Young Writers Society

Hello.

So a few things. I have not read any previous chapters, so I am going to focus on things I notice immediately within this chapter.

First off, I would like to tell you what a corset is: it is a top that constricts you waist and has absolutely no room for anything between the skin and itself, past a thin shirt of fabric to prevent chaffing. A dagger would bend if left in there, and basically be immovable.

The other thing is, as you note, daggers are sharp. This is why they are sheathed even when concealed, because you could accidentally cut yourself by moving or bumping into something. This cut could be anything from "a little blood" to "cutting yourself open and bleeding to death from your own fault". Not to mention blood poisoning from infections is extremely common, and is why hospitals go to such great pains to sterilize everything.

As a result, your first two sentences are extremely impractical if not outright false. I'm going to assume the look you were going for is a bodic, which does not compress the waist and acts more like a vest.

Next up, your syntax. You use one of two sentence formats: [introductory quote], [subject verb object] or [subject verb object]. What I mean by "subject verb object" is, almost every sentence begins with a pronoun, then a verb, then something else. The only time you break that is in something like "After I sheathe my dagger"; most of your introductory quotes begin with either as or after.

This all makes your prose incredibly boring to read. Sentences don't always have to be about a person: they can be about an item, an event, a thought. If you don't include these in your sentences, then you end up with a never ending stream of "I did this. He did that. I did this" which is what you have here.

And finally, that faerie. He seems like a generic evil man with an insane laugh and a desire to hold power over others. I couldn't particularly take him seriously at all because of how flat he was. I've seen these traits before and they tend to be pulled out for no reason at all except to say that a person leans towards the unbalanced.

All in all, you have rough prose and a certain flatness to everything going on. I didn't get any insight into how your characters think, or how they feel, or anything, really. That's something I should be getting every single chapter, regardless of when I pick up reading. The factual inaccuracy doesn't help, as well.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

~Rosey

Hi there!

Oh gosh, he's a faerie, not a troll. *facepalm*

And remember, if you take too long... I might be forced to send someone after you.

"Who... did you make a deal with, Arianna?"