Hi vampricone!
I really like the concept of the story. I interpret it as a tragic tale about a flawed character who, in the end, just wanted to belong. I find it relatable that Veronica wasn’t like ‘super miserable’ or anything in the beginning; even though she had it rough at school, she had peace at home, so she was living in a kind of ‘you-win-some-you-lose-some’ situation. But then her desire to become one of the fairies is also easy to understand, because up until that point she had never experienced anything bad to do with magic. So her naivete cost her dearly in her quest to get what she wanted.
Something I liked about your story was the pacing. I felt there was just enough information shared at each step. For example, in the beginning I know enough about Veronica to think about why she would want to become like the fairies. I read about her being bullied, and I thought – maybe she thinks she can’t do well in the human world, so she retreats into her home and the appearance of the fairies offer a chance to escape into something better.
Something that could be improved on might be the continuity. For example, on the whole the narration sounds like it’s coming from Veronica herself:
They were richer than anything,so Veronica should have been happy,right?
Wrong!
These sound like thoughts coming from Veronica’s head, because they are phrased so directly. (‘Wrong’ rather than ‘But Veronica was not happy’) So the beginning of the story feels a little odd, because it feels like something a third person narrator would be saying rather than Veronica herself, as it begins with “Long ago” and proceeds to describe Veronica’s life in a very distant way.
"Oh great! I cried myself to death!" Veronica screamed.
I also thought the above quote wasn’t very continuous with the mood of the second part of the story. “Oh great” makes me think she’s saying it sarcastically, but from what I can tell, she’s not. It’s also a bit odd to ‘scream’ the words “Oh great”, because they have this sarcastic edge to it and generally I think people don’t scream when they’re being sarcastic?
However, I liked how you convey the characters’ emotions in the story. I could feel the joy in these lines:
They started to tell Veronica stories and show her their powers.It was so wonderful.They cared about her!
This following line of dialogue also conveys a sense of disappointment from the fairy, which made me feel bad for Veronica since she looked up to the fairies so much:
Another said:"We visited you to make you happy.We didn't ask for this."
Overall, your story’s characters are sympathetic and leave an impression. If you’re looking on ways to revise this or improve your next story, my main suggestions would be to think about how the tone of the narration and dialogue blends together and if it ‘fits’ the idea that you’re going for, and also if the tone changes too fast or too slowly than you want it to. Adding spaces to the ends of sentences might also help make the text easier to read, for example some of your first few lines could be spaced as follows:
Her family had their own private property that they owned. They named it: "Shimmering Lake." They were richer than anything, so Veronica should have been happy, right?
I also changed one more thing because I noticed a comma splice in that quote. There’s a great KB article you can read on commas splices here: Comma splices
Hope some of this helps and feel free to ask for more feedback!
-Lim
Points: 23466
Reviews: 457
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