Ahhh fantastic review. I agree on the situational dialogue, not up to scratch! I’ll definitely edit based on this review! Thank you!
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Sci Fi & Fantasy / Plane Jumper
“Don’t move Flick!” Khari urged her companion, switching her eyes to the other members of her group to show the phrase was inclusive of them also. Flicker had accidentally inserted himself between his comrades and a gigantic bulbous bipedal creature. A monster with pure white crystalline eyes and deadly razor claws that dripped a green tinged substance, which sparked and hissed as it fell to the floor, over shadowed the other members of the party. Its needle sharp teeth were currently being carefully cleaned by the creatures jet-black pronged tongue, its monstrous body took up the majority of the small hallway. Flicker gave it a casual glance and looked back at Khari.
“Trouble dear one?” The Plane Jumper had always been a little too calm in the face of danger for Khari’s liking, like nothing really mattered. “Oh he’s an ugly one isn’t he?”
“Yes Flick, trouble! But it can’t see you if you don’t move. So don’t give it the chance please.” Khari ran the conundrum through her mind, she couldn’t think of anything; the creature certainly didn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon, and none of them could move to escape.
“Khari, lass, what exactly is it you would like us to do?” The other-plane War-Rager asked, struggling to keep still in the shadow of the huge beast. Plane-touched Ragers were no less brave than their real world dwarven relations, in fact in many cases they were exceptionally more so, but Baulder felt this was an opportune moment to not live up to the stereotype. He would have given anything to be back on a field full of Demon-Touched spawn as opposed to trying to fight a creature without the ability to move.
“I’m thinking!” Khari squealed. She had a large nagging feeling that somehow the other members of the group had begun to look to her for leadership, it had started slowly at first, and had become more and more frequent as time passed. The Siphon had started out as simply another useful addition to the party, a simple matter of battle field control to her other companions, but as the days wore on, the question “What now Khari?” became more and more frequent.
“Yes well, as much as I am fond of our current surroundings Khari, I would greatly appreciate if your thoughts could perhaps skip off to a jog rather than a stroll” The quick tongued Dagger Sniper quipped. In a fight he was invaluable, his two daggers accounting for more than a third of most battlefield casualties, but outside of combat he rarely offered anything useful. Khari had also not let her disapproval of his smart tongued nature go unnoticed, as she had willingly laid him flat in the dirt on three separate occasions.
“Hush, Jaisander. I’m trying to think”
“Let the lass do her thinking boy, do you want to get us all killed?” Baulder huffed, also growing increasingly tired of the boys constant biting statements.
“We wouldn’t have to pay her if she died.” Came the quick retort.
“Indeed boy, but then how do you intend on spending your cash when you are in the monsters belly?”
Jaisander went silent and focused more on not moving and trying not to think about being eaten alive.
“Flick!” Khari almost yelled as an idea formed in her head. “It didn’t see you come in, which means it must only be able to detect direct movement, not teleportation.”
Flick casually turned his head to meet the gaze of the monster, causing it to roar loudly and swivel its massive head in their direction, its blind eyes connecting straight with Flickers. It seemed to look straight at him.
“Khari, love, I’m more than certain you have a point, I’m just not sure where you’re heading with it?”
“It can’t see you if you don’t move, teleportation isn’t really movement is it?”
“Well now, technically that depends whom you ask! I had a fantastically long debate with-“
“Flick!” the Plane Jumper snapped out of his reverie and looked up at the gigantic creature again, causing the beast to take a step forward with a snarl.
Flicker still looked dubious but gave a very small nod regardless. As he did so his body vanished only to reappear a foot away mere fractions of a second later, the monster seemed not to notice. Flicker was a Planejumper, and was by far the most useful travelling companion Khari had ever had. Not only were his abilities useful as a teleport spell, but Flicker had the unique ability to bring back objects and properties of the planes he jumped to. He also seemed to be able to manipulate certain pieces of each, which had become more than handy when breaking into the Tombs that her group frequented. He could also, with enough willpower, shift other individuals with him, though in this circumstance Khari suspected he was too intimidated, despite his apparent apathy, to muster the mental strength to jump four people to another plane.
“See, I told you it would work”
“So far, lovely, so far. But now we have established that it works what would you like me to do? You are all still stuck here even if I can get away. No offense to any of you, but I doubt that any villagers or soldiers will come running to cries of help for a bunch of Tomb Looters about to be devoured."
Khari rolled her eyes; the others were always a little slow to catch on to her new plans if she didn’t spell it out for them.
“Jump here, grab my sword, jump on its head, kill it”
“Khari, no offense my lovely, but from the looks of that big beastie and it’s ever so handsome shiny skin, your little sword isn’t going to do much good.”
“Flick! Unless you have another idea, I suggest you try it! Because I can’t siphon something that big, and even if I could, I can’t move to get to it!”
“Well it just so happens I do, thank you very much”
With that Flick disappeared, more than a few seconds passed, leaving Khari worried and agitated in the belief that Flicker had finally had enough, and decided to abandon them. Khari looked nervously at Baulder, who gave off the slightest of shrugs, Jaisander gave a dismissive snort. Suddenly Flick appeared over the top of the behemoth monster a huge smile creasing his always-happy face, followed shortly after by a huge pool of molten lava that melted through the flesh of the beast in seconds. Flick stood in the center of the mess smiling triumphantly as he dusted off his hands and surveyed his work.
“Elemental planes- not just for warm holidays!”
The stupid joke broke the tension, and even the stoic Baulder gave off a little laugh. Jaisander nimbly danced between the lava, inspecting the pile of melting beast.
“I’ve never seen something like that before, in any of the tombs we’ve been to.”
“Yeah well, we’ve only been to two other wizards’ tombs.” Said Khari, moving closer to inspect the remains of the beast and shielding her eyes from the heat of the lava which had started to melt its way through the floor. “But you’re right, things have been…odd lately. Normally it’s just a spot of skeleton guard with a shake of skeletal mage. Now…now it’s big things with huge teeth. The mountains are becoming infested with goblins; even the damn pixies are hostile.” Khari had been mulling the thoughts over in her head for a few weeks now. She was pleased someone else had finally voiced the concerns.
“Lass, I suggest we keep moving. Standing still in a wizard’s tower is never a good idea.” Baulder had made sure to keep his distance from the lava, not being as fond of the substance as his subterranean cousins were.
“You’re right, though moving in a wizard’s tower isn’t the smartest idea either, alright, let’s get a move on then.”
As the group trudged off, a dark figure stepped through what, to any untrained eye, would have seemed to be a rip in the very air itself. It was followed by a hobbling aged man, with a kindly face and wrinkles around the eyes, and another, large being, dressed in heavy armor, that had to stoop to exit the tear.
‘Well, did we see that?’ asked the first, shaded figure, darkened as if standing in perpetual shadow, his glowing yellow eyes the only indication that he was living rather than a picture of a darkened landscape.
‘We did.’ Said the old man, hobbling a little closer.
"That was deliciously…unique."
"The raw power! With such…apathy!"
"Mm, yes, he truly didn’t seem to exert himself at all did he?"
"No…Not since Xin has there been one like him."
"Then let us not make the same mistake twice. This one will be devoured before he has a chance to run. Our next meal shall be on a Plane…what did the mewling girl call him in her mind?"
"Jumper, Kael, she called him a Plane Jumper."
"Our next feast shall be on a Plane Jumper then."
With that the two turned back into the rip and exited the world, leaving the giant soldier looking down the hallway used by the group of four, licking his lips hungrily.
“Mmmm”.
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CSNS reviewed Version 2 -
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A few words that sounded a little weird to me first :
“inserted himself” = found himself
“carefully cleaned” = methodically cleaned.
A period instead of a comma between ‘tongue’ and ‘its’.
“The other-plane War-Rager” = what is other-plane, War-Rager? Maybe I misunderstood but the “other-plane” confused me. “Plane-touched Ragers” = same here, confused? I get the other characters abilities, but those sentences need reword in my opinion.
I like Flick’s personality a whole lot, and we get a good glimpse at the leader and Jaisander. I can’t help to feel a little D&D in there or is it just me?
Anyways, I feel this is a good intro. You give the reader a good first look at your characters, why they are where they are and what they are doing. I like their personality, seems pretty eclectic. Good job and please keep me posted on more installments, I am interested.
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AnimusLight reviewed Version 2 -
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All of your characters are very verbose, even in times of peril. That seems very unrealistic to me. This: “Yes well, as much as I am fond of our current surroundings Khari, I would greatly appreciate if your thoughts could perhaps skip off to a jog rather than a stroll,” sounds very natural. That one character’s diction makes it seem as if this character is the snarky one who makes long-winded diatribes all the time, no matter what the situation is.
This: “It didn’t see you come in, which means it must only be able to detect direct movement, not teleportation.” does not seem very natural for the situation. There’s a big friggin monster there. I think the most natural thing, especially for a character who’s rather curt the rest of the time, would be to say something like, “It can’t see teleports!” or something to that effect. Khari seems more short and direct, so it doesn’t make sense that she’s giving this explanation, even if it’s only a few words longer, when she’s face to face with a monster.
One last thing… Why would lava melt through the floor? Unless the floor itself is made of meltable material, it wouldn’t happen. For one thing, lava is molten, sure, which basically means it’s melted clay, dirt, rock, etc. But the thing about lava is that it sets things on fire, not melts them.
Overall, I did like this piece and would be interested in seeing it continued. You need to work on your prose, but you already said that you’ll do it later. So work on getting some more realistic dialogue in.
snarfus reviewed Version 2 -
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Not bad. There’s some interesting dialogue exchanges, and some great description. On the other hand, you dump a lot of info on the reader in a short amount of time.
The biggest problem with this is the characters. You have characters with names and titles, but you break up telling the reader that. Do it all in one shot to start off with so the reader doesn’t get confused. “Jaismander, the party’s quick tongued Dagger Sniper, quipped” for example.
The only other thing that’s immediately noticeable is that I would change “over shadowed other members of the party” to “towered over…” as that sounds more menacing.
Overall, an interesting start. I’m curious to see where this leads.
the_antagonist reviewed Version 2 -
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Grammar (not necessarily all the things I comment on are mistakes, but they make the story read better):
First sentence needs a comma between “move” and “Flick.”
“Over shadowed” should be hyphenated, as should needle sharp.
Turn the comma after “tongue” into a semi-colon.
Comma between “trouble” and “dear one”
Comma between “Oh” and “he’s” and “one” and “isn’t”
Next paragraph, change the comma between “mind” and “she” into a colon (and then capitalize “she”).
The comma between “dwarven relations” and “in fact” should be a period, and “in fact” should be followed by a comma.
Change the comma between “leadership” and “it had started” into a period.
Next paragraph, add a comma between “yes” and “well” and “surroundings” and “Khari”
Same paragraph, comma after stroll, and make “the” lower-case.
“Smart tongued” should be hyphenated.
Punctuate “think” in the following dialogue, and change the period after died into a comma and make “came” lower-case. You make similar dialogue-punctuation mistakes throughout. Place an apostrophe after the s in “boys”
The sentence that begins with “Khari, love” should end in a period.
Add “and” or “but” between “move” and “teleportation.”
“Fractions of a second later” should be followed with a semi-colon rather than a comma. Also after “slightest of shrugs”
Dashes should either be two hyphens without spaces or one hyphen with a space on either side
“Isn’t the smartest idea either” should be punctuated with a period
Ellipses (i.e., ...) should have a space after them
“and another large beast” should not have a comma between “large” and “beast.” Same thing between “first” and “shaded”
“Exert himself at all” should be followed by a comma
The period at the end should be inside the quotation marks
As for the characterization, you did a good job. Flicker seemed a little bit over-the-top at times; I’d tone him down slightly. Other than that, it was very good, I got a taste of the distinct personalities already.
thedesroyinghill reviewed Version 2 -
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The flow is good, which is good for a prologue, because it has to be interesting to grab the readers attention. The characters themselves seem to be deep in their overall personalities, and the shady characters at the end really make it a good prologue. The begining kind of lost me for a paragraph or so, but the dialogue reacaptured my attention.
martykate reviewed Version 2 -
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Flicker had accidentally inserted himself between his comrades and a gigantic bulbous bipedal creature. A monster with pure white crystalline eyes and deadly razor claws that dripped a green tinged substance, which sparked and hissed as it fell to the floor, over shadowed the other members of the party.
This is just a suggestion, but this is how I’d break up this sentence.
Flicker had accidentally inserted himself between his comrades and a gigantic bulbous bipedal creature, a monster with pure white crystalline eyes and deadly razor claws that dripped a green tinged substance. It sparkled and hissed as it fell to the floor, over shadowing the other members of the party.
Makes it less of a run-on sentence
exceptionally more so, but Baulder felt Change needed ...exceptionally more so. Baulder felt this Again, break the sentence.
Khari seems to be the best developed character, then Flicker. You’ve introduced quite a few and I don’t want to build up too many points for you.
By the way, your sentencing needs a lot of help. I quit after a couple because I wanted to keep this short. If you need help editing, I’m free and I’m in English Comp in school right now.
This story is showing promise.
Arion reviewed Version 2 -
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the dialogue that your characters shared were good. I enjoyed reading what they had to say to each other. The personalities are good…I could tell that each of the characters has some depth to them, as if they have their own stories and lives. The flow of it went well, however, I felt that seeing the two mysterious figures plot at the end was a bit cliche…perhaps you can try and make that part unique. Over all I enjoyed it and look foreward to reading up on these characters.
slbynum3 reviewed Version 1 -
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I really liked this. The characters’ personalities are realistic and fun. I like that they all have different abilities too. This reminds me of R.A. Salvatore’s novels, which are my favorite. Like him, you explore the thoughts and feelings of each character, not just one.
I couldn’t really find any mistakes except here “devoured. Khari” you’re missing quotation marks after the period. You were missing a couple other punctuation marks, but overall your grammer wasn’t too bad.
I enjoy stories like this about a group of friends going on adventures, so I would certainly read more.
duddbudda reviewed Version 1 -
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‘flicker, more affectionately known as flick to his friends’ – totally unnecessary cutesy cheese, if the narrator calls him flicker but other characters call him flick it’s pretty clear what’s going on. Plus ‘affection’ in friendship is either too pre-school or too deep for most stories; here it’s the former and we start thinking it’s a kids book far too soon.
‘which seemed to drip’, either it was dripping or it wasn’t, and seeing as it corrodes the floor it clearly DOES drip, none of this ‘seemed’ please.
‘razor claws’ needs a comma. I know there shouldn’t be one before ‘that’ but you need to mark the clauses since it continues later with ‘shadowed’. Incidentally ‘that shadowed the other members of the party’ is a truly bizarre way to say that, kudos for originality, but maybe be a bit more succinct.
In a similar vein, ‘khari couldn’t think her way out of the situation…’, why not just ‘It was a conundrum…’ this is known as free indirect discourse. FID is a technique that allows your character to voice their thoughts/everything through the narrator without the narrator mentioning any changes, it is very subtle and it’s impact develops the more and the more carefully it is applied.
Liking the whole ‘plane-touched’ etc, intriguing and exactly the kind of concept yu need to bring the distortion or reality that fantasy requires. If you want some physics behind the ‘planes’ check out recent m-theory hypotheses (there’s one that say the universe is the result of interaction between infinite waves/sheets/planes that are progressing in opposition)
‘she had the increasingly large nagging feeling that somehow’. Again if you can be concise you’ll find yourself saying more, with greater clarity. And this section is another opportunity for some FID.
the dwarf and archer’s little exchange, and the brief history of the ‘sharp-tongue’ is cool, but I’m instantly reminded of legolas and gimli and there’s already a billion pages of LoTR knock-off trash. Fantasy has to work very hard to be original, but unless it does it will fail.
Idea’s very cool in general. Flicker’s solution is excellent, but be careful to give out powers like these too early because they’ll restrict the problems they’ll have to deal with in future. EG, if they’re ever faced with a locked gate or impenetrable walls or whatever, guess what, application of lava will solve that in a jiffy, don’t let inconsistencies like this crop up.
Characters are little too generic for me; venerable, stoic dwarf, witty, arrogant(?) elf, + bossy intelligent leader type. and Flicker, who we know nothing about so far. Personally I want someone with his powers to have massive (and visible) psychological deficencies, otherwise I’ll just spent the entire book wondering why he didn’t just make himself king and have done.
Cheers
Josh
FrakKevin reviewed Version 1 -
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I didnt really know who was talknig at some points, but your dialog was okay. I’m not clear…are they all dwarfs? I’m glad your saved on the character detail and put everything into the monster. And his for him returning with the lava…did he carry it in his hands or did it just appear in thin air with him. I would read a part 2 just to see what the actually plot is. I’m no grammar pro, but didnt spot any misspelled words.
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