Sapphire's Review Store 3.0

Review by Sunshine: Tale of the Power Walker

Title: Tale of the Power Walker

Author: MysteriousDryad

Reviewer: ray_of_sunshine9

First of all, thank you for your patience! And secondly, I'm really sorry you didn't get the original reviewer you requested – I know how frustrating that can be. Hopefully, I'll do your story just as much justice as the original reviewer would.

Summary: 3.5/5

You've got some great things happening your summary. It covers all the fundamentals – it introduces the character, the conflict, the danger that this conflict brings, and uses rhetorical question to really drive home how risky the whole situation is. Well done!

However, your summary does feel like a skeleton of a summary. When you say that Ellyn has unlimited power at her fingertips, give us more. What do you mean? What sort of power? And what exactly is the demon master doing that makes it essential to defeat him? And you mention she's had fights before – what sort of fights?

Otherwise, good work!

Grammar: 3/5

Overall, there are definitely a few things that could use some polishing in your story. Let's go through them, shall we?

Tense did prove to be an issue every now and then. You're mostly in past tense, but every now and then, you accidentally slip into present tense. For example:

I reach out and pick up the photo frame, gripping it tightly in my palms as memories resurface. [reach, pick = present tense]

I closed my eyes and allowed the memories to play through my mind. [closed, allowed = past tense]

You need to make sure they are consistent throughout your story.

Next, let's talk about run-on sentences. A run-on sentence is when both of your clauses in a single sentence are independent clauses; this means that they make perfectly functional sentences on their own. So, for example:

Shifting back into my natural skin was a simple process, it didn't harm me nor anybody else who inherited shifting as one of their talents.

Since the two clauses are both independent and they are separated by a comma, you have yourself a comma splice. The comma should be replaced with either an em dash, a semicolon, or a full-stop. I recommend the em dash, since it's the most flexible when it comes to punctuation marks. So:

Shifting back into my natural skin was a simple process – it didn't harm me nor anybody else who inherited shifting as one of their talents.

Next, dialogue. There was one instance where it looked like you had two characters speaking in the same paragraph:

He nodded, but I knew he would worry, so I kissed his temple. "I'll be safe, don't worry. I'm a Power Walker anyway, Damien." I grinned. He chuckled, "Find me when you come back to town, okay?"

It should be:

He nodded, but I knew he would worry, so I kissed his temple. "I'll be safe, don't worry. I'm a Power Walker anyway, Damien." I grinned.

He chuckled. "Find me when you come back to town, okay?"

You'll notice that I changed the punctuation after 'chuckled.' That brings me onto my next point: dialogue and punctuation. If dialogue is followed by a verbal dialogue tag (such as 'he said', 'she whispered', 'they exclaimed' – or anything referring to how the character says the words), there should be a comma before the closing inverted commas. If it's anything else, this comma should be replaced by a period (or a question mark for a question, and an exclamation mark for an exclamation). For example: