A New Promise - Review Topic

[CeeCee]

Comments, criticism and thoughts can go in this thread if you have the time. If you can, please do as it really helps me out.

Love you all! Sam/CeeCee

 

He it is: A New Promise

[Dual Cee]

What were my expectations and did they come true:

It's a prologue I can't judge on this now.

Now let's go trough your story in detail:

Toa Lhikan gripped his sword firmly in his hand. The other one had been lost when his hover board broke in half a few hours earlier. What could he say? He hadn’t . It was his final push now. His final chance to do what was right for his Matoran. They had had it tough these past few years he’d been away, but with some effort he could finally put things right. It was night. The two moons hung over the deep purple sky like giant spot lights, as if he were about to act his final scene. He hoped it wasn’t, but nothing was certain. Destiny could only provide so much protection and if his was his to lie dead on the road outside, then that would be fine with him. The rain was coming down something awful, pelting off the roof like bullets being fired from above. He was in a derelict ware house in Ta-Metru. The green tinted thick glass windows had long since been smashed and shattered.

Awesome discription of the situation.I'm uber-nitpicking here: the put seems strange, "make things right" sounds better" and I'm not sure about it but isn't ware house spelled warehouse or ware-house?

“Lhikan!” It was Nuurakh. The Vahki of Ta-Metru. His loud and confident voice pieced through the rain like a missile. “Make this easy, no one has to get hurt.” Vahki were replacement, although neither as fast or strong and lacked any mask powers or elemental powers, for Toa after every Toa had been declared M.I.A. That just meant they were either dead or that Dume couldn’t find them to kill them. All the Toa in Metru Nui were either drive out or dead. There were six Vahki, from what Lhikan had gathered from when he stuck around for a few months after he was supposedly exiled from Metru Nui. He had met all but one of them before and they were all good men and women and even better soldiers. The one he had never met before was the Po-Vahki. He just seemed to come out of nowhere when The Great Purge of the Toa happened back 4 years ago. It wasn’t surprising. There were many other Vahki that had all been killed when Turaga Dume organised their deaths. Of course he made it look like an accident. Lhikan never knew why he chose the six to survive. He guessed they were the most loyal to him.

 

Introducing six characters here, personalised Vahki, rather creative, altough they still remain genderless robots.

 

Nuurakh was a good man, he was just mislead by the joke of a Turaga that was Turaga Dume. Pronounced Doo-Mah, but Lhikan much preferred its Phonetic pronunciation. The wise Toa of fire had no doubt that Nuurakh wouldn’t hurt him if he just walked up and surrendered now, but the fate that came after it would lead to the same ultimate destiny if he chose to fight him and lost. Nuurakh was too loyal for his own good. He would never let Lhikan escape alive, even if it would eat at him for the rest of his days.

 

Vahkis with genders really sounds odd. Also the amouth of the word "Lhikan" is pretty high, try using "hero" or more "Toa" or even the "Last standing" and such. Doo-May, why?

 

The rain was still pelting off the roof of the empty cold building. Grime and moss grew up the stone brick walls. Nature always seemed to have a way of winning in the end, no matter how tall you make your buildings, no matter how much tarmac you fill a lake of Lava with, Lhikan thought to himself. He looked down at his body. It looked like he himself had been taken over by nature. He was covered in mud from Kanohi to boot. Solid pieces of dirt stuck in between his joints. He had spent so many years on the run, since he had been exiled from Metru Nui by Dume. Where had it all gone so wrong?There were footsteps on the other side of the wall, although muffled by the wet mud, being a Toa, his enhanced senses allowed him to hear it, or more feel the minuscule vibrations.

 

I suppose toa's don't have boots, just armored feet.

 

 

“Lhikan I swear to Mata Nui himself that it you don’t get your traitor behind here I'm ordering a long overdue detonation of this forsaken place”This wasn’t Nuurakh this time but Vorzak. A little bit more brash in his manner but his intentions were just as good. If only they weren’t so blind to see the truth right in front of their eyes. Vorzahk and Nuurakh had been best friends ever since Lhikan had trained them as rookies. To think he thought they were so different to the other Vahki, so much spirit in them. No, they still were, they just didn’t know it. Lhikan ran a steady finger over his broad sword, its smooth edges so intrquitly cut, the tips of the blade so sharp. It was as elegant in its design as it was a tool for not much of careful use as far as accuracy went in your strike. Lhikan put it on his back quietly. Best not use it unless he really had to. He certainly didn’t want to kill the Vahki but he would if he had his back to a wall. What had he become?

 

Vahki's with genders and personalities again, I'd suggest making a programming mistake to explain them having personalities and friends? Also Trained: Vahki weren't trained, they were built the way they are

 

“Lhikan, you don’t have to suffer the same fate as your traitorous team. We can help you. Turaga Dume is not evil like you think. You think we don’t want Toa back? We need you. There’s no way the Vahki could ever replace the Toa”, Nuurakh said. Lhikan almost gave to his lies although that was mostly because Nuurakh didn’t even know he was lying. Every word in his sentence was true to him, yet almost all of it in reality was false. It was true that there was one traitor in his team though. Tuyet. Lhikan had always known what she was, but he just couldn’t admit it to himself. She had killed two members of his team, one of which he had loved like a little brother. Then there was Nidhiki. The name burned painful memories. He just hoped she was happy with Dark Hunters, no matter how much he hated their organisation and its twisted leader. He had loved her and she had loved him. It would have just never worked out. They both wanted different things from life. Still, she had given him the greatest gift one Toa could possible give another.

 

Woa, Nidhiki's Female????

 

A rumble of thunder shook him from dream like state, the emotions fading from his head as quick as they had entered. He had no choice but do what he would have to these two young and good hearted Vahki. He gritted his teeth and composed himself, closing his eyes and breathing in relaxing sounds of the pattering rain pinging of the roof top. He hadn’t done this in a long, long time. With little to no effort he summersaulted backwards, shattering the already broken windows and be burst through the wall and landed directly in front of Vorzak. The green Vahki was so taken back by this that he almost slipped on the slippery unforgiving surface of mud and dirt.

 

Dream-Like I suppose, the rest seems fine.

 

“Surprise” The Toa of Fire said, in a cool and icy tone that would give even a Toa of ice a chill down his spine. Lhikan forced his head right into Vorzak’s, creating a horrible metal grinding on metal sound, causing him to stumble backwards and landing with a squelch on the water saturated floor.“Right in the disk-launcher” the green Vahki said, holding his mouth that doubled up as a B-342 disk launcher, capable of firing high velocity rounds of whatever element that Vahki was. In Vorzaks case it was air. Nuurakh responded quickly to his fallen comrade and fired two fire disks almost simultaneously into the Toa’s direction. With the help of his Kanohi Hau, Lhikan made two small round shields with his hand. They glowed and beautiful translucent blue with tiny energy veins pulsing through from the centre to the tip of the radius. The disks bounce off the shields knocking into to pillars holding up the building the Vahki of fire was standing under for shelter of the rain. If he didn’t move quickly, it was sure going to get super cosy under there. The Vahki ran, his grey feet had excellent grip on the dry soil which hadn’t been hit with any of the rain water. He got to the wet patch and used it to his advantage by skidding and sliding creating what seemed to be a tidal wave of brown mud. The building fell frontwards without the support of its two front pillars and crumbled in an avalanche of brick and broken glass, stopping millimetres away from Nuurakh. The red Vahki ran towards Lhikan with a look of pure determination in his yellow eyes. His punches and kicks were fast but the Toa’s blocks were faster. Lhikan would have had this covered if Vorzak hadn’t of got back up. He did his best to block the two of them the best he could but he kept on taking some serious belts to his side and back and the slippery ground was making it hard to keep steady. It was only until Vorzak swooped a lighting of a kick to the side of the Toa’s legs and the Toa fell on the mud, his back hitting the ground first. The impact shook his internal organs like they were in the back seat of a Le-Matoran racing craft. His heart rattled in its cage. Lhikan took little to no time to react and flung a throwing knife that was attached to the side of his leg and true it directly and Vozak’s head. The Vahki was quick to avoid the knife by tilting his head to the right, but not fast enough. It skimmed his left they, blinding that red thin streak of an eye forever.

 

I've read a bit too much "mud" right now try replacing it with other words I'm sure you're creartive to find another word for it. As shelter for the rain seems better. Also Disks have no number on them.

 

It was Vorzak’s dreadful howl of pain the made Lhikan all of a sudden aware of what he was doing. These we his friends, servants of Dume or not and he had just blinded one of them in one of his eyes. Lhikan jumped back and made a shield the shape of a sphere around himself.

“I won’t fight you anymore than I need to, now back off!” Lhikans tone was more full of harshness that he had intended but it seemed to have no effect on the two Vahki. Vorzak’s head was angled to the left as so his right eye was facing Lhikan. He was clutching the other side. There was a pure look of anger in the Vahki’s eyes. Nuurakh’s eyes were darting constantly to Lhikan and then Vorzak, noticeably worrying about his friends.“Vorzak, are you okay?” the red Vahki asked, his eyes still darting to and fro.

 

 

For some raison I really like this part.

 

“Ugh” He swallowed “I'm fine” Vorzak said in a wavy grunt, in an expression that he may not have been telling the truth. The rain was pelting off Lhikans force field and the two Vahki’s armour. It was at that moment t that Lhikan noticed a red glint behind the two soldiers. It was a Ta-Matoran. Not just any Ta-Matoran. It was Vakama. His miserable expression on his Kanohi Huna almost shone through the rain. Vakama didn’t know it, but he was very special to Lhikan. Maybe he would never know how special he was to him. It was at that moment when he met with the petrified bright green eyes of Vakama, watching the battle that had just commenced between the three that it all made sense to him. Lhikan’s time was over. There was new age about to begin now. Lhikan smiled at Vakama, the two Vahki still oblivious to his presence. He disable his shied and held out his arms for the two Vahki to cuff. Confused at first, Nuurakh pulled them out and escorted him to where he would spend the last night of his life. :The coliseum prisons. It didn’t matter though, because he had won. He just had to wait a little longer and there was plenty of that to be done this night.

 

I'm not sure swallowed fits here. I also think Coliseum in capitalised. Good introduction of Vakama

 

Final toughts.

 

Pretty good Prologue, good start of a story introducing the mayor factions in it, those Vahki(altough they remain robots) are really creative. Try to avoid word repetition.

 

 

--Dual Matrix

[Taipu1]

Pretty interesting so far. You should re-read it to sort out a few typos and such, particularly in the prologue.

 

'He was covered in mud from Kanohi to boot.'

This line I loved, for some reason. I think its the use of the word boot. I suppose they're actually feet, but they're metal and resemble boots, and I think it works well.

 

'There was a pure look of anger in the Vahki’s eyes that Lhikan had never see before.'

I feel you missed a trick in this sentence by not highlighting the damage that was done to the Vahki's eyes as part of his stare. Simply stating a singular 'eye' rather than 'eyes' would be better, but you could perhaps work even more into that.

 

The personalisation of the Vahki is interesting, particularly Nuuhrak. If a Vahki had a personality I feel it would be aggressive, efficient and unsympathetic. Not using that personality really separates your Vahki from the canon kind, and I think it works well.

 

Is the Po-Matoran relevant to the plot, or just an example of a desparate individual in your version of Metru-Nui?

 

Finally, I reckon you need to work on the format. The prologue is labeled 'Chapter 00', but the actual first chapter isn't labeled at all, which is rather ironic really. I also think you need to use a single font style, size and colour for all chapters. I'd advise against the paler font you used in the first chapter, the prologue was definitely easier on the eyes.

 

I have to say I like this a lot more than 'We are Metru', and there's a ton more depth to your writing than there was then. And thank you so much for not using female Nidhiki, and instead using 'Nidaka'. It just seems so much more right.

Edited March 2, 2013 by Taipu1

[CeeCee]

Thanks for the pretty positive review. Always a huge boost of confidence to see someone enjoying(I hope thats the right word) my work. As for Vorzahks eyes, that was a typo/mistake. Ill get to changing that as well as the font and the tittle for you. As for the Po-Matoran, hes not a named character, hes just meant to show that Po-Matorans(I will delve more into that a bit later) have it pretty rough. And yeah, finialy, Nidaka. I kept the name similar becuase I wanted her to be there in spirit, but then I think people can also accpet her as my character instead of Bionicles.

[Dual Cee]

Hum except from the font and chapter issues pointed out by mr Taips above me, I must admit I'm not the biggest fan of this story. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of it, it only lacks the canon influence necessairy for me to truly fully at all cost love it. Leave that aside I must admit this is one of the most creative story I've ever seen(Nidhika ). Also I looved your description of Ta-Metru. I'll be looking forwards to the next chapter.

[CeeCee]

Hum except from the font and chapter issues pointed out by mr Taips above me, I must admit I'm not the biggest fan of this story. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of it, it only lacks the canon influence necessairy for me to truly fully at all cost love it. Leave that aside I must admit this is one of the most creative story I've ever seen(Nidhika ). Also I looved your description of Ta-Metru. I'll be looking forwards to the next chapter.

 

Ill take my straw and suck the compliments out of that. Thanks. I know it may be hard for you to really get into it, but I hope you can keep trying.

[TNTOS]

ECC Charity Review:

 

I see you're doing a retelling of the 2004 story. Or at least you're taking inspiration from it, what with Lhikan's arrest in Ta-Metru being witnessed by Vakama and Dume apparently beeing evil. Could be wrong, but until you post more I'm assuming that's the direction you're taking the story in, despite its differences (such as Vahki arresting Lhikan rather than Dark Hunters, for example).

 

Your description is very nice. I have an easy time imagining the scenes in this story because you describe them so well. In particular, I thought the Lhikan vs. Vahki fight scene in Chapter 00 was well described.

 

Having said that, you sometimes use awkward phrases. Take this, for example:

 

 

Lhikan forced his head right into Vorzak’s, creating a horrible metal grinding on metal sound.

 

The bolded part is a good example of awkward phrasing and unnecessary words. The way it's worded, it almost sounds like you meant Lhikan put his head inside of Vorzakh's, when based on context you mean he headbutted Vorzakh.

 

There are several other instances of this in the story, but for the sake of brevity I will not list them all. A good rule of thumb is that if an action can be described with one word rather than ten (or twenty or forty or however many you're currently using), just use that one word. It's generally a lot clearer than using multiple words and reads more naturally and clearly.

 

Your paragraphs can sometimes be too big. It makes your story look like a wall of text, which makes it intimidating and hard to read. I recommend cutting up some of the larger paragraphs into smaller sizes, say about three or four lines per paragraph, although that's just my own standard. Just try to make them smaller if you can.

 

By the way, I noticed you occasionally mispelled the Vahki's names. You got 'em right sometimes, but there are quite a few instances where you misspelled Nuurakh and Vorzakh. I recommend going through and correcting those errors because, while minor spelling errors are forgiveable, it's hard to enjoy a story where the spelling of the character's name isn't consistent. I don't blame you, though, because the Vahki do have rather hard to spell names.

 

Overall, there's not much I can say about the story itself so far because of how little you have posted. I think it has potential to be good, as long as you keep an eye out for awkward turns of phrase and remember to cut down on unnecessary words.

 

Keep on writing!

 

-TNTOS-

Edited March 15, 2013 by TNTOS

[CeeCee]

ECC Charity Review:

 

I see you're doing a retelling of the 2004 story. Or at least you're taking inspiration from it, what with Lhikan's arrest in Ta-Metru being witnessed by Vakama and Dume apparently beeing evil. Could be wrong, but until you post more I'm assuming that's the direction you're taking the story in, despite its differences (such as Vahki arresting Lhikan rather than Dark Hunters, for example).

 

Your description is very nice. I have an easy time imagining the scenes in this story because you describe them so well. In particular, I thought the Lhikan vs. Vahki fight scene in Chapter 00 was well described.

 

Having said that, you sometimes use awkward phrases. Take this, for example:

 

 

Lhikan forced his head right into Vorzak’s, creating a horrible metal grinding on metal sound.

 

The bolded part is a good example of awkward phrasing and unnecessary words. The way it's worded, it almost sounds like you meant Lhikan put his head inside of Vorzakh's, when based on context you mean he headbutted Vorzakh.

 

There are several other instances of this in the story, but for the sake of brevity I will not list them all. A good rule of thumb is that if an action can be described with one word rather than ten (or twenty or forty or however many you're currently using), just use that one word. It's generally a lot clearer than using multiple words and reads more naturally and clearly.

 

Your paragraphs can sometimes be too big. It makes your story look like a wall of text, which makes it intimidating and hard to read. I recommend cutting up some of the larger paragraphs into smaller sizes, say about three or four lines per paragraph, although that's just my own standard. Just try to make them smaller if you can.

 

By the way, I noticed you occasionally mispelled the Vahki's names. You got 'em right sometimes, but there are quite a few instances where you misspelled Nuurakh and Vorzakh. I recommend going through and correcting those errors because, while minor spelling errors are forgiveable, it's hard to enjoy a story where the spelling of the character's name isn't consistent. I don't blame you, though, because the Vahki do have rather hard to spell names.

 

Overall, there's not much I can say about the story itself so far because of how little you have posted. I think it has potential to be good, as long as you keep an eye out for awkward turns of phrase and remember to cut down on unnecessary words.

 

Keep on writing!

 

-TNTOS-

Thanks for the review TNTOS. You gave me a good list of things I will look out for in next chapters. Thanks man!

[Hitoshura]

The story sounds good so far, but a bit confusing in the first chapter. Otherwise, the story seems good.

[CeeCee]

The story sounds good so far, but a bit confusing in the first chapter. Otherwise, the story seems good.

Im sorry? Please tell me what is confusing about it so I can see if it needs to be fixed.