The Journey to Nevercross

Hi AwesomeSauce!

I do like mythological/fantasy novels, so yay! This was also quite well-written, I couldn't spot any grammatical mistakes, so double yay!

However, there's this exception:

names

Hey there AwesomeSauce!

Hope you're enjoying the site and I love your name! Just stopped by to have a quick look at your story.

So let's start with some nitpicks -

Let me take you down to this town of Tinsel, to this place where you may meet the Frey that are here. - You don't need to 'that are here' at the end of the sentence. We already know they're there because that's why we're going there! Plus if you take this off it will make the sentence a lot more punchy.

The lake is where all the magic from the Water Elementals dancing around the lake. - This sentence doesn't really make sense. I'm not sure what you're trying to tell me. Are you saying the magic is from the Water Elementals dancing around the lake?

they dance in circles in tune of the music that is playing. - Did you mean 'to the music playing'

wooden and boring in my eyes, but in yours may be different. - It should probably be 'but in yours it may be different.'

Now onto some more general points!

I'm a sucker for Fairy lore and different kind of mythical beings (I have a large number of books on the subject) so this kind of story really interests me and the concept of this world being in London and secret but there and real is very intriguing. I also love the sound of the world and how you have all the different type of beings together and I am interested to know Neon better and find about the adventure.

I think my points only relate to how it's written. The ideas are all there and the interesting material, I just think it could do with a little more thought put into the execution.

So let's have a look! First of all I would say that you need to work somewhat on the way you write. You have a tendency to get a little awkward in the way you are phrasing your sentences. I can see what you want to say but it seems like you get a little twisted up in your own words. I used to do this a lot (still do sometimes too) and it took someone to point it out to me before I could start working on it. I think something that might help you is to read your story out loud. This is always useful because when you speak it out and the sentence is awkward, you tend to trip over the words and this can show you what needs fixing. I had a lecturer once who told me that my essay was only ready to hand in once I got all the way through reading it out without faltering once. Kind of joined with this, you sometimes have a tendency to add little unneeded words in a sentence or tell us something you already told us a few lines back. So just watch that. You don't need to repeat things.

The other thing I'd like to point out is how you tell the story...or prologue here I suppose. Whilst I find it very interesting that you've written it in second person, and at times really see this working, it also has a downside. Because you have chosen to write this way, you've ended up telling us rather than showing us. As the reader is being lead through the other world the character that is leading them is just telling the reader what is there rather than describing it and allowing us to imagine it. This means that I'm not getting enough of a sense of the magic and wonder of this world because it's not being described to me. So perhaps it would be worth having a look at that. Trying to keep the second person at the same time as describing the place.

An example of this telling would be - She is the princess of Tinsel, but she doesn't portray it. She's a warrior, fights off evil across the magical lands that we live in.

Here you just told us about the Princess rather than allowing her to portray who she is through things such as dialogue and how she behaves around other characters.

I know this is a Prologue and it seems that the style might change for the rest of the story but the Prologue is also going to be the first thing the reader gets to. In that sense you want a punchy beginning, something that really draws the reader in and makes them want to keep reading.

But like I said, the concept is so very interesting and I really hope you continue with it because I want to know who Neon is!!

If you have any questions then just feel free to PM me

And I hope you continue to have a look around the site and get to know everyone and help other people with their stories.

Bex x

Hi, Sarah! Welcome to YWS again!

The title of this caught my eye and was why I wanted to take a closer look. Even if it might be fairly basic for a fantasy story like this, it sounds *so* beautiful. I love the name Nevercross.

I liked the way this was constructed as a sort of a virtual tour - I could actually imagine some of the places and things that were mentioned. There might have been a little too many types of creatures to digest at first read (especially a prologue), but I still quite like how they were all included.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this place actually exists in the city of London, England? It must be, since it wasn't clarified to be anything else. The Frey must be reaaaally tiny! It's so cute and exciting to think there is a whole another land, just in a random park. It reminds me of the early Peter Pan stories, where he lived in a park in London, too, I think? *checks* Ah yes - Kensington Gardens. It's such a cool concept, because I liked to think as a child that there were little fairies living in places like that.

Well, since this is a prologue, it's a bit difficult to say anything about the story itself! I'm not sure whether I'd necessarily pick this up if I saw it in a library or something, mainly because fantasy isn't my favourite thing. However, I can't help but wonder where you're going to go with the story, so at least you've got me intrigued.

See you around!


Demeter
x

nice i thought it was cool

adel