Published December 28, 2009
I am new here so please be nice. I hope I'm doing this right. I am currently working on a story about a pack of werewolves. It's told by a girl named Kara who meets a girl named Ayden and learns she is half werewolf. This is a small excerpt of when Kara first explains how they transform as she does it. I need help knowing if this is realistic and good. Please let me know everything you think.
It is:
'I reached for that peaceful warm spot in my stomach and let it spread like hot liquid steel through out my body. First, it traveled up to my heart and through my arms, reaching my fingertips with a pop. My jaw relaxed in expectation and it felt as if the bones melted to shift into my true self. My mind felt like it filled with the carbonate of the sweetest kind of wine and I tasted something undescribeble on my tongue. Then it shot down straight to my toes and a big beautiful beast tore out of my chest and my skin dissolved; revealing broad muscled shoulders, an elegant wolf-like face, and a thick fur coat in its place. I fell forward on all fours and let out a low snort of relief at the freedom I felt when I was like this. We generally looked like wolves. The exceptions being that our ears were wider and longer, and our back legs were longer, giving us more speed.'
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Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
Anyway let's get right to it,
OKayy...well this is certainly a rather intriguing little excerpt that you've got right here. I don't believe I've run into anything quite of this nature before despite a plethora of werewolf related stories that I've seen on YWS. It does look like you've chosen a slightly more unique path of getting to this particular topic here and on first glance it seems quite good.
This particular piece here is a teensy bit confusing though. It seems you're just sort of describing what I assume is sort of transition process here from human to werewolf rather than capturing anything storywise, so as I suppose a bit of a proof of concept or something like that, this could work, although as an intro I'd say a bit more of the plot is required here.
As a piece, it is still quite an enjoyable one and I certainly do find myself wanting to know more and more on how this world works, but I think a little more would go some way to helping out here with this particular introduction that you've got going on.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Just a word of advice, for every post you submit you have to write at least 3 reviews for other people (1 post-at least 3 reviews)
Would mean that you would have more time to write and would have to spend less time writing reviews for other people. Still doesn't mean you can get out of it though!
My advice would be not to post until you have a must longer block of writing, because your post can be as long as you want
Hope that helps.
Forgotten xxx
We generally looked like wolves should be changed to : Normally, we took form as a wolf. OR Normally, we were in our wolf forms.
It makes it sound better. Other than that, Good job over all. And I hope you have good luck with your story and get many,many good posts.
Half-werewolf? I thought you were either full werewolf or nothing.
Nah, it's your story. Some of it was a bit strange... the parts you described, it sounded like the transformation was pleasant, but then there were some parts that sounded absolutely excruciating, but you didn't bother describing that with much detail, if at all. For example, skin dissolving? This is a pretty powerful image full of lots of conflict and horror! It might be good to expand on it, especially if it is horrible or leaves Kara disoriented. Conflict in general is a lovely thing, and you want to use as much of it as you can without ruining the story.
Good luck with your novel!
Considering that this was an excerpt, I excused the whole paragraph hoping beyond hope that it was somewhere in the middle of your chapter.
Anyhow, the end of it killed the whole thing. At first, I didn't consider it an information dump because you were describing a transformation, which could not be spread out as easily as let's say, someone's looks. Well, look at here! This is what I have quoted!
You didn't have to say, "We generally looked like wolves." because this is a werewolf story. It's a given. You can say something about their wolf-like form or their canine-esque physiques, but when you say they generally looked like wolves, it kills whatever little magic you had.
Finally, the physical descriptions reminded me of how my classmates write. They think that as long as they list down every possible description, they can leave it down to the reader to imagine it. You have to remember that the reader is an actual person. There are some facts that he/she wouldn't give a dern about. Longer legs and wider ears does not give your wolves any more originality as a tall person would to a normal person.
Happy writing.
Hey Kerza! Welcome to YWS! You can call me Stella and I will be your reviewer today.
This is really short! Don't be afraid to post more in the future, we can deal with a little more (just not too much!)
Alright so.
I. NITPICKS
How can a body part be peaceful?
indescribable.
Rephrase this, it sounds like "Normally, we took wolf form."
II. OVERALL
It's interesting to see your transformation, generally writers do it as a very painful thing. However, I think it's important that we would see more before I can judge this as a beginning. This paragraph is fine, but I want to know where it leads!
Hope I helped, and if you need anything feel free to drop me a PM!
-Stella x