One big messy pile of feedback coming right up!
Before I do that though, here's a little Disclaimer:
I don't know what I'm doing. My feedback is messy, subjective, and most of all I never ever intend to be offensive. If I offend you, or if you disagree with me, then that's totally fine! This is just my opinion, as a reader and someone who tries to write a bit here and there.
All right, onwards!
- First of all - I really like this idea! To be perfectly honest I have little to no idea what's actually going on but I find that I'm still engaged by your characters and intrigued by the inklings of a plot! Excellent work there!
- I'm especially pleasantly surprised by Raven's character - I was expecting an "I'm a loner and I don't work with anyone and ugh I'm so edgy and broody" sort of vibe from her but she seems pretty friendly, though anxious and a bit shy. Kudos for surprising me there!
- One easy area of improvement: Paragraphing. The way the story is split up detracts from the overall enjoyment of it and can be a bit confusing, but this is also really easy to fix. Just remember TIP TOP - general style rules dictate that a new paragraph begins when there's a new Time, Place, Topic, or Person (TiP ToP).
- Another thing that's easy to fix and immediately improves the quality is maintaining a consistent tense.
He doesn’t know where the name ‘Vorex’ came from, but it felt right, like that was his name.
This has two different verb tenses in the same sentence (doesn't vs felt and was). But again, that was minimal overall.
- I think something bigger that I recommend revising is your pacing. Especially in the beginning, Vorex goes through an incredible amount of emotion in the span of a few sentences:
Vorex sat in his cell after a few months of travel, waiting for the scientists to arrive. He appeared calm, but he was absolutely enraged. He had killed one of the soldiers and was about to get the second one, but of course they had to call him back right then! And no doubt they would punish him for not killing the red bird soldier, even though it was their fault. He growled a bit in anger, but immediately got quiet when he heard his cell door open.
There's anger, frustration, calmness… it's certainly an option to spread this out a bit more so the reader can empathise with Vorex better and can get a better understanding of where the character's from and what he's doing.
There's no simple tip top formula for this one really, except for the age old cliche "show don't tell". I really hate that phrase, so here's what one of my favorite authors had to say about it:
In writing. Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please will you do my job for me.”
In your case, that could (it doesn't have to though, this is just food for thought) include expanding a bit more on Vorex's anger and where it comes from, on how he got to where he is and why he's so upset. A fun challenge would be to describe his state of mind without ever using the words "angry", "frustrated", "upset", or their synonyms. It doesn't have to be this huge thing or anything, but idk you might like it
- Sometimes I got the impression that you were a bit heavy handed with the exposition - though I do appreciate knowing what's going on, it might be worth considering spreading it out more. For example, as opposed to telling us that Vorex is the only dragon hybrid, you could have it come up naturally in the conversation with Apep. I mean not that you want all your exposition clumsily shoehorned into dialogue. But if two characters are interacting for the first time, it might be worthwhile to use that interaction as a way of showing both the characters and the reader what's going on.
- I had more to say but unfortunately I have to go do laundry right now…
If you want, I can continue this later! If you don't like my feedback and would prefer I don't continue, then that's totally fine too
sorry
thanks for letting me read it
