Review by Gnome: Demon Highschool
Title: Demon Highschool
Author: Sky653
Reviewer: GnomeMercy
Summary: 2.5/5
Just before I dive in and asses your summary, I just want to say that 'highschool' is actually grammatically incorrect. 'High school' is actually two words (I researched it to double-check) so I recommend you fix that in the title.
In terms of the summary itself, I really liked the first line:
Wings of silver, claws of gold; a mouth full of fire, a sight to behold,
However, I think it should end with a period and not a comma as there's nothing after it. So, it should be:
Wings of silver, claws of gold; a mouth full of fire, a sight to behold.
While your summary has everything there—characters, setting, stakes, dilemma—it is a bit muddling so let's go through it paragraph by paragraph.
This story follows Sky Suzuki, daughter of the Demon King. Her strong demonic lineage is shown by her heterochromatic eye. Her golden eye portrays her royal status. However, she was degraded by humans since she was seen as evil. So, her mortal mother instructed her from a young age to wear an eyepatch over it.
Firstly, there are few redundancies (repetitions of the word 'eye', for example) and tense changes. Most of the summary is in present tense, so stick to that for the entire summary! Also, is her eye colour really that important to the story? If it affects plot, then I suppose you can mention it, but eye colour isn't really an important detail for your story. You can just describe it in the prose. Also, this line 'However, she was degraded by humans since she was seen as evil' doesn't make much sense, and reads a bit awkwardly. Try rephrasing it to something along the lines of (I've also corrected the tenses):
This story follows Sky Suzuki, daughter of the Demon King. Her strong demonic lineage is shown by her heterochromatic eye, which is coloured gold. This portrays her royal status; however, she is treated badly for it since she is seen as evil. So, her mortal mother instructs her from a young age to wear an eyepatch over it.
Or something similar.
The second paragraph:
As she reaches her teenage years she enrols into the famous Demon High. Follow her and her familiar, a Phoenix called Astoria throughout her high school years and the dark secrets and adventures as they unfold...
In the first line, there should be a comma after 'years', as when reading it aloud, you'd typically have a small pause there:
As she reaches her teenage years, she enrols into the famous Demon High.
The second sentence has a similar problem (there should be a comma after 'Astoria') and the ending is a bit hard to understand. I suggest rewriting it to something along the lines of:
Follow her and her familiar, a Phoenix called Astoria, throughout her high school years; watch as dark secrets unfold and accompany them on the crazy adventures they embark on...
That's a pretty rough example, but it gets the point across a bit more clearly.
Lastly:
The Cheyyko clan is the clan out to finish the smile that was worn on the face of the princess of the underworld, but would that very same smile turn into a sadistic grin, and erupt with a fire stronger than the pain and the envy?
Firstly, I suggest that 'Princess of the Underworld' be capitalised as it is a title (or, at least, 'Underworld' as that is the name of a place). Secondly, this paragraph doesn't make much sense. The tenses switch a bit, too. Try to keep it all consistent (in present tense—or past tense, if you want it that way) and I recommend making the meaning of this paragraph a bit more clear.
Other than that, you had a pretty decent summary! There is a bit to work on, so I suggest you do an edit and clean-up of it, but other than that it had everything there content-wise. I was excited to go on.
Grammar: 2.5/5
In terms of grammar, it was mostly clean! You definitely knew your basics, and that much was clear. However, there were a few mistakes, and I'll point them out now.
I'll try to start of with the more basic ones. Firstly, consistency. When writing numbers in prose, most of the time, you use the written form: "six", for example. While you did that, you also wrote it numerically, or "6". I recommend sticking to one style (preferably written out, as that is how you write numbers in stories and novels) the whole story.
Secondly, "?!"—or any usage of multiple "!" and "?"—is actually grammatically correct. If you want to show emphasis, perhaps either put it in the prose or write it in italics.
Another problem I noticed was with em dashes. Here's an example:
"Come on, just ignore Sky— ignore," Mayuki murmured...
It should actually be:
"Come on, just ignore Sky—ignore," Mayuki murmured...
You're not supposed to put a space after an em dash unless it is a change in subject, or like an interruption in their speech. Also, the next word should be capitalised as it is technically the beginning of a new sentence. A random example:
"No, I didn't— What?"
There's a space because "what" is not related. There's no need for the space unless it is a situation like that, otherwise it's grammatically incorrect.
I also noticed you had a little problem with apostrophes. That's okay! In fact, apostrophes are the most misused punctuation, so you're not alone. Here's an example from your story, and I'll explain what you did wrong and how to properly use it.
"Didn't they ask you about that in your other school's?" Daisuke asked...
Now, apostrophe rules are actually very simple—but they can be confusing given the context. Here, there should be no apostrophe after "school". Apostrophes are for contractions or things that belong to others. A contraction is like "didn't", for example. Short for "did not". When you're talking about belongings, we'd say: "Sally's pencil" or "Bob's bag". It belongs to them, so you use the apostrophe.
In this case, you don't need an apostrophe, just the "s", as it is the plural form of "school" and not something that belongs to it. So, in the end, it should be:
"Didn't they ask you about that in your other schools?" Daisuke asked...
I noticed you also did this quite a bit:
And so, she forgot about princesses, of the stares, and focused on the one thing she was headed towards,
School.
Commas don't show the end of a sentence, and it's technically grammatically incorrect for prose (for poems it's fine as they have different grammar rules). Instead, I think you should use a colon instead:
And so, she forgot about princesses, of the stares, and focused on the one thing she was headed towards:
School.
Lastly, verbal tags. Verbal tags, or dialogue tags, are basically anything from "he said" to even "she stated". It's basically like a description of how they said something.
I noticed that after a speech, you would always capitalise the verbal tag. Here are two examples:
"Such a sweet girl," She cooed, looking up at the mother of the girl, who placed a protective hand on her shoulder and raised an eyebrow in reply.
And:
The sound resonated into a young girl's ear who clutched onto her mother's hand desperately as thoughts plagued her mind, "they're not gonna bully me like last time, right Mommy?" She questioned aloud.
If you have dashes, commas, question marks, or exclamation marks at the end of your dialogue, you don't need to capitalise your verbal tag as verbal tags are technically a part of that sentence. With periods, you are not allowed to use a verbal tag after—simply something that doesn't relate to the way that dialogue was said. Here is the correction of the first dialogue:
"Such a sweet girl," she cooed, looking up at the mother of the girl, who placed a protective hand on her shoulder and raised an eyebrow in reply.
The second dialogue needs a bit more work. The "t" in "they're" needs to be capitalised, even if it comes after a comma. This is because it's the beginning of their dialogue. Here is the corrected version:
The sound resonated into a young girl's ear who clutched onto her mother's hand desperately as thoughts plagued her mind, "They're not gonna bully me like last time, right Mommy?" she questioned aloud.
Overall, you have a few things to work on with grammar, but good job with the basics!
Characters: [no score -- not added to final score]
Since there were only four prose chapters, I will not be judging your characters as I don't know them well enough for it.
Writing Style: 3/5
Overall, you had a pretty decent writing style. You got the point across, and the transition between scenes was alright. I did have a few problems, though.
Firstly, try not to put an author's note right in the middle of prose. It's disrupting and a bit unprofessional. You can add it to the A/N at the end of the chapter, if you have one. An example of a time you did this was to show a flashback. Instead, maybe you can put the flashback scene in all italics? Or, perhaps, simply state "she had a flashback"? Or, you could let the readers figure out for themselves—which, considering the context, should be okay and understandable.
Secondly, redundancy. This is basically a repetition of an idea/word/phrase in a sentence, or even a paragraph. Here is an example of redundancy that I found.
"Hi, Mrs! Can you tell me where my class is?" Sky ran up to the desk, clamping her palms around the edge of the desk as she tried to peer over.
To solve this problem, either rephrase the sentence or use a synonym! (Be careful with the latter, however, as some synonyms are not interchangeable.)
In general, you know your basics when it comes to writing! Well done. However, be careful about redundancies and author's notes in the middle of prose, and take care when it comes to info-dumping and telling instead of showing, as I saw a bit of that, too.
Plot: [no score -- not added to final score]
Sorry for omitting another section, but there weren't enough chapters for me to judge your plot! However, I do recommend you pace your story a bit more slowly, as a lot of things happened at once in the chapters I read.
OVERALL SCORE: 8/15
You definitely knew your basics. So far, you have the beginnings of a story with lots of potential—so make sure you develop your world and characters properly, as I could see them being super cool ones! There are a few things to work on, but other than that, you have a great start! Hope this helps.
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