The Five Sacred Stones of GeraptikuOverall, this was a fabulous beginning. I LOVE beginnings that leave me with a cliffhanger, LOVE THEM. The pace was a bit slow at the beginning but I could really tell when it began to pick up - I had to get up and run with it because I wanted to know what was IN the tomb, what was GOING ON?! Geraptiku has been the love of my imagination, my first story took place at the ruins. Also, as a self-established Neopian Historian, I love learning about what-happened-when-and-why... Though personally, I was a little jealous that you got to write Geraptiku before I did
Well done!
However - I did have to stop here and there for inconsistencies in tense and few sentences that didn't make sense. These interrupted the flow of the story for me - I won't tear it apart here, but if you'd like me to, I'll show you via PM.
I can't wait until the next installment of The Five Sacred Stones of Geraptiku
Orbulon and the Queen of Mystery Island
Hehe, So I've read through this already and I MUST say... what fine editors you have!
JUST KIDDING. The essence was ALL your own, and yet again, you've done a fabulous job with a comical short story. I loved the little coincidences that occured throughout, such as Orbulon "tripping" Jhuidah, revealing hidden prizes, overturning the cooking pot..... So clever! This is a story that was action-packed and well paced: I could follow along at a comfortable speed and still have that "Gasp! What happens next?" feeling. Tashni, this was such an entertaining piece. I think my favorite part of the story was meeting the Lizark. "Too tuk?" So cute! Haha ^^;;
"Orbulon was the hottest he had ever been." *Snortgiggle* I read that SO wrong at first... haha.
Smelly island. I'm still giggling. I LOVE Orbulon. Excellent work!
Twenty Terrifying Items of which to BewareFirst of all, congratulations, Nikki, for making the front (news) page! When I saw your title, I definitely cringed at having to face another list. Upon seeing your article, however, I saw how you tried to avoid making a list by... well, not list-ing
Definite props for that! However, 20 paragraphs gets to be a little long... Perhaps you could have numbered the paragraphs, or boldened each of the items, or added pictures here and there to maintain reader attention. Maybe Twelve instead of Twenty (though, Twenty is such a lovely, round number). You got off to a great start with number 20, but by number 1, I felt that your paragraphs were getting shorter and you, yourself, were losing interest. Maybe you wrote this from 20 to 1 in one sitting, but next time I would look over things to be sure that your tone is consistent.
I don't shop much, so I found this article rather helpful in learning more about what's out there - what could possibly be so scary about these items? Well, thanks for the spooky enlightenment! Your voice was very natural, I thought. I didn't have a hard time understanding you, and I felt that any humor or "fear" was genuine. That is something a lot of authors have difficulty with - sounding genuine.
There were a few things that sounded odd to me:
"The number twenty scariest item on Neopia ", for example. I think it would have been better phrased as "The twentieth scariest item in Neopia", or "Number twenty on our list of scariest items in Neopia". Little things. I didn't have to stop too much and I didn't feel that they were large enough to interrupt my reading. I find that it's often VERY HARD to catch my own mistakes while I write, because I know EXACTLY what I'm talking about
I would advise that you have one person take a look at your draft before you send it in.
The Happiest QuiggleAdorable. I love it when artists use continuing plots! The facial expressions on the Quiggle were priceless - especially on Frame 5
I also liked seeing the Healing Fountain being used as something other than background decoration ^^ I think the use of the Healing Fountain for bathing is supposed to be implied, but since we don't actually see our pets go into the water we kind of forget about it - well, I have, at least
. I thought the joke was cute, and quite innocent
Clean, not corny, and I'm personally a fan of seeing pranksters having their jokes fall apart
. The art was nice - seeing those "fake" hoochie coochies still gives me a shiver... they were kinda creepy lookin', lol. Don't know how I would react to finding THOSE all over me...xD
Great job, Nut!
Jobs You Should Never Do[/u]
Haha - I'm on my own career-searching path right now, so this was very relevant, for me ^^. You also pulled off the humor and the little play-on-words very naturally, very smoothly, and received a genuine laugh from me! Loved it, loved the play-on-words. I also wouldn't have thought of some of these careers you've mentioned. How cool ^^ This definitely narrows down my career-search, quite considerably... heh. Your career choices were creative, and you chose just enough of them to give the article substance but not too many that the article was too long. Also, your description for every occupation was consistent in length.
There were tiny typos here and there, like "guitarist for na upcoming", but the piece was generally error-free, which made for light and smooth reading
This was your first piece? Well done! With a starting piece like this, I can hardly wait to see what you'll come up with in future issues. Glad to have you here, and hope you've come to stay!
Invisible[/b]
What a neat little story ^^ I really liked how you developed the character of Jimmy, and all those pranks he pulled! The thing with the mop and the tree and the Sloth-scare... oh my! I could just imagine how angry I'd be had I a little brother like that
Your pace was perfect and the plot was great but there's one thing that sort of took me by surprise, and that was the development of a *second* conflict. Your first one was Jimmy and the trouble he caused with his pranks... the second was Jimmy and his lack of friends. The second conflict arose late in the story and was not resolved, which made it seem a bit awkward. I think your ending would have been better if you had developed that second conflict from the very beginning. If you plan on submitting this story to other Neopian papers, I would advise simply ending the story where Jimmy discovers his siblings' joke.
Not too many technical problems, as far as I could see, but there were a few sentences that didn't quite make sense to me, like:
"Jimmy and Trixie's older brother, Mattie the blue Zafara, was walking to school with his two best friends, Jane and Chip." At first, I thought Jimmy was walking with Trixie's older brother, Mattie. I didn't realize what you meant until I read the rest of the paragraph - I think you could have simply said, "Jimmy's oldest sibling, Mattie", since Mattie can be easily assumed to be a boy's name. You could also have established Trixie as being the older sister when Jimmy played that prank on her
Anyhow, I had to smile as I was reading your story, because it was just a sweet little story (well, besides the sad and dark and lonely little ending
). Kudos!
I will post NTWF pieces here as soon as I have a list compiled.
neo username - dan4884 
That's a first ^^ Well, I'll get to reviewing, I promise ^^ But any reviews for it would be appreciated. 
). Kudos!
