Quote:
I tripped over one of these stupid round things!
While I appreciate you trying to fit description into the dialogue, this feels very forced. At the very least, "I keep tripping over these..." is a little more natural, but "stupid round thigs" is still pretty strange.
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our parents will kill us if they find out we’re in here.
Too teen-movie-exposition-y this time. "...and we are
dead if our parents find us" reads a little more nicely.
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long oval corridors
Wow. I... can't quite decide what to do with this in my brain. I love it, but if there's some way you could clarify what you actually mean...
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Glass tubes glowed blue and hummed softly along the top of the corridor as electricity ran through them.
A bit stilted. "...hummed and glowed blue with electricity" perhaps?
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“Ryan, are you sure this is a good idea?” the blond haired boy whispered worriedly.
Feels like they've probably come too far for that kind of question... Also take out that "worriedly" at the end; we can get it from context.
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“Don’t get cold feet on me now, Darien,” Ryan called back.
Well at least his buddy agrees with me.
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Truth be told, both boys were quite nervous. Ryan decided to try and distract his friend from his sudden apprehensions. He turned around and smiled at Darien. “I can’t wait to see it, can you!? I can’t believe Larin is letting us see it!” Ryan needed no such distractions. He was too excited.
This whole passage is kind of... strange? Apparently both of them are nervous, except then it turns out that Ryan isn't nervous after all because he's too excited. The bolded line feels overly expository, and the dialogue feels awkwardly cryptic (with you clearly trying to hold back information from the readers).
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Ryan had seen a Kawe on the lightning plains, but he’d never gotten to physically be near one.
Especially since you give us the name of the thing in the next paragraph.
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The only time Ryan had had this sort of excitement was the time he had snuck into Darien’s house in the middle of the night.
Uh... I see. This sentence comes from deep left field. Also it gives some... implications that you may not have intended?
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He glanced at a square-like chute as he passed by that was about eye level with him.
Move parts of this sentence around so that the things that go with each other are actually near each other. That goes for this whole paragraph, actually, and it could probably be split into two or three. You've also got some weirdness here:
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A moment or so later, he watched another go by as they slowly progressed along the tunnel.
Apparently it's only a moment or so's walking time between these chutes, even though the pair is progressing slowly, and the chutes are "go[ing] by" which gives the impression that they're either moving on their own, or the two are on a conveyor belt or something.
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He glanced back at Darien who was walking right behind him, following like a little puppy.
Don't need the explicit version (the first part) when you've got a better visual coming right after it. The same goes for the rest of this paragraph; you're beating me over the head with things that really only merit saying once, if at all. Like "he had just chastised..."? This happened half a page ago! I still remember it! :smallsmile:
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the fourth door he’d counted along the wall.
He was counting doors?
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I hope, he thought inwardly.
This is a perfect example of the over-exposition problem you're having, and it's the last one I'm going to point out. Using italics for thoughts is pretty much understood, so this thought could (should) be appended onto the previous sentence, since that's where it belongs thematically. Even "
I hope, he thought" would be okay, I guess--but how does one think "inwardly" in a meaningful sense? You haven't told us that there's any mind-reading or telepathy going on, so the distinction is meaningless. You can get the job done with fewer than half the words you're using, and generally speaking, you ought to (unless the extra verbosity serves some greater purpose).
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He eyed the door wearily.
Do you mean "warily"? He doesn't seem the "weary" type.
*heavy-looking
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It was set into the wall so that it did not break the line of the wall.
This is called being
flush with the wall.
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Darien looked around in alarm with a giddy nervousness was plain on his face.
Extra word.
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After a few moments the door opened and the face of an older girl with bright orange hair and gray eyes peeked out.
Add commas after "moments" and "opened".
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Larin stopped to read their faces. After a moment, she seemed to find what she was looking for.
This is great.
*conspiratorial
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The dome itself was carved from the same material as many of the buildings in Eron
Starting here, you begin a run of using "Eron" in almost every single sentence; sometimes multiple times. See if you can find a few places to take it out (e.g. "from the frequent storms").
This description and concept are really cool.
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Larin walked to one of the right hand entrances to the room and disappeared behind one of the round arches motioning for them to stay there.
Add a comma after "arches", or else this means that the arch is motioning for them to stay put.
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This effort was quickly forgotten as awe took a firm hold, for the creature that was the subject of their adventure had emerged from the place their friend had gone into. Larin followed behind, holding a leather strap that was attached to a harness on the animal.
You use a lot of strange 3rd-party actors in your narration. It's not always literally passive voice, but it has the same effect: making your actual characters seem like things are happening to them rather than like they're doing things. For example, in the quoted passage, you've got "effort was quickly forgotten" (passive voice), "awe took a firm hold" ('awe' as subject), "the creature that was the subject of their adventure emerged" (creature as subject), "their friend had gone into" ("their friend" as subject in lieu of her name, as well as a dangling participle), and "holding a leather strap that was attached" ("strap" as subject). It's weird! It's not just here, either. Try to get in the habit of letting your characters actually do things!
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As he continued to remain in contact with the Kawe, Darien’s long hair began to stand on end. He looked at Ryan with a wide smile.
lol, nice touch :smallbiggrin: and good smile here.
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I’ve been charged to tend the Kawe
Larin's obviously close to this creature. Why would she suddenly switch to "the Kawe" after referring to her as "her" or "Draliss"?
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She seemed to be very proud of what she did.
Remove this sentence.
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They were outcasts among outcasts.
What does this even mean? They are the outcasts' outcasts? Or they're just both outcasts?
Very cool.
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there were as many as seven
...? If he has time to count "as many as seven", why not just say "there were seven"? And if he doesn't have time, why not "there were several"?
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Each pen had another Kawe in it, eight in all.
Okay, so there are eight total pens. The narrator, at least, is paying attention. Of course, if you told us before that there were seven additional pens, we would already know that there were eight total.
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“If you entered the tunnel you came through right now, you’d be fried,” said Larin dismissively. “And does it look like there’s anywhere to hide you here?”
This is well done. You do much better at avoiding overexposition when the characters are rushed.
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if your caught or not
*you're
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At the speed they were running it did not matter which – the contents were blurs quickly left behind.
What?
This is very good.
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He had told them that they had not meant to cause so much trouble; they just wanted to see Draliss. He had flinched after this because he realized he had given away Larin by telling them that he knew the Kawe’s name.
Good content, but you could trim down the delivery substantially.
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disappeared down stairs going down.
:smallamused:
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The barrier of lightning that encircled the city
Uh... huh. Well, I guess that's why no one ever comes to Eron. Good foreshadowing. Now I'm wondering if this is natural or artificial...
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the constant barrage of electric.
*electricity? electric energy?
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Ryan wondered what had his ancestors had done to warrant such an extreme measure of confinement?
Well, I guess that answers that :smalleek: This sentence should end with a period, though.
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That is, if I manage to get free myself.
Yes, that does seem to be a pertinent question, doesn't it? And the other one remains unanswered: if (he thinks) he can get out, then why can't he already bring everyone else out?
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there is plenty of things
*are
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he didn’t even know how he was going to survive on his own.
Isn't he leaving in just a couple of days? This seems like kind of important stuff to know by now.
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He shuttered at the thought
*shuddered
But he does still have a couple of days left, right? This is kind of weird.
Conclusions:
This setting seems really, really cool. I love it conceptually, and I really hope you write more for us. Obviously the plot is just beginning, and I have to say I'm a little worried that we'll be leaving this cool city so soon, but hopefull we'll return eventually and/or get some scenes from Larin's perspective or something.
The big issue I take with this snippet is that it's somewhat locally disorganized, and overexposited pretty substantially. You get better toward the end as you get closer to the big reveal, and as I mentioned, the chase scene also works well. There are many places though, where your paragraphs have no cohesiveness--you seem to be trying to express two or three thoughts at once. Perhaps as a result of this, you tend to repeat yourself, even when the information doesn't need to be stated explicitly at all. I've pointed out some of the worst cases of this, but I suggest you go through and read it aloud (I know it's cliche but it works), especially the first half, to see where your awkward and repetitive phrases are. Again, I really hope there's more of this to come!