Young Writers Society

Hello This is my first attempt at a novel. It is the completed first draft of my NaNo. And I would love to get a proof copy before May so I need to edit. I'd also love to hear if you enjoy this and think it would be interesting for readers. Here is a quick summary:

After her mother's death Alyce Averyson is thrown into a world full of death and hate. The only people she can trust are her cousin Sophia and a mysterious boy named Ash. But when she witnesses a death that comes true it only means there are more to come. She is tossed into a battle between life and death that has been going on for decades. With the help of her mother, a woman called the Vision and Ash will she be able to stop the deaths before the light fades from another innocent person?


Thanks in advance for critiques and advice.
(I'll be happy to donate some points if you review this since I know it'll take time)
~peanut~

This is my place holder peanut! I am reading it for yous!!!

Hello! I'm in a reviewing mood today and your title just pulled me in.I'm going to be straight-forward here so don't be discouraged if everything isn't polished and perfect. First, I'm going to break down someof the paragraphs and then in the end I'll give the overall pointers. This is going to take a while. *Sigh* A long while. Well, let's begin then, no time to waste!

-I sit quietly, waiting for Sophia to speak.The opening sentence has to really just grab the reader. Slap them in the face! With cold water! This, on the other hand, pats me lightly on the face with lukewarm water. The opening sentence is what makes the reader choose to put the book down or not. I just put your book down! Choose something more witty, with color, not to cliche too. She doesn’t look at me, she is busy. This sentence is unnecessary I think because only a setence later we learn that she's using a telescope.She stands with her eye pressed gently into the hole of the telescope. I know what she’s looking at, she told me, but I don’t see why she can’t just look up. The stars are falling above us, so she needs the telescope to see them. I can see them perfectly. Tiny silver sparkles streaking across the sky, falling into the blackness where the land meets the sky. You write "she" about ten times in this paragraph. Relax, everyone does it. Just go back and rewrite "Sophia" for all those "she"'s.Overall, well written. One paragraph down, two hundred to go!

- I pull them up with my hands and watch the green pieces fall through the cracks between myI would take the my out open fingers. They fall, mismatched onto the grass thatThat's will do better here because it keeps the flow going. In fact, take out the still standing part, it just doesn't work. is still standing. It’s not as pretty to see the grass fall. I look up again. This time, Sophia is watching me, hertake out her water bottle in her hand.Another well written paragraph

- There iswrite there's instead a circle around her eye from the telescope hole. The barrier around her eye pale pink it looks at me when she looks at me. OK, very confused about this sentence. I can see behind her as the telescope swivelsnice word! on its stand and falls to a point at the ground. Water sloshes over the rim of her bottle, spraying onto her jeans as she moves to fix the star seer. SheSophia puts down the water on the uneven ground beside her; the roots of the oak tree keep it from falling. Hmm! Keep it coming! Very interesting so far.

-SheSophia looks back up to where the telescope pointed when she reset it. I jump when she gasps, interrupting the crickets that are chirping loudly down the hill. Quickly sheSophia grabs the green notebook beside her and the Finding NemoWhy Finding Nemo? So far, it looks like your trying to keep the story classy, so finding nemo won't work. Instead, just a color. pencil she took from my room before we left.We don't need to know that, take it out please! SheSophia scribbles like crazyOh god. Cliche. Instead of 'like crazy' keep the classy mood and write furiously or quickly. on the paper; I wait for her to rip a hole in the thin paper but am disappointed.I like that sentence! Clever. Well, this paragraph is a little 'what the hell is going on' but all right.

-When sheSophia hadtake out had grabbed the notebook from the groundtake out from the ground, the braid that snaked down her back came loosenice!. Red spirals poked out of the folds of the braid. SheSophia ignores the loose strands and just keeps writing.Instead of 'just keep writing' I would use "and continued writing.' Then she stops.Nice finish. Yes! I've tackled the first page. Since I'm dog-tired because I've done about twenty reviews before this XD I'm going to continue tommorow.

OVERALL

This first page really made me scratch my head. It made me think, which can be good and bad. Good: It was interesting and I have further thought about it. Bad: It can easily confuse readers. You need to describe more, and leave the readers out of the 'what the hell is going on' hole. That's good for the ending. The beginging, however, is to introduce everything. I'm going to read all of it tonight and get up early tommorow to write my pointers.

This is the first page that I edited for myself. However, you don't need to use this, just a suggestion.

Chapter One
Sophia doesn’t look at me, busy, with her eye pressed gently into the hole of the telescope. The stars are falling above us, so she needs the telescope to see them. Tiny silver sparkles streaking across the sky, falling into the blackness where the land meets the sky. I can see them.
I watch the green pieces fall through the cracks between open fingers. They fall mismatched onto the grass. It’s not as pretty to see the grass fall. I look up again. This time, Sophia’s watching me, water bottle in her hand.
There’s a circle around her eyes from the telescope, engraved. I can see behind Sophia as the telescope swivels on its stand and falls to a point at the ground. Water sloshes over the rim of the water bottle, spraying onto jeans as she moves to fix the star seer. Sophia puts down the water on the uneven ground beside her; the roots from the oak tree keep it from falling.
Sophia looks back up to where the telescope pointed when she reset it. I jump when I hear a sucking sound, her gasp interrupting the crickets that are chirping loudly down the hill. Quickly she grabs the worn notebook beside her and a pencil from behind her ear. She scribbles furiously on paper; I wait for her to rip a hole in the thin paper but am disappointed.
When Sophia had grabbed the notebook from the ground, the thick braid that snaked down her back came loose. Red spirals poke out of the folds of her braid. She doesn’t notice the loose strands had come apart and continues the furious writing. Then she stops.
Sophia looks back up, from the paper, to the sky. I can imagine the stars’ reflections falling in her blue eyes, but I can’t see her face. I pull at the grass again. It’s not smooth; I can feel the grooves run vertical up the green strand. As I pull it slides unwillingly between my thumb and index finger. The piece doesn’t want to come up. I yank a little harder and wait until it pops at the roots, shooting out of the ground to me.

Really, really hopes this helps!
winie*

Place holder.

I was just wondering if you wanted me to correct grammatical errors? I will if you want me to, but since this is so long, I would much rather comment on the story.

This will take a while. I am making my prom dress this weekend and reading this. It's like a book! Oh goodness.

Review will come later, to say the least.

Classy

Placeholder.

Placeholder.

So I’m just doing chapter one, at least for now, because I’m lazy and this is long. =] Check your PMs for more information.

Anyways, on to the critique!

A New Beginning

Your story doesn’t really begin until the girl starts looking for the pills. The opening is meant to set the scene, I’m sure, but it doesn’t grab me. Actually, it seems a lot more reasonable for this scene to occur after the death. The two girls sounded like they were grieving, and, having read the summary, I assumed that the mother had already died.

Starting with the girl fumbling with the bottles and calling out is a lot more attention-grabbing. =]

A New Ending

So it seems like you had a sandwich with soggy bread but delicious insides! (Uh… I think I might be hungry. =] Sorry for that metaphor.) Basically, the middle part has good detail, emotions, and all of that.

However, at the end you seem to rush. You forget some of your awesome details, and start trying to get through the death. Expand! What’s the EMT like; are there sirens in the background; is someone hugging her without feeling it?

Also, this is where the story becomes unbelievable. Everything up to this point I’ve bought, but the fact that they left the mother is strange. They love her, and care for her. They almost see her as a child, and a mother would never leave her child in a burning house. I feel like she should search through the smoke, coughing, calling out for her mother, and then have a firefighter bring her out to the EMT.

Also, I don’t see how she knows that her mother is dead, or how she came to terms with it so quickly. Denial is the first stage of grief – she’s not going to believe that her mother is dead when she has nothing to support that belief. The EMT might tell her that, but she’ll deny it.

Anyways, I think that’s all I have to say. I did enjoy this; you just need to fix up the edges a bit. =] My only other suggestion would be to re-examine the details. Which ones are important? For example, you mention the cat meowing, then have the character say “Did you hear that?” in reference to a different sound. I don’t care about the cat at that moment; let me hear the other sound!

Overall, good job! PM me if you have any questions, or want me to look at anything else.

~JFW1415

Placeholder. I'll try and correct grammatical and punctuation errors (pretty much second nature to me, errors like that just drive me crazy, as they sould considering my English marks ) I'll also comment.

Watch this space for attatchment updates, or I'll just PM you.

~Durrs

This is the easiest way I can think of doing these reviews for you, peanut. A chapter at a time (or however much of the story I cover at a time). Nitpicks are in the attachment and I’ll do the overalls in this post. It works well for me at least and I hope it works for you too.



Grammar Overalls

There were two major issues with this grammatically. The first is semi-colons. You use so many semi-colons that they become a bit…annoying. I mean, sure, using them now and again is nice but so many can be overwhelming for a reader.
The second issue is probably really easy to notice when you read through the comments. You had a lot of run-on sentences. And those are definite no-no’s.

Stylist Overalls

There’s one main issue I had with the style of this story and that was the fact that you use ‘she’ a lot in the beginning of the story when talking about Sophia and it becomes very tedious. Also, right away when you mention Beaver, I wasn’t sure what animal it was until the second time you mention him. I thought he was a dog actually. I would mention that Beaver is a cat from the beginning.

Overall Overalls

Okay, there is one thing that I have to say about this so far and that is with the opening. I think you only really made one point with this opening and that was with the dialogue between Sophia and Alyce when they talk about the stars.
JFW1415 makes a good point about the beginning. When you open with the excitement of trying to find the pills, you can create far more literary tension.
Another thing I found myself wondering was why they didn’t smell smoke if the house was on fire. Smoke would seem like the most obvious sign of a fire rather than just the sound.


Well, lunch break is over. I’ll be back with more I’m sure.

Placeholder.

Expect a review soon, okay?

Hey, beanut, Lily here! Finally!




Grammar Overalls

Okay, my only really comments here are the same ones that I brought up in the first chapter. Especially with run-ons. Watch out for those, okay.

Stylistic Overalls

I really noticed it this chapter, but repetition was really terrible here. A thesaurus can be your best friend, especially when you’re writing a novel. Knowing creative adjectives will make the novel as a whole not sound dull or repetitious. Often times, I catch myself while writing and realize that I’ve said words like “dim” and “gentle” a lot. But that thesaurus is a huge help because if you’re use “gentle” in a novel even, say, 100 times in a 50k novel, it’s like using it once every 500 words. It might not seem like much on a small scare, but on a larger scale, it’s noticeable.

Overall Overall

I think that the one part of this chapter that really bothered me was her thoughts in the car ride. I understand that it was a NaNo but this just feels pulled down with forced words. Dragged out. That’s what I mean I guess. The thing is, they’re images she’s only imaging. She never saw it. Save a little to our imagination. Let us piece together how it started. Making a point as simple as: “Those damned cigarettes.” Would have made just as much of a point. That the cigarettes caused the fire.
It’s just something to consider.


Sorry this is taking a little longer than I figured it would. I’ve been working on a novel myself and it’s been consuming most of my free time. Anyways, I’ll be here again with chapter 3 soon enough.