Jump to content

An Uneasy Alliance -- Review Topic


CaptainLepidus

Recommended Posts

Welcome to the review topic for An Uneasy Alliance!I've just started on my epic and would love some comments and reviews. I do need help with continuity-I want my story to fit with existing canon as much as possible but my knowledge is a bit limited, especially in the area of the Brotherhood of Makuta before Teridax's uprising.Thank you!

Edited by CaptainLepidus

Legacy of the Great Beings - Continuing the story of BIONICLE from where the serials left off.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Official ECC review!I have a few problems with the formatting of your story. The first the that you do not use any form of indents: I do not have a problem with using the classic book format of paragraphs (that is, without a space between each paragraph) as long as it has indents. Of course, on BZP indents are tricky things: I myself use five white dots; invisible unless you highlight them. If you don't want to do indents, I suggest going to internet spacing, that is a space between each paragraph. Second is the shortness of the chapters: I'm not advising you to make twenty page blocks of text for each chapter, but your chapters seem a little too short. Expansion would be good, and if that can't be done, then at least combine some to make it better.Next, the first chapter. The first chapter of the story is the first thing the casual reader will see, and judge by. Unfortunately, your first chapter was overly short, and confusing. Giving the setting of the story (I had to take a guess based on a brief reference in the review topic) would be good, or at least some explanation of why the Toa and Makuta are working together. More background on Necroz is practically a must: if he was completely opened to shadow, how on earth is he acting like a normal being? A person like that would be like a person with a very serious addiction; namely, wanting to do good, but having his body and will betray him often. Sorry, but the very, very brief explanation you gave is extremely unsatisfactory. Give more detail! The readers don’t just want to see the plot, they want to know the characters, and they want to be able to understand the story. Short, overly brief chapters (and these are far too short, as well as being without proper endings; feasibly you could have combined them into one or two overly brief chapters, or expanded them to make a good 3-5 chapters) are detrimental to the reading experiences.Next, characters. I’m not sure whether or not it was due to the lack of gdescription or not, but I could not get a feel of any of the characters. Spiriah especially bored me, as the only thing we see of him here is that he’s trying to prove himself… And it wasn’t even phrased well at all. First rule of writing fanfiction; don’t presuppose that your reader knows the canon characters and write accordingly with little description of them. Write about them like you would an original character. Necroz also was a disappointment; I’ve written about characters with inner turmoil (Krika, random toa half possessed by Shadow) and I enjoy reading and writing it. However, Necroz just appears a little angsty, which was not interesting.Powers. I’m noticing a lot of inconsistencies in them: at first it appears that their powers are useless, then wammo! Just when they’re attacked, their powers start working. Either make them work altogether (In which case a Makuta could easily get out or scout the place) or not at all.Plot. I find this plot, well, not good at all. A bunch of Makuta and Toa are going into a mysterious hole and getting attacked by random (also boring and poorly described) Rahi. I suggest giving some backstory, combining this whole thing into a few chapters, and going from there.Last, spelling. This is going to be long. Because of their length, they can be found in the comments of this entry. Just rest your mouse on the colored lines of the story.Overall, yeah: you have a decent plot, and if you expanded and rewrote a bit you might have a fairly good story here. As it is, it just screams 'prototype' 'crude' and 'in need of rewriting.' Nonetheless, a decent/good first story here. I hope you continue to write, and improve on your ability. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you for the review!I've seen a lot of authors go through the reviewer's points and refute them, I think that's ridiculously rude; you took time to review for me, so I have no reason to complain.Indents is definitely a must, I will certainly add them in. I'm just trying to figure out how to do them.Brevity is probably my biggest weakness in writing; I wonder if this is a common trait in new writers. I think the easiest way to add length would probably be just to re-write the chapters, as things often feel mashed together if I try to add more detail in the middle.I need to focus more on the characters. I have planned out a lot of their backstory (as well as their fate's) so I'll try to improve on showing that to the reader. I feel my characters have the potential to be interesting, if I can just show who they are. (I find it's a lot harder (although it can be more fun too ) to work with canonical characters; perhaps I'll simply change that in my rewrite!) Spiriah is intentionally boring; that's who he is. (Which probably makes him a bad character and I'll probably remove him.)Yeah, the plot sort of drifted off as it went on and became pretty terrible. I think it'll have to be re-worked or possibly just completely replaced. Plot has never been my strong point, but I think I can do better.Spelling; need to install word processor. Still, had no idea it was that bad :o That's what you get for rushing writing.Thank you for the review! I can see I have a lot of work to do. I am going to get my thoughts sorted out about this one and then dive back into re-writing. I certainly need a better plan. Possibly I'll write out a story arc.I'll try my best to continue improving. I feel that I've done better than this and can do better, and more importantly, will do better! :D See you around!

Legacy of the Great Beings - Continuing the story of BIONICLE from where the serials left off.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...