Young Writers Society

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

First Impression: Okay..well, this was quite an epic opening here, if this was meant to be a prologue of sorts, this would be ticking pretty much all the boxes that you would expect one of those to tick. This certainly makes you want to turn that page very enthusiastically.

Anyway let's get right to it,

It's hard living in the shadows.

Generations ago, our people lived with the others who call themselves human. We respected one another, had relationships and families and friends, worked together, fought together, lived through life shoulder to shoulder. We were safe in the knowledge that we were not judged or envied because of what we were, because we had never known any different. That was life to us.

Not anymore.

We are never safe now. We never were safe, because deep down, everyone who wasn't like us, everyone we knew and loved hated what we were. No-one should hate another they love simply because they are different. Prejudice defies the purpose of love, and to know that one you loved and one who loved you now hates you because of the blood running through your veins is a great burden.

In our time, we have grown used to being isolated. We know our ways, we know only what we have been taught by those who made us who we were. We were raised to stay away from those our ancestors had lived beside for hundreds, thousands of years, and we were trained to be able to survive without their help, without their technology and things that would likely kill us, taught how to kill and prepare food, to heal ourselves. All the while, our once friends forget all that knowledge, replacing it with monstrous machines and things to "make their lives better". We were also trained to defend ourselves when the time would come. We thought it would never come, that we were skilled at hiding and that our kind had been erased from living and written memory.

There are stories of us, and we live on in myths and legends. The people of this age skim over these stories like they are dead, transparent things. In truth they are real and living stories that tell not legends, but true recounts of our kind and theirs. The people that lived with ours could tell you that, but today, we are a lost tale, a forgotten fire that still burns away beneath the surface of the world. We are still a living society, a people frozen in the time we lived in thousands of years ago.

We are your werepeople, your changers and witches. We are your demons, your rakshasa and shamans. We are the hidden race that have become accustomed to being hated and hunted, but we never knew what was coming.

We never knew our world and their world would crash and burn.

Hey there Sagitta. Just lizzy stopping by for a quick review. Thank you for directing me to your novel. I have only read this part so far and I will certainly read the rest.

Now let the reviewing begin. First off, let me start with grammar because I like to analyze the content but both are important. The flow of this part is great, no choppy sentences, or anything of that sort. I did not see any spelling errors, thank you for proofreading. This is a turnoff for me.

Now onto the content. It's not exactly a chapter but it does not exactly sound like an introduction either. I think you were aiming for a mixture of the two. It is all short and gets straight to the point unlike others I have read.

Overall loved the story and I will try and review the first official chapter tonight. Like I said it would be quick.
-lizzy

Hi!
Reading the rest of the chapters before this... It's like eating dessert before dinner! I'm such a rebel This is a great way to start the novel, and I only have one little nitpick...

Prejudice defies the purpose of love, and to know that one you loved and one who loved you now hates you because of the blood running through your veins is a great burden.

THIS IS SO GOOD. Words cannot express how great this is, but I am willing to give it my best shot.

So, the way this is written reminds me of a prologue rather than a chapter, since no actual plot is taking place. But it is not a bad thing. You do an outstanding job, and here's why I think that:

The sentences are so well-composed, their flow is simply excellent, and so is their content. There is not a single awkward phrase or instance of wording that would diminish the fluidity of one's reading. This is something I would show to people as an example of exactly how they could do that (have great readability).

I got a remarkable sensation of what I am to expect, with nothing about the setting, plot or characters actually being revealed. Without having read any of the following chapters, I can only assume that the narrator of this one will be a character later on in the story.

And I just love how short this is. You manage to reveal so much - enough to make us want more, and not enough to make us think that we already know what's going to happen. It's that engrossing. I simply cannot wait to read more.

I really don't have a single bad word or negative criticism for this. I love it, and have high hopes for succeeding chapters. I hope that this review is helpful, that it's a motivator for you to keep on writing, because I'm sure that there's plenty more where this piece of brilliance came from. Keep up the outstanding work, and have an amazing day!

Hey, it's Dracula. I intend to review chapter 3 which is in the Green Room, but I thought I'd better at least read your prologue first.

Your first paragraph is a.m.a.z.i.n.g. It sounds really professional and gave me a great introduction to your story's world. I especially liked how you 'summed up' the situation at the start, with it's hard living in the shadows'.

No-one should hate another they love simply because they are different. Though your introduction of the tainted blood was great, this sentence seems a little choppy. The way you've worded it doesn't make sense; if someone loves someone, it's not possible to hate them. You need to add past tense to it, for example: No one should hate another that they once loved.

our once friends forget all that knowledge,
Forget should be forgot. And woah... I agree completely. It's not a good thing that humans depend on machines so much.

YES! I'm loving this, it totally matches my theory that 'mythical and supernatural' beings exist and humans have just forgotten the truth. I'll definitely keep reading this.

Hello, steampowered here for a review! Congratulations on posting your first work – it was quite a while after I joined that I nervously posted my own first work on YWS, so well done! I haven’t read the other reviews, so these are my own uninfluenced opinions on the piece.

One thing I’ll mention very briefly is that I like the shortness of this piece. A lot of new members make the mistake of posting really long pieces of writing (and don’t split it up between posts) so they never get very many reviews. Hopefully you’ll get plenty of reviews on this! :3

Onto the story now. I really enjoyed reading it, and I liked the sense of mystery which made me really want to read more! Feel free to let me know if you upload another chapter. I’ll totally read it, and I’ll do my best to review it as well.

It's hard living in the shadows.

No-one should hate another they love simply because they are different. Prejudice defies the purpose of love, and to know that one you loved and one who loved you now hates you because of the blood running through your veins is a great burden.

There are stories of us, and we are living in myths and legends.

We never knew our world and their world would crash and burn.

Sagitta! This was an excellent prologue. It made me want to read even though I wasn't sure what I was reading. You had me hooked to the screen, I wanted to know who was hated, who was the person/people speaking. And you told me at the end. You built up the suspense and delivered. Great job! I loved it! I would definitely buy this book when you published it.

The only suggestion I would make is right here
"We are your werepeople, your changers and witches."
I feel like you should capitalize Were-people and put a hyphen in there as well.

Other then that, your prologue was fantastic and I cannot wait to read more of you writing!

Why hello there! Welcome to YWS new member! I hope you have a great time on here and don't mind how crazy we all can be! On to to the story itself, this is a pretty intriguing concept. I rather like the idea of the supernatural/fantasy genre, with witches, wizards, magic users, and the sort. I completely love that! This is a really interesting start to your story. You're already getting me to feel bad for this secluded, hated race, with only a few paragraphs. Good job. I also like the way you transitioned from being safe and cherished, to the way the people are now, hunted and living in fear.

You've done a decent job with this prologue, but I do recommend that you do a few things, if you don't mind me saying them. One, keep in mind that you keep changing tenses, from past to present, then back to past, then to the future, then back, and etc. I understand that for a prologue, sometimes you can get away with this, but it did mess me up a little when I was trying to keep up. Secondly, you seem to like listing things, due to the beginning of the work, and to the middle paragraph. I would suggest that you try to limit this, as you lost me in the biggest chunk, as I was just getting confused by your words. If you must, cut it up, or try to change it into only the most important parts to keep it with this storyline. try not to give too much information in one sentence, since it can be too much sometimes.

Also, check your work for places that you should try to make a few changes like adding or deleting commas. You have a lot, but then not enough at the same time, in my opinion. Just try to picture someone reading this and go from there, alright? You've got a great idea with this, just try to work on it a little. You're gonna be an amazing writer in no time at all, I can tell! Thanks for writing this, and have a great day!

-Perks