Young Writers Society

Hey Lizzy!
The story is good but it’s a little bit choppy. The sentences are always short and they don’t flow very well. You overuse the comma and that makes even the longest sentences not flow. For example: “When he pulls me up,we both face each other. He was rather tall with a slim figure, wearing a brown trench coat in which he had his hands in. Not to mention his hair, and skin were Snow White. I’ve personally never seen anything like it.” Try to write a little more like you’re in the moment but not too much or else it gets to be too much. Maybe instead of it being like that, try to make it something like, “When he pulled me from the ground, we both awkwardly faced each other. He was rather tall with a slim figure, wearing a brown trench coat where he planted his hands. Not to mention his hair and skin were Snow White. I’ve personally never seen anything like it.” I eliminated a comma and added a few things. I’m not saying it has to be exactly that but it does need to change some. It’s not the only sentence either.
Now that I’ve given you the negative, let me give the positive...I really love the way you thought outside the box and made him albino. I can honestly say that I’ve never seen that before in a book. I’m intrigued by the story and can’t wait to keep reading! Cliffhanger was awesome because it left me wanting to know who he is and where she is going to end up. Good writing! 👍🏼👍🏼

Hey, it's been a while since I've had time to post a review, so please, if you would be so kind as to forgive my lack of fluidity and solid structure that I typically pride myself on, that would be greatly appreciated. So, I'm going to be going back to my story format for this one, so I'll go through paragraph by paragraph and then give my general opinions at the end. I apologize in advance for my bluntness, I assume you don't mind because blunt reviews are in the nature of this site, but I still think it's appropriate to warn you in advance that I won't be holding anything back.

So, with no further ado, let us begin.

"It hurts."

As per long-standing tradition, I'll give my thoughts on the opening line. It was good. It roped me in pretty well and set a tone for the story, whether or not it was a particularly good tone is something I'll get back to, but otherwise, it was just a bit cliche. The only tips I really have are to re-evaluate the tone you set and strive for a bit more originality.

Okay, moving on.

"It hurts when you are stuck in a deep, dark hole, and you struggle to get out

You struggle so much, to keep living, to keep going, eventually tiring yourself out, and nobody is there to help you

Not a soul.

„Your father would be so disappointed...“


I had just lost my job, and was waiting for a better time to tell her...

My (ex)boss had called her, telling her I was no good now...

My mother works constantly, day and night, with exhausting hours."

This whole segment just dragged on a little too long. It gets overly wordy and everything tangles up. When you're trying to capture a depressing/sad/scary/suspenseful/any "negative" emotion really, scene, you have to remember that less is more. If you want to describe, say, the emotions around a loss, as you did here, it will have a better effect if you don't re-state the same emotion twice. Every sentence has to give new information, otherwise, you're just going around in circles and losing your reader.

Onward!

"Who am I, you ask? My name is Sarah Quinora. I‘m only 17, but I worked long and hard shifts at a restaurant as a waitress for about a year now. My mother and I work to keep our money stable, and our house standing. But... it seems we all aren‘t as lucky as others. When she had said those words about dad, I had lost it. I didn’t know why I lost my job, okay? My boss was already a greedy scumbag anyway. He sure didn‘t care when I tried to redeem myself. "

The "Who am I/my name is" trope is so overdone at this point. I mean, I can see why you used it, to a certain degree, but there are just a whole lot of problems with this trope as a whole. I get it, you're setting up who your narrator is and introducing the main character, congrats, but there are so many better ways to do that. I would suggest the second-easiest way to tell the readers her name, have her mom say it. They're supposed to be having an argument, I think, so it would stand to reason that the mom would shout the child's full name, problem solved. As for establishing her as the narrator, just write in her voice. Your use of the first person is effective enough in that.

Okay, the next thing.

"Eventually, my travel came to an sudden end as I had ran into somebody. We both fall to the ground together. My head makes impact to the ground, while the person I ran into caught themselves before they were able to hurt anything. The person gets up, and holds their hand out to me, revealing that it was a guy about my age. „Hey, are you alright?“ I‘m surprised by his gentle tone, as I accept his kind gesture. „Y-Yeah...“ I struggle to speak from crying so much. When he pulls me up, we both face eachother. He rather tall with a slim figure, wearing a brown trench coat in which he had his hands in. Not to mention his hair, and skin were snow white. I‘ve personally never seen anything like it. He notices my red, puffy face. „Hey, whats wrong?...“ he asks in a quiet tone, with a slight smile. I look down, „I...would rather not talk about it...“ he frowns „are you sure? If so I‘m here to help. Oh, have I not even introduced myself? My name is Destery...“ he says with a welcoming smile"

So many problems. I have so many problems with this. Number one, and my biggest writing pet-peeve is the dialogue. I will say this once, in big capital letters EVERY SINGLE TIME A NEW CHARACTER SPEAKS, YOU MUST START A NEW PARAGRAPH. End of story. No exceptions. Period. In case you don't yet understand what I mean, as I didn't when I was first given this advice by some random internet weirdo who also happened to have a degree in English, I'll give and example. Here is the wrong way, "Hi, I'm new here, can you show me around?" the other kid gave me a warm smile, "Sure! follow me." Now, the correct way.

"Hi, I'm new here, can you show me around?"

The other kid gave me a warm smile, "Sure! Follow me."

See how you could clearly tell who was talking when? See how that looks so much better than a big block of text? Do that.

My other problem with this is just how the characters behave. How do I put it simply? No one would do that. Your gender-swapped Snow White wouldn't stop to have a nice chat with the random girl he ran into on the street if he was being chased. He wouldn't even notice her puffy red eyes, especially if it's chilly enough for a trenchcoat, wherein, take if from a Minnesotan, your entire face would probably be tinted a little red if you're redness-prone like I am. In that situation, a real person would get right back up, MAYBE help the other person to their feet if they're as nice as you try (maybe to the point of it being a little creepy) to convince us this guy is, but either way, you just keep running. Then, maybe your MC hears the shouting and is curious already, feels threatened or is just plain curious, and runs after the boy. That way you get a more dramatic and exciting scene, some characterization for your protagonist, and a chance for some more interesting banter to establish whatever kind of chemistry you want to set up between these two.

Those same problems of mine extend all the way to the end, so no need for more detail work, I'll give my final thoughts now. Your idea is promising if a little on-the-nose about being a Snow White re-telling. My overall tips are these, remember you have to entertain your readers, so try to be as creative as possible when designing the scenes. Try to make your dialogue sound more natural, try saying out loud or have someone read it aloud for you school-play-style. Remember to include small details over basics, you get a much clearer image if I say, "There was a little row of freckles underlining one of her dark eyes as if someone had written a warning there in a dotted code against the intensity that radiated from them" than if I say, "She had intense dark eyes", keep that in mind. I'm going to be honest here, I don't really like it as is, but I don't usually have a taste for these kinds of stories anyway, so I'm not the target audience. That said, your writing style needs work, and the only way to make it better is by doing just that, working. Just write, improvement will come naturally over time, but only if you don't stop writing. One day, you'll look back at this and cringe, everyone always does with their old work, and that's a good thing. It's just a way to know that you have gotten so much better.

In the meantime, if you want any more tips or clarification of anything I've said here, feel free to message me, I should get back to you within a day or two. If it takes longer than that, I've been trapped inside by the snow again and I don't have internet at my house. So I'm essentially dead. Yay!

On that note, keep working on this, I really, truely think that you can create great things if you put your mind to it.

This was good, I really enjoyed it. There were a few things that I think could've been tweaked here or there, such as how they met, bumping into each other is a tiny bit cliché. There was also some missing punctuation that could be fixed by going through this one or two more times. I'm not sure if this is a style choice, or not, but the quotation marks are at the bottom rather than the top first, and at the end are at the top. Finally, this is a little bit of a nitpick, but I kind of wish the main character doesn't tell us her name, and we don't know until she meets Destery, and she tells him her name. It sounds a little more natural, and less sudden, if you know what I mean.
Other than that, I really enoyed this. The idea is great, and so was the story itself. I liked the dialogue a lot, and I look forward to seeing more from you!