Adult-FanFiction.org : Anime

Reviews for No Turning Back

By : Sephanie

From ANON - A Hopeful Helper on November 20, 2006
Oh, look! It thinks I was trying to use html and it deleted parts of my previous review. I'll try again. Sorry to repost the whole thing, but it's easier. You can just delete the previous one. The original review:

I like this story. It's interesting, it's engaging. The idea intrigues me. However, despite the lovely reviews you've been getting from cocoke5, I found it entirely unreadable. As a responsible reviewer, I feel it my duty to inform you that as far as writing standards go, you are lacking. So, while your story itself is good, and the plot is intriguing, I feel it necessary to give a little gentle constructive criticism, which I'll follow up with an example.

English is an ugly language, at least as far as grammar goes. English grammar is adapted from Latin grammar, despite the fact that we haven't kept anything else from Latin except things like word roots. However, as painful as it is to learn and apply, grammar is essential to understanding the English language. It is a common set of standards that, when used correctly, put the meaning into a collection of words. Grammar can be used to introduce different layers of meaning, and made a mediocre story truly great. Shakespeare was famous for that, and most modern authors at least can, whether or not they choose to do so frequently. Let me give you an example. Consider this sentence: "A woman without her man is nothing." At first glance, this sentence is very offensive to any feminist worth her salt. However, if you add a little punctuation - "A woman: without her, man is nothing." And suddenly, if someone is going to take offense, it's going to be the man. Grammar is what translates the words in your head into words the rest of us can understand. It's a tool for writers to make the reader understand your intent. Writing is more than just putting words together in order; it's about helping the reader understand the point that you're trying to make.

That brings me to my first point, which I guarantee will improve your writing immeasurably. Punctuation is your friend. Without it, nothing makes sense. Do you remember any of your junior high school English teachers harping about run-on sentences? Well, as it turns out, punctuation is more than half of the key to fixing run-on sentences. And, as it also turns out, run-on sentences are probably your number one problem. Periods, question marks, and exclamation points are important. They separate one sentence from another. Commas are also important. They add the meaning in the sentence. Things like colons, semicolons, etc. are not particularly important to making your writing functional, but if you ever choose to use them, just make sure you're using them correctly. As a point of interest, you should know that your dialogue has the worst run-on sentences.

The next thing I'd like to address is your spelling. I understand that sometimes, you mistype. It happens to everyone. I can think of two types of spelling errors: one is when you mistype, but the word you create with your mistake is a real word. Unfortunately, the only thing to do about that is proofreading, whether by you or by a beta. The second type of spelling error, though, is really easy to fix. It's when you mistype and create a word that doesn't exist in English. A good spellchecker (Microsoft Word is the one I use) will catch all of those mistakes. The only problem is that it will also catch things like names, which may be correctly spelled, but aren't normal English words. You have to ignore names that come up on spell-check, but DON'T ignore any other mistakes that spell-check catches without first looking them up in a dictionary (dictionary.com works well).

If possible, I would also suggest trying to review some of the commonly missued words in English. Different spellings make different meanings. I'm not going to go into it, but think about their/there/they're, affect/effect, two/to/too, your/you're, red/read, read/reed, its/it's, then/than, lay/lie, wear/where, wrap/rap, waste/waist, brake/break, accept/except, base/bass, meet/meat, wait/weight, and all the others listed here: http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/homofone.htm.

Next item on the list is verb tenses. It's another thing that people learn in elementary school and forget as soon as they can. However, it's pretty important. I don't want to go into too much detail (this is already too long), but my suggestion is to keep all your stories in past tense. That means for most words, you're going to add an -ed to the end. My example for this is in the first line of chapter 19. "Iason was there" is right, as is "he watched." However, "he hovers" is present tense. It should be "he hovered."

Lastly, my other example, also from chapter 19. Consider your paragraph:

###�Yes Iason you can take your pet home now just make sure he does not roll over on his side he must stay on his back and keep this rap around his waste for 2 weeks by then come in and see me again or if you like I can see you.� Heiku sudjest pulling off his white gloves.###

First, let's play with punctuation. Try this: ###"Yes, Iason, you can take your pet home now. Just make sure he does not roll over on his side. He must stay on his back and keep this rap around his waste for two weeks. Then come in and see me again, or if you like, I can see you," Heiku sudjest, pulling off his white gloves.### Punctuation is what tells the reader when and how to pause. I'm sure when you read this in your head, you hear it the way you intended it to sound. However, I'm not in your head, and I can't hear it the way you intended it unless you punctuate it correctly.

Next, let's tackle spelling and misused words. The spell-check won't catch "rap" or "waste," but they should be "wrap" and "waist." However, it will catch "sudjest." I'm not entirely sure, but I think the word you wanted there was "suggest." Believe it or not, if you enter "sudjest" into dictionary.com and look down the list of words it suggests as alternatives, you'll find the word "suggest." However, regarding our "tenses" discussion, I'd make it "suggested."

So, we've made it to ###"Yes, Iason, you can take your pet home now. Just make sure he does not roll over on his side. He must stay on his back and keep this wrap around his waist for two weeks. Then come in and see me again, or if you like, I can see you," Heiku suggested, pulling off his white gloves.### That is completely readable by any English speaker. In my opinion, you could add more and make it better, but this is a perfectly acceptable final product.

If I can take a few liberties . . . If I were writing it, I would do a couple of things. First, 80% of the time, you can use contractions to make the writing smoother. So I would change "does not" to "doesn't." Second, I would choose EITHER "make sure he doesn't roll over on his side" OR "he must stay on his back." Saying both is redundant. Third, I would change "keep this wrap" (wrap being a noun) to "keep this wrapped," implying action. And fourth, I would add a little more narration.

So if I were writing it (and I'm NOT - this is ONLY my opinion), it would say ###"Yes, Iason," Heiku smiled patiently, "you can take your pet home now. Just make him stay on his back, and keep this wrapped around his waist for two weeks." He tugged it a little tighter to demonstrate, and Riki whimpered. Iason glared at Heiku until he took a step back from Riki. "In two weeks, come in and see me again. Or--" he shied away from Iason's continuing glare, "Or, if it's more convenient, I can go and see you." He took a few more steps back from the glare, pulling off his white gloves.###

Adding to the narration makes the characters' motivations more clear. You can tell a lot about a character by their actions. It may not be your intent to have Heiku shy away from Iason, but that's what I got out of it when he suggested that he could go see Iason instead of making him come to Heiku. And perhaps Heiku would never actually smile, but when I read "Yes, Iason," I imagined a sort of amused exasperation. The more you tell us, the less we have to imagine, and the less chance we have of imagining something wrong. However, don't over do it. That's just as bad as under-doing it.

Lastly, the very most important thing you can do is proofread. If possible, print it out. It�s rather difficult to proofread on a computer screen. You should read it many times, and if you can find a beta reader, use one. Find someone who has expertise in the areas you struggle with in order to get the most out of it.

Good luck. If you have any questions, feel free to email me. Oh, and despite the glowing reviews cocoke5 likes to give you, I would keep in mind that he/she seems to have the same problems with sentence structure as you do, so he/she may not be the most reliable source to vouch for your quality of writing. Just a thought.

***PS - I used a lot of technical terms in this little essay. If you have questions about them, you should start by looking them up in Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org) and dictionary.com.
Report Review
From ANON - cocoke5 on November 19, 2006
wow the story is still good and i lvoe itand i love the chapters that you add . i love the way that aki was pushing riki around and then odi turn on ti amd hurt he. the then ti and toma wow love it can not wait for the rest of the story up date soon love you
Report Review
From ANON - cocoke5 on November 18, 2006
i love the chapters that you put up and that was good and i can not wait for more of the story. i hopethat you have more. and i think that you did a good job on the story. it is diffen and i love it . i love iason and riki and that world and can not get enogh of it. i will be wait for more. good luck .
Report Review
From ANON - cocoke5 on November 17, 2006
wow very good and can not wait for the rest of the story and see happen next . keep up the good work and the story is real good. and i will be waitting.
Report Review
From ANON - cocoke5 on November 16, 2006
wow ace you are going real good with this story and i love it and love the way that darly was falling for riki and riki falling for darly and now isaon want riki to love him . i can not wait for more chapters and see what happen next . keep up the good work on the story. be waitting for more more please . good luck on the rest of the story. cocoke5
Report Review
From ANON - cocoke5 on November 13, 2006
wow this story is getting real good and i can not wait for the rest of the story and see what happen and i like to tell you that your writing is real good and keep up the good work. be wait for the next chapter of the story. please dont stop write and keep going . thank you you are real good.
Report Review
From ANON - j.s on November 12, 2006
i just love dis story....update soon

Report Review
From ANON - cocoke5 on November 12, 2006
i know what you mean about work. i think you are doing a real awesome job on your story and i have be injoy it so far and can not wait for the next chapter of the story and see what riki do. lol good luck.
Report Review
From ANON - cocoke5 on November 10, 2006
this chapter was real awesome and i can not wait for the next chapter of the story and see what iasom have for riki next. be waitting.
Report Review
From ANON - cocoke5 on November 09, 2006
i love the story so far and keep it up you are doing real good. i just love the book taming riki and i have the fist book and now i am waiting for the number 2. i cant wait for you to up date and i hope real soon love you if you do up date soon i need know what happern next to riki. be waitting.
Report Review
From ANON - cocoke5 on November 08, 2006
the story is good so far and i can not wait for the next chapter of the story and see what happpen. i fell in love with the story too and i been read and story call timing riki. it is up on here. read it i think you will lik to. i will be wait for more of your story.
Report Review