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Reviews for Tale of the Inheritance of the Hero

By : PilarthelastPillar

From tamasama on October 28, 2011
I'm sorry you never get reviews, I know that feel bro. I can see the problem, though, and I wont sugarcoat it for you.

The writing is pretty bad. To the point where it's very distracting and I've been struggling through the first chapter for a good fifteen minutes. I read a little, wander off into the corridors of the internet for a while, then come back to read a couple more lines.

Your first mistake was choosing present tense. It's harder than it looks to write that way, which is why most authors don't use it. Even the best writers have a hard time not making their work look amateurish with that tense. Work with past tense until you've mastered it, then try your hand at present again.

On to the redundancies:
"The Vargas brothers were known famously for their tomatoes. Lovino, the oldest and the best with handling money, would sell the tomatoes in the village while Feliciano would pick and grow the tomatoes. Sometimes, when the brothers had time, they would make their famous tomato sauce and sell it as well."

How many times is the word "tomato" in these two sentences? Four. It shows up four times. There is almost never an excuse to use the same noun more than once per paragraph, much less sentence. Something like "The Vargas brothers were known famously for their tomatoes (a bit of a descriptive could go here. What kind of tomatoes? Are they delicious? Are they plump? Yes, people realize what tomatoes are like, but it would help give the story a more over-all polished feel). Lovino, the oldest and best with handling money, would sell them in the village while Feliciano would remain home and tend the farm (you find out that it's all they farm, so why specify?). Sometimes, when they (you already mentioned that they were brothers in the first sentence) had time, they would make their famous tomato (it's fine to keep this here, to be sure that the less than perceptive members of your audience understand what you're talking about) sauce for extra income (no reason to use the word "sell" again.)

Thesaurus, thesaurus, thesaurus. Keep it open the entire time you're writing, and check it often. Keep a tab on Google as well, in case you're not finding anything you like. The fabulous thing about the English language is that we have about 1,000 words that all mean the same thing. Varying your text is a pain in the ass at times, but it needs to be done.

Another example: "Their beloved grandfather has passed away more than two years ago yet the two brothers inherited their grandfather's house and land."

A few tweaks here and there, and you have: "Their beloved grandfather had (past tense here, regardless of the rest of the story's set-up. This happened before the story starts) passed away more than two years ago and (take yet out. Why "yet?" Unless you say that they just got it, or there was some kind of hassle getting the place, there's no reason to add "yet.") the brothers (we already know there are two of them, and you used the words "two" way too close together) inherited the house (we already know it belonged to their grandpa, no reason to reiterate) and land.

On to adverbs and adjectives, descriptive language, and word choice:
There is no descriptive language.

Their home: It's a cottage, with a street number (which you mentioned over and over). That's all I know. It's hard for the reader to judge their position in life just from that. Are they poor farmers? Are they doing well for themselves? I can't say I know, and I should at this point. Is it a "large" cottage? A "quaint" cottage? Is it white, or black, or pink with yellow spots? How does the yard look, do they have electricity, what feeling should it be projecting? Even things like the home your characters live in, actually scratch that. ESPECIALLY things like the home your characters live in can set the mood for the whole chapter, if you work it right. Mood is very important in story telling.

It could have been a "small cottage, quaint yet homey in feel." Or a "ramshackle ordeal with broken windows and debris strew all about the yard." A couple of words tossed in here and there make a huge difference.

"The orange had barely hit the sky when there was a knock sounded at sixty six forest hill cottage."
What? "The orange?" Yes, I can tell that you're talking about the sun, but that's a horrible way to explain it. Maybe you just forgot the word "sun", but then it still doesn't sound quite right. Maybe "the orange rays of the sun" would be a better choice. Or for something a little better, "the orange rays of the sun had barely stretched out across the morning sky."

Maybe something like "The orange rays of the sun had barely stretched out across the dewy morning air when a heavy knock sounded at the solid redwood door of their small cottage." Alacazam! Almost everything I just touched on fixed in one fell swoop of a sentence. It's morning, it's probably summer, and although their house is small it's probably well put together (redwood isn't too terribly cheap). We don't need a blueprint, we just need something to anchor our imaginations onto. I'm kind of picturing it atop a small hill with the farm stretching out behind. Other people may see it beside a river or lake. Maybe it's surrounded by trees? There's no reason to get totally hung up on what the house looks like, but some details matter.

On the village:
It's small, it's pretty rural. Once again, that's all we know. Let me use this as an example from a chapter I'm currently working for one of my stories. I'll use it to hit this subject, as well as reiterate on a few things I've already mentioned:

It was early spring, in a small town in upstate New York, not far from Tupper Lake. Matthew, thirteen, Alfred, fourteen, and their father; a Mr. Ron F Jones of minimum-wage days wasted down at the local gas station, all lived together there. It was a close-knit kind of place, the kind where cashiers continued to pump customer�s gas and everyone knew everyone else�s name. Seasonal illness flew fast, and rumors flew faster through the elderly women who considered themselves the community�s most affluent members. The Jones family stayed in a small house on the edge of town just along the side of a large corn farm. It was humble, and a little ramshackle, but it was homey and inviting in a �mom and pop� sort of way. They had a large yard, kept cleanly trimmed by their father, that was flanked opposite the farm by a large clump of trees. They had an old swing set, a sandbox that had seen better years when the boys were younger, and a small inflatable children�s pool.

With this paragraph, one can assume:
1. It's a rural area with a small population.
2. You get to know a little about OC Ron, since he's not quite important to give his own paragraph to. Keep that in mind, if a character or otherwise doesn't really matter, don't dwell on it. Like with the "sixty six forest hill cottage." We only needed their address once, there was no need to dwell on it unless it's going to be important later.
3. Their financial situation. No mother is mentioned, and Mr. Ron works for minimum wage. It's a rural area so apparently they can scrape out a living, but you still know they're not rich by any means.
4. They've got a pretty good home life, finances aside. A house could never be explained as something so comfortable if there was something devious going on. It would be explained with negative terms, but from the way it is you can assume that everyone there is at least comfortable in the life they have.
5. Trees didn't need to be mentioned, but they become a setting later on. So if I didn't say anything about them here, they would have been talked about further on. It also gives an "enclosed comfort" kind of feeling, since they have rows of tall corn on one side of their yard and trees on the other. It will also work to offer up a claustrophobic feel near the end of this flash back. Keep that kind of thing in mind; your setting is a character, let it breath and grow. Without a proper setting, a great story can be rendered mediocre.
6. They have toys, which pushes the idea of a fairly healthy family even further. Abused or unwanted children usually don't get gifted such (expensive for these broke ass mother fuckers) pleasantries. I added them to really instil that feeling of familial love to the highest it could realistically go in order to further embolden Mr. Ron's feelings of utter betrayal and shock near the end. Many of your readers wont even notice, but remember that people of all reading levels will pop in or your work. Keep the surface shiny for the casual readers, and beef up the undertones for the proficient readers.

All of that information was neatly packed into a few lines. Short, concise, yet extremely useful in painting a picture in one's mind. It's not at it's highest level of writing, but it's still a half-completed fetus of a chapter so please bare with me. Put aside any errors and just keep the concept in mind.

Characterization:
So far, Feliciano seems pretty good. Lovino, on the other hand.... I think you made him just a tad too mean. Remember his motives for his actions in the first place; he feels inferior to Feliciano, and he's built up a kind of barrier to keep people out. He's a tsundere with motives, and they need to be adhered to. Too much tsun-tsun here, not enough dere-dere. At least tone down the profanity, he doesn't swear THAT much. And his choice of curse words are usually a little softer than a lot of what you used.

I'm in the same boat with you on this one, tsundere are hard to write. I can't say much about it since I have the problem of making England a royal ass, but the best I can say is pull it back a little.

Technicalities:
More than anything, find yourself a beta. If you already have one, fire them because they're horrid at their job. With more grammatical errors than I can count on my fingers and toes within half of the first chapter, something really needs to be done. I give this advice all the time; After you write your chapter, read it through OUT LOUD and catch any mistakes you may find. After that's done, walk away and don't come back to it for a few hours at least. Read something else, write something else, sleep, watch TV, get laid. Whatever it is, don't even think about the story you left to sit. After a good five hours have passed, read it OUT LOUD again. Slowly. You'll find so many mistakes it isn't even funny, believe me I do all the time. Rinse and repeat until you're sure it's spotless, then send it off to your beta. When they give it back, it's sure to have about 500 corrections that you somehow missed or didn't even know were mistakes.

I've got FOUR betas, and each time I get the copy of my story back it's got at least three lines with red corrections. Request for them to mark all of their changes in red so you can be sure if you really like it or you want to work it a different way. Find betas who excel in different areas. Have one for technical stuff, one for keeping things in-character, another for stylization, ect. I have all of those and an extra "guro virgin" that I took on to keep a fresh view on things. Sometimes a whole mess of editors who all follow the same circles can be more detrimental to your work than just one with an unbiased view.

Betas are time-consuming, I wont lie. I posted the first chapter of my own story the 15th of this month. That chapter was actually done in the end of September. I'm already working on chapter four and I still haven't gotten all of chapter two back from my first beta. Now keep in mind that there are TWO versions of every chapter, so I end up writing two-for-one every single chapter. I don't rely on time-skips, and actually try to fill the space with something similar or that at least hits the right subjects. In chapter two, the second halves of both and COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. And I still got to chapter four before two was even done being looked over. So, like I said, it takes fuck-all forever. But it's absolutely and for all of eternity worth it.

I hope some of this could be deemed as useful, and I hope it helps you to grow as a writer. I'm sure this can be fabulous with a little more effort, so keep on truckin' and all of that noise.
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