Hello Belzer! I'm WD, nice to meet you. You have some interesting characters that you introduce in this bit and I'm quite fond of the initial impressions I have gathered from Anna and her master. First, I'm just going to comment on your first chapter. Hopefully, I can get around to the other chapters later.
All right, so you seem to have a good feeling for your characters, and the actions you have here are very telling about the positions of your characters and how they interact with each other. A very informing first chapter you have here. I'm not going to line-by-line this, mainly because there are just a few overarching things I'd like to address that I think can help you improve this piece.
1. Description
I believe Dreamer has touched on this, but you have a lot of description here and this is not necessarily a bad thing, but I feel like there are a few things you can do to improve it. Description is good for setting a scene, good for describing characters and really immersing the reader in your world, but too much of it can really weight down a story and overwhelm the reader, especially if you begin the piece heavy with description. So first I'm going to talk about selection of detail.
Detail is an extremely important part of developing this setting and story; however, as writers, we have to be very aware of what is essential to the story, what is significant and intriguing for the story and what is just the background noise in our minds as he we imagine what is happening. While it is nice to have extremely detailed and vivid images of something, readers need wiggle room to form their own interpretations and images. Detail is extremely important and makes a story engaging, but too much robs of the reader of the creative process of filling in the gaps you leave. So, selection of detail. As writers, we must select very carefully what we describe and what we don't. I feel like in this first chapter, you have a lot engaging images, but they are all over the place. Go back through your chapter and look at all of things you describe and ask yourself a few questions: Is this necessary? Is this significant in the future or present of the story? Does this image really need to be painted? How intriguing is this image? What does this do besides paint an image? (I am a firm believer that good paragraphs and sentences do multiple things for a story) Could a reader gather this from my other descriptions? Does this motivate or inhibit hte flow of the story and why? I know this is a lot to consider, but ,as you write, your details need to be chosen. Eventually, you'll get to a point where you make these decisions and ask these questions without realizing it, but I would really suggest going back through here and really paying attention to why you are choosing the details you do.
Now, regarding adjectives. Adjectives are great for description. I love them. But, as heartbreaking as it is, verbs are better. I'm going to get more into this when I talk about characterization, but, in general, cut down on the adjectives and really think about your verbs. Specific verbs are the first mode of powerful images; adjectives are there to fill in the gaps.
Lastly, I want to talk about the sentence structure of your description. As I've said, description is not bad, but organization is key to making it work. And key to not overwhelming the reader. So, I'm going to take a paragraph I thought demonstrated my point best:
#FF0000 ">The bed in the brightening room stirred as plump old Anna awoke as the sunshine shone through the tatty curtains. Years of hard work had made her disciplined. She quickly rose from her bed and proceeded to prepare herself for the day ahead. Dashing about the bleak and pokey room, she pulled her working clothes out of the wardrobe. #FF0000 ">These consisted of a bleak grey dress, a white and tatty apron, and a black under shirt. She then stood adjacent to her window, where she could barely see her reflection, and carefully adjusted her hair. She was now ready to wake up the Master.
Okay, the thing with the way you are describing is that your sentences are coming across as wandering and unfocused. Sentence complexity and variation are great, but the sentences need to be managable and they need to communicate a clear point. First, let's look at your first sentence. First of all, you have two phrases beginning with 'as'. This double 'as' phrase quickly overwhelms the reader as we are forced to pay attention to two things she is doing while performing her initial action in the first sentence. The trick here is not deciding that she can not do one of the phrase. It is phrasing it in such a way that you trick the reader into not being overwhelmed. Meaning, it's time to split up sentences. Phrases and clauses are great, but sentences need to be manageable.
So, some sentence rearranging. How about this:
Anna awoke as the sunshine shone through the tatty curtains of the brightened room, stirring the sheets of her bed.
I'm still not a fan of all the adjectives used here, but that sounds more manageable to me, don't you think?
The next red sentence. Now I'm going to tell you to make this sentence more complicated. Coming out and saying 'these consist' at the beginning of the sentence sets the reader up thinking you're going to describe something. In general, don't do that, at least for now. It's better to incorporate description into significant thoughts than to set it apart and tell the reader that you are about to describe something. So instead of beginning a new sentence let's just say she pulled her bleak gray dress etc. out of the wardrobe, ready to go off for work, integrating that thought into an active sentence.
All right, I know that was a massive rundown of description, and I do not mean to overwhelm you, but these are things I think will really help you improve if you think about them. Now onto the other points. I promise they will not be as long.
2. Character Developement and Mannerisms
As I have said, your characters have a strong feel about them. It is obvious that you know them very well, which is why I'm going to challenge you with your adjectives and detail. Right now you are using a lot of adjectives to describe Anna. Use verbs. Verbs are more powerful characterization tools than adjectives. The specific word used for how Anna does something is going to speak ten times louder than a slew of adjectives and adverbs. The sentence 'the dog scampered' is more telling than the sentence 'the desperate, scared dog ran'. So go back through this and take a look at your verbs, gauge how you can make them more specific and cut down on some adjectives as not to clutter things.
Now, mannerisms. Your most effective tool in development. You are describing a lot of Anna's actions here, so the problem is not that you are not using action to give us a clear picture of her. The problem is that the things she does are extremely plot-driven. They are things that anyone does. She gets dressed. She gets ready for work. But now, we need mannerisms. Mannerisms can take either the form of specific verbs (aforementioned) or strange habits and odd actions your character takes. Does she get dressed or does she throw on her clothes? Does she sing while she gets dressed? Does she stomp on the floor whie she walks? Details, basically. Mannerisms are small details that make your character more distinct, and adding these will greatly improve your character development and also help you cut down on unnecessary adjectives.
3. Dialogue
Last point, I promise!
Dreamer has already mentioned this, but your dialogue seems a little unnatural at times. I believe this is due to description, which is why I'm not going to go on and on about this, because I have already talked to you about adjectives. Too many adjectives in the dialogue for me to believe the characters. So I am going to suggest the most helpful thing for dialogue. Read it aloud. I know, it might be embarrassing. But stand up and adopt your character's posture and read it. No, don't just read it. Read it in your character's voice and if you start stumbling or grimace or think it sounds odd, then it is. So change it. Do this and you're going to avoid a whole slew of problems, including unnatural dialogue.
Over all, this is a nice start. As I have said, your characters are clearly very vivid in your head and your images are interesting, but I think you just need to harness your talent and really select what is important what is not out of this. Go through each adjective and sentence and ask yourself what it's doing. Eventually, this will come naturally, but right now grill yourself on what each sentence is doing. It will help you loads in the long run. You have a lot of talent; I think you just need to harness it some.
Very nice work and keep on writing! I can't wait to read more of your writing, and hopefully I can get around to your next chapters. Have fun writing and if you have any questions or want any further help or elaboration, please do feel free to PM me.
Happy writing!
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