Young Writers Society

Welcome to Young Writer's Society Madeline! (See, see, I'm writing out the site's full name as a sign of well... thoughtfulness!I'm quite sure you know its full name though and are currently finding this very offensive as my comment seems to be making a mockery of your intellect, which it's not by the way!

Yes well, just to let you know, I'm not going to be really bothering about the grammar and punctuation and such as I usually concentrate more one the content, characterization. plot, etc, etc.

Now, before I get a little more in depth, I'd like to point out a few things.
The story is a little bit too compact. I suggest that you add more paragraphing as to make it a lot more easier to read (I personally prefer writing that is a little bit more spaced out because, whether or not it's a 10,000 word story or a 500 word story, compact writing makes my head go haywire and more often than not, forget where I'm up to whenever I take a little break).
And I kind of lied when I said I wouldn't be bothering with grammar (technically, it's not really grammar as it's actually nitpicking about the wording but I tend to generalize many things). I'll only be giving a few examples to get the point across.

Dawn was lighting up the horizon over Blaire Lake. She could see the deep blue water through her bay window with its #FF0000 ">heavy ivory silk drapes.

The 'heavy' is unnecessary as it bogs down the sentence with its lengthy-ness and makes it less provocative (simple, in some cases, is better)

Marianne had had that awful dream again, the one where the girl was drowning. The dream always started with a young woman around seventeen, Marianne's age, dressed in a white taffeta gown and a matching bonnet.#FF0000 ">The dream always started with a young woman around seventeen, Marianne's age, dressed in a white taffeta gown and a matching bonnet.

In my personal opinion, you should just refer to the dream as 'it' as you've already mentioned it in the sentence before the previous sentence (if that makes sense). It seems a bit redundant to be referring to it again in this sentence. Other than that, I'm rather smitten to this part, it might have something to do with how foreign 'taffeta' may sound, or it might not, either way, it has nice imagery.

Around them the lake was #FF0000 ">covered by gray fog making it almost impossible to see the water.

Okay, I admit it, this is just me being a pain and well, a very pesty nitpicker in general. I think you should be changing 'covered' into something else more provocative ('blanketed' maybe?) because this sentence, among may others have potential. If you try and reword a couple sentences here and there (hopefully stumbling upon a few 'it's perfect!' words on occasion), your story would be able to engage your readers more and take their breaths away. That's my opinion in any case.

Now, for characterization. *Pauses* I'm not really sure how to go about this as I don't have very much to work with but I'll try my best. Marianne, I find is just kind of...there. Sure, she's telling us about her dream and what not, but I can't really see much of her personality coming through. Remember, it doesn't need to be written in first person to show a person's character (the way I see it, first person is basically a story written with the main character's name replaced with an 'I'). You can possibly improve this by giving your character some input into the story she's telling, make her comment on things, maybe she thinks Blaire's gown is stupid, maybe she thinks it's wonderful, may be she thinks the guy looks like a creep, maybe not. You can use this method to give the reader more insight into the main character's mind/thought process.

Overall, this story is promising. The grammar and wording is a little wonky here and there (don't ask me about spelling, I'm abysmal at it), and the character needs a little bit more work (you can disregard this as me attempting to over-analyze things because right now, I'm only judging this from the little bit of writing I've been given) but the story holds a lot of promise. Keep up the good work!

Welcome to YWS, Madeline...I have a feeling that you'll like it here!
First off, I have a question. So is this chapter one? A prologue? What exactly is it? You must specify that.
About 96% of the nitpicks I will point out will be comma problems! Those are minor, but they must be fixed. Yes, commas are great, but you don't want to overuse them! You generally add unneeded commas to your sentences, and in some cases, need to break a sentence into two pieces instead of adding just another comma. I will highlight all unneeded commas/commas that are causing problems.
So let's get started.
Nitpicks:

Madeline wrote:A light breeze was floating through the open hatch in the window pane#FF0000 ">, in the willow outside of her bedroom you could hear a swallow singing to the sunrise.

Okay. You should either add an 'and' there, or you should break this sentence into two sentences.

Madeline wrote:The dream always started with a young woman#FF4000 ">, around seventeen, Marianne's age, dressed in a white taffeta gown and a matching bonnet.

Don't need that comma.

Madeline wrote:The girl was walking on a pier#FF4000 ">, over Blaire Lake, that was closed down because the wood was rotten.

Don't need that comma.

Madeline wrote:A young man walked beside her, his gray wool coat bundled around him#FF4000 ">, they were walking together, arms interlaced.

'Bundled around him'? I don't understand. Change that comma into a period.

Madeline wrote:Around them the lake was covered by gray fog making it almost impossible to see the water#FF4000 ">, when one of the wooden planks gave out underneath the girls weight and she tripped into the dark waters below.

Change that comma into a period...break this into two sentences. The second sentence could start with 'then', since 'when' doesn't work with the sentence well.

Madeline wrote:The girl cried out, flailing her arms to grasp the boys outstretched hand.

You should say 'flailing her arms in an attempt to grasp the boy's outstretched hand'. You need an apostrophe in 'boys'.

Madeline wrote:But she couldn't swim and her thick gown was so heavy, soaked full of water.

Possibly you could say 'since' instead of 'and'.

Madeline wrote:She let out one more#FF4000 ">, strangled gasp as the freezing current pulled her under the surface into the black depths.

Don't need that comma.

Madeline wrote:"Blaire, Blaire!" little bubbles floated to the surface#FF4000 ">, he dove after her rapidly sinking body.

Capitalize 'little'. Break the second sentence into two.

Madeline wrote:But he knew it was to late and he didn't have much air left, but he dove on.

Should be 'too'. You should say something like 'Even though he knew it was too late and he didn't have much air left, he dove on.'

Madeline wrote:If she was dead, he'd die for her, at least he'd try to die.

Don't need 'die'.

Madeline wrote:And that was how the dream ended#FF4000 ">, Marianne always woke up, her body shuddering.

Change that comma into a period. I think it would be better if you said 'with her body shuddering'.

Overall:
Except for the comma problems, this was fairly well written. This chapter/prologue left me in a place wanting for more, wondering what is next, which made this strong. You have a great start to your story! Keep up the good work! Hope I helped.

~KD