Young Writers Society

Once there was a tribe of Native American Indians. Their tribe name was Aranck (meaning “stars”). The chief’s name was Chaakmongwi and he had a son named Enapay. Enapay married a beautiful woman name Payuma.

Payuma and Enapay were expecting their first child. They wanted to have their child live with the Native American customs so that in the future the child could support a good family.

Chaakmongwi was very happy with his son and his family. He was also very happy about having another child that he could help take care of and watch grow up.

The next day the baby was born.

“She is beautiful!” said Payuma’s friend Adsila.

As everyone was looking from a distance at the little girl one person asked, “What are you thinking of naming her?”

Payuma looked at Enapay he made a simple nod, Payuma looked at the baby and said, “Nahimana.” Everyone looked in awe at the baby. After awhile the girl’s grandfather (Chief Chaakmongwi) came to see her. He loved his granddaughter very much and everyone was so thrilled about the baby.

FIFTEEN YEARS LATER…

“Nahimana!” said Payuma, “Come for dinner!”

Nahimana walks in from outside into the warm, colorful teepee and she saw her mother and father sitting at the table ready to eat. She glanced at the warm fire and the drawings around the teepee that her mother did.

Nahimana took a seat on her stool of woven cloth. The family started to eat and Nahimana looked away for a second, out of the corner of her eye she saw her father saying something to her mother. She kept looking away to make it seem as if she was not listening and happened to hear their conversation.

“Payuma I have heard from Chief Chaakmongwi that that white people are in the wilderness looking for a place to settle,” said Enapay.

Payuma gasped, “We should try our hardest to keep Nahimana away, you know what will happen if we don’t.”

Throughout the whole dinner Nahimana didn’t speak but ate in silence. After dinner she went outside to see the full moon in the clear, dark sky. She sat on a log and began to think about the strange people that her parents were talking about. She knew that tomorrow she would have to go and see what they were talking about, and she would bring her friend Huyana also.

Nahimana went to bed and soon after a nice sleep it was morning. Nahimana ate her breakfast then told her parents that she was going to see Huyana.

Her friend’s (Huyana) tent was directly across from her own. She looked over and saw Huyana sitting outside her teepee. Nahimana pulled her away from the village to talk to her and she said, “Last night my mother and father were talking about these strange people, “ Nahimana started to whisper, “ I want to go and see what they were talking about, and you must…”

Huyana cut her off, “No Nahimana! Do you know what type of trouble you will get in? A lot! You can not go.”

“Fine if you will not come I will go without you,” Nahimana said as she walked away.

Huyana rolled her eyes and said,” Fine, fine I am coming.”

The two of them started off on their way into the woods, they passed the river and hid behind trees so that they wouldn’t get caught. Finally they reached the waterfall. “Nahimana? Um…I think that you should turn around,” Huyana said.

“Stay calm everything is alright,” Nahimana said.

“Really? Then turn around!” a loud, croaky voice said.

Nahimana turned around and saw a person with wrinkled, white skin. He was holding Huyana with a gun pointed at her head. “Come here and she will not get hurt,” the man said.

Nahimana walked closer to the man and when she got to the man he grabbed her wrist and dropped the gun. “Very nice, now let’s see what my captain thinks of you!” He gave out a very loud snicker and made a snort in the middle of some snickers.

End of Chapter 1

OK. This reminds me a lot of some of the old stories that I found on Word, and you have the same mistakes as I had:

For one thing, you're telling us, and not showing us. This is the first rule of writing: Show and do not tell. Instead of saying "she had firey red hair and an attitude to match", write a scene where both her hair and temper show. Instead of saying that Payuma was good-looking and she and what's-his-face are together, then write their "wedding scene" or something. If you want to express that Payuma is the chief's daughter, then have a scene where he acknowledges this fact.

Something else is unrealistic dialogue- your character's sentences sound extremely forced. My remedy for this is: as you write the dialogue, say it aloud. Chances are, if you wouldn't say it for cheesiness, neither would they.

On the subject of word-of-mouth, would the Indians and the white settlers both speak the same language, English? Nope. So the last part is really unrealistic, try re-writing that and don't have Mr. White -hehe- talk.

I would suggest reading this backwards, it's a great way to find out errors.

Other than that, I would also remove the ()s. They're extremely awkward and slow down the story....try to incorporate the information into the story flow.

Your beginning paragraph is also a sore info dump....you can change this by writing a scene, and not dumping all the character information on Nick.

One quick nitpick:

Payuma and Enapay were expecting their first child. They wanted to have their child live with the Native American customs so that in the future the child could support a good family.

Chaakmongwi was very happy with his son and his family. He was also very happy about having another child that he could help take care of and watch grow up.

The next day the baby was born.

Wait, she finds out she's pregnant and has the baby next day??!
That's creepy, man. It calls for a total re-write.

I can't say I'm very interested in the characters, because they're so bland. The way you write them, their emotions are all "standard"- Nahimana is curious about the settlers - have you been watching Pochahantas?- her parents really love each other, Chief Wazzizface is happy about a grandchild. Spice it up, girl! Give the characters depth and light. SHOW us that Chief-man is happy about a grandchild, but other emotions also conflict with it-
Conflict is the entire story.

Also, from what we've seen of Nahimana's bland personality, it's setting her up to be a Mary-Sue. Give her flaws like a sharp tongue or recklessness, or a dark, emo-ish side. Even better, all of the above

Well, here ends my rant.
PM me if you have any Qs on my review.
~Sumi

Well, Inky said all I wanted to.

The thing is that you're lacking depth. Put in details, describe what's happening! You simply tell us that Na-thingyummy and her friend went to this waterfall. Sure, but describe it to us! You have the picture of the waterfall in your mind, so share it with us, cos we wanna know what it looks like! Is it a big waterfall, or a little one? What sort of noise does it make? Does the spray fly up and make Nahimana and her friend wet?
That's only an example, but you know what I mean. Describe the world around them so we can see it as well.

Also, they're Native American Indians - wouldn't they be "in tune" with the world around them? Wouldn't they have heard the white bloke approaching? I know you mean to have them captured, so you could say that he threatened them with the gun like you said.

There's a few letters missed out here and there - dropping s and d, but your grammer's pretty good.

Don't get put off by this, and carry on with this! Happy tweaking!

-Twit

Hey, Oregongirl!

Ooh, Nahimana's pretty brave- the ending was super awesome. Cliffhangers rock, don't they? I hope you carry the excitement, though- I want to know what happens!

There was one major thing that I thought you might want to look at, though:

THE SAD, SAD TRUTH: I don't think I've ever read a story about Native Americans that I've liked. It's not that their culture is boring; the people who write them are usually boring. That's where you've got potential to wow me- I've got pretty low standards, thus far.

What's the problem? Usually, people who write about other cultures tend to info-dump (they like to tell us a ton in a small space, of mostly pointless information). For example, if we were writing a story about a character in the modern US, we wouldn't say, "She sat down for dinner, with strange circular disks made of paper. A tubular, brown food glazed with red- a Fairbury Frank- adorned the disk." That sort of thing is only appropriate for satirical writing.

I'm a fan of immersion- dropping a reader down in the middle of a situation and making them figure it out. Most people think this is confusing, though, so how do we strike a balance?

I'd recommend reading Memoirs of a Geisha for this. It gets a little infodumpy in some spots, but mostly it only tells you the need-to-know details of a geisha's life, without sacrificing a good storyline.

Since that's Japan, though, here's a few things we're going to need to know about your Indians:

- Where are they from? This is a tricky bit to describe, since you've got to tell it from the perspective of a member of the tribe. If you're writing about Pawnee Indians, for example, you wouldn't want to go on and on about, "Their teepees were located on the future site of Memorial Stadium" and whatnot, because that wouldn't make much sense. "They camped far from the banks of the flat water, where the grasslands stretched for miles" would be a lot more appropriate.

- Have they had contact with Americans? If so, what kind of Americans- and what gifts did they bring? I wouldn't refer to them as 'white men' very often, though, since that's a little clichèd. Maybe something like 'pale men' would be a little better.

- How do these people make a living? Do they hunt buffalo, or fish, or weave and trade? This is another tricky one- you want to sneak it into your narrative without flatly saying, "they hunted buffalo". Perhaps mention that a number of boys are away following the herds or something, if that's the case. Sneaky is good.

Besides the basic things, we really don't need to know a whole lot. We don't need to know the exact number in the tribe (though "big" or "small" will do), and we don't really need to know a whole lot about naming, unless it's important to the person's character.

Religion is an important thing, but only describe it in moderation. We don't need to know about all the different spirits for each species of tree; a simple "sun god" or something would do.

___

This was a really good story, Oregongirl! Please, PM me if you've got any questions or have another chapter about Nahimana up.

Hey,I'm not going to make this too long because I don't have that much time. That was really good,you know, the main idea and stuff.The characters are great too but you need more detail and excitement. Take this advice from a person who has made that mistake before.


Your Friend, lucky_duck

I like the premise, and the ending. However, some of the dialogue sounds very forced.
[Nahimana went to bed and soon after a nice sleep it was morning.]
this sentence doesn't make sense. I think you should revise it.
Also you should stop using parentheses around phrases, such as here.
'Her friend’s (Huyana) tent'
It would be easier and less confusing if you just said, "Her fried Huyana's tent."
“Fine if you will not come I will go without you,”
Needs a comma! I would put it here:
"Fine, if you will not come I will go without you."
In the next one, you are also missing a comma.
“Stay calm everything is alright,”
It should be;
"stay calm, everything is alright,"
also,
"person with wrinkled, white skin"
you really don't need a comma here, though you could leave it if you wanted to.
I have a question:
In the end, how would the white man understand her language? if she is native american, and has never had contact with the white men, she would be speaking her own language. Maybe instead of telling her to get over to him, he would just bekon with his hand or something like that.
the last problem I found was this:

"He gave out a very loud snicker and made a snort in the middle of some snickers."
you are repeating yourself here, and could find some other term or reviswe this sentence.
Aside from these minor gramatical and punctuation errors, I would like to see you work on developing your characters, instead of just the plot. Maybe you should also describe the wildlife and plants that she would see during her daily activities.

All comments and critiques aside, you have a nice writing style, a good idea, and an exciting cliffhanging end. I can't wait to see other things that you have written. [/quote]

It is a little choppy, I liked it to a point. It is more like a telling story, someone said that already though so I am trying to think of something better to say. I think it could be a really good story. And the way you discribed the typee (sp) is good. But instead of saying that her mother had drawn you could put more discription, like discribe what she is looking at while her parents are talking. Discribe her thoughts a little more. Such like that helps the reader.

I love books that are based around Native Americans and the west. And one thing that is really good to put in books like that is to write it to where the reader and have a picture in their mind. I know that me and my dad both can't read a book that we can't picture in our heads. It is kinda like a home movie though that is off topic. So to much discription is bad but to little isn't any better. So, find the happy medium and you'll have an excellent book.

Hope this doesn't drive anyone up the wall.

I know this post is kinda late, considering you wrote this last year, but I'm just going to add to everyone's comments.

All in all, the story is very fairytale-like. For example:

Once there was a tribe of Native American Indians.

this, as an opening line, just degrades the plot completely. If you want to get the reader hooked, you need a more interesting first sentence.

As a writer of Native American Culture myself, I would definitely say you need to do some research.

Nahimana walks in from outside into the warm, colorful teepee and she saw her mother and father sitting at the table ready to eat.

1. They wouldn't have had tables.
2. Teepees - this was the Native Americans of the plains' choice of home. Since you mention later a captain (presumably of a ship), the Indians on the coast would not have had teepees. Instead they would have had huts made from wood or trees bent together.

Payuma gasped, “We should try our hardest to keep Nahimana away, you know what will happen if we don’t.”

This line seems kind of fake. They would not have known what they would have been like, so would have been more curious than fearful.

“Really? Then turn around!” a loud, croaky voice said.

How can the white guy understand what they said? he speaks English (supposedly) and they don't.

Finally, one tiny nitpick:

The chief’s name was Chaakmongwi and he had a son named Enapay. Enapay married a beautiful woman name Payuma.

Keep the names of your characters from the same culture. I can't speak for all of the names but the name "Enapay" I know is Sioux for sure. On the other hand the name "Chaakmongwi" is Hopi. Try to get names from the culture you're writing about. If you have made up your own culture, then use names from the tribes surrounding where your's is or make them up.

That last one was a tad specific, and I don't think anyone would really pick it up, but I have done way too much research for my own book not to.