WhistlingFlame

Chapter 1 edits, part 3

Jun 12th, 2016
43
0
Never
Not a member of Pastebin yet? Sign Up, it unlocks many cool features!
text 4.81 KB | None | 0 0
  1. He had received the brief may-day call and then all he received was static. Within seconds, Starscream was in the air. His jet engines caused great herds of mammalian animals to scatter in all directions, his goal was to find Skyfire. The Seeker continued to ping his partner hoping for a response, when he got toward the Arctic, he could feel the cold penetrating his systems, he circled the ice cap several times in a Hunter-Seeker Search and Rescue pattern.
  2.  
  3. The third sentence doesn't flow well since there's no connection to the animals scattering and him needing to find Skyfire. There should be a bridge statement in there, something along the lines of "His jet engines caused great herds of mammalian animals to scatter in all directions, but he paid them little attention. His goals was to find Skyfire." See the difference? I made Starscream acknowledge and dismiss them at the same time, and showed the reason why he dismissed them: his goal was to find Skyfire. Play around with it. ;)
  4.  
  5. The third sentence is a run-on sentence, it's too long with too much happening. I would suggest breaking this up into two sentences, with some wording changes to break up the length of the second sentence. Something like "The Seeker continued to ping his partner hoping for a response. When he neared the Arctic, he could feel the cold penetrating his systems, but he circled the ice cap several times in a Hunter-Seeker search and rescue pattern." I replaced "got toward" because this is an awkward statement; I just simplified it into one word, "neared". I thought about a semicolon in the sentence, but opted to use the word "but" to connect the sentence. The way you wrote it, a semicolon would slow the flow down, and I wanted to convey Starscream's desire to find Skyfire over his personal safety, which "but" does: it shows he acknowledges the potential harm to his system, and his desire to continue onward anyway even at the risk of more damage to himself.
  6.  
  7. If he had only written down the location of the energon vein he might have a clue as to where to start his search. But the squalls and the cold took their toll on Starscream and he had to break off his search and head back south To warm up and then the search could resume.
  8.  
  9. You began each sentence here with a conjunction ("If" and "But"). Conjunctions are typically used to connect two sentences together, they can only start sentences in certain circumstances. The way you used "If" works as a sentence starter, but since you used it "But" does not work as the following sentence's starting word. These two sentences can be combined into one sentence, like "If he had only written down the location of the energon vein he might have a clue as to where to start his search, but the squalls and the cold took their toll. Starscream had to break off his search, heading back south to warm up before trying again." I took the first sentence and ended it when Starscream could no longer continue his search. This seemed like a natural place to pause so readers could understand he could go no further. I also changed "To" to "to" since it does not start a sentence.
  10.  
  11. The Seeker spent a month searching for Skyfire each day he was left with less hope of finding his partner and with more worry that he, himself, would be stranded or die on the alien planet.
  12.  
  13. Time for a semicolon! "The Seeker spent a month searching for Skyfire; each day he was left with less hope of finding his partner and more worry that he, himself, would be stranded or die on the alien planet." I got rid of second "with" in the sentence because since you used the word "with" at the beginning the second "with" became superfluous. If you read the sentence like this ("each day he was left with less hope and more worry") it sounds more natural than this ("each day he was left with less hope and with more worry"). Reading the essential portions of your sentences like that may help you spot small errors like that.
  14.  
  15. Without Skyfire, his journey home could take a decade or more; Starscream would have to fly solo across Orion's Arm, utilising distant warp gates, to his home world Cybertron. This was a task he did not relish. As a Seeker, he did not like the idea of being without companionship for so long - but it had to be done.
  16.  
  17. One thing I don't understand from the first sentence: why does Skyfire not being with him cause him to need to go home this way? It implies that with Skyfire, Starscream could go home a faster way, but it's not explained. Why would it take a decade or more without him? This lack of context actually took me out of the story because I'm trying to figure out what's going on.
  18.  
  19. I'll take a break here since my flow's disrupted, but I'll pick it up again tomorrow. One thing I do love about your writing style is you're very descriptive: I know where I am and what's happening, and you really convey emotions well.
Add Comment
Please, Sign In to add comment