Chapter one
The Canaby sisters
The witches Madeline, Rose, and Sarah Canaby formed a circle raising their right hands and began shouting their names MADELINE, a blue beam of sparkling light came from her hand and stopped five feet above them. ROSE, a red beam of sparkling light came from her hand and joined Madeline’s. SARAH, a green beam of sparkling light came from her hand and joined with Madeline and rose’s. Just then all of their powers intertwined and formed an orb that started to grow and electrify. “It’s time for the spell of future sight” “said Madeline” “let us begin there’s no time to waste” “said Sarah”. With that they began to say the spell in unison:
Future sight is what we inquire
Future sight is what we desire
Let us look through time and space
To see the holy chosen face
The orb cleared like clouds moving to show the moon, everything was still. The sisters watched to see the face they would soon be giving their powers to, expecting an adult strong enough to take on all of their powers , they were shocked to see a mere infant, not even a month old in a small white and pink bed. They assumed it was a girl because of this and also a name painted on top of the bed which read Lily. To the Canaby sisters this seemed like a whimsical, weak name but they didn’t have a clue of how powerful she would become. Lily was the chosen one after all, born by the king and queen of Topia two weeks in the future.
The Canaby sisters were far from the land of Topia and had to act quickly if they were to bless the child with the gifts of inner sight, knowing, and control before midnight of her birth. These gifts were the powers of the Canaby sisters. Madeline had the gift of inner sight a gift which saved her life in many occasions. She also saved others with this power, a powerful gift indeed. Rose had the gift of knowing which was very useful in her past endeavors. She knew what every answer was without question; she had the most confidence naturally.
Finally Sarah, she had the gift of control, which was the most active power of the sisters. She could bend the will of others and make them do anything with ease, not even the strongest spell could do that. Sarah was the strongest of the three sisters and the most mature which is why such a great power didn’t twist her soul or mind to evil. The Canaby sisters were to leave immediately if they were to get there in two weeks time.
Madeline, Rose, and Sarah packed their belongings in black leather trunks they each put in their own personal spell book and a communication mirror in which they could talk back and forth if they ever separated. Also in the trunk were their unique gowns and other miscellaneous clothing. The last thing each of them had in their trunk was a collection of potions including from rapid healing potions to deadly exploding potions.
The Canaby sisters were well prepared for their long treacherous journey that was ahead of them. The last thing they had to do before going was to shrink their trunks so they could carry them more easily. “Sisters” “said Madeline” “join me in the spell”
Make the desired objects shrink
The trunks are what we think
From big to small
From heavy to light
This is what we want tonight
The trunks lying on the wooden, dusty floor glowed with golden lights for a moment then shrank to the size of a rat. They picked up their trunks and headed down their creaky stairway and to the closet to get their flying staffs. The flying staffs were just wooden, thin poles that were charmed by the Canaby sisters to fly, Madeline opened the closet door and reached through the collective hanged clothing and grabbed the staffs.
She gave Rose and Sarah theirs and kept hers clutched in her hand, looking around the room she said goodbye to the room and the house that she loved so much. Madeline, Rose, and Sarah would probably never see the Canaby Manor again if the prophecy that brought them to give up their powers had anything to do with it. Since receiving the prophecy a month ago by a seer the Canaby sisters questioned if they should give up their beloved powers to save the world a few hundred years in the future, but they knew they must. Ready to go, the Canaby sisters passed through the door way of the manor for the last time.
The air outside was a cold, breathless type of air that made the sisters weary, Rose knew that something wasn’t right. Just then Madeline gasped with her head looking up at the stars; the sisters knew she was having a premonition. In the moments of Madeline’s premonition Rose and Sarah stopped to look at their surroundings, there was a dark alley with a little torch on the wall to give a minor amount of light.
Also there were a few buildings, but most of windows had broken out. Another distinct characteristic was an ominous dark figure about two hundred feet in the sky floating down towards them. Madeline came back to normal and said “sisters hurry I just saw our cousin Ruby coming to attack us.” “We know that already” said Sarah “there she is, Sarah had her finger pointed at the figure they saw before. Ruby was the evil member of the family that had betrayed them years ago. Ruby had the power to freeze anything solid with a thrust of her hand, so that’s why the Canaby sisters where so afraid of her.
“Sisters lets go, we have to leave before she comes near us” said rose. “ NO, I’m tired of running from our traitor cousin; she killed our father now it’s time to get even.” “Said Madeline” “I’m killing her like she killed our father and if you don’t help me your just as much a traitor as she is.” Ruby was about fifty feet in the sky and still descending and Madeline wasn’t going to waste time. She started to say the forbidden spell to kill a witch:
I call upon thee
To give me the key
To end a witches life
Strip them from strife
To end their ……
“NO!” “Shouted Sarah” you know why that spell is forbidden, it puts an endless curse on you!
I don’t care cried Madeline she killed our father for his power and now I’ll finally kill her, after all these years! “There’s an easier way” “said Sarah” she took her trunk from her pocket and brought it back to normal size with a wave of her hand. Then she unlatched the locks, flung the lid of it open and reached for a vile of exploding potion.
Ruby was now on the ground about forty feet away from them, her long black hair and her pale white face shined in the moon light. Her dark blue tunic hid her body in the darkness as she approached. “Hello my darling cousins” “ruby said in a shrill voice” long time no see eh, she started to laugh. Sarah had the vile of exploding potion clutched in her hand that ruby had no clue was there. All of the Canaby sisters looked at her as she came closer.
“You know” “said ruby I enjoyed watching your father take his last breathe as I shoved the dagger through his beating heart. His eyes were so shocked when he saw that I had done it, he couldn’t believe it. Madeline let out a shriek of hate that filled the midnight air, “what are you going to do Madeline, hurt me?” Said ruby” you never could defeat me, and now that I have your father’s power, or should I say my power you’ll never defeat me!
“Your right ruby I could never defeat you by myself but now I have my sisters with me” said Madeline” “Sarah the potion now!” “Yelled Madeline”. Sarah threw the potion as hard as she could in the direction of ruby but it was all in vain, ruby thrust her hand at the potion and it froze solid making a shattering noise as it broke on the hard ground. Ruby looked at the frozen bottle shaped potion that lay on the ground before her,” trying to get rid of me with a potion” “ruby snickered” you’ll have to use more than that. “Sarah use your power, control her!” “Said Madeline” “you know I don’t like to use it Madeline” “said Sarah” “USE IT!” “Shouted Madeline” “USE IT NOW OR WE’LL DIE”.
“You wouldn’t dare control me, you couldn’t if you tried” “said Ruby” “once I’m finished with you three I’ll have your powers and be the most powerful witch in the cosmos” “shrieked ruby”. Ruby started to raise her hand and that’s when the sisters began to get scared, ruby put her elbow back, and was starting to thrust when Sarah shot out a green, steady stream of light that engulfed ruby and made her quit in her tracks, she was still and could not move or speak.
“Rose, Madeline put your auras on ruby, I think I have a way to get rid of her without cursing ourselves” “said Sarah”. Without another word a red and blue beam of light shot past Sarah and engulfed ruby, just like before all of their powers combined started to electrify and grow into an orb. Ruby was in the center of the force field type orb that she couldn’t get out of; she started to regret coming there. “Sisters” “said Sarah” “I think if we use our combined powers we can send ruby into an astral plane that there would be no escaping from”. “We’ll have to improvise a spell” “said Sarah” ““repeat the spell after I get done, three times over should be enough”
Energy in the orb
Vanish to the unseen
Go where the spirits scream
Forever you’ll live morbidly
Madeline, Rose, and Sarah said the spell three times in unison and with a bright glow of the orb and a cracking noise, ruby vanished. Although one thing stayed behind, the power to freeze things solid was floating six feet from the ground, calm. The Canaby sisters stood there quizzically pondering what to do with it. “I know what we should do with it” “Said Rose” “We should bottle it in case we need it in the future, we could each have some”, “Good idea” “Said Madeline” “Good idea”. 
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
139,642 Literary Works • 672,638 Reviews
Ok Wisemann, I did say that I'll have a look at the start.
Why don't you show us that instead of telling us it? Give examples when such powers were used.
How?
Why would she want to kill her? This is vital information. Nobody would kill someone for no reason. It's ludicrous. You need to justify the action, make the reader feel convinced that there's a need to kill this evil witch. Just because her father got killed doesn't mean anything, there has to be reason as to why he doesn't want him killed. You need to expand on it more.
Why would she want power?
Overall impressions:
I don't think doing line by lines would benefit you much. The flaws in your writing are more due to a certain lack of knowledge in writing and the limitations of your ideas.
The piece feels rushed, just like back in the flash-back. The writing itself only tells the reader of what's happening, it doesn't use examples to allow the reader to picture what's happening for themselves. To help you distinguish between show and tell, here are two sentences:
Telling: Charlie is angry.
Showing: Charlie clunched his fists and slammed the table.
The first sentence only tells what Charlie is feeling. The problem with "telling" this however is that it isn't exactly convincing for the reader. Just because someone tells us what he/she felt or is doesn't really prove that it's true.
The second sentence however is an example to back up the fact that Charlie is angry. It is convincing because the audience can relate that action to that emotion or who they are as a character since it is highly likely that someone in real life would do such a thing.
The lack of showing is also the reason why I thought the piece was rushed. Everything happened so quickly. One minute, they were wondering who the "Chosen One" is and the next, bam! There's a boss fight. This problem of "show vs tell" was also evident in the "flash-back" chapter as I may have pointed out. I highly recommend that you do some homework and learn what "show don't tell" is. It will make your writing much more convincing.
Now, onto the conventions that are used in the story. Firstly, you used the "Chosen One" idea. I personally dislike this convention for a number of reasons. 1) Normally there isn't justification as to why that particular person is chosen 2) The candidate isn't tested to provide evidence that he/she is capable of fulfilling said task 3) What authority or right does the entity have in choosing someone? 4) Does the general public support this decision? 5)Does the candidate express himself as to the reasons as to why he should take on such a role? Does he/she even want the role? Take the process a candidate goes through if he/she wants to become a prefect in the school. The candidate has to convince others that he/she wants the job, tested and has to get the favour of a majority of the public. Why should the fate of all humanity be placed in some child that we don't even give a rat's tail about? Make us care, apply those 5 ideas of mine into the "choosing of a chosen one".
Secondly, your villian is just unconvincing. The reason for that is that there are no redeeming features to her. No one is ever truly evil. The idea of "good" and "evil" in our society today is simply the difference between what people view/interpret as good. Take Hitler as an example: Although he did caused the death of millions, he did try to bring Germany out of a depression. He also demonstrated values like leadership, courage etc etc. Isn't Ruby their cousin? Doesn't she still have some sort of mutal relationship with them? What's the point of saying that she's their cousin then? I suggest that you add more of a cousin-esque mutal interaction between them and to justify Ruby's actions. I'm just not convinced that she is really fighting for what she believes in.
Anyways, I think that's all I have to say for now. Hopefully, I've given you a better of what I mean by being "convincing". Both the flash-back and this part suffers from the same problem. Remember, there's a big difference between being confused and finding something not convincing.
Good luck and see you for now.
Andy.
Hello!
The main problem here is that it's all one long sentence. Sentences, as you must know, are defined by periods at their ends. So put a period after "names" so that this is two sentences, like this: "The witches Madeline, Rose, and Sarah Canaby formed a circle raising their right hands and began shouting their names. MADELINE, a blue beam of sparkling light came from her hand and stopped five feet above them." Now, let's take the first of these two sentences. Commas are, mainly, put where pauses are. So, say your sentence out-loud -- where you have little pauses, put a comma. I would make that first sentence be like this: "The witches, Madeline, Rose, and Sarah Canaby, formed a circle, raising their right hands and began shouting their names." Also, because you say "raising" rather than "raised," you should also say "beginning" rather than "began." Just for consistency's sake.First off, I have to apologize. You requested a review on this like a month ago and I haven't gotten around to depositing it until now. Sooo sorry.
Anyway, let's get on with the review -- shall we?
I have to admit that I didn't read the whole thing. In fact, I didn't read much past the first two paragraphs. The reason for this is that you seem to either ignore or not know some of the basic rules of grammar. Without grammar, your sentences fall apart and your writing loses readability. Let's take the first paragraph and work through it slowly, combing all the mistakes out one sentence at a time.
The only problem here is that "rose's" should be "Rose's." I think this is just a typo.
Remember what I said about commas makring the pauses? So put a comma after "Just then" because that's where you would pause when reading this sentence out-loud.
Okay, this section needs a LOT of work. Let me explain to you the rules of dialogue. Dialogue is written conversation. Sometimes, it can be difficult to write down a conversation, but here's what you need to know. It will help you. There are two parts of writing dialogue:
1) The dialogue -- what people are saying.
2) The dialogue tags -- things such as "he said" or "she asked" or "John said energetically."
The dialogue needs to be inside quotation marks. The dialogue tags SHOULD NOT be inside quotation marks.
Following these rules, it would be: “It’s time for the spell of future sight” said Madeline “let us begin there’s no time to waste” said Sarah.
If the dialogue tag is just "he/she said" or "said John" then there needs to be a comma at the end of the dialogue, inside the quotation marks.
Following these rules, it would be: “It’s time for the spell of future sight,” said Madeline “let us begin there’s no time to waste,” said Sarah.
Now -- another VERY important thing to know about dialogue is that when a new character starts talking, you start a new paragraph.
Following these rules, it would be:
“It’s time for the spell of future sight,” said Madeline.
“Let us begin there’s no time to waste,” said Sarah.
______________________
Did that make sense? I basically covered the main issues that this piece seems to have. I tried to cover everything plainly, so that it's easy to understand. But if I wasn't clear (or even if I was) I strongly suggest that you read these two topics: Dialogue Grammar--this covers all the grammar rules of dialogue. Using Grammar--this discusses the importance of knowing how to use proper English grammar.
Another thing that you can do is read books. If you read books, you will see how professional, published authors use grammar. I suggest you learn from them. They are successful.
You really need to know how to use correct grammar. Then, you can decide whether or not you want to observe ALL of the rules. Sometimes, for the flow or strength of a passage, a writer will distort the minor rules slightly. But just the minor ones, for the most part. And you should always know how to do it right, even if you don't want to do it that way.
Lastly, I really hope I don't sounds too harsh. I just CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH just how important grammar is.
Please, please PM me if you have any questions!
~Azila~
Your story is off to a very good start. but to make it better, i suggest going back and re-read what you wrote. ou seem to put comas in unnecessary places. for example:
"trying to get rid of me with a potion” “ruby snickered”
“We’ll have to improvise a spell” “said Sarah”
"Hello my darling cousins” “ruby said in a shrill voice”
comas don't need 2 be placed wen you're telling who said what. if u scratch out the unnecessary comas, you should be fine.
if you can edit these things and the others mentioned earlier, then your story will definitley be more enjoyable for others to read.
Okay, boy did that take a long time. Now, the plot seems very interesting, I like the idea behind the story. The spells were very original and an interesting touch.
However, I have to wonder if you proofread this at all, or if your computer is seriously inept at grammar checks. All through the story, quotation marks were in the wrong place, capitalization seemed random (Ruby wasn't capitalized once). Punctuation goes inside the quotation mark, not outside, like you did.
Said is only enjoyable so many times. There are plenty of other words you can use; nobody wants to read a "he said, she said, they said, we said, i said" story. If someone's screaming, say they're screaming, not "said."
I'm sorry if I sounded harsh, but this seems like a very interesting plot and I only want to help you make it as good as it can be.
The messages in bold (except the ones regarding punctuation) are just suggestions of words or phrases that I thought would fit better.
Bonjour! Stella here! Finally getting round to it.
. I actually really enjoyed the story, and I'm being meaner than usual...
Right so.
Warning: Don't get disheartened and hate me during this review
I. NITPICKS
Nitpicks first, as always. I'm going to put the whole thing in a quote box. Comments, compliments and corrections are in bold. Any parts that don't need attention will be deleted, to save space
Okay, specifics now.
II. INVERTED COMMAS
Or speech marks, as they're commonly called.
You have some weird habits with these little guys, and you're not consistent in the habits either, which makes me think that you're just a little unsure about how to use them. So I'm going to give you a refresher course!
Inverted commas only go round what the person is saying. That means that they don't go around the speech tags, ie. said Sarah. You sometimes do this, it's not right. The speech marks only go around the speech, that's the idea of them.
But if you want to say who's saying that, then
You see that the full stop after shops turns to a comma in the second one. (For the record, I was only taught this by a lovely beta reader on a fan fiction site a few months ago, not even my English teacher, so don't get freaked). You see, 'said John' is still part of your sentence. It's just not what he was saying. So the full stop has to go.
But
The second part of his 'speech' as such, doesn't have a tag on the end of it, because we know it's still John who's speaking. So there's a full stop, instead of a comma, the sentence is finished, like my first "Let's go to the shops." Make sense?
But of course, what if John's having a conversation? What if somebody else says they want ice cream? "I want to buy some ice cream" could have been said by anyone and the author just hasn't told us who.
Ah, but those inventors of grammar have come up with a solution.
Let's say Mary wanted ice cream...
You see? If it's just the two of them in the conversation, then it's got to be Mary replying to him. But we don't know that if it's all on one line. The break in between signifies that someone new is speaking. You've got to do this whenever someone new is speaking.
Okay?
Next...
III. PARAGRAPHS
Always start a new paragraph when you come onto a new idea or theme. Apart from making it easier for your reader, it also makes your presentation so much better.
IV. PROOFREADING
(Is that all one word or not?)
There are some mistakes in here that I think are nothing to do with lack of writing ability, but with carelessness. Simply checking your Spell Check doesn't do it all. For instance, you forgot to capitalize Ruby several times. Reading through your piece looking specifically for mistakes is a good habit to get into. Also, try reading it aloud (even if just under your breath, because you might sound a bit odd otherwise
Okay, that's most of the technicalities, I think. Onto my favourite, style *rubs hands together in glee*
V. CHARACTERS
I found that your characters seemed very similar, and I didn't notice any distinct effort to trace the differences between them.
Let's look at each one:
A. Madeline: A witch with the gift of foresight. Now, maybe I read too much Harry Potter, but I feel that the one with foresight would generally be the most distant, always looking into the future. Here, I tended to find that she was the leader. I'm guessing she was the eldest and actually, I think she would do better as the youngest, or with a different power. When she was described to be a Seer this is what I expected, but she seemed to be the first one to go ahead and do everything.
B. Rose: You tell us that Rose has the most confidence. Then why doesn't she do anything? Most of this took place between Madeline and Sarah. In the piece, Sarah seemed to be the strategist, coming up with a way to defeat Ruby. Why wasn't it Rose, who has all the answers? Why wasn't it Rose who took charge, being confident?
C. Sarah: Sarah came off as being strong, but I couldn't work out, with having the most power of all three, why does she let Madeline, who I would think has the least power, take control? Also, why is she reluctant to use her powers of control? Instead, she's the thinker of the trio, thinking of a way to defeat Ruby rather than controlling her?
D. Ruby: Ruby seemed to be the typical "Haha, I've ruined your parents' lives, now let's ruin yours!" bitter, power hungry villain. Why? You need to get into every single character's heads. Why does Ruby want power? Is she afraid? Also, you didn't tell us a whole lot about her, except that she killed Mr. Canaby. Expansion is never useless
VI. SHOW AND TELL
You've told us a good story, but that's not enough! Show us the story. Don't tell us "Oh, Madeline's powers have saved them in the past." Show us her sisters' memories of her saving them.
I'm going to give you an example.
First: telling:
And showing:
Now tell me, which do you prefer?
You do an awful lot of telling in this story. It tends to leave a dry taste in the mouth. What you need to do is go through and in every spot where you tell us something, show us it instead. I know that this impossible sometimes, and a little telling is acceptable, but not as much as you have here.
VII. PLOT
Your plot interested me, but you need to clarify. Halfway through, Ruby turns up. Is Ruby involved with their giving of their powers to Lily? Why? How? The two seemed unconnected and it didn't quite follow through. Suddenly, they just have an evil cousin. Also, there are strange little things tucked in here, like, how did Sarah have time to open her trunk and rummage through it in the middle of Madeline and Ruby's deadly duel?
VIII. OVERALL
Overall, I'm being quite harsh. It was a good story, I enjoyed it and I was hooked. It just needs work. Once the presentation is better, the whole thing will go down much more smoothly.
Hope I've been helpful!
PM me if you have any questions!
-Stella x
Bonjour! Stella here!
Right so. Nitpicks first, as always. I'm going to put the whole thing in a quote box. Comments, compliments and corrections are in bold. Any parts that don't need attention will be deleted, to save space
Ok wismann, I'm going to try and give you a very indepth review
I'll go through the problematic areas first.
I know it seems like I have pointed out a LOT of bad things, but mainly it was grammatical mistakes and things to do with sentence structure. So many parts of this had such great description, that was really vivid and engaging. Other parts, its not that it was bad description, but it didn't read well because of poor sentence order. I think when you are going over your work, you need to pay more attention to grammar and stuff. I can tell that you put a lot of work into a lot or this, but you can see the bits where it was just basic grammar. I think your use of semi-colons was good though!
I liked this peice though. It's not the type of thing I would normally go for but I enjoyed reading it. As I have said I think some of your description is really good. I really liked the spells, I thought they were the best bit of it. I thought most of your dialouge sounded pretty natural and well written. Obviously at this point I'm not sure how this sotry will end up, but it seems like a very action driven story, and I think you have done that well, as you kept me reading, which as I said I normally wouldn't go for (:
Keep working on this seriously! I think it could be really good!
*tips hat* I'm here as requested.
Firstly, I'd like to take the time to commend zankoku_na_tenshi. Look through the grammar and punctuation corrections that she's made and learn from them. You can find guides to help you with these issues on the site. Take some time to read them. At the moment it seems that although you've spent a lot of time writing, you've not actually been bothered to make it readable. If that's the case, then you need to get your act together. Consider the punctuation/etc to be the foundations of your work. If they're not in place, everything else ceases to impress.
Character Development
This evening I’ll be talking about your characters. This seems to be the area that the other critiquers haven’t focussed on, so I’ll try to help you with this.
1. The Chosen One
Well, if you’ve got to have it then I guess there’s no stopping you. Be aware that this isn’t particularly original, other than the fact that we aren’t dropped right into the storyline of this character. A lot of novels use this idea, the hero/heroine that doesn’t want to be a hero/heroine but is picked out by a prophesy yadda yadda. Don’t be “just another fantasy”. Be bold. Do something a little more different and exciting, and you’ll be rewarded.
Let’s see what is good, bad and ugly about her, then:
The GOOD
This is brilliant. What would be better, of course, is for other people to share that opinion (more excitingly if the King secretly shared this sentiment!!!) but it’s good to begin with. Lily. You’ve already set her up to be weak, so don’t disappoint in the next few chapters!
The BAD
This is weak. If you wanted to hint at future power, you could say something like, “but there was an unruly spark of determination in her gaze that all three witches failed to spot”. Perhaps better would be to leave this unresolved. You can show the reader how powerful she becomes by taking her through the events that shape her!
And The UGLY
I don’t get why you phrased it like this unless it turns out that “Lily” is a boy!? Confused dot com. Indeed.
2. The Canaby Sisters
Be careful that you aren’t simply “telling” rather than “showing” the powers and differences between the three sisters. They are potentially very strong characters, but the reader won’t bond with them if you present their traits all vacuum-packed and sterilised from all life! I don’t see an easy way around this with the gifts, but I’m sure you could spice up the descriptions a little, can’t you?
Madeline
Apart from the horrendous grammar here, this is odd. It seems that quite regularly, Madeline is the leader of the three Canaby Sisters. She seems to have the others following her, possibly because of her advantage of inner sight, but this seems to contradict the fact that Rose is the most confident. *shrugs* Just a thought.
Madeline seems quite detached from the fact that they actually might have to kill another being, and as the person that uses her gift to save others (a “good” person) I don’t see this as being particularly in character. Still, I quite like the fact that she can’t quite grasp the enormity of situations. That would be an excellent flaw for someone who can see the situations before they happen. Work on it. Build it stronger.
Rose
I thought you said Rose was the most confident. What’s up with this? If she’s acting out of character already, make this obvious. If not, change the confident one to be Madeline. She was the one that decided to stand and fight.
Apart from this, Rose doesn’t seem to act much on her own in the fight. The gift of “knowing” is VERY strong, so be careful how you use this character. I’d actually quite like to see her in a situation where knowing the facts is a disadvantage. See what you can do.
Sarah
I saved the best of the three for last. This line made my day.
3. Ruby (The Evil One)
Oh dear. Unfortunately for you, Ruby is a letdown. A character that is related to the Sisters and has killed their father? Forget it. It’s horribly clichéd and if it absolutely must stay, then don’t reveal it immediately.
I saw no reason for Ruby to be in the same place at the same time as the Sisters, so their meeting is flawed. If she’s killed their father, why haven’t they hunted her down before? Why is she still harping on about it? In short, I really don’t like this character. Perhaps you’ll develop her more in the redraft/later chapters. I sure hope so.
I think you should follow these steps:
Give her a motive rather than just “I’m eeeevil! I kiiiill you” kind of style.
Give her a soft spot.
Give her some separate troubles of her own.
Conclusion
I liked this piece. Superficially, it wasn’t particularly well-written, but glimpses of something far greater kept shining through. I believe I echo another reviewer when I say I love the line:
If you can write like this, then why isn’t it all correctly punctuated/etc? You’re hiding your talent underneath a smokescreen that doesn’t need to be there! Stop doing that, and get this rewritten. You can do a lot better, and I’m looking forward to seeing how good it can get.
Yours,
Charlie
thankyou every one for your great crits i have already started to make changes and keep following the story line!
Well, this is certainly a very promising first chapter! I do think it could use a little clean-up, but let's get things started on a positive note. Here's the good.
I really, really liked those spell chants. They made for a very unique and interesting touch to the story, and gave your magic system it's own little pinch of awesome. It was just the right thing to make your first bits of world-building stand out, and it's something I definitely admire, since my magic systems are often rather simplistic and lame. XD
I also thought the relationship between the three sisters was nicely done, and I like their distinct personalities. It seems like whenever a group of supernatural beings like these are introduced to a story, they get treated as one big ol' block o' magic, (Heck, even Shakespeare wrote his witches that way, if I was paying attention properly when we read Macbeth last year) so I really enjoyed how you seemed willing to give them differences and even (*gasp*) differing opinions! Well done.
I thought it was quite original that, at least for the moment, instead of focusing on the Chosen One Baby like most fantasy authors do, you put us in the shoes of the witches who come to deliver her those magic gifts. It was a brilliant little twist, and well done. I enjoyed that a lot, being of the opinion that it's a lot easier to sympathize with three fully developed characters with a goal and stuff to do than with some random baby.
I just want you to know that I consider that piece of imagery to be quite awesome.
Now, despite all this general win, awesome, and originality you've got going on here, there's still a bit to be desired. None of it is really big plot-related stuff, and all of it's simple to fix, but fixed it needs to be.
Sorry to say that the above reviewers have a really good point about those Goliath paragraphs up there. It will help, big time, if you break them up. In my grammar critique below, I put in some paragraph breaks, but feel free to rearrange them if these don't suit your liking.
Now, some matters of grammar.
I know this is probably a little obnoxious to hear, but you kind of need to keep an eye on your grammar here. You've chunked all the paragraphs together, forgotten punctuation marks, and the capitalization is kind of random. I know at least some of this has got to be unintentional typos (your computer seems to have some weird issues with quotation marks). And I've made my own share of hilariously bad typos, so I sympathize. Still, though, it's a good idea to get in the habit of proofreading your work. Trust me, I make dumb typing mistakes all the time-- I once spelled a major character's name wrong no less than six times on one page, and it took me more than a month to spot it. XD But grammar problems can be really off-putting for potential readers, and really frustrating for potential reviewers, so it's a really good idea to straighten them out. Anyway, to help you see the problems you seem to be having, as well as to make this whole thing easier for myself to read so I can focus on the story rather than boring grammar stuff, I went through and spruced up the grammar a bit.
I've bolded my insertions, though I wasn't sure how to mark the deletions, they should be easy to see. Keep in mind that most of my phrasing suggestions are just suggestions, feel free to dump them or keep them as you see fit.
Not perfect, heaven knows, but a little clearer. I know I've got my own share of grammar demons, especially when it comes to what to put at the end of a quote, but can you see how much more smoothly it reads now? That sort of cleaning up will really help out your audience, trust me.
Now, for a few overall/ plot-related critiques.
I did think the habit of using all caps looked a tiny bit silly, especially when there was no exclamation point at the end. (For example, in the first part of this chapter when the sisters are chanting their names). I kept reading it as sounding really loud, but being totally monotone, which sounded somewhat ridiculous in my head. Eh, just a suggestion, keep or change as you like.
I was also absolutely bewildered by how on earth the gifts they were supposed to give Lily worked. First they said they expected an adult, but then, just a few sentences later, they said they had to give the gift before the midnight of her birth, and then they said they had two weeks to do it. I'm just a little bit perplexed. If they expect an adult, they should know that the midnight of her birth has looong since passed, and two weeks will be a good deal after the midnight of her birth. I feel like either this needs some rethinking, or we need a little more clarification as to what's going on with this spell.
I'm not sure if this sentence has quite the right tone compared to the setup around it. It sounded almost like a joke to me, actually. It was like: "Oh, look at the pretty torchlight... and the buildings... and THE GIANT UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT OF DOOM!" It's absolutely brilliant if it's a joke, but looking at the rest of the writing, it doesn't seem to be one, so I felt a little confused.
Kind of a nitpick, but Madeline shouldn't have to tell the others that Ruby is their cousin, they already know. I can see how it's in there for the reader's benefit, but I believe it's mentioned later that they are cousins, so "our cousin" is a little unnecessary here.
And... that's pretty much it.
I hope I didn't sound too harsh here, I really didn't intend to be. This is a really promising start, and there's a lot about it I like, it just kind of needs some clean-up here and there. I'll start the next chapter as soon as I can. ^_^
Sorry to say that the above reviewers have a really good point about those Goliath paragraphs up there. It will help, big time, if you break them up. In my grammar critique below, I put in some paragraph breaks, but feel free to rearrane them if these don't suit your liking.
Firstly, some matters of grammar. I've bolded my insertions, though I wasn't sure how to mark the deletions, they should be easy to see. Keep in mind that most of my phrasing suggestions are just suggestions, feel free to dump them or keep them as you see fit.
WELCOME!!! i am new to this site as well...I cannot keep away..*worries*
thank you for a nice way to spend 10mins. (hugs)
A very pleasant read
You might want to break up your MAMMOTH paragraphs a little...it is very hard to read them at times. punctuation?...i won't bother! i am hardly qualified hahaha mine is abysmal
But stick with it and take on board what some of the more experienced writers advice. They are very helpful
Your story is great! But I have some advice. Split your paragraphs up, and try to fix the diologue. It was very confusing. other than that, you are VERY good.
To tell you the truth, I couldn't even read through the first paragraph. I know you worked hard on this piece of writing and it's probably pretty good, too. The first paragraph I read was good. The paragraphs are way too long and seem like such a hassle to read all of them, to tell you the truth I only made it half way through the second chapter before I stopped. The best suggestion I have for you is to start learning how to form paragraphs. The rule goes like this, "Everything in a paragraph should be closely related." So let's say, for example if you are writing about dogs, the moment you start writing about a cat you need to start a new paragraph. If you don't learn to structure your paragraphs properly no one will want to read it all because it feels like so much work.
Yes, it is improper grammar to have two different people speaking in the same paragraph. Also, you need to figure out how to use quotation marks, instead of putting “Sisters” “said Madeline” “join me in the spell” it should be "Sisters," said Madeline, "join me in a spell" I noticed that this is a problem throughout the entire post. Othe than that, it's great, it is a little confusing but I will assume that eberything will be explained later in the story.
Wisemann210 - hello, welcome to YWS. It’s a very, very, very addicting site (yes, that was a warning, heh). But, before I continue with your review - there’s one very important rule that everyone must abide. For every piece of your own that you decide to post, you have to critique two times something of someone else’s. 2:1. Critiques - 2, your own work posted - 1.
Okay, the first thing I noticed were the paragraphs, or chunks of paragraphs. Those are way to long - consider splitting them up. Start a new one with every new dialogue sentence of each character, e.g. when a new witch speaks, that should have its own paragraph. Don’t squeeze everything into one!
Punctuation. Consider checking out some articles concerning that - it looks tricky, and sometimes is, but when you get the hang of it it comes naturally. So, do that, and correct your work.
The spells were a nice touch, yes - a very good idea. The plot looks like an interesting one, too. Correct the things I’ve spoken (typed?) of, and then it will be a more enjoyable read : )
Cheers,
Esme