Young Writers Society

Hey Stegs! I saw this and I knew I had to review it because last year (and the start of this year) I too wrote a story which mentioned a 'Hayden' in the title, so it had a nice kind of familiarity about it.

I'm guessing this is your NaNo novel? If it is, feel free to not worry too much about my review until NaNo's over.

I really like the kind of set up you've got going on in the opening paragraph. The wording's a little bit clunky in the second sentence, although it doesn't take long for you to find an engaging voice, but the premise is really cool, and got my attention right away.

I'm not sure how I feel about you not naming the boy telling the story. I think your chapter's short enough that you can get away with it, but generally hiding a character's name, unless not knowing the name is part of the plot, I guess, for extended periods of time gets a bit jarring for the reader, means they don't necessarily connect with the character and the story as much as they could. I like how the boy's introduced, but maybe consider revealing his name, unless doing so will not work for the plot.

I really like the story that the boy (I want to guess that it's the eponymous Hayden of the title) is telling, however, I do feel like it loses some of its effect in being a block of dialogue. I remember reading somewhere where an author said something about avoiding having more than three lines in one bit of dialogue or something, which I'm not entirely sure I 100% agree with, but the point I'm trying to make is that sometimes having big chunks of dialogue gets a bit iffy. Potentially you could go into describing what he's talking about in more detail in the narration rather than in the dialogue, if that makes sense, that way you can potentially make the imagery even stronger, or otherwise break it up a little with some descriptions of what's going on, like the audience's reactions, and what's going on around the boy.

The description you have is really great, but I'd like to see a teensy bit more interwoven throughout the chapter as a whole, to really give us a good idea of the setting and a sense of place. Super important in fantasy!

That's about all from me. For a NaNo chapter, or any first chapter, really, but particularly for something you've written in a very short space of time, this is really strong, and I'm looking forward to seeing where the story goes! Any questions, let me know!

Hi this is Pancake here and may I just say that this sounds really good! I love the way you spoke of the fables (or realities) of the village and that you could create a part of a whole kingdom's history with so few words but was still very clear. There's just a few grammatical things that may need a bit of fixing.

“I am going to travel far away to the country of thieves and ghosts,” he would said, waving his hands in front of the growing crowd. “The place of foreseen measures and unholy hopes. A place where everyone wants to rule the world!”

The whole thing itself is fine, it's just that after the "country of thieves and ghosts" part, you have a comma when it should be a period. Due to the fact that the continuing quote starts with an uppercase.

"he would said" It should be "say"

“My parents told me stories of what cities were like when they were filled with people. Each person would wander around from time to time, giving wishes to the fellow royal highnesses like animals and food baskets. They were the gods, my parents told me. If they waved a hand over the area, gold would rain down from the heavens. The peasants of these noble kings and queens, wanted revenge and hopefully rid of their foul behavior.

This really just needs a quotation mark on the end.

"It was then that the peasants grew very mad and started to rebel against. Lasted for only two suns.”

These two sentences are slightly choppy as in the first sentence it finishes with "...started to rebel against." then it just cuts off. It could be "rebel against the higher class." or just " started to rebel." just a suggestion though.

The next sentence "Lasted for only two suns.” should probably be "It lasted for only two suns." it just seems like better English.

That's it for me, though I might have missed something to be honest. It's really just a few little things that needed a lot of space to go over. Over all the story sounds fantastic and I hope to see more, great job Stegosaurus!