I appreciate your critiques for my previous and current drafts! They were really helpful. I cut a lot of unnecessary stuff out, and made things more streamlined. My word count now is 3656! 

Watermelon? I haven't had much time to think about Nialia's fauna or flora, but I want it to be dangerous and exotic. I think having something as simple as watermelon be shown later on the story and blow away the characters would be pretty funny. Thanks again. :)

**Hook**
  
The hook you have is a lot better. It's a bit awkwardly worded in my opinion but definitely dives right into the action. "ignoring the natural beauty that surrounded her." Maybe just "ignoring the surrounding natural beauty." The next sentence you say "right now, they were distractions from her objective..." which doesn't sit quite right. The use of "they" is weird because I don't exactly know what "they" is referring to. I think it's the natural beauty, but in that case I think you would use "it" grammatically. I do think you could reference the bendy trees here in passing to add an atmosphere of otherness immediately. "Aneff galloped through bendy trees, ignoring the orange and scarlet leaves whipping her face. The twisted branches and eye-catching foliage were mere distractions from her true goal..." etc.
  

  
**Action**
  
Action is still stilted. I know I mentioned it in my previous critique but I am not sure much has changed here so I will try to go into more detail

Hi there, I read your first submission so I have the memory of that to compare this one to. I'll say off the bat that you certainly took everyone's notes about the expo dumping. Your momentum is a lot better than the last round. You added a lot more elements to this rewrite, though, and I think it leads to a less streamlined chapter. The elements are interesting and you're beginning to paint a picture of a world I could really get into as a reader, but at the moment it is a where's waldo of what is important. let's get into it.

**Plot/Worldbuilding/Exposition/Pacing? (headers mean nothing)**

New plot: Aneff and her friend Arrie along with several more Vexsanan soldiers chase down escaping Nialins. The Vexsanans surround the Nialins at the base of a cliff, and Aneff speaks with Zhun, commander of the Nialins. The Nialins distract the Vexsanans with smoke-bomb fruit and a skirmish erupts at the base of the cliff. Arrie traps the commander under a dash-raptor, but the smoke clears and t

GENERAL REMARKS  
An interesting core concept, but I found the writing stilted and expository. Some of this manifested itself in repetition and a robotic voice. It had this contrived feel because things are spelled out in painfully unsubtle fashion to the reader. I wouldn’t say it’s irretrievable, but there are a lot of areas for improvement.  
  
MECHANICS  
I’m not a fan of too much worldbuilding/proper nouns in an opening, particularly in the first few paragraphs. This is something I see a lot on the fantasy writers sub and indicates a lack of confidence in the writing/plot to have to prop it up with these shiny new concepts.   
Aneff, Nialia (Nialins), Dash-raptors, Arrenim, War-Hounds, Vexsanan, Commander Zhun, Forever Trees. That is a lot of proper nouns to keep track of in the first 600 words. It’s proper noun attrition, and it became stultifying.  
  
Having to explain what a ‘dash-raptor’ and ‘war-hounds’ is in the first few sentences is a sign of exposition that isn’t 

**MICRO LEVEL ANALYSIS**

This section covers small-scale items of note, such as technical issues.

**DIDN’T**

Doing a ctrl + F in your document, I found 21 instances of the word ‘didn’t.’ Sometimes it made sense for the sentence, and other times it made it awkward to read. Here are a few examples:

>She didn’t have time to sheath her sword.

‘She had no time to sheath her sword.’

>She didn’t have time to react…

‘She had no time to react,’ or ‘There was no time to react.’

>Aneff didn’t know what a cloud whale was…

‘Aneff was not familiar with cloud whales…’

**FIGHT MECHANICS**

You’ve made some solid adjustments, like letting the reader know what kind of hammers the Nialins are using and having a more cohesive flow to the combat, but there are still a few sequences that feel jarring.

>He kicked backwards, causing her to lose balance. “And you completely forgot about the tones.” His hands pushed onto her body, controlling her momentum. She fell onto the ground. The wind was knock

Hi there, thanks for sharing. Round two, eh? Well let’s get into it, shall we?

**OPENING THOUGHTS**

This rewrite significantly improves upon several shortcomings of the previous version, particularly pacing and dialogue. There are some areas that I still feel need some work, though, such as fight mechanics, characterization, sentence structure, and scene limitations.

**MACRO LEVEL ANALYSIS**

This section covers large-scale points on the structure and content of the piece.

**OPENER / HOOK**

>Aneff galloped through the trees on her horse, ignoring the natural beauty that surrounded her.

Okay, this is definitely better. It makes the reader ask the question: why is she ignoring it? I don’t think a hook has to necessarily start things off with the burner set to max, just enough to nudge the reader onward. This to me accomplishes that. Now onto the rest of the paragraph:

>The forests of Nialia were odd, but the yellow sky illuminated the oddly curved trees with their garish leaves qu

Thanks for the input! :)

To answer your points:

* I see your point on overexplaining, but I usually love reading detailed, dynamic combat in books. I'm inspired by *Mistborn, Lightbringer, The Stormlight Archives, a*nd *The First Law*. In how I'm writing it. I'll be sure not to go overboard tho.
* Arrie and Aneff are not related lol. I say he's her friend in the beginninng
* I can see the YA attributes, but it's not what I'm going for. Lol. It's going to get dark later on.
* I am in no way an imperialist, so the ideals are purely taken from media that I've consumed. Vexsanan recruitment is very much inspired by Genghis Khan and Noxus from LoL.
* I don't really like writing the accent into the words. I'd rather have a brief description and have the reader fill in the gaps.

Also, it’s called “Loyalty” because the next chapter will be named “Betrayal”. The next chapter is when Aneff’s sister, Dayeh, betrays the Empire.

As for the title, I can probably just shorten it to “Forged for War” if the current one feels too clunky.

  
  
A little confused at the smoke bomb scene. “seemed to have answer”? I was a bit confused here.  
Maybe Zhun’s eyes should dart atound, or he gives a hand gesture to his comrade, or something? Maybe he says something in his beautiful language before striking?  
  
  
  
GENERAL REMARKS  
Love it from the outset. Clearly fantasy genre, medieval setting. Humor right out of the gates. I’M IN!  
Cordial, realistic tone. Takes some offense, some witty banter. I’M IN!  
  
I like the fantastical beasts. Fast and fun.  
  
Title  
I actually think the title could be better. Does this chapter have to do with Loyalty per-se?   
Seems to be an epic showdown between battling representatives of two warring nations. I was expecting it to be more boring to be honest! Maybe a more dynamic title to fit this swashbuckling narrative.   
  
SETTING  
  
Easy introducing new names, terms, species… without visuals, hard to keep straight. This is a manageable stream. New empires, cre

I mean. The new critiqued work is almost as long as my current draft. Plus, all my other critique works combine to more words than both of my drafts combined. 

I didn’t know critiques were drained, and the leftovers were not carried over. If I did, I would’ve banked some my critiques instead of cashing them all in so to speak.

Like, I probably could’ve had only two critiques in my last post, and just have the third leftover over here.

So you're submitting the same submission as a new submission with only one new critique? Uhhhhh..... Idk I'm split. I'll wait for other mods input.

General Impression: 

First of all it was boring. Generally i hate fight scenes as they don't really contribute to the plot and you just started with a long ass fight scene which was very boring for me.
Then the plot you said wasn't mentioned and if i hadnt read your synopsis before I wouldn't have realized there was such thing to look forward to.


World Build:

A female being a soldier in a time where bow and arrow was being used. Though i get that this is a fantasy setting I have to say there is problems like physical strength, r#pe from fellow soldiers and how that females were just considered lower during times of swords and shield. What im tryna say is your world setting isnt fleshed out enough.


Hook:

There was no hook. You should have just explained your world setting and plot in your first chapter. Not overly detailed of course but just enough to let the readers know some crucial details for painting the larger picture.

For example:

What power system does this world use?



Hey [r/DestructiveReaders](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/)!

I'm back with the new and improved chapter one to my story. To summarize, it's about two sisters who joined the military of an expansionist empire. One night, one of sisters betrays the empire, leaving the other alone. The main conflict is about the loyal sister on a journey to hunt her sister down.

[Chapter 1: Loyalty](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q36qXJKowfRGMaGGHdId4ZQrmi2-Zcfe_qpDeX2h3GA/edit?usp=sharing)

This first chapter introduces Aneff, who is the loyal sister, trying to hunt down an enemy commander.

With everyone's advice, I just scrapped the original draft and started anew. I hope this chapter is a good introduction to my world, and I hope you guys can help me improve. Thank you for all your help so far. :)



My Critiques: [**\[2443 Natural Fear\],**](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/uxltms/comment/ia4cgne/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3) [**\[2480\]Heartless,**](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/uweilq/comment/i9raq8y/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3) [**\[3750\] Tomorrow's Kings Chapter 1**](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/ups5qa/comment/i9ot89g/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3)**,**  [**\[3232\] The Leech - Chapter 1 (V3)**](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/uzxrdw/comment/iadenar/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3)

[3866] Forged for War. Meant for More. Chapter 1: Loyalty (Rewrite)