Young Writers Society

Heya Chuck. Firstly, just watch out that you don't switch and change tenses. You started out in the present tense, then switched to the past, then back to the present, in just a couple of sentences. I don't know if that was a result of co-writing, but it's something that you will need to sort out. Also, just grammar, generally. Make sure if a new person is speaking, it's on a new line, etc.
Another thing, the names Sarah and Sahara are so similar, so it can be a little confusing for the reader.
I think that, after you edit, you'll have something really good. Because it's all bunched upi together at the moment, it doesn't flow very well, but the ideas are good. I think that if it was longer, even if you added stuff and made it in to more chapters, the flow would feel much more natural, because at the moment it's kind of BAM BAM BAM, and then the reader has to digest all that's happened in one short paragraph.
Good ideas on plot, but definitely needs editing. Keep at it!

Hello Chuck. Before I start reviewing this proper, I'd just like make a note that, when you co-write something, it's always a good idea to get permission from your co-writer first before posting. Sometimes posting co-written works can lead to messy drama because the other person didn't want to share the writing just yet, and asking helps avoid such.

With that said, just reading over the first few paragraphs gives me the immediate impression that this piece wasn't ready for posting. Everything is jumbled together, and for a moment there, I was left wondering if you and Lylas had switched between telling this story in first-person to telling it in third-person, and then you went switching in between characters, which was way confusing.

Another thing that was really confusing was telling Sarah and Sahara apart. Their names are so similar with how they have the same letters, and I really think changing one of their names so that their names are more distinct would be a good idea. Sometimes, it seemed like the two of you got their names confused, which made the confusion even worse.

Overall, you have an interesting premise here, but the events move really, really fast, so they're all jumbled together. Mix that in with the crazy viewpoint shenanigans, and this is really difficult to follow. I'd recommend picking a single viewpoint and sticking with it for most of the chapter instead of switching every few paragraphs, as well as breaking up the dialogue into paragraphs so that the dialogue is easier to follow. Your pacing could also use work, with how all these crazy events are happening one after the other, without any time for the characters to really react to them.

This article might help you with dialogue, and this article might help you with pacing. The main thing to remember about dialogue is that every time a different character speaks or does something, you should start a new paragraph. It makes keeping track of who does what much easier for your readers.

Hey there, Chuck and Ly! This is the first prose I’ve read from either of you.

Sadly, I wasn’t impressed. This might have potential to be something decent, but is so filled with incongruences and grammatical mistakes that it just didn’t work. At all. So many grammatical errors. So many mistakes. I recommend you run things through a spellchecker, and possibly read it before posting! I get you basically copy/pasted paragraphs from titanpad and collaged them, but still.

Now, onto general nit-picking.

I dislike the first part, when you give us the character’s names and their ages. That tells us absolutely nothing about them. You also won’t see it happen anywhere in a novel. Seriously, nix it, and maybe tell us something about the characters in the actual chapter, yes?

I wake up in my old apartment. It was smelly and small. But it was all we could afford.

She said sitting down (…)

"Yes, I'm fine, just tired" I lied.

"no I'm fine. I think I can survive school." I said

She picked up a photo album and pulled the small door closed enclosing her in a space just small enough to sit down in and pulled herself into a ball and started to cry.

She always thought about Williams death when she went to bed but it never made sense to her how could he just die that suddenly on a business trip from a disease he had never even had and was in perfect health.

She put the ring in her safe as she heard Sahara call her name. "bye Sarah!!!!" "bye
Sahara!" and she got up and went to do chores.

Sahara was walking down the road towards school.

"what? Where's what?!?"

"I.DON'T HAVE.IT!!!" I kicked the guy in the face. She used a sharp edge sticking off the van to cut the ropes.

(…) We can tell your the chosen one. (…)

"long ago your uncle Jack made a deal with another world between the spiritual world and here. Storybrooke. The fairytales live there. his deal was if he could finish living every single fairytale, he would be able to live forever. but if he didn' t live through some of the worst ones, it would be passed down to the next Grimm. but it usually only happens to men. not women. but you, it has been after. so you are destined to finish the tales. but you must live through them. there is no escaping them either." she looked at me to see how I was taking it. "what did those guys want then?" I asked. "The Story." she said coldly. I shivered. "Where is it?" I asked. "It will show itself to you when it is ready to help you." she told me. "So what do we do until then?"