Helena (ENG)
Five thousand years ago, in an era defined by chaos and bloody wars, an Elven Great Sage named Helena fought alongside a legendary party of heroes to save the world from the brink of destruction. After making unimaginable sacrifices to seal the darkness away, Helena chose to isolate herself inside a desolate mountain. Now, the Sage has finally opened her eyes and stepped out of her seclusion.
However, the world that greets her has drastically changed. The cruel era of survival is over, replaced by a prosperous, structured, and peaceful civilization. Magic—which in the past was a wild force of nature capable of leveling mountains—has now been tamed into a rigid, safe academic science. History itself has faded into fairy tales; the names of her comrades-in-arms have been forgotten, while Helena herself is immortalized as a mythical goddess believed to have perished millennia ago.
Initially, Helena only intends to be an anonymous wanderer, enjoying the delicious food and the peace of a world bought with the blood of her friends. But beneath the glittering progress of the modern era, the ancient foundations upholding this peace are slowly beginning to crack and rot away with time.
Hiding her identity and absolute magical power behind the guise of an ordinary apprentice, the Great Sage embarks on a long journey across the continent. She must weave destiny from the shadows once more, tending to the remnants of the past to prevent the world from plunging back into ruin, all while watching how this new generation proves that they might no longer need a hero from a bygone era.
RakhaY · Fantasy
The fic itself is not bad, not my cup of tea but not bad. In the first few chapters, there are some minor spelling mistakes but nothing that makes the story unreadable. ("Ok them," instead of "OK then," in Chapter four) My main grievance is how wordy some parts of the story are, and how inappropriate some of the words used by certain characters are. Helena using "evolves" in Chapter one (Not something a 1010 Y/O Ghost should know) really hurts my soul in particular. (Could have used 'changes'?" I'm not a fan of the whole 'explaining of history' thing that goes on, it makes sense in regards to how you've crafted your fic but it is definitely too wordy. The verbal lashing the mc gives to Dumbles in Chapter Four is also too wordy. The Baron? or Fair? (Ghost) explaining the couple's history to the Weasely boys is also too wordy and has a few spelling mistakes. The readers don't need to be spoon-fed information. Orignal: "That person that the headmaster just addressed as 'my boy', is the husband of Selena Sally Ravenclaw, older twin of Helena Hela Ravenclaw, and daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw. His full name is Erik Runes Ravenclaw Lord of Ravenclaw and the Hogwarts castle. He married his wife, Selena when they were 20 year old. Today, he is 1010 years old. And the headmaster just called him 'my boy'." Less wordy: "The person who the headmaster just addressed as 'boy' is the husband of Selena Ravenclaw, twin sister of Helena Ravenclaw. His name is Erik Ravenclaw, and he's over one-thousand years old." (Not a paragraph of useless info.) There is no real need to include most of the information. Helena being Selena's twin implies that Rowena is her mother, no need to write that Rowena is her mother as "TWINS" should say enough about their relationship in one word. "Older" isn't necessary either, no one cares who the older twin is. Arguably it doesn't matter when you are 1010 years old. Including the Mc's full name is also unnecessary, he's lord Ravenclaw it's obvious his last name is Ravenclaw. Him being Lord Ravenclaw is literally yelled by the elf earlier in the chapter so it doesn't need to be mentioned a fifth time... Lord of Hogwarts (*Eyeroll*) obviously it's mentioned a lot and doesn't need to be included in every chapter, it also doesn't need to be mentioned to the students at Hogwarts, they are not your audience, your audience is your readers. Married at 20 Y/O is unnecessary, who cares when they were married? Him being called Lord Ravenclaw should also imply that he is married to Selene... Today he is 1010 years old... Using numbers instead of words is lazy, though I do it myself. This wordiness never ends and makes reading your fic painful. I don't need to be told every single bit of information, most of it should be inferred (Thought of or worked out by yourself) and not rammed into someone's brain via words. Writing is good because a majority of it is up to the imagination, if you are too specific or 'wordy' it makes it much harder to imagine what's happening. Dialogue between characters shouldn't be a paragraph long, do you let someone just stand there and belt a storm of words at your face for a minute? It just comes off as unnatural if you have a 90-word long speech as dialogue. I don't quite have a better way to convey the wordiness, maybe watch stand-up comedy and look at how trimmed their stories are? Comedians don't include useless information in their story's as that makes them un-palatable. Anything that should be guessed or implicitly understood shouldn't be so obviously stated in the story... Sorry if this is explained poorly, I don't know how to better put it into words. Feel free to message me or reply to this comment if you want to talk a bit about wordiness.