Young Writers Society

Chapter One


The October air griped me in an inescapable bear hug. My bare arms and fingers tingled and prickles with goose bumps with the lowering temperatures. Despite the low temperatures I was not cold or shivering like my schoolmates who wore even warmer attire than I. A cold hand gripped the back of my neck, not hard enough to hurt - but it got my attention hurtling me out of my own thoughts into the reality that I had come to assimilate into durning these past few days. It all came back to me in a train of memories, to my dismay it was missing many of the cars I needed. I was at the school Fall Festival, for a school who's name I had just today been able to recite to memory with people I scarcely knew. Three days ago I had just - appeared in one of the schools classrooms while it was in session. I had - and still didn't have any idea how I had gotten there. All of my memories prior were nonexistent. Every time I tried to remember it was like running head on into a brick wall shrouded by a mass of writhing fog in which your vision was masked. The only things I knew were a name, and my age. I took the name and made it mine even though I wasn't sure. I looked up ignoring the hand gazing into the sky. No stars were visible tonight, only golden pinpricks, a few lucky enough to make it through the thickening mass of storm clouds. "Alice!" a voice called and I felt several pairs of hands gripping at my arms. The words, before they could leave my mouth blew away with the wind as I was dragged blindly something being thrown over my head. 

"Let me go." I said softly frustration welling up in me. None of the people I had made aquaintenship with  would be considered anywhere near the friend territory where this kind of rough-housing would be amusing. "Let me go!"
I said more forcefully and louder to get my point across.

"Why?" a harsh octave replied, followed by a stream of giggles and laughs.

"Because I asked you nicely, and I'm only going to do that once." I grabbed the nearest arm throwing them over my shoulder and ripping the covering from over my head. The cool air brushed the stale hot air from my face as I glared at my schoolmates. Most of them held their hands up in defense.

"Just a joke", a boy with shaggy blonde hair falling over his every where they were invisible except for in the stray moments where he would brush them from his eyes, only to fall back again.

"Not a joke unless it's funny, I not see anyone laughing." a smirk escaped my lips at how severely they had all reacted to my outburst. Before I could do anything else a pair of hands shoved me back into a tent. A pair of withered hands caught me, surprisingly strong. They gripped my wrist in a ring of warmth pulling me lightly into a chair. 

"Sit, sit." she pushed my chair in for me I pushed it out again standing up quickly nearly tipping over the table and it's contents. Incense and their smoke lazily drifted and stung my nose. The overpowering scent of lavender made me dizzy and nauseous.

"No, ma'am I'm sorry, I'm in here by mistake." her eyes rose to mine a smirk that mirrored my own only a few seconds earlier. They were the most incredibly ice blue eyes I had every seen. The looked almost unnatural. Her hand patted mine.

"This was no mistake, I know who you are." I froze, my blood chilling in my veins, freezing and shattering into little ice crystals ripping open. I didn't know what to say: so I sat down and waited for what she had to say, my heart pounding for answers.

Wow i really like it quickly write up another part i must read it!!! but just one thing if you can please... dont take it the wrong way. Just break up the first paragraph into smaller parts when i first saw it the idea of a long first paragraph almost had me not reading it otherwise i really love it.

Thank you very much. I will be sure to do that as soon as possible.

Hi, Ren! I'm Rachael, the frog's Ribbit, here to review, etc, etc.

What a whirlwind of a chapter! You've loaded so much into such a short amount of text, I'm almost at a loss as to how you managed it. In fact, you could even slow down some, pace his out, because it's a bit rushed.

You've got at least two scenes crammed into one here. You've introduced the conflict--she's been dropped into this world with a name and an age that she doesn't even trust--and you've got some other conflicts--the other students heckling her. And then, at the end, there's the new conflict with this strange woman telling her she knows who she is.

That's a lot. You made the right call by starting a few days after she appears--reading her initial confusion wouldn't be fun for anyone--but you could definitely expand the chapter, slow it down and savor it some. Or, you keep the lightning-fast pace but making break it into two chapters? Lots of options.

At the minimum, I agree with Hudz--definitely do something with that first paragraph. It had me groaning just looking at it.

One other thing made the story unclear for me. And that's something my best friend and I call The White Void. It's basically when the reader has no idea of what the setting looks like, so it's as if the characters are acting in a huge, white, wall-less space until an object comes in. For me, as a reader, I have October air to go by until you mention a chair and a tent.

But... October air, a chair, and a tent aren't a lot to go by! Are they outside? Why is there a tent? If there's a tent, why is there a chair?

So, show the setting--not in big clumps if you can help it, but here and there--and your reader'll be able to follow along a lot more easily.

One last thing before I leave you to it: you mention there being a hand suddenly on her neck, but before she reacts to the hand or we find out who was touching her neck, she goes into memory mode. So, that was unclear too.

The theme in the end here is clarity. But, the fixes are fairly easy--watch the pacing, make sure you're not White Voiding the characters and action, follow through with the bit about the hand on her neck.

Let me know if you have any questions! I'm always available if you need help or just want to chat.

Rach

I appreciate your commentary and advice. I will follow through upon it.

By the way Rachel, it his a carnival/fair so they have booths with games and tellers...
She gets shoved from outside into the tent

The sarcasm in your title got me to look. I don't know why you have a survey asking for flaws because you first chapter was great. It was beyond detailed and I could get a vision of what was happening right away. I really like your main character already and can't wait to read the rest of you story. I know it'll be great.

Thank you for your kind words

Hello there, Ren!

This piece is confusing, and I'll explain why. The way you write is absolutely stunning; in fact, it's some of the best writing that I've seen in a while. As much as I like it, I equally dislike some other elements of this piece, such as the structure and punctuation.

You obviously love your writing. If you love it enough, you'll want to organize it and take care of it in the way that's best for it, won't you? In some ways, you need to think of writing as a pet. If you love it and take care of it, it will be beautiful and love you back. But if you try to force it to live in an environment that's not suitable, it will grow weak and dull. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that you love writing; I simply think that you need a little bit of guidance. Let's start by looking at the first few sentences.

The October air gripped me in an inescapable bear hug. My bare arms and fingers tingled and prickled with goose bumps. Despite the low temperatures, I was not cold or shivering like my schoolmates although they wore even warmer attire than I.

A cold hand gripped the back of my neck, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to get my attention, hurtling me out of my own thoughts into the reality that I had come to assimilate during the past few days. It all came back to me in a train of memories, but to my dismay it was missing many of the parts I needed.

See how much cleaner this looks? I created an opening paragraph that was shorter than the one you'd created; I did this for a reason. Opening paragraphs should usually be on the short side and must contain a significant amount of information about the main character. They must create a metaphorical 'hook', so to speak, that will draw the reader into your story. Readers don't want to read a huge opening paragraph right off the bat; they want something short that they can test the waters with, something that will tell them about what's going to happen during the story. By reading the opening paragraph I edited, you can tell at least one thing: the character's tougher than her classmates.

The second significant change I made dealt with punctuation. I feel like you're lacking in this. Punctuation is very important. It's one of the best ways to take care of your writing. When properly punctuated, your writing will feel relaxed and it will sound clean when it's read aloud. I would suggest going back over this piece and re-punctuating it. If you need any help with this, please let me know and I'll help you in any way I can.

Since I saw a checklist at the beginning of this piece, I'm going to create a checklist for you. Other, much better YWS writers than I have helped me significantly since I joined; I've picked up a few key criticisms from them that help my work greatly. I've also come up with a few myself. Hopefully they'll help you.

Does my work have a clean opening paragraph?

Is my work punctuated and structured correctly?

When read aloud, does my writing sound smooth?

Does every sentence contribute to my story in some way?

Will readers want to read what I'm writing?

Do I leave the reader wanting more?

I hope that this helps. I also hope that I'm not sounding too harsh; if I am, I sincerely apologize. I genuinely want to see this piece rise to its full potential. If you do edit it, please send me a message because I'd love to read it! If there's anything that you need help with, please don't hesitate to ask me.

Always keep writing!!

-Rose

Thank you Rose,
There was no way I could have taken it harshly. I appreciate your words of advice, I don't see it as harsh only..sternly concerned. I will get around to another round of this but my main concern is getting past one chapter since this has been my biggest issue in the past. Thank you again

Hello. The other YWSers have provided you with very insightful advice. I agree with Rachel about clarity. Some of your sentences are confusing, and I think it's fair to say that with confusion comes muddled meaning. Let me show you what I mean.

I was at the school Fall Festival, for a school who's name I had just today been able to recite to memory with people I scarcely knew.

This sentence is very confusing. I believe that it's because of these 2 separate factors.
1) [Refer to the blue text] Prior to this sentence, we don't know that the MC has been planted into a random school. Also, the whole concept is just difficult to explain.
2) [Refer to underlined text] I think you mean "from". When I read "recite to memory" I interpret it as someone uttering the same words on a flashcard over and over again. When I read "recite from memory" I interpret it as someone recalling information stored inside their brain.

From a literary standpoint, I think it's kind of odd that Alice has such a fierce personality. I'd imagine that forgetting everything would make one timid-ish, but then again, I might not be looking at this from an objective perspective.

You do have some typographical errors. If you ever finish your manuscript and want to consider publishing, you will need to edit those out. (Yeah, kinda obvious.)

As for the pacing, I think it was going really fast. I'm one of those weirdos who don't read everything on the page and thus, consequently, gets very confused when many things are happening in a short block of text or when I need to critically process sentences. I think you could definitely add more to this chapter if you want. (The details, specifics, etc.) You don't speak much about the MC's emotions so you might want to consider adding little bits and whatnot about those too.

I will get around to another round of this but my main concern is getting past one chapter since this has been my biggest issue in the past.

Hehehe. You're a rewriter/perfectionist I'm guessing. If that's your problem, then we have the same issue. I have a tendency to hit the restart button on novels. You should just move on. I learned something very important from NaNo-mail this year: one rough draft is more valuable than a bunch of great beginnings. I hope that helps you reach at least chapter 6.

You write with beautiful language and metaphors, but you need to practice/work on clarity (when you edit) and fixing typos. Optionally, you can consider slowing the pacing and adding emotional responses from Alice. Most importantly, work on completing a novel. Get past chapter 1! I dare you to.

-Crescent

P.S. To respond to the creative factor mentioned in your poll, it's really too early to tell. We don't know what your MC is. If she's a magical being, then you derive from the cliche where an individual lives their whole normal life as a naive undercover magical being in human society and suddenly discovers that they're magical.

I take your dare! thank you for your understanding and your strategic commentary to help it become more clear. Thank you for your time,
RenGrey

Well the first thing I must say is that you have very fancy vocabulary! And second of all, I really enjoy your writing style. Hmm, I'm not sure how to put this, but your writing style is somehow different. It's very polite and proper, and you phrase things in a way that would seem odd if you said it out loud in an informal conversation, but reads very nicely and has a rather poetic sense to it. (Does that make sense)? Anyway though, I like it! ;D

On to the boring stuff...

I caught quite a few mistakes grammar wise, especially issues with commas. I also saw a missed period. Just make sure to proofread your work slowly so that you will catch it next time. Also, for the commas, read the sentences in your head, and if it seems like there should be a pause between two words, there probably should be a comma there.

Another thing that I noticed is that your first paragraph is humongous! And since the following paragraphs after that are small and short, I would suggest breaking it up into smaller sections. Not that it affects the reading; it technically only affects the overall appearance of the text. So it's your choice.

You have a real talent in writing, and your descriptions are very good. The only problem I saw were just a few grammatical errors that can easily get fixed. Great job and keep writing!

Looking forward to more,
theLockedLibrary

Thank you *sheepish shrug* I use my extensive vocabulary in casual conversations. It's just the way I am, I appreciate your review and for pointing out the grammatical errors. I'm estatic that you enjoyed my work

Hello, RenGrey.

First of all, I don't like the idea of a poll just because it can't really be judged that easily.

This is what I noticed immediately,

The October air griped me in an inescapable bear hug. My bare arms and fingers tingled and prickles with goose bumps with the lowering temperatures.

Should be gripped, not griped.
Inescapable? Maybe you could give more elaboration on how it is inescapable by changing it to, tight bear hug, or something similar. Inescapable is just very vague.

Bear hug, then bare arms. The repetition works sometimes but not so close together. Maybe, naked arms. Also, goosebumps occur when you're cold, so we can assume its cold, which means you can omit, lowering temperatures.

Despite the low temperatures I was not cold or shivering like my schoolmates who wore even warmer attire than I.

Again here, repetition so close: lowering temperatures, then, low temperatures.

Enough nit picking though, you can check over for these issues yourself, i.e. incorrect spelling and unnecessary repetition.

I think your opening paragraph is too long, it needs to be split in two. But also when it comes to paragraphing, where they begin and end must have purpose. You shouldn't write a long wall of text and then break it up into even paragraphs. Each paragraph has a structure, a purpose, an idea, etc.

I think you pull some big words out of the bag every now and then, and its okay if it works the right way. I used to use a lot of big words and thought stretching my vocab. to its limits is a good thing. Not so much. It's about knowing what words to use when and making sure its fits your character and the situation.

As for chapter structure,

I didn't know what to say: so I sat down and waited for what she had to say, my heart pounding for answers.

This is a good ending hook. Your opening line however doesn't shed much light or intrigue - it comes a few sentences later. You ended well, I think you just need to open better.

Regarding your poll, creativity and originality is unique to the writer.
Grammar, punctuation and spelling is easily fixed.
Clarity comes with structure of chapters, paragraphs, and sentences.
And dialogue, that just comes naturally, and how you write it develops as you write.

Hoe this is helpful.