the text feels rushed and overwhelmed by dialogs. If there were more descriptions, it would also help create a more detailed world. (just a friendly tip)

The last two chapters were considerably better than the previous ones. I get the feeling that your writing style is getting better with each chapter. Like I thought, the story was far more enjoyable to read when there were more descriptions (like in this chapter and the one before it). I also loved how Eric explained the wonders of this world to Kota. Discovering a place created by the author's imagination is always fun and this world looks like fun.