Young Writers Society

Hello, Rosewood here!!

It's been forever since I've done a review, but seeing short stories in the green room always gets me. So if you don't mind, I'll just dive right in!

Once upon a time,in the 1960s,there was a lady named Lyra.Lyra Blake,the oldest out of her four sisters,with Emily being the second oldest,Eloise being the third oldest,Ariana being younger and Sarah being the youngest.

A Harry pointed, this is a pretty basic intro but that doesn't mean it's not good! I do have one suggestion as far as wording goes, and that would be to probably rephrase Ariana's place in the age catagory. Since you started off with listed the sequence of ages, I would recommend calling her the fourth-oldest and leaving Sarah as the "youngest".

They were fairly wealthy,with fairly wealthy parents.

Since you probably don't want to repeat the phrase "fairly wealthy", try something along the lines of "They were fairly wealthy, as their parents lived a life [doing this]."

She and her sisters used their powers to throw a bookcase over Eloise,crushing her bones until they were mere dust particles in her body.

Lyra didn't want to,but she had to.

She could not let a murderer live to kill innocent people.

Even if it was her beloved sister,Eloise.

Well this was quite the change of pace-
In all honesty, I think you should go more into depth and detail because I was definitely shocked reading about what she saw and how she responded so quickly. Maybe describe what was going through her head at the moment, pausing at the crucial point where she killed her own sister. Was it a thought-out killing? Did she do it out of instinct? Did this leave her with emotional baggage?

And finally, my last piece of advice. When creating a paragraph or just using a single sentence for dramatic effect, there is a careful balance you must keep so that you readers don't grow bored or the shocking effect doesn't wear off. I actually saw a lot of progress as you were writing this. For example...

They were fairly wealthy,with fairly wealthy parents.

So when their parents grew old and died,they left the girls certain things in their will.

Lyra was left with an extra quarter of their family fortune.

It would have been a wonderful thing to leave their eldest daughter,if not for the gifts the other girls had gotten.

This could have been written as paragraph. But this...

They finally found her in the backroom,murdering a child.

Murdering.

Murdering.

Murdering a child,a young child!

Since this was extremely surprising, and a lot for your reader to process considering the flow you previously used, you definitely should keep this!!

Anywho, I liked his story despite having not read your main one. I hope to see how this will progress!!

And as always...

Keep writing!!

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

First Impression: Okayy...so this is one of the more eventful origin stories once again, although for a change we've got someone with magical powers that appears to actually have some solid morals that they actually stick to. Its a nice change from the norm with these stories.

Anyway let's get right to it,

Once upon a time,in the 1960s,there was a lady named Lyra.Lyra Blake,the oldest out of her four sisters,with Emily being the second oldest,Eloise being the third oldest,Ariana being younger and Sarah being the youngest.

They were fairly wealthy,with fairly wealthy parents.

So when their parents grew old and died,they left the girls certain things in their will.

Lyra was left with an extra quarter of their family fortune.

It would have been a wonderful thing to leave their eldest daughter,if not for the gifts the other girls had gotten.

Emily was left with the family journals,to spread their legacy,Eloise was left with the family boutique-the whole boutique,mind you-Ariana was left with the family heirlooms and lastly,Sarah was left with the family jewels.

Okayy...seems like a bit of a standard start there of this fairly well off family where the parents seem to die off at a normalish time and the girls are just left parts of the fortune, not entirely sure how this would lead into too much but I suppose this extra bit to Lyra has some sort of extra we don't quite see yet.

It was alright.Lyra would know what to do with the money.She also was a witch,so things were easier for her.

Hmm, well that certainly complicates matters quite a bit...the way this is stated ever so casually makes me think this isn't that big of a deal in this world and yet its a pretty mysterious detail to slip in there, let's see where it takes us I suppose.

Lyra used some of the money for herself,but she didn't keep all of it to herself.

She deposited money for her sisters and into the bank,over course and she never had any trouble with paying anything.

Lyra could see that the middle child,Eloise,would need some help for running a boutique.

So,she had her and all of the other sisters help her out.

After all,one must help their family in need.

Hmm, well that seems like a very nice thing for her to do as well. So far this is going along pretty nicely for Lyra and despite the slightly out of the ordinary detail with the whole witch situation, she seems to be a pretty nice person here.

It was quite boring,working at the boutique.Lyra wondered how Eloise could put up with sewing the clothes herself,dealing with squabbling children and customers who believed that "the customer is always right."

Truth be told,the customer wasn't always right.

But at least Eloise had her faithful sisters,Leona Fiztgerald (the young lady who visited her and was like a daughter to her),and her discovery of a new material that was some sort of leather.It felt like human skin.

But maybe it was just leather.Lyra wasn't one to judge,she didn't know anything about clothes.

Meanwhile,Sarah was babbling to her about something wrong with Eloise and how she looked at children weird.

Sarah,with her stories and tall tales.Lyra didn't believe a word she said.She probably just wanted attention.Lyra didn't notice anything weird about Eloise.

Hmm, well that was probably the one bad call that Lyra made...and in general this is a nice little subtle setup right here, showcasing this little boutique at work and just a hint of how these sisters worked together and also hinting at how Eloise is going to end on doing the horrible things she would later do.

One night,when Lyra wanted to go on a Halloween event with her sisters,she searched Eloise's boutique,because the last place Eloise went to and they couldn't find her anywhere.

They found Leona there,so that was a big help in finding Eloise.

Oh dear....well I have a feeling this is where things are about to get kicked up to eleven. I do like to see that, starting off with just tiny hints before things then escalate slowly to what I expect is going to be a gruesome scene as is almost always the case.

They finally found her in the backroom,murdering a child.

Murdering.

Murdering.

Murdering a child,a young child!

Lyra should have listened to Sarah.Something was wrong with Eloise.She was a murderer!

There was only thing to do.It'd be the only thing that could stop Eloise.

She and her sisters used their powers to throw a bookcase over Eloise,crushing her bones until they were mere dust particles in her body.

Lyra didn't want to,but she had to.

She could not let a murderer live to kill innocent people.

Even if it was her beloved sister,Eloise.

Okayy...so that was a dark moment. I do feel like you gloss over the emotions there a little bit. Sure we can see that Lyra acts quickly and does what she must but there has to be some very powerful emotions both before as she realizes all of Sarah's stories were true and after once she had just killed her own sister.

Aaaaand that's it for this one.

Overall: Overall, this is a solid piece I think. I do feel you could have quite a bit more impact with that last scene if you added a bit more emotional weight to it but otherwise, this is done pretty well I think.

As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.

Stay Safe
Harry