Welcome to Gaia! ::

Your starting sentence is weak, and the entire prologue comes across as a factual recounting. Prologues like that are very rarely interesting, and yours falls short, too.

Additionally, you really like to repeat things, and say things over and over. You use the same words, I mean, the words aren't diverse. Kinda like that. Phrases like "assassinated from these assassins," for example. It's extremely distracting by the time you reach the end of the second paragraph, and readers prefer when they aren't noticing the language so much.

Which brings me to the question that caused me to stop reading and do a bit of research on you: is English your second (or third or fourth) language? You're missing a lot of words, some of the verbs you use are the infinitive form instead of the present or the past tense (to say nothing of singular or plural), and you exhibit a few other signs of English not being your native language.

There's nothing wrong with that, it just affects how you should be approached in terms of instruction.

The last thing I'll mention is that in your intro post for this guild, you list one of your names as "Momo." Your lead female is named "Momo." Some people might drop your story because of self-insertion; it's generally considered bad form.

Okay, cool.
Hmm...you probably see it as an annoyance. It just means that when you get published, it will be that much more savory than if I get published. That being said, your speech and writing really do seem like a person learning a second language. I find that fascinating.

Alright, let me see if I can explain the name thing better.
Are you familiar with the "Mary Sue" type character? The perfect character whom everyone adores, loves, sympathizes with, and showers with gifts? Naming a character after yourself leads people to assume that said character is exactly that - a little perfect person whom gets everything with no effort. That drives people crazy.
I am aware that one of the other characters had a Japanese name, too. However, as it seems from the writer's forum on "How many typos before you stop reading?" I read further than others in almost all cases. Some of the other readers who find out that's a name you go by might not pick it up again.
Unless...you're willing to "kill your darlings."*

Right, so, a better critique now that I know where to start from.

Your intro has issues. The primary of which is that it isn't interesting. Reading from a history textbook hasn't fascinated anyone I know, and don't expect to find those it does with a fiction novel. My recommendation would be to have a crucial scene from the past, either the scene where Gemini stops Dr. Planet or the scene where the family packs up and disappears. That brings the reader in without an information dump (which readers only like if it is believably part of the narrative, like Hermione or Dumbledore giving information about some magical spell or object), as well as letting you set up an air of mystery about the connection between what happened then and what happens at the start of the first actual chapter. You should keep the prologue for your own notes, and if you feel it necessary, can weave it into the story at a later point, when your lead needs to know.

If, however, you prefer to leave your history as the start, mention that, so I can help with the grammar and word choice. As your reviewer posted, the swear words will be dropped.

Going back to the start of the first actual chapter (hold on a second, I need to re-tune my harp after the name thing ....o|` o|` ...okay), it isn't interesting. Both you and another guildie have started the actual novel with the lead waking up. I wake up every day of my life. You wake up every day of your life. Your readers will wake up every day of their lives. It isn't interesting...unless she wakes up and proceeds to groom her own wolf fur or something.

As such, find something interesting, and cut to it.** You can flash back to the past if you need to. You can reference the morning when you need to.

Also...one thing that's bugged me. You have a comment about the dad siding with the mom, something...ah, this: "Momo looked at her father who haven't bump in the argument at all, but he look down and slipping his coffee. His body language was saying he was afraid of his own wife and doesn't like to get into the argument. She can't believe her own father was in his wife's side instead of Momo's."

Umm...why on earth wouldn't he be on his wife's side? Afraid of her, okay, that can be learned, but he did marry her at some point, which tends to mean that the stuck up for each other regularly (and probably still do). Siding with Momo is the unusual action, that makes, well, me, at least, go wtf?

Is Momo good at reading body language? Most teens I knew couldn't read body language beyond basic emotions, and a good chunk of them, as adults, can't read it very well now.

I'm not going to fix the grammar and word choices, mostly because, as it turns out, copy and paste is really useful for that. I understand not wanting it to be lifted, but as it stands right now, that's not the problem.

*"Kill your darlings" is used to teach new writers that any character they really like needs to be mistreated. Readers don't always agree with the writer on who the most interesting character is, and when their favorite is not your favorite, they often expect the bad things that happen to other characters to happen to your favorite, too. Including death.

**Speaking of interesting, you should make sure to end the prologue on some sort of interesting note. I make reference to this in several threads in this guild (Blue Bottle is the only one I remember off the top of my head); try to end as many sections as possible with a cliffhanger of some kind. It frustrates the reader in a way they like to be frustrated.

Is or isn't is not my point. My point is that the simple act of naming a character after yourself will immediately cause most readers to assume it is self-assertion in a poor way, and they will react negatively.



I must have missed race completely. As I mentioned earlier, I didn't read the entire thing (being distracted by checking your posts for certain information), so it's very possible I didn't get to where it's mentioned.

since i upgrade and updated the acts. i do need some more critiques to continue.