Rebel Town Reviews [OPEN]

The Crimson Guard (Chapters 1 - 5) - @challoner

The Crimson Guard (Chapters 1 - 5) by challoner 

Reviewed by AmyMarieZ 

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Overview: The Crimson Guard is a fantasy story following main character Fawn. Growing up an orphan and living on the streets, she's had to fend for herself using her magical ability to mimic the faces of others. After being taken in by Tawney, an old man trading on the black market, she gets herself into trouble attempting to steal protection charms from members of an elite family. Captured by the general of the military, Fawn is forced to choose between imprisonment and joining the military where her magical powers hold a significant value.

Structure: The story is written in the first person past tense. This structure works well because the story has one central main character that the plot revolves around. That said, the story seems to be largely plot focused so far (rather than character focused, although it does contain strong characterization) so it could also work well in third limited POV.

The story begins with Fawn presenting her current situation at the beginning of the first chapter. After a few paragraphs, the rest of the chapter becomes a flashback where she explains how she met Tawney. Chapter two picks up with her being dragged out of her daydreaming by Tawney. Since almost the entire first chapter is a flashback, I wonder if it might make sense for the very beginning to be omitted, and the first chapter to simply take place when Fawn was eleven, rather than it being her as a nineteen year old woman remembering the past. The next chapter could still pick up in the same place but it might be a bit more seamless. This is of course just an idea for consideration.

The chapters that follow set up the inciting incident of the story—Fawn getting caught robbing an elite family and forced to join the military. Although in some ways these chapters are primarily setup, the intense action, suspense, and characterization make them interesting and a thrill to read, pulling the reader into the story and getting them excited for what is to come.

Grammar: The grammar in The Crimson Guard is well done in general. The story has clearly been proofread and written with care. Grammatical mistakes never detract from the reading experience or lead to confusion while reading.

As I read, I noticed a few minor typos throughout the chapters, which I have pointed out inline.

The one persistent grammatical issue I noticed was frequent shifts from past to present tense. I was unsure if these shifts were intentional or errors. In some places it seemed that it was possible that the present tense statements could be the narrator referring to states that were continuous in the present telling of the story. However, regardless of if these shifts were intentional, many of them felt odd or out of place. My suggestion would be to keep the entire story in the past tense, unless there is a specific reason for having some statements in the present tense.

Pace: Overall, the pacing in the first five chapters of The Crimson Guard was fantastic. There were no points where the pace dragged or I became confused because things were happening too quickly. Additionally, every scene was easy to visualize. The balance of character action, dialog, and internal though/narration gave the scenes a feeling like they were happening at real time.

I thought the pacing between chapters three and five was particularly well done. The events of these chapters flowed together in a seamless way, yet each chapter ended with a dramatic cliffhanger that kept me eager to read on and find out more.