Young Writers Society

Hi Shady, Calvinn to review.

First off, I apologise for giving you 'the cruel treatment' but I just want to lay it all out.

So, from your introductory note, I kept in mind three things - firstly, there were 2 bandits and a girl. Secondly, the girl had been captured by the bandits and finally, that the story was being told by her point of view.

I know you stated this is an excerpt you cobbled together, probably to polish and embellish later on, but it definitely needs work!

First off, I cannot, for the life of me, imagine Jayk and Drayan as bandits. The dialogue, if anything, implies that these 2 are the elder brothers of the girl, not thieves! They are constantly bickering over her well-being. Maybe it's just me, but somehow I doubt bandits would take into consideration your feelings and interest if they capture you, and this leads me to another point - FOR RANSOM. That is the main reason for which little girls are kidnapped - money! And Jayk wants to liberate her? Cockamany. He's certainly got the characteristics of a benevolent and caring sibling, but a bandit? Not in a thousand years.

Now we come to the dialogue. It felt drawn out, and I really do not want to say this or make you blush, but it felt like you looked up certain words in the dictionary just to make your characters seem more educated (again, in which universe do bandits use words like, 'acerbic', 'insufferable' or 'foolhardy'? Unfortunately, I do not know how old you are, so if you are still too young to throw in a few harsh insults in there, my apologies.

And why does she not want to go back to her father? You made it abundantly clear that both bandits want her gone - back to where she came from, but the girl wants to stay. Why? With bandits for company? If I was a little girl, I'd be sobbing and crying my heart out, begging the nasty brats who kidnapped me to let me go back to my parents.

One final point which has been already brought up - why are Jayk and Drakan so insistent on having a reputation for thieving? Robin Hood comes to mind here - it's like they're stealing children of the poor, giving them money and returning them to their parents - it would certainly make this excert a more plausible piece.

Lose the threat. From Jayk's perspective, if a kidnapped child dared be defiant, I'd slap her. Hard. To make sure I raise lots of bruises. He can do as he damn well pleases, and no flimsy little ragdoll is going to stop him.

NOW, I want to mention the positive side to this excerpt. The reason I went all bananas with the review is because I really did enjoy reading this, so well done! You have to elaborate, polish, scrub away the rough edges. You have to SELL your story. Right now, all you have is the gatherings, the making of a great read, but to have to mould it all up.

Well done, keep me updated

Hi there Shady,

I saw the title and flew by to see what has been written. It's very good, with interesting dialogue and idea. I was left with a lot of questions though. Why was she kidnapped in particular? And why do these guys want to be seen as bandits so badly?

I know it was only an excerpt, but it would've been nice to have a little bit more detail on those parts. I felt kind of lost. Like I knew what they were saying, got the gist of what happened... but I didn't really know what any of them were actually like, what their surroundings were and reasons behind what they were doing. What was so bad that the girl didn't want to go back? And does this girl have a name?

All in all though, it was very well written. I'm wondering why you just had this excerpt here though, which would be something interesting to know. This has been a short review, but looking forwards to hearing more of the charm of deception soon.

Deanie x

Hey there!

Apple Dumpling Gang here for a review.

Now one thing that I liked here, (and this surprise me, too) is that you used dialogue pretty well. When I say surprised, its because there is quite a lot of dialogue here, and yet it wasn't burdensome, as it sometimes is. You used ample description when it was needed, and I applaud you for that!

I also loved the end of the scene, because it leaves a bit to the imagination, and also adds a bit of emphasis into the chapter.

Grammar and stuff can be fixed by you, so do read through it again!

A few nitpicks:

gaping slightly

and

turned on me

I thought that was going to be really long, but it turned out to be just mostly dialogue, so that was good.

One thing that I didn't like was, as the first reviewer said, there isn't a lot of description. I would like it more if we saw what the world they live in looks like. For example, why is she sitting at a table in the middle of the forest?

Overall, I caught very few mistakes. Except for this here:

"Don't forget satirical"

I think you meant "sarcastic."

I am trying to figure out how her threatening him really worked, exactly. It's confusing and I didn't catch what you meant there. Maybe revise is so it makes more sense. Also, why is Jake spelled Jayk? I don't really like "fantasy" spellings... it seems a little play-actish since those names already exist, why give them different spellings? Plus I kept reading it as "jike" not "jake."

The one thing that I really didn't like about this is that you have a classic fantasy setting, with theives and forests and other stuff like that, but then your characters all talk with modern accents. You don't have to try and sound like Shelley or Dickens, but maybe they don't use the same words we do. Or have a different way of putting things, or unusual phrase order and stuff. Just some thoughts there.

It was an interesting scene though, but I think you should have more action!
SBC

Hello, it is an interesting story you' ve got here. I personally loved the names- they sounded unique. I loved the girl's guts as normally if a girl was kidnapped she would be shivering with fear. I also liked the direct speech used; the conversation of the characters. Though I haven't read any of the chapters before this, I loved it. I didn't find any grammatical errors, so thumbs up for that. I loved the action involved- it wasn't too much. (I am not an action fanatic) As I said this was a fanastic story with loveable characters.

- Anshira; Red Team

Shadster

Hola, amiga. So, I already told you how awesome this was, and I told you I'd give you a review, so I'm going to go ahead with the mean things.

First, I realize this is an excerpt, but there's almost no description here. I mean, you have some rocking dialogue. It's pretty fantastic. I'm a little jealous at your skillz, but a chapter can't live off of that alone. This is probably in between description sections, but, you know, something to break up the large chunks of dialogue you've got there.

"Take a deep breath, and let me handle this."

"If you do...then your reputation is ruined."