Ch.1 the boy and the monster
The sound of a screaming child breaks the night. A monster sits within the branches thinking of how the winter had come & gone so quickly like every year and now he would retreat to his cave. He was Krampus, he groaned, years of age burdened him greatly and he wished. He wished many things, his job to end, for a meal that was not stale meat & grimy water.
He groaned again and jumped from his perch, he gathered up his wool cloak and rapped it tightly around himself. His pale skin, cold as ice, scared from those who dared challenge him. The hooves fleck with dried blood. His large horns brush against the branches as he began to walk north, another winter gone many more to come.
Behind him a twig snapped, he spun around his cloak picking up snow and flinging it around. Five feet behind him was a small boy, who had somehow snuck up on him, in a small leather coat worn with age, inappropriate for the weather of the night.
“It is not smart to sneak up on me" the boy, with black shaggy hair only four years of age at least, only blinked with curious eyes.
"It is not polite to stare at people either." The boy remained silent unmoving. "What is wrong with you do you not know who I am?" The boy shook his head, Krampus smiled.
His cloak fell “I am the punisher of evil, the monster of children in the night, I AM KRAMPUS THE ANCIENT ONE." He roared into the boy's face who was now only inches away. Krampus eyes glowed bright in the night which was lit only by the moonlight, his claws and horns glistened.
The boy seemed shocked by his display but far from the screams of extreme terror he was used to.
"Why do you not scream and cry in fear I am KRAMPUS do you not fear, fear itself you fool." The boy only stared "what trick is this, what are you, why do you not fear me." The boy finally spoke "why must I fear you."
Krampus was shocked by the question "I am Krampus you fool that is why, I am fear, I am a demon, I am hell spawn."
The boy stared for a bit "you just look like an old man with big horns who thinks he must be mean." Krampus was greatly surprised by the boys comment, and stood dumbfounded.
In the distance there was a howl of wolf, the boy yelped and ran to Krampus hugging him tightly. Krampus was so surprised he knew not what to do, but he quickly got over his shock.
He shoved the boy away "do not touch me." He grabbed up his cloak and threw it on "I leave you to the wolves, now hurry to your parents or you will be torn to shreds and eaten."
He began to walk away while the boy shivered with fear and said quietly "I have none." Krampus was quite shocked by the boys comment "what do you mean of course you have parents." The boy shook his head "I just woke up over there."
Krampus scrunched his brow it did seem strange he had gotten so close but where were his parents "um then go that way there's a village of people that will help you." He began to walk away and thought, why had the boy not fear him and even more his warm embrace of the demon.
He had never had this feeling so small but so strong and strange. He was at least three miles away when he heard the howls of wolves and the boy screaming for his help. He spun around in the distance he could see the boy had been surrounded by wolves.
He turned around and began repeating three words "don't go back" over and over. He stopped and grimaced "curse you Krampus" he muttered.
He spun around his cloak flying off & charged back chasing off the wolves with a single roar. The wolves ran yelping with tails between their legs, yelping with fear. The boy rushed up hugging him begging to let him come with Krampus and that he not leave him.
Krampus glared at him ready to shove the small boy away when he decided.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
130,339 Literary Works • 671,513 Reviews
Hello! Holographic Ladybug here for a review!
) or get someone you know to give you feedback.
~The Good Bits~
I'm going to start off by saying that your story is very interesting/wired/cool/exciting and you have set up your characters really well. (Trust me, I'm a sucker for stories about demons and monsters.) I really do want to know what happens next. I encourage you to write more.
~The Improving bits~
I feel that maybe you could have described Krampus a bit better. I don't feel that saying that his skin is cold and that he is old and is able to wrap a cloak around himself is enough. How big is he? Does he have wings? (I honestly pictured a huge dragon-like monster with a big head and leathery wings. But now he seems more like a human which is totally throwing me off.) Not only could describing him give your story a major boost, but it also complements your writing and helps readers visualize it better.
You also really reallly rrrrreeeaaaaallllllyyyyyyy need to use paragraphing. It is totally necessary for writing for fluency, organization, etc. It can make things really hard to read and make it very disorganized. You should really divide it up, especially with dialogue.
I also have a few nitpicks:
'A monster sits within the branches thinking of how the winter had come & gone so quickly like every year and now he would retreat to his cave.'
'&' should really be replaced with 'and'. I have no clue why there's no '&' in writing or what it's really used for, but you really shouldn't use it.
'He was krampus, he groaned, years of age burdened him greatly and he wished.'
Did he groan 'He was Krampus' or did Krampus groan? You should probably divide it up, along with maybe a few other words (description, maybe?). This is also where paragraphing should come into place.
'" it is not smart to sneak up on me"'
This is the start of the dialogue. he following sentence isn't a 'he/she/it/they/I/my dog/you said' thing, so certain conditions will apply.
'It' should be a capitalized word and there should be a period at the end of the sentence before the (").
'" i am the punisher of evil, the monster of children in the night, I AM KRAMPUS THE ANCIENT ONE." He roared into the boy's face who was now only inches away.'
'I' needs to be capitalized, there should be a comma at the end of the line, and 'He' should be a lowercase word.
'"do not touch me." '
This is a fresh line of dialogue, so 'do' should be a capitalized word.
'"I am krampus you fool that is why, I am fear I am a demon I am hell spawn.'
To me, this should look a bit more like this:
'"I am krampus, you fool. That is why. I am fear. I am a demon. I am hell spawn.'
There are a few other things in here that share the same problems as listed above. Maybe you should look around for those errors.
I would also like to mention that some of the sentences seem a bit awkward. You should probably revise a few times (but you've probably already done that
I hope that I haven't appeared too gruff because I really am interested in your story. There are just some things to work on. Of course, there always are!
I hope I have been of use!
~Holographic Ladybug
Timmy here!
So I'll get right to the point of this review and skip any fluff I usually throw in to make the receiver of the review feel good about their piece, okay? That'll come later.
I'll break this up into a few points - the largest issues I see with this piece, which will be a great start for you to get you on the right track with writing. c: You're doing amazing, and I love your imagination here, but I'm going to show you a few things to make your creativity more readable. Let's get started.
Paragraphs. To be honest, they mean everything in the writing world. Starting a new paragraph or isolating a single sentence could mean the difference between a surprised or engaged reader and one that's completely bored and lost. Paragraphing your chapter properly keeps your reader moving along, keeps your ideas separated from each other, and also tricks the reader into not being swamped with so many words to read (smaller paragraphs make it look easier to take in). Where do you split them? I'll explain.
In fiction, they make so, so much more difference than in essays. In the non-fiction world, long paragraphs make you seem more knowledgeable or whatever, but in the fiction world, it's the other way around. Not shorter paragraphs, per se - but separate ideas. So, let's say you describe something, like a person. When you go to describe another person or place, or change to dialogue, you must start a new paragraph. New idea? - new paragraph. It's that simple. And when doing dialogue, you always, always start a new paragraph when a different character speaks. It keeps their words isolated from the other characters' speech, and makes it easier for the reader to identify what they're saying with the proper character.
A quick note? None of the & business. Not only does it look inexperienced and "young", but you will be discredited as a good writer without a further glance. Use and in place of each and every one of those. Also, write out your numbers - so instead of 3, write three. Again, something readers will either credit or discredit you for. It's just proper writing. c:
Tons of misspellings throughout the piece. I'd suggest running it through a spell checker to help you out with that. It's just another thing that'll help this piece be more readable. c:
I think that's enough to get you started. xd When you run through those and edit out what I mentioned, which I hope you do, I'd be more than happy to go through and give you a second review of the piece. You have a lot of potential, and I think you should continue with this book, but also you should start off on the right track. Start with proper punctuation, grammar, spelling and paragraphing and not only will you need to do less editing when you're finished, but your reading partners/reviewers will love you for it. And you'll have more reviewers with an easier to read piece! Double score there.
While I did hit you pretty hard with nitpicks here, I am in love with your creativity. Like, wow. I mentioned you have potential with this book, and I am completely serious. The entire thing with this horrid demon you described going to this boy and getting the opposite reaction of what he intended, as well as the entire wolves and Krampus going back to save the boy.... I just love it. c: And that cliffhanger! You oughta be punished for doing that to us. xd It's meannn. Do a follow-up chapter and I'd be more than happy to review it for you.
Welcome to YWS, and my apologies if this review seems unnecessarily harsh. I give it with the best of intentions. c:
~Darth Timmyjake in Training
Timmy thank you, you were harsh but it's good I need this it was what I needed, I will get this edited to your suggestions & thanks for reading it I will get you the second chapter soon, you have no idea how this makes me feel thank you
Hola Jpwriter =) FallWolf here to give you some tips for your highly imaginative and unique work. Also, welcome to YWS! It's great that you've posted a story so quickly =) However, as with every work of literature, it can do with some improving.
To be completely blunt, this chapter needs spell checking and grammatical help asap. You are missing words in some parts and there is no proper marking of the paragraphs (which can greatly annoy readers, having to read through a solid block of text.) Don't give up though! Grammar and spelling, even sentence structuring can all be fixed. The only real "give up now" problem is not having imagination, and you clearly have some great creativity!
So if I ignore the need for a really good clean, this story is quite intriguing. You start with a villain, a monster, a creature of the night, someone used to scaring every soul, and drop him in with a little boy who refuses to be scared. This is my favorite; I love that you have the cat pitying the mouse here, and the mouse unafraid (to use some metaphor.)
In conclusion, I have two pieces of advice: find a correcting program like Word and put your story through it to clean up the grammatical, spelling, and other mistakes. Then please write the second part of this, I'd love to see what happens next to Krampus and the young boy!
One more thing, and this is completely a personal thing, if you could take out the word "demon" and the swearwords (okay, swearword: "Damn" which you spelled "dame", but I'm assuming you meant damn? You can just say that Krankus swore) I would love that. This is a completely Christian, personal thing, so you don't have to if you don't want to.
Seriously, it is your choice if you want to keep up with this. If you really want readers, you have a lot of hard work to do to properly structure this story. So I won't say don't stop writing, but I will say this; don't stop imagining.