I strode out of the cafe garden and saw Waterfall who ran excitedly to my side. Waterfall is my beautiful blue dragon. She has luxurious scales that remind me of sparkling gems. When Waterfall flies, she has a calming effect. As if we were one.
In Kunmo, the sun doesn't shine. Moonlight engulfs the world, in all but one city, Sunmeadow.
I live in Moonsky. I was planning to vacation in Sunmeadow for the summer. I was excited to know that on "Great Sunrise Day" The world would be bright and luminous for 24 whole hours! Despite these uplifting thoughts, I was still haunted by what the waiter had said... "Be prepared." A gentle purring voice snapped me out of it.
" May we leave now?" Waterfall purred gently.
" Of course! But prepare your wings," I warned her. " It will be a long flight to the inn of Moonsky." she stretched her wings and yawned. Her eyes as beautiful as the moon. Her teeth sharp for battle. Her scales the colour of diamonds.
" I'm ready, Misty." she assured me.
" Then we will leave immediately, I'm planning to arrive at midnight, when the moon shines the brightest."
She flew silently while I watched as the beautiful moon filled the sky with light, greater than the sun itself.
The inn was in reality only a couple of hours away, but I didn't want to tire Waterfall. I named her that because I found her in a waterfall at the edge of my town. Injured. Alone. Helpless. I assumed she was abandoned and decided to raise her as my own. To this day she is already 6 human years old. To a dragon, only a young adolescent. Yet she was almost 5 times larger than I. I try not to remind her of her real mother, but sometimes it just comes up in a conversation.
" Your mother. Do you sometimes want to ask her "why?" Why you were left to die?" I asked her. The moment the words left my mouth, I regretted it. Yet she still replied, trying to sound brave. But we both knew she was still shaken by the thought of it.
" I- I suppose. However, I think you are the best caretaker. And I- I will never l- let you go!" she spoke uncertainly. At this point, I decided to cut the conversation. It was clearly making her uncomfortable. I decided to tell her what the waiter had said.
" Of course," I responded to her reply. " anyway, while you were waiting at the fountain by The Fountain Cafe,"
" What about it?" she purred with a slight tone of worry.
" A strange man came up to me and asked if I wanted my coffee hot or cold." I answered, not sure of how she would respond.
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I agree with magpie94 completely. However, I've caught quite a few more errors than they did.
"I walked out of the cafe garden and mounted Waterfall, my beautiful blue dragon. When Waterfall flies, she has a calming effect." This entire phrase is bland and lifeless. I am disappointed to say that I feel the same about the rest of this piece. It's certainly a great START to a novel, but it certainly deserves a LOT of work. Perhaps use more dynamic words such as "strode from" instead of "walk out of". Describe Waterfall! What does she look like? Is she tall? Is she short? Does she have a long neck? What are her wings like; are they feathered; are they webbed like a bats? What shade of blue is she; sky blue; midnight blue; cyan? Assume that the readers have no idea what a dragon looks like.
"Moonlight engulfs the world, in all but one city, Sunmeadow. I lived in Moonsky. I was planning to vacation in Sunmeadow for summer." Unlike magpie94, I can see how these thoughts align. There are far better ways to demonstrate this thought, however. First, you could describe Moonsky first, and include the fact that your main character lives/lived there. Secondly, describe the "Great Sunrise Day" to give importance to our last point. Finally, describe Sunmeadow.
"Despite these uplifted thoughts, I was still haunted by what the waiter had said... "Be prepared."" The ellipses should be changed to a comma.
Omit the space that you have between the first letter of your quotes and the quotation marks.
" " What about it?" she purred with a slight tone of worry." "She" should be capitalized. Because you ended the sentence in the quotation marks, the sentence after is a complete sentence and needs to have a capital at the beginning.
I suggest that you alter that entire beginning to story. Instead of opening with the main character leaving the café, I suggest that you begin with her/him entering the café. Then describe a peaceful meal there. End the opening scene with the waiter speaking those two unsettling words to him/her.
My advice to you is to imagine your novel as a movie. When you're watching a movie, you want to see things HAPPENING. What you're presenting right now is a slow, stilted, bland EXPLANATION of the events unfolding. This is told in first person: tells us what the main character is thinking!! Tell us what she feels! Make us believe that the characters are real and alive! Make us feel for them!
I left lot's of descriptive things to YOUR imagination, so Waterfall can look like anything you want! also, this is part 2. That is why It begins with her walking out of the cafe. And I wasn't expecting anyone to read it anyway
Hi there, Katiekatt! I'm here to rescue you from the Green Room!
I like your ideas, and this could be a nice start to a novel. I like that the main character already has a dragon, as opposed to many stories involving dragon riders that simply tell the tale of the MC obtaining a dragon companion.
That being said, this needs a lot more development before it can become a solid start for a novel.
The first thing I noticed is the lack of focus. You jump from topic to topic without transitioning (or even starting a new paragraph). Let me show you what I'm talking about. The different topics are in different colors.
Each of these topics needs a transition into them, and more development. Also, much of the information is not needed at this moment. Slip it into other places. The best novel is one in which the reader knows information, but has to think about where she/he got the information. Ninja in your information, rather than telling us all at once.
Anyway, let's talk about transitioning and expanding on information.
I like the omission of the details of the cafe garden, and it's nice to see that you don't feel the need to describe every little detail of Waterfall's appearance. I don't know if this is the first appearance of Waterfall because I haven't read the first part of this. If it is the first appearance, you need a little more description. I think it would be wise to, instead of telling us that you got on her back, show us an action that Waterfall might do when she sees you to characterize her. Let's look at how to do that.
From the information in the rest of this story section, I can see that Waterfall doesn't quite feel an affinity for her rider yet, but is respectful of her rider all the same. Perhaps you could have her look at the rider in recognition when the rider comes out of the cafe garden? Something like this, perhaps:
I'm not saying you should do that, but I'm giving you an example. See what I do? I incorporate the name of the dragon in dialogue, and show that the dragon is intelligent.
Try to show, and not tell, through the whole piece.
As for transitions, make sure you slow down your thoughts. If you feel like your writing is just a little too slow, it's probably just the right speed for the reader to follow your thought processes. Also, when you start a new thought, you need to begin a new paragraph.
Make sure you're not putting random details in different sentences. This is the first one I saw. The detail in this sentence could easily be incorporated into a different sentence without making it feel awkward.
A note on grammar: I notice that you often put a space between the first quotation mark and the first letter of the dialogue, but there should not be a space there. Just letting you know in case you didn't.
Below, I'm going to point out some grammar errors.
While sentence fragments can be used stylistically, you should put a comma before this and combine it with the preceding sentence. It will improve the flow of the sentences.
That's what you have. This is how it should be:
Change the comma after immediately to a period. Otherwise, it turns into a run-on.
Instead of a comma at the end there, use a dash to show that she was interrupted.
/end grammar section.
Don't make your character say something out of the blue like that if you say it just comes up in conversation sometimes. Make it actually come up in a conversation. This makes the character look inconsiderate. It makes it look like the character purposely poked at a wound of the dragon. I would advise that you rewrite this section.
Altogether, you have solid ideas, but need to polish the execution a bit.
Here's a summary:
1)Keep focus and organize your thoughts.
2)Make sure you're not making the main character too much of a jerk.
I enjoyed reading this. You have interesting ideas. I hope that this proves helpful to you. Happy writing!
Thank you very much, but I am ending this book series because I wasn't expecting people to read it, so I thought it could just be viewed by me. And I wasn't expecting to change things, but your suggestions were great and very kind