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Seren's Potent Blade

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Chuk

Chuk

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So I'mma be an ass and pick on your first sentence without reading any farther.

You come out and tell me what's gonna happen right off. Bad idea. I'm not supposed to know what happens in the story 'til the story ends. It's a lot easier to stay interested when you don't know what's happening. Hints and foreshadowing are good, blatant statements usually aren't. I'm gonna guess right now that eliminating this sentence completely would give your story a better initial hook.

EDIT:

And so now, after reading the first paragraph, I'm going to ask you this: what, exactly, does the first sentence have to do with the rest of the paragraph? As far as I can tell, nothing, so I'm going to stick by my hypothesis and say you can eliminate the first sentence and start the second sentence with "Ael" for a better introduction.

Also: "it must have come by this morning?"

Really? I couldn't have guessed on my own. This is more excess information; if the reader doesn't understand what fresh tracks in dewy grass mean, then they probably shouldn't be reading something with the word 'potent' in the title. By telling the reader too much, they get bored. Think of a professor who just rambles on, belaboring points or getting off-subject and boring the class to death. You don't want your story to do that, so it's best to eliminate unnecessary text to keep the story moving. This text is, I think, unnecessary.

And lastly, looking to further posts, try to break up the paragraphs a bit more. Long paragraphs are bad news with this font and background. Wall of text hurts the eyes. I've found 4-6 sentences, which are normally quite small paragraphs, to be pretty good when viewed on the forums. This isn't to say you can't ever go over that, but be sure to break up the longer ones with shorter ones.

16-Apr-2010 09:06:05 - Last edited on 16-Apr-2010 09:15:50 by Chuk

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