8/13/2015 c1 27Monty Mason
Hey, how have you been? Hope all is well.

So before I start the review, just going to throw this out there that some things I say may sound a little too harsh but intention of this review is to help you and not discourage you.

Also note that for spelling, wording, grammar and any other changes I suggest will be enclosed in curly brackets “{}”. With that out of the way, let us begin.

Spelling: At least she assumed it was some kind of knife, as the figure in front of her simply glared, it was covered I shadows.

Fix: […] it was covered {in} shadows.

On the last line of the first paragraph, you end it with a paragraph instead of a period mark.

Spelling: Whoever was using the girl as a hostage had no ideal how little […]

Fix: Whoever was using the girl as a hostage had no {idea} how little […]

Wording: So the inky dark thing simply lurked towards its assailant and the girl it’s hand took shape.

Suggestion: So the inky dark thing simply lurked towards its assailant and the girl {as} it’s hand took shape.

Okay I’ve got to be honest, you opening hostage sequence here is a little hard to follow as you’ve made far too many things ambiguous. No names have been given out or any distinct features for the characters to let us actually keep tabs on them. When the person that gets stabbed (the hostage I presume), I was questioning which girl are we talking about as there is a mention of a second girl a little earlier out of nowhere. Not to mention, whose thoughts are we even following at the start? Is it the hostage’s or someone else’s?

What do you mean by these two lines here?

Lines: It was less that her lung was pierced. No more that it simply exploded.

Nice Far Cry 3 reference lol.

Wording: […] should be paying attention to such things, but such things never […]

Suggestion: […] should be paying attention to {it}, but such things never […]

Saying “such things” twice so close together evidently sounds repetitive.

Grammar: […] came from the teacher mouth, […]

Fix: […] came from the teacher{‘s} mouth, […]

I’ve to ask, what type society does Orenji live in? Is it a modern society? Because it seems like then technically she shouldn’t be allowed to live on her own. And if there is a legit (or as legit you can get with manga stories) reason for it, it is a good idea to state it in there.

With stories of this nature you try to bring a supernatural element into the normal. If the normal doesn’t seem like so normal with minor elements about the character’s life, one can easily question how well thought out this aspect may have been. Try to avoid giving the reader’s that chance to question your story.

Wording: […] she managed to get out of the room before anyone else and before the teacher dragged her into another boring mess.

Suggestion: […] she managed to get out of the room {quickly avoiding no doubt any boring tasks her teacher may have had for her to complete.}

I’m not sure I follow this sentence here: […] as long as teachers didn’t see her out and about at night she would be fine.

What do you mean when you say “about at night”?

I’ve to be honest here; there are quite a lot of errors in your writing. The wording of certain lines is the major problem here and I’m not even at the halfway point of the story. Even if you start to get immersed, you’ll just be kicked back out again thanks to those issues.

In my personal opinion as a reader I would highly recommend looking over your story and editing it. If you can’t do it, then I would get a beta reader to help you as it is quite agitating to see such errors pop up just when I start to get into the story.

Another major issue so far, you tend to use the word “annoying” quite a lot leading me to believe Orenji is quite the pessimistic. There is nothing wrong with these types of characters, it’s just that in this story you’ve overused the word “annoying” to the point it is becoming far too repetitive to read that word.

Reading this side of Orenji over and over again starts to create a negative perception of her as a main character, a perception that may not be so easily undone in the future chapters.

The transition and realization of Orenji being a demon we well handled. The transition was smooth and engaging. Sadly though it took this long for very interesting scenes to take place after sitting through a lot of errors and bland day to day activities. Definitely you can cut back on some of the earlier content to improve the pacing as well as it suffers quite a bit.

What you can improve on:

1 – Main Character: I felt no sense of attachment towards her. At the beginning her pessimistic outlook on her daily life didn’t help at all keeping a neutral perception of her or creating a positive one. So right there her character is someone I kept thinking needs to be reworked. Saying her life is annoying is one thing, but saying it over and over again so many times is another.

2 – Grammar: This point had a major effect on your story. You really need to edit this chapter in order to keep your errors from breaking immersion for the readers.

3 – Details: At the beginning, more detail or descriptions could’ve been used. It was quite confusing following what was happening to the point where I began to skim certain parts of it as I didn’t care enough to read it.

4 – Pacing: The pacing is far too slow. It feels as though the story is walking at a snail’s pace. A story that is a slice of life is not problem at that snail’s pace, but a supernatural story where you expect things to happen can create a problem. One way to fix this is to delete some of the earlier material that isn’t really necessary and doesn’t compliment the story in any way. The pacing does get better after the MC meets the strange man as she is feasting.

5 – Dialog: Some dialogs were just plain awkward to read. This comes back to the point of grammar, if your grammar isn’t done well, then your dialog will also become flawed. This can be resolved by you editing your chapter.

What you did well on:

1 – World building: You don’t directly tell us about the supernatural side of the world, but we get hints about it through the interactions of our characters. But one major issues that presented itself was on the human side, how is it that the MC is allowed to live alone when they are in high school? If they were a university student I could understand that, so giving out an explanation for this is advised.

2 – Story: Reading past the first few bits of the story where your boring bits take place, the more interesting aspects begin to take place after the MC realizes they’re a “demon”. Your story is interesting, but how long it took to get to that interesting point is not a great sign for pacing of your story.

3 – Character Interactions: The interaction between that stranger and the MC was handled very well.

Overall thoughts: As I feel it is always better to be honest than to sugar coat things and potentially lose meaning in my words, I’ll give you my thoughts up front here. You need to do a lot of work on your grammar for this chapter. You need to do a lot of work on the pacing, improve the main character before they become a “demon”, include more details to help create imagery in the reader’s mind and improve on the pacing before she becomes a “demon”.

Aside from that it is quite an enjoyable story. However like the other review says, they lost interest and I would have to agree with that. I lost interest as well amongst the bland day to day life activities of the MC and the negative perception I got of her. I was seriously considering dropping this, but I’m glad I read the whole chapter as it did get interesting. But keep in mind if I were reading purely for leisure, I would’ve dropped it part way through.

This should be a red flag indicator that you need to jump on improving the points stated in the review. You’ve an interesting story that is held back by immersion breaking grammar errors and poor pacing at certain points.

I hope this review helps you or at the very least gives you something to think about.

If you’ve an questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to PM me.

Kind regards,

~ Monty Mason