Sapphire's Review Store 3.0

Review by Sunshine: Manticore Hunter

Title: Manticore Hunter

Author: RobClark5

Reviewer: ray_of_sunshine9

Summary: 4/5

I really enjoyed your summary! You've done a fantastic job, especially considering that it is a short story – those are usually pretty difficult to summarise. However you've got your protagonist, the setting, a bit of background, as well as conflict and stakes. The rhetorical question at the end is also a nice touch, and that final line is very powerful and captivating. Well done!

The only thing I would work on is phrasing. For example:

So when he is asked to join a crusade against the fabled mythical beast the Manticore he relishes the opportunity to achieve what few have done before.

Consider adding commas so that it's:

...mythical beast, the Manticore, he relishes...

Also, the next time you introduce the Manticore, you capitalised the 'the' (and wrote The Manticore). Whatever you decide to do, you need to keep it consistent.

...it will take everything courage, strength, cunning, and leadership to survive.

You need punctuation for it to be fluent. I suggest adding either a colon or an em dash after the word 'everything'. Additionally, your rhetorical question is missing a question mark. I would also not suggest writing:

...will he leave them to the Lion/Scorpion/Bat hybrid.

It looks messy, and it might be more suspenseful if we don't know what the beast looks like until we see it for ourselves within the novel. Like, before that, I was so intrigued – what could The Manticore be? It would just make it that touch more intriguing. 

Grammar: 3/5

While your story was certainly easy to read, there were a few grammar and punctuation issues here and there. While they were very minor errors, it did disrupt the fluency of the story. Let's go through them, shall we?

Let's talk about dialogue and punctuation first. When 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:

"To Bianca and her melons." He called.

It should be:

"To Bianca and her melons," he called.

Another example:

Sir Searmundr smashed his goblet down, "The insolence."

Since the narration before the dialogue is actually an action beat, not a dialogue tag, it should be:

Sir Searmundr smashed his goblet down. "The insolence."

One last example before we move on:

He studied Ethelston with a fierceness in his eyes before replying "Explain." Sir Vermund demanded.

There are a few issues I have with this one. First of all, you need a comma instead of a full-stop after 'explain', and you also need a comma before the dialogue actually begins. However, then you have two dialogue tags, which is messy. Consider: