Published October 11, 2011
Prologue
The newborn squealed as her mother swaddled her in a blanket, tightly woven by hand from the finest grasses of the land. Gently lifting the infant, she cradled it carefully until the weeping stopped and the breathing slowed. She looked down at her new daughter, and, flinching back in alarm, she nearly dropped her child. On the baby's neck, she noticed, was a letter, a symbol of great importance and danger in this land.
She darted through the vast maze of trees, the child in her firm grasp. When her feet could carry her no longer, she collapsed to the ground, bursting into tears. She had a nearly impossible decision to make, both sides promising danger to both her and her child.
Finally silencing her weeping, she lay there, deep in the terrifying thoughts of the decision that she knew would come back to haunt her for all of her future days.
She stood, trembling, gripping her baby as if trying to prevent it from vanishing before her very eyes. The young mother stared down at her infant, trying to form memories for future days, trying to lock away the image of the child she knew could not stay with her. Setting the newborn down on a pile of leaves near a narrow path, she took off, leaving her child for death, knowing she would never see her again.
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141,357 Literary Works • 674,380 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
Anyway let's get right to it,
Well this is a lovely start, we've got a very slow start of sorts with the whole newborn coming up situation there, and its a wholesome moment of a mother potentially looking a child that was only quite recently born by the context this appears to be in at the moment. Then that surprise twist there of the child having some kind of dangerous sounding symbol and the mother flying into a panic of sorts to run away really hits you quite powerfully as a reader here and it definitely manages to get your attention and do it quite well.
Oh dear, well this just intensified things even more right there, it looks like whatever symbol this is means its a death sentence for the child and well you can certainly see the kind of horror and grief as a mother has to make the choice of leaving the child for dead...there's quite a bit of emotion there, I almsot feel like the mother's reaction here isn't enough while at the same time I am wondering how something could be terrifying enough to drive a mother to abandon her own child like that. Well well, this is a powerful scene to start things off on right here.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Okay, this is quite good. You're a reasonable talented writer from what I picked up, but I noticed that you've been comma splicing. You've used (roughly) a comma for every 20 words. That's a huge ratio of commas, and all it does is slow the story down. I used to have a problem with this so I know how hard it is to quit (God, I sound like a chain-smoker) but it really improves your writing, trust me. I couldn't find anything else that SlyNightOwl didn't mention, so well done and keep it up!
I think the correct way of writing this would be: She looked down at her new daughter and, flinching back in alarm, she nearly dropped her child.
Why/how?
I'm assuming she dropped to her knees, right? She can't really collapsed to the ground without landing on the baby.
AHHHH!
. . .
I love this~<3 Is this a novel you're working on because it sounds great! *Follows you* Your imagery is nice and easy to imagine. Beautifully written! The ending makes me sad and wonder if her child is really going to die or be found and raised by different people. I hope you update soon(: