Young Writers Society

Hey Mailice! It's been a while since I've actually reviewed, but the weekend is here, so I should be able to get a few done.

Anyways, this seems like a short chapter, so it shouldn't take too long anyways.

Shore Street had to deal with the waves of the 100-Mile river every year.

The building consisted of two floors and an attic. The windows had all been inserted towards the plateau on the other side of the river. The holey wall guarded them with the loud howl of a monster. Martha would have loved to examine the tunnels herself. Only the question of how she was to climb there was unresolved.

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

First Impression: Okay so our first Léonard free chapter, and its a very interesting one. We meet a brand new character who appears to be someone that could be important to the story here...and also learn of something potentially bad that Léonard might have done....well, well.

Anyway let's get right to it,

Shore Street had to deal with the waves of the 100-Mile river every year. Spring flooding was a phenomenon that the residents knew how to handle. They used the narrow path between the gardens of the lanes to get to their destination dry-footed. They had even sandbags at the town hall to stop the flood at their doorsteps.

Josef Faber's carpentry workshop also received an annual visit from the cold water. The workshop was on the ground floor. The fact that he didn't know how to help himself with his self-built wooden wall was almost an offence in his niece's eyes. It was Martha who stood in the knee-high water every year and built the wall.

The building consisted of two floors and an attic. The windows had all been inserted towards the plateau on the other side of the river. The holey wall guarded them with the loud howl of a monster. Martha would have loved to examine the tunnels herself. Only the question of how she was to climb there was unresolved.

It was a quiet afternoon the next day in Sehlingen when Martha had cleared the table and washed up. Josef was already in the workshop when a visitor came.

"Good day Mr Faber."

"You'll find Martha in her room," he spoke without looking up. "She might as well make herself useful, tell her that!"

Emma was Martha's best friend. She was the granddaughter of Friedrich von Preuß and only visited him during the holidays; provided there was enough money to travel. She lived with her mother since her father´s death.

Emma knew the house like her own. She had an excellent memory for maps. Martha sat on the floor in her room and thought. She had just finished the Max Reiter novels for the umpteenth time and felt a germinating emptiness. Should she start over to escape it or look for something new? She didn't feel like diving into a new world right away.

The knocking woke her up.

"Yes? Come in."

It had not occurred to her to expect her friend. But on the other hand, if it had been her uncle, it would also have been unexpected; he usually yelled instead of coming up.

"Emma!" she cried excitedly. "How are you?"

Beaming with joy, she went to her. The hug came too late, she sat silently and dejectedly on the pile of books.

"What's wrong?" she asked immediately, worried.

Three days ago, when they had last seen each other, she had not been so depressed. It had to be something serious, Martha thought to herself. Emma was an enthusiastic optimist. If something upset her that much, something terrible must have happened.

With silent gestures, the visitor showed that the floor was a better place to speak.

"Would you like anything? To drink, to eat?"

"No," said Emma.

She did not speak another sentence. There was an awkward pause. With a bashful look, she awaited wise words from Martha. She could not read minds and did not yet suspect what was going on inside her. Desperately she searched for the right words of encouragement.

"Yesterday our doorbell rang. I didn't know who it was, grandpa wasn't expecting a visitor. I went downstairs as he was on the phone. I couldn't see much through the frosted glass and unlocked it. I couldn't understand why he... he... of all people was at the door."

"Who?" inquired Martha. "Has anyone been bothering you?"

She could hardly imagine that there was someone in the village who threatened Emma. It all sounded very strange. At the same time, it could be the beginning of an adventure.

"This young man from the villa."

"You mean de Waarfay?!"

"Yes! Who else would I mean?"

"What did he want? What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything. I stood outside the door and he introduced himself. He wanted to talk to someone from my family."

"Why?"

She remained silent. The visitor stood up and wandered to the window. The exits of the wall were silent at the moment.

"Can we please talk about this somewhere else?"

"Sure. Shall we go for a walk along the shore?"

"That's how we get to the cemetery... I don't want to go there," she replied. "To the park?"

"Let's tell my uncle. Otherwise, he'll call the neighbours again if I'm not in the room. Every time he thinks I've been kidnapped."

Emma smiled.

The park was wonderful spot-on earth. It gave a little green to the sad everyday life. There were not many people around. The two women strolled past the pavilion and visited the pond. The ducks there were swimming around.

"You haven't said a word," Martha said nervously.

"Let's sit down somewhere," she replied.

They found a bench, remarkably close to the Rys, where they could see the façade of the mansion from a distance between the trees.

Emma took a deep breath, looked at her friend with innocent eyes and began to tell her story.

Heyy!! Forever here with a review!!

This was quite an intriguing chapter and I wonder how I missed the details in the previous chapter. Definitely a problem on the side of the readers in the mystery books and an advnatage on the author's side for creating mysteries and then surprising the readers by something very obvious. Anyway, onto the chapter.

I really like how you start each part of the chapter with some descriptions and then advance the plot. That's really a great way for balancing the total thing. If I am not wrong, you are trying to establish some relations among all the characters in the story from the very first chapter. This is quite good.

Now this Friedrich person. This person is the son of that policeman. And this Emma is the granddaughter of Friedrich. Emma in turn is a friend of Martha. Martha doesn't have enemity with Leonard. So, a good relationship is established among near about all the characters in the story.

About the character of Emma, she doesn't seem to be a very bad person but a bit terrified about Leonard going to their house. She is quite a bit influenced about all the rumours in the village. Hope Martha will be able to make her understand the matter.

Also the park. This park, if I am not wrong was actually constructed by de Waarfay. We got to know about this in the thoughts of Leonard. Now, as this park was not abandoned by the people, I think the villagers are not very aware that this was actually constructed by de Waarfay. Or is it another park? Quite interesting. Let's see where the story turns.

Keep Writing!!

~Forever

Hiya Mailice!

This seems like a nice little introduction to hearing Emma’s side of the story and perhaps bringing Martha further into the main plot. I like the worldbuilding details in here a lot, as well as the friendship between the two women.

Characters

I thought it was nice to see more of Martha’s character and her relationship with her uncle being fleshed out here. In earlier chapters, I could sense he was very protective of her, and it looks like that character continuity is very much consistent in this chapter.

Martha would have loved to examine the tunnels herself. Only the question of how she was to climb there was unresolved.

"You'll find Martha in her room," he spoke without looking up. "She might as well make herself useful, tell her that!"

"Let's tell my uncle. Otherwise, he'll call the neighbours again if I'm not in the room. Every time he thinks I've been kidnapped."
Emma smiled.

"I didn't do anything. I stood outside the door and he introduced himself. He wanted to talk to someone from my family."
"Why?"
She remained silent. The visitor stood up and wandered to the window. The exits of the wall were silent at the moment.
"Can we please talk about this somewhere else?"

Emma was standing on the bank, a drake just submerged, when she picked up a leaf from the meadow and slowly crumpled it in her fist.
"You haven't said a word," Martha said nervously.

Josef Faber's carpentry workshop also received an annual visit from the cold water. The workshop was on the ground floor. The fact that he didn't know how to help himself with his self-built wooden wall was almost an offence in his niece's eyes.

Emma knew the house like her own. She had an excellent memory for maps. Martha sat on the floor in her room and thought. She had just finished the Max Reiter novels for the umpteenth time and felt a germinating emptiness. Should she start over to escape it or look for something new? She didn't feel like diving into a new world right away.

"Who?" inquired Martha. "Has anyone been bothering you?"

Hey there Malice. It looks like your work has been stuck in the green room for awhile and even though I haven’t read any of the previous chapters, I’m here to deliver a review.

What conflicts me so much in this chapter is the first few paragraphs. I do appreciate when a writer supplies information about the setting and includes such interesting details about their story. That being said, I can’t help but feel like it comes across as an info dump. That much information without a proper source of narration just feels like you’re filling up space at the beginning of the work before you get to the conflict.

It’s a very short chapter part so I think that might have to do (somewhat) with some of the feelings that I’m getting off of the text. There doesn’t really seem to be a need to break this part into parts when it’s only 800 odd words. Especially not when you could switch around the order to include the narration of the flooded land to be part of the conversing while the two characters are making their way to the park.

That would be my first real recommendation - re ordering some of the events within this section of text.

The next involves your dialogue, which doesn’t do as much as it could be doing to guide the text along. I’m not entirely sure of the time period for your setting but I do assume it’s historical so some of the dialogue bits do feel out of place, while others still feel like you’re trying to replicate a certain speech style. I’m not the biggest fan of the use of ellipsis in any work so I am trying to ignore any commentary on those.

I think the shortness, as I come back to this again, makes the splitting up of this part from the the rest of the chapter be an action against the enjoyment of the reader. It’s just so slow and then so rushed and those are both feelings that are not appropriate for the scene that you’re trying to set.

This is a good start, but there’s some issues with structure of the plot and perception of the characters that will continue to affect the way the work is perceived.

So good job and keep going.
Drop me a line if you have any questions.
- Armand

Hey there! Plume here, with a review!!

I must say, I'm really glad I decided to sit down and read the entirety of your story bit by bit chronologically rather than simply reading bits and piece that were still in the green room. Like I've said before, you're a very talented author and this work is nothing to bat an eye at!! I'm really invested in the storyline so far, and this chapter was no exception.

One thing that I really liked about this section was that you managed to make it interesting even though it was a sort of "in-between" part. I liked all the characterization you put in for both Martha and Emma, along with a bit for Josef Faber as well. I'm super curious to read the next part and to see Leonard from Emma's perspective. I'm curious to see what interactions they might have had!

I also really like how consistent your writing has been. I feel like you always start new sections with bits of environmental imagery, which is so fun and great. I think it really gets the reader to envision how cool Sehlingen must be, and it's always such beautiful/information imagery, too.

Specifics

"Good day Mr Faber."

Martha sat on the floor in her room and thought. She had just finished the Max Reiter novels for the umpteenth time and felt a germinating emptiness. Should she start over to escape it or look for something new? She didn't feel like diving into a new world right away.

Beaming with joy, she went to her. The hug came too late, she sat silently and dejectedly on the pile of books.