Young Writers Society

I stumbled across your story in the “books” section and decided to review it.

Your word choice’s great. I can tell you have an extensive vocabulary because of words like “desolate”, “gnarled”, and many others.

I felt that, for a chapter, this was too short. I’d ask you to consider expanding on it. I loved the cliff-hanger. It has certainly intrigued me. Who could that person be? An ally? Old enemy? Or, a rival? The possibilities are endless!

You should aim to show us the story more than tell. For example, if Woolsome’s “an experienced gunman”, he might be out on a mission and uses his gun six feet away from his target. That makes his character more interesting to us, readers, than simply telling us he’s an expert in his field. Therefore, in order for us to believe it, show it to us.

Like the reviewer below me pointed out, please put each character’s dialogue in a separate line to avoid confusion, i.e. so we know who’s speaking and when. I’ve also noticed a couple of grammar and punctuation errors. I’d suggest you to read over your work before you publish it, or ask someone else to read it for you.

Overall, this has potential. I liked it because it’s an action and mystery book and I, personally, love reading them. However, I feel that you can improve in your storytelling. Good job.

Well done, and keep writing!

Hi there! I have one big grammar lesson for you in direct speech, but I hope it will help you in the end

Your direct speech needs work, so I've just outlined the basic format here:
"Chasing the lion was a bad idea. Now we are in big trouble!" said Josh.
"It's not my fault," replied Amy. "I didn't suggest it."
Quoted words, comma instead of full stop (or an exclamation mark or a question mark) inside the quotation marks, next word not capitalised (unless it is a name). If you have the character saying more after that: if the sentence that they just said ended there, place a full stop after the 'she said' bit and capitalise the next quotation, or if the sentence continues, a comma and don't capitalise the next sentence, like this:
"In case you didn't know, lions are dangerous." --> "In case you didn't know," she said, "lions are dangerous."
"Lions eat people. You shouldn't go near them!" --> "Lions eat people," she said. "You shouldn't go near them!"
See the difference?
Then, if you place the 'he said' in front of the quotation, it looks like this:
Josh said, "They have sharp teeth."
Comma, capital letter.

It is good to give each new speaker a new line to avoid confusion.

Work on your punctuation. You have too many jumbled capitals and lowercase letters where they have no place. Just reread this and check those out, like the start of you last paragraph.

Look at your sentence construction here:
"Well I'd best be off now," Arthur Woolsome grimaced, picking up his hat, stuffing a syrupy pancake in his mouth and walking off.
Too much of a mouthful in this sentence, too many similar sub-phrases. Try splitting it into something like this:
"Well I'd best be off now," Arthur Woolsome grimaced. He picked up his hat, stuffed a syrupy pancake in his mouth and walked off.

By the by, he stuffed the pancake into his mouth, not in it. In is static, happening in one place, whereas into is dynamic, travelling from one place to another.

Be more creative with your descriptions. Saying that the man is thin, is a bland statement. Make it vibrant. Say that his coat hanger shoulders were hunched against the biting wind, or another statement with more bite.

Additionally, read it over for a few stray typos, and, if you can, reduce the text size. The huge letters are harder to read and understand.

This is rather too short to be considered a proper chapter, so expansion is recommended.

Keep it flowing