Young Writers Society

I have always known. Somewhere inside I understood that humans were not alone on this earth. That fairy tales are real…that monsters really do hide under beds. Little did I know then, that I am one of those other things, part of the huge, undetected organization that keeps the humans blissfully ignorant. I am luckier than some- able to pass unnoticed as a human. Even thought I was one for a while. Who am I? My name is Abigail Graves…and I’m something from your darkest nightmare.

Abby Graves isn't your normal teenage girl. For example she would rather kick someone’s ass than read some foo-foo magazine. Her favorite possession is a tie between her motorcycle and her weapon collection. Oh and did I mention that she’d probably rather drink your blood than speak to you?
She is an agent of Haven and one of the best. Her foster brother along with her team locates and transfers creatures to the safe place called Haven. But what happens when the entryway is sealed and they are cut off and left to fend for themselves in an unfamiliar setting?
Now Abby along with her miss-matched team must find out the secrets of the only home they have ever known to save Haven. But when Haven’s secrets are laid bare will they still want to?

Yo, it's me your friendly neighborhood Napalmerski.
I don't do grammar, plot and characters, but I do do sentence structure and internal consistency. I did notice commas missing here and there and spelling stuff, but I don't dwell on such things, just bringing your attention to it - there is a need to proofread this story throughly. OK, let's do this.

Little did I know then, that I am one of those other things, part of the huge, undetected organization that keeps the humans blissfully ignorant - ignorant of what?:) an organization that hides from the normal humans the real state of affairs? Or which hides itself from humanity? We need more precision in a sentence like this.

The sweet purr of my motorcycle echoes in my ears and I smile as it races swiftly down the abandoned highway - is it really abandoned, or just empty? And if it is abandoned - why? Because of some sort of holocaust, or because a new highway has been opened up and this one has fallen into disrepair? If yes - is it cracked and overgrown with weeds?

Droplets of rain glide off the black helmet I wore - tenses

The gloomy feeling of the small storm pretty much matched the mood I was in today. - why a small storm? Small storm sounds weird. Maybe weak storm? Or just the drizzle and wind? And, the storm is inanimate, so the mood is not felt by it, but produced by it. When editing, pay attention to little details like that, a small thing like 'of' can muddle the meaning of a sentence radically. As a working proposal I submit 'the gloom of this drizzly, windy weather matched my mood.' /note, 'pretty much matched' sounds like a tongue-twister for kids, a bit awkward.
Another thing just occured to me, that the 'feeling' can be reduced to 'feel', with this we evade the underlying issue who felt what, and get 'the gloomy feel of the moist air matched pretty well the mood I was in.' Or something:)

Ignoring the danger I glanced over at the passing country side. - when you've just downsized the danger 'not that it matters if I fall', this sentence now has very little impact.

This day though, there was no sense of welcome to walk through their great trunks becoming lost in the sameness that went on forever. - Apart from the somewhat confusing sentence structure, when you speak of walking through tree-trunks, it begins to sound like our protagonist is a ghost who glides through solid objects. 'Among' the trunks, or through the 'woods' I would say.

Quickly I checked my mirrors only to roll my eyes - tenses

Right behind me speeding almost as much as me is a large crew cab truck - awkward, I suggest 'Right behind me, almost matching my speed...' or 'slowly gaining on me...'

I cringe at the hated nick name as her velvety voice slips into my head. Dang that friggen telepath Lizzie. Slowly I sucked - tenses. Change of tenses from paragraph to paragraph is fine /at least for radicals like me/ but within one paragraph is awkward.

and turned off the bike - while a correct description, a bit bland. In literature, and in your story too, the bike is a fetishesized object, a roaring stallion of steel, etc. One doesn't just turn something like that off, like an electric kettle, one 'throws the switch', or 'turns the key', and 'feels the vibrations die with one's thighs', or something, hehe.

As she turned from slamming the door of the truck her pastel blond ringlets dangle from a blue ponytail holder.- tenses - either 'turn' and 'dangle', or 'turned' and 'dangled'. Also, a bit of restructuring is called for. I suggest she first slams the door, and then turns, her ringlets dangling.


[b]I meet her sparkling blue eyes and nod dismounting from my bike as they came toward me - confusing poetry this:)

And now - the 'as'

* I told them as I strode away
* Jamie said as she looked down the road
* I meet her sparkling blue eyes and nod dismounting from my bike as they came toward me
* As they stride across the road her long slivery white hair swirls around her shoulders.
* As she turned from slamming the door of the truck her pastel blond ringlets dangle from a blue ponytail holder.
* Looking over I watched as the other two girls on my team stepped down from the high truck.
* Casper and Tizzy pulled over on the other side of the rode as I slowly lifted the helmet off.
See - in half a page it becomes evident, that you tend to tie in movement and/or description with an 'as', which in itself is certainly not bad, but when you pile on the 'asses' hihi, like that, it all becomes a bit wishy-washy.

He tossed and I lightly flew up - a terrible saga of vomit and drugs? hihi, really, watch it with the minimalism. An additional word or two in the correct place wouldn't hurt.

just a small thud picked up by my super sensitive ears.- 'small thud' is good, but since you're dealing with a sound, you have a free hand to describe it not through size /small/ but through intensity /light, soft, muted/

Right, after the small thud, the guy says: “Show off.” He said grouchily." - why? He realizes that he landed worse than her and thus feels a tad jelous? You have to spell out things like that for the reader, otherwise the rhythm and continuity falters, and it's never good to have the reader lose momentum.
To put it in another way. Had you described first him landing, then her, better, his remark would have made instant sense. But since the last action we read about is him landing, and his remark is directed at another action, we need aditional descriptions.

Then I put my right hand over the area where the latch should be and focused my will. Click. I turned giving Will a smug look. - would be good idea to insert a short description of what she feels before the 'click', just to add some experienced reality to the scene.

Will had already made it to the door and he seemed to be listening for noise on the other side - here you also have to spell out what noise he is listening for. Suspicious? Dangerous? Movement?

My body was suddenly flying through the air. I somersaulted into that harmless looking nightstand. I felt the lamp shatter beneath me and the wood bust. The glass sliced into my green flannel shirt and carved into the skin on my back. I groaned as I rolled off the smashed wood clenching my jaw as my skin healed, shoving the glass shards out. - A cool scene, which is presented as what she experiences, except for the last bit with the skin healing and pushing the shards out. I believe you should take this stylistically orphaned piece of sentence and unite it with its family via something like 'but already feeling my skin heal rapidly, pushing the glass shards out of my body.' As in changing this bit from more a impersonal to a more personl sound, to match the previous style.

Also, the middle of this intense action scene, flying, hitting, bleeding, regenerating, etc., is the last place in which one mentiones that one is wearing a green flunnel shirt. Totally out of place. Here the center of attention is the action happening, everything else is of secondary importance. So it's just 'my shirt'. Do not distract the reader. Describe the 'green flannel' stuff in another scene, which is not about adrenalin and destruction.

Sucking in air through my gritted teeth - granted, that in a pulp story there can never be enough gritted teeth, clenched fists and knotted stomachs/brows, but here the 'gritted' is redundant, I think. Just sucking air through one's teeth is sufficient for this scene

I imagine it felt like slamming head first into a brick wall and it stopped whatever it was right in it’s tracks. I then felt the shockwave of the electrical current as Will zapped whatever it was attacking us. - one 'whatever it was' too many

I jumped lightly over the broken door lying on the floor - I think the description here can end with 'broken door', and if you feel additional details are necessary, a more rewarding choice would be describing the remains of the door - twisted blah blah, or broken and torn blah blah.

as he stepped into the wrecked door frame - stepped 'through' I think would be the better choice of words

I was in an old bathroom with purple walls, a moldy bathtub, and a smashed toilet. And lying face down on the floor next to the debris and covered with toilet water was a boy. - OK, let's tighten this description up:
'I was in an old bathroom with faded [1]purple walls, a moldy bathtub, and a smashed toilet in a rapidly growing pool of water.[2] And lying face down on the wet debris was a boy'.
The original description is the one you wrote in order to organize for yourself the scene, to know as an author what's there. Afterwards, when you re-read and edit your work, you have to tighten the screws, so that the anonymous reader's eyes and brain follow the story smoothly.
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1 - Since the bathtub is moldy, we add another details of old decay
2 - We put the water here, so that we don't cram everything into the next sentence. The next sentence delivers the boy, he is the center, so it should have as little debris as possible, except for the one he's lying face down on..
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I narrowed my eyes searching for a sign of attack. Not seeing anything I shuddered and gasped grabbing the sink for support as I let my enhanced senses recede. - Right, what goes on here? She suddenly decides to see if anyone else is attacking? That's odd. You have to spell it out like that after she is shocked by her appearance, she automatically tenses and looks around once more, but no one is attacking, and she allows herself to relax and shake a bit. Which is what I believe you had in mind, but wrote it more as a plot-memo for yourself, not a smooth description for the unknown reader.

“Whoa.” I whispered before swallowing and kneeling beside the motionless body on the floor, carefully avoiding the water bubbling up from the floor where the pipes had been. I placed two slender fingers on his neck. - four thing here:
1. There is one 'floor' too many
2. I whispered before swallowing and kneeling - an orphaned 'swallowing' here, which warrants a few additional words as description like 'swallowing back a lump in my throat' or something
3. where the pipes had been - The pipes are still there, only torn and broken
4. I placed two slender fingers - One described other people having slender fingers, auburn hair, trim butt, etc., and one perhaps describes oneself like that when meditating in front of the mirror, but these details look out of place in an action scene or its immediate aftermath.

His blond hair was matted with sweat and as I looked closer, I bit my lip nervously, blood. - You yourself probably see that this sentence has a funny rhythm. I think the easiest way to cure it is to have it end after 'nervously' and add a dramatic short sentence - 'There was also blood.' Concerning internal logical consistensy - you've introduced toilet water into the equation, and there's blood too, so I think the sweat is too much. Three liquids make the reader confused. Cut it down to two liquids.

Lightly grabbing his shoulder I shook. - Again this minimalism of yours. One gets the image of a vibrating girl holding on to an unconscious boy's shoulder:)

Anyway, I'll stop here for now. The story progresses quite well so far. We start with a bike on an empty highway, very phallic/romantic, then other characters are introduced smoothly, as a preface to action, mysterious employers/bosses are hinted at, then we have a battle scene, and a budding mystery/unfolding of the plot. Nothing wrong with this piece of the story arc that I can see.

I'd say what you've written so far needs about two more edits, a week apart, so that you catch details which would evade you if you are too deep into the story. Good job and good luck!

Yo,
I see some changes in your manuscript /bthw, why not announce the edits in foot high letters next time, to alert the other inhabitants of YWS that something's brewing, maybe that'll attract more reviewers, etc/.

When speaking face to face with someone, we convey meaning, emotion, and various nuances with tone, facial expressions, gestures, posture, etc. When writing though, and writing for readers who have never met us, we rely entirely upon the written word. There is no additional context, no eyebrows dancing or flashed smiles, the reader sees only the letters, paragraphs and sentenses.

And this, from what I see, is the underlying flaw in your edited manuscript, at bottom, a lack of focus in the structuring of the sentences. You convey the information aproximately, not precicely. This has to change:)

Let's take our old friend: Little did I know then, that I am one of those other things, part of the huge, undetected organization that keeps the humans blissfully ignorant of our presence. - Now, only you can fix this, and you can fix this only by straightening out its internal logic. I believe that once you are able to do that, everything will fall into place, and you'll be free to not lose time on such details, but concentrate on style, plot and characters. But first, there is a need of an ephiphany concerning your approach up to now, and the quantium jump to the next level will follow. My apologies if I sound like a wannabe guru, just sharing experience here.

So, back to the sentence cited above. Taken at face value, it conveys the following information: "at a point in the past, there was a time when I was not aware, that I was a part of a huge, undetected organization, and that I was working to keep the humans ignorant of our presence."

Now, it's obvious that you don't mean that she was part of, and worked for this organization while not knowing that she did all that. You mean /at least it seems logical to assume this/ that she did not know that she was a special creature, and that she later found out that she was, and that creatures of her type are members of a huge secret organization, and that they work to keep their existence hidden from ordirnary humans. The moment you are able to see why the sentence as it is now is a foggy jumble of info, and are able to restructure it, or break it up, or expand it into a paragraph, I don't know, the moment you realize deeply why it doesn't work, and how to make it work - an important individual watershed will have been been passed.

Good luck, rustic rebel

I'm saving a spot for an amazing review! This seems super awesome!

Downloaded and a review is coming.

Okay, I will admit I haven't read far into the story. I've only reached page six, in fact. Normally my pride would make me finish something before I comment on it, but to be honest, within these first six pages I have identified some glaring problems that are severely reducing my enjoyment of this piece. Not to say I don't like the concept--it seems fascinating--and the atmosphere you build and some pieces of your prose are strong and even at times poetic--but I would enjoy it a lot more if:

1) You learn that commas are your friends. No, really. They are. More than anything, I think it's the dearth of commas in this piece that made me finally throw my hands up at six pages and submit this review early. I told myself to focus on the big picture, not on grammatical quibbles, but honestly there are so few commas and so many run-ons in this piece that deciphering the meaning of a sentence becomes an arduous task. Which is not supposed to be the case, since reading should be easy. Each sentence needs to convey a clear meaning after a single skim-through. Having to go back and puzzle out meaning from a sentence kills the experience for a reader. Though you have a few other grammatical errors, I found the most jarring to be the lack of commas. Overusing commas is just as bad, if not worse, than under-utilizing them, but right now you are tilted too far in the "under-use" direction. Just from the first half a page, a few examples jump out:

Ignoring the risk I glanced over at the passing country side.

I shivered and leaned forward coaxing more speed from the bike

Silver in color with a chrome grill and bars it’s a fairly unnoticeable rig

All of these sentences could benefit greatly from the inclusion of a single strategic comma. A comma is a sign for the reader to pause--not to stop, but to slow down and take in how one clause connects to the next. You can think of it as a bridge. Without the bridge of a comma in the two clauses of your sentence, the reader has to jump and guess the meaning. The meaning in these sentences is fairly easy to guess--once the reader figures out where the pause is meant to be--but even so, before reading, I did a double take and that killed the atmosphere/suspense of your story. Why not build a bridge (i.e., insert a comma) in the first place so the reader doesn't have to do a double-take, and the story can flow neatly?

2) You decide on a tense. You're crazily mingling past and present and again, it disorients me and drags me completely out of the story. It seems it's supposed to be past tense, but there are enough instances of present tense sprinkled throughout, often in the same paragraph as the past tense, that it sows confusion. A confused reader is not a happy reader.

3) You either cut down on the character introductions, or find a more memorable way to introduce all of your characters. There are a lot of characters that you've suddenly foisted upon us in this first chapter, in the very first scene. Well, I guess five doesn't really qualify as "Loads and Loads of Characters," but when they're all suddenly thrown into the scene and all given nicknames as well as given names, it becomes much, much more difficult to tell them apart. I gave myself a headache trying to figure out which was which. The best way for you to fix this, I think, is to introduce only, say, two of them and the rest in the next chapter. That allows the reader to get a better feel and a closer relationship to the characters, and cuts down on confusion. Sometimes, though, it is necessary to introduce a lot of characters at once. In that case, try to introduce them one on one instead of hitting us with every single one at the same time. And please find a way to make their first introduction something other than a thought-speak conversation. That confused the hell out of me especially when I couldn't see who was talking. And then they started mentioning names and that got even more confusing. The actual, physical introductions weren't so bad but I had trouble matching the nicknames to the actual names and the people to the thought voices. Then the powers got involved and things grew even more messy and confusing. So now I have to connect nicknames to names to physical descriptions to voices to powers...see how it gets confusing, especially if it all happens at once? Within six pages?

Sorry for the harsh review. Aside from these problems, I enjoyed (or rather, would enjoy) this piece. The premise seems like something I'd be interested in, and as I said before, there are some neat moments in this story that show a lot of promise. The description of the main character biking at the beginning, for example. It felt..."true", I guess, is the only way I can describe it. Like something you've experienced yourself and you know how it feels and you managed to convey that in words. There was a lot of passion and sincerity in that description. Your action scenes aren't so bad either; they're not confusing, at least, and I like the image of the main character pushing the glass out of her back. It's just that the promise this piece has is buried under the flotsam, especially the lack of commas. Really, to be honest, I'd have to say that's the one thing that disengaged me the most.

Of course, it is hard to edit. And you're probably getting frustrated with me going, "It should be easy for the reader." But all that editing, it's hell for you! That's the way it should be. Writing should be hard as hell for the writer. The finished, polished prose should be so easy to follow that the reader is deceived into thinking it wasn't hell for the writer, that you didn't struggle over every single phrasing as you edited. That's good writing. Invest some time into it. Especially the commas.

PM me if you have any questions, or just want to yell at me for being harsh. I'm fine with that too.

Hello there,

I am doing your review as we type, ahah, anywho I just wanted to say that I am a grammar nitpicker. Don't feel as though I am being harsh, I just want your writing and you as a writer to become better. Not that my review will necessarily do that, but it will give you a few helpful tips

I post your actually review in a few, just saving my spot.

Have an awesome day,
Tiffany

P.S. I am loving the plot already.

Hello again,
Here is your review. I loved your writing style. This was very interesting. I normal don't like types of fiction like this, but I couldn't stop reading.

Thanks,
Tiffany