Hey This is my first story so be gentle! I'm not good at grammar so I hope it is OK but feel free to point out grammar problems, there are probably lots. This is a story I started when I was 14. I re-wrote it to post on here. Enjoy 
Chapter 1 Part 1
Blaine crouched, back bent, concealed in the undergrowth; the woods around him quiet, sleeping. Keeping his eyes sharp, he waited for any sign of movement.
Edging forward, in a crouched position, he was careful not to disturb anything that lay beneath him. Any noise, a rustle or snap of a twig as he slowly moved, and it would be over.
His ears caught something his eyes could not see. He froze, his legs protesting against the sudden stillness in his body. A deer moved into Blaine’s vision. He smiled to himself as the deer’s ears pricked and swiveled, at a constant ready for some unforeseen predator. The deer lowered its head seemingly happy that it was in no immediate danger. Blaine took this moment to carefully slip his bow off his shoulder and retrieve an arrow from his quiver. Looking up he checked the deer again; it was still grazing happily unaware that its death was a breath away. Blaine sucked in that breath and held it. He set the arrow to the bow, pulled his arm back and…..
“Master Blaine!”
The deer started, lifting its head, then bolted straight into the thickness of the trees.
Blaine relaxed his arm, releasing the tension in his muscles slowly, and sighed a curse of annoyance. The arrow he pushed back into its place in the quiver, before slipping the bow once again over his shoulder.
“Master Blaine!” the call came again.
Blaine stood to his full height, which was over a good six feet, his gaze lingering on the place the deer had been grazing only a few moments before. A small, skinny man bustled around the trunk of a tree and hurried at the sight of Blaine.
“There you are, Sir.”
Blaine sighed again and turned to face the small man that had disturbed his bounty. “Caswallan, this had better be good.”
Caswallan looked Blaine up and down, obviously taking in his hunting garb and weapons. He smiled sheepishly. “I’m sorry, Sir.”
Blaine smiled, despite his annoyance, wanting to reassure his assistant. “No matter, was there something you needed me for?”
Caswallan seemed slightly perplexed but collected his thoughts soon enough. “Oh yes, of course. You are wanted at the castle, by your father.”
“Any particular reason?”
“Yes, yes, certainly. An urgent Alliance meeting, Sir.”
“An Alliance meeting?” Blaine began to walk towards the castle, retracing, the way that Caswallan had arrived. “There isn’t supposed to be one for another month. Do you know what it’s in regard to?”
Caswallan looked flustered and hurried to keep up with Blaine. “I’m sorry Sir, all I was told was that I must fetch you right away.”
“That’s fine, Caswallan, let my father have his secrets,” Blaine quickened his pace. “Could you go ahead and let them know I’m on my way.”
“Of course sir, of course,” Caswallan rushed off ahead of Blaine to do his duty.
Blaine watched him go and had to admit that even though the man looked constantly nervous, he was enthusiastic. He probably could benefit from a little more training but he was proving to be a very proficient assistant already.
An urgent Alliance meeting? Something important must have happened. Blaine was intrigued but also begrudged having to spend the rest of the day in a meeting with people much above his own age, who rarely paid attention to his input. His father later murmured compliments on what Blaine had said in the meeting but usually out of earshot of the nobles. Rarely did anyone within the meeting even acknowledge his presence, other than the obligatory abeyance made to the King’s son. No doubt two nobles were having a mini civil war over boundary issues.
Coming to the edge of the trees and leaving the gloom behind him, Blaine walked out into the evening sunlight. The last rays were hitting Castle Lenbard, the residence of the Kings of Janovia, shining the roof tiles as they slid down to sparkle on the dark windows.
Blaine stopped to gaze at the spectacle, then remembering his purpose, he continued forward up the path towards the castle. He was just about to enter the main gates that led to the castle’s keep, when something caught his attention. He came to a standstill, turning, surveying a section of undergrowth, which ran alongside the outer castle wall. He was certain he had seen movement out of the corner of his eye. Now, however, everything seemed still, eerily still.
“Sir! Sir! They are waiting for you!” Caswallan was hurrying down the steps of the keep towards Blaine.
Damn the man; Blaine’s earlier annoyance came back. He continued to stare at the undergrowth waiting for movement.
“Sir! The Alliance meeting!” Caswallan was beside him now shaking his arm gently, hoping to snap him out of his reverie. Blaine jerked his arm from Caswallan’s grip, vexed at being disturbed from his examination of the undergrowth. “What is it?”
“Your father Sir, he is waiting for you.”
“Yes, I know,” and with one last prolonged look at the undergrowth, Blaine led the way across the courtyard and up the steps into the keep.
******
Blaine strode to the door of the grand hall, halting an arm’s length from its strong oak planking. He had not changed from his hunting attire but given Caswallan his bow and quiver. He was late. The nobles would already be gathered and no doubt, already fighting.
Blaine exhaled a long, low sigh. He composed his facial features, making sure no trace of his aversion to these meetings showed in his demeanor. He then inhaled deeply and, placing his hand on the large metal circle of the handle, twisted it to release the latch. He pushed the door open and stepped into the great hall knowing that every eye would turn to him.
The light from the high arched windows overwhelmed his eyes, burning into his retina. It made him stop, hesitate in the doorway, to allow his vision to adjust.
“Ah Blaine, take a seat,” a voice rich, deep and commanding, emanated from across the room.
Opposite the door a long thin table ran the length of the hall, wooden benches tucked underneath in readiness for the evening’s meal. The men, the nobles of course, were gathered at one end of the table, and as Blaine had expected, were all staring in his direction.
“Well, are you coming in or not Blaine? We’ve been waiting,” it was the voice from before, Blaine’s father, King Gorsed of Janovia. Blaine dipped his head slightly in acknowledgement, closed the door behind him, and took the seat opposite his father. He could now see the magnificent tapestries of rich reds and browns which hung lining the walls. If the meetings became too tedious he would often look up losing himself in the depths of the picture, until recalled back to the table by minor dignitary.
“Good Gracious! Is he still wearing his hunting clothes?” Mailan of Grundork barked loudly, in what Blaine supposed was to be a side comment to his neighbor.
“My apologies Lord Mailan. I was, after all, hunting when Caswallan arrived with the message and came as soon I was able,” Blaine smiled politely ignoring the insult.
“Yes well we’ll let it go, for now, but it wouldn’t hurt for you to show some respect. That is hardly dress for an Alliance Meeting, especially for a young…Prince.”
Blaine endeavored to keep a polite smile on his face, whilst trying not to rise to Mailan’s bait. The man was infuriating, but powerful, and not a man to cross lightly.
to be continued....
Well I tried to take on your comments and added in your suggestions. I also wrote down all your tips about grammar and mainly punctuation and then went back through this and tried to apply it all. It probably still isn't 100% and I bet I ended up putting punctuation where it wasn't actually needed lol. But I tried! and will keep trying
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,018 Literary Works • 672,857 Reviews
Well, I'm pretty sure everyone below me covered everything, so ill just tell you how much i loved your story
I thought it was good, wonderful even, if you wrote more about it,
I'd probably read all of t ^_^
This story is pretty interesting, and was a lot of potential.
Its one of those cliff hanger stories, where you have absolutely no clue whats going to happen next.
I think you could be a little descriptive in some parts, but again, everyone below me pretty much covered everything. Keep up the great work !
I'd love to read more of this
Hey there! Sorry about the huge delay, I got distracted by my new laptop and moving location a few times XD Rather than a full line by line, I’m going to quote the paragraphs I have comments for:
Okay! So I’m done reading now and I think you’ve got a good start. It’s not the sort of beginning that immediately jumps out as being unique or amazing but it’s intriguing and you’ve got enough hook to keep the reader’s attention. Your strongest point in my opinion is characterisation: you introduce Blaine and Caswallan well and there’s a good foundation for an interesting relationship between them and a hero who has room to grow. I like that some of the flaws have already been revealed. However, you’re lacking perhaps just a little in description of characters. I don’t mean hair colour and eye colour because they can be added at any time but what you need is some defining features that your reader can expand on. A reader can happily create their own image so long as you give them something to build it around, like a burly build and a skull tattooed across the back or a spindly frame, gold spectacles and ridiculously long nails. Something perhaps a little odd that it would benefit the reader to know about.
Description is good, particularly of the room at the end. The details of the tapestries helped to set the scene and you’ve got a firm grasp of basic atmosphere. However, I’d like to see more use of the five senses. There’s a lot of sight there but you neglect the other four. When you’re writing a scene, it might help to just jot the names of each sense down and make a brief list of things you could mention but you then don’t have to use them all. It just gives you ideas. For example, old castles were often lit by lamps strung along the hallways and after a while you got the smell of lantern oil about the place or there’s the feel of old iron as you turn the handle of the door, the feel of your breath slithering across your lips as you’re trying to be quiet, trying to calm your breathing so as not to startle a dear. The sound of a leak somewhere in the castle or the clinking of glasses as men sup their wine. Taste is a little harder to do and not one that needs to often be considered but there’s that dry throated taste when you’ve not swallowed for a long time because you’re so filled with anticipation and nerves. Just a few ideas for you to keep in mind.
Dialogue was good most of the time and gave a nice insight into the characters while still feeling natural. It could be honed in a few places but in general, good work. And there’s not much comment I can make on plot. So far it’s going well, there’s a nice, smooth flow and you’re setting the characters, scene and history up nicely.
So in general, keep up the good work and if you’ve got any questions, feel free to send a pm my way. I hope this helps a little!
Heather xx
P.S. Again, apologies for the delay and I’ll be working on the second tonight/ tomorrow.
Other than endless nitpicking (is that a word?) a great beginning to a potentially good story. I love the detail, and the description is good enough to see. Try going over it more, and reading it to yourself. It makes it easier to find mistakes.
You lost me on that one. You make it sound more like he's hiding from something, rather than hunting. The phrase it would be over isn't really a good line to use in this situation, and easily confuses readers.
This paragraph is excellent, though. Great description, and the suspense is good.
This was a bit stretched out, and seemed too long. Try shortening it to a few quotes, instead of a dragging it out.
A great section of the story (sorry for shortening it, but...), the detail is superb, and the dialogue was challenging to write, but you pulled it off very nicely.
Hey, Becki. ^_^ I'm here, as promised.
Wow, you've had some top reviews, and have done the editing, I see. This is rather good.
Wow, that's a lot of commas. I have been told off with my overzealous use of commas myself! What these do here is make your line feel segmented, and like it should be shorter. It effects to flow- it reminds me of a car when you start it and it 'bunny-hops' because you let the clutch out too fast. Stop, go,stop,go,stop,go.
When it comes to your first line, you want to hook the reader. I tend to use short, simple sentences myself, but if you want to use longer lines, I suggest you don't launch straight into such a complex structure. I would go so far as suggest you replace the semi colon with a fullstop, and let the next half be its own sentence.
Blaince crouched, back bent, concealed in the undergrowth. The woods around him were quiet, sleeping.
You've said above that he is crouched, you don't need to state it again. I am a believer in the conservation of words- getting an idea or image across without wasting any words. By stating this again, you add nothing to the image, and is essentially just making the sentence longer.
If he was that focused, I doubt he would smile. This is being rather nit-picky, but it isn't often you see a truly focused person smile voluntary. Have you ever been absorbed in a game, concentrating really hard? When someone talks to you, you my force a smile, but that's just being polite. Smiling tends to only come when the tension is released.
The deer lowered its head, seemingly happy that it was in no immediate danger.
The comma here makes the sentence more clear to read. It also clarifies that 'seemingly' is owned by the second part of the idea, rather then the first.
You don't take your eyes off your target. Experienced hunters would be fully capable of grabbing and drawing their bow without looking. A hunter wants to keep their quarry in sight.
Okay, lets talk about your opening paragraph. The description, as said above, is spot on, and it is well written. But my problem is, this opening has been used before, many times. How many movies have opened with someone about to shoot someone or something, only to have someone disturb their quarry or themselves at the last minute? I'm talking both about hunting animals and hunting people- essentially it is still the same beginning. It would be better if you don't want to completely rewrite this if he did shoot the deer, and turned up to the meeting covered in blood and dragging a carcass. For after all, it seems quite disappointing for such a well written section to have such over-done content. But, turning up covered in blood? Could be interesting.
Here's my tip- read this out loud, I think you will soon see the problem.
Just in case, of course, I will explain what I mean.
It's the commas again. You're right- you have put too many in! This currently reads (where '...' is where I pause)
'Blaine began to walk towards the castle... retracing....the way that Caswallan had arrived.
Do you see what I mean? Long story short, lose the comma after 'retracing.'
I don't think you need 'to do his duty.' It's quite clear that the man is well-intentioned, loyal if a little befuddled. This 'to do his duty' seems tacked on, and isn't needed.
Really? He seemed confused and it took a while and a lot of prompting to give over the information, no matter how enthusiastic he was.
'facial features'? A term I haven't heard outside of art. ><; It seems a little awkward, as if you were thinking too hard about it. The simple 'face' works much better.
Fullstop here. He doesn't continue speaking, so you might as well end the sentence here. It makes it a lot clearer and improves the flow.
Same for dialogue from there on, I won't pull them all out, as I would just end up repeating myself.
Overall, I like this. The editing has really helped- judging from other critiques you've received before the edit and the product now, it's improved immensely.
The character- I would like to see more of Blaine's emotions and thoughts, but that will come as the story progresses. Maybe you can describe how he is feeling while hunting, in comparison when he is finished. A focused man can feel and react much different then one at rest- you could show us a glimpse of both sides of his character here.
The plot- I've already said about the beginning, and there is not much else to comment on at this stage. I'll get back to you on this once I've read further.
But well done! Good on you for reviving a story after so many years- I'm afraid to touch my first few stories 0.o
If you have any questions, feel free to PM me. I'll be happy to help.
-Nutty
Hey, Beckie! Here I finally am, but please do beat me up for procrastinating for so long.
I've also been busy, but for some reason I haven't had the reviewing mood for a long time, and I apologize. It certainly hasn't got anything to do with you or your story!
So let's start. As you may know, there are still some punctuation errors, which are of course very common, so no need to be too worried about them. However, I thought I should give you a few examples on some matters.
When your character addresses another character by his name, and says something to him at the same time, you need a comma, like this:
"What are you doing, Max?"
Not "What are you doing Max?"
As I said, this kind of mistakes are common, but they really tend to bug the reader a little, so I suggest you pay extra attention to this. You can afford to do that, because I think you have the ability of keeping the story going, in which case you won't have to work hugely on that, and you'll have more time to check the punctuation.
Of course, when it comes to the publishing, you'll have an editor who'll fix those kind of things for you – more important is the good story – but at this point we're only in YWS, and it's better to know what you're doing. Not to put YWS down or anything
I think you mean startled, not started.
You could possibly edit this bit into: 'Blaine's earlier annoyance came back. Damn the man.'
It would look better if you replaced the ellipses (which should only be three, by the way) with a dash.
Here's one punctuation thing I pointed out already. I'm also a bit torn about the rest of the sentence: I think you should ditch one of those adjectives, since 1) emanated is a characteristic verb, and 2) three adjectives are overall too much.
Overall, I think you have an interesting start of a story here. You use just enough description, I think: not too much, not too little. I also admire your patience to keep it going after five years.
Thanks for the read, and sorry again for the delay!
Demeter
xxx
Nice job with the edit!
Yep. You do have a little too much punctuation. Here is an article that might help. It's about commas.
More punctuation:
Don't put over one exclamation mark or question mark at the end of a sentence. You've done that for the "Master Blaine!"s at the beginning.
The is the only non-comma error:
Replace the period after "position" with a comma. You don't have a subject/verb set, so you can't put a period to end it there.
That's it! Hope I helped!
Again thank you thank you thank you! You are already helping with me understanding where to put punctuation. I think at school I was already too worried to seem stupid by asking about punctuation. You all make it seem a lot easier.
It's about 1-am now so I think I will make changes tomorrow lol And start rewriting the next part of the chapter.
Thanks Again
No need to be nervous! Minor grammar stuff/nit-picks:
This line made me think he was running from something. It was a bit of a disapointment to find out he was simply hunting.
Just quoting this to tell you to replace the comma with a period.
The wording here is a little strange. Try: Blaine sucked in that breath and held it. He set the arrow to the bow, pulled his arm back and.....
Delete "visibly."
You switch to Caswallan's viewpoint here.
Comma between "castle" and "retracing."
Put thoughts in italics
Put "on" before "the dark windows."
Comma after "purpose"; add "he" before "continued."
Comma after "grip."
Either a period or a semi-colon ( ; ) instead of a comma after "late."
Comma after "and."
This description confused me. Try: ...were gathered at one end of the table and, as Blain had expected, were all staring in his direction.
"God" is an Earth term; it really pulls me out of the story. Replace with "gods" or come up with an actual name to replace "God" for your world.
Atmosphere- Really well done. Nothing to say here.
Grammar- You're missing mostly commas here. There are only three types of commas-
List- Pretty obvious. No problems here.
Intro- Introducing something in a sentence or adding something at the end.
Interupter- They act like brackets. Anything that is extra info in the sentence (such as "placing his hand on the large metal circle of the handle"). You put commas at the beginning and the end of that. You should be able to delete the stuff between the interupter commas and still have the sentence made sense.
There's technically a fourth type, but you'll only find it in prose- Put commas wherever you'd put a pause in speaking/reading aloud.
Periods are full stops.
Overall- I found this amazing. Mostly what you're missing is grammar. Try reading it aloud to see where you need to put pauses/full stops. It really drew me in, and other then a few stray commas, it's very well written.
PM me when the next part is up!
Thank you! lol
This is exactly what I need really. I suck at punctuation mainly as you have pointed out and I will try and take on board everything you said.
One thing, what is a period? Is it a full stop?
Unfortunately I don't have a English teacher anymore as I am at University but thank you for trying to teach me! Your already being a lot of help.
I already read a lot, I suppose not in an analysing way though, so I will try to do that.
I think you should ditch the "legs cramped" part. For a second, I literally thought he had a leg cramp.
You need a comma after "forward'. I'm not sure if you do this again, but just to make sure you understand, here are a few examples like this.
Running down the road, he looked for his friend.
Eating the pie, he poured some milk.
Get it?
Comma after twig. Here's another quick grammar lesson. After this, I'll let you find the other situations like this in your story. Whenever there's a phrase in the middle of a sentence that doesn't need to be there, you need to surround it by commas. In here, for example, the sentence would still make perfect sense as "Any noise and it would be over." But since you chose the road of description, you added "a rustle or snap of a twig". Just be sure to surround these types of situations with commas
If you're still a little confused on the matter (because I'm not that great at explaining...) then you should ask someone you know for more examples.
You need a period instead of a comma after "see".
I see that this situation may get repetitive, so I'm going to show you once more so that you can find and fix them yourself. You need a period, not a comma, after "vision". You need to start taking extra notice of where new sentences are beginning.
Comma after "started".
I'm beginning to see that grammar is definitely the main issue with your writing. So... Another grammar lesson.
What you do here and at many other parts of your story, is that you don't put an ending marks at the end of your dialogue. There should be a period after "good". Also, just before someone speaks, you need to put either a comma or a period. In this situation, you need a period. But for other times when you use dialogue tags, you need commas. For example.
I turned to him and yelled, "Go away!"
She said, "No, I won't dance with you."
The only time you use a period is if the person speaking is already implied, and so you don't need a dialogue tag. This is how you have it above, but I'll give a few more examples.
I sat down and crossed my arms. "Make me."
The boy squatted down and frowned. "Man, I've got to poop."
Well... moving on.
Put a comma after "meeting". Whenever you say "sir" or other similar titles like "ma'am", you use a comma before it.
Put a comma after "castle".
I'm not sure "spectacle" is the best word for this situation. I just don't see something beautiful being a spectacle. Maybe you could say, "Blaine stopped to gaze at the sight."
The word expel is usually used as a forced action, such as someone being expelled from their school. A sigh isn't a forced thing. It just happens. Maybe you could say "Blaine let out a long, low sigh." Or just say he sighed.
As a side note, you need a comma between "long" and "low". When you have two words describing the same word, you need a comma between them. Here's some examples.
I ate the juicy, red apple.
I threw the heavy, white ball.
Now here's one variable to consider:
I ate the blood red apple. (notice the lack of comma? This is because "blood" describes "red".)
I threw the pure white ball. (once again, "pure" describes "white" so it doesn't need a comma.")
You've already made it very clear that they're fighting over land and titles. You don't need to keep telling us.
Overall this was actually really good. You describe things well and paint the appropriate picture. You sometimes use words that, although do make sense, just don't work well, but otherwise you have a good style going here. The only real problem there was is that you don't have a firm grasp on comma usage and when to use periods and such around dialogue. Other than that, though, it was quite enjoyable.
So what can you do to better yourself here? The easiest way for you to learn your grammar is to read a lot (I know... Pretty common tip). But instead of just reading, study the way the author sets up his sentences, learn where they place their commas and such. That's how I learned all my grammar. The downside to this is that you won't know why the commas go there, but you'll know they have to be there, which is basically all you need. So, good luck.
Hey.
This seems very interesting. You will have to pm me when you post the next chapter.
I can't point out grammar, because I am not good at grammar neither.
But what i can you is tell you that you have an very interesting opening for your story and for me, it really drew me in to the story.
And you character are really good. I have a feeling that I will hate the father already. Blaine has a good feeling so far. I also have the feeling that he is going to fall in love, but that's just me.
Anywho, I wish you good luck with the rest of the story and make sure you pm me when you posted the next chapter.
See ya around.