Next Big Recognition Contest

Round 61

2. It's been pointed out to me before that I tend to use adverbs instead of properly describing things (actions), so I wanted to know if it still seems that way. Are you able to visualise things as they are described? I'd like to know how I can improve my descriptions.

3. As I was rereading the chapter, I kind of felt like many of my sentence structures were similar. Did you feel the same and think it hindered the flow of the chapter? If everything isn't flowing properly, I'd appreciate suggestions on how to fix it.

Any other suggestions on grammar, dialogue, pacing etc are welcome

In-line Comment Preference: Welcome

Genre: Action

Rating:  PG-13

Winning Comment: Hello! You have such an interesting name for your story, and that enthralls us. As for your questions, we'll jump right in to your third one and the comment topic (all at the same time!) because sentence structure seems to be our favorite thing to work with. So for that, we'll get inside the story and really focus on that, as well as grammar sentence flow. All right, let's get onto the review!

(CT:) >"Her feet made no sound as they hit the cool marble beneath her with each step." This doesn't particularly flow well because of the phrasing and the term "beneath her." We really like how you show the sound as well as feeling and visuals within this sentence. A question raised here would be: "Who is she?" and this propels us to read on, so let's keep all of these elements but still find a way to rephrase the term "beneath her" so it doesn't sound so repetitive in the first sentence. Try something like this: "Her feet didn't make the slightest sound as they touched the cool marble." With that sentence, we took out 'with each step' and the 'beneath her.' If you wanted the 'each step' to be in there somewhere though, consider putting it as an introductory for the nest sentence [with each step]. We thought that it sounded redundant because it was implied there in the "as they hit the cool marble."

>"Abruptly, she skidded to a stop, not wanting to be flattened by concrete. Her hands shot out in the nick of time, barely preventing her from colliding into the wall which stood in front of her." No, this isn't about the adverb! (Nicely placed, we think!) But rather the way these two sentence are structured together. They both have a comma in the middle of them, and the way that comma is placed makes them both sound repetitive. So consider changing at least one of these sentences so that it isn't like that.

We were thinking it could be something like, "Her hands shot out in the nick of time(.) They barely prevented her from colliding into the wall that rose in front of her."

We also changed the phrasing 'which stood in front of her,' because the word 'which' made it sound a bit awkward.

>"Pulling on the drawstrings of her hood to tighten it and cover her face(,) she stubbornly refused to take it off even in the heat of summer." That comma in the middle of the sentence doesn't fit there (the one after face), because that comma would normally mean that you're adding on to an action, not a thought. What you were saying the second part of this sentence was a thought. So try splitting it up into two sentences: "She pulled on the drawstrings of her hood to tighten it and cover the whole of her face. She stubbornly refused to take it off despite the heat of the summer." -OR- you could add an introductory to the second half of this sentence to make the two go together: "Pulling on the strings of her hood to tighten it and cover the whole of her face(,) SHE WONDERED why she was too stubborn to dispatch it." ("She wondered" is still an action.)

>"To capture her face would do her no good." The word 'her' is used twice in this part of the sentence, so can you reduce it by this?: "To capture her face would (do no good).