Young Writers Society

Hey! Here as requested after a few eons. I'm sorry for the late reply.

I personally like the ending of this excerpt. It's abrupt and leaves you wondering what just happened. An excerpt is supposed to make a reader interested enough in a story to read it, and if your excerpt consisted of only the last three sentences (and if I ignored the fragment) then I would definitely keep reading.

However, your excerpt consists of a bit more than that. Everything before the end is pure description and background. This entire work is basically an infodump, and while I find it interesting that your story takes place on a world with purple corn when you add that detail with the grey plain, brown grainy streets, the arrival of a mysterious "he," and wars, with no dialogue or action to cut through it, I'm bored and confused.

First off, don't play games with "since he came." That's probably my biggest pet peeve in writing. Being vague doesn't build suspense. It's just a cheap imitation. I'd be more interested if you told us who ruined the planet.

Second, this is really a blurb. It might go on the first page of a book before the title page. It's not really an excerpt. This doesn't give me enough information to know if I would like this or not or to even give you any real advice or feedback.

My main piece of advice would be to jump in rather than dip a toe in. I know it can be scary posting online, but it's much easier to critique a chapter than it is to critique a paragraph.

From what little I have, you're off to a good start, I'd love to see more. If you ever post more, let me know, and I'll review it.
Thanks,
Megs~

Hi there!

I'm here to review as requested.

So you've posted this under General Poetry, but I really don't feel like this is poetry because of a) how it's written and b) you've explicitly stated that it's an excerpt from a novel.

Because you already have two reviews that, personally, have pointed out the things for improvement, this won't be long.

I am intrigued about this dystopian world and you've done well to set it up for the reader who knows nothing so far. However, I want to know what the world feels like more. You can do this by further developing your protagonist and showing how they feel about the horror and disaster surrounding them. How do they feel being part of this terrible place? I want some more proof as to why this place still has a population in spite of its name of Savagery.

Another thing: why might people call their home Savagery? Despite its difficulties, might they name it something that inspires hope or something to aspire towards?

Overall, I'm pretty confused about what's going on and this probably has to do with the entire thing being an excerpt, etc. Next time, maybe include some more context or explanation about your novel.

There are a few nitpicks:

The wounded body of a man who's head was struck by a machete, Bleeding profusely.

, but unable to die in this earth, he twists and shakes and cries in pain reaching for the sky as he lays on the ground.

1) your poem/novel- began kinda odd to me,the first sentence needs a little reviewing.overall is is a great start if you are evolving this poem into a potential novel. i'm guessing this will novel will be about a post apocalyptic world. the story is very descriptive and has some great lines in it,which gives the reader a good picture of whats going on.


2) back to the first sentence. "Wind moves leaves of grass against leaves of grass in a gray field of grass." i would recommend describing it " As a gust full of wind pushes leaves of grass against the dying plain." it just gives a little more edge. plus its helps address the condition of the world like you were intending to do.


3) otherwise, it was a great beginning to a start of your novel or part 2 of your poem.i hope my review helped. and i hope you continue to grown from your first draft.
-ashley

Hey! I haven't done a review in a while! You're the lucky vict- I mean... I don't know what I mean.
Anyway, when I started this, the first sentence kinda disoriented me. It didn't even feel poetic like I assume you meant it to be. It just sounded like a jumble of words. It was really repetitive for me, and didn't really leave me with any lasting imagery. Perhaps instead of this, you could include some metaphors that will allude to something later in the book. The introductions of books are ALWAYS a great place to foreshadow. Foreshadowing often hooks a reader, and it makes sense because you're giving them a taste of something and they will crave more of it. After the first sentence, I didn't really crave more.
"The smoke of burning wood moving wispily through the air," sounds like a run-on sentence to me. If you want to keep this, change "moving" to "moves."
"Their faces blurred by melancholy..." is also an incomplete sentence. It should be connected to "Shadows of people..." by a colon.
The comma after "way" should be an em-dash or two en-dashes.
The comma after "after" should be omitted. It doesn't make sense.
"As I too walk..." and "I watch, wagons..." should be one sentence, not two. "As I too walk..." is an incomplete sentence.
The comma after "watch" should be omitted. A good rule to keep in mind is that a comma will go anywhere that you would pause in a sentence.
You have a mighty lot of incomplete sentences, bro. Maybe you should reread this?
"Brave children who..." is incomplete, "Forced to be soldiers..." is incomplete, "Savagery an inherited..." is incomplete, "Bleeding profusely," is incomplete but it could stand stylistically.
In the sentence "His head struck by a machete," the verb needs help. You need to add in "was" or "is" before struck.
Otherwise, I like what you've got going on here. This is a fair set up for a novel and it leaves me curious for what the rest of the book is going to be like. However, the writing itself was distracting, with so many incomplete sentences. Just make sure that you reread things A LOT. Trust me. It'll save your life.
Keep writing