Young Writers Society

WOW! Amazing! I was really intrigued by everything and really inspired.
Love it

Heya Rosey!
You asked me to review But you have great ones that have pretty much covered everything!
Sorry if I wasn't any help!

K A M A S

Hey there Rosey. Round 2. This time, I'm not going to give a line by line as it isn't going to help much this time.

First off, I would like to say that you have a very interesting concept (which has solidified immensely) and theme (the problems which can arise from a difference in viewpoints and opinions). It's quite clever actually and it was one of the reasons as to why I was quite interested in this throughout my reading of it. I particularly liked how you use the earth's tectonic activities as a metaphor for the negative aspects of human behaviour. It made the fantasy creatures in your piece seem hippyish whereas the humans seem more into the progression of society which was very fitting for your theme. The further I read into this, the more I realized that either side is at fault here, which makes your story feel more realistic since there is no such thing as a "good" side and a "bad" side in the ideal world. Kudos to you on that.

The problem with this piece however was that the narrator's voice was too technical. She spends too much time explaining to the reader of how various aspects of her surroundings work that it makes it makes it harder for the reader in wanting to dive deeper into your piece to search for meaning. I would even dare to say that she tells too much.

To make your piece "show" more than "tell", you might want to consider rewriting this while making use of the conventions that you would find in a short story.

-Plot and structure
-Characters and their relationships
-Use of setting


Plot: I'm not going to help you much with this as that would be cheating My advice for you is to start off by characterizing the MC with her role and her affinity with the earth, then apply that to a particular situation and have it escalate to a climax. I'll assume that you know how narrative structure works.

Characters and their relationships: Exploring the view points of several characters allows for various conflicts and a wider perspective of the story. These factors are important in contributing to how deeply you explore your theme. I would have the narrator of this piece as one of your MC (since she seemed quite experienced in how the society works). It's up to you as to what characters you would use for this, but I highly suggesting sticking with the ones that you currently have. Show to us as to how the other characters would react with the MC with your concept in mind. E.g: If I was you, I know I would have one of the relationships be with a human that opposes the MC and her race. How would a human react if he was to cross paths with the MC? Would they fight? Would they argue? Would the MC take part in such a fight? Why or why not? When you show this, it will make the reader engage more with your story.

Use of setting: So where is this all happening? I'm surprised that you decided to take out the tunnel area. I thought it was the perfect place to experience the full force of the quakes and the most likely place that various parties would go to solve their grievances since it's where I think the Earth Spirits would be causing the quakes.

That's all I have to say really. I can't really help you more than that. This was an improvement from the previous piece, as the ideas that you previously have are now clear and coherent and points directly at a particular theme. Your job now is to rewrite that so that it "shows" rather than "tell". That will be a challenge due to how unique your concepts are, but I think you are capable of meeting up to this.

I wish you luck Rosey. Good work so far, keep it up.

Andy.

Thanks so much!

I'll work on the telling/showing in later drafts. Right now, I needed to get it done for the contest. (Bad idea putting it off like this...)

Thanks again!

Hey Rosey! This is my first review on my supposed reviewing-fest, so let me warm up. *does jumping jacks*

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The earth grated, sending stonedust tumbling on my head. Fissures of light sealed themselves off as the tremors that preceded a quake reverberated through stone.

Quakes were almost always caused by us, now; either in a group or individually.

Human jealousy, guilt and sadness was lead to the Elementals.

Now, they were the only way Earth spirits could continue to support humanity.

I awoke sometime later, feeling much lighter. The quake had passed; all the emotions in the ground had been exploded into fragments too small to matter. The only emotion that trickled down was sadness. Sadness from the deaths we had caused. I had to let it flow off me. If I took it upon myself, I would only become weighed down again. I still felt a tear go down my cheek.

Thank you thank you thank you for the quick critiques! (Considering the deadline is tomorrow...)

June- I did most of the changes you suggested exept the "but" at the end. I had that in for a reason. The "and"s, however, I deleted. I also added more on the sadness thing. Thanks for pointing those out!

Jack- Hmm, I see your point. This story had started off as a prologue, and it hasn't changed much. But I like the idea so I'll probably turn it into something with a plot eventually. Thanks!

~Rosey

Hi Rosey!

I have some thoughts on this story.

I think it's a very interesting idea that you've come up with and I have no qualms whatsoever with that. In fact, it's inventive. My main problem is with the construction and execution of the "story" itself.

It is more like an encyclopaedia entry than a piece of fiction itself; at least, that is the why it has been written. The overwhelming amount of created information is throw at the reader, without any real semblance of plot, character or any of that stuff we're used to. What I think has happened is that you've come up with all this background story and creative ideas and you've wanted to immediately tell the reader everything. But it's saturated the story with too much exposition that its ruined the impact.

As one quote beautifully explains:

Within the context of fiction, exposition is the fiction-writing mode for conveying information. According to Robert Kernen, "Exposition can be one of the most effective ways of creating and increasing the drama in your story. It can also be the quickest way to kill a plot's momentum and get your story bogged down in detail. Too much exposition, or too much at one time, can seriously derail a story and be frustrating to the reader or viewer eager for a story to either get moving or move on."

Pinkie Corncob! June here .


The start of this caught my eye as impressive. As I read through this, Rosey, my interest did not waver. You sustained it throughout, which is sort of uncommon for me (and warrants a gold star), so, this is a pretty fabulous piece, dear.

The earth grated, sending stone dust tumbling on my head. Fissures of light sealed themselves off as the tremors that preceded a quake reverberated through stone. [s]And[/s] with each tremor, I felt a ripple of magic.

I knew this quake would be caused by Earth spirits.

Earth spirits uses quakes, water spirits used storms and air spirits used tornadoes.

As had dark elves, as had all Nature spirits.

And that was only if they could sense us. Most humans were dull to our presence.

The only emotion that trickled down was sadness. Sadness from the deaths we had caused.

That was how Earth spirits, all Elementals, worked: we would cause cataclysm to lighten ourselves, only to move somewhere else to retake emotional burdens. Just so the already burdened Elementals had less weight to bear.

I felt great sorrow for humans as I walked. But they had been warned, and simply hadn’t listened.