Young Writers Society

Hi there! I saw chapter 3 up in the sci-fi section and figured it made sense to go back and look at chapter 1. The title really intrigued me.

This is a fun start, making for both an interesting scene in and of itself and also giving promise for some excitment down the road. The idea of a dragon guarding a tree and protecting apples is a refreshing take on dragons. It's nice to get away from the old cliche of hoarding treasure or something like that. I also actually really like that the character had a moment of weakness/cowardice at the end, because it makes him (her?) seem human. I could definitely understand feeling the way he did.

I found myself confused at first, because there's not a lot of context. The question of "What's this about a women with an apple?" was a good start, but wore thin when I couldn't quite figure out what was going on or why. I like the imagery, especially the sound of the apple bite. I got distracted, though, wondering what significance this woman had to the MC, or what the apple was about, or where we were, etc. Once it got explained I was like "Oh, okay," but up until then I was struggling. I think it would make for smoother reading if there was some small explanation, or maybe even just bread crumbs, to give a sense of place and time and purpose. Even at the paragraph about the dragon, I was thinking, "How does the MC know this? Is it something about the apple he recognises?" Because of all this, I felt a little left out of the loop, eg even though we were in the character's head, I felt like I didn't get to hear all his thoughts.

There's a lot of beautiful imagery and a good arc to the scene (solid beginning, middle, and end, I'd say). You might consider looking closely at your adverbs and the more vivid adjectives, and maybe cut a couple, because there's quite a few. Personally I find using too many strong words can actually end up diluting their impact; I prefer placing just a few in strategic spots where I want to draw the reader's attention. Also, as far as adverbs go, I often find if I remove them, the meaning isn't lost, because the verb is pretty good on its own. (I've often said that verbs are our most powerful tools as writers, but that's a whole speech on it's own haha) An example is "slowly dawning" - reading the sentence using only "dawning," I take away the same meaning. And imo, if a word/sentence can be removed without affecting anything, it should be! Fewer words means you're being more precise.

Alrighty, onward to chapter 2! Or maybe tomorrow, but I definitely want to read on one way or the other. Cheers.

Crap, I think I replied three times. Sorry my iPad went on the fritz

Excellent way to kick off a novel. I like the vagueness in the beginning, although I feel like the woman was too laid back about an apparent killer dragon.
"Why do you look so suddenly sad?" the woman asked. Try changing the order of those words, and I'm not sure if a thief would be concerned for this stranger.
"I had come to the market place in the first place to destroy the apple." Maybe get rid of the first "place", it sounds redundant otherwise.
Other than that I loved the first chapter and can't wait to see it develop!

Heya Widder, pretzelsing here for a review, I really liked this first chapter and I want to be a faithful follower of your novel. Tag me or PM me every time that you post another chapter please. I am eager to know what happened next
Let's begin,shall we?

She bit delicately and deliberately with her perfect white teeth.

The apple made a small, crisp sound that would have been almost unnoticeable had the alleyway not been nearly silent.

There was a rough stone wall separating the alley from the rest of the city, and the lady was standing with her back to it-- cornered, but not frightened

I took a small step back from her, and her expression edged on horror.

and she stole it right out of my hand, quick as a wink.

The woman threw her head BACK and gave a tinkling laugh soured with something bitter.

"It of the Greater Good to save every life possible."

Hey, I'm here for a short review. I'm going to touch about the content of the prologue (I assume this is a prologue) and the dialogues.

For content, or the entire substance of this prologue, it lacks explanation. Why does the dragon wants to eat tasters only? How does the boy know that the apple is a mark? Why does the lady has no idea about this? You need to answer these questions. For me, the prologue is your platform to explain in general the entire setting of the world you create. The people, government, norms, system, or whatever aspect in it. You are doing a sci-fi novel - what is so technological in your novel that shows its clear genre which is sci-fi? Does having a dragon and apples who act like marking points are enough to show that? What kind of dragon you are try to introduce - mythical, mechanical, or hybrid that blends mythical and mechanical? Explain those kind of things by showing.

About the dialogues, fix them. Make them flow more. If A wants to stop B from doing something, make A threats or beg B to stop doing it. Make B respond to A by being scared, or by being ignorant. Don't let B ask A's sad expression. Let B says, "Your sad face won't stop me from doing what I want." Make B stubborn if you want. You will distrupt the flow when A says, "Finish it quickly. Don't throw the core of it. Eat it," and B responds, "Why are you sad? Rough day, huh?"

To sum it up, edit this prologue. Fix things that need fixing. Give readers a complete picture of the sci-fi world. It would make your prologue better in quality.

HEY THERE.

So I figured I'd review this from my phone just because. It also kinda helps me procrastinate on my Maths revision, but hey, I'm never one to turn down a good story.

That being said and all, I'm gonna try to keep this short.

That beginning is clunky, Fort. I know I nag people on beginnings a lot--you could even say it's starting to get old--but your beginning is IMPORTANT. I wouldn't nag if it wasn't. Aaanyway, the clunkiness is largely owing to the itty-bitty redundancies that litter your first paragraph. I know that beginnings are hard to nail; you start out with a bit of description and you don't know how to make one sentence flow into the next. It gets awkward. I think this is what's happened here, too. So here is my prescription for the editing process:

Cut, cut, cut.

You expound on the biting into the apple after clearly stating that the woman bit into the apple. As a reader, this bores me. I don't want to know/read the same thing twice. Condense this. I'm also left craving some main character thoughts here, because while Narrator describes the woman pretty clearly, I can't see their reactions. Some internal voice/thoughts/movement would be nice. It would make the intro more active and we'd get acquainted with the character more quickly as well.

My thoughts on this:

1) Why did the narrator--Creed?--not take any action against the lady-thief? Does it have something to do with propriety or such? Because I think, if he was really intent on destroying the apple, he would have done so regardless of the lady's quickness/agility/generally lady-ishness. If he wanted to destroy the apple, wouldn't he have brought a weapon? I desperately want some backstory here. I won't pretend to understand why he didn't just take the apple before the lady brought out her knife; he didn't know she had a knife. Which his why his actions confuse me.

Everything is rather scattered and I'm having trouble getting the general gist of things. I think this is an issue because you've started off stark in the middle of a scene that is supposed to be intense--but it fails to be because you have to tell us a whole lot of things to make sure we understand. So, a) this needs grounding, and b) if you want to preserve a hook but give this the groundedness it requires, it might be wise to take things slow. At least--for the first chapter. This looks to be kind of like high fantasy, and the main task with high fantasy is the meshing of worldbuilding + plot together in a way that isn't entirely tell-y. This is hard.

I know this is becoming quite a tangent, so I'll skip the ramble and get to making suggestions: I think you could start out with the chase, maybe even as Creed halts in front of the woman, shocked and frightened. You could also expound on a lot of dry matter through conversation--I am keen on seeing more character interaction. I guess we'll be getting more of that later, but--characters--ugh.

2) Your dialogue is stunted in places. The lady, when she first begins speaking, sounds too formal. Also who asks that? XD 'Hey, I just stole your apple and ate it--why are you so sad?' You settle into the dialogue as your story carries on, though, and nearing the end it flows really well. I guess the awkward narrative wall is one that will be broken as you proceed with this.

3) Pacing! I felt like the ending was too rushed. Again, don't be afraid to go a bit slower.

Okay. So I can't really think of much more to say. I did enjoy reading this, mainly because DRAGONS have been mentioned. Your writing style is also lovely, and your descriptions are pleasing~

Technical stuff: you've misspelled 'thief' once. I also noticed that you leave a space after every en-dash (--) which isn't supposed to be there. When you write this out on a word processor like Microsoft Word, without spaces, it will automatically get changed to a dash.

Righto. I think I'll be off to study now! You keep me updated with this, all right? I want to see what becomes of Creed. This lady also intrigues me. I'm wondering who she is and if she'll play an even bigger role in what's to come....

Keep writing! Keep it up!

Hope this helped a little~

~Pomp

Interesting story, and good choice of fruit I like apples. Only thing I don't understand is the title. Not sure how that fits the story.