Young Writers Society

Hi Artemis!

Every time I come here I seem to come with an apology because I am the slowest at reviewing this novel. Nonetheless, I hope this review is useful to you.

I think it was goof to hear the history of The Union and all about magic. There definitely seemed to be a lot of fighting and history to get to where it is now! I loved how all the races basically found time to be on top of all the races, and humans were there persecuting the whole time as well. It seems like the kind of things humans would generally just do as well. I think it was a clever way to show us the past, and the idea of the moving mural was a pretty cool one as well. I liked it ^^

One thing I couldn't help thinking was that the Dome was very precious and valuable. It has these paintings in there that mean the world to The Union and holds the key to explaining their history as well. For something so great there didn't seem to be much by way of protection at all. I wanted to see some guards, some sort of protection magic or just... anything. Anyone could come in there and ruin the mural by the looks of it - any student of being. So maybe that is something to think about.

I know other people have already mentioned this so I am going to try not to repeat too much, but I did find this to be fairly info dumpy. I wanted to know about the history, yes, but all in one go like this is a bit much. You need to dilate the information stream you are giving the readers somewhat. What I think would be a good idea would be to show Billie's thoughts and feelings and reactions to what she is hearing a bit more. Having those break up the information a bit more can be especially helpful and make this seem less info dumpy. I also think it was so info dumpy because it seemed to be war after war after war. It got a little bit repetitious and I found myself scanning instead of reading - which is definitely something you want to avoid. I would suggest having Bllie come back to the Dome in the future. Maybe explain about one war, with thoughts and feelings between, keep going with the story and then have her come back later, drawn to the Dome, to learn about another war next. That would really erase the element on info-dumpiness we have here, and also gradually ease the reader into all the information they have to take, as well as avoiding the boredom that can come from directly reading about war after war.

Something that was mentioned in the past and you didn't give too much detail on was the underworld. I was so curious - how did they get to the underworld? You mention that it wasn't easy to find, but they managed to do it. I am so curious to know how they could find such a thing, and what lengths they might've had to go to find it. That's why it would be good to split the information up; the section including the underworld could use some more detail because it has me intrigued.

Nitpick time!

The dome rotates again, and this time the mural transform into a large man sitting on a throne

and villagers run screaming as a mob descends upon them. People scream as they stand tied at the stake.

The artist, whoever they are

with a members from each of the mother races.

Alrighty... I'm going to quit being a lazy spud and finally review this thing.

So, pretty much everything's already been pointed out, from the looks of things. I've skimmed the other reviews, so sorry if I repeat anything that's already been said.

“You see, as the underworld, the realm held vast amounts of spiritual energy, the sorcerer’s source of power. The felt its power belonged to them, and them alone. They killed several of the council members, and found a way to remove the memory of the realm from the others.”

“Those who survived returned, claiming their discovery had been a failure and that it had claimed many lives, including the sorcerers.

Hi! Just me again

The first thing I'd like to say is that this is so creative! How the paintings rotate and change is awesome. The history of the magicians and how you intertwined human history is marvelous! I love this chapter!

One punctuation thing is at "before me is a mural showing people dressed in medieval clothing and knights armor, standing around some that looks suspiciously like a stone, round table, covered in ancient writings and scrolls." You just need an apostrophe after the 's' on knights and change 'some that' to 'something that'

"The dome moves, this time showing these same— council members— scavenging through thick forest and dark caves." 'showing THE same' and those hyphens are not needed

“You see, as the underworld, the realm held vast amounts of spiritual energy, the sorcerer’s source of power." this sentence doesn't make sense. I think you meant to have a 'was' after energy.

Is it 'fae' or 'fey'??

"which quickly dissolves into warlocks razing the cities of the fey, while the fey fled." razing?

"It was during this time the last of the sorcerers fled to the realm, abandoning their fellow races to the warlocks torment." warlocks'

"I’m reminded of the revolutionary war," any and every war should be capitalized.

". “They stripped the warlocks of their power, and emerged as the most powerful race.” “The wizard’s proved victorious, but they knew this could go on no longer. After centuries of war, we must have peace. So they created The Union.” I don't think you meant the first sentence to be a part of this

" It’s not a book, it’s not a movie, and it’s my heritage, my story, my life. I’m a part of this world now, I’m going to be a magician." I think this would be more powerful if 'I'm going to be a magician' were it's own sentence.

I really think you should capitalize all the races, just as you would with races in our world.

This just keeps getting more intriguing! I absolutely loved the history! It was so awesome and so well explained. Fantabulous job!! I'll be back soon!

I started reading this awhile ago and I'm really glad I carried reading on!!

Hello, Artemis, Wolf here for another review.

So, I see here a lot more of the World Building is taken place, and we learn a lot about the history of the different kinda of magic users. Now I understand the grudges taken place that I saw in Chapter 7. I can understand how hard it would be to forgive a race that hunted you to near extinction. Though I am wondering, how do the Faeries feel about the Warlocks? They kind of did the same thing that the Fey did to the Witches.

The history lesson was very interesting, and I actually found it quite believable, though I do want to ask why did the battles start between the Fey and the Witches? What did they ever do? Was it a misunderstanding, or a raid on a village. I can understand not telling us now, because there is a lot already to take in, but I'm still very curious. There needs to be a reason to why it started other than for the plot.

There are quite a few mistakes here and there, so I recommend you go through and proofread this for things reviewers miss. Most of them are really small like switching a comma with a period or forgetting a closing quotation mark. Though, for the most part, the tenses stay consistent, or I don't notice when it switches.

Well I've finally caught up to the first part I first saw this in, and I see that there is a lot of information here. Can't wait to see more! Happy Review Day and Keep Writing,
~Wolfare

Hello! Tgirly here to review your work.
"almost gothic looking windows appeared" Commit to it! Are they gothic looking or aren't they? Or maybe even just say they're gothic windows.
I'm interested to here what your reasoning was for writing the chapter in present tense? Not that that's bad, it's just untraditional so I'd like to hear why you chose that.
"like an attic, only circular" For some reason, I thought that was funny. Don't know if that's a good or a bad thing.
"gazing up at the beautiful mural." Beautiful has become way overused recently, sort of like awesome. It's also ambiguous; it doesn't tell me much about the mural, what emotions are imparted on the character from looking at the mural, what the mural's of, etc. Also, in the previous paragraph, you describe the mural as "the most beautiful paintings", so the word's a bit repetitive too.
"in almost every culture, Greek, Egyptian. " It's weird to say in almost every culture, but then only be able to name two. Maybe add a third or make it into a list of four or five, or take the cultures out, especially since those two have already been mentioned through the pictures.
I think it's cute how Arthur tells her that if she has any questions, she should go to Gwen, and then himself. Just the ordering shows a lot about his character that he thinks Gwen would be a better person to ask; he's not confident, and he doesn't care much about responsibility.
You've got a nice story here; I loved hearing the history, even if it was a bit lengthy. You've got just the right amount of details and your dialogue's pretty solid. If I were you, I'd do a quick read-through for grammar mistakes though; there were a few missed letters, a few few forgotten capitalization, stuff like that, though not too many for a piece this long.
Very interesting premise. Hope this review helped.
-tgirly

This review courtesy of

Hello, Moalex here to review your work.

I'll tell you now, I was drawn in after looking at the genre of your story. I really love fantasy and action. I didn't read the other five chapters, but I decided to read this one first because I happened to stumble upon it when I logged in. Anyways, I love how you incorporated gods and magic in the story, even the characters themselves aren't human. A few things I don't understand but it'll probably be explained in the other five chapters. So I'll to read up on it later. Anyways on to the nit picking.

“This is the crown jewel of Alexandria, and perhaps the whole realm.” Gwen says, “It contains the largest collection of magical artifacts, not to mention our history.” She comes to stand beside me, gazing up at the beautiful mural. She stretches out her hand, like she’s going to touch it, but her hands stop just an inch from the mural and she traces her hand down. ‘It’s magically enhanced, so that, when activated….” She drops her hand, “Well, I’ll let you see for yourself.”

Split it up, start a new sentence after all the dialogues.

Also the apostrophe at the beginning of 'It's magically enhanced" should be a quotation mark.

“It took several years,” Gwen says, as the men and women emerge from a cave into a bright, open land, squinting under the light of a pure white sun, “But they found it. And they knew, the moment they laid eyes on it, that it was our home.”

^ put a period after "white sun". It'd be better to put a comma instead of a period after "But they found it". In some cases it's okay to put "and" in front of a period but it's always better to put "and" after a comma.

Many grammar and spelling errors but I'm sure you'd notice them if you proof read it one more time. Many people notice errors only after they've decided to submit work or they think there's no more errors. Here's an example:

Each race tried to find their own serenity, their on refuge, but no matter where we went, humanity always followed.

The "on" should probably be "own". If I'm wrong then well my bad.

Anyways, hope I helped in some way. Good luck and keep writing.

Hey there! I am popping in at chapter six without having read any of the previous story. I think this can be useful to let you know how clear the characters' relationships are without their clear introduction and whether the story's plot is clear from a point a little further on like this. And I hope that in general whatever questions I have will help you make sure you've answered them at another point in time! So let's do this thing~

So it's clear we're still getting an introduction to a place. The place is an old mansion, but we've suddenly gone into an older looking section to get introduced to the dome.

Oh my god, I love the imagery with the mural. I love that you so clearly described the movement of it that I can imagine it shifting and changing in my head as crisply as if I'm watching a movie. I love the simple explanation she gives, too: Magic has been present since the beginning of history, and then we know why we're looking at cavemen. We feel connected by a bond throughout time.

The description of this group's journey through history is also really clearly told and the narrative makes sense as it dips into more commonly known history like Egypt, Norse god mythology, etc. I love it. I love especially the sentiment that even though the group was betrayed, this still brought them together as a group. ... Even though that peace was short lived, I guess. This is the point where I realize there are named groups: witches and faeries.

You continue to write vivid and lifelike images onto the wall. That image of the faerie putting his hand down a man's throat is unique and so crisp.

At one point you write "For nearly a milenia we lived in oppression", and it's at this point that I realize I'm not sure what race the speaker comes from. You could make it clear by pairing this sentiment of "we" with the name of a race earlier on. Though I'm sure readers from earlier chapters know already.

One question I have is to why the magical folk don't like the darker practices of the sorcerers. I mean, they're all from magic, so what makes some magic different from others. I can see it from a human perspective: dead raising and demons is scary to regular humans who have no magic, but what makes it bad to the other magical folk?

I also have to say that there were almost TOO many wars and shifts of power in that story to keep your audience's attention for so long. Is there a purpose to that many shifts? Are we going to hear about them again later in the story? If not, I think it might be nice to cut them and just keep to the highlights that we'll need to understand the story later!

Also, what exactly is "hispanic-looking skin". That's a very odd description, as Hispanic people have skin of all shades and types...?


I definitely love and appreciate the fact that exactly after all that history we still see the lingering grudges and relationships between the current students. That was nice, though you could maybe have been a bit more subtle about it. It almost seems too convenient, as if the author set it up to get her point across instead of the characters actually behaving that way.

I hope these thoughts are helpful to you!

PM me or reply to my review if you have any questions/comments about what I've said.

Good luck and keep writing!

This review courtesy of