Title: The scyther Genre: Paranormal Amount of reviewed chapters: 4 (current max as of application) Reviewer: Ctrain8
1. Title Considering the story summery in the description, I think your title is very appropriate. I have never heard the word "scyther" before, and to be honest I actually had to look it up. However, it means "a scythe user" and so considering the classic personification of Death this is very appropriate. So... let me quickly spit out what was on my mind the whole time I formatted this review. The 's' in "scyther" is lowercase in your title and application, which bothered me because it should be uppercase (unless of course there's some wondrous reason why it should be lowercase). that's just a nagging little thing but I thought I would mention it.
2. Cover
Your cover is good. There ya go. Here's why:
It is very simple and has a limited color scheme (gray, white, black) which not only convey tone and ideas but it gives you a simple and effective cover without going overboard. The figure in the center seems to be dissipating or crumbling apart through some wind, but this figure also seems to be the classic personification of Death. Considering the title and everything else, it's a pretty good cover. But it does trigger me beyond rational reasons to see that lowercase 's' in there.
3. Description You start your description off with such a hook... so much so it caught me immediately. It confuses us to make us read more. Good job there. It also is an interesting concept, especially with the idea of an angel betraying his duty. Your description leaves us wit a sense of mystery and intrigue, and isn't too long. Finally you set us off with a quote which fits appropriately. Bottom line is it's a good description and you have nothing to really worry about here.
4.Plot As much as we know is that this scyther, Ralu, wants to become human. However... we don't really know why. Yeah there's the confrontation in the park and yeah there was Darren and the rainbow man convincing him, but Ralu also had such a scene by the gates of heaven, wanting so badly to get in. He also admitted it wasn't in his nature to do reckless things. You'll have to configure this better if you want to have this plot work.
While this isn't quite about the plot, if Ralu has also been killing animals as well as people then surely he'd be constantly slaughtering the huge number of cattle, chicken, and pigs that the US and other countries mass produce and slaughter. You'd be surprised at the sheer amount of livestock there are. If Ralu killed animals in his past, then he would've had one hell of a time killing livestock. Something to think about.
5. Writing Let's talk about your opening chapter. The very opening intrigues us as readers. We see our character, a scyther, take the life of a foal. I am glad you chose this scene as it highlights the world, the character, and a couple aspects to this world in very simple terms and snapshots.
I would like to firstly discuss imagery, because that's the first thing I noticed. The imagery in your story is... stiff? It's like a vegan watching as his second cousin chows down on barbecued ribs. It's awkward. It's there, thank goodness, but it's just a little bland and strange. This is especially apparent in the first sentence. "A landscape with dry vegetation emerged...". I hope you're able to see what I mean. This is throughout your book. Consider giving the imagery some life with stronger details and figurative language. I could describe the "landscape with dry vegetation" approaching at such high speeds as something like "A pallet of tan peppered with brown grew in front of me at an alarming rate." Anything can work here. The trick it to get creative. And beyond these points, there are some things as a reader that I would love to hear described because I am not familiar with it as the character is. Even simple phrases or a couple words would help me better ground myself in the story. This includes clouds, the hourglass, flying at such high speeds with wings, the cosmos above, etc.
The general writing, knitting together events without many specifics, also confuses me a bit. It's confusing because it's a little hard to tell, from the character's POV, what in the present is going on. More specifics and transition words/phrases would be appreciated.
The next point I would like to address are the filter words and general language. Filter word lists are everywhere on the internet and I recommend you look some up. Here's a video to help:
https://youtu.be/5JrQGZzPUxE (if the url doesn't show up because wattpad is stupid just look up ShaelinWrites filter words)
Also, every sentence seems to have some error in it. I corrected some of the bigger ones as I went through, but there's too many to correct every one on my part. Please go through, sentence by sentence, and fix every typo, run-on, and formatting error. If you want me to be brutally honest, it reads like broken English, and this should be fixed. When you fix this it will look infinitely better.
6. Characters I'm going to be brutal. Your scyther character, Ralu, is pretty bland. We do know of his pain and aspirations, but they're constantly thrown off and contradicted in the very next sentence. As a thousands of years old angel you'd think he'd be mature, jaded, and wise, but almost none of these characteristics are shown. Maybe he's broken from his job slaving him away, resulting in a rude pessimist, but this isn't shown either. His struggle as working for thousands of years, trying to get into heaven, is merely not represented well enough in his behaviors and actions. His wants are contradicted as he wants to become human after a single interaction, and it just doesn't really make sense. His limits are not represented that well either, so we don't understand the lengths of his powers.
I'll be honest here. I got Darren and the rainbow guy mixed up so much, and the fact their dialogue and thought processes don't differ that much doesn't help. After confusing them several times due to strange and unseen transitions in the story as well as lack of specifics shown I came to the realization that they're represented as practically the same character. I may not be a genius, far from it actually, but I'm also not an idiot. The job of the writer is to make the writing sophisticated enough that it's a pleasant and intelligent read but simple enough that even the dumbest of folks can still understand what's going on.h
7. Overall In general, it seems you have a clear idea of what you want to have in your world. You have a shallow learning curve to the story, and reveal some things bit by bit. The tension is very low in the first chapters, and only really rises near the end. If I were you I'd also stress the repercussions of becoming human. That would be a good way to heighten tension.
Beyond this, the most important thing for you to improve is your writing generally. There's so many typos and errors and formatting problems it was actually hard to read. If you have this many errors in your book it actually distances the reader, making them notice these instead of getting lost in the story. If you want to focus on characters and plot and the general appeal, the readers will never immerse themselves in that unless you first clean up your numerous errors inside the piece.
Anyway, here's a cool angel drawing. I hope you keep writing and finish this book! Thank you for applying and I doubt I won't see great improvements in the coming months.
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