THE CENTAUR REVIEWS

Chiaroscuro | WolvesandMoons

But you do keep repeating your points, particularly as pertains to Xena's loneliness. You only need to say that one time, and then its fine to show it plenty more, but it's just boring to be told that she's lonely. It makes her sound mopey and unlikeable, not the kind of badass character you seem to be aiming for. Don't tell us she is the strongest, craftiest person in the world, show us this.

Again you were writing at the audience, i.e. meet Xena XYZ, and there is no need for that. Again, bear in mind how short your chapters are. If you're going to keep that kind of word count you really need to make every word you can count.

So far this has been a lot of descriptions of people and brief scenes, it needs to be scenes linking things together and making us feel for the characters. Right now and I hate to say it, I just do not care about the characters you are showing me. Mostly because you're not showing me them, but telling me them.

What you are setting up and the kind of dynamics, i.e. a victim of trafficking is a really interesting idea, especially given the world she would have grown up in. But the way your writing is just not engaging sadly. Despite some really lovely descriptions, it falls flat on characters I don't care for.

I will admit, however, the quote at the end was quite cool.

Chapter Two:

For the love of God if you're going to use fucking, just say fucking.

If you're going to write badasses, please don't make them complete idiots unless its with purpose. Why would Xena employ this 'people' if he was going to make this kind of mistake? If you wanted someone to escape, I wish you'd have given it a more interesting reason. It could have been great character development to see how she deals with this, rather the stupidity of the context just makes it frustrating.

You do a lot better a job of showing not telling here, however, you need to split different speakers into different paragraphs.

The talking to the audience in this chapter is less frustrating, I see you're going for a Deadpool/Ragnorok fourth wall break, which can work particularly in the setting of teen fiction. You do it better here, and some of the funnier beats do work quite well, just some polishing especially of grammar wouldn't go amiss here.

I enjoyed the insight we got into Xena's line of work here, and your writing can really shine if you show not tell. I know I keep saying it, but it's just so frustrating to read! You continued repeating here, you've already mentioned about Storm so there was no need to say it again and explain it as a coverup. I know there's two of your writing this, so potentially its because you didn't realise the counterpart had already mentioned it? If so maybe confer better between chapters, that could be the reason for so much repetition.

You do a fairly good job of describing actions, though know the only method of defence/attack isn't just a knee to the bollocks. If she has all these 'essentials,' it would be more interesting to see her use them! You described plenty in chapters previously, and here it falls short. In action its good to be catchier, which you've got the hang of, but know where to put the details to really give the reader an idea of what's happening!

I enjoyed the introduction of who I assume is Rafe here, however, given the amount you've already repeated I feel the foreshadowing of the tattoo/mark on the wrist could have at least been mentioned. And I understand that he's not the killing type, but his reaction to being ruddy kidnapped just wasn't realistic at all. Let alone meeting someone who looks just like him.

The addition of multimedia in this chapter was a nice thing! More interesting than just writing it within the chapter, and a nice break. Three POV's in a single chapter was a bit much, and the change back to Xena for two paragraphs at the end was a bit pointless.