Young Writers Society

Adriii--

I'm back again! And openings are difficult! Here's a review!

Above her was an inky starry night, stars swirling and blinking — but, imprinted onto the sky like a ringed coffee stain was a white outline.

I think a comma after “inky” would be appropriate. Another comma after “coffee stain” would also be a good addition, to close up that parenthetical comma break you started with “but, imprinted”.

Comma issues aside, I love the description of the portal up in the underworld sky! Very nice.

The air smelled strongly of petrichor, but she reached her hand out only to brush up against cool but dry grass. She shook her head, coming out of the soft daze and remembering her purpose for entering the underworld.

I'm trying to apply that whole TIPTOP thing here to figure out whether this would work better on its own, or tagged to the rest of the opening paragraph, but I can't work it out. I'm not great at paragraph breaks. Swapping from focus on the portal in the sky to the air of the general area feels like reason enough to change? But the paragraph's focus is mostly the atmosphere of this new realm and has sub-focuses? (Portal, sky, air, etc.) So I'm not sure about a break.

Meanwhile, something I am certain of is that saying “cool but dry” is weird here, and the repetition of “but” is choppy. You might rewrite this as “The air smelled strongly of petrichor, but reaching out her hand, she only brushed cool, dry grass.”

(Nice job sneaking 'petrichor' into the story, though. Great word.)

A familiar voice rang out. “Kid, if you stop crying, then I’ll go find her. I told ya, yeah? I’m friends with Cordelia.”

For some reason I read this in the voice Griffin McElroy does for gerblins, haha. But! It's Romy!!

Starting to stand up, she looked around to immediately spot the silver light that her only friend cast — with that, she saw Lena.

This sentence is rather unfortunate. It's got a lot going on and it could be presented more smoothly. I'd propose writing it more like “Starting to stand up, she looked around and immediately spotted the silvery light cast by her only friend – and beside it, Lena.”

Not much better but I'm trying to avoid putting too much of my own style into it?

You could also start the sentence off with “Pulling herself to her feet” or whatever variation fits best, because “Starting to stand up” feels a little winding to me, but that's just a suggestion.

Tears pricked at the corner of Cora’s vision, relieved to see Lena alive and not halfway decaying onto the grass.

“Decaying onto” implies that she'd sort of... become one with the grass? Or melt and mix into it? Like, I think you may have meant “on the grass”, but “onto” has a different vibe to it, and I'm not entirely sure which you were actually going for.

Romy’s voice emerged as a melodic, off-kilter hum. “Speak of an omen, she’s already here. Cheer up!”

I'm reading “Speak of an omen” the way one would say “Speak of the devil” and I'm only partially certain that's how you meant it but I love it that way. If you have some other intended meaning with it, then you might wanna figure out how to clarify that, because first thoughts probably go to my example. If it's that, though, then nice!

Romy is kind of nonchalant here, but I suppose she could be a wispy, vaguely oblivious character? Or just sort of accepting of whatever pops up? Like “oh alright we're doing this now”. That kind of fits a ghost. But I'm not here to impose on how you write your characters!-- that's just the sense I get, and if you want her to be different then you might try to make her more surprised at seeing Cora here? And with such convenient timing? haha

Lena’s eyes cracked open and widened as she registered Cora’s existence.

I think “Cora's presence” would sound more natural here.

There was no time for Cora to dodge out of the way — or to even explain why being touched was a bad idea — as she was suddenly enveloped in a giant, shuddering hug.

Aw, poor babby. Aw, poor Cora.

Lena must have been alone for over half-an-hour in a mysterious otherworld.

Oh, you may have asked me about hyphenating this before but seeing context for it, I'm not sure hyphenating is proper. Then again, I'm not great with the rules of hyphenation so take this with a grain of salt.

She had been eight, two weeks before her mother’s death.Drawing forth from childhood memories, she started to shush Lena as a meager way of offering comfort.

Missing a space between these two sentences!

However, Cora couldn’t shake the awful, encompassing feeling of that every moment of comfort she extended to Lena was just another just another awful moment that she sucked away from Lena’s life.

Alright, couple stumbles here. First off, you should knock off the “of” after “encompassing feeling”-- “encompassing feeling that every moment [...]” reads just fine. Secondly, you accidentally typed “just another” two times in a row, haha.

Oh, you've also got “awful” twice which is kinda choppy. I'd suggest swapping the second? Though saying the moments sapped from Lena are awful, in this context, sounds like her life itself is what's awful, as opposed to the sapping being awful.

If you fix those mishaps, though, it's a great sentence!

Banishing those thoughts aside, she slowly shrank away as Lena unwrapped herself.

“Banishing aside” is a weird combination, don't you think? You could say “Pushing aside” but that's kind of lame. “Banishing those thoughts to the outskirts of her mind”? That's wordy, though. I like the use of 'banishing', but you might want to look for a substitute to 'aside'.

“Are we okay?” Lena asked, wiping the tears away on her splotched face with her wrist.

“On her splotched face” should come before “away”. So you could either make it “wiping the tears on her splotched face away with her wrist” or “wiping the splotched tears on her face away with her wrist”.

“Relax, kid. There’s only one person—well, two people in the world that Cora hates.

I feel like a second dash could work after “people” or “world”? (Either would work) But I'm not sure if you want that to be a halt to correct before continuing, or just like backspacing and continuing? To me they're kind of different, so the punctuation would make her voice vary depending, but yeah--

It was odd to see Romy half-way corporeal, looking as if she could be solid instead of just a wispy, silver shadow of a girl. Her outfit was finally discernible — an oversized, buttoned up denim jacket with striped leggings to complete the look

I take this sentence to imply that Cora had never really seen Romy in any sort of definable shape before coming to the underworld?

areas of the jacket and the leggings looked completely scorched, but Romy’s exposed skin looked absolutely not-crisped.

“not-crisped” is... fun? Cute way to contrast her skin from her burned clothes? But it's hard to take it seriously. I think just going with “unscathed” or “unburned” would be fine? It's entirely up to you, though. T

here isn't a load of this kind of thing throughout the story, so tossing in quips of it here and there in the prose itself can make your style feel wonky and I'm just trying to help you avoid that, haha. So, like, as much as I might typically enjoy something like this (not-crisped, or other “quips”), it doesn't flow with the rest of the style.

Cora could also finally see the style of her hair, curled ringlets knotted up with a scrunchie.

Comma doesn't feel right here. I'd personally use em-dashes? Or whatever they're called. “Cora could also finally see the style of her hair-- curled ringlets [...]” I tend to use those for breaks where a comma would be improper of a semicolon would be overkill? Like, to me it reads as a pause to clarify, thus working in this context, but I'm not sure how you feel about it here.

“We need to get L-E-N-A through the portal before her brother comes down.”

Can I just say that I love the detail of spelling out names in signed dialogue? I still read them as the names but I love how it works in prose and enhances the sense that the characters are signing.

Glancing back at the portal, the knot in Cora’s stomach increased by a tenfold as she watched as Samuel fall through the portal, landing on his two feet with cat-like agility.

Second “as”, after “watched”, can be removed. It'd benefit the flow, I think.

He wore a shirt, although it probably wouldn’t protect him from the subtle, deathly chill that permeated throughout the landscape.

Maybe add “now” after “He wore a shirt”? Just so it doesn't feel like such an aside and more like a direct reference to his previous shirtlessness.

“Dang,” Romy said. “Speak of an omen and they shall appear — shame, though. I think Cora is only omen with us.”

Right now I'm taking back my previous beat on the “Speak of an omen” thing. I still read it similarly to “Speak of the devil” but even if you don't intend it that way or you have multiple meanings for it, clarification isn't really necessary on it and would probably just bog things down. So! Leave it and ignore that previous beat, lel.

Uhh, note here though-- I think you might've meant “Core is the only omen with us”? If so, you forgot “the”.

And that's all!


Good good chapter. It didn't have as many issues with pacing or flow as you seemed to think in your author's note? It was really good. The pacing may have been a bit quick, but it was also a shorter chapter than usual and if you'd kept us hanging around waiting for Cora to find Lena, it'd probably get dull and feel like filler. Romy is rather abrupt, and her nonchalantness to Cora's sudden appearance could probably use some tweaking, but overall it was a good chapter.

Characters are consistent, too! And yay, we finally met Romy! I like the way she talks, and I hope you have her use some more slang. Oh man, you could have her mix '80s slang with some underworld slang-- that'd be fun.



Anyway, I hope this review has been helpful! If you need clarification on anything, don't hesitate to text me!

Keep up the great work!

- Hatt