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Eiyora
Overall: Wow, I felt really bad for her as a character. You sure made her go through a lot! In your writing, your strength is that you have a really great sense of descriptions. That scene with her mauling the slave trader was painted very vividly in my mind and it made me shudder for a bit!
For the critique, I want you to use more commas! They typically come before a ‘but’ or an ‘and’. While they aren’t required all the time, commas are especially important when you have two different actions that need to be separated. I also see what you mean by having awkward phrasing. I think what contributes most to that issue is that you use the wrong particle (to, in, at). I’ve pointed it out below where I could. I also spotted some comma splices (explained better below) but they were use infrequently enough that I don’t think it’s an issue.
And last thing is to be careful of your tense changes.
Details:
Quote:
Perhaps it was because she was born on the day of lovers, everyone around her kept telling her wonderful stories of love.
You have a comma splice here! Essentially, it’s when connect what should be two sentences into one sentence and separate it with a comma. Easier way to correct it would be, as mentioned, to split it into two sentences right where the comma is. Alternatively, you can connect it with ‘or because’ right after the comma.
Quote:
However, what she encountered time and time again, was confinement, torture and abuse.
Second comma is unnecessary.
Quote:
Her relationships will start out happy, only to end up in total darkness.
Change ‘will’ to ‘would’. You’re in the past tense so you need to remain in the past tense.
Quote:
Maybe it was just bad luck but they always take advantage of her unconditional love and trust.
Change ‘take’ to ‘took’. Same thing as above.
Quote:
The seed of craziness has already been planted, now it's time to embrace it.
Again, past tense. ‘The seed of craziness had already been planted and now it was time to embrace it.’
Quote:
And that was how Turquoise found her. Clutching a cleaver and repeatedly hacking small bits and pieces of flesh off a male dragon on a slaver's ship.
These are two separate sentences, but they would flow better if you connected it with a comma.
Quote:
He turned out to be the slave trader, who was strangely silent when his flesh was slowly sawed off.
Change ‘when’ to ‘while’.
Quote:
All the slave dragons on the ship was crowding around them and looking at Garnet with so much love as bits of flesh and blood was splattered onto their faces.
Change ‘was’ to ‘were’. Since you’re talking about dragons, plural, you need to use the plural of ‘was’.
Quote:
The slave trader was put to sleep as he never woke up from his state of blind worship while Garnet was kept with Turquoise.
Comma after ‘while’ is needed.
Quote:
Ruby enrolled Garnet into the same Dancing school that the Gemstone Dance Troupe attended, and she learned to control her powers through sword dancing.
The ‘dancing’ in ‘dancing school’ doesn’t need capitalization.
Quote:
As she got her powers under control, Garnet became more stable.
There’s nothing objectively wrong with this sentence, but perhaps think of a way to word it better/more eloquently than ‘got’.
Quote:
Being with the Dance Troupe also helped Garnet recover mentally, but the darkness within her was there to stay.
Same here, dance troupe doesn’t need to be capitalized.
Quote:
Every member have their own way of conducting the monthly dance rituals and Garnet knew right away what she wanted.
Change ‘have’ to ‘had’.
Quote:
For most of the time, Garnet will be travelling with Turquoise in her ship but once every month, she will travel on her own for a week.
It’s a bit jarring to have this in future tense all of a sudden. It’s better to just leave it in past tense. For example: ‘Most of the time, Garnet would be travelling with Turquoise aboard her ship, but once every month she would travel on her own for a week.’
Quote:
Witness accounts were inconsistent but one thing was always present, they all felt brief but overwhelming, unconditional, uncontrollable love.
Two things about this sentence. The first thing is that you need a comma before the ‘but’. The second thing is that this is a comma splice, as I described in the first quote. The best way to fix this particular one is to replace the comma with an em dash (—).
