Warning: This work has been rated 18+ for language and violence.
People lay on the ground beneath a golden spire, where a tall black fence encased them. No noise. No invaders. Only the petals of the cherry trees above could enter the sanctuary. The fence squeaked open. A man entered through the gate. After stepping in, the gate clanged shut, making him flinch. He treaded lightly, his steps barely making any noise. He made his way towards a prone body, a woman with curly blonde hair. He loomed over her. The shade he cast upon her obfuscated the radiance of the sunset. He kneeled. His fingers skimmed the air above her face, not quite touching, but revering.
He then touched her ring finger, just below the third knuckle. Small black markings sprouted from where he touched. Her eyelids fluttered. He stood up, turned around and started to walk back the way he came. A single black tear ran astray of the vertical scar on his right eye. It grayed his ghost white skin, and his steps slowed. A gust of wind jostled his heavy black trench coat. He whimpered softly and wiped away the tear and continued walking. He then fixed his wind tossed short black hair, and made sure every hair is back in place as he continued to walk away. He went through the gate and down the steps, leaving the woman behind.
Waking up with a start, she shifted in her messy bed. A foggy feeling enveloped her, her head felt heavy, and her brain was still half asleep. She covered her face with her hands. She opened her eyes. Black markings on her ring finger were visible. "What?" she groggily whispered under her breath. Putting her hands on her knees, she hoisted herself up. While she walked to her bathroom, she struggled to deal with how heavy her head felt still. Flicking on the light switch, she threw her hands onto the sides of the sink. She looked up at the mirror; fair skin, a heart-shaped face, small nose, full lips, and mint green eyes welcomed her.
She looked down at her hands, seeing the black markings that made a ring around her fourth finger. She lifted her hand. Tracing the markings all around the finger. "How’d I get these?" she whispered and eyed the weird squiggles that a ring could cover up. She decided not to, to make sure that nobody would get the wrong idea. She put a hand to her head, she felt too tired to deal with such a weird predicament at the moment. She realized that it might be early in the morning, remembering the window she walked past was dark. Walking back to her bed, she looked at the clock. Glowing red numbers confirmed it was three in the morning. she had to go back to sleep so she could start her new job as a nurse at the town nearby, she felt so happy that she could finally help people, remembering she wanted to be a nurse ever since she was small. She groaned and jumped back onto her bed. She thought hard about the black markings and what she could do, until she drifted off to sleep.
After a short time, she woke up. It was clear she was in a completely different place. She laid beneath a clear, dark blue evening sky, the treetops of the cherry trees above her head swayed gently in the breeze. She felt at peace here, like all her worldly worries were suddenly far away. She wore a beautiful white dress instead of her pajamas. She turned to get up, shaking cherry tree petals off of herself. There were other people next to her, all of them sleeping. A bell’s strong, deep and vibrating ring cut through the silence, and she looked to the golden spire, which seemed to be the source of the noise. Surprisingly, even though the sound was loud enough to cause ringing in her ears, the other people did not wake up. Looking to a sleeping man with long grey hair tied in a ponytail, she wondered how even a heavy sleeper could sleep through such a noise. She slowly started to reach out to the man, wondering if she could shake him awake.
"I wouldn't do that Gabrielle," a female voice warned. Gabrielle quickly turns around, a short creature dressed in white robes embossed with gold borders and strange sigils stared back at her. It had a hood that resembles a straight wizard hat at the top, the hat-like hood's top bends back and had a big white tassel at the end. Below the hat, a hole for the creature's face which is shrouded by darkness, and two large and almost neon-like white eyes with no human features glowed brightly.
"Who are you? And how did you know my name?" she asked with a shaky voice, she wasn’t scared of the creature in front of her, but it certainly weirded her out quite a bit.
"I’m(?) Shai, and I know all of the names of the people sleeping here; it is my job to watch over them."
Brushing off the rest of the cherry petals on her dress, she looked up at the creature, confused. "You don't seem shy to me," she said with a less shaky voice, brushing all that she saw off as a weird dream.
The creature's eyes squint angrily. "No, S, H, A, I. Shai!" the creature named Shai exasperatingly holds up its clawed and four-fingered fist covered in white cloth.
"Oh! I'm sorry, it sounded like another word!” she said, an embarrassed look on her face. Usually the weird things she dreams up don’t know her name, so this was new to her.
"I came when I heard the bell," Shai said, her hand relaxed and pointed to the golden spire behind her. "It only rings when someone wakes up." she lowered her hand and put it in one of the gold embossed pockets on her robe.
"What is this place? And why am I the only one besides you who’s awake?" she asked and looked around at the many sleeping people that lay on the ground.
"This is the Field of Dreamers. Once a dreamer appears, the spire keeps track. Only if a dreamer has enough magical power will they awaken." Shai then pointed to the man next to her. "He does not yet have the power to enter into this world."
"Why do you need magical power to wake up?" Gabrielle asked and gripped her dress, she felt like it should have been someone else instead of her to wake up.
"Because this world is too dangerous for non-magic users," Shai warned, lowered her other hand, and put it into its respective pocket as well.
"World? This isn't Earth, is it?" Gabrielle asked and put a closed hand to her chin, waiting for Shai's answer.
"This world is Elega, not Earth."
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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Original Text:
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125,024 Literary Works • 672,762 Reviews
Am I the only one who finds it weird that this seems more like a fantasy genre with a character going to a whole new world. If you want to make this seem more like evil is escaping its dimension you should have that actually happen. You should have the character go to the other world to fight the big baddie and the character use the almighty power of "DEUS EX MACHINA" And then the Villain dies. Except it doesn't and instead gets hundreds of sequels before dying a terrible death. That is how you do horror. Never mind I read the top that stated this was under the fantasy bar. Wait a minute. Does that mean you plan on making a sequel. That could work. I really love the mystery you put in this. Keeping things hidden from us.
Hey AneiDoru,
As you know I've already skimmed what you've got of the story but now it's time for a better read-through and let's start out with this.
I like the concept of the other world, and the sleep world, and I really like how you're building emotion in the character and making the story progress gradually to show that time is passing funny, like slow.
Onto the first thing I want to talk about: You put prepositions first a lot when you don't want to start with "she" or "he" or whatnot, and it makes the sentence weak.
You can say that more effectively by saying "People lay on the ground beneath a golden spire. A tall black fence encases them, blocking out noise and invaders." or something like that. You get a more active tone when you do that by starting with the subject. In this case, it's the people laying there, defenseless, and it becomes the man who puts the symbols on her finger.
If you change it just slightly, just move the subject to the front, you have a more active, interesting sentence.
You have two sentences here. "A man enters through the gate. After stepping in, the gate clangs shut making him flinch."
Honestly, I think some of this is just stuff where I'm going to send you some reading homework because other people say it so much better than I do.
With that said, here's your reading homework for what I see going on in your writing style and why I selected the articles I chose!
Verbs Are The New Adjectives I selected this one because I think sometimes you let your verbs get away from you. Your verb doesn't do the heavy lifting most of the time, prepositional phrases do. Usually I'd suggest trying to eliminate prepositional phrases from your writing, but they're so ingrained in yours, that would be incredibly hard, so I think they're stuck as part of your style.
Show and Tell This article goes over things like "be specific not vague" and such but I don't think that's what you should focus on for this one. You've got that down, and sometimes you've got the showing, not telling, down too, but the section on using dialogue should be helpful to you.
Not Getting Carried Away with Descriptions I'm sending you this one mostly for the third point, but all of this is good stuff. You tend to get carried away with little things and fancy words rather than what's going on, and sometimes that draws away from what I'm reading.
Overall, I think if you apply more of the five senses, and work on better sentence structure, you're going to have a more active book! I like the plot, let's just get the writing up to par.
Nice reread. I liked it when you actually "did" putting emotions like angry and embarrassment like below.
But another suggestion (from my greedy perfectionist heart) is in the last part of this chapter, try to add a single paragraph that is not having the "" dialogues stuff. Preferably in the middle of the last part like describing the "many sleeping people's part?
It is a selfish request, but also a challenge. XD
I don't think that last line is good to have as if the line before that ended the story, it could have some more dramatic cliffhanger moment.
XOXO
zzzzzzz
I only got rid of the last sentence, that's all the editing I'm doing from this review, also I don't like needlessly cutting out dialogue all that much, so I reject the challenge.
Hey, AneiDoru, here's a late welcome to YWS! I hope you enjoy it here as much as I do. I'm here to give a quick review on this piece, if you don't mind. I don't actually have many issues with this work at all; it's rough around the edges, but I loooove what you've given us so far, and you'll definitely polish this over time. Anyway, without further ado, let's get into it!
First, I'd like to direct you to this article. I see the way you've punctuated your dialogue is incorrect, so that little guide in the link might help you. In your case, there are a few places like...
... where the period/full-stop within the punctuation marks should actually be a comma, and the first word after that should be all lower-case instead of capitalised. So the above quote should be written as: "Shai," the creature says.
Other than the dialogue punctuation, there aren't any glaring problems in your grammar that I can point out. There are a few kinks here and there, so as someone else suggested, you can read your work out loud to catch phrases that sound unnatural, and change them accordingly. I also suggest leaving this work alone for a few days (or even weeks) so that when you come back to it, it'll be with a "fresh" mind and pair of eyes, if that makes sense. You could have looked over and edited this work so much that you're getting used to the mistakes and thus missing them.
Onto the actual content of your writing, your descriptions are absolutely lovely; you certainly have a talent for painting vivid images. It almost feels like I'm watching a movie in my head instead of forcing myself to imagine it. Every word you've written has kept my eyes glued to the screen, and I love it!
The one thing I'd like to see more of, in this piece, is how Gabrielle feels. I don't really know what she's thinking or feeling. I can see that she wakes up, sees a ring-mark around her finger, and then goes back to sleep, but... how does she feel about the mark? Is she too tired to think about it and decides to deal with it later, in favour of sleep? Does she simply not care? I can see that she's "thinking intently about the black markings and what she should do," but I'd like to know specifically what she's thinking.
I'd like to know these things, because her reactions will tell me more about her personality. Right now, I really can't say much about Gabrielle, except that she's surprisingly calm when she meets a strange hooded creature. As a result, she's quite a bland character at the moment.
That being said, Gabrielle's lack of character isn't a major problem that needs to be fixed immediately. I admit that it's just the first chapter, so I'll have plenty of chances to understand her personality and get to know her as I read more. That being said, I see it as a wasted opportunity to let the readers know what kind of person Gabrielle is.
Another thing that gets bland quickly is your abundant use of "says" once the characters start talking. Gabrielle says this, the creature says that... I suggest using some synonyms for "says" to spice it up a little. Maybe Gabrielle whispers this, or Shai growls that, just to give an example. Right now, there's just a lot of "says" without any description of how they're saying it - as in, the tone of their voice isn't described at all.
If they're just speaking normally, you can omit the "says" and jump straight to the actions they're doing, like you've already done in other places. For example...
... can be written as, "What is this place? And why am I the only one besides you who is awake?" Gabrielle looks around at the many sleeping people laid out on the ground. The "says" is just unnecessary and can bog down your writing.
Plot-wise, I'd love to see where this is going. The main thing that interests me is:
Ohhhh. So in the beginning, Gabrielle is the woman sleeping in the Field of Dreamers? And then a man touches her, leaves a mark, and she wakes up... Am I correct when I say that her ring-mark is a source of magic? So the man gave her magic? That's really interesting (assuming I'm right, haha)! I wonder who the guy is, and what the mark is for. I mean, obviously the title gives it away - it's the mark of the "Light Maiden", but I do wonder what the light maiden does.
Plus, the setting you've created is certainly intriguing. I do want to know where you're heading with the idea of the Field of Dreamers, and what the rest of Elega is like. I'll definitely be reading the next chapters to find out.
And that's all I have to say about this piece! I didn't say too much, so I sincerely apologise if this wasn't too helpful. If anything I said was confusing or unclear, please tell me and I'll do my best to explain it better. Thanks for the great read, and I look forward to seeing more from you! I hope you have a lovely day and keep up the good work.
I did what I could, it's past midnight here, I will try to fix punctuation tomorrow. I will bookmark the link you gave me. Hope the editing is mostly to your liking!
Hello, AneiDoru! I apologize in advance if my review isn't helpful.
Though you haven't gotten the opportunity to go much into how this world works, I'm already pretty intrigued. I love your concept of dreamers, and I love how they only awaken once they have enough magic. I'm eager to learn more about your already impressive world building!
As other people have mentioned in their reviews, the grammar for this chapter could use a little work. My first suggestion is try reading your works out loud before you post them. Doing that has helped me catch a lot of my mistakes in the past, and it doesn't take too long to read a chapter. Checking out some websites that go over grammar is another way you can take care of the problems before they even occur!
There's also some specific things I want to quickly point out before I talk about the rest of this chapter!
When writing dialogue, you would make the first letter of the word after the last quotation mark lowercase. The only exception is if the dialogue tag doesn't have to do with speaking - like with this line down below.
This doesn't have to do with grammar, but I wouldn't come to the assumption that a person was engaged or married if they were wearing a ring. So maybe take that into account for this line?
I've had this problem with my writing before. The reader doesn't get to know the main character's name until far into the work, though I do like your method of showing what her name is! You can try including it in the description at the beginning of the chapter instead of later on. It's not essential, but it's jarring to suddenly see her referred to by her name.
I also loved the description! You have an amazing talent when it comes to writing beautiful descriptions. Like I mentioned earlier, the grammar could use a little fixing and knowing the main character's name earlier on would be great, but, other than that, they're perfect!
I loved this exchange. It's a great way to show the name of the creature, as well as to add a little humor to the start of the story. I hope I can see more funny little lines like this!
I really enjoyed reading your work, and I'm sorry if any part of my review seemed harsh. Also, please feel free to PM me if something I said doesn't make sense. I'd be happy to explain it to you. Keep up the great work - which I doubt you'll have trouble with - and good luck on your writing endeavors! I hope you have a wonderful day/night!
You made a lot of sense, and I singled out some of the stuff you told me to change.
You were right that I had a misspelling and wrong punctuation here and there. Thank you for your review! it was really helpful!
You're welcome! I'm glad it could help you out!
at least the another half is good to keep me reading."
~my mind
Hi.
First, is this a first draft? This chapter is simply filled with good points but all are strayed and many slips (grammar things like run-on-sentences/fragments/etc.) are written here. My style is I don't bother with your grammar unless it is continuously irritating me. Plus, the previous reviewer has covered up some of the crucial mechanics of writing, I won't bother repeating because it will bore you to death and I will be accused of plagiarism people's reviews. (lol)
However, i am a little bit disagree with whatchamacali-whatever his name about the first, second, third paragraphs is crazy (not making sense). I would say it can be better--no, no, no--it must be better. First reason: THIS IS FIRST CHAPTER. Second reason: THIS IS THE PROLOGUE. Third: THIS IS EARLIEST PART OF WHATEVER STORY YOU ARE WRITING.
Ahem~! Sorry for that.
The story flow is so bad in the beginning. It needs some aspirin.
I counted 14 lines in the first paragraph which is if it is written in a foolscap paper narrow lines, it will be like almost a page. Have you ever read a novel like that nowadays? NO. In fact, I think there is no novel that has a paragraph that long (except for some classics) and I don't think there is a novel with a first paragraph that long. That long is a serious like real serious that it feels like Armageddon is near. Understand? Slice that paragraph into two or three paragraphs. You don't want to drop a lot and a lot of information in one place plus in the beginning.
To be frank, it is hard to "make sense" of whatever you are writing until the third paragraph, but I am proud of my detective skills, and understand what are you trying to write there. I won't offer you examples of how to do that because I think that is stepping outside the power of a reviewer. That is an editor job, and definitely, I am not one. Give suggestions I can.
First suggestion, try to write description by a pinch of salt. You have a hell* good skill with descriptions and your vocabularies are rockin'. But try not to put more than what is should. Salt if you put too much is
And yeah, I don't notice this is under fantasy genre till you mentioned magic. (My bad.)
YES, the another half of the story is simply chew-able (enjoyable). Why, you asked? My, my, it is because dialogues started to light up the story because dialogues are simply and just easy to catch on.
Spoiler
I love the names of characters in the chapter and that is it. Keep writing. I might read and review other chapters, but I'm a lazy boy.
zzz
I will try to break the first paragraph into two of them, also, how do I improve the first paragraph besides splitting it?
Ooooohh. You had sliced them apart. Good news. And some of the grammar. I feel the urge to thank you actually. haha. nevermind.
How do you improve the first paragraph besides splitting it, ey? Hard question, but I will have the pleasure to try to get A for this question.
First, put simple sentences into it. I don't mean simply by making it less descriptive, but make shorter sentence like "I eat a pie." Okay, maybe not as simple as that, but try to mix it along with the longer ones. It will make it more lovely to read like there is a good song that has good rhythm.
Second, intriguing points. I don't think you have problems with this because yours got many already, but too much is bye-bye unless you give answers as soon as possible like after two or three paragraphs after that. But in my perception of this story, you didn't.
Wait, wait, wait.
I left the important part. Ahem. Intriguing points are basically indirect things along the roads as you proceed that look intriguing or "WHY IS THAT?" "WHATTT!!!". As long as you are trying to make your reader curious like you did with the unknown man in the first part plus with the wonderful intriguing descriptions about him like SCAR EYES? GHOST SKIN? INK ON HIS FINGER? (XD)
Third advice, give an accurate setting as fast as you can as it is should. Setting such as who the main character (that is not a setting. lol), where is this place, what time is this, night or day. You should not leave your reader to lost. Well, you did have some, but it can be accurate. Use simpler vocabularies that don't require a dictionary by my side. As the story goes on with you able to grasp the readers' curiosity, throw them any words and it will be okay, but not at the earliest point.
Sorry if I miss or make a wrong statement or something because I basically a human. XOXO
zzz
I forgot about the night or day thing, I'll add that in, but I was told by someone else that my descriptions were fine, and that I don't need to simplify, simplifying would make it dull, and I don't want that.
I don't mean simplifying by making it dull. It is not what I meant. I don't mean to ask you to reduce the descriptions.
What I basically want to say, mix short sentence with the long sentences.
Example: "Fishing by the lake of wonderful crystal clear water, Jimmy with his blue eyes has been so frustrated about not getting any catch till now in the afternoon which he came here as early in the morning. Then, it rains. Jimmy with his empty hand but the long fishing rod that his father gave him last year, goes to the nearest tree when flashes of lighting bang and he dies."
See what I meant? XD
Simpler vocabularies don't mean simpler descriptions.
I'll try, also, I'm editing in 3 places at once, so do be patient, ok? it's a nightmare to edit in 3 places at one time
Hi AneiDoru!
Whatcha here for a review!
First off, a tip: every time someone says something, you start a new line. If you press enter you start a new paragraph, so to start a new line you hold shift and press enter.
See,
"I love you," she said to him. "And I you."
is confusing, but
"I love you," she said to him.
"And I you."
isn't.
Grammar wise, and spelling, I have nothing to say. Let me tell you, I love when people use good grammar.
However, I would like to address punctuation.
Okay, so the first and second paragraph don't make sense, until you get to the third. To fix that, instead of saying she at the beginning of the second paragraph, say 'Gabriella'.
Feelings. Feelings are very important. Right now you are saying what's happening - what you want is the character telling, if that makes any sense. For example, how would Gabriella feel to see a strange creature with no face? I would be disturbed and scared. So you could add something along the lines of,
Gabriella turned to face a short creature with a hole for a face, (or whatever) and shrieked. "Who-what- are you?!?"
Not much else to say!
This can use a lot of polishing, but other than that it's quite good!
If you have any questions, feel free to PM me (you can go to my profile by clicking on my name, and then, to the left, you can click on 'PM whatchamacallit'.) or leave a comment on here
~whatcha
EDIT: the rating for this, come to think of it, doesn't really make sense. You only need 18+ for language if it includes stuff like 'sh**', 'f***', 'b*****', etc. And mature content is ... extreme romance, shall we say? And there's no real violence in here, or if there was, it'd only be 16+. Just to keep in mind for future works!
It will include those words soon and I want to be consistent, also she thinks she's dreaming so seeing something like that wouldn't phase her much, she's had werider dreams. I can change some things but I have a lot of places I post to and changing all of it on all of them takes too much time.
Also you don't know her name yet so why would I tell you her name when nobody has said it yet?
I can't do the extra spacing like you said unfortunately, that would take too long and it would ruin paragraphs, I use other means to make it less confusing.
But do you ever know when you're in a dream? Does she? If so, then, yes, her reactions are realistic.
But I still found it confusing, so ...
Her name? Well, as far as I know, it's very normal to call somebody by their name right away.
Books take a long time, regardless
But like I said, I like this, but reviews are mostly for critiquing.
I know, and since I don't space things out, I use other means, it may take more thinking on how to do it but I do make it less confusing in other ways, hitting enter in the middle of a paragraph isn't needed.