Rynash

Hey guys thought up a name for the story hope u like it




“Don’t forget the milk Ryan!”

“Yeah, yeah I’m not an idiot you know mum.” Ryan replied, as he closed the front door. Ryan stepped out into the cold, dark deserted street and started walking in the direction of the local coop. He looked at his watch and saw it was five o’clock he looked up and saw the stars shining back at him “geez it’s starting to get really dark now” he thought to himself, as if answering him the street lamps snapped on giving an eerie yellow glow.

Ryan glanced behind him and thought he saw the street shimmer slightly but when he looked again all was normal.”Weird” he muttered to himself and carried on walking, he glanced back again starting to feel really uncomfortable.

He looked on ahead and saw the street corner that leaded to the main street. Ryan picked up the pace and started jogging towards the main street where at least there would be some other people. Just as he rounded the corner the street lights went out. Ryan stopped in his tracks he couldn’t see anything not even his hand in front of his face, he looked up he felt a little bit better he could still see the stars but there silver glow didn’t penetrate the darkness surrounding him.

That relief was crushed as soon as it appeared because he saw the shimmering again but this time in front of him. The street lamps lit up again but the darkness was the least of his worries, Ryan looked behind him and there was another shimmer in the air he was surrounded with the houses on either side of him and the shimmers in front and behind him he had nowhere to run.

The houses were dark and looked deserted he lost hope of help coming from them. He didn’t bother wasting his energy shouting for help; chances were that no one would hear him. Ryan looked around him for anything that he could use to protect himself he saw a gnarled stick lying in front of him, it didn’t look like much but he slowly reached down for it anyway.

He didn’t feel any more confident now that he had a weapon in fact it made feel worse now he knew he was going to have to fight and he knew he had no chance against even one of these things let alone two! He could feel the raw power radiating of them, it almost felt like a real thing trying to push him to his knees and smother him. Ryan waited for them to reveal themselves in their true form he was sure the shimmering was just a guise.

Ryan moved sideways and positioned himself so the shimmers were on either side of him this way he could see if one of them moved for the attack or they decided to reveal their true forms.

Meanwhile he waited. Ryan closed his momentarily to gather his wits and calm his mind. He found himself mouthing a quick prayer even though he had never believed in any kind of god, “now’s the time to start believing,” he muttered to himself and let himself laugh a little.

Ryan breathed in deeply and let the air out of his lungs slowly, he felt something click into place in his mind, Ryan felt extreme power flowing through him, he opened his eyes and saw two gargantuan humanoid figures in the places that the shimmers had been before, they were about 30ft tall, grey and were slightly deformed, the one on the right looked like a pretty normal human except that its arms were long and gangly that reached its knees the other however was a different story its arms looked like huge scimitars their faces however were covered in a strange glossy black mask.
Ryan saw his reflection in the things mask he had his normal cargos and shirt on, his dark skinned face was determined and his long black hair was covering one of his eyes however when his eye’s colour was normally brown was now glowing a deep scarlet in fact around his body was a slight shimmer of scarlet, was this the power he was feeling now?

“Ahhhh looked like we picked a nice tasty soul to hunt today!” said the one with scimitars for arms.

“Oh yes, although it looks like he is going to fight his spirit energy is rising and, he has that absurd piece of wood in his hand” the other said. “Oi, boy you think that stick will hurt us?” it laughed explosively.

Ryan looked down at the stick.”What the hell? He could feel the stick like an extension of his body.” He looked down at the stick again and looked at the thing in front of him Ryan smiled feeling the power flowing through him and into the so called absurd bit of wood these things were going to have a surprise.

“Why do you smile human? You think just because you have a bit of spirit energy u can defeat us? By yourself as well! HA don’t make me laugh.”

Ryan’s smile widened even further and said, “So you think I have no chance then? Well care to test that theory of yours?” He swung his stick in front of him and took a fighting pose.

“Foolish human!” and with that the thing attacked.

It was too fast for Ryan he shut his eyes ready for the killing blow.

It didn’t come. Ryan opened his eyes slowly, and saw a man in front of him, blocking the things attack with a katana. Ryan’s eyes were drawn to the blade it was about 3ft long and had a red hilt, but the power it radiated along with the man wielding it was immense, Ryan noticed that the power that he had felt had faded away. “What the hell is he?
Where did he come from?” All these questions whizzed through his head.

The man had short hair and was wearing some kind of black robe.”Wh....Who are you?” Ryan stammered. “I’m kind of busy here kid, think it could wait?” said the man easily in fact it didn’t look like he was giving any effort into holding off that thing.

“Time to finish this!” said the man he slashed at the things black mask, he cut straight through it and the thing just crumbled to dust. “Tch he always was stupid” said the one with scimitars for arms “I know when I’m out-matched, but

I’ll be back for you.” And swung one of his scimitar arms to point at Ryan.

The thing started walking back “what, where is he going?” Ryan said to himself. As the thing took another step backwards a dark portal opened up behind it and it vanished without a trace.

“Wow!” Ryan said aloud.

“Tch weaklings,” said the man.

“Wh...What were they? In fact who the hell are you?” Ryan said getting frustrated.

“You really want to know? Well I’m going to have to tell you, you’re involved now.” Replied the man calmly.

“What you mean involved? I haven’t done anything” Ryan said his voice going hoarse.

“It’s not what you have done; it’s what you were born with.” The man said and turned around, his face was weather-beaten, rugged but kindly to his eyes were bright blue and had fair hair.”Surely you felt that spirit energy in you?”

“What that power? Why was I glowing that scarlet colour? Just answer my questions god damn it!” Ryan said his voice getting louder.

“Tch, alright keep your calm,” the man took a quick breath and said “I’m a Reaper, and those things were spirits, evil ones actually we call them reds and the good ones are whites. That power you felt was spirit energy in other words the strength of your soul you glowed red because you were releasing all your spirit energy at once, the colour entirely depends on the person wielding the spirit energy.” The man explained.

“So what now? That thing said it would come back how the hell am I going to fend it off!” Ryan shouted.

“Mmmm.......that does pose a problem doesn’t it,” the man smiled “I wonder...”

“Wonder what?” Ryan said losing patience.

“You have to join the academy, to become a Reaper like me. It is the only way.” The man said quietly.

“Wh...What do I do there?” Ryan said even more quiet.

“You will learn how to control your spirit energy, summon your soul sword” he said indicating his sword “and learn to fight reds and kill them.”

“Ill do whatever it takes to be able to defend myself!” Ryan said determinedly.

“I thought you’d say that I saw those nerves of steel when you were trying to fight off those reds.” Said the man “I’m Jack by the way. Here take this ill be in touch.” Jack gave Ryan a silver bracelet but when he handed it over it changed colour to a deep, brilliant scarlet “good that means your spirit energy is fully released you should have no problems getting into the academy, and by the way don’t be afraid of the test.” He said as he opened up a portal but this time white and walked through.

“Geez what a weird night.” Ryan said to himself. Ryan made his way not even knowing what his excuse for all the time he took, and he still hadn’t even got the milk, “Man mums going to kill me” Ryan sighed.

__________________
24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case - coincidence? I think not!

DavidGil

Consider this a technical critique Rynash, hope it helps. Also, keep in mind these are only suggestions and are a representation of my view only. I've designed this critique to try and help with better sentence flow for the most part. Or at least, what I think would be better sentence flow. Everyone's view is different I suppose and I'm not perfect.

I've used blue for the most part in regards to suggested deletes, but there are some I didn't bother highlighting and just deleted them from your original work. The red is suggested edits/additions. I missed out some passages from your work as well. That's because I couldn't find anything wrong with those passages.

Keep writing as well, despite the amount of suggestions I've made.

“Yeah, yeah I’m not an idiot you know mum,” Ryan replied, as he closed the front door. Ryan stepped out into the cold, dark, deserted street and started walking in the direction of the local co-op. He looked at his watch and saw it was five o’clock. He looked up and saw the stars shining back at him “geez it’s starting to get really dark now” he thought to himself. As if answering him, the street lamps snapped on giving an eerie, yellow glow.

You have the underlined wrote as speech, yet you meant for it to be thoughts. It is because of the speech tags it reads wrong. A suggestion as well, you could perhaps end the second paragraph after 'he closed the front door'. As for the underlined part, I would write it like this (while retaining the same words so you don't think I'm telling you how to write):

He looked up and saw the stars shining back at him. 'Geez, it's starting to get really dark now,' he thought to himself. (I'd suggest losing 'to himself' though.) As if answering him, the street lamps snapped on giving an eerie, yellow glow.

However, my best suggestion would be to simply use italics for the thought process.


I'd suggest removing him myself. It's just clear to me he's the point of view character so 'him' feels redundant. Another suggestion, whenever you see you've used a word ending in ly, see if you can reword the sentence to get rid of it. It doesn't mean you can't use those words however.

He looked on ahead and saw the street corner that lead to the main street. Ryan picked up the pace and started jogging towards the main street where there would at least be some other people. Just as he rounded the corner, the street lights went out and Ryan stopped in his tracks. He couldn’t see anything not even his hand in front of his face (suggest removing). He looked up and felt a little bit better. He could still see the stars but their silver glow didn’t penetrate the darkness surrounding him.

Where I've underlined, perhaps there would fit better? You mentioned the street in the previous sentence and it cuts the word count a bit. However, if you do that, there would be used twice in quick succession so it might be best to avoid it. It's mainly me just saying my thoughts regarding that part. But, I do have a suggestion:

Ryan picked up the pace and started jogging towards there. At least other people would be there. (actually, you could just remove main from the original passage you had. It would imply to me anyway he's heading towards the previous mentioned location.)

That relief was crushed as soon as it had appeared because he saw the shimmering again but this time, it was in front of him. The street lamps lit up again but the darkness was the least of his worries. Ryan looked behind him and there was another shimmer in the air. He was surrounded with the (perhaps delete and just have houses here?) houses on either side of him and the shimmers in front and behind. him He had nowhere to run.


The houses were dark and looked deserted. He had lost hope of help coming from them. He didn’t bother wasting his energy shouting for help; chances were that no one would hear him. Ryan looked around him for anything that he could use to protect himself. He saw a gnarled stick lying in front of him, it didn’t look like much but he slowly reached down for it anyway.He didn’t feel any more confident now that he had a weapon. In fact, it made him feel worse now he knew he was going to have to fight and he knew he had no chance against even one of these things, let alone two! He could feel the raw power radiating off them. It almost felt like a real thing trying to push him to his knees and smother him. Ryan waited for them to reveal themselves in their true form. He was sure the shimmering was just a guise.

MeanWhile he waited, Ryan closed his (eyes?) momentarily to gather his wits and calm his mind. He found himself mouthing a quick prayer even though he had never believed in any kind of god. “Now’s the time to start believing,” he muttered to himself and let himself laugh a little.

Ryan breathed in deeply took a deep breath and let the air out of his lungs slowly. He felt something click into place in his mind. Ryan felt extreme power flowing through him. He opened his eyes and saw two gargantuan humanoid figures in the places that the shimmers had been before. They were about 30ft tall, grey and were slightly deformed. The one on the right looked like a pretty normal human except that it's arms were long and gangly that reached its knees. The other however was a different story. It's arms looked like huge scimitars. Their faces however were covered in a strange, glossy, black mask.

Ryan saw his reflection in the thing's mask. He had his normal cargos and shirt on. His dark skinned face was determined and his long black hair was covering one of his eyes. However, where his eye’s colour was normally brown, it was now glowing a deep scarlet. In fact, there was a slight shimmer all around his body. Was this the power he was feeling now?

Don't understand the underlined part at all. However, the whole description via the reflection idea, I'd delete. It's a bit of a cliche and poorly used one.

“Ahhhh, looks like we picked a nice tasty soul to hunt today!” said the one with scimitars for arms.

“Oh yes, although it looks like he is going to fight. His spirit energy is rising and, he has that absurd piece of wood in his hand,” the other said. “Oi boy, you think that stick will hurt us?” it laughed explosively.


Ryan looked down at the stick. "What the hell?" The stick felt like it was an extension of his body.” He looked down at the stick again and looked at the thing in front of him. Ryan smiled, feeling the power flowing through him and into the so called absurd bit of wood. These things were going to have a surprise.

“Why do you smile human? You think just because you have a bit of spirit energy you can defeat us? By yourself as well! Ha, don’t make me laugh.”

Where I've underlined, you had net speak. It has no place in writing. But I understand after using it for quite a while, you can forget sometimes. I did it once myself ages ago to be honest. Thankfully I quickly realised. *grins*

Ryan’s smile widened even further and he said, “So you think I have no chance then? Well, care to test that theory of yours?” He swung his stick in front of him and took a fighting pose.

“Foolish human!” and With that, the thing attacked.

It was too fast for Ryan. He shut his eyes ready for the killing blow.

It didn’t come. Ryan opened his eyes slowly, and saw a man in front of him, blocking the thing's attack with a katana. Ryan’s eyes were drawn to the blade. It was about 3ft long and had a red hilt, but the power it radiated along with the man wielding it, was immense. Ryan noticed that the power that he had felt had faded away. “What the hell is he? Where did he come from?” All these questions whizzed through his head.

The underlined part you had on a seperate line when it shouldn't have been. That's the only reason I flagged it.

The man had short hair and was wearing some kind of black robe. "Wh....Who are you?” Ryan stammered. (new paragraph)

“I’m kind of busy here kid. Think it could wait?” asked the man easily. In fact, it didn’t look like he was giving any effort into holding that thing off.

“Time to finish this!” yelled the man. He slashed at the thing's black mask and cut straight through it. The thing just crumbled to dust. “Tch, he always was stupid,” said the one with scimitars for arms. “I know when I’m out-matched, but (no need for a new paragraph) I’ll be back for you.” He swung one of his scimitar arms to point at Ryan.

The thing started walking back. Ryan said to himself, “what? Where is he going?” The thing took another step backwards, and a dark portal opened up behind (in front?) it. It vanished without a trace.

“Wh...What were they? In fact, who the hell are you?” Ryan asked getting frustrated.

Suggest removing the underlined part. The dialog does the work for the text.

“You really want to know? Well I’m going to have to tell you. You’re involved now,” replied the man calmly.

“What you mean by involved? I haven’t done anything,” Ryan said. His voice was going hoarse.

“It’s not what you have done; it’s what you were born with,” the man said and turned around. His face was weather-beaten, rugged but kindly. to His eyes were bright blue and he had fair hair.”Surely you felt that spirit energy in you?”

“What's that power? Why was I glowing that scarlet colour? Just answer my questions god damn it!” Ryan said, his voice getting louder.

“Tch. Alright, keep your calm,” the man took a quick breath. and said “I’m a Reaper, and those things were spirits, evil ones actually. We call them reds and the good ones are whites. That power you felt was spirit energy. In other words, the strength of your soul. You glowed red because you were releasing all your spirit energy at once. The colour entirely depends on the person wielding the spirit energy,” the man explained.

“So what now? That thing said it would come back. How the hell am I going to fend it off!” Ryan shouted.

“Mmmm.......that does pose a problem doesn’t it?” the man smiled. “I wonder...”

“Wonder what?” Ryan said losing patience.

“You have to join the academy, to become a Reaper like me. It is the only way,” the man said quietly.

“You will learn how to control your spirit energy, and summon your soul sword,” he said indicating his sword. “And learn to fight reds and kill them.”

“I'll do whatever it takes to be able to defend myself!” Ryan said determinedly.

“I thought you’d say that. I saw those nerves of steel when you were trying to fight off those reds,” said the man. “I’m Jack by the way. Here take this, I'll be in touch.” Jack gave Ryan a silver bracelet but when he handed it over, it changed colour to a deep, brilliant scarlet. “Good that means your spirit energy is fully released. You should have no problems getting into the academy, and by the way, don’t be afraid of the test,” he said as he opened up a portal but this time it was white. and He walked through.


Alright, the critique took a long time and I was multi-tasking trying to edit my own work, reading replies etc. Not to mention the fact it's late in the UK. Hope it helped anyway.

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David Gill

Someone has a lot of time on their hands!

On the story, may i enquire as to if it is the first that you have ever written, keep trying and you may get better.

DavidGil

It's better than doing something unproductive, like watching tele while procrastinating.

In all seriousness though, I hate seeing people's work who could use the help get 'useless' comments such as, 'it's good, keep it up'. How is that supposed to help anyone improve? There's that which annoys me, but also these works tend to go unnoticed.

My work gets ripped to shreds, which is how I improve and I'm grateful for it. It annoys me when this sort of thing isn't, when help is needed. It kinda makes me ask myself, 'are they trying to be kind or what?' It doesn't help anyone sugar-coating things. It doesn't help saying there's grammar faults without pointing them out either (to a certain degree). I don't mind taking the time to go through works also, as long as I think the errors aren't due to laziness.

Also, I gather you're young Rynash and still at school. You have plenty of time to improve your craft and I know it's hard. So honestly, don't worry about it. (Also, perhaps english isn't your native language. I never could learn a foreign language while at school myself. I took french for 5 years and couldn't speak for more than 20 seconds in the speaking exam which subsequently got me a telling off. I think/hope I did slightly better in the written exam though.)

The best advice I can give is to look up sentence structure via google and the rules pertaining to dialog, then with the next piece, just try to avoid the same mistakes. Obviously, you probably won't be able to straight away, but it should be gradual.

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Akroma

I'll have to agree with you Although it's the good advice I don't want to hear lol. I hate it when people turn my beautiful creation into something suddenly clumsy and ugly but I know it's got to be done and it's the best way of learning how to get better. Besides, they must really care if they spend so much time reading it and thinking of ways to make it better

I also find reading lots and lots helps tonnes in my writing, Rynash. Sentense structure and punctuation really get imprinted in my brain when I read...but maybe thats just me and of course, writing more which you are already doing. And time of course - I read stuff that I wrote 4 years ago and just want to slap myself lol. Hey, I read stuff that I wrote a week ago and want to slap myslef! So keep up with the good effort, hun!

__________________


A story that's having a go at being epic fantasy...but with the modern world, vampires and werewolves mixed into the cocktail as well...

DavidGil

It would be nice to have a response either saying thank you, or sod off and don't critique my work again. I didn't intend to scare you off if that's what happened.

No response makes me feel the time I took out to try and help was unwanted and I wasted my time. I get this a lot and makes me think I should stop critiquing. Or at least, I should stop critiquing in this way.

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Damian_Rucci

I liked the plot my only problem was you had the main character progress very quickly. He went from afraid to confident and powerful within a couple of paragraphs leaving the reader a bit confused. In my opinion if you worked on the character progression

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Rynash

oh sorry guys david thx i totally agree with you and damien im actually thinking bout a way to slow it down a little and like you said workon character progression plus ill be changin discription of the reds and give new names since they are just like a japanese anime and i dont want to plagerise thx again guys

__________________
24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case - coincidence? I think not!

Damian_Rucci

very nice, I was about to say that about the anime show Bleach, but you hit the nail on the head

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Check out my blog: D.F. Rucci's Writing
Fourth Lyrical Album coming out July 4th! Check out:
"Cannabis" "Farther and Farther Away"
"Never Beating Heart" "Killing Me"
"Trapped (Lia's Wings)" "Birds"

MiloDaePesdan

Changing the monster and character description won't just do it, Ry. The plot resembles the later half of the first episode of Bleach, which is why this can't be taken for anything but fanfiction. It's not different or original enough from the Bleach concept.

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Rynash

its not goin aywhere near it after this trust me

__________________
24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case - coincidence? I think not!

Damian_Rucci

If I were you I'd try to make a different plot because i just realized the similarity

__________________
Check out my blog: D.F. Rucci's Writing
Fourth Lyrical Album coming out July 4th! Check out:
"Cannabis" "Farther and Farther Away"
"Never Beating Heart" "Killing Me"
"Trapped (Lia's Wings)" "Birds"

A-L

yeah it is similar, but you can easily change that further along in the story.

Damian_Rucci

thats true, but if someone picks up a story and it looks just like a fanfic, odds are they won't read it

__________________
Check out my blog: D.F. Rucci's Writing
Fourth Lyrical Album coming out July 4th! Check out:
"Cannabis" "Farther and Farther Away"
"Never Beating Heart" "Killing Me"
"Trapped (Lia's Wings)" "Birds"

A-L

touche .