Young Writers Society

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An interesting story, however at the end it seemed very confusing with all the mention of place names etc... The idea of this Runemaster interests me also.

"had had"

Just the had would do I think.

I arnt sure about originality because Philip Pullman's books have daemons which are very like your daimons.

Hola Doe--

Astrath’s tattoo was still burning the next day; he dipped his hand into the cool water which made it seem much larger than it actually was.

The way you word this first sentence makes it sound like you had something written before it, like the actual even where he got his tattoo. Using “the next day,” almost indicates that you wrote about the day before and there was a chapter before this one. I would leave out “the next day,” and just let it read “Astrath’s tattoo was still burning; he dipped his hand into the cool water((comma)) which made it seem larger than it actually was.” I also think “much” larger is a bit of an overstatement.

The tattoo was like dark red blood on his palm and he had tried everything to try and ease the pain. He was twelve years old and short for a boy of his age with long blonde hair and beautifully large brown eyes, he had an upturned nose like his mother and a fair complexion like his father.

In these sentences it reads very long winded, like you’re trying to say way too much in not enough sentences. You could probably break this down and make the description of Astrath a paragraph all its own.

The dense forest was quite, and his daimon was walking along the shallow part of the lake, throwing pebbles into the deeper part of the pool which created ripples across the velvet-like surface.

Oki doke; First, “quite,” should be “quiet.” Second, you may want to either name the daimon to start with, or explain what a daimon is. You throw a word out there that has many different meanings to your readers. If you explain what it is fairly quickly after introducing it, the reader won’t form any preconceptions they might have regarding “demons, daemons, etc.”

A large cressbird flew overhead with a shrill scream, its cries alarmed the other birds and sent them flitting away towards the deep wood. Once the bird had scoured the area it flew off shrieking, to Astrath it sounded like a scream of mock laughter.

Again, you use a creature unfamiliar to people (unless I’m very ignorant XD); if you write a physical description of the bird after saying what it is, you give the reader a better image in their minds.

“The scrolls say nothing of pain relieve spells. I’ve tried all the spells I know and some Aethel suggested and her Mark is beginning to fade.” He looked across to where she was splashing her feet. “Are you listening to what I’m saying?”

Now I’m a little confused; Is the daimon a female? If yes, then you should probably mention that a little earlier, possibly in that physical description I mentioned. Also, “pain relieve,” should either be “pain relief,” or “pain relieving.”

“Aethel was Marked two weeks ago. There are no known spells that can be used to remove or soothe the Mark once it has been tattooed. It will gradually disappear in time, until you forget it was ever there, one day it’ll save your life.”

He looked down at the magicians Mark: a tear drop pierced with a dagger, he touched it lightly and winced as shots of pain waved through his arm.

“magicians,” should probably capitalized if you‘re going to capitalize Mark, and you also need an apostrophe in there. “Magician’s.” I think you should end the sentence at “He looked down at the Magician’s Mark: a tear drop pierced with a dagger.” And then make the next part a complete thought on its own.

“…I just can’t tolerate some of the magicians’ rules, especially about binding some of our Abilities, it doesn’t seem very fair.”

You have a bit of a run-on sentence here; you should probably break it into two sentences, since you already used a semi-colon earlier in the paragraph.

“If your ‘extra’ powers were not bound then every magician will be too powerful to control one another, the balance will be shifted, someone will always want to be the next Runemaster. The Council are not taking any more risks; two Abilities are enough for one magician.”

Interesting concept; you could do a lot with that particular tradition of binding powers. In my opinion, you use far too many commas and semi-colons here; break it down! Don’t be afraid to use some simpler sentences; sometimes they make more sense than using long, drawn out ones.

Final words; well done! Good concept, and nicely delivered for the most part.

One thing I want to stress to you is sentence structure. I suggest you go through this piece and look at how the sentences are constructed. Most of them are compound or contain a semi-colon. Use some smaller sentences, and break apart some of the compound sentences you have laying around. I think it would read much more smoothly.

Definitely continue; I don't think anyone should tell you when to continue and when to stop. If you enjoy writing it, then do so. If you decide to post it, there will always be people here who will read it and help you out!

--Dono

"Definitely continue; I don't think anyone should tell you when to continue and when to stop. If you enjoy writing it, then do so. If you decide to post it, there will always be people here who will read it and help you out! "

Quite right Dono, I am never dictated to whether or not to write, I write what I like.

I really think you could do something with this, but I'd like to make a few suggestions. First of all, make sure you proofread. Here, look at this.

A large cressbird flew overhead with a shrill scream, it's cries alarmed the other birds and sent them flitting away towards the deep wood. Once the bird had scoured the area it flew off shrieking, to Astrath it sounded like a scream of mock laughter.

This isn't a bad paragraph. Actually, it's pretty good. But it seems to me that those commas in "scream, it's" and "shrieking, to" should be periods. You did that a lot in this story. All the names - along with the mention of daimons, magicians, and cressbirds - were very confusing.
It seemed like you took The Golden Compass's daemons and made them daimons, which is perfectly alright; I borrow stuff from books all the time, but maybe you should change the spelling a bit so as not to make it so obvious.

Cool story, though. I think you should go on with it.

It was good, but there were a few wording errors. I'd have to agree with Dream Deep.

Pretty good job. This story could really be something.

The Golden Compass's daemons and made them daimons

Its called Northern Lights in the UK! And the acutal compass is called the Alethometre.

Thank you everyone for your help.

I don'y usually write like this, most of my work are 'simple' and I just wanted to try and see if I could make it a little more complex but I think I'll go back to my old simple style.

I've been told a lot about His Dark Materials and decided to read it because I had never heard of it before so I didn't know about his daemons (my idea actually came from Arabian Nights and Greek stories of people with a Guardian known as a daimon). I've only read a few chapters of the first book but Philip Pullman doesn't really say how these people get their daemons and I used the traditional way by summoning, pentacles, etc. I also read that a person can have only one daemon but for magicians I chose for them to have as many as they could summon expect one Guardian. Plus if a daimon in my story dies his/her master does not die with them and vice versa.

I'll probably ditch the ideas of using daimons again.

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“We should go back now. Master Percevil wants a few of the old manuscripts rewritten.” He stuffed his hand into his pockets and made the long journey back home. The Magicians no longer lived in castles or houses; they had gone back to the traditional way of living in caves or cities that had been cut into the sides of mountains.

Sweet! That’s a cool idea! You should expand on it and explain some more, like the details of the particular place Astrath lives, perhaps.

He whistled as he went, whipping away flies and jumping over fallen trees. Somebody ought to clean this mess up. Myth had no trouble with flies or anything else; she simple took on a ghostly form so she could pass through material existences.

“Somebody ought to clean this mess up.” You should probably put that in italics, so make it a thought. Also, as a reader, I don’t see much in the way of a mess, here. Maybe you should put more into this paragraph and “show” us there’s a mess instead of “telling” us there’s one? Oh, and “simple,” should be “simply.”

“Why do you have different powers from most of the other daimons?” he asked her.

You haven’t established what powers other daimons have, compared to the ones Myth has, so as the readers, it doesn’t mean anything to us that she is more powerful.

She didn’t reply at first. Over the last year he had learned to be patient with Myth, she always thought carefully about what was asked and what her response would be before she answered. At this particular moment she was quite for a whole minute, by which time Astrath was beginning to lose his patience.

At first glance, it looks like you should separate that compound sentence into two complete thoughts, but when I read the sentence before it, I realized that putting another simple sentence next to that one would be REALLY odd sounding. I suggest you merely add a “because,” between “….patient with Myth…” and “…she always thought…”

“Quite” again needs to be “quiet.”

“We’re all different,” (as if he didn’t know that!). “My powers grow as I get older, just as yours will. Sometimes a power will replace another or I will begin to get better at one such as this.”

I think you should change those parenthesis into italics, representing a physical thought that Astrath is having at that moment.

The forest around them shifted position, the trees were more separated and the first sounds of birds and insects were heard. It was much lighter here and he could see the valley that led to the Magicians’ sanctuary. He did not understand what had happened and looked around wildly.

I would, instead of using that first comma, put a semi-colon.

“What did you do?”

Okay, this is a very minor thing; In MY opinion, I think you should use an exclamation point here instead of a question mark. Though he is asking a question, he is also looking around WILDLY. It would warrant BOTH an exclamation point and a question mark, but that would look amateurish, so I think you should go with the most prevalent emotion, surprise, and use an exclamation point.

Now that he had been Marked he could get inside without calling one of the guards. A shield buzzed and tickled the hair on the back of his neck. He held up his hand and spoke two words; the Mark shone and allowed his to pass through the shield. He could feel the force pressing against his thin frame, it felt like trying to squeeze through a narrow hole in a wall.

Very nice. *thumbs up*

No choice. That’s what Myth had always said to him and then looked at him disdainfully. She hates me. He didn’t dare say it out loud, Aethel would only laugh but as a friend he wanted to confide in her. He had read stories about Guardians finding out ways to hurt or kill their charges and he didn’t want that to happen to him.

The rest was VERY well written; there may have a been a couple comma errors, and compound sentences to be fixed, but I think you can fix those if you want to seeing as how I’ve been pointing them out to you constantly.

In this part, however, you need to italicize the words that are part of his thoughts. Right now, his thoughts get lost in the narrative.

Unfortunately, I’m a bit pressed for time, so this isn’t as in depth as I would have liked. Overall, well done! If you have more, PM me and I’ll get right on it.

--Dono

Thanks for that Dono.

Its all edited but I don’t think I’ll post any more for a while. I keep on forgetting to do the italics code as it is quite annoying. If you have any more comments or see any more errors I’d be glad for you to point them out.

*thumbs up* Absolutely--if you have any more stuff you want me to critique, send me a PM; your work is a pleasure to read and edit.

--Dono

Content deleted due to reworking.

Content deleted due to reworking.