I started to write this story one way, but decided to start over and change it some. You can't really tell that it's fantasy yet - but it is 
Please Critique:
UNTITLED
By: Onceuponatim3xo
CHAPTER 1
It had all begun that summer. Looking back now, I realize how young and naive I was, but how was I supposed to know what was to become of me. So much has changed since that summer.
I ran through the lush green fields, feeling the wind through my hair, pushing me back. The day was sunny and bright. I had not a care in the world as I ran through the fields. This was my escape, my peaceful getaway. The beautiful landscape and the tiring excercize lulled me to sleep.
When I awoke, I was in my own bed. Confused, I started to get up, but my mother stopped me. “Rest, Kirsten.”
“Why?” I asked.
“You need your rest. You fell asleep in the fields and it rained on you. Now you have a fever from the exposure of it.” My mother replied.
“I’m fine.” I protested. But, when I got up, my stomach did not feel too well. “Nevermind.”
“Just sleep a little more and stay in today.” My mother said.
“But -”
“Kirsten, no exceptions, I don’t want you to fall asleep outside again.” My mother said as she got up and left.
I groaned, but did as she asked. I soon fell asleep once more and did not wake for quite some time. When I did wake, I went downstairs to the kitchen for something to eat. In the kitchen, though, was my mother, father, sister, and my sister’s future husband. “Hello.” My mother said.
“Good morning.” I said in return.
“Good morning, more like good evening! Go and have a look outside.” My sister noted.
I looked out the nearby window and saw the dark sky. “Oh.”
“Yes, well, we were just going over the plans for Christiana’s wedding.” My mother said. That was all that it was about lately, all that I ever heard was ‘tell your sister congratulations, I heard she is getting married.’ ‘I think it is wonderful that your sister is getting married to such a fine young gentleman.’ ‘Christiana is such a beautiful young woman, it’s no surprise that she is marrying.’ Marriage, marriage, marriage.
“Okay, I’ll be in my room then.” I said, I went to leave the kitchen but my father stopped me.
“Don’t go past the fence next time you go out, Kirsten. We’re limiting your space so that you don’t get sick again.” He said.
“But -”
“No. You are staying here.” My father said. I groaned and went back to my room.
But, the next day, I disobeyed my father and went past the estate’s old wooden fence. I ran through the fields like never before, I ran faster and longer. But then I reached the bordering forest and stopped abruptly. I had never gone through the forest before, but I felt daring after defying my father, and so I entered the forest.
The forest was beautiful. The sun shone through the leaves of the branches and my feet crunched on the dead leaves and soft dirt as I walked. I suddenly heard a twig snap, not of my own doing. I became cautious, then, for fear of being followed by a wild animal. As I looked around, I noticed the silhouette of a human. “Hello?” I called out.
“Hello.” Someone replied, their voice rich and humorous.
“Who are you?” I asked.
The person came out of the shadows and showed themselves. It was boy, about my age. He had handsome and striking features. “Who are you?” He asked.
“You tell me first.” I said.
“I am Tanner Hadley, and you are?” He said.
“I am Kirsten Bailey.” I replied.
“Nice to meet you.” Tanner said, he held out his hand.
“And you.” I took his hand and shook it.
“So, what brings you to the forest, Miss Bailey?” Tanner asked.
“Well, Mister Hadley, to tell you the truth, I was doing a bit of exploring.” I answered.
“Ahhh, well, may I explore with you?” He asked.
The boy was curious, but I decided to go along with his charades. “Sure, although, I’m afraid I don’t have much to explore.”
“Then allow me to help you.” Tanner said. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you the sights to see.” He left the cleared trail and walked steadily down a steep hill. I was afraid to do so, and so I followed him hesitantly. We walked in awkward silence for a while, then stopped in front of an extremely tall tree with many branches. “This, is the best tree for climbing. You can see the whole world atop it, and it’s the easiest to climb.” With that, he grabbed ahold of a branch and pulled himself up. Higher and higher he went, then he stopped to look down at me. “I won’t show you the sights if you won’t appreciate them.” Then he suddenly dropped from a height of about fifty feet and landed safely on the ground.
My jaw dropped. “How did you do that without breaking something?!”
“I’ve got tough bones, as my grandmother would always say.” He replied. “Now are you coming or not?”
I stared at him, still in shock. “I guess so.” I managed to say.
“Good, let’s go.” He said, and we climbed together. Thankfully I didn’t have a fear of heights, so when we reached the top I wasn’t completely traumatized. “See, I told you, you can see the whole world up here.”
I looked around and found that it was true, in an exaggerated sense. I could see the fields and the houses far off - including mine. It was beautiful up there in the tree, everything seemed so small and different.
Suddenly, I started to slip. I lost my balance, and unable to regain it, I fell! I screamed loud and hard and knew death was in my near future. I could see the ground coming closer and closer. Fear curdled in my stomach and I came in contact. There was a sickening crack, and pain came to ankle in an instant. But, it wasn’t the ground that I had hit - I was safely in Tanner’s arms. My leg had smacked against the tree trunk, though. But, the only logical way for Tanner to have been on the ground level so fast was if he had jumped the one hundred feet or so himself, which confused me.
He carefully lay me down and took my leg in his hands, then he somehow caused the pain to ease. A second later, everything blacked out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I hope you liked it!
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125,013 Literary Works • 672,844 Reviews
Thank you soooo much for the extremely detailed critiques!
I definitely need to start over, I just plunged in and I hate when I do that!
That's all I can really say about this, because all that I've said pretty much covers everything in here and I'd hate to repeat myself. You need to bring out your characters and put life into this story. Otherwise this seems like an outline to me. Not a bad outline either. Show your readers these things as if your narrator were actually touring them around and giving her imput of everything. It's uncomfortable standing on the outside and looking in, you know? Like watching a movie with just subtitles, you get to know what the people are saying but you don't get any of the emotions behind the words. Really look into this before rewriting it.
Best of luck!
~Rieda
First of all, welcome to YWS! Next of all, I am an evil reviewer. XD
Oh well. Here's my slightly sadistic critique of your first two paragraphs. Enjoy?
Okay.
Sometimes this works, sometimes this doesn't. There was this one movie that I saw where the main character was dead in a swimming pool, and then he narrated the events that led up to his untimely death. It was an interesting movie... Sunset Blvd., if you want to know.
But this beginning just doesn't grab me. I mean, this is telling me initially that "something has happened to her!" but I really don't care what. So I would cut this paragraph out.
So... let's see what happens when we take out all the adjectives.
I ran through the fields, feeling the wind through my hair, pushing me back. The day was sunny and bright. I had not a care in the world as I ran through the fields. This was my escape, my getaway. The landscape and the excercize lulled me to sleep.
Suddenly it seems less pretty, no? This means that you were probably using too many adjectives. Let's bold the lines that are repeated, now that we got rid of the cliches:
I ran through the fields, feeling the wind through my hair, pushing me back. The day was sunny and bright. I had not a care in the world as I ran through the fields. This was my escape, my getaway. The landscape and the excercize lulled me to sleep.
So basically you're saying, "I ran through the fields, I ran through the fields, it was pretty, this is my escape, and I fell asleep."
XD
Don't be so repetitious! I have no idea where you live, but I am hoping that there are some fields nearby that you can run in. So... field trip! Run though the fields. What do you notice? Does your breathing change? Do you feel any sort of exhilaration? Do you want to pass out and die because of allergies? Do you trip on a rock and get a bloody knee?
After running around in the fields and recording your results, trying lying down on the grass. Is it comfortable? Do any bugs crawl on you while you're lying there? Do you think that's cool? Does that make you squeamish? Is it quiet? Do you hear any birds? How about the soft rush of grass? Is it peaceful? Is it lonely? Are you bored? Does the sun get in your eyes? Is there anybody looking for you? Are you paranoid about animal poop and can't stand to sit down on the grass, just in case some animal's been there?
These are some questions that just pop in my mind that, if you can answer these questions for yourself, most likely you can answer them for your character which means you can probably deepen your character a little bit. I will be blunt -- I've read your story, and I think it's a good idea, but at the moment, everything's flat. You're going to need to rewrite it with more emphasis on the characters, particularly your main character. What makes her an interesting person? Why should we care? So instead of making us aware of a conflict from the first paragraph, like you did for this draft, which would make us think, "Aw, poor character" make us think, "Wow, I want to find more about HER."
Does that make sense?
As far as my adventures running through the fields, apparently I have allergies which get me slightly asthmatic reactions. Yay? Yay! Anyway, so what happens is I start running and then my chest constricts and then the next ten minutes, I am gasping for breath. Not exactly your ideal "oh, let's run through the fields with bunnies and birdies!" sort of thing, but there you go. What can I say? I am slightly pathetic. And no, I am stupid and don't sit down (let alone LIE down) because I hate hate hate hate hate grass because it's all sticky and then you get these stickers on you, and I don't like bugs and they crawl over you. The worst are the earwigs because they just love to get closer and closer and... ew! And I just can't stand them. So instead, I'll just stand there like a complete idiot, since I am too stupid to take an inhaler when I need it, and assure everyone that I am okay when obviously I'm not.
Does this say a lot about my character?
This sort of depth would be wonderful for your story. Right now, you are rushing through everything, hoping that your plot will capture our hearts, but your plot is not that original. This is fine mind you -- but that means that your characters have to be interesting so that we'll care.
Best of luck! I know you'll get this better and soon it will be awesome. Just have faith.
Thank you!
Yeah, I'll have to change this - definitely!
Also, it's not going to be my title, don't worry. I just didn't want to put Untitled down
About the dialogue, I was trying to make it a non-specific time period, but that's kind of hard to do with all of the dialogue changes in the past. So, I'll probabally do colonial or renaissance time.
Hiya.
haha, just kidding.
Well, I really liked this! However, I must INSIST you change the title. I'm sorry, but there are about a billion stories named The Elements. (I, for one, wrote a story with that title.) *hangs head shamefully*
This makes it seem like you fell asleep while running.
Describe these people. Briefly, but enough so I have an idea of who they are.
Also, I thought your dialogue was a little stiff.
Nobody talks like this in real life. Maybe change it to something like this:
"I'm Tanner--Tanner Hadley. You are...?" He raised an eyebrow.
I stared blankly at his outstretched hand for a moment; then, blushing, I shook it lightly. "Um...Kirsten Bailey."
Just a suggestion.
Great job! Keep writing!
Thank you soo much for reading it!
.
I am going to have to go back and make it less rushed though! I'll probably outline a better beginning before I start - not as much fun, but it helps
Thanks anyway, I'll try to post the changes when I fix the beginning.
-Onceuponatim3xo
I think U rushed it a bit, but I loved ur metaphors and i lkiked the mystique atmosphere. You're really good, i liked it! lol!
This is just a small comment, sorry.
Thank you very much for critiquing!
My original draft is in my profile if you want to see it. I decided to change the story because I didn't want it to be as realistic and in this time and place.
I definitely did rush though - I just realized that. I'm going to have to change the beginning a lot more!
Thanks for the help!
-Onceuponatim3xo
I really like your ideas, I can't wait to find out what happens next.
The only thing is that I'm interested to see the original. It seems like you've thought this over a little too much, it's lacking the characters own voice, which is something you can usually only capture in the first draft.
Some things I picked up on:
'It had all begun that summer... So much has changed since that summer.' - this could do with being rephrased.
Too many 'I's, you might want to work on different sentence structures.
And never forget the crucial rule 'show not tell'. For example 'I had not a care in the world as I ran through the fields. This was my escape, my peaceful getaway' - if you work on your description, like add in a few smells, sounds, or a description of the atmosphere, it would help to pass that emotion onto the reader too.
Overall this is a great piece, keep up the good work.
Actually, that's not at all what I meant. I didn't really have any metaphors
Also - my story really doesn't have anything to do with love, there might be a little bit of love (but not very much) and the story doesn't spend that much time at her house, so I don't know how it would be cliched ???
Thanks for reading it though!
Hey
i like this chapter
i like your metaphors
i got that this "I ran through the lush green fields, feeling the wind through my hair, pushing me back. The day was sunny and bright. I had not a care in the world as I ran through the fields. This was my escape, my peaceful getaway. The beautiful landscape and the tiring excercize lulled me to sleep" as the girl had fallen inlove and was heartbroken
and her parents not letting her go past the fence, was her not being allowed to date again
i think the story is moving kind of fast, and i have heard stories like it before
I am in a writers course at an art school and we learn to make our works differnet from what we had heard a thousand times.
good work so far though
-ColeFX