Page 1, Post 8
“The naval soldiers wore steel-plated armor which made them almost impervious to blunt or dulled weapons, but at the cost of their maneuverability.”
Very, very poor structuring and flow here. Except for some slight wording issues in the first few paragraphs, the text was gripping enough. This sentence absolutely tore me away from the piece. I suggest restructuring into two sentences, such as:
“The naval soldiers wore steel-plated armor, which made them almost impervious to blunt weapons. This advantage came at the cost of their maneuverability.”
Just an example, and I’m sure you can do better.
“He spun and slashed one of them in the neck, then, while dodging an attack from a massive broadsword, stabbed another.”
You need to separate the clauses before the word ‘then’. Replace the comma after ‘neck’ with a semicolon, and you’re all set.
Page 8, Post 4
“There was a light breeze that blew gracefully through the town…”
Remove ‘There was’ and ‘that*. It tightens the sentence and provides a lot of flow.
“crowded streets with an air of confidence as though he owned the entire city”
This is very ugly, I think. At the very least, put a comma after ‘streets’ and after ‘confidence’.
Page 8, Post 5
“He had a cruel, predatory voice that sounded like whoever was speaking had not had any form of joy in a very long time.”
Again, consider restructuring. Any odd sentence that disrupts flow serves only to break the reader away from the story. In this case, I would get rid of ‘whoever was speaking’ and replace it with ‘he’.
“assaulter”
Hideous word. So many alternatives. Use assailant, at least.
“Questions rushed into Joran's head, wondering why this man had attempted to capture him.”
This implies that the questions are wondering. End the sentence after ‘head’, and begin another with ‘He wondered’.
20-Jun-2008 01:19:44
