Everything is black. You hear a scream. Your eyes open like sticky glue is stuck between the eye lids. You sit up slowly, curled with your knees tight to your chest sobbing. Looking around you see autumn leaves falling gently in the cool morning air. Twirling in the air like acrobats and landing among light blue flowers scattered across an open field.
This last sentence is only a fragment, as it doesn’t have a subject. Get rid of the redundant use of the word “air”, change the period into a comma, and then get rid of the capitalization for “twirling”.
In fact, the whole paragraph feels a little clipped and staccato. I’d recommend more details, and not the kind that feel like they’re being shoved down your throat. More like, “All you see is black. After a brief moment of panic, you realize that your eyes are closed. You try in vain to open them, but it feels as though there’s glue underneath your eyelids, fastening them shut. Suddenly, you hear a scream, and the panicked tone of it causes your eyes to snap open, causing a fleeting glance of pain but allowing you to examine your surroundings.”
Do you see what I mean? Don’t copy that word for word into your story, make it still your own unique style. However, try to draw our interest and flesh out your sentences. Also, eyelids is one word. Another nitpick, why the hell are you crying? Are you in pain? Did your boyfriend dump you? Give us something here.
You finally notice the big old tree standing erect behind you, its earthly scents carried to your nose on the wind. Your shoulders relax at that familiar scent but you tremble as you can't shake the feeling of ice water across your body. Those flowers are so beautiful you think just as another scream can be heard whispering in on the wind. Irritated, you wish they would quiet it down.
“Earthy”, not “earthly”. Also, “in the wind” or “with the wind” would make more sense than “on the wind”. Comma after “scent”. “Since” or “because” instead of “as”, but that may be personal preference more than actual rules. I’m not sure. It just doesn’t sound right to me. Some sort of change to the text when it’s referring to thoughts, such as italicizing. The second half of that sentence doesn’t make a lot of sense, either. Screams don’t really whisper, but I think I see what you mean. “Those flowers are so beautiful, you think, just as the hint of another scream drifts across the wind.” Something like that would make it less weird imo. Also, “the feeling of ice water” suggests that you are currently underwater. I’d say something like “the icy feeling,” but you don’t have to take that suggestion. Why does the screaming irritate the MC? Does s/he have a headache and the noise bothers it? Is s/he cold and callous enough that the perils of others are truly nothing more than mere irritations?
“Suddenly a primordial power surges through you. Intense energy coursing through your veins filling them with sheer terror. Your body trembling not because it is painful but a power beyond your understanding and your bodies ability to contain. The force probes searching with wispy tendrils of red etheric silken strands.”
The second sentence doesn’t have a verb, unless you change “coursing” to “courses”, and then you’d need a comma after “veins”. Third sentence, either “is trembling” or “trembles”, and I’d suggest the latter to keep it in active voice. Comma after it, either way. Also, “it is painful” implies in this case that the body is painful. Either way “the power’s flow is painful”, or “it is in pain”, or something else along those lines. “Bodies” means more than one body. “Body’s” is the possessive form of “body”. Comma after “probes”. Never heard “etheric” before, so props to you on that. However, the adjectives bug me. “Red etheric silk strands” maybe? Or perhaps “Red, etheric, silken strands”.
The strands seem to sigh and grow a bright pink as they get close. You watch in horror as the tendrils envelop your body. Your breathing quickens as the tendrils inch dangerously close to your skin. You feel like you are suffocating as you breath faster and faster. And then the tendrils do the unthinkable. They embrace you in a hug. Warmth coalesces around you like a blanket of warm air in the morning sky. You can see a shadowy figure taking shape from the nearby mist. The apparition walks up to you. Inches from your face a cute girl that couldn't have been older then 15 smiles and says "I found you".
*closer
*breathe
You use the word “tendrils” three times in a row, causes redundancy
Starting a sentence with “And” is kinda taboo
“Then the tendrils do the unthinkable: They embrace you in a hug.”
Coalesces feels like a fancy word thrown in there to make you sound smart, but essentially it does mean what it’s intended to (probably).
*than
Spell out fifteen. Also, don’t just call her “cute”. Describe a little of what she looks like, maybe?
Comma after “says”, and the period goes within the quotation marks.
“It was at that moment that you realize the screams you had been hearing aren't coming from someone else but from you.
I’m sorry but what the fuck. How did some hottie saying she found you translate into realizing you’d been screaming? How did you not already know that? I know you’re tryna do some kind of plot twist, but I don’t think it’s going to work. Also, you changed the tense here. Change “was” to “is”.
**next page**
You wake up shivering from head to toe. You try to get up but can't. You can feel the metal restraints digging into your wrists and ankles before you see them. In horror you notice the monstrosity that lay before you. You naked and chained. Muscles and tendons exposed without skin. Only then do you remember the horrors of being flayed alive. The healers presumably other prisoners standing nearby making sure you don't die and providing healing after each session. Only to be flayed again and again once your skin grew back days later through the help of the tepid healers of course. A Minotaur his hoofs heavy on the wooden floorboards walks away from you. He clasps the iron door and shuts the door behind him as he leaves. The quaking reverberates again and again growing quitter until nothing.
You wake up? I’m slowly losing interest in doing this review, mostly because I have no idea what the hell is going on in this story. The first three sentences here feel short and clipped.
*You’re
The healers presumably what? There’s no verb there. Or maybe you meant, “The healers, presumably other prisoners, stand nearby. They’re making sure you don't die and providing healing after each session.
The sentence after that is also a fragment.
Comma after Minotaur. “Hooves” is the plural of “hoof”. Comma after “floorboards”.
Comma after the second “again”.
*more quiet
Until nothing? Until nothing is heard, until there is nothing, until nothing is left, until you can’t hear/feel it anymore, until they are nothing.
“You feel an uncontrollable urge to sob. Not because your sad but because of something you know well. A spell.”
*YOU’RE
Also, again, what the fuck.
You can feel tears falling down your cheeks until it becomes a rushing river. The salty water begins to move as if it had a mind of its own, traveling in defiance of gravity across your arms and legs. The water then pools there and a cracking noise could be heard as your shackles split apart under the pressure of the ice now coalescing around you. You desire desperately to be free but feel something holding you down in spite of the now broken shackles. The familiar warmth from your dream a gentle hug. The water continues to pour from your eyes as it envelops every inch of your skin. The feeling of cold replaced with skin stitched back together again. Normally it took the healers days to heal your skin but this working was finished in a matter of minutes. Finally the gentle pressure was released.
*until they become, because “tears” is plural
*has, to keep the tense
Pools where?
*can be heard, once again for the tense
Stop using the word coalescing. Just stop. Once was enough.
“It’s the familiar warmth from your dream: a gentle hug.” or “feel something holding you down in spite of the now broken shackles: The familiar warmth from your dream in the form of a gentle hug.” something like that.
“The feeling of cold replaced with skin stitched back together again.” I don’t even know how to fix it, just that it needs to be fixed.
*takes
There’s nothing really wrong with the last paragraph on that page.
I am no longer inspired to finish this detailed of a review. I’m just gonna say good luck, watch your tense, make sure you either indent every paragraph or none of them, try not to keep us in total confusion and suspense for way too long, and install Grammarly.
Why did I even try this hard to review a story that’ll probably never be published?
For your sake, I hope that it does get published, and that it doesn’t suck. Have fun, and as a note: Just because I criticized a lot doesn't mean the story doesn't have potential or that you should quit writing. I love the creativity behind it and would truly love to see it completed. Feel completely free to ask me for any tips or tricks you desire (not that I'm all-knowing, but I'm bound to be aware of some things you aren't).
Also, I agree with Darius on all points, except for his addiction to horror stories lol
