Board Thread:Fun and Games/@comment-48285-20160915200100/@comment-25814498-20180223190207

Fanfiction.net is spazzing out, as it so happens, so I'll post it here first and upload the review to your story when the site gets its life together.

My honest feedback after reading through the story; I hope that you find it helpful.

There were several instances in which you repeated the same word over and over in the same paragraphs or sentences even, including 4 instances of the word “eyes” in the first and 3 instances of “grin” later on, and that’s only naming two examples. It ruins the flow of the story and can be avoided by using pronouns such as “It” or simply using different words in place of them.

You use the past tense throughout the story but us an instance of the present tense in the second paragraph, “I sat up-ow!-or, rather, I tried to sit up”. There is nothing wrong with using the present tense in your stories, and it seems as though it would fit especially well with this being in the first person.

Your choice of language doesn’t seem appropriate for Killua, however; ignoring the single instance of “fuck” near the end of the story, the overuse of rhetorical questions throughout once again ruins its flow and makes it feel disjointed and too informal, sporadic even, something that one wouldn’t exactly use when referring to Killua, who is normally calm and collected, the reasonable one to Gon’s impulsiveness. Speaking of which, however, Gon was very well written throughout, in both his actions and dialogue, and it was not at all difficult to picture him saying and doing the things that you presented in the story. It was very impressive, in this regard.

More generally, however, I would also suggest you use more than just simple declarative sentences when writing your stories, and include more complex language features to make it seem more (for lack of a better word) imaginative and vivid, I.E more metaphorical language. To give a few examples (you needn’t focus on these specifically), “I sat up, or, rather, I tried to sit up. It felt like my head was in a pressure chamber/my head was ready to burst”, “Immediately, I jolted (more appropriate word choice due to Killua’s reaction and what followed afterwards) backwards, the momentum dragging (merge the two sentences in order to make it read better, different word choice to evoke more severe connotations) me backwards off the bed and slamming me headfirst off the floor, as if it hadn’t hurt enough before my brain rattled in my skull”.

Essentially, just try to reduce the number of simple sentences in your writing and knit them together with some more creative/poetic language, consider whether the dialogue you are writing may actually be appropriate for Killua rather than a character is simply envisioned to look like him, and minimise the use of rhetorical questions significantly. I would recommend only using question marks when the narrator is genuinely confused about something.