Thank you so much for your review. I really appreciate the criticism and in fact I encourage it. I constantly want to become a better writer and I love that people are engaged in the writing. This is in NO WAY THE ENDING. I plan to do so many more chapters. But I am a university (college) student in my final year. So I am struggling to find the time to write. Your review to me is like a beacon of support to continue writing. And I thank you for that. I am struggling to write this story as it not getting as much attention as a non romance story. But I am adamant that I have something worthwhile to tell. This is something you will have never experienced before and I cant wait to share it with you. Expect at least 10 more chapters. Thank you for your support and joining me in this journey!

I do not believe in writing nasty reviews to people because I believe that everyone that contributes on fanfiction should be encouraged to continue writing. if they are bad they can get better, if they are good they can become great. you are quite good and this is a very unique story. the fact that you branched out so far off from the HP game but still managed to stay in the same park is proof of that talent. I don't know if you were having trouble wrapping up this story or if you got bored and wanted to end it quickly but the ending was awkward. it just seemed too abrupt. perhaps it was the foreshadowing from other chapters but as I reader I was looking farther into the future for the story to go and when it ended as it did I was startled. on one hand that is good becauseit's clearly indicating how well that you had perhaps inadvertently at planned for more future to your story with a lot of others are unable to do very well. on the other hand it's bad because the readers left rather unsatisfied because they were expecting more and the end was like I said just too abrupt. I hope you don't get offended or anything I just wanted to leave some constructive criticism and I hope you take it that way. other than that, it was a very interesting story, very well written and quite original. there aren't a lot of fanfiction authors that can claim having achieved that level of originality either so it is a good story and I hope you will write more in the future. you would do very well writing longer stories.

Yeah, so make sure you get out of here see, or it'll be curtains for ya, get it?
Ya don't say?
That's right 'cause I'm the Big Toe around here, See?
Yeah?
Yeah!

Looking forward to the next installment of "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Bludgers."

Interested to see where this goes! keep it up

Nooooo, an amazing cliff hanger! Please keep going!

I would have preferred a competitive Gobstones story but I'll settle for Quidditch.
Just kidding, looking forward to new chapters.

Thanks for keeping the writing up even though your busy! Happy Holidays Tomi and Author!

user/MMastafi

my. /zcexA7j7f2
You can also follow the story on Wattpadd:)

All right, here we go.

As I already let you know, I’m fandom blind, so there are some things I don’t understand/don’t know anything about. Those aspects I’ll leave to others.

Okay, on to the review:

1. Filter words: Felt, heard, saw, etc. are called filter words. They detract from the potency of the POV, bog down the reader, and pull us out of the character’s head. Chuck them.

- Example: “Felt” appears six times in this chapter – each time used as a filter. Let’s look at how to remove filtering.
- “Still in a groggy half-awake state, Tomi felt a push on his chair and woke up abruptly on the floor.” This sentence’s paragraph describes some of the setting for us, but then we discover Tomi’s dozing off.
- Adjustment without filtering: “Tomi’s chair lurched. He tumbled to the floor, jerked from a half-doze.”

- Example: “Tomi continued to gaze sleepily outside.” Here, we have another example of filtering, and it makes me want to doze off along with Tomi. Let’s punch it up.
- Adjustment: “Tomi folded his arms on the windowsill and perched his chin atop them.”

- Why does this work? This paragraph starts with Tomi already sluggish, so we don’t need to know he’s still groggy. We got that. Tomi is our “camera” into this world. You don’t have to say, “He saw the dog run.” If he tells us about a dog running down the street, we understand it’s because he saw it.

2. Character thoughts: I see two of these in the first two paragraphs. When we listen in on a character’s thoughts, there are two generally acceptable ways to notate that.

- First, you can put the thought in italics. No need for a “he thought,” “wondered,” etc. tag. Readers will know that’s the character thinking.

- Second, you can leave the thought unitalicized, but, as with italics, you shouldn’t have to use the “he thought” tag. That should grow naturally from the prose.

- Example: The first sentence is a character thought. “Any day now thought Tomi.”
- Adjustment: Any day now. (This works with or without italics.)

3. SPAG: There were some errors here and there. “Eleven year-old” needs to be “eleven-year-old”, and there are a few others. “Easy bro, its only me” said Ryo, the oldest of the family.” Should be “Easy, bro, it’s only me,” said Ryo, the oldest of the family. The biggest thing is dialogue punctuation. If you end a dialogue clip with a tag (i.e. “he said,” “he replied,” etc.) be sure to use the correct punctuation.

- Example: “Let’s do it” replied Tomi.
Should be: “Let’s do it,” replied Tomi.
- Be sure to put that comma in right before the closing dialogue tag.
- Example: “You know our family history, right?” Said Ryo gently.
Should be: “You know our family history, right?” said Ryo gently.

- Watch out for auto-correct. Sometimes it makes mistakes. No need to capitalize the dialogue tag here.

4. Adverbs: Sometimes they’re your friends. But not often. You’ve got a decent noun/pronoun to adj/adv ratio, but there are several instances where a poignant verb or sentence enhancement could replace an awkward adverb, bulky adjective, or both.

- Example: “He flew slightly to the right at a sluggish speed and snatched the ball off Tomi who zoomed past.” This sentence sets my head to buzzing. There are a lot of minute directions in here, and the adverb adds to the jumble. Let’s streamline it.
- Adjustment: “He angled right and slowed. Tomi whizzed by, and Ryo snatched the ball.”

- Why does this work? As writers, we can drift into “on-the-nose writing.” That’s when what’s written mirrors real life. While that’s great for instructional writing and technical manuals, it’s the bane of fiction. Give the reader enough to lay the foundation. Tell them what’s important. The rest, they can fill in for themselves. Most people are astute enough to read with decent comprehension. If the writer tells them the phone rang, and then starts into the conversation, most will understand that the character retrieved the phone, saw who was calling (in the case of caller ID), and answered it. No need to say all that.

5. Repetition: In speeches, most consider repetition acceptable – if not encouraged – since the audience can’t review what’s been said. In writing, however, the opposite is true. Readers are free to peruse the content as often as they choose, thus no need to repeat. Sometimes (I know I do this) we use the same word more than once in close proximity. That’s okay on occasion – for emphasis, stylistic reasons, etc. – but often it’s just because we needed a word and picked the first one that came to mind.

- Example: “The brothers usually lost them to the unrelenting sea or destroyed them in a testosterone filled rage (usually Riley.)” We have two instances of “usually” in the same sentence. “Usually” is plain here. If you’re going to use an adverb, make it count.
- Adjustment: “Ryo and Tomi often lost them to the sea or destroyed them in testosterone-filled rage – Riley being the more frequent offender.”

- Example: The last two paragraphs include an almost identical phrase, “towards the (open) sea.” One, or both, of these needs adjusting to avoid that repetition.

6. Verbs: Powerful verbs and good POV launch your story like nothing else.

- Example: “Tomi internalised Riley’s words. A wave of uncertainty came over Tomi and manifested itself as worry.” Pare out the extra. We just heard Riley’s taunt. Let readers experience it with Tomi. How does he “internalize”?
- Adjustment: “(Direct character thought)June? That was… [X-number] months ago.(end thought) Uncertainty morphed into worry.”

- Example: “Tomi threw his broom gently in front of him, it hovered at the perfect height for him to mount.”
- Adjustment: “Tomi tossed his broom. (Direct character thought)Perfect mounting height.(end thought)”

7. Show vs. Tell: So often we hear “Show, don’t tell.” But no one explains that. A good example is your third paragraph. Instead of telling us, “Tomi lived by the ocean,” you show him staring out the window at the waves as ocean spray forms a thin haze. This chapter is great at showing, not telling.

8. “ing” Verbs: While these are tempting, they become clunky. Use them sparingly. In the last paragraph, we have four. If we change them out, the focus sharpens.

- Example: “Tomi's hand slipped. He was hurtling through the air like a ragdoll, falling at great speed towards the sea. He could feel the wind on his face, penetrating his pores like a thousand knifes; his consciousness fading as he approached sea level... The last thing Tomi felt was an agonising sharp pain.”
- Adjustment: “Tomi’s hand slipped. He hurtled through the air like a ragdoll as he plummeted toward the sea. Wind clawed his face. Consciousness faded. Pain stabbed. Then nothing.”

- Fifty-two words became twenty-seven. We see the short, quick fall, panic, then the fade out.

9. General thoughts: If I could say one thing, it would be, “Make words work for you.” Don’t let them dictate where they want to go. They’ll be lazy if you let them, so take control. If non-essentials muddy a sentence, throw them out. Adverbs invading? Replace them with verbs. Have a swarm of adjectives? Evict a few. Do whatever betters the story, word by word, sentence by sentence.

10. Summary vs. Content: This might just be me, but when I read the summary, I expected Tomi to be a flying ace, then we see him get dumped into the ocean by a cranky broom. I was a little confused by this.

Hope your story goes well for you. :)
Happy writing.

Bravo! This is wonderful. I am also an new author. And I am working on a Harry Potter fanfiction very much like yours (in terms of inventing my own characters and not using the originals). Do you think you could take a peek at it and tell me what you think? That would be much appreciated. Here's the link: s/13263879/1/The-Magical-Adventures-of-Karmen-Kimble-A-Tale-of-the-Wizarding-World
Thanks again! Keep on writing! ;)

Are you going to write more of this story?’Or is it finished?

This is so good! I mean at least Ryo isn’t a Hufflepuff, then the dad would be furious! (I’m a Hufflepuff by the way and therefor have nothing against them) Also you might want to mention that it’s 40 degrees celsius, because other wise that almost freezing.