   Val Mora 2005-03-24 . chapter 1A decent beginning, but the language seems a little bit stilted; I like that you tried to keep the suspense by not using Goku's name, but I think it's more awkward that way. It would probably be best if you just gave up and put it in, instead of all the "golden-eyed youth" business (because really, the color of his eyes ultimately isn't that important to us, it's all of him that we care about. Plus, nobody really uses 'youth' anymore except in fairy-tale-style pieces or for ironic purposes, so using it in total earnestness here is strange).
There is one instance where you use a comma where there should be a semicolon - "The youth choked, but too late; the drug..." is more correct.
Keep the entire chapter from Goku's perspective. Don't add details he wouldn't know, like that the drug is called double-oh-twenty-three (make sure that you name it something that people don't mind pronouncing! Double-oh-twenty-three is a bit of a mouthful - they're more likely to give it a slang name if it's at all common), unless you specify that he heard them talking about it.
The first sentence is good, though, as is the first paragraph. Very involving.
Try to keep your level of diction consistent. Your story is based on Saiyuki, which is probably one of the least formal fandoms I know - if you were writing, say, "Romeo and Juliet" fic, you'd want to keep all the thee's and thou's and you'd have to know the difference between 'will' and 'shall,' and you'd use lots of big words. In Saiyuki, you should probably nix technical terms unless they're about Buddhist doctrine or firearms, or from Hakkai's perspective.
The reason I say this is that in trying to keep from repeating yourself, you're going with the 'thesaurus love' approach: find the offending word in a thesaurus and use the most familiar of its synonyms. This doesn't always work, because it ends up sounding forced and immensely awkward. If you have to, change the order of the words in the sentence so that it won't repeat.
Curious plot device. I would kind of liked to have started with the situation that got him there, so that I could feel properly horrified, though. >.<
I hope this review makes your day (and improves your writing) too. ^_~ |
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