Published July 17, 2007
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141,410 Literary Works • 674,390 Reviews
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Hello! I'm glad you've posted more of this story. It's interesting!
Ok. You've still got awkward patches. Like:
You've got too many "with"s, and "sat" should be "sitting".
Can a chandelier be attached to the ceiling by gold? I can see that making sense as you write it. Chandeliers have goldy metal bases, right? But when you read it, it sounds a bit funny. (but I love the little touch of making it shaped like a goat!)
Lots of "and"s, and it sort of runs really fast with no breaks except that first comma.
But it's fine. It doesn't mean you're a bad writer or anything. It really just takes practice to fix. I'm horrible when it comes to awkward patches. I think something, but then I just can't get it on the page the way I mean it in my head. Or I think I do, but then when I actually read it it's all weird.
Anyway. Do you freewrite? Do you have a blog? Or a diary? I suggested this before, I think, but if you haven't acted on it yet, you might like to consider doing so. Just write whenever you can. Keep the words flowing. Things won't change overnight, but it does help in the long run. It's helped me.
With characterization. Juniper's not too bad, but why is she not ok with talking about things with Scarlett again? They seemed like they had that almost sorted out before. If she's going to be all touchy with Scarlett trying to connect and help, then you're going to have to give us a reason for it. THere isn't really much reason to keep her motivation for it secret from the reader.
Harmony says this one minute, but then as soon as it becomes clear Scarlett already knows ...
She seemed like she had some pretty strong reasons for thinking it was a bad idea for Scarlett to find out, but when she learns the worst has happened, that Scarlett HAS ALREADY found out, it's all cool.
Ok, I'll give you the little info dumpish thing here. Lilith steps in and eveything pauses to take a new direction. I understand your need to work that pause by putting something slow there. I get that.
Also, it's more like a description than a dump. Often there isn't a lot of difference between the two, so you can play with it a bit and make sure it fits firmly in the useful-description category, rather than the annoying-boring-dump category. You have to be interesting. No sentences that follow the formula "[insert name] had [insert adjective (second sdjective optional)] [insert noun] that ... [continue with whatever]". Thusly "Lilith had long back hair that ..." is out.
"Black hair hung around Lilith's face like decaying fern fronds".
"Ripples of crimped hair failed to soften the expression on Lilith's face"
Play around with things. Get something that people might remember, and preferrably work in a little of what's going on, too. (sorry I couldn't think up better examples)
Also, resist any temtation to make it longer than it already is.
You simply must give me the names of their tailors! Centaurians (like centaurs, right?) in suits? That's so awesome!
YAY!!! That's the way to go! Blue goats and whatnot. Much more fun than wolves.
Like that ending! Nice dun dun dun DUUUUUUUN! moment. Although I'm not 100% sure why Lilith would be so shocked, seeing as she already knows of several other girls discovering their powers. Is being a seer particularly rare or something?
ANyway, I think you're doing rather well with your story so far!
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Charlie, I'm sure I told you how to format speech at TW. Don't let people's critiques go to waste! Learn how to do them!
Intersting start! You're getting me quite involved in your story, which is always a good thing.
Ok, let's have a look at this paragraph.
The first two sentences are quite interesting. Either would make a lovely first sentence (especailly the second, in my opinion), but not both. The thing is, they both sound like opening sentences, and if you have one opening sentence, then another, it feels like there's been a jump in a song, and while it's jumped to a similar sounding section, it doesn't quite fit and it makes you think "was that supposed to happen?" which is never a good thought for someone reading your work to be thinking.
And then, from the fourth sentence on, we suddenly get a description of this Juniper person. And it's an info dump. You've just taken a break from the story to describe something. That's bad. It's bad because it's not fun to read. It's like a fact file or something. "Juniper had hazel eyes and purple hair, and loved to play music". "Fred had clear blue eyes, red hair, and liked dogs". "Julie had three noses, nine hundred freckles, and liked to eat dogs" Not really very intersting. Or at least not said in an interesting way.
When it comes to descriptions, it's good to mesh them in with the story. You've done that in other places.
Without just saying "Tiffany had blonde hair" you've managed to convey that information.
There's another. Good stuff. And just as a side note, "beckoned her by bending her index finger at her" seems a bit awkward. How about just saying "beckoned her with a twitch of her finger" or something.
And here you've introduced a character without an info dump, and yet we get a good idea of her character with just that one paragraph. That's good! Plus, we get to form our own opinions rather than being told what to think, but the information is presented in such a way that we form the one you want us to, that Mrs Rebecchi isn't very nice, or mature for that mater, and picks on Juniper a bit.
There's some stuff on info dumps in the writing tips section, if you want to check that out.
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Yay! They can do magic and have secrets and stuff! But I also don't know about word choice when it comes to "identites". It's not like they have a whole other person that they are, is it?
Yay! They're having issues! Interesting. I had thought they would have a perfect friendship. I am delighted to find that they are on the verge of fighting.
That's another awkward bit. "yet she still sat there". You're probably better off with "yet she remained still" or something like that. Hmm ... You've actually got a few little awkward patches. But! Good news! Not unfixable! I have major issues with awkard bits. What would help is to write a lot. ANything. Not just stories. Just keep the words flowing. Keep a diary or a blog. Do free-writes. And if you have an awkward patch you can't figure out how to solve, leave it for a bit and come back to it. And try not to overthink it and make it more complicated than it really is. I do that a lot. It just gets you all frustrated.
Just a little thing, but isn't breathing mechanically basically breathing normally? I mean, it's something that you do without thinking about. Like your heart beating. Sort of something your body does on its own. Mechanically.
Ohhh!!! Dun dun dun DUUUNNNNN!!! I'm glad to hear that Juniper is doing something dodgey. Very glad. She has interesting hair and beautiful eyes and is a really good musician, PLUS she can do magic and is a little hard done by thus giving her the right to sympathy ... if she continued to be all perfect and un-dodgey I may have decided to dislike her.
Oh. The fluffy pink diary type. Isn't she fifteen? Maybe it's because I've never been the fluffy pink type, but I would have thought that at fifteen you'd be started to get over over the fluffy pink attraction. Anyway, fluffy pink diaries are the worst diaries because you never get many pages and they're usually dated so you can't actually write more than a page per day, and sometimes they even have fact files you fill in about yourself just in case you forget you're a capricorn or that your favourite food is pizza without anchovies ...
... Ahem. Ignore me. I'm fluffy-pink-diary-ist. She can keep her fluffy pink diary. I honestly don't mind. *narrows eyes in direction of fluffy pink diary*
So anyway.
Yay! Cliff-hanger!
I'd put a fullstop instead of the first comma. It needs a clean finish there. Almost in the place of the other comma too.
And I don't know about feeling unreliable toward someone. Is it possible? You can be unreliable, but can you feel unreliable towards them? I don't actually know. But you can feel dishonest, disloyal, deceitful or deceptive.
Wait, we have the "lone" odour of cigarettes alongside the stench of disinfectant?
Thing about an "ounce" is that it's a weight measurement thing. I would guess you would need a lot of light to get an ounce of it, if it even has weight. Light would be worse than feathers in that respect.
If she was so sure Juniper had seen her, and was concerned enough about being seen to do an invisibility spell in school grounds, I would have thought she wouldn't dismiss that so quickly. It could at least give her a moment of fear.
You don't really need the "-" things there.
Oh. A wolf. Not a large centipede? Or a spirit goat, perhaps? You don't see many spirit goats or bugs these days.
And I don't like the word "magnificently" in any context. Even "beautifully" is a bit dodgey. They're words that don't really tell you much. Like saying someone is "nice" or "great". They don't really helping you picture it in your mind.
Yay! Juniper has motivation! She likes the customs! Not often you get a main character who likes the traditions and customs. Generally main characters run about trying to change them. Interesting.
Scarlett must be feeling very appreciated.
I think you've done this a couple of times, so I thought I'd mention it. You don't need a comma after "dishes". What you want is a fullstop. See, "Scarlett sat down next to Juniper, careful not to knock over any of the dishes" (btw, I added a comma in there) and "Why didn't you tell me ..." are separate. If you had something like "Scarlett said, "Why didn't you ..."" then you want to comma, because it's part of the sentence. If you see what I mean. I'm not very good at explaining it. There's a good article in writing tips by Snoink about grammar and speech marks though.
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There it is! Take a look.
Parading generally involves showing off. Marching. Possibly music, depends on the type of parade. But definitely showing off. Is that the image you want to attach to her tears? Or did you just want to say "sliding" without actually saying "sliding"?
So they're basically happy with each other now? Yay! So now there needs to be some other conflict! I think you've got that covered, seeing as they're going into a hut where presumably more problems will arise. But I'd just thought I'd say it in case you weren't really awares of it.
ANyway, going well! I hope I've been helpful. I'll keep looking out for more.
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This was actually pretty good. No cheesy scenes where they use their magic for no purpose at all other than to show off to the reader. There were a couple goofs, though.
The 'too' should be 'to'. And I think you meant "gotten used to, whether it be...".
teacher's
Try:
Yes, you did get it correct...
That should be 'you're'.
Blonde-haired pretty girl that sat in the middle of all the crowds.
Hmm. Sounds like a super hero thing. The identities thing. 'Goddess' forsaken? Interesting. Can't wait to learn more.
I'm sorry. I might just be having a brain fart at the moment, but that line still doesn't make sense, and I re-read it twice.
Whoa. Paradigm shift. I thought they were humans. Okay. Your story.
While on that line...
Just drop it for once...when have you ever...? 'Just drop it for once' make it sound like this is an on-going thing. Yet 'when have you ever' makes it sound like this is a new thing, and normally she wouldn't have cared.
Me? I couldn't even...
Juniper's.
How about you get rid of that last one and turn it into:
...potions to make the many concoctions they had been taught.
I loved the ending. It was an awesome story. Please let me know if there's going to be more. I'd really like to read it if there is.