Sapphire's Review Store 2.0

Review by Painite: Darkfall

Title: Darkfall

Author: celesteknight0

Reviewer: awesomeSTG

Summary: 5/5

The summary was pretty awesome, if you ask me! The fundamental cores of a good summary are there: the character, their stand or what they are in the world they're living in, the problem at hand, and the stakes. However, (I guess this one is pretty subjective so I didn't subtract anything) I got this particular feeling of not wanting to read it... because, well, the quest to save humanity and teaming up with one of the supposed bad guys? I guess you can say that it's a little common for us fantasy readers. What I suggest is that you clue us in on the unique points of the story. How is it different from everything else? Yes, while everything else under the sun has been done before, there will always be something different in your story, no matter what that is. Show a bit of it to us, make us question, and make us click that read button.

Description: 4/5

This is written pretty well, I must admit! I love how you can already easily grasp each situation properly, and how things just seem to blend in like they were made for each other. I really like the style here, good job!

However, for the entirety of Chapter 1, I felt like I was floating. I forgot the official term, but because there was no clear setting to hold us readers to the ground, it seemed to me like the characters were fighting in an empty white space, with floating fire and mages and a church, and nothing else. I don't know exactly where this story is even taking place, so yes, there's that, too.

Questions popped into my mind while doing this. What could be going on beyond the church? Who sent the mages? Why mages? What about her companion? What other creatures are attacking? It's Irene's POV, so we won't know, but when she's travelling to the village, there should be some sort of setting description to help us ground ourselves into the story. This applies to the rest of the settings, too — probably except that scene in Dimitri's house. That setting was neat and simplistic, and I liked it. 

Grammar: 3/5

As I had said earlier, the description wasn't bad, but then most of the little things here and there that grabbed my nitpicky self was the number of missing commas, spelling errors — and typos, maybe — along with some sentences that just sound awkward when you're reading them. Let me break it down for you!

First and foremost, semicolons. (Noooo!) This topic is also something I'm not that familiar with, since I don't really use them that much. In my own understanding, semicolons are used when two sentences that can stand all by themselves (independent clauses) are heavily intertwined and can be used as one. A common scenario where a semicolon is used is when authors are sick of using 'because,' and 'for.' 

Example:

Kihal lay down on the grass and winced; unlike the stories she had read, the grass felt itchy and uncomfortable.

Also, there were times when incomplete sentences appeared on some parts of the story like this: