Young Writers Society

#004000 ">This definitely has potential- but it needs a lot of work punctuation-wise. There are so many easy ways to tell where to start a new paragraph. I'll make a boring list:
1. Every time someone new talks hit the enter key to make a new paragraph.
2. Every time you change the scene or skip to later on.
3. Your own judgment. Sometimes you can make a new paragraph to make a sentence stand out. For example:
Bob thought he would be safe now.
He was wrong.
See?
Okay moving on to punctuation. (wee!)
Bob was hungry he wanted to go home but he couldn't because he got lost in a store the store was big and there were too many aisles in it when he asked for help the man ignored him and then walked away Bob felt sad.
That is called a run-on sentence. It's hard to read isn't it? But it's really easy (and often fun) to add periods. commas, question marks? and exclamation points!
Here is the same sentence fixed up:
Bob was hungry. (that's a sentence) He wanted to go home, (comma) but he couldn't because he got lost in a store. (period) The store was big and there were too many aisles in it. (period) When he asked for help the man ignored him and then walked away. Bob felt sad, he thought he'd never get home. (added idea)

Okay that's all I'm going to do today. Please don't be discouraged, just try to make this easier to read. Then it will be really good. Thank you for asking me to review. Keep writing.

#FF0040 ">~Crazy

Hi Garland,

Reviewing as per your request.

I'm afraid I had difficulty with this story. It's riddled with spelling and grammar errors: the very first sentence has at least two. You seem to be aiming for past tense, but the story frequently lapses into present. Your use of speech marks for reported speech is confusing. For me, the story becomes almost unreadable at times because of the lack of basic skills like grammar, punctuation and spelling -- I stopped reading just before the giant block paragraphs of death. I suggest a thorough proofread to ensure a polished, professional presentation.

I found my enjoyment of the story was impaired by point of view problems. Point of view is about the character through whose eyes we perceive the story, and also about how deep into his mindset we get. The opening line, "Our story begins", seems to be from the point of view of an omniscient (all-seeing) narrator -- except the narrator never recurs, so I wonder if it's a mistake. It also breaks the third wall and reminds us that we're only readers reading a story, which for me damages immersion and suspension of disbelief. When I read a piece, I don't want to be reminded that it's only fake: I want to be immersed in the story, experiencing the protagonist's thoughts, feelings and perceptions.

Raphael seems to be at least nominally the protagonist, but there is frequent head-hopping into different points of view such as his mother and the bounty hunters. Point of view feels very shallow: we don't get to see what people are thinking, feel what they're feeling, understand how their experiences and beliefs colour their perception of the world. In addition, there's absolutely no surprise when we can see everything coming. The fight scene on the bridge might have been more of a shock had we not been warned in advance.

I wish that there was more characterisation in this piece. The bullies seem like a cheap way of getting reader sympathy. Practically everything I read here at YWS is about a heroic protagonist being unjustly bullied by mean people, and not only am I getting bored with it, I think it's cheating. These bullying characters are just cardboard cut-outs. They don't have names, faces, personalities. They don't have real reasons to bully the protagonist. They're just a gimmick the author is using to build reader sympathy. But I can't raise any real sympathy for a protagonist who's being harassed by one-dimensional non-characters.

Can you fill this bullying role with a three-dimensional character who has a real reason to bully Raphael? For example, perhaps Raphael accidentally misused his powers in the past and really hurt and scared this person, and so the person feels powerless and needs to reassert their power over him by bullying him. If you can't, can you achieve the effect you want without this stereotypical bullying?

Another reason why I'm not sympathising in the least with Raphael is his response to the bullying. I can totally imagine that a bullied character might bottle up his fury and frustration until he finally snaps and lashes out in a fury. But I'm really not feeling that here. Raphael doesn't lash out. He executes a deliberate plan to permanently cripple the bully. It's as if he got some rope and tied the bully down and sawed off the bully's arm with a hacksaw. You even mention how the bully "cried and begged". I found this response wildly disproportionate: all the poor guy did was call Raphael some names, and then Raphael maimed him for the rest of his life. (I keep adding italics because it makes me go .)

I'm worried by the way that the whole story treats this action as justified. Raphael feels no shame, no guilt, no remorse. His mother isn't horrified by his reaction, she isn't ashamed of him, she isn't devastated that the day she's long feared has finally come to pass, she doesn't ask herself what she did wrong to raise him this way. Her reaction to seeing her son cripple another boy who's begging for mercy is ... to send him to the library.

This characterisation is a deal-breaker for me. I wouldn't read on after this scene.

As the story progresses, I also encountered some realism issues with the characters. For example, I found the lack of secrecy about Clay's "secret life" unrealistic. People who live secret lives don't spill all their secrets to a stranger in public where anyone could be listening. How did Clay survive this long if he's willing to tell anybody and everybody about his "secret life"? Is there nobody listening in? Isn't Clay at all nervous about speaking in public about overthrowing the king?

The whole bounty hunter scene felt confusing and unrealistic to me. They're hunting Raphael and attack him, but then for some reason they have to ask him what his name is. Didn't they know already? If not, why did they attack him? Why are they even engaging in conversation with their target? Presumably targets will say anything to get out of being captured. Isn't it better to just seize him and go? Why does even one of them buy into Raphael's unspecified plan?

While we're on the realism wagon, the library rang my alarm bell pretty loudly. Why is there a publicly accessible library in a medieval village? Where did Raphael even learn to read? In a time before free public education and widespread literacy, I really doubt that Raphael or his mother would be able to read. In a time before printing presses turning out cheap mass-produced books, each book was a lovingly created and incredibly valuable work of art. So I doubt that Raphael's mother would work in a library full of them.

I also had a concern about Raphael's magic. You call it "amazing" and "great", and it certainly seems that way. Raphael is able to easily dispose of every problem that comes his way. He can set things on fire, he can lock people's powers away, he can create giant metal hands, etc. He never gets tired because the magic is exhausting, he never makes mistakes, his power seems to be limitless. That makes me wonder why he doesn't resolve all his problems with magic. If he can do all this, why does he struggle to escape the village? From my perspective, he could just make himself invisible -- or he could teleport himself to the meeting place. So the story begins to feel illogical for me.

The easy way to fix this is to give his magic limits and consequences. It's exhausting to use, or he can only use it once a day, or it hurts him, or he can only destroy and nothing else. That would mean that Raphael faces real problems without the easy fix of magic, creating real tension and threatening to have real consequences.

As I said earlier, I got less than halfway into the story because of the rampant grammar errors, but I did note that the plot seems to be generic. Young man with immense power must flee home village and overthrow king: that describes just about every fantasy out there. A generic plot can be enlivened with great execution -- a unique and compelling twist that makes me want to read on. At the moment, I'm not sure why I would read your story instead of the many other versions of this familiar plot. You might want to think about what makes your story different and fascinating.

Overall, I feel that the story seriously suffers from basic grammar and spelling errors, and there are a host of characterisation issues which impair my enjoyment of and belief in the story. I need characters whose emotional reactions are believable and proportionate, and I need to sympathise with the protagonist instead of thinking he's a sociopath.

Hope this helps, Garland. I admire your courage in asking for a review.

Cheers,
Karsten

Well for starters yea I'm gonna agree with the guy's post above me. You need to split those HUGE paragraphs up they're scary. Anyway, when you revise your writing's you should end up with less than what you started when you free wrote.

Um...Also, you use a story book style opening at the beginning with the whole "Our story begins thing" I won't say it's bad but it makes the story omniscient from the start so it becomes like one of those opening intros to a star wars movie to me. Ya know? It's a little harder to dive in. I can tell you have a lot of ideas in here especially from the amount of writing you've got here. All I can suggest for now is that you cut this down a bit. Spread out those paragraphs and it'll make it easier to read. Other than that. Not too bad.

Hello, please allow me to be your first reviewer. Well, I'll be honest. This story has some good potential, but unles you practice good grammar, it will never be as good as it could be. There are many parts where you bring in a speaking part in an odd way.

The man cleared his throat then said
“I’m clay, and no we live a secret life in talvec to avoid a second war.

The man cleared his throat then said,“I’m clay, and no we live a secret life in talvec to avoid a second war.

Our story begins on Raphael’s sixteenth birth-day; he’s tall with dark green eyes, black hair, and gifted with amazing power. This power is so great that all with it are condemned to death for fear that its evil will consume them, and so Raphael’s parents made him keep his power hidden from the world.

Our story begins with a a tall boy named Raphael on a day that is normally special for teens; his sixteenth birthday. His eyes were shadowed in a dark, eerie green color, like that of a tree at night, and his hair was the color of that of a raven's feathers'. This boy had a power like none had seen in many a time, but with it came the fear from many.