Young Writers Society

Hello there. Another welcome to the YWS World!

Alright, so the reviewer below me mentioned a ton of really great points and you should take her advice into a ton of considerations (because I would have said all te exact same points as well.)

I'm really left wondering throughout this entire thing, especially in the beginning, why do we care? What's so special about this? Why should we be engaged and really read through this? What usually pulls and keeps a reader into the story are elements like action, suspense, character interaction and really cool scenes that grip us and hold us on the edge of our seat. Here, this was just a big summary of a person's world. And the beginning half is completely different than the second. I don't even see why it's there.

Speaking of beginnings, they are usually meant to get the reader's attention and throw us into the story. Starting a story with a character waking up to the morning is probably one of the most used beginnings ever and it feels dull. Plus, there's not much of a reason to start him waking up. Why not just start a little later in the morning with them meeting their father? It would make a little more sense, but the exposition in the beginning really only seems to introduce the Hun leader (strangely enough).

Before I move on with the plot, I will say, since this is highly summarized, it is super important for you to drag out some things, like a conversation per say. There was a point when the main character was having a concersation with their father, but it was all in the narration. Why not just put it into some dialogue and do some character development along the way?

With character, it doesn't seem like your characters have any depth to them at all. They do everything that they do because the plot tells them they have to, rather than controlling the plot themselves. All their actions are either really pure all the time (the main character, who somehow doesn't get killed by Shan Yu...) or really evil (in the case of Shan Yu.) Add in some variety and give them a real personality that dominates their actions and thoughts.

The narration here seemed really void of emotion and you never really get into the character's head. That's what you want, to have the reader identify with a character. So you want all the narration to reflect what they are thinking, feeling, because let's face it, if you're really sad and depressed, then I doubt the world would look happy and bubbly to you. You'd see the world as out to get you or something, all based on how you're feeling. Show that in your narration. You did pick first person after all.

This is a good start, and a nice outline, but really pull it out and make the story. This is so broad, perhaps try to narrow down on a particular scene and practice this advice and then add another on top of that until your story is completed. Hope I helped!

Keep on Writing,
~Wolfare~

Hello, zpur! Welcome to YWS! I hope that you are enjoying your stay here and that you continue to stay here! KatyaElefant here for a review! Let's see what we have right here.

Right off the bat, I can see that you need to organize this into paragraphs because it's not easy reading these big blocks of words. You can do this by chopping the blocks up with ides that are similar. It is just more appealing to the eye and more reviewers will then be willing to review your story! If you need advice about chopping the paragraphs up, then reply to this review!

I feel like you might be able to make a great story off all this but it all just happens so fast! You're just listing off all that happens and it really takes away the interest and experience from the story. Try to slow down a little bit and maybe even split this short story into parts or even make it into a novel. Like going into camp and training to be the army takes a very long time and you could elaborate on the experiences that they have right there.

I suggest that you put this work in a spell checker like Office Word or something like that so you can check for run on sentences, capitalization errors and punctuation errors. This can also make your short story much more enjoyable to read and more appealing to the eye.

I don't know much about Imperial China and how all that was back then but I hope that you did your research. DONT MAKE THE RESEARCH BASED OF MULAN(The disney movie). That movie maybe inaccurate like most Disney movies. I can see a similarity between them because Shan yu was a character in Mulan so I just wanted to make sure that you weren't using that as a resource. Look up online a little bit on China and you will be good. Some inaccuracies are like how you said they had dollars(the Chinese clearly didn't have dollars) or some of the patterns of the huns that you depicted.

You need a little bit more imagery. Like I want you not to tell me what happens but show me what happens. Use metaphors to compare what is happening to something that the reader can relate to. Use adjectives and describe the surroundings. You can make this short story so much better if you add just a little bit more detail.

Keep calm and keep writing
KatyaElefant

Hello! I dont think they would have American dollars in ancient china.

The story is overall great, but I think that you could have spent a little more time watching for proper punctuation and capitalization. I like the ending (FYI MUST HAVE SQUEAL!) I also think that you should look for repetitive bits in it cause I saw like ten.

It was a really good story and I would really suggest reading it. I also think that he should make a sequel to this book the end is a complete cliff hanger. But I really think that he could really work on capitulating and describing time more.

I like how well you integrated history. I wonder if you could not use modern currency. I wonder if you could end it less abruptly. I liked the way you described everything in detail. I also like how you added math