It seems like you have do many good ideas, but they are scattered and written very vaguely. Your writing style, with description and interjections, and the way you show how the child thinks, is excellent. It is just so vague that it is hard to follow and even harder to comprehend. Trying to understand what is being described, or what is happening when there are scene jumps is taking away from the overall enjoyment of the story. Overall an excellent writing style, but a confusing and complicated story with an incomplete and unsatisfying ending.
Part of the chapter review exchange.

Part of the Chapter Review Exchange (Allora Silverfield, early chapters)

It is very interesting how you didn't give the girl a name, even though this was a lengthy chapter. It's an effective method of characterization, making her mannerisms stand out more than how other people see her and call her.

I don't quite understand how she is able to understand what the pokemon are saying. I'm assuming it is because she has a truer interaction with pokemon than with people, but it wasn't very clear. I'm sure it will become clear in the future.

If she didn't consider the man her father, then why did she call him Daddy?

Overall, I enjoyed this story. It is very different and mature from other stories I have read on the site. I enjoy a lot of description when I read, and you didn't disappoint. Very well written!

This gives me a fairly calm, detached feeling as I read. I like it.

The descriptions are a bit confusing for me (I didn't know that Slice was a Sneasel until she started referring to it as Sneasel), but I think that if a child were to read it, they would understand perfectly. I don't see that much in fics; they usually have the exact opposite effect: Read and you shall understand, but let a child read and they shall be very confused.

Excellent use of character, I like the child's way of thinking. Very simple and thoughtful, weighing each option carefully before acting.

Part of Chapter Review Exchange

Please review "A Rekindled Flame"

I like the characterization of the main character as well as the alienation of the spearow, and the fact that they ganged up on it as a way to capture it. You should continue this, it has potential :D

The description is first class and I am intrigued by the almost mechanical way the character reacts. Her interaction with he sparrow is a little extensive but I think it gets across the point that she is slowly deciphering it's speech. This is making me wonder if all people could figure out pokemon speech if they listened carefully or if it is something special about the character. I also wonder what happened to her mother but as the character has just left her home I doubt I'm going to find out. The story feels purposefully vague and it is mostly showing and not telling except when she is thinking something over. It definitely has an over all chilling effect, and though the lack of action makes it hard to read I think the slow build up fits in with the story. I'd say you have managed to pull off an OC character in a way that actually worked and I think for criticism you should find some one to read it over in depth and comment on very minute details, as overall it is a fascinating beginning.

-An Authors Pen

(This is part of the reviews exchange. I'd prefer if you reviewed my story "Stone Silence")

Well, it's kinda , strange. I don't mean to be rude, but yours is a writing style that requires a reader with a large and understanding mind, as well as excellent grammar. My grammar is not exactly very god, but I can say that there are some fragments that don't fit, but then again, I could be wrong as I am not very good.

Your expression is very good, but the precision of a scene is too much. That's kind of a problem with me too. Like in this paragraph,

'The child crawled over. She stared at it, entranced by the brilliant scarlet color of the blood, glistening like wet rubies in the dim light, and the shiny round black eyes staring outward, devoid of any emotion. She crawled closer, hanging over it. She had only seen the flash of tails and hind legs before, vanishing like the end of a worm sucked into the beak of a spearow. Yet they were going to safety, while the worm was going to die. She didn't understand exactly how it could work differently.'

This para combines complicated grammar and words, with striking precision of the child's mood, her surroundings, her change of emotion, reaction to change in surrounding ( like the worm's death).

I'm not saying you are too descriptive, NOBODY is too descriptive, cuz description is good. I'm just saying that your excellent English can sometimes confuse those who do not have the gift...

_SOLAD

P.S. I will read the next chapter as soon as there is time. It's 3 at night and I have 5 hrs coaching tomorrow added with another 8 hrs school.

O.o

I'd like to tell you that I read this fic with a kind of a horrified fascination, where you know that something horrible is happening, but you can't look away.

-

You hint at so many possibilities it's hard to decide which is which. After reading chapter 16, my impression of the child (I'm not going to call her Ice. It's not her name, and I strongly believe you shouldn't even have attached a name to her, but more on that later) is that she isn't one. Her thought processes betray a much more intelligent being who moves among the humans.

But why? And who is it?

This is why this fic is so good. You give just enough information for the reader to know something is up, something is wrong. However, the reader cannot pinpoint exactly what is wrong. Most importantly, it is your refusal to state WHY that keeps the reader continuing. The reader wants to know why the child is doing everything she does, why she decides to continue with her facade. You cut your scenes well; they don't seem to drag on too long or end before the reader wants them to.

However, that's not to say that some of the scenes shouldn't even be there. My second biggest beef with this fic is that you spent too much time on her early childhood. It doesn't take 3 whole chapters for you to get the message across that she is ruthless, logical to a fault and as a result will always follow the most efficient method of removing a problem. Unless you plan to return to the spearow, you spent too much time on it. Of the three chapters, I believe that only the scene where she finds the pokemon and the scene where she kills the first teacher are of any importance.

Why? Because the scenes repeat themselves. The message behind those scenes is basically the same thing. Again some of the early scenes with Team Rocket seemed to be unnecessary (except for the scene in the museum). It is probably because of this that people complained that your narrative moved too slowly. Character development also seemed to be forced, with an abrupt change in the presentation of the child in chapter 12, which I didn't really like.

Finally, I believe that giving the child a nickname was a bad choice. The title of the fic is enough for us, with regards to the child's name, and giving her the name of the fic just seems to insult the reader, as though the reader isn't expected to make the jump between the title and the implied name.

Then there was that weird bit in Chapter 12 where you went into a weird mix of present tense and past tense, but that's only a minor thing.

But in the end, this was still a challenging fic to read, if not even slightly entertaining, but very very dark. I'd be the first to admit that I didn't fully understand every aspect of the fic (especially with regards to her 'father'), but I think you intended it that way, no?

8/10

Keep up the good work!

This was part of the review exchange. Could you review "Nothing is Perfect"? My other fic was more of a spur of the moment thing.

...and you've returned back to past tense.

"She's learning again, because she has to learn." Wrong tense there, it should be:

"She was learning again, because she had to learn."

"And she's stuck there now." Again, same problem

"And she was stuck there now."

Okay, I'm now officially confused. You've suddenly switched to telling the narrative in a weird hodgepodge of past and present tense in this chapter. I'll elaborate at the end

"...Little black-haired girl who just did what everyone said. That was you, right." Missing a question mark.

"(But she wasn't replacing someone live.)

And it was nothing that really mattered.

(But this wasn't true.)

And that was all."

She thinks of her self in the second person?

Not sure if you did this on purpose, but you've changed the way you refer to the main character back to 'the child' where it was previously 'the trainer'

Also, I know how you referred to Officer Jenny as a noun, but when one of your characters (the 'third boy') mentioned her as a name, the tension that enveloped the kidnapped children broke. Suddenly, I'm not so keen on finding out what they had been told about 'jenny'. If someone was going to actually say the words 'Officer Jenny' then it should have been the second boy, the one with the gun, because he was the one to show the most initiative.

"looking up at her with round black eyes. "Vi!" it eeped, rolling up again."

Can something really 'eep'? The last time I checked, 'eep' was not a verb, but if it was a word, it would be an adjective or noun.

Secondly, this chapter is unfinished. Just check the last line of this chapter and you'll see what I mean.

Full review when I finish the story. For now I'll just nitpick errors in individual chapters, if I find any.

-

"The man was reasonably peaceful, big enough to kill her in one blow."

There isn't a logical progression from the first half of the sentence to the next. Maybe just split the sentence into two?

-

Am I right in assuming that she has a little empathy, the ability to sense emotions?

Hmm... I find this story/chapter very... Interesting. I could not decipher what the dream really meant, or what its purpose is.

I like you style of writing, for it paints a picture in our heads and it's very scenaric. However, I think you can improve by adding more of a mood to it - My impression of your story so far is that this story is about a young girl, probably between the ages of five to eight, trying to find where she belongs while staying "invisible" and not standing out.

Overall, I still love this story because it's not something you would usually see. It's very original and creative; you have a talent that not many people have!

BUT! On the downside, parts of this can be a bit boring. I like how everything is very descriptive, but there's not need to spend a whole paragraph or more do describe one action or thing. That just turns younger readers off and they will probably go and read something else.

Ps. I hate to point this out, but you misseed a comma in the following dialogue:

[She wrapped her hands around his throat, watching the way his eyes widened until they were bulging. The little boy's entire body began to shake. His big, doughy hands fumbled as they clumsily tried to loosen her grip and failed. "I-i-i-i" he stammered. "I-I'll tell a-again." His eyes rolled frantically from side to side, as if he was aware this was the wrong thing to say, as if he was aware that she was not going to let go.]

XEmpoleon of LightX

And yes, this is part of the review exchange. I have sent you the stories I want reviewed in a PM.

Thanks.

This story reminds me of my childhood, back when I was in preschool. I didn't like to be noticed, and I've hated it (I still do hate school) too, but I always would stand up for myself or someone else when it's needed. That's why I think this story is exceptional and inspirational.

But, there is a thing about your writing style that I don't get - Sometimes there are fragments, especially this -

[Why had she killed it and not let it die.]

What kind of sentence is that? What I suspect is it could've been a typo, and you really meant to put a question mark instead of a period.

And I didn't really understand the part with the bunch of "(something)"s either. At first I did, but then, it got a bit confusing. In the second and third paragraphs of the "(something)"s, there were no quotation marks, meaning the spearow is not saying it. That's what gets me confused, because at first, the spearow is saying that and now it isn't.

Have you ever heard a trick in writing that had something to do with the first line of the story? It has to be hooking - something that would make the person reading it want to keep on readin your story. For example, your first line was ["Damn vermin!" The man kicked it, hard, then walked away.]

It may seem interesting to some, but for me, it was pretty mediocre. Overall, I think this is a good start for a story. It's what you would find in books that have won Newbery Honor's Awards or something like that.

Finally... I want to say, yes, this is part of the Review Exchange. Thank you!

XEmpoleon of LightX

(PS. Sorry for any typo that I've made during this review.)