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Young Writers Society



Glass & Ashes

by Holysocks


She sat in a puddle. Her face was tilted to the sky, listening to the rain drum on her eyelids. Her name was Mason, and she was looking for her shoe- actually, she was taking a break from it. It was her left shoe. And you might think: how do you lose a shoe? How do you lose something that's strapped onto your foot?

Mason wasn't totally insane. Sometimes she thought she was while scrubbing the tiles of her stepmother's bedchamber. And sometimes she thought she was when she heard her sister's whispering about her knobby knees just loud enough for her to hear. But folks outside her family would say she was a “firmly planted tree” which meant she'd at least make a good wife. Oh, joy.

Maybe it's in... She tried to think of a reasonable place for it to be, but everything seemed so bizarre. A puddle...?

“Um, excuse me?” Mason jumped; she hadn't thought anyone was out in the storm except herself. She looked up and met the gaze of a creature about two feet high.

“Sorry to startle you, miss, I was just um, well I happened to notice you're out here in the rain, all on your lonesomeness...” it paused, staring at her expectantly, though she wasn't sure what it wanted, and she still wasn't sure what she was looking at.

“Do you fancy being wet?” It finally asked, seeming genuinely curious.

Mason shook her head, letting out a laugh. “Not tonight.”

“Well see that's why I showed up- you seem rather down and, this is no place for a miss, especially in evening!”

“I'm alright, but thank you for your concern.”

The critter frowned at her a moment. He- it appeared male... was wearing a long trench coat... well, long for him, and a soggy cap and scarf.

“This weather is absurd.” He said finally. “Won't you let me at least sit with you- or stand... Heavens, why are you sitting in a puddle?”

“I was just taking a break from...” she trailed off, hoping he wouldn't inquire about what it was she was taking a break from. She wasn't sure she wanted to tell anyone. After all, who was dumb enough to lose their shoe?

“Won't you at least take a break by my fire with me?” he said.

“I probably shouldn't go anywhere with a stranger...” she half-mumbled.

“Oh, actually, I'm not a stranger- didn't I say so?” he said, scratching his head.

“Uhh... well I just met you.” She said, pushing herself to her feet. “...who are you?”

“Oh I, uh, I'm your faerie mother!” he said.

“My what?” she asked, slightly amused. “Do you even know what a mother is?”

“Why do you ask?” he said.

“Because mother's are females, and you, well, you are male, aren't you?” she said.

His eyebrows knit together a moment and he looked up at her now that she was standing. “Miss Mason, dear, do you know what a mother is?” he asked.

“How do you know my name?” she said.

“Never mind that!” he said, “A mother, Miss, is someone who worries about you when you're too lost to worry about yourself.”

“Fair enough.” Mason said, but she just stood there, eyeing him suspiciously.

“Oh for goodness sakes, let me at least help you find your left shoe.” he huffed, and started looking all around.

“No I'm fine, thank you.” she said.

The creature stopped and shot her a disbelieving glance. “You're wet, muddy, your dress is torn, you're missing your left shoe and you're fine?” he shook his head. “My job is to keep you dry, and happy. Obviously I've failed the first so the least I can do is hurry up and get you out of this mess as soon as possible. Good gracious. How are you even holding together? I hate being wet. Absolutely hate it.”

It seemed so silly to argue with something no taller than her legs, so she didn't say anything more.

“When was your shoe... last tangible?” he asked.

Sighing, she tried to think. She had been on her way home from the market when... it had disappeared. But how was she going to tell him that?

“Well?” he prompted.

“I'm not sure... I think I had it with me when I... I can't really recall today, you know?” she said.

“That's like me and breakfast.” he said.

“I honestly don't know where it could have gone...” she said.

“Still sounds like me and breakfast.” he mumbled. They sat there for a moment, thoughtful, then the creature said: “How about we find you a new shoe, Miss, alrighty?”

Mason shook her head. “Can't afford it.”

“Oh don't worry about pennies, Miss; I happen to know a charming footwear specialist. I'm sure he'll set us up with a deal.”

“I'm not worrying about pennies, I just don't have any.” she said.

“Don't worry, you'll like him.” he said, turning and walking away from her. “Come on, we're going to go wake the silly brat up. He might even know where your left shoe is.”

“But I don't even know you!” she said, following after him. She didn't like the idea of being out by herself any longer.

“But I know you and I.” he said.

“What can I call you, at least?” Mason asked.

“They call me Geor, but I'd rather you called me Mother, as I am your faerie mother.” he said.

“I've never called anyone mother before. It would be odd.” she said.

“Oh.  Well maybe one day... when you're comfortable.”

They walked past house after house for what seemed like forever, and then they started passing businesses. Bakeries, dress shops, butchers, and other duplicates of rival businesses. When finally Geor started towards the smithies.

“Aren't we looking for the cobbler?” Mason asked.

Geor looked at her and blinked. “Yes.”

“But... why are we at the black smith's?” she asked.

“Because he makes shoes on the side.” he said.

Geor knocked on the door. For a moment there was silence and then something banged on the floor and there was a huge commotion like foot prints running to the door. Then the door swung open and nearly smacked right into Mason.

“Ever so eager,” Geor laughed, waddling into the hut.

“Oh, it's you.” said a tall, young man that looked like he'd been rolling in dust. “I thought I'd actually gotten a customer at this hour.”

Mason, despite herself, nearly giggled at the sight of him.

“We are your customers, don't worry.” Geor said.

“Well I'm glad.” the young man said.

“Did we wake you?” Geor asked.

“...I was only relaxing.” the  man said.

“You relax almost as much as everyone else sleeps.” Geor commented.

“Right. What do you want?” the man asked.

Mason was slightly surprised by his bluntness, but then the two of them seemed well acquainted. Geor had made his way to a stool and climbed up onto it rather well considering it was taller than him, and gestured to Mason, who the man had just seemed to notice.

“She's missing her left shoe.” Geor said.

The man made a strangled sound.

“It's just one shoe, Regi-” Geor started to say, but the man, Regi, cut him off.

“You know I don't make shoes anymore.”

“No. You make shoes; admit it. While everyone's asleep and all your customers are busy elsewhere, you tinker. And we all know what you tinker with, Sir.” Geor said.

“Well I'm not open for business.” Regi said, crossing his arms.

“Regi, this is important.” Geor said.

Regi glanced at Mason and then back at Geor. “Why? Because it's her left shoe?”

Geor nodded.

“Nobody believes in that rotten cow flesh any more.” Regi scoffed.

“Regi.” Geor lowered his voice. “Ask her how she lost her left shoe.”

Regi shot another glance at Mason, this time shocked. Then he walked over to Geor. “Are you saying it was stolen?” 


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Fri Feb 05, 2016 8:58 am
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Apricity wrote a review...



Reporting for duty. <3

Let's jump straight to it shall we? Since you've already had some powerhouse reviews I'm not sure what else I can say, I'll try not to repeat any of the points people have already mentioned. This is quite different from most of the stories I've reviewed, quite a nice break if you ask me. I really like Mason, I really do. She's a very unique character, and frankly reminds me a bit of you. I won't dwell much on her because I think there's a lot of room for potential character development and I don't want to make any quick judgements due to the fact that this novel is probably not a novel that can go by normal logic.

I'm guessing that by the language, this isn't set in our modern world. Now you don't have to tell us exactly where this is set, but like Skins said. It'd be good to provide us with some more sensory information about the city they're in, just by talking about the buildings, the streets or even the smell after rain can tell us a lot about a city. It doesn't have to be massive paragraphs of description detailing every little thing, it can succinct and short as long as you give the readers the most important aspects. So instead of giving you a link to how you should write descriptions (because everyone writes these differently) for example, Camus's descriptive style and Dickens's descriptive are very different; Camus prefers succinct, simple sentences and Dickens is infamous for its descriptions that could bore a classroom. That doesn't mean one is less effective than the other. Rather, arm yourself with what you shouldn't do.

Mason wasn't totally insane. Sometimes she thought she was while scrubbing the tiles of her stepmother's bedchamber.


To be honest, because of Mason's character I think these thoughts that are disconnected to each other aren't so bad because they are what defines Mason (and you somehow has managed to make these not annoying too). But if you wanted to give us a more solid feel of her environment, I would nix the bedchamber part because right here it throws the reader off. What has scrubbing the tiles of her stepmother's bedchamber got to do with anything? So her stepmum is probably mean to her and ....how is that related to her being insane? Or looking for a shoe in a puddle for that matter.

Your dialogue is stepping to the land of talking heads, just take care when you write your dialogue and be mindful with where you're headed with it.

Geor's appearance was kind of sudden, but we can overlook that for now. The faerie also confused me, but we can also overlook that because it has been mentioned by others. What I wish to talk to you about if actually the interaction between the two, Geor just popped out of nowhere and because during the dialogue we weren't giving much of Geor apart from the dialogue. Which meant that I have no idea who he is, how he knows who Mason is, and did he just appear out of thin air?

“She's missing her left shoe.” Geor said.


I mean I know they aren't exactly the most normal of characters, so I'll ignore my current voice that is nagging me that their interaction accelerated too quickly and there is no background to their relationship. But the jump from sleep to the left shoe, well. Actually, regarding the matter about left shoe I want more of an explanation before you cut us off. Apparently the left shoe means something as seen by the stolen comment, so what exactly is this left shoe? You don't have to explain it to us, just drop enough hints so we understand what is going on. You see, readers can be annoying creatures we want to know what's going on but we don't want you to spell it out for us. So what you can do is leave clues for us, and if we don't get it that's our fault not yours.

For me overall, this chapter had a nice, disjointed feel to it but it's not an unpleasant disjointed feel. I look forward to reading more of this. c: If you've got any questions, you know where to find me.

-Hir

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Holysocks says...


Thank you thank you thank you <3 We'll get on those changes!



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Sun Jan 17, 2016 7:49 pm
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Sins wrote a review...



Hey there Holysocks, I'm here per request!

I've recently made a comeback to YWS, so I'm just going to pre-warn you that this review may be a tad sketchy/lack any organisation. Saying that, my reviews lacked sense and organisation before my hiatus, so I can't imagine this will be much worse.

Okay, so I thought this was pretty awesome. Everything from your characters to your writing style are drowning in quirkiness, which I absolutely adore. I really loved your opening sentence. It was simple but unusual, so an awesome job there. The rest of the opening paragraph was just as quirky, so I bow down to you. Mason was immediately set up as an interesting individual, and I 100% wanted to know more. Your dialogue was wonderful, too. I got an essence of your characters' personalities right off the bat, and said dialogue wasn't at all flat. I got myself a feeling that this missing shoe malarkey may be more sinister than you're letting on, eh? Cheeky.

I better be of actual use, though, so let me get into some critiques! One thing that I found bothering me a little as I read this was that, to me, Mason wandered off with Geor pretty happily. She did the whole 'I don't know this bloke, bit sketchy, kind of dodgy' internal dialogue, but I kind of feel like she needs to justify it more. This is super picky, so if you're sat there like 'Skins, you need some chill, get some chill' then that is 100% cool. I would just personally suggest giving Mason a bit more of an internal battle, even something as simple as emphasising a real feeling of being fed up, miserable etc over the rain and missing shoe. That way, when Geor offers her a warm fire, we can't question Mason's willingness to go with him because we've just seen how horrendously awful she's feeling. It doesn't matter how you do it, though, and you know your story best. I just think a bit more of a battle in Mason's head over whether to go with Geor would help improve this.

Also, I have a question. If Geor is Mason's Faerie Mother, the heck has taken this dude so long? I get the impression that Mason will be maybe 16 at the very youngest, so why has he not appeared before? Losing a shoe isn't exactly a deadly serious situation, and it seems like she must have gone through worse, so why is he only appearing now? This is a critique of sorts, but I am holding back a bit because this is only the first chapter, so there's plenty of room for explanation. You just want to be careful not to make your readers question heaps of stuff this early, otherwise they could lose patience and end up a tad bit confused (I'm very easily confusable, it's tragic, really). I suppose this is a bit of a heads up for the future: if this isn't explained soon/at all, be sure to cheekily pop it in somewhere within the next few chapters.

Something else that bothered me throughout this piece was that I'm not 100% certain of what kind of world this is set in, and the descriptive side of your writing does lack a bit at times. Like I noted earlier, your dialogue is awesome, but you've got like a 70% dialogue, 30% narrative thing going. That's not necessarily a bad thing--it's personal preference, really--but I don't really have a feel for this world because there is a lack of description. From the content, names, and descriptions we do have I get the impression this is a sort of old-fashioned fairytale kind of setting. If I'm right in saying that, these worlds always have really awesome, quirky features. I know you can do quirky because your characters, content etc are quirky, so you can't use that excuse,

Take the village, for example. What does it look like? Are there any other people out? How does it look in the darkness? Does the storm make it more eery than usual? Are there any sounds to be heard? You describe Mason and Geor walking through the village and seeing all the different businesses, but nothing else past that. I want to know! In these kind of descriptions you could throw in my first critique, too: maybe the eeriness of the village at night is making Mason question if she really is insane for following Geor. You'll be killing two birds in one stone, it's a win-win situation :D In all seriousness, I really do think balancing the dialogue out with some more narrative really would benefit this piece. It's 100% fine to have a higher dialogue ratio than narrative, heck, have 100% dialogue if you want to go all out. You've just got to ensure you paint an interesting, clear picture of your world while doing so.

I think that's it. I certainly can't think of anymore critiques right off the bat, and I really did enjoy this overall, so finding critiques in the first place was a little tricky. I apologise if I've made little sense or rambled at all throughout this, just let me know if you need anything clearing up. Overall, I very much enjoyed this little chapter you have here, and would love for you to let me know if you write/post the next one! If you have any questions or comments about this here review, just let me know and I'll get back to you ASAP!

Keep writing,

xoxo Skins




Holysocks says...


Thank you SO much! I'll get on those revisions! To tell you the truth, descriptions scare me somewhat, I always feel like I do a terrible job! XP But I'm going to work on fixing that for sure. :D



Sins says...


No worries! Ugh don't worry, same. You don't need to throw in a load of deep, enormous descriptions, even just some more basic narrative to create more of a feel of things, you know? So long as you do that you're good! :)



Holysocks says...


Haha, okay ^_^



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Sun Jan 10, 2016 5:41 pm
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Lightsong wrote a review...



Hey, I'm here to review! The title caught my attention. :D

Anyway, I'm going to go with nit-pickiness first.

Spoiler! :
Her name was Mason, and she was looking for her shoe- actually, she was taking a break from searching for it.


I think this sentence is unnecessarily wordy. Instead of saying "a break from searching for it", you can just go straight to "a break from it", and readers would still understand what you're trying to say.

Sometimes she thought she was while scrubbing the tiles of her stepmother's bedchamber. And sometimes she thought she was crazy when she heard her sister's whispering about her knobby knees just loud enough for her to hear.


I'm a fan of repetition. I think the "sometimes she thought she was" is a good one until you add "crazy" for the second phrase. Remove it and the readers would still understand this is meant to say "she thought she was crazy/insane".

“Um, excuse me?” Mason jumped at the words.


Hmm, this is a suggestion you can choose to ignore - I think it's better to replace "words" with voice" as I'm confused and try to imagine it for a second when you say "Mason jumped at the words".

“Do you fancy being wet?” It finally asked, seeming genuinely curious.


"it" instead of "It".

“I was just taking a break from...” she trailed off, hoping he wouldn't inquire about what it was she was taking a break from


Stopping at "what it was" is enough since readers would still get the idea.

“You're wet, muddy, you're dress is torn, you're missing you're left shoe and you're fine?”


... o.o "Your dress" and "your left shoe."

I can't really recall today really, you know?”


Unnecessary repetition! Choose one!


On to the actual story. As far as ideas go, I like it. I like the idea of how something simple like missing a shoe can be expanded to something more complicated. It's an idea with which I'm rare to meet, but a fresh one at that. The execution of how things go is also nice, as your first line is a great hook already - finding a shoe in a puddle? Really? O.o

I also like Geor. He seems like a sweet and caring character with a hint of humor. I like his interaction with Mason, and I wonder how he can know much about her. I also like his idea of a "mother" (although it can also be applied for a father - Mason is right, mother is female while father is female and they both are someone who worry about you when you're too lost to worry about yourself). I can definitely see the potential of his character.

About Mason - I like her thought process about how she sometimes think she's insane, and while saying that shows tidbits about her life - having a bossy stepmother and mean sister, and also having people labeling her as a potential wife. These are good thoughts as they show us more about her although I'd like it if she's more expressive about them. The bit about scrubbing the tiles - does she think of it upsetly or angrily? We can tell about her personality if you elaborate more on this.

Also, I find simple mistakes such as "you're" and the occasional typo like "than" disrupts my enjoyment to read this piece a bit. I'd suggest for you to do a bit rereading before posting this - I know this is a first draft, but a bit of general polishing won't do you any harm. I also think the capitalization for "He" and "She" in dialogues should be looked over since they are supposed to be in lowercase. These are just minor details that can be fixed, which increase the readability.

My other problem is when Regi assumed Mason's shoe is stolen when something being lost can just be easily translated to something being missing, so I'm curious as how his thought process goes to jump into such conclusion? I'd like more hints about the shoe being stolen to believe the realism of Regi assuming this out of no where.

That being said, the piece is easy to follow and generally enjoyable. Improve the things I've mentioned and it'd be better. Keep it up! :D




Holysocks says...


Thank you so very much! The "you're" and "than" thing is something that I do a lot. I understand which is which, but I just write whichever because my brain hates me. I actually re-read this quite a few times and didn't notice, so that's why I'm thankful for people like you. I know it's not pleasant having to look at those XP

Thanks again!



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Sun Jan 10, 2016 7:52 am
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Hattable wrote a review...



HEY HOLY.

I opened this 'cause you tagged me to read it, but I was a bit tired and was gonna save it for tomorrow. I ended up reading the first sentence before putting it away, and before I knew it, I'd read the whole thing. So, basically, this is pretty good. :D
I love the way you wrote thiiiiiis. ;-; It was simple to read, but entertaining at the same time. I guess you could call it a "comfortable read". :p It really is very well-written, I think, though some punctuation work could be done. And Geor's character, his personality, it already seems to be pretty under wraps. Just keep developing him a little more and work on your other characters (good characters so far, in my opinion), as well as keeping this fun writing style, and you'll be good to go!
Another I like is this allusion to some sort of superstition or something to do with left shoes, and I'm really interested to learn what it's about. Especially the part where a left shoe being stolen seems to be quite shocking.

Now, as my reviews go, I'm gonna cover some grammatical stuff I noticed throughout the story. I won't poke at your punctuation or anything unnecessary. Just typos, really.

Mason, despite herself, nearly giggled at the site of him.

*sight
Mason was slightly surprised by his bluntness, but than the two of them seemed well acquainted.

*then
“it's just one shoe, Regi-” Geor started to say, but the man, Regi, cut him off.

Capitaliiiiiiize the first wooooord.
And we all know what you tinker with, Sir.” Geor said.

I feel like the emphasis on "you" isn't entirely necessary. It makes the sentence feel a bit... Garbled, I want to say (so I will, thank you very much. :p).
“Ask her how she losther left shoe.”

SPAAAAAACE. WE NEED SPAAAAAAACE.

Okay, that's all I saw. XP

Again, this was pretty good, Holy. I'm looking forward to more chapters, and I'll do my best to keep up with this novel as it rolls along. ^^


Keep up the good work, and keep writing!
-Hatt




Holysocks says...


Ohmahgersh thank you Hattttt <3 You're also amazing ^_^



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TheDreadPirate wrote a review...



I think my favourite part of your writing is the stream-of-thought your characters have, their reactions feel very real and immediate.

The switching between "he" and "it" when initially describing Geor was a little confusing - maybe start with it and switch over to he once she gets a good look at him? Or something like that anyway.

Maybe it's in... She tried to think of a reasonable place for it to be, but everything seemed so bizarre. A puddle...? - this sentence works really well for showing how confused she is, but it also shows that she isn't panicking - almost like the situation is so weird that she can't take it seriously.

“They call me Geor, but I'd rather you called me Mother, as I am your faerie mother.” He said.
“I've never called anyone mother before. It would be odd.” She said.
“Oh... well maybe one day, when you're comfortable.” Geor said.

First of all, there should be a period instead of a comma after comfortable...but would it be possible to get rid of the third "___ said"? I think you could probably just drop it without being confusing.

“Because he makes shoe's on the side.” He said.
No apostrophe! XD

Bakeries, Dress shops, Butchers, and other duplicates of rival businesses. When finally Geor started towards the smithies.
I don't think Dress shops and Butchers should be capitalized as they're just generic shop types (a specific shop should be named though).

“Regi.” Geor lowered his voice. “Ask her how she losther left shoe.”
Missed the space :P

“Ever so eager.” Geor laughed, waddling into the hut.
I like this sentence! Heh...waddling.
(and now, reading it for the fifth time, I notice that you used a period instead of a comma - I'm not quite sure of the sure of the quotation rules, but I think it should be a comma)

The man made a strangled sound.
My favorite parts of the Harry Potter series involve people making strangled sounds as other characters do outrageous things, so I couldn't help but laugh here - it really is a great way of describing outrage.

Pssst...write some more :)




Holysocks says...


You Sir, are amazing <3 Thank you C:




It always seems impossible until it's done.
— Nelson Mandela