Hey Kyle,
Just saw your newsfeed, mentioning the editing of this piece ready for a competition. I thought I'd check it out. You also request our best/worst critiques. I'll see what I can do.
Remember, all my comments are just my opinion. Take from them what you will.
There's some good ideas in this story - I'm getting a similar vibe to the Airbender story, but with dragons rather than weird dance moves and arm-waving. There are some good dialogue moments, and some interesting character choices. We'll cover all those in the appropriate sections below.
There is however quite a lot that isn't so good. There are a lot of typos and clunky sentences. There is a lot of repetition and dodgy word choice. There is a lot of cheesy story telling and cringe-worthy plot events (like all the 4 kings being 'best of friends' and all suddenly turning up within minutes of an attack.) All combined, it made it difficult to read.
Let me pull out some examples so you can see what I mean...
Technicalities & Observations
The first line to any story is critical to hook in your reader, so I always give it a careful look-see in critiques. What I'm looking for is a hint that something interesting is happening, that there's some exciting event or knowledge I will want to know, and the only way to get it is to keep reading!
We once had many types of dragons that flew or roamed the lands of this planet.
Ok - this is very 'How to train a dragon' like for an opening. Introducing the world. Being a fan of fantasy I am always interested in how each author approaches dragons.
The orange (combined with flew) suggests some of them can't fly, which is possibly mildly intriguing if true. Sentence wise though is it really necessary to have the two variations of how they lived? Just roamed on its own allows for both flying and non-flying and makes for a tighter sentence.
Watch out for that - it's a weak, but sneaky little word. It can creep in to your writing everywhere without you even noticing it. And in a large percentage of times, any rewriting you do to remove it makes for a stronger sentence. You have 28 that's in your story. Typically you can leave the ones that appear in dialogue alone. It is quite natural 'that' people say it a lot.
Planet seems an odd word choice. Not a mistake, this is your story, but it sounds a bit 'scientific' for a fantasy setting. World, realm, land, existance, reality - all possible alternatives.
Overall the first line isn't bad, but it does hint at something a little less great. Exposition. And that is precisely what the first two giant paragraphs are. Lots and lots of waffle jammed straight down the reader's throat about all the different kinds of dragon.
This might be ok, but then the story properly starts, and what do we get. A teacher telling his pupils the same stuff we've just read.
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Whilst we're looking at first lines, it's probably worth a quick glance at the snippet in the story details. This will be one of the first things a judge will see after all.
There is a threat of an Ice Dragon to attack, but they're legend, but how true is it?
I'm not quite sure what this is trying to say. The double 'but' certainly isn't good though. Maybe something like :
"Ice dragons had faded into legend. A sudden sighting threatens all four kingdoms."
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These were the strongest of the dragons at the time and no one, or no thing, could stand up to them.
So this first big paragraph then. 12 sentences, 9 uses of fire, 3 thats, 11 dragons. It is very clunky, and doesn't need to be this long. Red fire, blue water - it's not exactly rocket science, it's the standard elemental colours. Ditto for red angry, blue healing etc etc. A little dull and standard.
There's far too much mention of the words dragon and fire too. Sure, there aren't really other words for them, but there are ways around it.
"There were once many types of dragon. Every colour of the rainbow could claim a species of its own, each with its own personality, and powers. The strongest were those of the primal elements. Red and yellow represented the raw forces of fire and earth respectively, none stronger. Blue and white claimed the powers of water and wind; not as overwhelmingly strong but possessing powers of healing and tranquility."
I don't include every detail you mention in your paragraph, but hopefully you can see how much of the information you can get across without repetition of the same words.
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But a dragon the breathes ice instead of fire
A typo - ironically I believe you meant it to be 'that' which makes 29 of them!
Alternatively, to avoid - 'that' - you could say 'But a dragon with an ice breath instead of fire..."
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He has been on this planet for many years and has traveled a lot, but he had never encountered an Ice Raider before.
I'm not sure the red is properly following the same tense as the rest of your story. We seem to jump randomly into the present tense.
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It was a crystal color as if he had been caught in a storm of white rain.
A pretty description - moments like this showing me the diamonds to be found in your work. But making a diamond from it's raw-form, into the kind we are familiar with, takes a lot of polishing!
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He spun around quickly and there the man was, standing only meters away from, still smiling.
I think you're missing a word between the two red words.
It's probably also worth mentioning adverbs - the orange. Typically these end in 'ly' and aren't popular amongst authors right now. They prop up weak verbs, where often (not always!) just using a stronger verb is far better. Often just removing them does almost nothing to the sentence, as in this case.
I think spun is fine on its own. If he'd spun slowly, then you'd have said 'turned'. But you didn't, you said spun, which implies speed, and therefore implies it was quick, without directly saying it!
It's something I'm particularly (<--- see!) bad at myself. They sneak in everywhere, worse than 'that'. You have something like 30 or so 'ly' words in your story. They don't all need to go, but do have a look at them and think if they really (<--- gah!) need to be there.
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"Ice Raiders aren't suppose to exist either," Langholm replied. "And yet, I had one standing in my room, threatening my city!" Langholm rarely got angry. He was angry no, though, with his city on the line.
I liked this green line of dialogue - another of those diamonds. It shows character, and reads realistically.
Think you meant 'now', rather than no.
The orange sounds weird. More modern than fantasy again. Perhaps something like in danger, or under attack?
Characters / Dialogue
When he got to his room, he looked at himself in the mirror
Haha, oh don't do the mirror look. We're all guilty of it from time to time, but it really is the cheesiest way of describing a character. Besides, you'd already told us about his blonde hair and blue eyes earlier at the start of the class. It's cheesy, and repetition!
In general your characters kind of blend together. I don't feel particularly for Langholm, and didn't really care when one of the kings died. If you get rid of all the earlier waffle about the dragons, then you'd have much more space to add some scenes where we can see why these kings are all friends, perhaps get to know them a bit, and maybe then we might appreciate them a bit more.
There's an activity I'm doing right now - called the "Invalid Item" . It is a 2 week exercise where you use the daily prompts to really develop a character. Get underneath their skin and understand what makes them tick. So far it has been very helpful to me. Perhaps it would be for you too. Developing Langholm in this way could be very interesting!
Pacing and Plot
They have the ability to cure any kind of dark curse from anything.
We don't need to know every power of every kind. Especially in a short story where those specific powers aren't used. In a longer story, foreshadowing such abilities can be good so they don't seem quite so contrived later on, but not here. The way you word this too - doesn't give much wiggle room for surprises. Ditto with the curing any wound. Having all you limbs lopped off could be considered a wound, can a blue dragon grow new ones for you? Sounds a bit too easy and over powered.
or this man really was an Ice Raider; a powerful one at that
If Ice Raiders are just myth, how on earth does he know he's a powerful one? He could be the weakest ice raider ever known - just so happens to be stronger than him!
You plot is ok. I did have to wince a bit at "finish off Iceronia, who was now defenseless without his master" - I can't imagine many dragons being defenseless without some silly man stood on his back. But it's your world, perhaps that is how it is.
Pacing wise you seemed in a rush. You were in such a rush to get to the big fight scene that you splurged all the information out to us in a mighty gush, rattled through the buildup and then settled down to the fight. I don't think it is a coincidence that the actual fight part contains much of the better writing.
Summary
My rating might seem cruel, but in it's current form it really was quite heavy going to get through it. There is something of a gem hiding in here though, which is why I not only finished it, I've written this essay trying to help - time to break out the heavy duty polishing cloths!
Happy Writing
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