Hey foxfire!
I have decided, because I have returned from my long departure from YWS, I would review an old friends work.
Just to let you know, I am not going to read the other review. I am way too lazy.
Lets take a stroll shall we?
I. Nit-Picking My eyes widened to the sight before me.
~I believe it actually should be ‘my eyes widened because of the sight before me’. It makes more sense because when you say ‘my eyes widened’ it is usually out of surprise or wonder. The eyes can’t technically widen to the sight.
The way the moon appeared through the middle of this surrounded by the fixed stars that surrounded it.
~This line makes no sense to me. I think you are trying to describe how the clouds are revealing the moon which are surrounded by millions of stars. Try to rephrase it to something like this:
‘
The way the clouds seemed to melt and reveal the moon, shining brilliantly among the mantle of twinkling stars.’
By my feet, I felt the small waves touching my ankles
~Technically, it isn’t by the characters feet, rather the waves are touching the feet. I recommend rephrasing.
We listened to the rustles of the leaves above us and the pounding waves by our feet while the bellowing blow against our bodies. By the distance, we heard the faint chiming of church bells.
~Okay, there is a few things that I kind of found off in this paragraph. You have the potential to describe things great, though you seem to not connect the descriptions with the other descriptions of the setting. ‘Rustles’ would sound better ‘rustle’. It doesn’t actually have to be pluralized. Then it says ‘pounding waves’ when in the previous paragraph, you were saying that they were small waves. Small waves aren’t pounding. Which makes me also wonder if it is by a lake or an ocean. Lakes would have smaller waves while the oceans would have the large pounding waves. You have to judge how to describe things off of that.
~I also question the part about ‘bellowing blow against our bodies’. What I think you were trying to do was have ‘the billowing wind blow against our bodies’. Even if it was the wind, and it blew, I think you should use a softer word than ‘blow’ or say ‘softly blew’. When you say blow it seems so powerful and forceful. You can even make the scene prettier if you said rather then the wind blowing against their bodies, but rather playing with their hair with invisible fingers, something that sounds beautiful and elegant.
~The last part I need to comment on is that ‘chiming’ seems like a too delicate sound. When you say ‘chiming’ I think of Christmas bells. If you ever heard church bells, you would know that they were loud and resonating, low and sharp. ‘Ringing’ though it may be a more commonly used word is a better way to describe church bells.
I opened my eyes looking at the strands of her hair around me.
~I don’t like this because if they were on the ground, her hair wouldn’t be that everywhere. I think it would be better saying that her hair was being slightly tousled in the wind.
~This is also an example of a great place where you can put in a subtle detail to help the reader get a picture of the character. You can describe the colour of her hair here so the reader won’t have to guess anymore.
Angel raised her head above me kissing my forehead.
~This is a very awkward thing to do, especially based upon their positions. She is curled up beside him, and he is laying there facing up towards the sky, her head is on his shoulder. You can say that she sat up and then kissed him on the forehead. It would make more sense to especially because of her question beforehand. It seems like they are questing something.
She pulled her hair back with both hands after which turned her attention towards me.
~How come that would bring her attention back to him? I think you should say she briskly tied it back, and then looked down on him after she realized that he wasn’t actually going to get up. Something on those lines to help it make more sense if you get what I am saying.
I grabbed her hand with both of my hands and stood up almost tripping her over
~Again it is a very awkward movement. He must be very inept on his feet to be able to get up like that, and she much be incredibly strong. I think he would take her hand and use his other hand to help him get up, meanwhile he can still pull which could trip her. Make sense?
“But is it today Christmas?”
~This line barely makes any sense. Are you trying to say: ‘
But isn’t today Christmas?’
She tilted her head on her right brushing her cheeks with her index finger.
~Are you trying to describe the thinker pose here? Because if so it is very rough and it seemed odd to me. I would just make her tilt her head, and maybe reach for his hands or something.
“I think I’m getting where you are going,”
~I believe it is supposed to be ‘
I think I understand what you are trying to say’. It would make more sense that way and it would be less confusing.
We walked by the banks of the river humming some random Christmas song while we both looked at the stars above us.
~Okay, this is what baffles me. It makes me very confused because I thought they were at some ocean or lake because of the waves. Rivers don’t have waves but that would explain why there was trees above them. You have to be consistent in describing the setting or else the reader will be thrown off. I recommend you make sure that you describe the setting so that it can’t be confused with any other. I am not sure how his feet were in the water. Unless, his feet were dangling over the side and he was laying back. It is confusing to me. Be consistent with your settings please.
Often, the winds came against us blowing off Angel’s hair in all directions while making myself shiver at the same time.
~You described how the wind blew awkwardly. I recommend rewriting it because right now it is read like the wind blew directly at them, and the wind blew off Angel’s hair right off her head making it fly in different directions. You need to make sure you write it so it doesn’t sound like it is forced and you were having difficulty with the line. Try something like: ‘
Often, the winter wind would come and tousle her hair in different directions. The cold bit through my clothing, making me huddle myself closer, a shiver running down my spine.’
I nodded in response breathing out silently tossing a pebble with my foot towards the river.
~This is like a massive blob of a sentence. You have a few things that you will have to do. The first one is that you need to put breaks in this sentence to make it make sense, otherwise it is very confusing and difficult to understand. Add a comma after ‘response’ and ‘silently’.
~The second thing is that I don’t like your use of ‘breathing out silently’. Breathing silently is something that we all do, every single day, so why is that important to the reader? I think you should say ‘sigh’ that way you could get a bit of characterization too with the character and make it unique.
~I also think you should switch ‘tossing’ to ‘kicking’, It would make more sense.
I looked beside me rubbing the back of my neck while trying to breathe properly.
~You never said anything before about not being able to breath properly, maybe he held his breath when she fell before he caught her. You have to make that clear or else the reader again, will get confused at the lack of detail. I also don’t like the word ‘looked’ in this sentence. It is just so generic. I would do something like ‘adverted my gaze away from her, as I rubbed the back of my neck.’ Just play around with it and have a little fun.
At least I fulfilled my wish to that woman.
~First off this sentence makes sense. I think you are trying to say ‘at least I fulfilled that woman’s wish’.
~Secondly, this is becoming repetitive. We already understand that he made a deal with her, though what the deal was and how it related to this is unknown. It is getting confusing. I am not sure how long you plan on making this story, but I recommend at least revealing some information to satisfy the reader before they get too lost in reading it.
As we stood at the top of the slope, we gazed down on a large field covered with hills that seemed to stretch endlessly.
~It might just be me, but I thought the church was at the top of the hill. : /
“I have not told you about this yet, Frederick.” She added as I sat down beside her. “But it was the first Christmas after I had lost my twin sister and father on a car accident.
~This seems kind of random, something that is just one of those things to add plot. What I would actually do instead of her intentionally telling him, have her start talking about the night, about how her sister and her father had died on Christmas as the snow tenderly fell from the sky.
I had been a so desperate about her loss that I had even tried to kill myself.
~It should not be ‘her loss’ because even though her sister lost her life it was more over Angel’s loss in losing her father and her sister.
“Hope.” She simply answered as she pointed upwards revealing a falling star crossing the night sky before descending to the horizon. Then she added as we felt each other’s hands. “Hope from the heavens.”
~I love this last sentence, it is awesome.
II. Grammar and Punctuation The way the clouds slowly moved away from each other. The way the moon appeared through the middle of this surrounded by the fixed stars that surrounded it. It was like a show, a drama being unfolded before me.
These are not correct sentences. Because they are so closely related they should be connected by commas or something of the like. If you do that, the sentence may become incredibly long, so I would recommend you make it into multiple sentences that flow off of each other. But for now, I will just show you what you have to do for comma wise:
‘
The way the clouds slowly moved away from each other, the way the moon appeared through the middle of this surrounded by the fixed stars that surrounded it. It was like a show, a drama, unfolding before me.’
Do you see how they kind of flow off of each other?
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Angel said as she
It would actually be asked.
We lay there for a moment with no words between us.
I would add ‘spoken’ after ‘words’ to make it clearer and sound prettier. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.
she whispered as she placed her head by my shoulder. Her arm wrapped against my chest.
I think it would sound better as ‘her head on my shoulder’. And because these sentences are closely related in how she is positioning herself around him, the sentences would be together to resemble something like this:
‘
she whispered as she placed her head on my shoulder, her arm wrapping around my chest.’
she giggled as she stood up with haste brushing off her blue dress
You need a comma after ‘haste’.
“Who says that you’re not strong?”
It should be ‘said’ for the next part of the dialogue to make sense.
she crossed her arms leaning her face closed to mine
It should be ‘close’ not ‘closed’.
She tilted her head on her right brushing her cheeks with her index finger.
Instead of ‘on her right’ it should be ‘to her right’.
Who is she anyway?
It should be ‘was’ not ‘is’.
with widen eyes
‘Widen’ should be ‘widened’.
At least, I fulfilled my promise to that woman I smiled as we reached to a steep slope surrounded with tall grass being blown by the wind.
Okay, first off, you should add a period after ‘woman’.
Secondly, I recommend you rephrase the second part to prevent confusion. You need to make your story almost effortless for the reader to read, you need to make it enjoyable. Try this: ‘
I smiled as we reached a steep hill which was covered in tall grass, blowing gently in the wind.’
I laugh
**laughed
I widened my eyes as I almost lose my gripped on her.
**lost
“Aren’t you just the cutest? I tell you what, not many guys blushed easily as you.”
It should be ‘blush as’.
grabbing my wrists, “We’ll get there.”
‘We’ should not be capitalized.
“I have not told you about this yet, Frederick.” She added as I sat down beside her. “But it was the first Christmas after I had lost my twin sister and father on a car accident.
After Frederick, it should be a comma, the ‘she’ should not be capitalized, the period after ‘her should be a comma, and the ‘b’ in ‘but should not be capitalized.
AT first I thought she was a nutcase.
It should just be ‘At’.
Had she not know that Christmas is around us with Fat Santa and stuff?
This sentence is confusing to me. It should be rephrased. This is how I think it should be: ‘
Didn’t she know that Christmas was all around us with Santa Claus, and Christmas Trees?’
How did she know my sister loves astronomy?
**loves
like someone had taken out a large weight off my shoulder.
It should just be ‘a large weight’.
Is it a good story or not.”
The period should be a question mark.
Overall Grammar and PunctuationYou have very good grammar and punctuation. It has gotten incredibly better since you first joined the site. That is for certain. Just watch your sentences, because a lot of them are formed wrong and should be combined with other sentences. I recommend reading through your work a couple times because a lot of the mistakes I found could have easily been picked out by reading through the story once. You did a great job and I was certainly impressed.
III. Character DevelopmentI am going to ramble quite a bit here and that is because I have always been really into characterization and making the characters into characters unlike any others. One of the main things I want to talk about is the depth of your characters. You need to make them more unique, different than any other character you have ever written before. Give them something different, make them not the generic character. Make one character shy, the other incredibly outgoing, anyway to make your characters different.
The one character that had the most differences was Frederick. Frederick was adorable and how much he blushed, and I think he was more over one of those lovable clumsy characters that everyone falls in love with. Though you didn’t keep that persona up. You kind of made him seem almost melancholy, that he was forced to smile, that he didn’t actually want to smile. I am not sure why, but I just felt that way. Like here is a perfect example;
I forced a laugh.
It literally says he forced a laugh. But I think you should give him more thoughts so that we could get a better picture of his character. I am going to give you tips on characterization.
When you are trying to characterize a character, the most basic way is to use thoughts, that is for certain, but you don’t want to rely on just that. I recommend you try to work on getting the characterization from the actions. Everyone moves differently according to the different kind of person they are like more outgoing people would move briskly, with large gestures and movements, and more timid people would have less moveable gestures. Also if you describe their clothing, you can get a feeling of who they are by what they wear. Like sadder characters would wear darker colours or blues.
The other thing you need to work on with your characters is actually getting the description of them up there. You had a couple great chances where you could get pop in a few details about Angel. I was unsure at all what she looked like other than she has Emerald eyes and was wearing a blue dress. You did good with getting those details in. When you describe a character, you can’t info dump and as we all know, info dumping is bad. You need to blend the descriptions in and make them piece together like a puzzle piece. The details can pop in any where, but more closer to the beginning. Like you had a point where it talked about the wind blowing through her hair, you could had said what colour hair she had at that point. It is harder when you write in first person to get the MC actually described so you have to be more stealthy and say something like ‘the brown of the dirt was the same shade as my hair’ in some random spot. Just make it sound cool and get the point across. Here is my own created example on how to do characterization and description at the same time. If I reviewed your work before, you probably got something on the same lines of this:
He stared down at me arrogantly, his golden hair framing his face like an angelic halo. His ice blue eyes were locked in mine. I watched as he reached out from beneath his fur trimmed cloak and grabbed the crystal wine glass which was filled with a crimson liquid. He brought it to his pallid lips, which curled into a mischievous smile revealing sharp pointed fangs.
I was describing Lestat from the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice. I used words like ‘mischievous’ and ‘arrogantly’ to get a bit of his personality in. I also made him drink from a crystal glass to make it seem like he valued himself as rich and aristocratic. But I also got in some description or his golden hair, and his ice blue eyes. He is wearing a fur trimmed cloak, and he looks almost angel like.
IV. Writing FormatThere is not much I can comment in here about your writing which is awesome. I don’t need to talk to you about paragraphs or sentence structure, but I do want to bring in some items about the setting.
I was impressed on how much detail you got in about the setting and I believe that made it very effective, but you need to make sure you are describing what you are describing properly so that the reader will get a clear image of what you are trying to get across. A perfect example was the river and how I thought it was a lake or an ocean because you were talking about waves. It might have been that in the beginning and you changed it later on, but you have to remember to go back and fix your mistakes. I really enjoyed how much detail you got in about the setting, and if you could fix up the minor errors, it would certainly excellent.
V. OverallAnd so I actually talk about your story line. I think it was different, and I loved how it tied into Christmas when Christmas is so near. It makes me smile inside, that is for certain, but there was a couple things for certain that you might need to clarify, add, or change.
First thing is with the woman. Who and what exactly is the woman? What was the deal with the ring he made with the woman? I think you could even have a flashback as he was walking so that the reader gets the appropriate information. If they don’t they get incredibly confused and may not want to read much more of your story. I still don’t know who or what that woman was. I think closer to the end, she should be revealed to be something special, something different, like maybe Angel’s mom who had died but was Angel’s guardian angel. Something to just tie it in nicely and make an all around good story.
The other thing I want you to make more and add onto is about the whole theme of hope. I think you should run through the whole entire thing about how Frederick is hoping to find out what Christmas truly is. I also think that the woman should come after Angel lost her father and her twin sister, so that is why it would be more impacting if she said, your sister will be there to. And you should add to that story something about hope, maybe the woman says something to her, and maybe when they were on that hill, after they went searching for Christmas, Angel would finally figure out what Christmas was. Your story could be incredibly impacting and inspirational. It could also be one of those Christmas stories that people read every year like the Little Match Girl.
Another thing I wanted to comment on was that I was unsure about these two and if they were in love or not. I am thinking you should give them that deeper connection, make them say I love you, make them have that closeness, make them strive off of each other. You could also make her say to him that after her father and her sister died, she was lost, she had no hope, and he became her hope. He became her everything.
The last thing is the whole mood of the story. I think you should make it happier, when they are just searching, make him whisk her around in his arms, make them act as if they were in love. You could make this story so adorable and so effective it is amazing.
Your story has amazing potential and I think you could make it into a brilliant story. I was glad I took the time to read that, and it was nice reading some of your work foxfire.
~Incognito
Just change one of the rings to 'it', maybe.
