Issue 230 Reviews

[Deleted]

tashni said:

Walk the Plank by Puppy

The opening dream sequence is good. I already have a good idea of Diran's character within the first five paragraphs, which are short. Two grammar problems:

The pirate forcefully swung his powerful sword at his enemy.

"Forcefully" and "powerful" are redundant. However, if you're trying to highlight Diran's dreams of grandeur, I see why you used it. But you should know that at this point, because I don't know it's a kid's fantasy, it just struck me as odd.

I can definitely see how that sentence would seem redundant to a reader. Next time, I'll try to use more varied adjectives to describe a scene.

tashni said:

"Well... Okay, if you say so," said Diran's sister, still sounding slightly unconvinced. He turned and left to find their owner to report the news."

It's his sister, yet "he" left to find their owner.

Oops! Originally when I wrote the story, I had Diran's brother come in to wake him up, rather than his sister. I missed that when I went through editing.

tashni said:

Ooh, this sentence is too much. I had to read it a few times.

Daydreaming was mostly sufficient to helping Diran escape, but dreaming was usually better when sleep was attached to it.

Too many words, try to simplify. Also, "mostly" in this context it confusing.

Daydreaming was a sufficient escape most of the time, but dreaming was usually better when attached to sleep.
-That's how I personally would have written it.

Thanks for the advice! Shoving too many words in one sentence is something I need to work on in my writing.

tashni said:

It only had one drawback to it. If you were dreaming while sleeping, you couldn't simply escape out of dreams whenever you felt like it. In order to exit the dream, you had to wake up. Diran could recall several nightmares he'd had in the past that he hadn't been able to sneak out of immediately. He shuddered.

This piqued my interest. Foreshadowing, perhaps?

Possibly

tashni said:

the room smelly strongly of salt water and fish.

I think you can catch the problem here yourself. Same here:

The first glance around the room cause him to yell a loud,

Yup, I found a few of those typo problems after I sent it in. I think I was in a little too much of a rush to send this story in; I should take more time to edit.

tashni said:

Wow, I really didn't see the trapped-inside-Darkwing thing coming. It's done well, Darin's horror, and escpecially his panic at not being able to control his body's actions. I was a little confused when Diran acknowledged that he didn't control the body, but then he walked around the ship. A little line like, "For the moment he seemed to be in control," and that would have been cleared up nicely.

I'm happy that was an unexpected part in the story. In the past, I've written a couple series with plot lines that were a little predictable.

tashni said:

One consistent problem I see is that you use too many words. Try to get all of your sentences very simple! The fewer the words, the easier it is to read and understand.

I'll make sure to work on that!

tashni said:

The ending was good, and I look forward to the next chapter! I'm starting to see a pattern. Diran is in control until there is danger, whether it's to Darkwing's reputation or to the entire ship. This is going to be interesting!

Thank you for the in-depth review!

[Kat]

Nut - you pwn. Thanks for the <3 review. ^^

[Huntress]

*tehgasp* My series got a review? o.o Whoot!

nut said:

Just out of curiosity, why is Ace referred to as “it” several times? This might be my own ignorance/opinions on Petpets showing through, but I was under the impression that the Wuzzle was a male, or at least had a gender.

Yus, he is male and I often get myself confused when writing about petpets' gender as I sometimes remind myself of the good olde English rule about animals (which the petpets are to Neopets) being referred to as "it"-s and sometimes forget about it, keeping up my own ideas about my petpets' genders (most of them are male, except for an Anubis and a mutant Cobrall. Go figure.) Guess I should make up my mind... >.>;

Why are the heart and skull “clear nouns”? If Shad hadn’t said that, I might’ve thought of the heart as being “love”, and the skull as representing “death”.

Honestly, I have no idea how Shad's mind works x.X I s'pose the point was, once we have a sentence, it must have atleast some nouns in it and he picked the most likely ones. As for the rest of the puzzle, you got two symbols right :3 Knowing that someone has actually tried to solve it really makes writing worthwile, y'know... anyway, thanks for the review ^^

[Deleted]

nut said:

Article Reviews

[glow=blue,2,300]What Kind of Neopian Times Reader are You?[/glow]
I’m glad to see this subject getting some attention in the Times. I haven’t seen an article about the Neopian Times itself in quite a while; seems that the newspaper is underappreciated these days. When I first opened up this article, I expected something that asked how much of the Times you read, and was somewhat pleased to see that it instead deals with the individual sections of the Times. It’s written like a horoscope, with suggestions for broadening the reader’s horizons at the end of each section detailing the habits of one type of Neopian Times reader.

It was interesting to see all the different types of readers you’ve outlined, as well as the correlations you draw between each type and the alternate section of the Times that you suggest for them. I was glad to see that you separated “Art Critic” from “Comic Lover”. The article had an even, regular format, wrapping up the descriptions/suggestions in a clean loop.

As to the writing, I felt that there was a bit of forced chumminess in the article. Not to sound harsh; I know I’ve done this myself. However, in your case this might have been emphasized by the multiple punctuation marks and smileys scattered throughout. You don’t really need three exclamation points to get the idea across, and while I know I’m as addicted to smileys as anyone, emoticons (especially in such quantities) seem out of place in the middle of an article or story. Just something you might want to avoid in the future.

The article was somewhat predictable, though. I just felt that the descriptions were kind of expected; I found it interesting mainly to see what other categories you suggested for each of the types of readers. Still, in general it was a nice article with a fun concept. Nice work!

Thanks so much for the review! Now that you mention it, I definitely see where you're coming from with that, so thanks for giving me something to work on

..I ran out of time to review anything from issue 230, but I'll endeavour to get some up for the new issue.

[Dan]

laurelinden said:

Wow, not even one review for my short story.

Hopefully more people will read the series I'm working on...

Aww, I'll do one for you!

Curse of the Urn- Wow! This story was very good! I enjoy quick reads like this, it's a very light read, no real thinking needed, but still it's very compelling. I liked the creativity in it. The description was the best part about it though. Nothing is left undescribed, and that's great. I wish I could pay attention to details like you did. Great job.

[Deleted]

I just wanted to say thanks to all for the reviews. They made me feel really good about my writing and inspired me to keep at a story I recently finished (and it got held over!) It's my first piece I've had reviewed and I plan to contribute to the reviewing the next time around.

[Torey]

Thank you for the review, Tashni

I was hoping for a few more reviews off other people but it doesn't look like my story was that interesting. Meh.

[Tashni]

Don't worry too much about it, Ginger. The hardest stories are always the first you write. That's certainly true in my case. But the more I write and the more often I write, I get better. You will too!

[Belle]

Whoot! Go, guys! ^^ Congrats on the heldover, Luau. I'll be waiting for your first short story in the Times.

[Torey]

tashni said:

Don't worry too much about it, Ginger. The hardest stories are always the first you write. That's certainly true in my case. But the more I write and the more often I write, I get better. You will too!

That was my 20th publication in the NT...I know you mean well though, but you basically said it anyway. I'm a rubbish writer who won't ever be able to get better.

[Ikkin]

skydolphin said:

tashni said:

Don't worry too much about it, Ginger. The hardest stories are always the first you write. That's certainly true in my case. But the more I write and the more often I write, I get better. You will too!

That was my 20th publication in the NT...I know you mean well though, but you basically said it anyway. I'm a rubbish writer who won't ever be able to get better.

You're not a rubbish writer, Ginger. And, everyone can (and will) improve with practice, no matter how well they write. Don't be so down on yourself!