Hit the Books! [Peer Review Thread]

This is the corresponding Peer Review thread for AvaMike's and my RP, Hit the Books! As we continue to post, we're looking for feedback on each post, both in basic areas like grammar, and in other areas like style and our character interaction. Anyone can participate in giving us reviews on our posts, not just AvaMike and me. ^^

Tomorrow or Monday I intend to post some snippets from my post that I specifically want some reviews on, but I just wanted to get this thread started for people to see first. If you're reading the RP and have some comments or critique, please quote the related lines of text here and post away!

Here, again, is the Peer Reviewing Dictionary, if anyone needs help with terms.

I'm just hitting this thread up so I don't totally forget about it~

And, like a heralding Angel of doom and despair, I appear from the mist to review this thread!!

The format of my reviews will have the RP post in quotes, my annotations without. Posts with multiple reviews in them will be clearly divided. Points of interest will be highlighted through bold font. I will endeavour to focus less on grammar and spelling (since I can claim no expertise other than experience), and more on overall flow, writing style, and content quality, etc. I make no promises of perfection, but I'll do what I can to benefit the readers. :]

I shall begin with Michael's first (and only ) post. [link]

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The boy sighed as he pressed down the cover of yet another dead-end book He had spent more time in the past three days reading magical theory than he ever thought possible before now. He cupped his face with his hands rubbing his red eyes, trying to wake himself up.

I wasn't aware Mael was a deity. The capitalized "He" is unnecessary - unless (as I'm assuming) you simply forgot to add a full stop. x3

He cracked his fingers, peaking through at the pair of children standing patiently across the table from him. A boy and girl both looking to be about ten years old, pale skin and hair so fair it was nearly white. They were an oddity; they were in this library before he was, standing at the entrance almost as if waiting for him. They knew who he was without his telling and only grinned when he asked how they knew.

Minor error: the "peaking" should be "peeking".

In the three days he’d spent living in this library – he had never seen it before and feared that if he left he wouldn’t be able to do so again. The Dome had an odd way of moving things around when you weren’t looking. Even these children seemed to be moving in odd ways when he wasn’t looking directly at them, is if they were … fluid.

The flow of this paragraph is all wrong. You started it with the beginning of a statement, interrupting it with a hythen, but then never completed the original statement. It basically reads like this:

New sentence. "In the three days he'd spent living in this library." Stop. New sentence: "He had never seen it before...."

Try to be careful about maintaining the flow of content without disjointing the story.

He watched the two children pick up several of the books from the small mountain that’d accumulated on his desk before leaving to put them in their respective locations. They had been useful for following orders at least, if they were made clear. They’d even brought him broth, bread and water when he was hungry, though he had no idea where any of it had come from.

Perhaps you should consider using more punctuation to introduce breaks; personally I would suggest a comma right after "on his desk", so it would read "...on his desk, before...", thus giving it slightly more fluidity in its reading. Think of it as two seperate actions - one, the act of picking up the books, two, leaving the table to take the books away. Introducing the break gives more of a distinction between the two.

Second, I can't be sure about this, but consider the following sentence -

"They had been useful for following orders at least, if they were made clear."

To me, it seems like it should be read:

"They had been useful for following orders," comma (inducing a space), "at least, if they were made clear."

The space I have included indicates two seperate statements: one, that the Domerii can be useful at following orders; two, that they are only useful at following orders if those orders have been made clear. Whereas the current form suggests a different meaning: that the Domerii are only useful for following orders (and nothing else), provided such orders are made clear, suggesting that if they are not, they have no such usefulness.

Grok? If that doesn't make sense to you I can clarify in more detail. Just try to consider the placement of space inducing punctuation, and thus the impact they will have on the meaning and context of the paragraph.

Standing, he marvelled in the simplicity of the circular room. It wasn’t horribly large, perhaps fifty meters in diameter, with shelves arranged in a hexagon from the centre of the room. There were six tables arranged parallel to the shelving with no particular order of chairs arranged around them. The room sloped upward into a dome with an oculus in the centre, the only source of light. Despite this, there never seemed to be a need of light in the room, even when the oculus was dark with the night.

The final point is a tiny one; try to vary your words a tad more, Mike. Using the word "arranged" three times is hardly a sin, but varying your words to achieve the same meaning can deter repetitive flow. Don't be afraid to be more verbose (though simple words can be just as effective).


Overall, not a bad post in particular - some minor errors and a few areas for improvement, but nothing to be ashamed about at all. Your flow wasn't too bad, the content was easy to follow - not bad at all. :]

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Aiko's post review will follow later.