Young Writers Society

I think Snoink was a little harsh but suppose harshness is needed to be a good critic! I think your narration was good apart from a few mistakes that i won't go into.You need a lot more description though! For example you said there was two people, a man and a woman but you didn't describe them at all.

You claim to know everything about Gryphons, no? When you are writing assume that the person who will be reading your story knows absolutely nothing about Gryphons and describe the Gryphon in your story!

Your idea is great as is your narration. I sincerely hope that you continue this story(if you already haven't!) but like i have already mentioned, you need to work on your description and perhaps your grammar.

"Besides, Harry was miserable before everything went his way. This guy will be uncomfortable and everything is being twisted around and upside down. That is probably more for the second chapter though."

Very true, I shant judge a book by its first chapter, hehe.

The image you presented with the splashing water was perfectly done, dont get me wrong!!!
The only thing is, people arent familiar with referees getting knocked out and revived. Its a wrestling thing, you dig?
All you need to do is change it to soemthing like (or exactly) this:

I decided that the gryphon was just like one of those wrestlers on TV; they just needed a little water splashed on them.

It makes it more general, and im sure everyone can picture a wrestler getting splashed with water and revived. The referee made it confusing and brought up to many pictures of too many referees in different games to make the image clear.

Anyway, keep it up, hope you enjoy my suggestion, haha.

Rincewind wrote:At the end you wrote.
"Who are you?" it asked me.
Is that supposed to be the griffon talking?
And why is the griffon like a wrestling referee? dont the referees usually DO the splashing? Making Dixon like the referee.
They edited your grammar fine and well, but didnt edit it to make sure it made sense.

There is pretty much no imagery or explanation of setting. Sometimes thats good, but you need to think about the fact that some of your readers dont know what a giffon is. Or they do, but have no idea what ones supposed to look like. You also did not describe any of the characters major or minor.

I am intrigued by your story, but the story itself is seeming eerily harry potterish. An ordinary boy thrust into a world of magic and fun. You need seomthing really original to get people hooked. SO work on that I think, and the rest will come.

Keep the good stuff comin!

i really enjoyed reading that, didn't study it in depth so i didn't detect any errors. but can't wait to read more.

I can't add anything to what your sister already edited, so excuse the rather lacklustre response in that department.

I do, however, agree with Ari. This could fall into the clutches of cliche (no sirens from the cliche police quite yet, though). And do you really mean that your character isn't surprised by a fantasy creature landing in his yard? Personally, I'd probably die of shock, or something to that extent. If he isn't supposed to be surprised, why is he not surprised?

I do like your writing, and would like to see more of this.

oh, I just saw this, so to nit-pick

The entire house shuddered as a scream rang out. A dull thud down in the backyard ended that scream abruptly.

At the end you wrote.
"Who are you?" it asked me.
Is that supposed to be the griffon talking?
And why is the griffon like a wrestling referee? dont the referees usually DO the splashing? Making Dixon like the referee.
They edited your grammar fine and well, but didnt edit it to make sure it made sense.

There is pretty much no imagery or explanation of setting. Sometimes thats good, but you need to think about the fact that some of your readers dont know what a giffon is. Or they do, but have no idea what ones supposed to look like. You also did not describe any of the characters major or minor.

I am intrigued by your story, but the story itself is seeming eerily harry potterish. An ordinary boy thrust into a world of magic and fun. You need seomthing really original to get people hooked. SO work on that I think, and the rest will come.

Keep the good stuff comin!

I think Snoink covered all the technical stuff... LOL...

But just in general (this is Areida going out on a limb, okay?) I didn't really like it. I seemed kind of cliched to me. You know... a kid is in love with a fantasy world and all of a sudden, a part of this world just drops out of the sky! What an adventure he will have!

Sorry... it just seems like it's been done.

I really liked the story and I do think Snoink got all the technical stuff so i'll work on the plot.
I think you should explain more just Why your character prefers J.K. Rowling, and J.R.R. Tolkien stories? Also, don't write it so inside the head of the Dixon kid. its good to be in the characters head (especially when you are telling the story from the characters point of veiw) but try to lay off the "oh, that was a bad joke" lines. Also, give the sister more background. Why is she really good at this king of stuff? What kind of expirience does she have? I'm guessing your story is based in modern day times yet has mythological creatures incorporated within it. So it is normal to see a griffon or something right? Well, that was my conclusion. Also, why does the kid want to wake up the griffon? Why do they all stare at him after he does? Also, this is much too short to be a full chapter. My suggestion: Enter a few times at the end of the story and do a flashback sequence that sort of explains the day before or something then start a chapter two that will flashforward to whatever happens after they look at him. If you aren't really understanding this then tell me and I will clarify.

I enjoyed reading it and it made me giggle at some points, it appealed to my sence of humour.

That started off really well (reminds me of Animorphs...). But then the ending... it left some to be desired. Mainly because your characters doesn't seem to find it too odd that a gryphon has just landed in his garden...

I think Snoink caught all the error's. I enjoyed reading it and it made me giggle at some points, it appealed to my sence of humour. This is going somewhere, would like to read the next chapter, good cliffhanger ending to this chapter.

I thought this was really good. I don't think I have any critz. Looking forward to next chapter!

Er... does anyone else have any comments?

I've edited it according to your recommendations Snoink.

Snoink wrote:

The two people were having a most peculiar argument. Thankfully, I missed most of it because I was busy staring down at the big hole that the gryphon must have made in our house.

Er... how is he still in the house then? That was my first thought. You need to describe what condition the house is in.

Griffinkeeper wrote:Chapter One

I once thought I knew fantasy. I knew what a necromancer was, I could say all the Harry Potter spells backwards and forwards. I understood the effects of energy magic and spell magic. C.S. Lewis, J.R.R Tolkien, and Mercedes Lackey; I just ate there novels up.

So I did the natural thing and tried to imitate them. Easy right? Wrong. It turned out that there was no way I could adapt there styles.

I suppose I better introduce myself before we go further. The name is Dixon, Mandrake Dixon, license to kill, etc.

Alright, so maybe that wasn't funny, but that is my name.

Anyways, I was up at ten trying to finish my story. It was going slowly as usual. You know how sometimes you're writing and then you come across something where you don't know how your character would react? That happened to me last night. When that happened, I went to the one person who actually could help me: my sister.

Don't laugh, she is really great for this stuff. I told her my problem. I probably should have waited until the morning but being the idiot I was, I wanted help now. She quickly dismissed me with the vague statement, "Just think of what your character would do." At least, that is the general gist of her statement, it was a little more colorful than that but I digress.

I tried to imagine what my character would do but eventually I grew frusterated.

I decided to sleep on it and try again in the morning. It was summer and I didn't do anything most of the day anyway. Since it was nice and cool, I kept the window open during the nights.

I had gotten in bed and closed my eyes when I heard this loud noise.

THUMP!

The entire house shuddered for a minute and a second later there was this scream which stopped.

I was almost surprised that my family hadn't heard it but we Dixon's are known for being heavy sleepers.

It is a rumor that my Uncle Harvy was burned to death because he didn't hear the smoke detector. So I wasn't particularly surprised.

What I did see when I went to the window was surprising though, to say the least.

What I saw was two people on the ground, next to a raptora panthera or a gryphon for those that aren't so fantasy oriented as I am.

The two people were having a most peculiar argument. Thankfully, I missed most of it because I was busy staring down at the big hole that the gryphon must have made in our house.

I don't know why but I felt myself drawn towards them.

So I did the stupidest thing I could have ever done. I climbed out the second story window and climbed down.

They were still argueing as I landed.

"I told you not to fly so low," the woman said.

"No you didn't, you screamed "Look out!" and then you covered my eyes," the man defended himself.

My attention was fixed on the gryphon. It didn't look seriously injured, just dazed. It was the very thing you'd expect from a bird. Instead of hitting a glass window, it had hit the side of my house.

Do you remember when I said the stupidest thing I could have done was climb down to the ground?

Well, I wasn't satisfied with just doing one stupid thing that evening.

I decided that the gryphon was just like those wrestling referees on TV: all they needed was water splashed on them.

The couple was still argueing as I went to get a hose. I turned on the water and then sprayed the gryphon with water.

It revived quickly. I let off on the hose and it looked at me. No, looked isn't the word, stared is more appropriate.

"Who are you?" it asked me. Everyone just froze. The couple had stopped argueing. It took me a second to realize they were staring at me.

It was at this point where the mess really began.