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wisemann210
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 Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2008 2:55 am Post subject: Chapter One : The Canaby Sisters |
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Chapter one
The Canaby sisters
The witches Madeline, Rose, and Sarah Canaby formed a circle raising their right hands and began shouting their names MADELINE, a blue beam of sparkling light came from her hand and stopped five feet above them. ROSE, a red beam of sparkling light came from her hand and joined Madeline’s. SARAH, a green beam of sparkling light came from her hand and joined with Madeline and rose’s. Just then all of their powers intertwined and formed an orb that started to grow and electrify. “It’s time for the spell of future sight” “said Madeline” “let us begin there’s no time to waste” “said Sarah”. With that they began to say the spell in unison:
Future sight is what we inquire
Future sight is what we desire
Let us look through time and space
To see the holy chosen face
The orb cleared like clouds moving to show the moon, everything was still. The sisters watched to see the face they would soon be giving their powers to, expecting an adult strong enough to take on all of their powers , they were shocked to see a mere infant, not even a month old in a small white and pink bed. They assumed it was a girl because of this and also a name painted on top of the bed which read Lily. To the Canaby sisters this seemed like a whimsical, weak name but they didn’t have a clue of how powerful she would become. Lily was the chosen one after all, born by the king and queen of Topia two weeks in the future.
The Canaby sisters were far from the land of Topia and had to act quickly if they were to bless the child with the gifts of inner sight, knowing, and control before midnight of her birth. These gifts were the powers of the Canaby sisters. Madeline had the gift of inner sight a gift which saved her life in many occasions. She also saved others with this power, a powerful gift indeed. Rose had the gift of knowing which was very useful in her past endeavors. She knew what every answer was without question; she had the most confidence naturally.
Finally Sarah, she had the gift of control, which was the most active power of the sisters. She could bend the will of others and make them do anything with ease, not even the strongest spell could do that. Sarah was the strongest of the three sisters and the most mature which is why such a great power didn’t twist her soul or mind to evil. The Canaby sisters were to leave immediately if they were to get there in two weeks time.
Madeline, Rose, and Sarah packed their belongings in black leather trunks they each put in their own personal spell book and a communication mirror in which they could talk back and forth if they ever separated. Also in the trunk were their unique gowns and other miscellaneous clothing. The last thing each of them had in their trunk was a collection of potions including from rapid healing potions to deadly exploding potions.
The Canaby sisters were well prepared for their long treacherous journey that was ahead of them. The last thing they had to do before going was to shrink their trunks so they could carry them more easily. “Sisters” “said Madeline” “join me in the spell”
Make the desired objects shrink
The trunks are what we think
From big to small
From heavy to light
This is what we want tonight
The trunks lying on the wooden, dusty floor glowed with golden lights for a moment then shrank to the size of a rat. They picked up their trunks and headed down their creaky stairway and to the closet to get their flying staffs. The flying staffs were just wooden, thin poles that were charmed by the Canaby sisters to fly, Madeline opened the closet door and reached through the collective hanged clothing and grabbed the staffs.
She gave Rose and Sarah theirs and kept hers clutched in her hand, looking around the room she said goodbye to the room and the house that she loved so much. Madeline, Rose, and Sarah would probably never see the Canaby Manor again if the prophecy that brought them to give up their powers had anything to do with it. Since receiving the prophecy a month ago by a seer the Canaby sisters questioned if they should give up their beloved powers to save the world a few hundred years in the future, but they knew they must. Ready to go, the Canaby sisters passed through the door way of the manor for the last time.
The air outside was a cold, breathless type of air that made the sisters weary, Rose knew that something wasn’t right. Just then Madeline gasped with her head looking up at the stars; the sisters knew she was having a premonition. In the moments of Madeline’s premonition Rose and Sarah stopped to look at their surroundings, there was a dark alley with a little torch on the wall to give a minor amount of light.
Also there were a few buildings, but most of windows had broken out. Another distinct characteristic was an ominous dark figure about two hundred feet in the sky floating down towards them. Madeline came back to normal and said “sisters hurry I just saw our cousin Ruby coming to attack us.” “We know that already” said Sarah “there she is, Sarah had her finger pointed at the figure they saw before. Ruby was the evil member of the family that had betrayed them years ago. Ruby had the power to freeze anything solid with a thrust of her hand, so that’s why the Canaby sisters where so afraid of her.
“Sisters lets go, we have to leave before she comes near us” said rose. “ NO, I’m tired of running from our traitor cousin; she killed our father now it’s time to get even.” “Said Madeline” “I’m killing her like she killed our father and if you don’t help me your just as much a traitor as she is.” Ruby was about fifty feet in the sky and still descending and Madeline wasn’t going to waste time. She started to say the forbidden spell to kill a witch:
I call upon thee
To give me the key
To end a witches life
Strip them from strife
To end their ……
“NO!” “Shouted Sarah” you know why that spell is forbidden, it puts an endless curse on you!
I don’t care cried Madeline she killed our father for his power and now I’ll finally kill her, after all these years! “There’s an easier way” “said Sarah” she took her trunk from her pocket and brought it back to normal size with a wave of her hand. Then she unlatched the locks, flung the lid of it open and reached for a vile of exploding potion.
Ruby was now on the ground about forty feet away from them, her long black hair and her pale white face shined in the moon light. Her dark blue tunic hid her body in the darkness as she approached. “Hello my darling cousins” “ruby said in a shrill voice” long time no see eh, she started to laugh. Sarah had the vile of exploding potion clutched in her hand that ruby had no clue was there. All of the Canaby sisters looked at her as she came closer.
“You know” “said ruby I enjoyed watching your father take his last breathe as I shoved the dagger through his beating heart. His eyes were so shocked when he saw that I had done it, he couldn’t believe it. Madeline let out a shriek of hate that filled the midnight air, “what are you going to do Madeline, hurt me?” Said ruby” you never could defeat me, and now that I have your father’s power, or should I say my power you’ll never defeat me!
“Your right ruby I could never defeat you by myself but now I have my sisters with me” said Madeline” “Sarah the potion now!” “Yelled Madeline”. Sarah threw the potion as hard as she could in the direction of ruby but it was all in vain, ruby thrust her hand at the potion and it froze solid making a shattering noise as it broke on the hard ground. Ruby looked at the frozen bottle shaped potion that lay on the ground before her,” trying to get rid of me with a potion” “ruby snickered” you’ll have to use more than that. “Sarah use your power, control her!” “Said Madeline” “you know I don’t like to use it Madeline” “said Sarah” “USE IT!” “Shouted Madeline” “USE IT NOW OR WE’LL DIE”.
“You wouldn’t dare control me, you couldn’t if you tried” “said Ruby” “once I’m finished with you three I’ll have your powers and be the most powerful witch in the cosmos” “shrieked ruby”. Ruby started to raise her hand and that’s when the sisters began to get scared, ruby put her elbow back, and was starting to thrust when Sarah shot out a green, steady stream of light that engulfed ruby and made her quit in her tracks, she was still and could not move or speak.
“Rose, Madeline put your auras on ruby, I think I have a way to get rid of her without cursing ourselves” “said Sarah”. Without another word a red and blue beam of light shot past Sarah and engulfed ruby, just like before all of their powers combined started to electrify and grow into an orb. Ruby was in the center of the force field type orb that she couldn’t get out of; she started to regret coming there. “Sisters” “said Sarah” “I think if we use our combined powers we can send ruby into an astral plane that there would be no escaping from”. “We’ll have to improvise a spell” “said Sarah” ““repeat the spell after I get done, three times over should be enough”
Energy in the orb
Vanish to the unseen
Go where the spirits scream
Forever you’ll live morbidly
Madeline, Rose, and Sarah said the spell three times in unison and with a bright glow of the orb and a cracking noise, ruby vanished. Although one thing stayed behind, the power to freeze things solid was floating six feet from the ground, calm. The Canaby sisters stood there quizzically pondering what to do with it. “I know what we should do with it” “Said Rose” “We should bottle it in case we need it in the future, we could each have some”, “Good idea” “Said Madeline” “Good idea”.  |
Last edited by wisemann210 on Thu Jul 10, 2008 12:08 am; edited 8 times in total |
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Esmé
consider rephrasing
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| Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2008 6:30 am Post subject: |
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Wisemann210 - hello, welcome to YWS. It’s a very, very, very addicting site (yes, that was a warning, heh). But, before I continue with your review - there’s one very important rule that everyone must abide. For every piece of your own that you decide to post, you have to critique two times something of someone else’s. 2:1. Critiques - 2, your own work posted - 1.
Okay, the first thing I noticed were the paragraphs, or chunks of paragraphs. Those are way to long - consider splitting them up. Start a new one with every new dialogue sentence of each character, e.g. when a new witch speaks, that should have its own paragraph. Don’t squeeze everything into one!
Punctuation. Consider checking out some articles concerning that - it looks tricky, and sometimes is, but when you get the hang of it it comes naturally. So, do that, and correct your work.
The spells were a nice touch, yes - a very good idea. The plot looks like an interesting one, too. Correct the things I’ve spoken (typed?) of, and then it will be a more enjoyable read : )
Cheers,
Esme |
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Sonlen
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| Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2008 3:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Yes, it is improper grammar to have two different people speaking in the same paragraph. Also, you need to figure out how to use quotation marks, instead of putting “Sisters” “said Madeline” “join me in the spell” it should be "Sisters," said Madeline, "join me in a spell" I noticed that this is a problem throughout the entire post. Othe than that, it's great, it is a little confusing but I will assume that eberything will be explained later in the story. |
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| Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2008 4:57 pm Post subject: |
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| To tell you the truth, I couldn't even read through the first paragraph. I know you worked hard on this piece of writing and it's probably pretty good, too. The first paragraph I read was good. The paragraphs are way too long and seem like such a hassle to read all of them, to tell you the truth I only made it half way through the second chapter before I stopped. The best suggestion I have for you is to start learning how to form paragraphs. The rule goes like this, "Everything in a paragraph should be closely related." So let's say, for example if you are writing about dogs, the moment you start writing about a cat you need to start a new paragraph. If you don't learn to structure your paragraphs properly no one will want to read it all because it feels like so much work. |
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| Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2008 6:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Your story is great! But I have some advice. Split your paragraphs up, and try to fix the diologue. It was very confusing. other than that, you are VERY good. |
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| Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2008 7:28 pm Post subject: |
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WELCOME!!! i am new to this site as well...I cannot keep away..*worries*
A very pleasant read thank you for a nice way to spend 10mins. (hugs)
You might want to break up your MAMMOTH paragraphs a little...it is very hard to read them at times. punctuation?...i won't bother! i am hardly qualified hahaha mine is abysmal 
But stick with it and take on board what some of the more experienced writers advice. They are very helpful |
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zankoku_na_tenshi
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| Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 12:41 am Post subject: |
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Well, this is certainly a very promising first chapter! I do think it could use a little clean-up, but let's get things started on a positive note. Here's the good.
I really, really liked those spell chants. They made for a very unique and interesting touch to the story, and gave your magic system it's own little pinch of awesome. It was just the right thing to make your first bits of world-building stand out, and it's something I definitely admire, since my magic systems are often rather simplistic and lame. XD
I also thought the relationship between the three sisters was nicely done, and I like their distinct personalities. It seems like whenever a group of supernatural beings like these are introduced to a story, they get treated as one big ol' block o' magic, (Heck, even Shakespeare wrote his witches that way, if I was paying attention properly when we read Macbeth last year) so I really enjoyed how you seemed willing to give them differences and even (*gasp*) differing opinions! Well done.
I thought it was quite original that, at least for the moment, instead of focusing on the Chosen One Baby like most fantasy authors do, you put us in the shoes of the witches who come to deliver her those magic gifts. It was a brilliant little twist, and well done. I enjoyed that a lot, being of the opinion that it's a lot easier to sympathize with three fully developed characters with a goal and stuff to do than with some random baby.
| Quote: |
| The air outside was a cold, breathless type of air that made the sisters weary, |
I just want you to know that I consider that piece of imagery to be quite awesome.
Now, despite all this general win, awesome, and originality you've got going on here, there's still a bit to be desired. None of it is really big plot-related stuff, and all of it's simple to fix, but fixed it needs to be.
Sorry to say that the above reviewers have a really good point about those Goliath paragraphs up there. It will help, big time, if you break them up. In my grammar critique below, I put in some paragraph breaks, but feel free to rearrange them if these don't suit your liking.
Now, some matters of grammar.
I know this is probably a little obnoxious to hear, but you kind of need to keep an eye on your grammar here. You've chunked all the paragraphs together, forgotten punctuation marks, and the capitalization is kind of random. I know at least some of this has got to be unintentional typos (your computer seems to have some weird issues with quotation marks). And I've made my own share of hilariously bad typos, so I sympathize. Still, though, it's a good idea to get in the habit of proofreading your work. Trust me, I make dumb typing mistakes all the time-- I once spelled a major character's name wrong no less than six times on one page, and it took me more than a month to spot it. XD But grammar problems can be really off-putting for potential readers, and really frustrating for potential reviewers, so it's a really good idea to straighten them out. Anyway, to help you see the problems you seem to be having, as well as to make this whole thing easier for myself to read so I can focus on the story rather than boring grammar stuff, I went through and spruced up the grammar a bit.
I've bolded my insertions, though I wasn't sure how to mark the deletions, they should be easy to see. Keep in mind that most of my phrasing suggestions are just suggestions, feel free to dump them or keep them as you see fit.
| Quote: |
Chapter One
The Canaby Sisters
The witches Madeline, Rose, and Sarah Canaby formed a circle, raising their right hands, and began shouting their names.
"MADELINE," a blue beam of sparkling light came from her hand and stopped five feet above them.
"ROSE", a red beam of sparkling light came from her hand and joined Madeline’s.
"SARAH," a green beam of sparkling light came from her hand and joined with Madeline and Rose’s. Just then, all of their powers intertwined and formed an orb that started to grow and electrify.
“It’s time for the spell of future sight,” said Madeline.
“Let us begin; there’s no time to waste,” said Sarah. With that, they began to say the spell in unison:
Future sight is what we inquire
Future sight is what we desire
Let us look through time and space
To see the holy chosen face
The orb cleared, like clouds moving to show the moon, and everything was still. The sisters watched to see the face they would soon be giving their powers to, expecting an adult, strong enough to take on all of their powers. They were shocked to see a mere infant, not even a month old in a small white and pink bed. They assumed it was a girl because of this and the name painted on top of the bed: Lily. To the Canaby sisters, this seemed like a whimsical, weak name, but they didn’t have a clue of how powerful she would become. Lily was the chosen one after all, born to the king and queen of Topia two weeks in the future.
The Canaby sisters were far from the land of Topia and had to act quickly if they were to bless the child with the gifts of inner sight, knowing, and control before midnight of her birth. These gifts were the powers of the Canaby sisters. Madeline had the gift of inner sight, a gift which saved her life in many occasions. She also saved others with this power, a powerful gift indeed. Rose had the gift of knowing, which was very useful in her past endeavors. She knew what every answer was without question; she had the most confidence naturally. Finally, Sarah had the gift of control, which was the most active power of the sisters. She could bend the will of others and make them do anything with ease, something not even the strongest of other spells could do. Sarah was the strongest of the three sisters and the most mature, which is why such a great power didn’t twist her soul or mind to evil.
The Canaby sisters were to leave immediately if they were to get there in two weeks time. Madeline, Rose, and Sarah packed their belongings in black leather trunks. They each put in their own personal spell book and a communication mirror in which they could talk back and forth if they ever separated. Also in the trunk were their unique gowns and other miscellaneous clothing. The last thing each of them carried was a collection of potions, from rapid healing potions to deadly exploding potions. The Canaby sisters were well-prepared for the long treacherous journey that was ahead of them. The last thing they had to do before going was to shrink their trunks so they could carry them more easily.
“Sisters” “said Madeline” “join me in the spell”
Make the desired objects shrink
The trunks are what we think
From big to small
From heavy to light
This is what we want tonight
The trunks lying on the wooden, dusty floor glowed with golden lights for a moment then shrank to the size of a rat. They picked up their trunks and headed down their creaky stairway and to the closet to get their flying staffs. The flying staffs were just thin wooden poles that were charmed by the Canaby sisters to fly, Madeline opened the closet door and reached through the collective hanged clothing and grabbed the staffs. She gave Rose and Sarah theirs and kept hers clutched in her hand. She looked around the room, saying goodbye to it and the house that she loved so much. Madeline, Rose, and Sarah would probably never see the Canaby Manor again if the prophecy that brought them to give up their powers had anything to say about it. Since receiving the prophecy a month ago through a seer the Canaby sisters questioned if they should give up their beloved powers to save the world a few hundred years in the future, but they knew they must.
Ready to go, they passed through the doorway of the manor for the last time. The air outside was a cold, breathless type of air that made the sisters weary, Rose knew that something wasn’t right. Just then Madeline gasped with her head looking up at the stars; the sisters knew she was having a premonition. In the moments of Madeline’s premonition Rose and Sarah stopped to look at their surroundings, there was a dark alley with a little torch on the wall to give a minor amount of light. Also there were a few buildings, but most of windows had broken out. Another distinct characteristic was an ominous dark figure about two hundred feet in the sky floating down towards them.
Madeline came back to normal and said “Sisters, hurry! I just saw our cousin Ruby coming to attack us.”
“We know that already,” said Sarah, “there she is," Sarah had her finger pointed at the figure they saw before.
Ruby was the evil member of the family that had betrayed them years ago. She had the power to freeze anything solid with a thrust of her hand, so the Canaby sisters where so afraid of her.
“Sisters, let's go, we have to leave before she comes near us” said Rose.
“NO, I’m tired of running from our traitor cousin; she killed our father, now it’s time to get even.” said Madeline, “I’m killing her like she killed our father, and if you don’t help me, you're just as much a traitor as she is.” Ruby was about fifty feet in the sky and still descending, and Madeline wasn’t going to waste time. She started to say the forbidden spell to kill a witch:
I call upon thee
To give me the key
To end a witches life
Strip them from strife
To end their ……
“NO!” shouted Sarah, "You know why that spell is forbidden, it puts an endless curse on you!"
"I don’t care!" cried Madeline "She killed our father for his power and now I’ll finally kill her, after all these years!"
“There’s an easier way.” said Sarah. She took her trunk from her pocket and brought it back to normal size with a wave of her hand. Then she unlatched the locks, flung the lid of it open and reached for a vial of exploding potion. Ruby was now on the ground about forty feet away from them, her long black hair and her pale white face shined in the moonlight. Her dark blue tunic hid her body in the darkness as she approached.
“Hello, my darling cousins.” Ruby said in a shrill voice. long time no see, eh?" she started to laugh. Sarah had the vial of exploding potion clutched in her hand, but Ruby was still unaware of it. All of the Canaby sisters looked at her as she came closer.
“You know,” said Ruby, "I enjoyed watching your father take his last breathe as I shoved the dagger through his beating heart. His eyes were so shocked when he saw that I had done it, he couldn’t believe it."
Madeline let out a shriek of hate that filled the midnight air,
“What are you going to do, Madeline? Hurt me?” said Ruby. "You never could defeat me, and now that I have your father’s power, or should I say, my power you’ll never defeat me!"
“You're right, Ruby, I could never defeat you by myself, but now I have my sisters with me.” said Madeline. “Sarah, the potion, now!”
Sarah threw the potion as hard as she could in the direction of Ruby but it was all in vain, Ruby thrust her hand at the potion and it froze solid, making a shattering noise as it broke on the hard ground. Ruby looked at the frozen, bottle-shaped potion that lay on the ground before her, "trying to get rid of me with a potion” Ruby snickered, "You’ll have to use more than that.
“Sarah, use your power, control her!” said Madeline.
“You know I don’t like to use it, Madeline,” said Sarah.
“USE IT!” shouted Madeline. “USE IT NOW OR WE’LL DIE!”
“You wouldn’t dare control me, you couldn’t if you tried,” said Ruby, “once I’m finished with you three, I’ll have your powers and be the most powerful witch in the cosmos!” She started to raise her hand, and that’s when the sisters began to get scared. Ruby put her elbow back, and was starting to thrust when Sarah shot out a green, steady stream of light that engulfed Ruby and made her quit in her tracks, she was still and could not move or speak.
“Rose, Madeline, put your auras on Ruby, I think I have a way to get rid of her without cursing ourselves,” said Sarah. Without another word, a red and blue beam of light shot past Sarah and engulfed ruby, just like before all of their powers combined started to electrify and grow into an orb. Ruby was in the center of the force field type orb and couldn't get out; she was starting to regret coming here in the first place.
“Sisters,” said Sarah, “I think if we use our combined powers we can send Ruby into an astral plane that there would be no escaping from. We’ll have to improvise a spell. Repeat the spell after I get done, three times over should be enough.”
Energy in the orb
Vanish to the unseen
Go where the spirits scream
Forever you’ll live morbidly
Madeline, Rose, and Sarah said the spell three times in unison and with a bright glow of the orb and a cracking noise, ruby vanished. Although one thing stayed behind: the power to freeze things solid was floating six feet from the ground, calm. The Canaby sisters stood there quizzically, pondering what to do with it.
“I know what we should do with it.” said Rose. “We should bottle it in case we need it in the future, we could each have some.”
“Good idea.” said Madeline. “Good idea.” |
Not perfect, heaven knows, but a little clearer. I know I've got my own share of grammar demons, especially when it comes to what to put at the end of a quote, but can you see how much more smoothly it reads now? That sort of cleaning up will really help out your audience, trust me.
Now, for a few overall/ plot-related critiques.
I did think the habit of using all caps looked a tiny bit silly, especially when there was no exclamation point at the end. (For example, in the first part of this chapter when the sisters are chanting their names). I kept reading it as sounding really loud, but being totally monotone, which sounded somewhat ridiculous in my head. Eh, just a suggestion, keep or change as you like.
I was also absolutely bewildered by how on earth the gifts they were supposed to give Lily worked. First they said they expected an adult, but then, just a few sentences later, they said they had to give the gift before the midnight of her birth, and then they said they had two weeks to do it. I'm just a little bit perplexed. If they expect an adult, they should know that the midnight of her birth has looong since passed, and two weeks will be a good deal after the midnight of her birth. I feel like either this needs some rethinking, or we need a little more clarification as to what's going on with this spell.
| Quote: |
| Another distinct characteristic was an ominous dark figure about two hundred feet in the sky floating down towards them. |
I'm not sure if this sentence has quite the right tone compared to the setup around it. It sounded almost like a joke to me, actually. It was like: "Oh, look at the pretty torchlight... and the buildings... and THE GIANT UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT OF DOOM!" It's absolutely brilliant if it's a joke, but looking at the rest of the writing, it doesn't seem to be one, so I felt a little confused.
| Quote: |
| “sisters hurry I just saw our cousin Ruby coming to attack us.” |
Kind of a nitpick, but Madeline shouldn't have to tell the others that Ruby is their cousin, they already know. I can see how it's in there for the reader's benefit, but I believe it's mentioned later that they are cousins, so "our cousin" is a little unnecessary here.
And... that's pretty much it.
I hope I didn't sound too harsh here, I really didn't intend to be. This is a really promising start, and there's a lot about it I like, it just kind of needs some clean-up here and there. I'll start the next chapter as soon as I can. ^_^ |
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wisemann210
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| Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 6:03 pm Post subject: |
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| thankyou every one for your great crits i have already started to make changes and keep following the story line! |
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| Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 9:22 pm Post subject: |
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*tips hat* I'm here as requested.
Firstly, I'd like to take the time to commend zankoku_na_tenshi. Look through the grammar and punctuation corrections that she's made and learn from them. You can find guides to help you with these issues on the site. Take some time to read them. At the moment it seems that although you've spent a lot of time writing, you've not actually been bothered to make it readable. If that's the case, then you need to get your act together. Consider the punctuation/etc to be the foundations of your work. If they're not in place, everything else ceases to impress. 
Character Development
This evening I’ll be talking about your characters. This seems to be the area that the other critiquers haven’t focussed on, so I’ll try to help you with this.
1. The Chosen One
Well, if you’ve got to have it then I guess there’s no stopping you. Be aware that this isn’t particularly original, other than the fact that we aren’t dropped right into the storyline of this character. A lot of novels use this idea, the hero/heroine that doesn’t want to be a hero/heroine but is picked out by a prophesy yadda yadda. Don’t be “just another fantasy”. Be bold. Do something a little more different and exciting, and you’ll be rewarded.
Let’s see what is good, bad and ugly about her, then:
The GOOD
| Quote: |
| To the Canaby sisters, this seemed like a whimsical, weak name, … |
This is brilliant. What would be better, of course, is for other people to share that opinion (more excitingly if the King secretly shared this sentiment!!!) but it’s good to begin with. Lily. You’ve already set her up to be weak, so don’t disappoint in the next few chapters!
The BAD
| Quote: |
| … but they didn’t have a clue of how powerful she would become. |
This is weak. If you wanted to hint at future power, you could say something like, “but there was an unruly spark of determination in her gaze that all three witches failed to spot”. Perhaps better would be to leave this unresolved. You can show the reader how powerful she becomes by taking her through the events that shape her!
And The UGLY
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| They assumed it was a girl because of this and the name painted on top of the bed: Lily. |
I don’t get why you phrased it like this unless it turns out that “Lily” is a boy!? Confused dot com. Indeed.
2. The Canaby Sisters
Be careful that you aren’t simply “telling” rather than “showing” the powers and differences between the three sisters. They are potentially very strong characters, but the reader won’t bond with them if you present their traits all vacuum-packed and sterilised from all life! I don’t see an easy way around this with the gifts, but I’m sure you could spice up the descriptions a little, can’t you?
Madeline
| Quote: |
| “Sisters” “said Madeline” “join me in the spell” |
Apart from the horrendous grammar here, this is odd. It seems that quite regularly, Madeline is the leader of the three Canaby Sisters. She seems to have the others following her, possibly because of her advantage of inner sight, but this seems to contradict the fact that Rose is the most confident. *shrugs* Just a thought.
Madeline seems quite detached from the fact that they actually might have to kill another being, and as the person that uses her gift to save others (a “good” person) I don’t see this as being particularly in character. Still, I quite like the fact that she can’t quite grasp the enormity of situations. That would be an excellent flaw for someone who can see the situations before they happen. Work on it. Build it stronger.
Rose
| Quote: |
| “Sisters, let's go, we have to leave before she comes near us” said Rose. |
I thought you said Rose was the most confident. What’s up with this? If she’s acting out of character already, make this obvious. If not, change the confident one to be Madeline. She was the one that decided to stand and fight.
Apart from this, Rose doesn’t seem to act much on her own in the fight. The gift of “knowing” is VERY strong, so be careful how you use this character. I’d actually quite like to see her in a situation where knowing the facts is a disadvantage. See what you can do.
Sarah
| Quote: |
| “You know I don’t like to use it, Madeline,” said Sarah. |
I saved the best of the three for last. This line made my day.  Seriously, the idea of a character who had the strongest power but didn’t like to use it is great. She is flawed and it gives her that little bit of life that every character needs. Her conflict within the Canaby Sisters is superb. Make the most of this character, she’s one of your finest.
3. Ruby (The Evil One)
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| “You know,” said Ruby, "I enjoyed watching your father take his last breathe as I shoved the dagger through his beating heart. His eyes were so shocked when he saw that I had done it, he couldn’t believe it." |
Oh dear. Unfortunately for you, Ruby is a letdown. A character that is related to the Sisters and has killed their father? Forget it. It’s horribly clichéd and if it absolutely must stay, then don’t reveal it immediately.
I saw no reason for Ruby to be in the same place at the same time as the Sisters, so their meeting is flawed. If she’s killed their father, why haven’t they hunted her down before? Why is she still harping on about it? In short, I really don’t like this character. Perhaps you’ll develop her more in the redraft/later chapters. I sure hope so.
I think you should follow these steps:
Give her a motive rather than just “I’m eeeevil! I kiiiill you” kind of style.
Give her a soft spot.
Give her some separate troubles of her own.
Conclusion
I liked this piece. Superficially, it wasn’t particularly well-written, but glimpses of something far greater kept shining through. I believe I echo another reviewer when I say I love the line:
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| The air outside was a cold, breathless type of air that made the sisters weary … |
If you can write like this, then why isn’t it all correctly punctuated/etc? You’re hiding your talent underneath a smokescreen that doesn’t need to be there! Stop doing that, and get this rewritten. You can do a lot better, and I’m looking forward to seeing how good it can get.
Yours,
Charlie |
_________________
I used to be "DarkLight" but now I'm "Charlie II"!
... and you can leave out the "II"
"Eyes open. Head clear. See much. Say little." |
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-Save-Ferris-
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| Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 2:09 pm Post subject: |
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Ok wismann, I'm going to try and give you a very indepth review
I'll go through the problematic areas first.
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The witches Madeline, Rose, and Sarah Canaby [I would consider changing this to the sister witches] formed a circle[new sentence here otherwise its gonna get long] raising[change this to the perfect tense, so it becomes 'they raised'] their right hands and began shouting their names[new sentence again] MADELINE,[I would suggest putting a colon after each sister's name] a blue beam of sparkling light came from her hand and stopped five feet above them.[It seems kind of weird having an exact measurment in fiction, I think you should just put 'in the air above thier heads'] ROSE, a red beam of sparkling light came from her hand and joined Madeline’s. SARAH, a green beam of sparkling light came from her hand and joined with Madeline and rose’s. Just then[I don't think the 'just then' is nessecary, ruins the flow of the sentence] all of their powers intertwined and formed an orb that started to grow and electrify. “It’s time for the spell of future sight” “said Madeline” “let us begin there’s no time to waste” “said Sarah”. [I won't point out any of the speech mark problems, as a lot of people have said them already] With that they began to say the spell in unison: |
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The orb cleared like clouds moving to show the moon, everything was still.[What was still?] The sisters watched to see the face they would soon be giving their powers to,[New sentence] expecting an adult strong enough to take on all of their powers , they were shocked to see a mere infant, not even a month old in a small white and pink bed. They assumed it was a girl because of this and also a name painted on top of the bed which read Lily. To the Canaby sisters this seemed like a whimsical, weak name but they didn’t have a clue of how powerful she would become. Lily was the chosen one after all, born by the king and queen of Topia two weeks in the future.[I didn't really understand this bit :/]
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| The Canaby sisters were far from the land of Topia and had to act quickly if they were to bless the child with the gifts of inner sight, knowing, and control before midnight of her birth. These gifts were the powers of the Canaby sisters. Madeline had the gift of inner sight a gift which saved her life in many occasions. She also saved others with this power, a powerful gift indeed.[I would change sentence order, and put 'a powerful gift indeed' at the start of describing her powers then go onto to describe how it saved lives] Rose had the gift of knowing which was very useful in her past endeavors. She knew what every answer was without question; she had the most confidence naturally.[I thought breaking this sentence up with a semi-colon was a great idea but I would switch it to 'naturally she had the most confidence' it flows better] |
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Finally Sarah, she[unnessecary] had the gift of control, which was the most active power of the sisters. She could bend the will of others and make them do anything with ease, not even the strongest spell could do that. Sarah was the strongest of the three sisters and the most mature which is why such a great power didn’t twist her soul or mind to evil.[This sentence sounded childishly constructed] The Canaby sisters were to leave immediately if they were to get there in two weeks time.
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[quote]Madeline, Rose, and Sarah[Just make this they] packed their belongings in black leather trunks[new sentence] they each put in their own personal spell book and a communication mirror in which they could talk back and forth if they ever separated. Also in the trunk make this a pluralwere their unique gowns and other miscellaneous clothing. The last thing each of them had in their trunk was a collection of potions including from[pick one, is it 'including' or 'from' it can't be both] rapid healing potions to deadly exploding potions.[quote]
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The trunks lying on the wooden, dusty floor glowed with golden lights for a moment then shrank to the size of a rat. They picked up their trunks and headed down theirTHE creaky stairway. And which creaky stairway? Where did it go from and to? creaky stairway and to the closet to get their flying staffs. The flying staffs were just wooden, thin poles that were charmed by the Canaby sisters to fly,[new sentence] Madeline opened the closet door and reached through the collective hanged clothing and grabbed the staffs. |
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She gave Rose and Sarah theirs and kept hers clutched in her hand, looking around the room she said goodbye to the room[I'm not too sure what you'd do here but having 'room' twice in the one sentence sounds bad] and the house that she loved so much. Madeline, Rose, and Sarah would probably never see the Canaby Manor again if the prophecy that brought them to give up their powers had anything to do with it. Since receiving the prophecy a month ago by a seer the Canaby sisters questioned if they should give up their beloved powers to save the world a few hundred years in the future, but they knew they must. Ready to go, the Canaby sisters passed through the door way of the manor for the last time. [I'd like more information about this prophecy!]
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The air outside was a cold, breathless type of air [Simply: cold and breathless]that made the sisters weary,new sentence Rose knew that something wasn’t right. Just then Madeline gasped with her head looking up at the stars; the sisters knew she was having a premonition. In the moments of Madeline’s premonition[full stop] Rose and Sarah stopped to look at their surroundings, there was a dark alley with a little torch on the wall to give a minor amount of light. |
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| Also there were a few buildings, but most of windows had broken out.[Another babyish sounding sentence] Another distinct characteristic[This made it sound essay-ish, the use of 'charateristic'] was an ominous dark figure about two hundred feet in the sky floating down towards them. Madeline came back to normal and said “sisters hurry I just saw our cousin Ruby coming to attack us.” “We know that already” said Sarah “there she is, Sarah had her finger pointed at the figure they saw before. Ruby was the evil member of the family that had betrayed them years ago. Ruby had the power to freeze anything solid with a thrust of her hand, so that’s why the Canaby sisters where so afraid of her. |
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| “Sisters lets go, we have to leave before she comes near us” said rose. “ NO, I’m tired of running from our traitor cousin; she killed our father now it’s time to get even.” “Said Madeline” “I’m killing her like she killed our father and if you don’t help me your just as much a traitor as she is.” Ruby was about fifty feet in the sky and still descending and Madeline wasn’t going to waste time. She started to say[don't use the infinitive here, use the imperfect] the forbidden spell to kill a witch: |
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| Ruby was now on the ground about forty feet away from them, her long black hair and her pale white face shined in the moon light. Her dark blue tunic hid her body in the darkness as she approached. “Hello my darling cousins” “ruby said in a shrill voice” long time no see eh, she started to laugh. Sarah had the vile of exploding potion clutched in her hand that ruby had no clue was there. This sentence didn't make sense]All of the Canaby sisters looked at her as she came closer. |
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“You know” “said ruby I enjoyed watching your father take his last breathe as I shoved the dagger through his beating heart. His eyes were so shocked when he saw that[what] I had done it, he couldn’t believe it. Madeline let out a shriek of hate that filled the midnight air, “what are you going to do Madeline, hurt me?” Said ruby” you never could defeat me, and now that I have your father’s power, or should I say my power you’ll never defeat[different verb from 'defeat' perhaps? me! |
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| “Rose, Madeline put your auras on ruby, I think I have a way to get rid of her without cursing ourselves” “said Sarah”. Without another word a red and blue beam of light shot past Sarah and engulfed ruby, just like before all of their powers combined started[use the perfect participle here as opposed to the perfect tense to electrify and grow into an orb. Ruby was in the center of the force field type orb that she couldn’t get out of; she started to regret coming there. “Sisters” “said Sarah” “I think if we use our combined powers we can send ruby into an astral plane that there would be no escaping from”. “We’ll have to improvise a spell” “said Sarah” ““repeat the spell after I get done, three times over should be enough” |
I know it seems like I have pointed out a LOT of bad things, but mainly it was grammatical mistakes and things to do with sentence structure. So many parts of this had such great description, that was really vivid and engaging. Other parts, its not that it was bad description, but it didn't read well because of poor sentence order. I think when you are going over your work, you need to pay more attention to grammar and stuff. I can tell that you put a lot of work into a lot or this, but you can see the bits where it was just basic grammar. I think your use of semi-colons was good though!
I liked this peice though. It's not the type of thing I would normally go for but I enjoyed reading it. As I have said I think some of your description is really good. I really liked the spells, I thought they were the best bit of it. I thought most of your dialouge sounded pretty natural and well written. Obviously at this point I'm not sure how this sotry will end up, but it seems like a very action driven story, and I think you have done that well, as you kept me reading, which as I said I normally wouldn't go for (:
Keep working on this seriously! I think it could be really good! |
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Stella Thomas
The angels have the phone box...
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| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 1:03 pm Post subject: |
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Bonjour! Stella here! Finally getting round to it.
Right so.
Warning: Don't get disheartened and hate me during this review . I actually really enjoyed the story, and I'm being meaner than usual...
I. NITPICKS
Nitpicks first, as always. I'm going to put the whole thing in a quote box. Comments, compliments and corrections are in bold. Any parts that don't need attention will be deleted, to save space
| wisemann210 wrote: |
The witches Madeline, Rose, no comma and Sarah Canaby formed a circlecomma raising their right hands and began shouting their names MADELINE,"Madeline!" would look better. Plus, I prefer "Madeleine" but that's just preference/ a blue beam of sparkling light came from her hand and stopped five feet above them. ROSE, "Rose!" a red beam of sparkling light came from her hand and joined Madeline’s. SARAH, "Sarah!" a green beam of sparkling light came from her hand and joined with Madeline and Rose’s. Just then all of their powers intertwined and formed an orb that started to grow and electrify. “It’s time for the spell of future sight," said Madeline.
"Let us begin there’s no time to waste," said Sarah. With that they began to say the spell in unison:
Speech marks and perhaps italics here?Future sight is what we inquire
Future sight is what we desire
Let us look through time and space
To see the holy chosen face
The sisters watched to see the face they would soon be giving their powers to, expecting an adult strong enough to take on all of their powersno space before the comma , they were shocked to see a mere infant, not even a month old in a small white and pink bed. They assumed it was a girl because of this and also a name painted on top of the bed which read Lily. Awkward phrasing. Describe the cot altogether, don't mention that it was a girl. Say something along the lines of "a mere infant, not even a month old. It was lying in a small pink and white cradle, the name "Lily" expertly painted at the head."To the Canaby sisters this seemed like a whimsical, weak name One of them's called Rose . Sorry, I'm just being irritating born by the king and queen of Topia two weeks in the future. Huh?
The Canaby sisters were far from the land of Topia and had to act quickly if they were to bless the child with the gifts of inner sight, knowing, no comma and control before midnight of her birth. Rose had the gift of knowing which was very useful in her past endeavours. She knew what every answer was without question; she had the most confidence naturally.
Finally Sarah, she had the gift of control, which was the most active power of the sisters. She could bend the will of others and make them do anything with ease, not even the strongest spell could do that. Sarah was the strongest of the three sisters and the most mature which is why such a great power didn’t twist her soul or mind to evil. The Canaby sisters were to leave immediately if they were to get there in two weeks time. You might want to play around with this paragraph. Your wording is awkward and there’s a great deal of telling instead of showing. The last sentence doesn’t tie in with the rest.
Madeline, Rose, and Sarah packed their belongings in black leather trunks. They each put in their own personal spell book and a communication mirror in which they could talk back and forth if they were ever separated. The last thing each of them had in their trunk was a collection of potions including from rapid healing potions to deadly exploding potions.
The Canaby sisters were well prepared for their the long treacherous journey that was ahead of them. The last thing they had to do before going was to shrink their trunks so they could carry them more easily. “Sisters,“ said Madeline. “Join me in the spell.”
Speech marks and italics here Make the desired objects shrink
The trunks are what we think
From big to small
From heavy to light
This is what we want tonight
The trunks lying on the wooden, dusty floor glowed with golden lights for a moment then shrank to the size of a rat.
In the moments of Madeline’s premonition Rose and Sarah stopped to look at their surroundings, there was a dark alley with a little torch on the wall to give a minor amount of light. Good example of showing, not telling
Another distinct characteristic characteristic? You know as I do that you can come up with a better word than that was an ominous dark figure about two hundred feet up in the sky floating floating? Shouldn't you try a more agressive word? Hurtling, plummeting, soaring? down towards them. Madeline came back to normal and said "Sisters, hurrycomma I just saw our cousin Ruby coming to attack us.”
Always a new paragraph when someone new begins to speak.“We know that alreadycomma here” said Sarah."There she is." New line
Sarah had her finger pointed at the figure they saw before. Ruby was the evil member of the family that had betrayed them years ago. Ruby had the power to freeze anything solid with a thrust of her hand, so that’s why the Canaby sisters where so afraid of her.
“Sisterscomma letapostrophes go, we have to leave before she comes near uscomma” said Rose.New line.
“ NO, I’m tired of running from our traitor cousin; she killed our father now it’s time to get even," said Madeline. “I’m killing her like she killed our father and if you don’t help me you're just as much a traitor as she is.” Ruby was about fifty feet in the sky and still descending and Madeline wasn’t going to waste time. She started to say the forbidden spell to kill a witch:
Speech marks and italics, commas at the end of each line too.I call upon thee
To give me the key
To end a witches life
Strip them from strife
To end their ……
“NO!” shouted Sarah. "You know why that spell is forbidden, it puts an endless curse on you!"
"I don’t care," cried Madeline. "She killed our father for his power and now I’ll finally kill her, after all these years!" new line
“There’s an easier way," said Sarah. She took her trunk from her pocket and brought it back to normal size with a wave of her hand.
Ruby was now on the ground about forty feet away from them, her long black hair and her pale white face shined shone in the moon lightone word.
“Hello my darling cousins," Ruby said in a shrill voice. "Long time no see, eh?" She started to laugh. Sarah had the phial, not vile of exploding potion clutched in her hand that Ruby had no clue was there. All of the Canaby sisters looked at her as she came closer.
“You know," said Ruby. "I enjoyed watching your father take his last breathe no "e" on the end as I shoved the dagger through his beating heart. His eyes were so shocked when he saw that I had done it, he couldn’t believe it."
Madeline let out a shriek of hate that filled the midnight air. "What are you going to do Madeline, hurt me?” said Ruby. "You never could defeat me, and now that I have your father’s power, or should I say my power. new sentence. You’ll never defeat me!"
“You're rightcomma Ruby I could never defeat you by myself but now I have my sisters with me,” said Madeline. “Sarah the potion now!” try just "she yelled". You don't need to mention her name again as she was already speaking. and new line here.
Sarah threw the potion as hard as she could in the direction of [b]Ruby but it was all in vain, Ruby thrust her hand at the potion and it froze solidcomma making a shattering noise as it broke on the hard ground. Ruby looked at the frozen bottle shaped potion that lay on the ground before her. "Trying to get rid of me with a potion," Ruby snickered. "You’ll have to use more than that."new line.
“Sarah use your power, control her!” said Madeline. New line here.
"You know I don’t like to use it Madeline,” said Sarah. New line.
“USE IT!” shouted Madeline. "USE IT NOW OR WE’LL DIE”.
“You wouldn’t dare control me, you couldn’t if you tried,” said Ruby. This statement is slightly contradictory. Shove in a "besides," perhaps? Would make more sense. "Once I’m finished with you three I’ll have your powers and be the most powerful witch in the cosmos,” shrieked Ruby. She started to raise her hand and that’s when the sisters began to get scared, they weren't scared already? Ruby put her elbow back, and was starting to thrust when Sarah shot out a green, steady stream of light that engulfed Ruby and made her quit quit is a very childish word to use in the context in her tracks, she was still and could not move or speak.
“Rose, Madelinecomma put your auras on Ruby, I think I have a way to get rid of her without cursing ourselves,” said Sarah. Without another word a red and blue beam of light red and blue beams of light, surely? shot past Sarah and engulfed ruby, just like before all of their powers combined started to electrify and grow into an orb. Ruby was in the center of the force field type orb that she couldn’t get out of; she started to regret coming there. “Sisters," said Sarah. “I think if we use our combined powers we can send Ruby into an astral plane that there would be no escaping from." New line.
“We’ll have to improvise a spell," said Sarah. “Repeat the spell after I get done, three times over should be enough."
Speech marks, italics and commasEnergy in the orb
Vanish to the unseen
Go where the spirits scream
Forever you’ll live morbidly
Madeline, Rose, no comma and Sarah said the spell three times in unison and with a bright glow of the orb and a cracking noise, Ruby vanished. Although one thing stayed behind, the power to freeze things solid was floating six feet from the ground, calm. The Canaby sisters stood there quizzically pondering what to do with it. “I know what we should do with it," said Rose. "We should bottle it in case we need it in the future, we could each have some." New line.
“Good idea,” said Madeline. “Good idea”. |
Okay, specifics now.
II. INVERTED COMMAS
Or speech marks, as they're commonly called.
You have some weird habits with these little guys, and you're not consistent in the habits either, which makes me think that you're just a little unsure about how to use them. So I'm going to give you a refresher course!
Inverted commas only go round what the person is saying. That means that they don't go around the speech tags, ie. said Sarah. You sometimes do this, it's not right. The speech marks only go around the speech, that's the idea of them.
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| "Let's go to the shops." |
But if you want to say who's saying that, then
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| "Let's go to the shops," said John. |
You see that the full stop after shops turns to a comma in the second one. (For the record, I was only taught this by a lovely beta reader on a fan fiction site a few months ago, not even my English teacher, so don't get freaked). You see, 'said John' is still part of your sentence. It's just not what he was saying. So the full stop has to go.
But
| Quote: |
| "Let's go to the shops," said John. "I want to buy some ice cream." |
The second part of his 'speech' as such, doesn't have a tag on the end of it, because we know it's still John who's speaking. So there's a full stop, instead of a comma, the sentence is finished, like my first "Let's go to the shops." Make sense?
But of course, what if John's having a conversation? What if somebody else says they want ice cream? "I want to buy some ice cream" could have been said by anyone and the author just hasn't told us who.
Ah, but those inventors of grammar have come up with a solution.
Let's say Mary wanted ice cream...
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