Young Writers Society

Hi there--I'm here to check out your first chapter! Overall, there're some pretty interesting events here--the attack, Nathaniel talking to the reaper, the layered dimensions.

But... I was feeling rather detached. This may be because of a backstory dump in the early paragraphs. I see a large amount of worldbuilding and information here. Even if your point of view is probably omniscient?, I feel as if it's too much to digest at once; it's nearing expository in my opinion. Ease in the details; sliding them in the paragraphs will have the reader absorb the backstory and worldbuilding more subtly.

Like the reviewer below, I've also noticed your tenses sometimes change. Let me quote an example from your chapter:

The mage regained his feet. “Long live the King!” he exclaimed, as he spouts another wall of fire towards the lunging Nathaniel.

Greetings! Let's get right into the review!

"Houses caved in and fire spreads wildly, scorching and licking the ground into soot. The heavy smoke was making it very hard to breathe, and also very hard to move." So these two sentences are the the only problems I have with the otherwise well-written and good opening paragraph. First off, it is supposed to be "spread" instead of 'spreads' in order to avoid contradicting the past tense used in the rest of the text. Also, it seems awkward to use the word "very" twice in the same sentence.

"To be more truthful, it was us Humans who was always despiteful of the other races, and a clear discrimination has always been present since ages before. The battle at the Mountain Pass was bound to attract soldiers and mercenaries to pillage the neighbouring towns, and Vale was an obvious target. The only problem was finding when the raid will ensue." I am uncertain if the word "us" is necessary because then it seems like it is being told from first person point of view which it is not. Also, replace the word "was" before the word "despiteful" should be replaced with the word "were'. And replace the word 'has' with the word 'had' to again avoid contradicting the past tense used in the rest of the story. The same applies to the word "will" which should be the word "would".

"Mountains of other burned corpses lay charred on the ground, dozens of which does not even slightly resembles the corpse of a man." Again, the words "does" and "resembles" should be in past tense instead of present tense.

"Fall back!” a voice rang among their ranks, and their horses *neighed* as they tried turning it around." Is the correct way to say this.

"A rain of arrows suddenly *fell* down on their circle, a circle of rain of but a few dozens of loose arrows strung into the air." Is the correct way to say this.

'The remaining soldiers that were able to get out of the village *were* surrounded by armed villagers, overpowering them by sheer numbers alone and giving them no choice but to throw in the towel.' Is the correct way to say this.


Okay, so as I am sure you've noticed, my mom critique is the occasional mistake in tenses when you sometime put present tense instead of past tense, so work primarily on that by proofreading it. Criticism aside, I liked this. Nathaniel seemed like an interesting character and I look forward to reading more of this. Keep writing!