Hm, your writing has really, really improved a lot since the last thing I read from you. I think it's just my absence from reading your works for so long, but hey, you've gotten so good that I almost couldn't recognise it.

This, to me, somehow engaged me emotionally, more than most other works do. It's not that there is a lot of description or anything; you kept it quite short and plain--but it's pretty cool how you could sustain me through pure choice of expression alone.

I mean, take these sentences:
"Somehow, other people always seemed to pay for his mistakes. His family always paid for his mistakes."

It's just...captivating, in a weird way I don't understand. And I like it. It's something that I know I'll never learn to do, because I'm just to lousy for my own good. I'm just that hopeless.

There's this thing about it, though; it doesn't have the feel of a chapterfic yet. I don't seem to be able to feel which direction it's going. More purpuse, maybe; stronger adjectives and stronger emotional responses from the characters. It will drive the story forward.

Right now, everything seems quite by-the-way, as if no real implication will spring from whatever is going on. Like I just mentioned (but feel the inexplicable need to reiterate), stronger emotional responses from people--especially righteous anger or contempt--would push everything forward a certain amount.

And your vocab! Okay, I know a lot of people do get criticised for using such bombastic words that no one can decipher the intended message. But this is seriously underdoing it (if that, indeed, is the opposite of overdoing) because you use a lot of very plain vocabulary here.

Just a random example:
"It seemed strangely quiet without birdsong."

You want the mood to be better, don't you? Certain words will help bring that out; maybe you find that using colourful vocabulary for every single sentence will take too much effort, but you should make it a habit. It's one of those things that readers like without knowing that they do. It works in sublimal ways, so take extra care with that.

And lastly, the names. I'm not too sure about your taste for names, but I found the names a bit...weird. I don't know, really; they are a little strange to me, and for a person to whom character names play a key role in deciding whether he/she continues to read, that might not be a good thing. I'm one such person, by the way.

Sometimes I choose books by main character name alone. Which is why I took such a long time to decide to read Harry Potter.

Okay then. I think that's about all I have to say. I will go reply to your PM now--oh, and that profile thing is really cool. Byes

Hmm, hardly a relation to maple, so you should take that into consideration?

hey wx! im st. em i find ur writitng style very good, but im rather confused abt the story line... overall ur grammar and eng standards are good just well try not to make the story so chim. ya tats all i guess.

Cool, I like it a lot, though it seems very different from MapleStory even if it has the town names and Athena and such. I liked it, please continue.

This is nice, sharp and concise.

I'm sorry. My brain isn't allowing me to comprehend with words at a time like this, so good job so far. I'm interested.

1100/275/325/450/590/645/745

I can spot quite a few errors here, for example, the "SOmehow" part. I'm also not quite sure why you alternate between could'nt and couldn't, because I THINK they are both correct? I like the style of writing for this story. I don't know if you have already been writing like this for awhile and I never realized, or you tried to write differently this time, but I like it. The first two paragraphs are nice, I can sort of understand exactly how the character is feeling just by your descriptions. Oh, Is the "One do you want?" part a typo, or is it meant to be that way? Also, there are a few extra double inverted commas and dots and commas. That aside, this is a good first chapter, as it keeps the reader guessing. I really need another chapter. Now.

I like where the story's going, nice plotline. However, there are punctuation errors dotted across the paragraphs; little, but they're still there.
But good story. And thanks for the edit. :D.