Ugh…Took me long enough, didn’t it?
I’m so sorry about the wait.
I thought this was a VERY good story.
Extremely well-written, and all in all your portrayal of the characters was very accurate. And you managed the awe-inspiring feat of writing a story with TEN central characters, and yet still giving each and every one of them plenty of lines and opportunities to contribute to the storyline.
I decided that I couldn’t write this without putting a word in for Guido. I thought you portrayed him very well, and I liked how you gave him repeated lines in which he starts talking about a subject, and soon begins to ramble, repeatedly interrupting himself and starting off on a new tangent within the topic, or attempting to reword what he has said already. Not only is that how he sometimes talks in the twelfth movie, but it reminds me of how I talk sometimes.
There really need to be more fanfics with Guido in them.
:
I love how you had numerous moments where members of the gang say and do things that one typically wouldn’t expect them to (while still not behaving out-of-character):
ï Petrie has an outburst directed at Cera, which Cera flinches from, and subsequently appears borderline apologetic.
ï Cera emphatically thanks Pterano for saving Tricia, even after she recognizes him.
ï Ducky makes a sarcastic remark.
ï Littlefoot and Cera physically fight back against Screech and Thud to save Guido.
ï Petrie gets angry at Chomper.
You also did an incredible job with the emotion in the scenes where Pterano is comforting Tricia and otherwise showing concern for the gang, and when Cera and Littlefoot are discussing why he is acting that way. I have to say, I was thinking myself that this was a side of Pterano we hadn’t seen much of before, and it might have come off as out of character for him before the others brought it up (not to mention the backstory you devised for Pterano
). The goodbye scene was great as well.
I’ve never personally seen the “Phonofoot” thing, but I caught the reference you made to it early in the story.
I really liked how you wrote the scene where Chomper is introduced to Pterano. That’s how I’d expect a meeting between Chomper and a leafeater would go, and I’m disappointed that the TV series didn’t have any scenes like it.
I also liked the part where Pterano described his experiences with Red Claw, and unknowingly reveals that he witnessed the events of “The Gave of Many Voices”. Ducky’s reaction was great.
You don’t often see her being sarcastic.
Personally, I think you have a good rationale for Red Claw’s behavior: that he’s essentially a bully who wants to be powerful, but is in fact rather cowardly, and that his reputation as “the biggest, meanest sharptooth of all” is just that: a reputation.
To be honest, I expected Petrie would be a bit more surprised initially to find out that Pterano had seen him on the Day of the Flyers. Personally, I think Pterano should have given a little more explanation, such as that he watched the performance from The Great Wall. Still, the Day of the Flyers is definitely the kind of thing that one would expect Petrie to talk to Pterano about, so I like the fact that you brought it up.
Another funny part: when Guido latches on to Pterano’s leg out of fear of Red Claw, and a moment later Pterano tells him to let go, and eventually has to pull him off.
“What did you say to him?” Ducky asked. “Some very bad things.” Chomper said guiltily. Petrie crossed his arms defiantly. “Like what?” He asked. “I said he was a buzzing stinger who smelled like ten Stinky Places.” Petrie screeched at Chomper loudly. “I shall punish you later!” He shouted.
Again,
. Although, why exactly is Petrie so irritated with Chomper?
Does he have something against profanity? Or does he blame Chomper for getting Red Claw to chase after them?
I think I did the reading version of a double take when Skip’s presence at the Meeting Place was mentioned.
I suppose he does live in the valley now, but still, it’s a bit of a surprise to see him interacting with the adult dinosaurs. (I think this is only the second LBT fanfic I’ve ever read that has Skip in it, the first being Caustizer’s
Rise of Storm Tide.
I don’t think this would be the longest time the gang has ever been out in the Mysterious Beyond, though; by the time of the meeting scene, it’s been less than a night, hasn’t it? We know for certain that they were gone longer than that in LBT VII and XIII, and in IX they were traveling outside the valley with Mo for several days (though I suppose their families didn’t know exactly where they were).
“I was there for a little while.” Guido said. “Pterano said that sometimes Gliders scavenge. Wasn't too bad for me-I mean for a 'scavenger' it was pretty good-but I like Crawlers better, so I came back here once I had 'scavenged' enough.” Guido grimaced. “He was wondering if Petrie should go along too.” He said. Just as Petrie made a squeal of disgust, Guido said, “But he didn't think he'd like it.”
“Hi, guys!” Chomper came running into the cavern. “Guess what I ate!?” He grinned widely. His teeth were slightly red. The others grimaced. “I ate a dead Bellydragger! It wasn't a full grown Bellydragger, but it was still HUGE! I could see lots of bones and it was really good! Pterano even broke open some of the bones and we ate the bone-meat! IT WAS SO GOOD!” Cera dropped some of her tree-stars. “I think I lost my appetite.”
This whole section was hilarious.
(Though those should be ground-stars that Cera dropped, not tree-stars.)
Pterano seems to know a lot about gliders. I wonder how he learned so much about them, when no one in the valley even knew what Guido was.
By the way, is it just me, or has Petrie’s grammar subtly improved in this story?:
ï “Well, my Uncle Pterano knows a flier--”
ï “I hope he's okay.”
ï “Me haven't seen him at all in Mysterious Beyond when we go. But it is big place.”
ï “How about a real story?”
ï “I shall punish you later!”
ï “Just because he's not afraid of Red Claw, it no mean he's not afraid for us.”
ï “I tired.”
ï “No, Mama, I had a bath yesterday.”
ï “I love you, Uncle,”
=Of course, the last one’s not much of a surprise, given the similarity of the context in which Petrie utters it to the scene at the end of LBT VII.
I did take note of spelling, grammar and punctuation errors while reading the story; hopefully I didn’t go overboard. :unsure: As I usually do when writing long reviews, I compiled the bulk of them after I’ve made all the comments, but it made the review so long that I had to split them up. First, here are a few general observations regarding potential improvements to your story, and some non-grammar/spelling/punctuation errors:
Something I noticed about your writing style is that when a character speaks, you end the line with a period, and then continue on to state who is speaking, as in the following example:
“Well, those stories are kind of interesting.” Littlefoot said.
Most writers I know use a comma in place of that period, since technically it’s not the end of the sentence. I know some others do use this method, and I guess it’s a matter of personal preference. The issue is that when you have multiple characters speaking one after another, it becomes difficult for the reader to tell whether one speaker has finished his/her statement and a new character is speaking, or if the speaker is continuing his/her previous statement (They’ll find out, of course, if and when it is stated that a new character is speaking, but it still causes confusion). Other than replacing the periods with commas, the solution would be to start a new paragraph whenever a different character speaks (This might even be the better option, because it would also eliminate the “is the speaker finished” problem caused by exclamation points and question marks, which CAN’T be exchanged for commas).
Sorry that this isn’t a very specific correction, but since you capitalize the species names of the dinosaurs, such as “Sharptooth”, “Fastbiter”, “Glider”, and “Longneck”, you should do the same with “flier”.
In the first scene at the beginning of the story, I would suggest that you list specifically who is present, so that readers are aware that Chomper, Ruby, Guido, and Tricia are present as well as the original gang.
A continuity mistake I spotted: Petrie implies that Pterano’s exile will be up in a few more months, but later, when the gang meet him, he says that it’s been only three cold times since he last saw them.
Also when the gang is talking about Pterano at the beginning, Ducky says “saved-ed”, but when they meet Pterano, she says “you saved-ed-ed Tricia like you saved-ed-ed me!”. Would this count as inconsistent speech patterns, or is Ducky simply going crazy with the “ed”’s because she is excited?
Pterano flew lower and lower until he could fly around Red Claw's ankle and force him to fall over.
I just found this sentence confusing for some reason. It wasn’t clear to me what exactly Pterano was doing.
Is the idea that Pterano is flying back and forth beneath the reach of Red Claw’s jaws, and then flies low to the ground around Red Claw, causing him to lose his balance as he grabs for him? Also, the wording (particularly the word “could”, and the fact that you used “force” instead of “forced”) gave me the impression that it was future tense, like a plan was being described rather than Pterano actually performing the action. I’d suggest changing the sentence to more specifically describe Pterano’s trick and change it to past tense.
ï “On the night the Far Walkers came, I saw a strange falling rock-it was blue and it flew real low to the ground.”
ï “It turned out that the falling rock I saw could have been a Stone of Cold Fire-something that could have great power!
ï “It's helping a little bit. But it stings. Not like painful stings-although they do hurt-but it's not TOO painful.”
ï “Pterano said that sometimes Gliders scavenge. Wasn't too bad for me-I mean for a 'scavenger' it was pretty good-but I like Crawlers better, so I came back here once I had 'scavenged' enough.”
ï The youngsters-even Cera-laughed at his comment.
In all of these sentences, the highlighted hyphen(s) should be either two hyphens or an em dash (ó).
ï They were suddenly cornered by Screech and Claw, who backed them against the wall, snarling aggressively.
ï While Red Claw was on the ground, Pterano swooped over Screech and Claw.
ï Littlefoot swatted Claw with his tail to distract him.
Don’t you mean Thud?
ï He had successfully forced Thud to fall over after making him run in circles to chase him.
ï “Feathers?” He asked. “They're called feathers?”
ï “I'll keep an eye out from high up.” He said, taking final glances at each of the children.
Three cases in which I think you should specify who is talking: Littlefoot in the first, Guido in the second, and Pterano in the third.
Tricia's savior was a flier-a male with a long brown crest, scarlet body, and pale belly. Despite the fact that this flier had a more acute body and looked stronger than * the first time they ** met him, they knew who he was.
Another instance of a hyphen that should be two hyphens (towards the beginning of the first sentence). Also, while not necessarily mistakes, there are a couple of unusual word choices in this quote that I just wanted to bring up:
#1: Personally, I’ve always seen Pterano as orange or reddish-brown rather than scarlet.
#2: What meaning were you trying to convey with the word “acute”?
*Insert “he had”.
**Insert “had”.
