Young Writers Society

The faint click of the front door being unlatched stirs Nastusia from peering with mixed contempt and delight at her newborn brother, Damien. Turning to go find her parents, she reaches to open the door, when it opens from the other side with a loud crash as it hits the wall. Staggering back slightly in fear she spots a long, billowing cloak as a figure stands threateningly over her.

Gazing up in trepidation she stares into familiar stormy eyes. Pausing to calm her startled nerves, she finally speaks with indifference, "What took you so long?"

The man raises an eyebrow at this mere child with faint curiosity. Kneeling down to stare into this girl's dull violet eyes he finally inquires, "And how is it you know I was coming?"
Nastusia glances behind the man as if someone would come in and disturb them before whispering vaguely, "I see things."
Pushing herself up she walks over to Damien and softly asks, "You're here for revenge on my parents?"
Shocked that she would know why he was there he walks forward questioning, "Why do you not shout for your parents, girl? I doubt they would neglect to tell you the rules of strangers suddenly breaking into the house."
A small chuckle escapes her as she scoffs indignantly, "They're not here."
As she stands next to the fire, a bit too close, she mutters under her breath, "Not that they would care if something happened to me anyways."
Now disturbed by just how much this four year old despised her parents he watches her move carefully. She heads towards the bookshelf in the far corner; he notices a very subtle limp in her stride.
"Do your parents harm you?" He finally asks. He leans against the doorway with a blank expression. But under the mask a sense of loathing at these parents burns as the girl's face gazes longingly at a book high upon the shelf.
Moving forward to get the book for her, he just stares with astonishment as the book slowly slides forward. Glancing down to see the girl concentrating. He understands that there is definitely more to this child than people knew.
Holding the book tightly to her chest she finally answers with a question of her own, "Why would you care if they did?"
"No parent should hurt their children, girl." He glowers at her.
Tilting her head slightly she pauses, "You're different from how it was shown. Why, then, do you care? You want revenge don't you?"
Smirking now he laughs, "What greater revenge would it be if I raised the child with the potential to become great?"
Nastusia pauses slightly before a vicious smile crosses her face. "It would be ironic. I would love to see their faces when they learn the truth."
Chuckling softly he smiles slightly, "Would you mind if I marked you?"
Eyes turning distant she stays silent for a few minutes. As he waits patiently the thought of her living here became more and more undesirable.
Shaking her head to clear her thoughts she nodded, "I wouldn't mind. But hurry my parents will be here soon." She hisses out the word parents with such venom the man lets out a warm chuckle.
"Alright." Carefully moving towards her, he wonders almost absently where to place the mark.
With consideration for possible outcomes in the future he pulls her sleeve up to reveal black bruise from her elbow to her wrist. With a scowl at the contusion he murmurs gently a string of Latin.
Nastusia watches with awe as an intricate rose with a thorny stem slowly appears on her forearm. Feeling the bond forging between the two she asks softly, "What will it do?"
Carefully picking her up he replies kindly, "When things get bad you can use it to come to me. When the time comes you'll know what to say to activate it."
Nodding tiredly she finally asks the important question, "What's your name, sir?"
Smiling gently down at the girl as he places her on the chair next to the fire he answers quietly, "Only you shall know of my real name. I am Takeshi."
Eyes closing with fatigue she manages to whisper, "I am Nastusia," before falling asleep. Takeshi carefully sets her down and with a sigh begins to walk out of the room.
Turning as he stands in the doorway he murmurs a soft phrase in Celtic. A loud crash follows as the room crumbles and the fire escapes to lick at the walls.
Walking out of the house he vanishes murmuring to the girl quietly, "I'll be here when you have need of me, Nastusia."
Just as he vanishes two frantic parents rush into the house. The mother turns to living room and with fear in her heart she hurries into the burning room. Carefully putting the fire out she takes no heed of the girl asleep in the chair.
Pulling Damien out of the crib quickly she cries knowing what happened, she spots a laceration upon his head. With her husband the two fuss worriedly over the young boy as the father speaks, "He must've stopped him. Ashar was right. Damien is the true heir." he stated in his deep heroic vocal.
Turning towards Nastusia he narrows his eyes with detest as an old man enters the room in silence. He carefully heals the young boy before turning his blazing eyes upon the girl. Spotting the mark he growls sharply, "The girl has been marked by him. She must be watched."
The father glares at the girl and in his rage yanks her up. Startled into waking, Nastusia stares blearily up at her father hissing in an ancient tongue, "Go away!"
Ashar firmly pulls her up to meet his eyes. With his black eyes boring into her vibrant ones he orders the parents, "You must keep her from speaking that dark language unless you want Damien to be turned. This girl was trouble from the start."
Eyes widening at the old man, Nastusia hollers in outrage, "You're lying, you manipulative old man! I will never obey you."
Sneering at her, Ashar waves his hand in the air. Focusing his magic into an object he explains to the parents calmly, "I am making a Nexit Collar."
"isn't that a bit over the top, sir?" The mother fidgets concernedly as she watches the black collar begin to form from the spell.
The father calmly soothes her worry muttering, "If it keeps her from poisoning our son's magic then I don't care if it's dark."
Smirking inwardly at the father's approval, Ashar carefully snaps the collar in place and without so much as a second thought, sends the girl crashing into the sturdy, stone wall. Turning away he smiles warmly at the young boy with pride in his eyes.
Takeshi watches in the form of a raven perching upon the windowsill. Eyes burning with anger he vows to make them pay, in time. With a loud squawk he takes to the night with the knowledge that he would be back.

Well, you've got me interested. You do have some minor problems though. Mostly with set up. It seems like you are dumping the reader right into the story. SOmetimes that can be good, but with the fantasy genre you need to establish the world your working with somehow before you start. Otherwise the reader won't know what your talking about, and you lose some of what you're trying to convey.

Also, I can tell that your four year old is supposed to be old for her age, but she sounds like a teenager. Even smart children rarely use words like "ironic" and things like that. Plus she shows a level of awarness about her situation that I do think a girl like that would have. I'm struggling with this in my own novel though, so I have no suggestions on how to fix it.

Also, your opening paragraph is confusing. Try breaking up the phrases some. Maybe something like this?

Nastusia peered with mixed contempt and delight at her newborn brother, Damien. She stors at the faint click of the front door being unlatched. Turning to go find her parents, she reaches to open the door. Suddenly it opens from the other side and hits the wall with a loud crash. She staggers back slightly in fear as a figure in a long, billowing cloak stands threateningly over her.

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but this is an example of what I mean. Can't wait to find out what happens next, hope you think of a title!

This is a very interesting thing you have going here. You're a very good writer. It's amazing how well this was thought out and everything. You surely do have and act for creativity:)

~wtbh

Hey, Soulk. Here as promised.

I suppose I'll just jump right in.

The faint click of the front door being unlatched stirs Nastusia from peering with mixed contempt and delight at her newborn brother, Damien.

I'm not sure I quite approve of this opening sentence. It seems too jam packed to interest me. I'm already having to bother to go back through in double-take to process again what you were saying. There's no need to have to be so complex to create an interesting opening. This doesn't quite do it for me. Smooth it down a bit.

"And how is it you knew I was coming?"

I doubt they would neglect to tell you the rules of strangers suddenly breaking into the house."

This is an awkward piece of dialogue. It sounds like you're trying hard to sound wise for the sake of this character, but in essence, it simply sounds as if you've struggled to toss out the words you wanted to say in the smooth and coherent manner which you intended. Fix this. And not really just here, but with all your dialogue in general. It doesn't sound realistic enough. Though realism in general obviously has nothing to do with the type of story this is, believable can only help the quality of your story reach decent heights.

The narration of this was quite rough to me. I think it could have been so much smoother. You were staggering in the telling of your story almost. Or at least, that's how it sounds as I read. It feels unnatural. There's no personal melody to the way you evoke your words, and it's a tad bit disappointing to me as a reader. Just because something is told in present tense, doesn't mean you take the sense this literally in saying things like He asks her as she stands there. You can used past tense words of course: He 'asked' her as she 'stood' there... etc. I saw of lot of flaw in this in that sense. But it's quite easily fixable, so it's nothing you should really fret over me pointing out. I just figured I would. An example of what I mean is this:

He leans against the doorway with a blank expression. But under the mask a sense of loathing at these parents burns as the girl's face gazes longingly at a book high upon the shelf.

It just sounds so odd written this way. Certain words you paired in place of ones my mind reflexively tells me should be their, is also quite distracting to the eye. Like ending the first sentence and then picking up with the next sentence using "But", when "Though" seems to flow much cleaner. There's also far too much stuffed in this little chunk of writing. It feels almost as though you're coursing through your writing in a hurry --even if you're not-- just to have these thoughts written down as they are in your head. Take the time to focus on good sentence structure. It'll only benefit you in the long run. Otherwise, your articulation of things seems a bit rough.

Pulling Damien out of the crib quickly she cries knowing what happened, she spots a laceration upon his head.

Until this point, I wasn't quite sure where Damien even was. and now I see that he was in this house this whole time? And how is he harmed? I thought the little girl was the only one who had gotten marked. It's confusing when you leave out insignificant details like this. The parents just left their two little children in this home alone? That makes no sense at all, and these are the things I think of when reading through the story.

Now, as you were telling this story, I could get the sense that this mysterious creature/character (whatever he is), was meant to intimidate. Or at least, meant to send off intimidating vibes. Though, you seem to switch it around with the little girl. She becomes this mysterious little thing. And then altogether there seems to be no balance in the thick of things. The little girl just seems like some queer anomaly and this mystery revenge seeking character seems a bit too passive and, truly, not intimidating in the least. I think you struggled to find your voice in this sense.

You seem to leave quite a bit up to your readers to sift through. I'm not sure what is really going on in the larger picture. I feel as if I was tossed awkwardly into some supernaturally mythic based fiction. Was this meant to be a prologue of some kind? If not, maybe it wouldn't have been such a bad idea to insert a prologue. You want to feed your readers with knowledge intriguing to your story without seeming like you're forcing the gist of your story into their minds.

The name Natusia seems quite uncommon for a little four-year-old. I can tell why you would name a character something like this, but perhaps you could have gone about this in a different way. Who would name their child Natusia when they have a son named something more mainstream like Damien? Even if these parents are in the loop of these "magical" things it seems.

You gave me some vague knowledge to grasp onto, just not enough of it in this story. I feel like I need a bit more. I don't quite look at this as complete. There are ways of enticing your readers without leaving them completely out of the loop, and you may have to work on that. At the end of this I was hit with a sudden splurge of information. Information you seemed to be quite in tune with.

A few other things I was a bit at odds with. Natusia seems to speak unlike any four year old I've ever known of. There is little innocence about her --and perhaps that was intended. Though, she sounds more like she's fourteen rather than four. Fix this please. Make her speak her age, even if she's some odd and magical spirit child. Another thing I wanted to point out is I have absolutely no idea where or even when this story takes place. Pair this with the fact that I have absolutely no idea what is going on and you may have a problem here.

Overall, I do think this could use a bit of work, and reworking. You also might want to pay better attention to your punctuation. I spotted a lot of misplaced and missing commas, as well as other things. So just be mindful of the little things whilst you're editing in whole. I hope nothing I might've mentioned in the length of my review came off too blunt or mean sounding. I really had no intention to come off harsh. :] I just hope you'll take my criticism for what it is, and that's my hopefulness that you can improve off anything I've said, or anything that clearly may need improving.

Feel free to let me know if you have any questions, Soulk. I don't normally review this sort if fiction, --which is probably a bit obvious-- but it was interesting.

-Smylin'

Hey Soul, as I promised last night here is my review, the first part goes for part one and part two as well:

• Reminder- give features to your characters. (Do not make them blank robots, give them a face that the reader will remember, make it something distinct from other characters, I.e. hair color, facial features, clothing, weapons, and so on.
• Reminder- When giving features don't pause the story to explain what the characters look like. Let it flow with the story.
• Reminder- Have a paragraph (with plot) that explains their features.

*I don't think that you have done this, but based off of your writing I can see the potential for this to happen. These are what we call "no noes" in our writing world. These two reminders will one day help you when writing to an audience. *

Now to things I found inside your work:
1. Give your characters emotions when talking and acting! (When characters talk it feels dull and not real. An example is when Nastusia was getting burned, I kinda felt her pain, but not really it was there but not if you know what I mean, put more FEELING into it!
2. Give a reason for each conversation. Seems like just a bunch of talking for no reason. You kinda explained it, like when Nastusia first meets Takeshi, but even that seemed weak on reasoning. Here and other places it seemed like you were trying to mysterious in a sense. Which is okay, but there is a certain line in which you need to do this.
3. Give each character different dialogue voices. (When they talk it sounds like the same person…and that same person is YOU) the best of writers know how to make new voices out of thin air. This can be done by practice. When I was reading, I was very confused who was talking and who was acting. This isn't that big of a deal right now, because this takes practice and cannot be done in a day. (Unless you are super fast with learning a new skill.)
4. You have good story telling skills, and you have a wonderful story idea. But the Dialogue has a lot of work to be done. This seems to be where you suffer the most from. The best way to fix this is to be an eavesdropper everywhere you go. (I do this one a lot) where ever you go, bring a small note book with you. When you hear a certain way that someone talks that you like, write down a couple of phrases that they say. Then at the end describe how they sounded. This will give you bases on how you can use different voices and it can also help get emotion into your dialogue.

I really do love this story, and I love the characters and their names, this story does have a lot of potential. I do hope the best for you and as I promised last night I am willing to help you with everything you might need help in.

Idea: *what about having the other 6 friends we discussed last night also is in Takeshi's care? And as she goes on with her quest, she will meet them one at a time.*

next part of my review will be split into two sections one will go on here and the other on part 2. Here are the suggestions I have for you that you asked for:

* Smirking inwardly at the father's approval, Ashar carefully snaps the collar in place and without so much as a second thought sends the girl screaming in pain as she crashes into the sturdy stone wall.

*At the very end: As he flies away he speaks to Nastusia inside her head, "No matter what horrors they ensue upon you remember this: I will always be here with you," Closing her eyes Nastusia takes in a couple deep breaths and lets them out slowly, while opening her eyes in comfort and security.

That is a brilliant story and I hope that you go far with talent such as that. I may be in my teens but I know when others have a gift for writing and you most definatly have it.

Hey Soul! This looks really interesting

I. NITPICKS

The faint click of the front door being unlatched stirs Nastusia from peering with mixed contempt and delight at her newborn brother, Damien.

I love this line, but I think, "from where she is peering" might make it flow better? Up to you.

"Do your parents harm you?" He finally asks.

he

II. OVERALL

Firstly, I think you need to check out this article on dialogue punctuation. One you've mastered that, the rest will fall into place!

Other than that, this is a fascinating opening! I have a few issues. At the beginning, your pacing is a little off. I'd love the serene mood of her waiting in her brother's room to last a while longer before being disrupted. I feel it'll be more effective that way. Then when her parents come in things become a little muddy. There is fire, there is an Emperor, a mage, there's just too much going on. Now, sometimes this is a good thing! Sometimes it's fun to throw everything at a reader and let them untangle as they go. I only think that, again, your problem is to do with pace. If each new nugget of information was more spread out we could easily begin to put together the pieces. So I think pace is my main problem. Don't be afraid to stretch things out, to put more meat on these nevertheless excellent bones. Your story will really benefit from it

Hope I helped, drop me a note if you need anything!

-Stella x