Winter
.
.
He felt...enchanted? Yes, that was it. And her name, Autumn. When his pack left last night, he couldn't stop thinking about her icy blue eyes. He fell asleep thinking about her eyes. And her golden fur. He could remember the feel of her tail flicking his muzzle when she left. He didn't even know her and yet-
"...and Winter." Sun finished and backed down from the top of the stump above her den that she had burrowed out. Winter had been daydreaming about her again and now he had both no clue what he was supposed to do and too much pride to ask Sun. Thankfully, Mouse called over to him.
"Winter." Her flirty voice carried over to him. She was a pretty grey female with gold eyes. Her tail was long and thinner than his. "We're supposed to be patrolling." She blinked at him and continued out of camp, her tail lightly brushing the ground. He trotted after her. He flanked her.
"Where are we going again?"
"Down to the river."
"Just us?"
She looked back at him, "Yes." Mouse trotted off mysteriously in the wrong direction. It was the right direction once he remembered where it led.
An abandoned thicket was down this path. Well, it was almost abandoned. Mouse entered and Winter followed, her tail trailed behind her. Winter stood beside her; he licked her shoulder. Her ears twitched and she nuzzled his throat. Mouse layed down on her side and he did the same, facing her. She tucked her head under his muzzle and he held her close. They stayed that way for what seemed like days. In reality, it was only heartbeats before Mouse lifted her head to lick his nose playfully.
"I love you." She told him. Mouse told him all the time, as if she thought he would forget it.
"I love you too." Winter licked her nose affectionately. "We should probably patrol now before Sun sends someone out to find us."
The two wolves licked their fur back into place and continued on the patrol. When the two returned to camp, Mouse's sister eyed the couple, she stepped forward, grinning mischievously. Mouse addressed the brown furred female, Rat.
"Hi, Rat." The two seemed like they knew something; something important. Mouse's eyes had the same mischievous glint, but she quickly trotted away, taking Rat with her.
Winter found his three brothers, Eagle, Night and Calf - the runt of the litter - and together they left to find the buried remains of a cow elk. They talked for a while before returning to camp at sunset. By then Winter had forgotten about the sisters' weird behaviour.
That night, Winter and Mouse climbed into the nest that they shared. It had been crammed and the feel of her chest fur brushing against hers reminded him again of Autumn. He wondered if perhaps she was thinking about him too. Winter had almost fallen asleep when Mouse woke him up and guided him out of camp. He carefully stepped around his pack mates and stretched out his back when he emerged from the den. Mouse kept going, always staying two wolf lengths in front of Winter.
"Where are we going?" The grey female didn't turn back and instead began running, frolicking between bramble bushes. Winter decided to play her game for a while. The chased each other as if they were pups playing tag until they reached the moonlit river. Mouse had been ahead of him and was seated in the midst of a cluster of tall, thickly leaved birch trees, with thick vegetation. He dashed up and attacked her from behind, pinning her to the ground.
When they settled, she was panting for breath. She didn't normally get so tired so quickly. Just the other day they had a race to see who could run from camp, to the river and back. Mouse had won. Winter backed off the female. She hauled herself to her paws and sat beside him. Winter looked into her eyes and for the heartbeat that she gazed at the moon, he was hypnotised by her beauty. He blurted the first thought that came to mind.
"I wish we had a den all to ourselves. Then we wouldn't have to worry about waking up the others." Winter butted her shoulder with his muzzle. She smiled. He loved her and had always imagined them being together.
"Well," Mouse began quietly, "There's always the nursery." Winter's ears perked at her comment.
"Don't forget the sound of small paw steps." He replied. Winter lay down and tucked her against his belly, imagining the pups there. They would be; in only a few moons. Winter had a mate, he had pups on the way, he had a pack to help raise them and keep them safe. Winter had everything.
That night he imagined that same scenario, but in Mouse's place was a golden and white female from the Dark Pack; Autumn. Winter was frustrated that he just wasn't content with what he had. Later, when the first rays of dawn light reached the snuggled pair of wolves, Winter felt a pull to the hill where he had last felt content.
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,798 Reviews
Hey, CocoaCat. We didn't exactly leave off on the right foot, but I hope that you can accept my criticism with grace and respect. Happy Review Day!
This sentence feels really random. What about her name? It seems like you just inserted it to remind the audience that that is who Winter is thinking about, which, while useful to people like me who don't follow the novel, is completely unnecessary for normal readers.
This is a completely unnecessary piece of information. You essentially restated what you just said already. You've already shown us, so you don't need to tell us too.
These are two simple sentences with almost exactly the same structure. Sometimes, it's appropriate to do this for dramatic effect, but this isn't exactly an action that requires emphasis, so I'd combine the two to make a more interesting sentence.
I like this line. It tells us a lot about what Winter thinks of Mouse without being too direct.
When I read this, it gave me the idea that Winter is the one carrying the pups. That obviously doesn't make any sense, so I'd change it so that it's talking about Mouse's belly instead.
Overall, I wasn't super impressed. There were a few good lines, but the plot still feels very same-y and nothing special or unique. You haven't diverged much from the Warrior cats novels and the story is suffering for it. I don't want to read something that I can get somewhere else, and I can get this somewhere else. There's not much different to the setting and the story other than the main characters are wolves. The main plot is something that I've seen a lot in the Warriors series and even in fanfiction. There's nothing wrong with taking inspiration from something, but you're using this as a crutch, and that's not good writing.
There's also the fact that this is disingenuous because I've never seen you credit the books at all. Inspiration is one thing, but plagiarism is something else entirely, and I cannot condone it. Anything that you create completely out of your own head is going to be a million times better than something regurgitated with minimal change. I believe that you are creative and talented enough to come up with your own original ideas.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reply to this review or pm me, but please keep it civil. I don't give this criticism to hurt your feelings.
~Ink
Thanks for the review
Hey Cocoa! I still haven't read up on the rest of this story, so most of my critique is going to be based around style and what happens in the chapter itself, rather than the overall story or plot development.
This one starts out okay, but the "had both" phrase kills it. Because the phrases are so long after it, it's easy to get lost and go "wait -- what happened?" Instead, you could try something that shows more character, along the lines of: That shows us a bit of his pride instead of telling us "he was prideful".Overall: Your writing isn't bad! You're grammatically excellent in most places, so that's a good start. I'd suggest a second pass editing for awkward phrases (expanded in details), and probably taking a look at your descriptions. What are you showing, and what are you telling? Can you show more? What can be told instead?
Details:
First, you've got some awkward phrasing in some places. For example:
You have a lot of Subject Verbed sentences, and this is just a highlight of how monotone those can get. She blinked. He trotted. He flanked. Instead, you could fix the last two sentences by combining them into one -- or just eliminating "He trotted after her", because of course he's following if he's flanking her.
I would keep an eye out for awkward places like this. Read the chapter aloud if you have to in order to spot them! It's actually a really useful tool for finding places you might have messed up or said something you didn't mean to.
Second, I really hope Mouse doesn't end up being a villain just because she's getting between the heroes' One True Love. Like, I get that Autumn and Winter are supposed to be infatuated with each other right now, but if Winter has a mate? And is expecting a litter? Why would he, a monogamous wolf, be having thoughts of adultery? Does wolf society define adultery the same way human society does?
More importantly, is Mouse a villain? Because if she is, that delegates her into a character slot simply because she was in the way. It's kind of coming across -- because she and Rat have information Winter doesn't -- that she's a little suspicious of a character.
Third, why isn't Winter content? You tell us he isn't, but you don't really show us why in this chapter, at least. He's not happy where he is, despite having everything he wanted to begin with -- what's making him discontent? Just the sight of Autumn? Or is it the leadership of the pack? This ties back into the pride thing earlier, too: Don't just tell us he feels things, show us why he feels things and how they make him act. He's our viewpoint character for this chapter, so we should know everything that's going on in his mind.
To finish, while your writing is grammatically and functionally sound, it's stylistically lacking and begs the reader to fill in the gaps you've left in your description. You've written a cute little romance here between Mouse and Winter and failed to leave us with a reason why he would be discontent, besides the fact that Autumn is the Female Main Character and the Prettiest Wolf In The World. Meanwhile, Winter's legitimate love interest and mate is acting suspiciously and might turn out to be evil.
It's ambiguous and hard to tell what's actually going on because while the description of the setting is there, and their actions are as well, there's nothing tying everything together. You've given us a When, What, Where, and Who, but not a Why or How.
I'm left with a lot of questions, and not the kind that make me want to read farther -- the kind that make me want to look it up on Wikipedia for spoilers in case it's as bad as I'm dreading.
Keep writing!
Thanks for the review, I just hope you all know that the novel has been discontinued, cause I feel like suddenly tons of people are reviewing these
Hope you all enjoy!
@CorruptedArrow @Mea @RoseAndThorn @BlueAfrica @saentiel @Supe4Natural @Lael @alliyah @TheBlueCat @Lupa22 @CharlotteS @Radrook @KaiRyu @Evander @Sheytato @Lake @Justlittleoleme2 @TheBlueCat .
If anyone does not want to be tagged let me know; likewise, if you DO want to be tagged but you weren't, also let me know!
Hi Cocoa. I love your story so far. Could you please tag me for future posts?
Sure, not a problem. I'm glad you like it