z

Young Writers Society



Chapter 1 : The girl from the library

by MoonIris


The world is rich in magic, wonders, secrets, that await to be unveiled. Sometimes it could be easier if we didn’t,but we don’t always have a choice. Sometimes our destiny it’s not our choice.

The five nation it’s a place with incredible sights and impressive casters. This world, is divided into five nations: Star nation,sun,earth,cold and illusions. Each of them have there own magic, except the earth one. They only have humans, plane non magical humans. That’s where Kaltaine lives, a none magical girl. As far as she knows.

It was another dark, Summer night in Erde ,an earth nation town. You could still see a light, that wasn’t that strong coming from the library. It was an old one, with big windows that had wood on the exterior and the door step would always be creaking. A lot of the town buildings would look this way. If you walked down the pedestrian stoned street, you could see every night a girl sitting in the red armchair of this library. As a matter of fact, you can see her their almost all the time. Not only because she liked reading but because she lived there. This girl is Kaltaine. The only other place you would see her is at the herbal shop where she is working in the summer or the town market.

Kaltaine tried to concentrate on the book but she just couldn’t. She finished by giving up and putting it down. She started walking , looking around for somebody, for the librarian. A middle age women named Josie. She left without a message a few days ago and still haven’t returned. Kaltaine already went to the police station but they told her that she shouldn’t be worrying. Don’t worry. How could I not worry! She told herself. If i go back they’ll think I’m crazy. Maybe I am overthinking. Sure, she was, but nobody could really blame her. Not after what happened to her last year. I’m definitely just overthinking. But she didn’t feel that she was doing that, she became more and more anxious. She taught that something is wrong.

God! I’m becoming paranoid.” This time she said it out loud with a desperate voice. She just sat down in her armchair and went back to her book. Her honey color hair was tide up in a low messy ponytail and her brown eyes were attentively following the word by word.

But then she heard something,Vjjjjj... It’s, it’s just the wind.Yeah, the wind. Vjjj... I, I can barely hear it, it’s nothing. Just... nothing. She tried to convince herself. Crac... That was the wood floor. Kaltaine jumped from her armchair panicked. OK...Maybe, maybe it’s just Josie who came back.Yeah... But not even her believed this lie that she tried to tell herself. She started to carefully walk on the tip of her toes and tried not to make a sound, armed with her book. She felt like someone was breathing in her back.It became more and more difficult to breath. She felt a cold shiver and suddenly turned around.A guy with green eyes jumps from somewhere above and lands behind her.Tries to take her down by the shoulder. Panicked, she turns around and hit him with the book on the had which makes him felt down.

„Au! That hurts, we don’t want to harm you just..”

„We?”

repeated Kaltaine. You could see the fear in her eyes like the one you could see the fear in a baby deer who was about to be eaten by a wolf. As she finished her word another boy popeed up on the other side of the room.

„You guys just felt from the sky or what?” She was desperate, but that didn’t stop her from beeping ironic.

The second boy was to far away to just hit him with the book so she throw it at him. Then the most imaginable thing happened. The guy just took the light of a lamp nearby and turn it in a kind of lasso and caught the book. She froze. Magic! They, they have magic?. She knew what magic was but never had direct contact with it. She ran to the aleas that were between the bookcases. Books. That’s, that’s my best shot to take down two guys with,with magic! She couldn’t believe what she just saw. It was scary enough before but now they had magic. What do they want with me? What did I do wrong? They already took away from me two persons that I cared about?She wanted to scream this questions to them. She was more and more desperate .She got follow so Kaltaine  just randomly took books and trow it at them. The guy with the light lasso just caught them one by one and didn't even seemed tiered. „OK, that’s enough I’m not wasting my time anymore”,said the caster, the person who was using magic. The lasso j caught Kaltaine’s left hand which was about to throw another book.

„What do you want? What did I do wrong?”

The green eyed boy just said

„We don’t want to hurt you. Just come with us”

. Come with you, I don’t think so. She just grabs a book with her right hand and throw it. But the caster just take another light and knock her off . She doesn’t remember much after this, she heard voices, words but didn’t knew what they meant...


Note: You are not logged in, but you can still leave a comment or review. Before it shows up, a moderator will need to approve your comment (this is only a safeguard against spambots). Leave your email if you would like to be notified when your message is approved.







Is this a review?


  

Comments



User avatar
122 Reviews


Points: 10714
Reviews: 122

Donate
Tue Jan 12, 2021 6:08 pm
View Likes
LUNARGIRL wrote a review...



This was a very interesting story.

"The world is rich in magic, wonders, secrets, that await to be unveiled. Sometimes it could be easier if we didn’t,but we don’t always have a choice. Sometimes our destiny it’s not our choice."

This was a great opening to the story and it drew me in immediately. But I feel like this story was very rushed and that you could have taken more time for description and you had a lot of grammar mistakes too. I think you should try to expand the story more, but that's just my oppion.

"The five nation it’s a place with incredible sights and impressive casters. This world, is divided into five nations: Star nation,sun,earth,cold and illusions. Each of them have there own magic, except the earth one. They only have humans, plane non magical humans. That’s where Kaltaine lives, a none magical girl. As far as she knows."

Again, I think you could have expanded and go into more depth on the planets and what makes them so different. Or maybe you could have mentioned which nation that Kaltaine lives in. But overall, this is a great start to your story.

"It was another dark, Summer night in Erde ,an earth nation town. You could still see a light, that wasn’t that strong coming from the library. It was an old one, with big windows that had wood on the exterior and the door step would always be creaking. A lot of the town buildings would look this way. If you walked down the pedestrian stoned street, you could see every night a girl sitting in the red armchair of this library. As a matter of fact, you can see her their almost all the time. Not only because she liked reading but because she lived there. This girl is Kaltaine. The only other place you would see her is at the herbal shop where she is working in the summer or the town market."

This is a great description and introduction to your main character! You describe the library perfectly too.

"Kaltaine tried to concentrate on the book but she just couldn’t. She finished by giving up and putting it down. She started walking , looking around for somebody, for the librarian. A middle age women named Josie. She left without a message a few days ago and still haven’t returned. Kaltaine already went to the police station but they told her that she shouldn’t be worrying. Don’t worry. How could I not worry! She told herself. If i go back they’ll think I’m crazy. Maybe I am overthinking. Sure, she was, but nobody could really blame her. Not after what happened to her last year. I’m definitely just overthinking. But she didn’t feel that she was doing that, she became more and more anxious. She taught that something is wrong."

I think you could have described more about Josie, not just her appearance, but also why she is so important to Kaltaine. You could also go more into depth about what her trip to the police station was when she went because she didn't know where Josie was. You could also mention what happened last year too, but I also like how it leaves you on a cliffhanger there. Wondering about what happened to her last year. You also have some grammar mistakes in here.

"„God! I’m becoming paranoid.” This time she said it out loud with a desperate voice. She just sat down in her armchair and went back to her book. Her honey color hair was tide up in a low messy ponytail and her brown eyes were attentively following the word by word."

I love this part right here where the character starts to doubt herself and she thinks that she overreacting just as things start to escalate.

"But then she heard something,Vjjjjj... It’s, it’s just the wind.Yeah, the wind. Vjjj... I, I can barely hear it, it’s nothing. Just... nothing. She tried to convince herself. Crac... That was the wood floor. Kaltaine jumped from her armchair panicked. OK...Maybe, maybe it’s just Josie who came back.Yeah... But not even her believed this lie that she tried to tell herself. She started to carefully walk on the tip of her toes and tried not to make a sound, armed with her book. She felt like someone was breathing in her back.It became more and more difficult to breath. She felt a cold shiver and suddenly turned around.A guy with green eyes jumps from somewhere above and lands behind her.Tries to take her down by the shoulder. Panicked, she turns around and hit him with the book on the had which makes him felt down."

The only thing that was weird about this was the "Vjjjjj" part. You could also go say where she was trying to tiptoe to. I think you could have used more description about how the guy tries to
"take her down by the shoulder" and maybe she should hit him somewhere else like on the head because that is more realistic than hitting someone on the hand to make them fall. You also have some grammar errors in this paragraph.

"You could see the fear in her eyes like the one you could see the fear in a baby deer who was about to be eaten by a wolf."

GREAT DESCRIPTION/METAPHOR

"The second boy was to far away to just hit him with the book so she throw it at him. Then the most imaginable thing happened. The guy just took the light of a lamp nearby and turn it in a kind of lasso and caught the book. She froze. Magic! They, they have magic?. She knew what magic was but never had direct contact with it. She ran to the aleas that were between the bookcases. Books. That’s, that’s my best shot to take down two guys with,with magic! She couldn’t believe what she just saw. It was scary enough before but now they had magic. What do they want with me? What did I do wrong? They already took away from me two persons that I cared about?She wanted to scream this questions to them. She was more and more desperate .She got follow so Kaltaine just randomly took books and trow it at them. The guy with the light lasso just caught them one by one and didn't even seemed tiered. „OK, that’s enough I’m not wasting my time anymore”,said the caster, the person who was using magic. The lasso j caught Kaltaine’s left hand which was about to throw another book."

This was a very interesting paragraph and I really enjoyed this bit of action here.

"Come with you, I don’t think so. She just grabs a book with her right hand and throw it. But the caster just take another light and knock her off . She doesn’t remember much after this, she heard voices, words but didn’t knew what they meant..."

I feel like this ended very abertly and that you could have draw it out more. I also really like this part because it leaves you at a big cliffhanger wondering what will happen to here which is great.


Can't wait to read what you write next!
Carpe diem,
LUNARGIRL




MoonIris says...


Thanks for the review! :)



User avatar
122 Reviews


Points: 10714
Reviews: 122

Donate

User avatar
62 Reviews


Points: 31
Reviews: 62

Donate
Fri Sep 04, 2020 3:48 pm
RadDog13579 wrote a review...



Hi MoonIrus, I saw chapters 3 and 4 of this in the green room and were intrigued. So I decided to review every chapter so far, starting with this one. Now lets get onto it.

The world is rich in magic, wonders, secrets, that await to be unveiled. Sometimes it could be easier if we didn’t,but we don’t always have a choice. Sometimes our destiny it’s not our choice.


This is a great hook and drew my attention. I feel like it was very rushed though. It might be a good idea to expand on this and slowly draw in the reader about magic. Just make it a little bit longer so that the reader can digest it slowly.

The five nation it’s a place with incredible sights and impressive casters. This world, is divided into five nations: Star nation,sun,earth,cold and illusions. Each of them have there own magic, except the earth one. They only have humans, plane non magical humans. That’s where Kaltaine lives, a none magical girl. As far as she knows.


This is a great first introduction to the world and the main character (I presume). Besides a few grammatical errors, it is great. The only thing I would change is maybe expand upon the nations a little bit more. Just a sentence that explains that nation and what they do. For example: The start nation, known for there tough desert terrain that they inhabit. Or something along the lines of that.

It was another dark, Summer night in Erde ,an earth nation town. You could still see a light, that wasn’t that strong coming from the library. It was an old one, with big windows that had wood on the exterior and the door step would always be creaking. A lot of the town buildings would look this way. If you walked down the pedestrian stoned street, you could see every night a girl sitting in the red armchair of this library. As a matter of fact, you can see her their almost all the time. Not only because she liked reading but because she lived there. This girl is Kaltaine. The only other place you would see her is at the herbal shop where she is working in the summer or the town market.


Wow, this is an amazing introduction to the main character. I love the descriptions of the library.

Kaltaine tried to concentrate on the book but she just couldn’t. She finished by giving up and putting it down. She started walking , looking around for somebody, for the librarian. A middle age women named Josie. She left without a message a few days ago and still haven’t returned. Kaltaine already went to the police station but they told her that she shouldn’t be worrying. Don’t worry. How could I not worry! She told herself. If i go back they’ll think I’m crazy. Maybe I am overthinking. Sure, she was, but nobody could really blame her. Not after what happened to her last year. I’m definitely just overthinking. But she didn’t feel that she was doing that, she became more and more anxious. She taught that something is wrong.


I really enjoy learning about the librarian. One thing I would recommend implementing is the relationship between Kaltaine and Josie. Does Josie know she lives here? Is Josie a mother figure?

But then she heard something,Vjjjjj... It’s, it’s just the wind.Yeah, the wind. Vjjj... I, I can barely hear it, it’s nothing. Just... nothing. She tried to convince herself. Crac... That was the wood floor. Kaltaine jumped from her armchair panicked. OK...Maybe, maybe it’s just Josie who came back.Yeah... But not even her believed this lie that she tried to tell herself. She started to carefully walk on the tip of her toes and tried not to make a sound, armed with her book. She felt like someone was breathing in her back.It became more and more difficult to breath. She felt a cold shiver and suddenly turned around.A guy with green eyes jumps from somewhere above and lands behind her.Tries to take her down by the shoulder. Panicked, she turns around and hit him with the book on the had which makes him felt down.


This is an amazing paragraph. The only thing I would change is your onomatopoeia. Vjjjjj is kind of weird.

The second boy was to far away to just hit him with the book so she throw it at him. Then the most imaginable thing happened. The guy just took the light of a lamp nearby and turn it in a kind of lasso and caught the book. She froze. Magic! They, they have magic?. She knew what magic was but never had direct contact with it. She ran to the aleas that were between the bookcases. Books. That’s, that’s my best shot to take down two guys with,with magic! She couldn’t believe what she just saw. It was scary enough before but now they had magic. What do they want with me? What did I do wrong? They already took away from me two persons that I cared about?She wanted to scream this questions to them. She was more and more desperate .She got follow so Kaltaine just randomly took books and trow it at them. The guy with the light lasso just caught them one by one and didn't even seemed tiered. „OK, that’s enough I’m not wasting my time anymore”,said the caster, the person who was using magic. The lasso j caught Kaltaine’s left hand which was about to throw another book


This is very interesting and a well written paragraph. For me, when a character is thinking I italicize the text. It helps the reader differentiate between normal text and thoughts. I would recommend doing that here to.

Overall, this is an amazing first chapter that plummets you right into the story. That's all from me!

-RadDog




MoonIris says...


Thanks for the review. I just want to let you lnow that this is the first draft. I really apreciate you reviewing my chapters. Have a great day!



User avatar
455 Reviews


Points: 22098
Reviews: 455

Donate
Thu May 21, 2020 1:11 am
Hijinks wrote a review...



Hello MoonIris! I'm here to review this first chapter.

As mentioned in a previous review, my main critique is grammar and typos.

There's a couple of recurring errors throughout the chapter, which I'll point out examples of so you can read through and find similar typos.

„God! I’m becoming paranoid.”
I'm not sure if this is stylistic to where you're from, but the standard way to quote somebody is like so:

"God! I’m becoming paranoid.”
See how the first quotation mark is flipped upright? I would suggest doing this for all of your dialogue.

Another repetitive thing I noticed was spacing. Between each word, including those followed by commas, there should be a space.

This world, is divided in five nations: Star nation,sun,earth,cold and illusions.
That means that the above quote should become:

This world, is divided in five nations: Star nation, sun, earth, cold and illusions.

See the difference? This makes it much easier and nicer to read.

In addition, there are a few misused words throughout the writing. For example, in the example used above, the bolded "in" should be "into". As @Andrewknorpp suggested, proofreading through your work and/or using apps such as Grammary can help to avoid these typos and make your writing a more enjoyable read.

One more small one -

Not only because she liked reading but because she lived their.

"Their" should be "there", since you're referring to a place.


But that's enough about grammar! Let's move onto some more interesting stuff!

One thing to watch out for when you're writing, is varying your vocabulary and avoiding repetition of words - especially when they're close to each other - as much as possible. In the opening sentence, you write:

Sometimes it could be easier if we didn’t,but we don’t always have a choice. Sometimes our destiny it’s not our choice.

See how "choice" is repeated twice, in two sentences? Try to use different words. For example,

Sometimes it could be easier if we didn’t, but we don’t always have a choice. Sometimes we can't control our destiny.

This conveys the same idea but avoids the repetition of the word "choice". Of course, you can use your own language, but you get the idea.

Another thing to keep in mind is how you're giving the reader descriptions. You want to show, not tell. That means, that instead of going out of your way to tell the reader about how someone looks, you want to incorporate it into the story.

Her honey color hair was tide up in a low messy ponytail and her brown eyes were attentively following the word by word.


For example, in the above quote - why does it matter that her brown eyes are reading the words? It doesn't change anything about how she's reading, and the reader can tell that this is put there just for them. Instead, try to make it feel natural and like it's meant to be there. There's not really a natural way to describe her eyes here, but you could try moving it to another part of the chapter.

You could see the fear in her widened brown eyes, like how you could see the fear in a baby deer who was about to be eaten by a wolf.

See how this seems to fit more into what's going on? This is up to you, but I would suggest trying to move it here, or somewhere else that you feel is more natural.

Other than that, the plot is very intriguing, and leaves the reader what is going to happen next.

That's it for my review, I hope it was helpful! If you have any questions feel free to ask! (Also, since you're relatively-ish new here, welcome! I hope you're enjoying YWS!)

Keep writing!

Whatchamacallit




MoonIris says...


Thanks for the review! I'll make sure to have a look at what you pointed out. :)



User avatar
178 Reviews


Points: 34
Reviews: 178

Donate
Tue May 19, 2020 8:09 pm
MaybeAndrew wrote a review...



It's a good start! There is a large vocabulary, the main character is interesting and I am curious about the world and the plot.
There are a couple things that could be improved though,

Let's start with the grammar:
Over all the tense is a bit confused, you are switching between past and present tense, this should generally be avoided.
The commas are sometimes spaced incorrectly. That would be an easy fix though, and some words are incorrectly used but this is, once again, an easy fix. Here's an example:
"The world is rich in magic, wonders, secrets, that awaits to be unveiled."
That awaits? That await, or awaiting, not that awaits.
"Sometimes it could be easier if we didn’t,but we don’t always have the choice." Could or would? Could could be grammatically correct but it sounds clunky and weird, I suggest would. This also has an example of the comma problem "didn't,but" It should be 'Didn't, but...' Also, "have the choice"
'Have a choice' would make more sense. "Sometimes our destiny it’s not our choice"
I assume you meant 'is not our choice'?
The story is riddled with little things like this, like "„God! I’m becoming paranoiac.” This time she said it out loud with a desperate voice." Paranoid would be the correct word. Furthermore you would normally say 'in a despite voice' and somehow the quotation mark is upside-down?
Almost all of these things could easily be fixed just by proofreading through a couple times and maybe running it through a online proofreader like Grammarly.
As far as questions or critiques about the story, the it seems a little rushed, if we could have some more about the main character, her backstory, and her world, that would be good. But if you plan on saying that later through flashbacks or dialog that would also be interesting.
But its a great start! Keep writing and you will be able to spot those mistakes on your own in no time! This looks like the seed for a super interesting story. Gripping from the beginning.




MoonIris says...


Hi, thank you for the review. I'll take care of those grammar mistakes soon. I want to bring more details about the main character in the next chapters.I wanted to avoid giving all her backstory from the beginning.I'm glad you think it's a good start. Have a great day!



MoonIris says...


Also I hope you had a great time until now on YWS!




To have more, you have to become more. Don't wish it was easier - wish you were better. For things to change, you have to change, and for things to get better, you have to get better.
— Jim Rohn