Young Writers Society

At long last, here I am to review this! *throws confetti*

So. This is interesting, and I love how you're already throwing unusual, mystical going ons in the first chapter. It's a great way of trapping your readers and intriguing them. There isn't heaps to say about Jasnah's character yet as this is only the first part of the first chapter, and it isn't crazy long, but from what I can tell I do like her. She seems pretty no nonsense, and I like that she's not overly intimidated by Dafina. Dafina seems a like a little but of a cliche character atm (you know, the classic mean girl) but as I said, this is only the very beginning, so I'm hardly going to judge her this early. There are some phrasing and grammatical slip ups, but Carlito has pointed them out wonderfully, so I won't bore you with all that. On the whole, a solid opening!

As for critiques, I have mixed feelings about the journal entry format you had here when telling the story of what happened earlier in the day. It's entirely personal preference really, but I think you could have created a stronger impact by telling this in real time (past or present) as opposed to a journal entry. You run the risk of losing drama and impact in these kind of formats, and for me at least, you did lose those a bit. In the first chapter especially, you want to really grab your readers, so want as strong as impact as possible. Again though, someone else will completely disagree with me, and say they love the journal format! Maybe play around with it a little more.

One thing I will say is that if you do stick with the journal format, try to make it as dramatic and shocking as possible. I mean, a glass turning upside down by itself is pretty dramatic! At the moment, Jasnah's tone is quite calm and relaxed, and I can't really gauge how she feels about what's happened. She says this kind of thing has happened before, but doesn't give much insight into how that makes her feel. I get a vague feeling of uh oh from her, but that's partly due to the fact that's how I've assumed she'd feel. I'd really bring out her emotions more in her entires because, well, that's what journals are for, right? To splurge all the emotions you can't splurge in real life.

On a similar note, I agree with what Carlito said about the journal entries feeling a little too formal. This is kind of what I was saying just now, but it's generally expected that people let loose when they're writing a journal, and don't necessarily think about what they're writing. The way Jasnah writes her journal is very formal sounding, and as a result, comes across as a little too structured and unnatural. The critique I noted about bringing out Jasnah's emotions a little more applies here, methinks. If you show her emotions a bit more clearly, then it'll result in the entries feeling more natural. I'm not saying you should throw in a load of nonsensical, badly phrased slang with awful grammar to suggest informality, but you could throw in some more slang here and there, and write it in a way that sounds more typical of a young person.

Anywho, hopefully I was useful, especially considering I've taken ages to review a novel of yours! I should be able to get through the rest of your chapters over the next week or two, and if I don't, make sure you chase me up over it. Critiques aside, you've got something really solid here, and I look forward to finding out where you take this story.

Keep writing,

xoxo S(k)ins

Hello hello! I think I have procrastinated long enough now, and I'm going to read all three parts today. Hope it'll help when you make your decision!

So I was expecting this to be more similar to BL/GL, like the same characters at least. The fact that it's not (at least not right now) is actually kind of good because it will help to distinguish the two different stories.

One thing I liked about this opening was that it's told in a bit of an unconventional manner. I tend to enjoy stories that are told in somewhat unconventional ways (like including diary entries) for example. I think that worked here because the journal entry showed us something that happened and introduced the characters in a creative way.

I think some of the things I've mentioned in the past about BL/GL will be applicable here as well, but I'm going to break things down like I did for those chapters. One thing I noticed as a theme throughout is that the character's writing seemed a bit formal and that formality made it sound a bit unnatural at times. Some characters are naturally more formal than others, and that's fine if that's just naturally how she expresses herself. But I know at least for me, there's nothing formal about the way I write when I journal

Today, events that completely defied any logical reason happened, Jasnah wrote, the pencil making a low scratching noise on the blank page.

Dafina forced me to answer her question during recess time, when I was eating with my friends.

I didn’t want to answer it - how would I, when, after I denied my attraction on her boyfriend, was asked how I managed to make him avoid her?

It didn’t make any sense; not every girl had her eyes set on Zafiq, and not every girl was to be blamed for what happened in their relationship.

Jasnah paused, the pencil hanged a little above the paper. She took a glance towards the open window besides him; streetlights shone on the road; the nearby houses had their lights off. It was midnight, and she still could not sleep. She rubbed her arms; it was cold, too. She brought back her attention to the paper, and continued writing.

When I failed to give the answer she wanted, she grabbed my arms and forced me to stand. I was at the verge of yelling at her to stop it when it happened. The two girls behind her screamed, one of them had her finger pointed to the area above Dafina.

She looked upward after saying angrily, ‘What’s the matter?’ and saw a glass full of water above her head.

She released her hold over me, her eyes widened; at that moment, the glass turned downward, pouring water over her scarf.

She closed her eyes, screaming and gesturing wildly (I have to admit, it's funny to see her like that),

as the glass fell, emitting a crashing sound.

this was not the first time it happened, although it was unusual from the rest.

They had stopped eating and were staring at me. With a weird look.

This was the first time it happened while there were people around, and it started to worry me.

I didn’t dare to investigate why - I was afraid if I did, this event was the least I could be scared of.

And now it would scare my friends.

Jasnah stopped and rested the pencil on the paper. Then, she yawned.

Lamely, I told them it was Dafina’s doing,

I shrugged, picked up the lying glass, put it on the table, and sat.

‘I don’t know. Perhaps it’s God blessing.’ I took a bite from the sandwich. ‘Anything is possible,’ added I.

Anything was possible, but sometimes we just didn’t know for sure what that was, and knowing Rachelle, she wouldn’t buy it. In fact, I was sure she would press on me to tell more about it. This wet event wouldn't stop her to pry any further. The knowledge that these strange occurrences only happened to me was mine alone.

We ate in silence until the bell rang, signifying the end of recess.

Finally, Jasnah though, today’s entry is over. She had written down the part that mattered; the rest, the one after this part, was also interesting, but she was tired to write it down.

At least strange things were normal in dreams. After a few minutes, she dozed, and dreamed herself summoning rain and making flood to her neighbourhood.

Andy here to drop a review!
Just to start this off, I couldn't seem to find the first parts of the chapter/anything before this. So assuming this is the start, It begins very quickly. Personally, I really like how fast the book starts, instead of dawdling along giving worthless information in order to slowly push the book into movement. As Fantasy14 said, there were a few very minor spelling mistakes, but absolutely nothing that took away from the feel of this chapter. Your character is quite interesting, and you have done very well in avoiding a paper personality by fleshing out her feelings and giving her human-like reactions to things.

In the final chapter's last line, you say 'After a few minutes, she dozed, and dreamed herself summoning rain and making flood to her neighbourhood'. You don't need the second comma after 'dozed' because that signifies you should be able to remove the segment in between the two commas from the sentence and it will read correctly. Saying 'After a few minutes and dreamed herself...." does not work.

Overall, great story so far. If there ARE parts somewhere where I could find them (I'm just using the related tab over to the right) Let me know and ill go read them. I'm going to go skip over to 1.6 now.

Hi there! Fantasy here to review!

I really like the concept you have here. I love reading things like this and I like your main character so far. there are only a few things I would like to point out here, and they aren't too big.

"the pencil hanged "

Hanged should be changed to hung here.

"She took a glance towards the open window besides him;"

this is a tiny mistake I didn't see this anywhere else, so it's probably just an oversight, but you called your girl character a him. (I've done that before too. We should start a club.)

"It’s time to wrap things up, she thought. She took the pencil again and started to write."

Usually, when you're showing a character''s thoughts, you put it in italics to separate it from the narration. I saw this in the ending paragraph too.

there were a few spelling errors, but those should be fixed by a quick read-through. All-in-all, it was a really great chapter. I enjoyed reading it a lot. I like how unique the character's names are. You don't hear them every day. Be sure to let me know when you have the next chapter up. I definitely want to read more.


Hope this was helpful!

-Fanty