I was nine when the Babylonians came. I used to tell people they came out of nowhere, but I know better now. Everyone was expecting them. I was too young and oblivious to notice the frantic preparations. The adults tried but it was a helpless cause. Their army was too quick. They were upon us before we realized.
I woke up that night to distant screams. I rose from my sleeping mat to locate my mother. She wasn’t on her mat. She was sitting at the table with my father. They were talking in hushed tones. I only heard a snippet of what they said.
“We must get out of here. Please- for the boys if not for me,” my mother pleaded.
“No we must not flee. Our Lord will take care of us. He promised us this land,” my father argued. “We cannot abandon it now. The Messiah may show hims…”
“Asher is awake,” my mother interrupted. She looked stunning in the moonlight. She had her hair down. I didn’t often get to see it that way because she always covered it up as good Hebrew wife does. There are so many things I wish I could have said to her then, but alas I was only nine and neither of us knew that this is the last time I would ever see her.
“Son, put on your sandals. We are leaving,” my father commanded.
“No, Eleazar! Please do not take him,” my mother begged as she sank to her knees. I gathered my sandals as my father had instructed. I knew better than to disobey him. He loved me and my brother, Obed, but he demanded perfect obedience. He said that Jehovah demanded we respect and obey both him and our dear mother.
“Batya, our son will act as a man tonight. I want him to be a part of this. That is final,” whispered my father firmly. “Come, Asher.”
I followed him out the door of our house and into the vast unknown. I think I heard my mother crying in the background. We walked quickly. We passed the courtyard where I had played with my friends earlier that day. When we passed by the village well, I wondered if my mother would go gossip with the other women the next day or if another woman would have to fetch the water for her. I had seen her do this countless times for a lady who was sick or just had a baby. She was very compassionate. I never saw her once complain about helping another person. She seemed to get joy out of her actions. As we walked the screams and the shouting got louder and louder, and for the first time I realized that parents in every house were up and talking just like mine had been. In some houses mothers were gather food. In others fathers grabbed weapons or anything metal they had on hand.
My father halted at the last house on our street. He gave two slow knocks followed by four short ones. Someone opened the door cautiously. When the man saw my father, he almost smiled. “Come in, Eleazar… and Asher.” He motioned for us to follow him into the house. I realized it was Caleb’s father. Caleb had been my best friend as long as I could remember. “Asher, welcome my brother,” Caleb’s father said quietly before he let us enter the room.
The room was filled with both men and boys; the boys all looked older than me though. I thought back to how Caleb’s father had addressed me. He had called me ‘brother’. It was odd. Normally men called me ‘son’ because they were my superiors, but he had addressed me as his equal – not his son’s playmate.
The men around me chatted nervously while looking at their weapons. I was still not sure what was going on; I knew whatever it was was bad. The boys stood still not speaking unless spoken to so I followed their examples and observed the organized chaos.
Bang! My attention snapped toward the door or rather where the door had once been. It was now lying on the floor. In the dark outside, I could barely make out five armor-clad soldiers with their swords raised.
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hey, Kate!
We understand that she's not on her mat when we read that she's at the table, so the first sentence isn't necessary. But, if you feel like you need to stress that she wasn't in bed - maybe reinforcing the strangeness - then there is a way you can combine these two sentences. If you wanted to really draw attention to her absence from bed, you should mention that after saying that she was at the table.
"Was", not "is". You changed tenses.
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Wow, that was a great opening. You did a great job of developing both your main character and the plot. You've made it obvious that we're going to have quite a considerable time lapse between now and the next installment - at least I hope so - so I'm excited to see what type of state your main character will be.
I do have to say that this seems more like a "prologue" than a "chapter one".
-RP
Hello! It has been a long time since I have written a review, so please bare with me as I remember how. Also, be prepared because I am going to give you only honest feedback and no false praise. I feel if you're truly serious about writing you will prefer the first over the second anyways. So here it goes:
Your beginning needs some strengthening. I like that you have established the time period and main conflict quickly. However, I want you to read that first paragraph and ask yourself, "If I were to open this book up at the library, would I want to read more?" You need a great hook, or opening line, that immediately captures your reader's attention and makes them want to read more.
Secondly, I agree with Twit in that your voice here is a little jumbled. At times it comes off as if the nine year old is telling the story and then suddenly it is the future protagonist. Because you are telling the story in past tense I would stick with the future protagonist when you are writing the prose and switch to the nine year old voice only when you write dialogue for him.
I love the use of authentic Hebrew names. It shows that you did research when developing your characters and for that you get a big thumbs up from me.
I did have a hard time believing that Asher's father would willingly take him into the heat of a battle that no one was prepared for. It seems a little foolish to me. This comes from an actual mother, so it is hard for me to imagine a parent putting a nine year old in that kind of danger. If you absolutely have to put him in this situation to move the story along then I would like to see more fight from the mother. She obviously does not want her son thrust into this conflict and should physically try to prevent it from happening. Also, I think the nine year old might show a bit of emotion during this scene. His father is sending him to battle, his mother is fighting with his dad, there is screaming in the distance. Why is he not emoting? I would be crapping my pants quite frankly.
Finally, where is the description of the scenery? You don't need to take a whole paragraph to describe the setting, but little snippets here and there would help us to feel as if we are running alongside the protagonist. When writing about scenery make sure to try to cover all five senses. How does it feel, taste, sound, smell, look? I think Twit covered this as well, so I won't go on and on. You should see if your library has Tosca Lee's novel Iscariot. It is about Judas Iscariot and is set in Israel. Her descriptions of the scenery are flawless, and while not the exact same timeline as your story there are similarities. Consider it research in not only scenery, but also the culture and character development. Plus, it is a really good book!
Well, this concludes my review. I hope this was helpful and not TOO critical. My apologies if I was a bit harsh.
Hi Kate98!
This is an excellent beginning—it introduces the main conflict and gives an idea of the main character in just a few short sentences. However, the last three sentences are a little misleading. You mention the frantic preparations and the adults trying in vain, which makes it sound like the adults’ preparations are what failed. But then you mention the army, which implies that it was the adults’ fighting against the army that failed. It’s a bit all over the place. Suggest expanding on what the preparations were for—at first I thought it was in the narrator’s home, like her parents storing food and provisions in case of a siege, which is why talking about the army seems off.
The first sentence implies that the screams were coming from inside the house. It made me expect that it was the narrator’s mother that was screaming, but she’s obviously not.
There should be either a comma or a dash after ‘please’.
My knowledge of this time period and culture is very sketchy, but there was quite a taboo on writing down or speaking God’s name. So I’m not sure if they would have said ‘Jehovah’ in everyday conversation. Try ‘our Lord’ or ‘God’ or ‘our Father in Heaven’ or similar.
Should be ‘knew that this was the last time’.
Dialogue should end in a comma, and the tag begin with a small letter.
‘Apart’ as one word means separate from. I’m thinking you need a space, and for this to be two words.
This makes the outside sound far more grand than it really is. False impression. Suggest reword.
This would be a good moment to stop and describe the scene. I’m not entirely sure what kind of environment I should be picturing here—I mean, I have a rough idea, but not specifics. Details here will really help make the scene vivid. Is it a warm night? Cool? Are the stars out? What colour is the sky? What does the city smell like, sound like? What are the screams and shouting?
Bolded bits are my additions.
You don’t have a tag, so the dialogue needs to end in a full stop, and the narrative begin again with a capital.
Should be ‘addressed’ and ‘were’.
My additions in bold.
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Hi!
This is an interesting beginning. I don’t think I’ve read any stories on YWS set in this kind of time period, so this is very cool and new. Your punctuation is good; there were just a few instances of missed commas and the like.
Your writing is mostly very good—there’s a good pace and the narrative is very clear and easy to read. It is a little bald in places—you could really spice this up with some more description; add colours and textures and smells, get right down into the skin of this world and show us its messy and gritty details.
Aside from description, the other main point is voice. You’ve got two voices here—nine-year-old Asher and future Asher—and they’re rather jumbled at present. There are times when he sounds quite adult, like when he talks about his mother, and other times when he sounds very young, like when he notices Caleb’s father calling him ‘brother’. To Kill A Mockingbird is a great example of using two different-yet-similar voices—there’s a seamless transition between the old and young narrators, and both feel true and realistic. I think Asher’s voice needs a bit of work—not just to show his character, but also to determine which Asher is most prevalent at this moment. You open with the voice of future Asher, which is great—he’s looking back at this important moment in his life with the benefit of hindsight. But to place up firmly in that important moment, we needs to hear young Asher, to feel what he feels and thinks, and experience this moment along with him.
(I feel like maybe I’m not explaining this very well. Do PM or Wall me if I am being hideously unclear, and I’ll and explain it more clearly.)
Keep writing!
-twit
Hi twit! Thank you for taking the time to review this. I really appreciate your insight. what you said about the point of view/voice makes sense to me. I knew the voice needed to be changed but I had no idea where to start. I have a teacher (who has a masters in the field) who says Jehovah is actually correct (Yaweh is the name that they would not say according to him) however I think I will change it nonetheless so it will not distract from the story. I will work on my description. Thanks for your input!
-Kate98
I love how you ended with sort of a cliffhanger! I did not notice any grammatical mistakes. I am looking forward to this series. Is a war going on? If so, can you elaborate why? What are Babylonians? Are they from a certain epoch? I love how you describe when major things happen. I am not that good at punctuation. Unlike you!
You made no mistakes with proper dialogue punctuation. For instance, you put quotations after periods and commas. I look forward to this series, please do continue it!!
Why is this called A Slave's Servant? Is he the slave or the servant or some other person? What rank or position was the protagonist's family in? Those are just some questions I had throughout this chapter! Please reply.
HI!! Thank you for the sweet review. To be honest I was really nervous to post this. The next two or so chapters should answer many of your questions but I would be happy to answer them in the meantime.
I will send you a PM as the answers contain spoilers.
Also I noticed you are new to YWS so WELCOME!! Let me know if I can do anything to help you.
-Kate98