Missing

I really like the plot of this story. I like how the tall woman takes her in, and feeds her. I don't like however that she tries to teach her Taoism, that was just messed up. Anyways, I also like how at the end, she met up with her parents. That was a big relief. I wonder (as eli said) if you could fix some of the mistakes. It would just be repetitive if I listed them all for you, AGAIN, so I wont. I don't agree with some of his things though. I read through his review, and it seems like he just wanted the story to be as perfect as it possibly could, and some of it was also just based on his opinion. I think you did a great job on the story, and a double thumbs up on the ending.

I liked the story, but it could definitely be improved. I'll start with the errors. The first, incredibly noticeable one is the fact that half way through the story, you stopped using paragraphs. The last "paragraph" could be turned into 2 or 3 smaller ones. The entire story had awkward writing at points, and I'll point out specifics for you to improve on.

"I almost immediately went back to sleep and what felt like 2 seconds later" I don't think anyone can measure how long they slept without looking at a clock.

"I shoved open my door, It splintered into my hand and it hurt." Not only did you capitalize the I in "it", you made an improper sentence. It should be something like "I shoved open my door. It splintered into my hand and it hurt."

"It hurt, it only pushed the splinter further into my hand." The same problem.

"I have no idea where my parents were when I ran out of the house." There's a tense change mid sentence. Past tense means you're telling a story that happened. Current tense means you're telling a story that's happening. "I have no idea" That's current tense. "where my parents were when I ran out of the house." That's past tense.

"When I decided to go back the adrenaline had worn off and it was painful to even move." You missed multiple commas there.

"But I pushed on, walking most of the time but I still managed to run at times." More missing commas.

"I decided to go into town to see if I could get help or something." More missing commas. You should remove "or something".

"When I woke up there was a tall woman staring at me. After a couple of long awkward seconds of not saying anything she asked if I had a family or a house." There are 2 problems here (and problems with the tall woman as a character). This is the first use of "tall woman" to describe her. Does she allow him to live in her house without telling him her name? Also, it's incredibly weird for a woman to ask THAT above all else. If she cared about children, she should probably have asked him if he was okay before discussing personal details.

"house. she" You should capitalize the first letter in every sentence.

"said that i did not" Capitalize the letter I when it's on its own.

"It smelled so good, I did not even realize that I hadn't eaten or drank for 2 days until I bit into the food." The first comma is completely unnecessary. Also, shouldn't it be one day? Unless he didn't eat dinner, it's only the morning of the second day with no food.

"I am 13 but most of the kids there were 15 or 16." What use is there for exposition when his age was already explained earlier in the story? Also, missing a comma.

"were 15 or 16. But there were a couple kids younger than me and one the same age as me" The period should be replaced with a comma.

"Most of the kids were girls that got kicked out of their house" Houses*

"The kid my age name is Bo Lin" That should be replaced with "The kid my age's name was Bo Lin".

", He is here" Another tense change. Don't capitalize words after commas.

"had nobody to take care of him. But that was a lie, he was scared that The Tall Woman would not accept him if he told the truth." Don't start a sentence with "but". You improperly used a comma.

"I did not want to learn a new religion after using Buddhism my whole life." You don't "use" religions, you practice them.

"Instead of being scared and trying to think away the fears Taoism taught me" You NEED a comma there. If it's not there, that sentence essentially means following your path makes you less scared of Taoism.

"I went to where we use to shop" So... you went to money? Money is what you 'USE' to shop. That should be replaced with "I went to where we used to shop".

"Sadly I did not, but I met a old family friend" an*

"I used them to buy some treats, the tall lady did not allow the sweeter foods so I bought some of those, I also bought some cooked crab if I got hungry on my adventure." A comma doesn't change the subject. Learn the powers of the comma and you will be rewarded with pleasant reviews.

"The house did not look like it fully burned down, It looks like the fire made it collapse and the collapsing put the fire out." You capitalized an "it" and you improperly used a comma.

"But then I saw it." Why is the "but" even there?

"My family gave me a whistle to use if I ever got lost, I forgot about it a long time ago but my parents couldn't have." The same problem with commas. Commas are not periods.

"I had high hopes that it would." That it would what?

"So I breathed in the biggest, deepest breath i have ever breathed, I put my lips to the whistle and blew as hard as I could, but sadly they did not come to me." Don't start a sentence with "so", 2 more improper uses of commas.

"I remember how expensive it was when we got it, it is only made of iron and water." Add one more to the comma counter.

"It was broken. It was pointing in the wrong direction." It should be "It was broken, and pointing in the wrong direction."

"Then I remembered “follow your path” so I followed where it pointed." You remembered follow your path? That makes no sense. Also, how is this random compass his "path"? It seems like you were having trouble wrapping up the story. Next time, I recommend putting more of the space and time you had into making more of a "path", with a bit less filler.

"Eventually I found my parents friends house," When talking about something owned by multiple of something, put an apostrophe at the end. Example:

"Eventually, I found my parents' friends' house,"

"they have one of the poor houses" Another improper use of a comma and a tense change.

"I wondered if they could be there?" That's not how a question works. You're not asking if you wonder, you DO wonder. It's a statement.

"There is nowhere else for them to go." Again, tense change.

"but sadly not." It should be "but sadly, they weren't." Also, an apostrophe should go after "parents" in that same sentence.

"Then I asked “have you seen my parents?”" So far, the entire story hasn't used quotation marks for people talking, and just generalized what they said, as if the main character was telling a story. Now, he's using exact quotes.

"It was the best" Quotation marks don't end a sentence. Don't capitalize the I in it.

"It turns out that they were staying at Ni Mao’s house but they were out looking for me and that they would back in an hour or so." You need some commas there, or maybe split that up into two sentences.

"So I came in and waited, When they came I sprinted the fastest I have ever run at them. They were very excited to see me." Don't capitalize the first letter after a comma. Also, improper use of a comma.

That's all of the grammar/spelling errors. I will now discuss the story.



Over all, I liked the story, but I believe it was greatly held back by the grammar mistakes. If they were fixed, this story's quality would increase greatly. I gave examples so you could easily fix them, but I also want you to learn from this review. In future stories, I want you to know what the problems you made were and how to fix them.

The story was good, and had potential, but I know you were held back. You had a limit to how long your story could be. If you could make it longer, I'm sure the story would be much more expansive, with Bo Lin playing more of a part. I know how it feels when you're making a story and getting to the good part, and you realize that you can't finish the story how you want to. Plan for this ahead. If you spend the majority of the story on what would normally be the very early part of a story, because of your limit to how much you can write, you won't have enough space to get to the meat of the story.

The ending seemed quite abrupt. Maybe just a few more sentences about how him and his parents enjoyed dinner together, and how they would start building a new house, or something to that extent. Maybe, just for fun, you could remake this story, but without the limits that were set for you. You could fix the errors I mentioned and make this a truly uplifting, memorable and unique story.

I hope you enjoyed my review, and I wish you luck on future writing endeavors.

-Eli

Hello! I'm Kam, and I am here to give you a review! I hope it doesn't seem too harsh on you, and doesn't discourage you from writing anything similiar in the future

I'm gonna start with nit-pick things, like grammar and sentence structure and spelling errors.

"I ignored it and just layed back down in my bed of straw and tried to go to sleep."
Layed back is spelled 'Laid'. Just tweak that

"I shoved open my door, It splintered into my hand and it hurt. I sprinted out and pushed open the front door. It hurt, it only pushed the splinter further into my hand."
Okay, in that very first sentence the first it is capitalized, so all you need to do is make it an 'it' instead of "door, It". In this small part though, you have a lot of separated sentences that call all be put into one, or two. Like... "I shoved open my door, but it splintered apart at my touch and drove a piece of wood into my hand. I sprinted through anyway, shoving open the front door and driving the splinter painfully further into my hand."

"I should have ran to my parents"
Ran should be run. The 'should have' makes it run instead of ran, in this case.

"After another few hours of roaming around getting weird looks It became dark and I grew more and more tired."
It does not have the same rules as an I. You don't need to capitalize it unless it is the beginning of a sentence. so the It can be changed to it.

"she had a trustworthy voice and seemed nice."
She is the beginning of a sentence, so it is capitalized.

"and it seemed like she had a well paying job."
Well-paying is a word that is split into two parts with a dash in the middle, as I did in the beginning of the sentence.

"The kid my age name is Bo Lin, He..."
This sentence is said really awkwardly, so maybe redo it? Like...."The boys name is Bo Lin, he" because that He doesn't need to be capitalized. It flows much better and you don't have to specify the kid my age since we know the only kid his age is a boy.

"Sadly I did not, but I met a old family friend who gave me some coins."
You said "I met a old family" but it needs to be "I met an old family..."

"I bought some of those, I also bought some cooked crab if I got hungry on my adventure."
You have a very awkward sentence here, so maybe rearrange it? "I brought some of those as well as some good crab, in case I got hungry on my journey."
Adventure makes it sound like a kids walk in the woods. This isn't really the case. He is going to see if he can find his parents, who may have died in the fire for all we know at this point.

"I decided to go back to my house first, It was a long walk but I made it."
You capitalized the It again, just lowercase it.

"The house did not look like it fully burned down, It looks like the fire made it collapse and the collapsing put the fire out."
You have the same it problem as well as the awkward sentence structure. I would say revise the whole sentence here so something like...
"The house wasn't fully burned down, but it looked like the fire made a part collapse and extinguish the whole thing."

"I looked through where I once slept, It still held some of my favorite robes."
Same It thing. Just go through and lowercase those, if you want. Also replace 'it' with 'which'. It flows better.

"I went back inside. I found one of our family compases."
First, compases is spelled wrong. It should be 'compasses'. Also you can take these two vry short sentences and put them together. So..."I went back inside, where I found one of our family compasses."

"Eventually I found my parents friends house, they have one of the poor houses."
This sentence isn't wrong really, but it is awkward so it could use revising. Something more like...
"Eventually I came across a house belong to a friend of my parents, one of the poor houses."

"I wondered if they could be there? There is nowhere else for them to go."
Awkward sentence structure. Revise it to something like "I wondered if they could be there, since it didn't seem like there was anywhere else for them so go."

"So I came in and waited, When they came I sprinted the fastest I have ever run at them. "
When doesn't need to be capitalized, and you need a different word to make the sentence flow better like... "So I came in and waited, and when my parents came I sprinted faster than I ever had in my life to them."

~

Part II: Criticism.

I like the idea of this. It is very sweet, very short, quite uplifting really. It sounds like a bed story to a child really, or someone in need to remember that good things to happen in the world. It is a simple story to help someone out of a possibly dark place.

It is written like english isn't your first language, or at least someone who is quite new to writing. It is going at quite a fast pace, but still adds little thing how the tall woman doesn't allow sweets. There is a lot of very short sentences which is okay, it isn't wrong really but it breaks up any possible flow that could be here.

However, I do like the story. I read it okay, and the reason I see so many little bit and piece and nit picks is because I'm sometimes quite particular about those in my stories.

~

Part III: Improvements.

Just increase the flow better, try and take all these little sentences that are like 5 words long and combine them with another or a few other sentences to make a big slowing sentence with lots of ands, buts, or whiles. It makes everything flow along a lot better and if you need help I'd be glad too!!

Keep writing. I know you'll improve with time.

I liked how the story had a happy ending, and how the character went on a few adventures. The story felt a bit rushed and a few spelling errors here and there. Other than that, I liked this story. Keep up the good work.