Young Writers Society

Summary: Follow the adventures of a group of students at Arrow Ridge: an Christian wilderness school serving youth with emotional/behavioural issues. Through outdoors learning, group discussions and one-on-one counselling the students must learn to trust again as they embark on the difficult path towards hope and healing. With their often conflicting personalities, the journey will be far from easy with plenty of difficult conversations, new adventures and interesting happenings along the way. Join the students as they confront the past, experience the present and discover hope for the future.

Warnings: This story deals with characters who are dealing with a variety of difficult issues including eating disorders, abuse, self-injury, attempted suicide, violence and depression. Most of the time, when these topics come out, it is as a discussion topic but there is the occasional scene shown directly. Nothing extremely graphic but if you are sensitive to any of these topics please read with caution.

Critiques: Any and all feedback will be welcome but I am particularly looking for advice on the following:
-How realistic the dialogue sounds
-Character development through the course of the story: Is there any point where someone acts very out of character or a specific character that seems more shallow than the other that you think the reader should know more about.
-How readable the story is ie. does the reader have all the information necessary to understand what is going on or are there specific places that I only think make sense because I have background information that isn't actually in the text.
-I've been experimenting using different fonts to show that different characters are responsible for certain portions that are shown directly from their written text (journal, letter etc.) Does this work for you or is it just confusing? Would it be better to use one single font for the journals but still have it different from the normal text or should the whole text be in the same font? Is there a specific secondary font I've used that you think is most readable?
-Keeping my verb tenses consistant...If anyone is good with this kind of thing, I'd love the help.
-Your favourite scene(s)/character
-Any other details you think I need to improve on
-General comments and overall impression

I'm in no hurry to get back to detailed editing of this text since I am currently working on another writing project, so take as long as you need to read this. Whether you critique every few chapters or wait and give me all of your notes at the end is completely up to you.

I hope you enjoy the story.

Hey,
Here to review as requested i hope to have it done by next week possibly.
Have an awesome day,
Tiffany

Hey,
I read a bit through the expanded version, if I may call it that. I must say, you are actually successfully getting away with a huge cast of characters. After reading the first 4 chapters I have no trouble in remembering who is who. Not all of them seem to have separate personalities, but that's a question of logistics I guess. Come editing time you can easily graft some teeny character or speaking trait to more people to get them in sharper contrast to each other.
By the way, there's a dude on the YWS, goes by the name Aspiring Author, who also touches upon for the cleansing/saving power of nature, maybe you should check out some of his stuff.
P.S. Manuscript format: in future keep in mind that the accepted manuscript format /by agents, publishers/ is with 1.5 or 2.0 distance between the lines of the text, your's is 1.0 I'd say, which makes it a bit too crowded.

Okay, how do I say this? I got dragged into doing the school play, and I need to catch up on my school work, so i have to pause on reviewing your novel. I feel so bad. Im so sorry

Have an awesome day,
tiffany