Young Writers Society

Wings And Fins
By Lord Svatantra

Chapter 1

Narrated by: Eos Edgar

300 Years after revelation


According to the Book Of Revelations, life on Earth came into existence when the flesh of Land, the breath of Air and the blood of Sun merged as one.

Of all the living beings that were formed, there was a particular species of hairless apes who were the weakest of them all and had little hope of surviving. God pitied their condition and His love didn’t allow him to let them die; And so, he gave the gift of intelligence to the race of human beings. But with intelligence came free will and curiosity, and thus we committed the world’s first sin: we were the first ones who gave in to lust. Soon the other species followed and lust spread like wild fire, almost pushing love to the brink of extinction.

God’s perfect world was destroyed and his wrath came down upon us like a meteor shower: earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, cyclones and pandemics wiped almost half the population of all the living beings. A wave of panic swept over everyone, never before had pain been experienced on Earth. All of the Human race fasted and prayed for God to stop.

After 70 days of chaos and mayhem, God’s love overcame his rage and we humans were finally forgiven.
But lust was now a part of our being and as a punishment the perfect human form was now distorted by flaws.
Of course, we didn’t like it much and so we hid our faces beneath beautiful masks, which now acted as our identity. No one was allowed to see the cursed human face, and if anybody dared then his life was the price that he had to pay for such disobedience.

Like all the others, I too was given a mask at my birth. But my mask wasn’t any ordinary mask, my mask was the mask of a prince.The glittering silver that it was made of, and the shimmering diamonds that decorated it commanded respect and procured many privileges. I quite enjoyed wearing it, but only until the time of taking up the responsibilities attached to it dawned near.

The thought of ruling an empire which covered most of the face of Earth filled me with fear and apprehension. Moreover, being the grandson of a man who conquered the world, and the son of a king who is cited as the greatest ruler in history didn’t make things better.

Each night, when the Sun died, I would ride my horse aimlessly through the woods, drowning myself in the worries and questions of the future.

The story which I am going to tell, and you would love to hear, starts from such a night.

That night, the Moon was unusually bright and the Earth was plagued with a snowy disease. The forest looked haunted with its naked trees, who transformed into monsters as moonlight embraced them. The reverberating gallop of snowflake’s hooves seemed like hoarse screams of horror in my mind.

After some days this forest ,and even the sounds that echo in it, was to be under my rule.

I shuddered, partly with fear and partly because of the cold air that ran past me, making my mouth dry; I had been riding for hours and now I desperately needed a place to quench my thirst.
After some time my wish was granted as a glittering mass came into view; it was a gigantic pond sent by God.
I stopped silverflame at a distance and went to fetch some water, which of course I didn’t get as there was only ice to be found; So preoccupied was I in my worries that I forgot to use my commonsense that was lying cold somewhere in a lonely part of my head.

Just when I was going to leave, a figure that swayed and swirled in the moonlight caught my eye.
Forced by curiosity I crept closer, making sure that I was well hidden under the bushes.
My heart almost stopped from what I saw- it was a girl, about the age of seventeen, without any clothes, and to my great horror, without any mask!

According to law, I was supposed to kill her before any other human eye saw, but the strange excitement of seeing the human face for the first time made me stay and watch.
Her skin was white, almost like the snow that surrounded us, her hair was as dark as the night around, her blue eyes possessed the depth of the sea, her pure breasts probably nourished the cosmos and her sacred vagina seemed like the opening to the womb that had conceived the Universe itself. In the Moonlight she looked like a goddess, dancing intricately and delicately with all her grace.

Her hypnotic moves had mesmerised me and I had stayed there all night, marvelling at her unearthly beauty and wondering why the society hid our faces.
Lost in my thoughts I didn’t even realise when my eye lids embraced and with a smile painted on my face and a feeling that made my soul dance, I fell into the realm of sleep.
***

Hey there!

This was beautiful. So beautiful I almost didn't cringe when you said 'vagina,' but I did. That word is a word that a lot of people are turned off by. It's not something that we usually read on YWS, and if one of the 12 year old members came by and read that they might not take it too kindly, because I know I don'y. So if you could just rate the story accordingly, that would be fine.

But, the way you describer her naked body was beautiful. The words that you used make her body seem sacred and a thing of real beauty. In fact, while I was reading it, I imagined her body glowing like a god from the Disney Hercules movie.

Quotes 'N' Comments

According to the Book Of Revelations, all the life forms on Earth were created when the flesh of the Land, the breath of the Air and the blood of the Sun merged as one.

This is a pretty wordy first sentence, and though it is incredibly interesting, it does throw me off a bit. I would consider shortening it. Maybe making a list would work?:

"According to the Book of Revelations, all the life forms on Earth were created when three things merged as one: the flesh of the Land, the breath of the Air, and the blood of the Sun."

Yeah I think that could work. You see, as saying this, you create sort of a break with the colon. If you can find another way to put a break in there (if you don't like my suggestion) then please do. Also, the capitalizing of the 'Land, Air and Sun' is unnecessary. We use those words in every day life and they are not proper nouns. Now, if you described the land, air and sun as Gods, then you could capitalize them. How it is now just adds to the bulk of the sentence.

But with intelligence came free will and curiosity, and thus we committed the world’s first sin: we were the first ones who gave in to lust.

Something to consider: I don't think the first sin we'd express would be lust. I think there are far more important sins that we would discover. Greed would be a major one. I think that before we begin to lust for people, we need to have something to lust over. The humans would have greed for good looks or fortune to obtain that lust.

Also, pride is considered the original sin, and the source of the others: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins (look under 'pride'.) Because it is considered the original sin according to the bible, which is what invented the names for the sins, and what recorded the first, you might want to follow it a bit, since it seems to know what it is talking about.

I do understand why you are focusing on lust, now don't take the focus off of it because it is a major point to your story. However I still think you need to remain accurate. Mention that lust came from pride, and you'll be all good.

Characters

As far as character's go, he seems like the classic prince of the story. He seems like that rebel prince who is expected to be great and strong like his father, but secretly is wimpy and winy inside. And good job for spotting that that's what readers like to hear about when they read fantasy.

Plot

I really like the story about God and the natural disasters, the masks and the beginning of sins. I, however, want to make sure that you are not retelling the story of the bible. I don't know much about religion, but giving the people the intelligence of lust is much like the story of Adam and Eve. And it's fine, a lot of writers reference biblical stories in their novels, take Lord of the Flies for instance. So much biblical symbolism it's quite unbelievable, even though the title contains 'Lord.' All I'm saying is that I want you to keep to your originality, and not go by what the bible says for everything, because this obviously isn't the bible. The intelligence/Adam and Eve part is, but the mask part isn't. Try to keep it that way.

Overall

So, overall, I thought this was alright, as far as plot/explaining too much goes. I think that you went a little far into the details in the beginning, but if that's the style you're going for, go right ahead. It does, however, seem like a lot of words for so little explanation. I think you could say certain things, and then leave the rest for the readers to figure out. We like that. We like learning about things through plot. Like the mask thing, you could have explained that when you saw her, but you chose to say it in this one massive section where you explain everything about the book. And like I said before, that's fine, but beware not to do it too often because it is a bit boring. Yours is fine because what you're saying is interesting.

I would love to read and review more of this. Keep writing,

Classy.

Hello there, Spike!

I'm here to review.
Corrections in RED.

Of all the living beings that were formed, there was a particular species of hairless apes who were the weakest of them all and had little hope of surviving.

This is a bit run-on, so I would suggest to place a comma to denote a quick pause.

God pitied their condition and His love didn’t allow him to let them die;

I'd be appropriate if "H" is in uppercase.

After 70 days of chaos and mayhem, God’s love overcame his rage and we humans were finally forgiven.

A comma again.

reflecting it’s silver rays back to the sky.

Delete the apostrophe.

The forest looked haunted with it’s ghost like trees,

And this one too. :3

~

Before anything else, I'd just like to say that I'm very impressed with this. Seeing this as your first chapter, this is a pretty good start. Your first paragraph is what made my attention to keep on going until the very last word. I mean, when you mentioned the part of the sins, human beings, suns and stuffs, it's a surprising really that it's not that kind of boring to read. So I don't think they're even infodumps, because each paragraph has maintained its consistency on the matter that you're narrating to your readers. And actually this is a bit long, but hey, I didn't really mind it all. *laughs*

However, there are just some thing I want to clarify. Are the people in your characters wearing masks? If so, then I'm cool with that but I;m just curious of what is really behind the mask? Is that for an identity or what? Maybe because he's a prince and nobody should know him? Anyways, you have this rare concept that are pretty understandable and independent. But I would just like to know more about the main character. Try to show more of his appearance, it doesn't mean that you need to make him stand infront of a mirror, no. What I mean is that, use some creative ways wherein you can find the chance to let your readers imagine your character's physical characteristics. But don't rush in, I'm not saying that you need to do that all in one chapter.

And as with your descriptions, they are really good. Just like what Captain Classy has said, you actually didn't put malice on the part of the nude woman, but instead you described it as somewhat sacred. And that's what actually made me happy about it. Grammar wise, I haven't noticed any misspelled words and your verbs are all consistent. However, some sentences are just a bit run-off, try to fix them And I could sense that you're having problems when it comes to punctuations. As for the flow and pacing, it's not that too fast or slow- so it's all okay.

Overall, I thank you for the good read. Also, I'll apologize in advance if ever you see this review vague, or totally unhelpful, maybe it's just because I haven't really spotted major stains here. You have a great plot and I hope you'll keep on writing. Hope I helped and PM me for questions.

Peace out,
Yuri

This is good. I'm not really feeling the beginning, but that's because I have no idea what the Book of Revelations is about. I do wish you would have gone into detail about what the face looked like. You say the narrator's never seen a human face, only a mask, so wouldn't he be curious about what her face looked like? I'm assuming Silverflame's the horse you mentioned earlier. How much is "most of the face of the earth"? Is that half the planet? Is that the entire landmass? How big is that? I can sorta imagine it, but not really. I like the way this flows and how there's some foreshadowing in this chapter.

Heya Spike!

I'm here to review as requested. You already have some lovely reviews, so I'll try not to be repetitive and simply repeat what they've already said. If I think it's necessary though, I will.

I liked this piece. From what I've read so far, the plot seems pretty original, although it's a little too early to predict that completely yet. So far though, so good. Your characters come across as interesting, especially the random naked chick in the woods... for obvious reasons. When it comes to your grammar, you've done very well actually. I did notice the odd place where you could have added a comma, but there was nothing worth mentioning. Besides, if you read over it again, you should be able to spot them okay. As for your spelling, it was just as great. You used a varied vocabulary, and as far as I could tell, no misspelled words.

What I like the best about this little piece are probably your descriptions. I really loved the description of the woman the prince found in the forest. You gave me a clear picture of what she looked like, and you did so in a very creative, interesting way. Well done for that. What was good was the fact that you didn't let your descriptions distract me from the actions and the plot itself, even though they were good ones. A lot of writers can fall into that trap, so I applaud you for not doing so! Now, onto the grittier stuff...

I have a bit of a suggestion for you here. You don't have to do what I say because it is only a suggestion, after all. I'm not sure how you feel about prologues, but if this was my novel, I'd actually have the first part (about the earth's history) as a prologue, then make the part about the prince finding the woman as a first chapter. The reason I say that is simply because, to me, the beginning basically sounds like and suits the image of a prologue. Also, the beginning feels a bit distant from a prince finding a naked woman. If you did decide to do what I've suggested, which you don't have to remember, I'd advise you to lengthen the part you'd now have as the first chapter because it would be too short to be an entire chapter.

Speaking of lengthening things, I'd actually like for you to lengthen the end of this anyway. To me, it seems a little sudden and blunt. One second, it feels as though your MC is going into the woods, the next, he finds the girl. I think the main reason I actually noticed this was because your beginning was so much more detailed than the end. It was almost as if as the chapter went on, the pace pace of it sped up. Basically, I'd just like to see you slowing things down at the end so use readers can feel more involved in what's going on. I can't really say much else about that, so I hope you understand what I'm trying to get at.

The only other minor issue I have is something that just now popped into my mind. In this, you said that the prince has never seen a human face before. One question: He's never seen his own face? I suppose this could be believable because when he bathes, for example, he might not have a mirror or anything. Surely though, he must have been curious before? Couldn't he have seen his reflection in a river before and been curious to pull his mask off? I'm just finding it a little odd at the moment that your MC's never seen his own face because you did say he'd never seen a human face before.

Negatives aside, I can see this with lots of potential. As for the last point I noted, don't worry too much about it because there are a couple of explanations you could come up with, I guess. I would think about it though. If you slow the pace down at the end a bit, consider making the piece longer as a whole, maybe consider turning the first part into a prologue, and take note of what the other reviewers have suggested, you could have a really great piece here!

Keep writing,

xoxo Skins

Hey, Spike. Here as requested. But before I begin, I must say, you're good. Grammar is fairly good. Just had some mistakes with capitalizing like in these lines:

Book of Revelations

God pitied their condition and His love didn’t allow him to let them die; and so, He gave the gift of intelligence to the race of human beings.

And, I'm not such a nitpicker, so I'd leave that to the other reviewers. You had some commas slipping off, but there were obviously just mistakes. Evidently not a punctuation problem. So just read the above reviewers (real nitpickers 0_o).

But whatever, you did a really good job. The descriptions were great. Though, I wasn't much of a fan of the--part where you just used a word. 0_o I know, I didn't know that it was 16+. But was still good. I like the "mask" thingy! XD That was probably the part that made this interesting. Especially having an own world history. =)) though I'm still not sure with the MC. He's still not named, and ohwell. I guess I'll just have to read the next one.

Sarreh if I couldn't tear it apart. xD I don't feel like nitpicking right now. XD


~ Jash ♥

Hi. I'm here as requested. I think everyone else before me has cleared up nitpicks etc. so all i can comment on is your ideas really.
I love the mask idea and it raises a lot of questions. How do people recognise each other? Are all the masks unique to each individual? Does each person modify their mask so people can tell each other apart by the different etchings, jewels, scratches etc on them and the different sizes and shapes of them? Or is the rest of their clothing completely unique?

If their masks aren't all unique, then a lot of people will have the same masks as each other. If this is the case do people of the same class have the same mask? This fits in to the prince having a silver mask. Perhaps all lower class people would have wooden masks. And more upper class people would have metal or something. Then could someone of a lower class buy a higher up mask if they raise the money? Also if this is the case, then what would happen if someone's mask was stolen? Poor people would constantly try to steal the better masks, because they'd be essentially stealing their identity, and would be able to just take the other person's place. This would have to be policed somehow. But then how would they check?

Maybe you've thought of all this already. If not it could create some interesting situations later on in the story. Or just give a further insight into the kind of place they live. If they are all defined by their class then it could be quite a totalitarian world the people live in.

And what do the masks look like? I'd love more detail on them. Do they just cover the face, or the whole head so they don't fall off? Or are they embedded into the skin somehow? Maybe you cover this later on though. To go into it all now would probably be too much of an infodump.

You say they are given masks at birth. Baby masks must be pretty small. So they must get bigger masks as they grow up. Or are the masks made out of some kind of fabric? So they can adjust it as their heads get bigger.

Oh yeah, and they wouldn't be able to see each other's expressions. It would be harder to tell how someone is feeling. I suppose their tone of voice would help a bit, but it would be incredibly easy to lie and deceive people. Again, you could incorporate this into the story somehow. Maybe you already have.

Ok. That's all i can think of right now for masks. Hopefully i've helped a bit.

I thought it was beautiful. The way you discribed the girl, wasn't over done, it was just right. The way you started your story was brilliant, I thought. It was different, but you know I really liked you originality. I want to know more about these masks, and more about your characters.