Young Writers Society

Hello! I'm also going to try a review this time. Or a bit of stanza by stanza anaylsis.

I almost wanted to read a clean copy of this without the text/pronounciation notes. If YWS formatting was more conducive to this I would suggest foot notes rather than in-text notes.
I still love the incorporation of the dialect though.

The phrasing of "hold on tight" seemed a bit too modern for this piece, but made me laugh. But I thought the first stanza was pretty strong again bringing us immediately into the story.

The mortal ravens bit was nice, it reminded me of Eragon if you've read that with the gloves as masks part -- nice metaphor and a bit of a riddle.

Next stanza about the raven's hatred -- I liked that you started to draw out the background (saying that the hate is rooted in jealousy) to give the reader's some background for better understanding.

I'm a bit confused as to who the "Heir" is referring to in the following stanza.

The dialogue is perfect in that last stanza too -- clear and plot advancing without being too wordy. The last line "This day ends in vict'ry or death" was a nice cliff-hanger.

I absolutely agree with Kyll that this section seemed a little shorter than the other, and I wanted a little bit more of the story to chew on. Let me know when you post again. I hope some of this was helpful!

~alliyah

I'm baaack~! And in time to do the first review dang. I think everyone else might be feeling the end-of-the-month-reviewing-spree burnout effect. Or they're stuck in school.

In any case, this part feels a lot, lot shorter than the first, and there is a distinct lack of marvelous maid. Oh well. I hope she returns later on because it would be sad if she were only there for the one bit never to be seen again, especially considering how close she and the princess supposedly are.

With that said, I do think you could go into a bit more detail as to the origins of the strife. Right now, despite declaring that you'll tell us what has been and that it isn't a fun thing to hear about/tell of, there's not much actually terrible going on, and it basically boils down to the Unseelie want to be free in the world but the Ravens are holding them back, which works as a bare-bones basic concept, but I was expecting some more sordid history to be spilled in a bit more detail, to better emphasize the gravity of the mark appearing.

I'm also wondering why you want to tie Queen Mab/the Unseelie to Shakespeare specifically rather than drawing upon the larger folklore behind them. I think the reference works better from a folkloric standpoint than a Shakespearean one as it also opens up room for a potentially paralleled dethroning of rulers between the king and princess and Mab and Titania.

As far as the meter goes, I'm going to hold off on that until after you possibly expand this. ;P