Undercover and Undiscovered

(i have started this book and I wanted to see if anyone liked it before i moved on with it)


"Whats happening?!"
"I don't know, you tell me!" Kattie and Merry squealed, scared out of their skirts, as they witnessed their father disintegrate after they had merely hugged him. They were so exited to see Tiraine after his 5 years of absence from what seemed existence. The girls were miles away from anything or anyone they could use to get a message to someone who could help and they had no clue whatsoever of where they were or where they would go. It was raining in the spring heavily and the clouds were growing darker and larger and they could hear thunder from a far. The two 15 year old girls ran for cover and Merry sped up to help her twin. Then all of a sudden she was struck viciously by a flame of blue lightning and collapsed to the ground.

Hi,
I suck at critiquing, but I'll try my best. ^_^

This piece was really far too short. It was empty of description or characterization or any sort of detail. It really was too terribly short, that can't be emphasized. Make it longer and then the readers can judge it properly, okay? Keep writing!

Hi jBlack_girl

This piece is really short. It does, however, unlike many other pieces of its length give us a real lot to work with. So, hopefully after this review, you will be writing your story, with each page enthralling the audience.

Before I write any piece, I think to myself: What makes this piece special? What will the plot be? What events need to unfold for the plot to be fulfilled? And the last question is the most important: How can I make the reader want to read to find out how the plot will unfold?

The first thing that you need to do when writing something is to ensure that your grammar is correct. When there is misused grammar in the first sentence, you successfully turn off many of your readers.

"Whats happening?!"

You only need the question mark. The exclamation mark will, under almost all circumstances, not be used after a question mark unless you are drawing a comic.

Next thing: You're starting an epic tale here! You want a more elegant start than, "What's happening." You've given us no background whatsoever. You've thrown us so completely that we don't really know what's happening at all!

So, how do you fix all of this up?

Firstly, try starting off by describing the setting, the people, and everything that we don't know about your world. In speculative fiction, it is very tough to build a real world, as they are completely different to our own. How do we know when our world becomes too unbelievable? The answer to this question, is that this is what you tell us when you open your book. You define the laws for the nature of your world. Are there wild dragons that can breathe fire? If so, tell us this. Are there wizards, magicians or witches? If so tell us this. Stick to your rules.

The challenge in writing speculative fiction is doing this without boring your audience. The trick is to hook your audience in. Throw them a line to grab on to. Make them curious about something. And most importantly, ensure that they can't put your book down. Perhaps you could try a first sentence like, "A flame of blue lightning shot through the air." Or, even better, don't use my first sentence. Come up with your own. Shock us by your style!

The next thing that you want to look at is your style of writing. Your style of writing is very narrative. While this is not a bad thing, you do want to show us what is happening, rather than telling us. By this I mean that you should describe the setting, rather than merely telling us there is a setting. Describe the people rather than merely telling us that they are there. But beware. Many a writer has fallen into the trap of showing too much. Some would argue that there is no such thing as too much showing, but I would have to disagree. I'll give you an example. Take a fight scene for instance. Imagine describing each of the moves independently. That would be tiring for both the writer and the reader.

The right balance between showing and telling is particularly difficult to find. This is especially so, because it varies from one story to the next. The way to find the balance is simply to show the things that need showing, and to tell the things that don't. You'll have to decide what falls under each category yourself.

Finally, you want to ensure that you use the right words to describe the right things. A word must match how you, the writer, feel at any given point. This is a really hard thing to achieve, and I find it the most difficult part of writing. This is especially significant as the use of a word too many times is clumsy. Certain words can be used as many times as you want to, though. A list of these words include: said, had, thought, and, but, as well as a couple of others.

With these points in mind, you should be able to start your story. So, go get 'em!

Have a good one!:)

I like the concept...But I agree, it was to short. It was also rather confusing, you introduced a lot of characters without much of a real introduction. I would have also liked to have a little more about what was even going on, such as

"Whats happening?!"

"I don't know, you tell me!"

You don't really tell what's happening even in a simple sense. Or even why they where so alarmed by it.

So over all it was OK but I'd like it to be longer and a little more detailed.

As far as spelling/grammar I don't see any problems.

But I would like to read more so I am much anticipating the next chapter.

I agree with everyone else. What is happening?

They were so exited to see Tiraine after his 5 years of absence from what seemed existence.

This is an awkward sentence. I hate it when people tell me that a sentence is "awkward" but there is no other way to say it. I would change it to something more like
"They were so excited to see Tiraine after his 5 years of absence from their lives." Something like that. Oh, and excited is bold because you had misspelled it the first time. Pay attention to convention!

Well, I think I'm done here. I did the same thing you did, I posted an idea of a book (CloudSea) and it was way too short for good reviews. Oh well, live to learn!

Ok, I'm not very good at this but I'm gonna do my best . . . First of all, you shouldn't say 'squealed' it makes them sound like giddy little girls when, according to you, they're 'scared out of their skirts', you should try something like screamed or screeched because, then, it will sound like they're scared not giddy.
Second of all, who are these girls?
Where are they?
Why was their father gone for five years?
Why were they hugging them?
Thirdly, what did the people look like? You didn't describe the characters enough for me to even begin imaging them, to me they were just faceless people. So obviously you have to work on description (it's hard for me too).