Young Writers Society

Okay, this was great.

As a christian, I can truly appreciate this, I'm going to let my friends know about this, and show it too them.

It was amazing, your characters are believable, real, and emotional.

I really am wishing there was more to this, really.
But that's just me getting in trouble with short stories, lol.

I like it how you made the miracle, the real miracle, come by.
It was great.

The idea is, for me historical, and goes well with the bible. I appreciated it a lot.
Your grammar is exquisite as well, I was only able to find a couple of minor mistakes that I think some other people will have already pointed out too you.

I don't read much Christian writing around here these days, or anywhere. And this was a great change. I'm going to go and look through your other work, do some more reading on what you write.

Keep up the good work, I'm glad to find it.

Some day here I'm gonna try one of these, a Christian story like this.

It was inspiring.

Keep writing - you have my compliments on this for sure.

I just loved this, Hayden Although everybody's contest entries were truly fantastic, I thought that this definately desereved to be in the top three - I've therefore given you third place YAY!
More than anybody else's, I found this one piece of writing to be one of the most descriptive and without any mistakes.
I also love your character.
Well done!!!
I'll be back soon with your points... That I need to get o_O
Good luck
Emmzziee

This is really good.
It gives a really good mind movie and i really like that. Its like i dont have to work so hard to get what you mean!
Keep writing!!!

Fly On~ Raven

Hello, Hayden!
Finally, I get to a review! Ok, so let's get started...

Hayden, you don't need me to tell you that you're a brilliant writer: for heck's sake - a publisher is interested in your work!
As always, your prose was controlled, with just the right balance between flowery stuff, dialogue, and description. I love how you are the "master" of your story; I mean that you never let anything slip or an unbalance to occur. Basically, your story was tight and seamless.
As for your characters, they were beliveable, and relateable. The emotions you ushered into your characters made them very true-to-life. I think one of the reasons a story 'stays with' or is memorable in the mind of a reader is because the story in question appealed to their emotions. Lira felt and acted in a normal, human way, and I, as the reader, really sympathised with her.
Now, I'll get on with a few nitpicks. I have nothing major to point out, only just a few sentences, the structure of which I feel could be improved.

No 1, here we go:

HaydenSmith wrote:Starvation had gutted her, too, making her long and thin

HaydenSmith wrote:on Golgotha, The Skull

HaydenSmith wrote:Lira darted through the alleyways, her dress tossing up dust as she ran

HaydenSmith wrote:The strap of her leather satchel swung against her breasts

I have to go and make our dinner now, but I'll review tommorow night, promise!

Well, well done. Thank you for sharing such a good example of what God has done to save us.

Keep writing,
~FW~

Hey Hayden!
So I'm just going to point out a few things that I noticed. (It's wonderful, by the way )
One thing that kinda irked me was the fact that you start out with a few sentences of action and then immediately cut to several paragraphs of description. Maybe that can't be helped. But if it's at all possible you might be able to incorporate some more of that action into the descriptive parts.
Throughout the entire story you do fantastically in varying your sentence structures. Until this paragraph right here:

Lira knew where Golgotha was. It was to the north. She would have to cut through the heart of the Upper City to find Yeshua in time. The sun was surrounded by shadowy clouds that were approaching over every horizon. The heat of the afternoon had been replaced by a chilling wind. Lira peered up at the sun. The clouds would smother it in minutes.

The price for a broken jar was a beating.

The price to save men from sin is a dead God.

I love this. I read the more expanded part of this that you sent me a while back, but this is just as great. I don't remember excatly how you ended the other one, but consider adding this to the ending somehow. Jesus' death is such a powerful love story and you've portrayed it so beautifully through Lira.

Okay, so I've already read this. And I read it again...and I cried, again. This is awesome dude. Keep it up!

Hi there!

This was a very good read. You deveolped your character very well and even had me feeling bad for her. Your descriptions were good, quite realistic actually. I'm impressed that you decided to write about such a heavy topic. I was kind of sceptical before I read this, wondering if it would be historically correct, but it was.

Shouldn't you capitalize 'he' when talking about Christ? I've always been taught to do that. And also, at the time that Jesus was going to be crucified, those who reached out to help him would be in deep trouble. Why was Lira spared from punishment, especially since everyone though she was a witch?

Great job! Keep writing!