Young Writers Society

Hello there Dracula and Happy Near 3 Year YWS anniversary. It's just lizzy dropping by real quick so without a further ado, let the reviewing begin.

I haven't really read the rest of this story and I don't have the time to do so, so I'll just try to jump into this feet first. One thing I do like about this, despite the fact that I have little to no clue what's going on, the story is very easy to break into. Sometimes there will be lag in between story parts and novel chapters, making it very hard for the readers to catch up. But this piece did a good job of reflecting to the previous events so there was pretty much context to everything that I came across.

The idea of jumping into paintings like they're an entirely different world, is quite the interesting idea to me and sort of reminds me of a good movie. (One of the Night Museum series, I think?) But the idea of paintings being alive or being portals is a fairly cool topic that I haven't seen many authors touch on. (Oscar Wildes' Dorian Gray is one of the few examples that I know of.)

The picture at the bottom, I suppose links back into the carnival that the character had visited through the painting. Maybe it would mean more to me if I had read the rest of the story but at the moment, it's just sort of hovering there. Could you possibly explain it's addition to me or something similar? It was like the only thing I was having doubts about.

I did particularly like the matron, even though i just saw her for a short glimpse of time. She seemed like she knew exactly what was going done in this school, magical portal classical paintings and all. I always have a soft spot for characters like these and dare I say she reminds me of Minerva.

The dialogue is a bit spotty here and there but isn't that much of a concern to me because there isn't much and it's pretty well padded by its surroundings. Perhaps a little bit of pep would help to push it along in certain spots. After the initial discovery it does seem to drag so that's where I would concentrate on pulling the strings a bit tighter. (I'm thinking something along the lines of adding more onto the heightened emotions and adrenaline of that moment.)

I actually don't have much more to say, these were just some overall observations. I probably should go back and read the rest of the story because it sounds fun.
Have a nice day.
~Lady Lizz

Ooh. Good ending. Though I would much rather have more interaction with the girls of Edelweiss before the story actually began, I now understand the intention of leaving Eliza with no friends and no conversations and no memories about the other girls, though I stand, I think it would be more emotionally impactful if we at least got to see the girls in a specific way. Maybe Eliza and the blonde girl's eyes matched at one moment, and the blonde girl tried to talk to Eliza, but Eliza backed down because she's afraid she'll mess up somehow? It doesn't even have to be a long section, but that's just my opinion, again.

I particularly liked how the Clairvoyant line is used again. I feel like it's become Eliza's motif now, and I think there's meaning behind it, though I can't put my hand on what the meaning is. The best I can think of is that Clairvoyance suggests that the person knows what her future will be, but Eliza definitely doesn't know what her future will be like, so she's always afraid the choices she makes in her life will lead to a broken future--however, she learns that indecision and inaction also leads to bad futures, so instead she decides she won't think about it too much and live life as she can. But that's just my interpretation, it's probably just a quirky think you wanted to add there.

Here's a complaint--I feel like the Matron should've been described better. If I had jumped into this story I would've guessed the Matron had a more significant role with the story beforehand, but I didn't get that impression in the beginning. She was just sort of mentioned and the author assumed the audience would guess she would be the strict motherly figure. I would've preferred it if you just mentioned something about how big and towering she might've been, or how scary she seems, or how Eliza first met her and was scared witless or something.

And I definitely do miss Ethel. She seemed like a prominent character in the beginning, but now looking back she was surprisingly one-note. Interesting, surely, but I wanted to see her develop alongside Eliza. I wanted her to be the angel on Eliza's shoulder alongside Eliza's doppelganger (if that analogy makes sense)--I realize Ethel probably can't get as much character development as Eliza did, but I wanted to see her at least be an interesting guardian, or an actual friend (since it's also the title of the work). I wanted to have that one moment where Eliza and Ethel are joking with each other, and Eliza realizes that, goodness, I've never laughed like that with anybody in my life, or Ethel asks Eliza if the girls in 'real life' were anymore exciting as the one in the painting, and Eliza tells her that she doesn't have many friends. A simple moment where the two realize that their bond is special, at least to one of them.

Anyway, I overall liked this short story. I still think there's a lot to work on, but I think, if tweaked a bit, this is the sort of thing I would read to my daughter to make her feel like she's not alone. Great work.

--Elliot.