Interesting idea. James seems like a total goit, which is quite original in a protagonist
However, if you don't mind me criticising (hopefully in a constructive way), your grammar could use a lot of work. The jerky grammar makes it quite hard to read. To take the first sentence alone...
:
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James Huntingdon, was an normal man from Sarrat, a small hamlet in England, it was called the dark sickness because it had the odd effect of making peoples eyes redundant.
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The first comma shouldn't be there.
Third comma should be a semi-colon ( ; )
What's called the dark sickness? The town? The country?
I'm saying this to try and help, not criticise, and if you're like me and want to actually get some writing published some day it'll be pretty important.
A COMMA ( , ) has two uses. One is in making a list. For example a list of eggs, hats, shoes, bananas and cheese.
The second is to attach a sentence fragment to a full sentence. By fragment I mean a part of a sentence that isn't a full sentence on it's own. For example, "A small hamlet in England." That on its own isn't a complete sentence. "Sarrat was a small hamlet in England." is. Say them aloud and you should probably be able to tell the distance, but I've also explained the most basic form of sentence structure below.
So commas can add a fragment in the beginning, middle or end of a sentence.
EG. "
Closing the door behind him, Jim left his house and walked down the road."
"Jim left his house
, closing the door behind him, and walked down the road."
"Jim left his house and walked down the road
, closing the door behind him."
In each case the highlighted part is the fragment you're adding.
A SEMI-COLON ( ; ) is used to join two
complete sentences together. For example, " James was an explorer; he had fought in the navy for years."
"James was an explorer." is a complete sentence, and "He had fought in the navy for years." is also a complete sentence. A semi-colon can be used to join two complete sentences together.
A very simple complete sentence usually follows the pattern, '
noun (an object) -
verb (an action) -
noun.' The first noun is the subject of the sentence. So
The child (noun/subect) grabbed (verb) the coin (noun).
James was an
explorer.
The last bit doesn't always have to be a noun.
James looked around.
(I have no idea what kind of word 'around' is
but I don't think it's a noun.)
So in the case of "James Huntingdon, was an normal man from Sarrat." You don't need that comma because James Huntingdon is your sentence subject.
James Huntingdon was a normal
man.
Whereas "
A small hamlet in
England." doesn't have a verb, and so isn't a complete sentence, while "
closing the
door behind
him." doesn't have a subject; it opens with a verb, and so isn't a complete sentence!
So there is your very basic complete sentence! Then you can tack on all the embellishments and such, like clever tenses and descriptions and sentence fragments which you are clearly very good at, judging from what I just read. You just need to get your punctuation sorted out
I'm learning this all the time; I was rereading an early chapter from my Oddworld fanfiction recently and deleted
tons of commas.
My one other bit of advice is to
always proof-read what you've written. I know it's a pain but it's always worth the effort. There are so many little mistakes in the chapter that could have been cleared up, and when your chapters are so short it shouldn't take too long (try doing it when you write chapters six pages long!
)
It's a pain and it seems like a waste of time but it's totally worth it for the sake of the quality of what you eventually post.
Anyway, sorry for the lecture. I am intrigued by the chapter and I do look forward to reading more! I hope I came over as helpful, 'cus being helpful is pretty much what I hope I'm here for.
(Also, I hope I found colours that show up as well in the native skin as they do in industrial!)
Tales of intrigue, ghosts and explorers
