Young Writers Society

Attention... attention... Tion, are you there?

Tion paused his drumsticks. He'd been listening to Jared's "Firecode" chatter all day; it had been almost seven Turns since they invented it, and so far no one had cracked it.

It was simple: "A" was a double beat, "B" was a triple, and so on. Add one.

"Attention: 2, 20, 2, 10, 16, 15." So his name, "Tion," was the last four letters: "2, 10, 16, 15."

Tion returned, Clear: 4, 13, 6, 2, 19.

Lessa says sorry. Hatching started; I'll keep you up to speed.

He swallowed tears; this wasn't the time or place to start crying to wake the dead. His father's voice repeated in his mind: "It's one in a thousand, lad, but your thousand will come."

Tion, respond please.

Am all right. Tell Lessa it's all right.
**

L'yonne grinned as his new dragon, Dhrenath, nibbled his fingers.

The blue was a startling sight: instead of a solid, dark hide, his sides and wings were spotted with silver. It reminded him of a stone he'd seen once: a lapiz lazuli.

Suddenly, the morning air was rent by drumbeats.

He counted them by reflex: "2, 20, 2, 10, 16, 15." 'Harper, harper, hear my tale; look at this, a stone so pale.'

He frowned. "Wait; it's numbers. Two... twenty... It's 'A-T'! 'Attention Tion... are you there?'"

Dhrenat hummed along as he decoded the entire conversation.

Questions (who started this anyway? I forgot.)

1. Is the use of bold and italic text helpful or jarring?
2. Do you feel there's too much dialog, or does it help the story?
3. To anyone familiar with the series: Do you feel that this piece fits the "spirit" of the Weyrs?

Hey, Stori! I'm not at all familiar with what this is based off of.

To answer your questions (as your grammar is fine):

1. Is the use of bold and italic text helpful or jarring?

I did not find it helpful at all. I spent the whole prologue trying to figure out why it was there.

2. Do you feel there's too much dialog, or does it help the story?

That was dialogue?

3. To anyone familiar with the series: Do you feel that this piece fits the "spirit" of the Weyrs?

Nope. Never heard of the series.

This piece was extremely confusing. If I were to pick this up in a library and skim the first page, I would put it back on the shelf immediatly.

This passage reads a bit as though you wrote it on acid. ^_^ It jumps from place to place. I did not understand the code aspect at all.

All I was able to comprehend was:

1. Tion is drummer
2. There is some kind of code.
3. All of a sudden, we're with a new character and he has a dragon?
4. Wait... now we're back to the code...?
5. The dragon is humming?

A quick note: You spell the dragon's name Dhrenath, but once you said Dhrenat.

Give us some more background and the characters. Use some description.

I can hardly critique because this was so confusing.

Hope this helped,
Sakura

PS- Sorry if I was harsh!

A lot of my critique is the same as Sakura's (damn you Sakura for being here first). First of all it was short. It felt rushed, as it was short, and lacked description of where was the main character, what did he look like, etc.etc. So the biggest problem was that it was very confusing. We don't have the smallest clue of what is going on and where so its hard to get into the story (I feel I might be repeating myself). Even if a story is fan-fiction, it should be written in a way that someone who isn't familiar with the original thing can still understand what is happening. I feel the bold parts could be changed to something else, but the italics are well in my opinion, that is if they express thoughts. I hope the confusion clears away, because when it does, beneath can be a gem of a story (well that line was a bit cliche but we all like them sometimes).

1. Is the use of bold and italic text helpful or jarring?

I agree with Haruno Sakura. Couldn't figure out why it was there.

2. Do you feel there's too much dialog, or does it help the story?

I can't really tell where there's dialogue and where there's not.

3. To anyone familiar with the series: Do you feel that this piece fits the "spirit" of the Weyrs?

I've never read this series, so I can't relate.

I found this very difficult to read. If I could understand some of it, I could help you out. But I didn't really know what I was reading, to be honest.