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Legend Of Greno Nui Review


MetroidwaveX50

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An interesting beginning to this epic. I like the fight scene between Gartan, his companions, and the statue. The fact that the latter managed to kill everyone except Gartan showed what a dangerous enemy it was.I do have a couple suggestions. One is that you separate the sentences into paragraphs. I believe the forums can sometimes merge paragraphs together in some posts. I don't know if that's what happened here, but you could edit the block of sentences into paragraphs to make easier to read. Also, I felt that the story was kind of rushed. You may want to expand on the back story of Greno Nui. Maybe you could give more details about the civil war and/or how each of the six Matoran villages (they're living in villages on this island, right?) have survived since the war. Thebiological experimentation on the Ta-Matoran, for example, is a great start to explaining how they live. But you could go more in-depth with it, like explaining why started doing experiments on themselves and such.Anyway, I do think this first chapter is a good start for this epic. Keep up the good work!

Everyone is one choice away from being the bad guy in another person's story.


 


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  • 9 months later...

Hello Metroid Master. Aderia here from the ECC with a charity review for your epic. As per my usual reviewing format, nitpicks first.From Chapter 1:

They were self suficant, and never made contact with any other island.

‘self-sufficient’ (adj.able to supply one’s own or its own needs without external assistance), which is what I am assuming you meant. And also, after this sentence, you immediately state that they ran out of resources, resulting in war, which leads me to conclude that they were really not that great at being self sufficient.

But the resources soon ran out, and civil war broke out, culminating in the matoran being split in six.

Clarify this sentence. I think you meant that the Matoran population divided itself into factions and went to war with itself between those six factions. But this could also be read as this Matoran, Gartan, being chopped into six pieces as the culmination of the civil war.

He himself had volintered to biological experimentation.

‘volunteered’As I’m reading through, I think now is as good a time as any to mention, not suggest, as this matter is strictly my personal preference, that it looks better to capitalize any Bionicle words (i.e. Ta-, Matoran, Toa, Kio, Metru Nui, Rahi, etc. etc.)

He had recently been assigned as leader of special ops team to explore territoryrecently captured from the onu-matoran.

Here, it looks to me that the word ‘recently’ was used once too many times in this sentence.

Now as his recollections finish, he begans to notice pictures carved into the wall. They depicted six figures battleing a monster made of the six elements, yet not turnning to solid protodermis as the pre-war ga-matoran expeiments had proved.

Okay this is a whole host of weird. Spelling errors first. 1)‘begans’ to ‘begins’, 2) ‘battleing’ to ‘battling’ 3) ‘turnning’ to ‘turning’, and 4) ‘expeiments’ to ‘experiments’.Secondly, make sure you pay attention to your verb tenses. It’s a bit disorienting, to say it simply, for the reader, when the author switches verb tenses in the middle of a paragraph. Up until the phrase “Now as his recollections finish,” your verbs have denoted past tense. The jump to present is off-putting, especially since you switch back to past tense in the next sentence.“His recollections finished, and he began to notice pictures carved into the wall.” - Which is how I would personally and simply revise it.

 

The as he descended, he noticed his stone begin to glow.

‘The’ to ‘Then’, which is tricky, since Microsoft Word doesn’t pick up on little slips like that. And ‘begin’ to ‘beginning’, or ‘had begun’.

 

One leiutenant approached the statue and in flash was smashed into a wall and killed on impact.

‘leiutenant’ to ‘lieutenant’On another note, this action scene didn’t carry over very well. It seemed, as Toa Smoke Monster pointed out, rushed. When you’re describing an action scene… hrmm. Okay well I’m gonna go out on a limb here and show, rather than tell.

 

Without any semblance of warning, Lariska pounced, swinging the butt of her dagger at Roodaka's temple. The Xian twitched upward, and Lariska had a split second's worth of realization as a blade not unlike the one that had killed Thing 1 jutted from her other sleeve and swung towards her. The Dark Hunter tilted backwards in midair and watched as the blade hovered precariously over her face for what seemed like an eon in the guise of seconds: when Lariska's feet touched ground, time seemed to recover from the temporary shock of the two femme fatales going at it and decided to watch the proceedings unfold as they may.Roodaka swung a vicious elbow at Lariska, and as the Dark Hunter moved to catch it - as Roodaka predicted she would - the Vortixx swung her fist up into Lariska's face, slamming her knuckles into the center of Lariska's face. She fell back a step in shock, clutching at her face, and Roodaka took the opportunity to kick a blade out from her shoe and dig it into Lariska's ankle. The two went down swinging, both throwing punches and kicks and chops at each other: Lariska soon managed to slam a wicked cross into Roodaka's jaw, sending her flying back, and the injured Dark Hunter stood up and threw a dagger, cutting into Roodaka's shoulder and spilling her blood across the floor with a cry. Lariska smirked and moved for the dagger, but once again, Roodaka was ready. The traitorous Xian kicked out the blade from her shoe again and kicked Lariska in the cheek, cutting through flesh and scraping the bloody iron against Lariska's tongue. She cried out in pain, and Roodaka took the opportunity to move in on Lariska from behind and tear away her mechanical arm with a vicious pull.The Vortixx and her prize both tumbled to the ground in unison as Lariska cried out in agony and fell to her knees, clutching the newly-created stump that was connected to her shoulder. Roodaka walked up to Lariska and tilted her head up with one curved finger.

(Source)So basically, both of your stories are written in third person, which gives you the freedom to describe the battle however you want. The reader can see what happens on both sides, so long as you’re not writing strictly from a third person limited POV.third.person.omniscient.vs.limited.wiki.answers..jpg(Just an explanation I found and really liked)But tl;dr, expand on your action scene there, it gives the story more substance.

 

 

As they began to relax, the fire moved to envelope the creatures arm, and in an instant, it's arm became a replica of the matoran's flamethrowers.

Okay, so I was browsing and I found a nice sticker for you here. =)envelop.vs.envelope.grammar.hahahaha..jpgSo, ‘envelope’ to ‘envelop’.

 

 

 

It quickly dispatched of Gartan's two companions, and when the two had perished, the creature shifted it's attention towards Gartan, and turned the deadly stream of flame upon him. As the fire closed in on Gartan, it began to part and flow around. Gartan slowly lowered his shield to wonder what had caused this occurance,

Again with the action, make the reader feel at least a bit of concern for the dead/dying/wounded/in agony/doomed Matoran. “it’s” to “its”, and where the heck did Gartan’s shield come from? It would probably be better to mention that he –has- a shield, and maybe that he raised it to protect himself, before telling the reader that he lowered it. ‘occurance’ to ‘occurrence’.

 

 

when the creature opened fire upon the wall, and a hail of stones began to rain down.

A hail of stones is cool. A hail of stones raining down is redundant redundant. You could simplify to ‘stones began to hail down’.

 

 

After a tedious hour of digging his wayout, He emerged to see a a gaping hole in the wall, with hardened magma around the edges.

Forgot a space between ‘way’ and ‘out’, and an extra ‘a’ there, and uncap ‘He’.Now is also a good time to mention that I, as a reader, have no idea what this chamber looks like that your Matoran is in. There’s a hole in the wall, with hardened magma around the edges yes. Something is moving besides the Matoran. But is that it? I’m a bit curious. And I’m assuming the unnecessary ellipses you have at the end of the chapter are there to represent all the rubble and debris and pebbles and whatnot, not a stab at suspense.From Chapter 2:

No matoran was aware of the tunnels existance outside the onu-matoran. He was begining to consider complaining to his superiors when the wall behind him melted.

‘existance’ to ‘existence’, and ‘begining’ to ‘beginning’.

 

 

His eyes soon focused on the creature's left arm, a ta-koran bio enenginered flamethrower.

‘enenginered’ to ‘engineered’

 

 

He trained his sonic cannon on the creature, and both him and it fired at the same time.

‘He trained his Sonic Cannon on the creature, and they both fired at the same time.” As a basic revision.

 

 

When the smoke cleared, he was surprised to find himself alive, though his goodluck stone was too hot to touch.

‘goodluck’ to ‘good luck’.Details matter in this writing gig. So I have to ask – when did he drop his good luck stone? Because at the beginning of this paragraph, he was clenching it as he patrolled the tunnels, reflecting on how he was wasting his time. I looked for it, but there was no mention of him dropping this good luck stone. The fact that you’re telling your readers it was too hot to touch implies that the character is smart and not touching it, yet there is no mention of the stone being dropped. So either he dropped it or he’s holding onto it like the kid who doesn’t understand how to play the game Hot Potato.

 

 

When he turned his attention back on the creature, he let out a yelp of surprise to see the creature not only unharmed, but it now had a replica of his sonic cannon on it's right arm. It dashed at him, and knocked him into the wall, knocking him unconcious .

1) ‘suprise’ to ‘surprise’2) Here's another sticker. 3) ‘unconcious’ to ‘unconscious’

 

 

He awoke about 50 minutes later,

Okay, I know I just said that details matter, but not all details. Unless the 50 minutes is of dire importance later in the storyline, it’s not necessary.

 

 

soon as he regained conciousness , Onaka began to interogate him about the mysterious creature.

‘conciousness’ to ‘consciousness’ and ‘interogate’ to ‘interrogate’.And where is this interrogation you told us about? You go straight into more description of what took place. A bit of dialog really wouldn’t hurt your story. More on that later.

 

 

After the questioning, the Ta-matoran, who Onuka had learned that his name was Garten, Garten proposed a an alliance, shocking Onuka.

Okay this is another sentence that was just weird, not to mention that from this point in the story forwards, you switched the spelling of ‘Onaka’ to ‘Onuka’, and also ‘Gartan’ to ‘Garten’. First, the ‘a’ before ‘an’ is not necessary. Secondly, here is how I would revise this sentence to be more concise – “The Ta-Matoran, Gartan [Garten?], proposed an alliance, shocking Onaka [Onuka?].” It is understood that during the interrogation, Onuka/Onaka learned Gartan/Garten’s name.

 

 

He asked why, and Garten said that that creature had killed his comrades. He felt the need to avenge them.

Ooooooookay, it’s high time we go over the beautiful thing that is dialogue. I’m going to give you another high-quality example for starters.

 

 

 

I turned away to leave the Matoran behind and hope I would never see it again. But then a high, trembling voice called out, "Wait!"I grimaced. Revolving to face the Matoran again, I responded, "What?""Who--who are you?"I dropped down to the ground to tower over the Matoran. "Me?" I growled. "I am everything you see around you. I am the trees, the predators, the prey. I am the brooks and rivulets, the ponds and mires, the rocks and stones. I am every green leaf. I am the breath of the forest. I am the life of the jungle. I am the jungle."The Matoran regarded me as if I were insane. Maybe I was. The jungle was not rational. "But you're--you're like me, almost. But you're taller. And bigger.""And the grass is green. This has been a fascinating conversation, but I----""I've heard tales about beings like--beings like you. I never believed them, but I don't know what else you could be. Are you--a Toa?"Toa. The word fell on my ears like the first snowflake of winter after a long cycle of seasons. I could not remember the last time I had heard the word. I could not remember the last time I had heard any words in the Matoran language, except those that reverberated from my own mouth."No." I turned away. "I am the jungle.""No, you are a Toa. Are you one of the six heroes of legend who will save Mata Nui?""Do I look like six heroes?""I asked if you were one of them.""I'm not.""Then who are you?"I rounded on her. She squeaked. I snapped, "I--am--the--jungle. I am one with everything from the highest leaf to the very ground beneath your feet. I know every Rahi in this jungle and they know me. And I don't like it when inquisitive little Matoran come snooping about where they don't belong. The jungle's hungry, for its rapacity is never satisfied. I saved you once. Don't make me do it again."With these final words I sprang into the waiting limbs of a tree above."I'm sorry! I didn't know! I've never been to Le-Wahi before! I'm--I'm lost!"I scowled over my shoulder. "So what do want from me? An escort?""That--that would be nice."The Ga-Matoran gave a start as a Kavinika howled in the distance. I exhaled a resigned sigh. "Fine. But we do it my way."---From the desk of Nuile: Lunatic Wordsmith :smilemirunu:

(Source)A big part of dialog is getting the character interaction right. 100% of it, if you want to be really good. 7% of communication is verbal, only 7%. The rest, the other 93% is body language. You can see great examples of both in the passage above. The facial expressions are touched upon, the vocal inflections, et cetera, et cetera. Not to mention, dialog is the perfect thing to balance out long descriptions and large paragraphs, which is a lot of what your story is thus far.

 

 

Onuka decided to get revenge on that thing as well, and knowing an alliance between the tribes would be a hinderence due to lack of trust and issues in command, He agreed to the alliance.

‘hinderence’ to ‘hindrance’ and uncap H in He.Why would Onaka/Onuka agree to this alliance? You’ve confused me. If he knows an alliance would be a hindrance, why in the world would he agree?Anyways, it looks like you left us with another cliff hanger, and a character named Japo. It also looks like you haven’t been online in a while, and I fear my review may be obsolete. Here’s hoping that’s not true.Regardless, I’m going to wrap this review up for you. Overall, I think you have an interesting premise. A Civil War, and a subsequent subplot – the mysterious whatever it is that keeps knocking Matoran unconscious, and the Matoran being unhappy about that. What I think you can work on is fleshing this story out. Make the characters breathe, give the readers a reason spend their time investing in these characters.

1) Dialogue between characters, or even internally2) Emotions, since a vast majority of characters will have them, I didn’t really pick up on any of this while reading.3) Expansion of your action scenes

4) Expansion of the characters (especially this villain)Those are key points I want to stress. I’ve really only touched the tip of the ice berg. If you ever need more in depth answers, I am open to PM. But, even better, we have an Official Writing Advice Topic, where everyone can weigh in, and I think it could be exponentially helpful. Hopefully, you’ll be able to continue this epic, I’d be happy to see where you decide to take these characters.

Edited by Eponine

(disclaimer: none of this banner art is original, I just smooshed it together in gimp. Torchic, Matau)
ThosePeskyFirespitters.png.3dbdb65e6a28cbbc5957d81c09a685b6.png
Those pesky firespitters... 
Library | The Sculptors and the Smelters | The Ternion Review Topic 

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