Young Writers Society

There is no sound in the great dark ballroom, but for the slight swish of elegant evening gowns, the quickened breathing of dancers, and my pounding heart. The black subterranean lord Diablo detests all form of music.
I dance in a neverending waltz with his eldest wraithlike son, my fear of him only rivaled by my sisters, paired each to a prince of her own. I shudder each time my wayward gaze makes it into my partner’s eyes. Cold, icy black, with radiating veins of scarlet through each iris. His white, sunless pallor reminds me of all the zombie and vampire stories I have ever read or been told. I avert my eyes for the hundredth time, wishing I could make this whole palace disappear, and the cruel king along with it.
My wrist is adorned with a ruby bracelet Kazier, my partner, gave me, and a tiny watch. I glance at where it rests on Kazier's black velvet shoulder as we waltz. Only twenty more minutes til release. Tatia glances my way and raises her eyebrows. I slightly lift two fingers then make a line with one. two-zero. twenty Tatia visibly sighs. Twenty minutes feels like eternity down here. It just might be.
My legs ache. You'd think that if I had been dancing for over ten years, the same dance every night for three hours, I wouldnt get sore. But I do. It just does not go away. I cannot believe we still have thirty one more years of this hellatious-no pun intended-dance.
Diablo raises his hand, signaling to Kazier, apparently. He breaks away from me, something unheard of until the death clock chimes three. I simply stand there, shocked. The other zombie-like dancers glare at me as they nearly bump into me on the dance floor. I pull myself together and walk off. Diana and Tatia move to follow, but their partners grip them tighter and they return to the dance. There are no refreshment tables, no seats at the edge of the room for me to wait for Kazier, or Diablo's decree.
I glance up at the dais. Diablo whispers to his son, and they both glance at me. Suddenly, this sinister place seems to be a whole lot worse. Kazier disregards the stairs and leaps from the dais into the crowd. He lands in a run at me. I dart for the door. I have never seen him at more than a stately walk. Kazier at a run is not good.
I manage the door, and my sisters have started to follow me. Kazier was slowed by the crowd, and is still behind them ,but their dance partners are chasing them now. They reach the door, pallid males cold on their heels. Little Lizzie slips in the door and I slam it in their faces. There is no handle from the inside, so I expect it to slow them. I hope. The long corridor feels short as we dash into our cellar and I slam the magic door, the chalk line disappearing.
I lean against the now solid brick, knowing they cannot get through it til tomorrow night. We are safe, at least for a little while.

this is wayyyyyy too long to read..........................................................................................................................................................................................................(needed characters to post this) lol i'm sure it's good i just don't like reading outside of school and while not being forced...unless it's manga

Haha well I didn't realize. i wrote to a decent stopping point. XD

I loved the idea of the story, but i didn't quite understand it. I think it needs a bit more characters, oh and you shouldn't give so much away just in the first chapter

Welcome to YWS!

Actually, I rather enjoyed this. You're writing was crisp and easy to follow, delving into pieces of imagery here and there, but not overdoing it. It was more explanatory than anything, and yet it was an interesting read, all things considered.

It was a bit confusing toward the beginning. Sometimes referencing things that haven't been properly explained yet is a good thing, but other times, when you start inundating the reader with unfamiliar pieces of information, the point you're aiming at becomes obscured. Your story isn't too bad in that sense, but it could be better.

Instead of writing this long, drawn-out explanation of the narrator's mother's mistake, I think you could make a prologue that might briefly outline the details of her and the god's conversation, her husband's reactions, and her death. Keep it omniscient - don't introduce the narrator or her whimsical fashion of storytelling until Chapter One, which, if we were to properly carry out this edit, would delve into the scene referenced in this piece, without unearthing along the way a prolonged exposition of the narrator's deplorable troubles.

But yes - if this were to be carried out successfully, as I recommend it be, your current Chapter One will have to be rewritten. I wouldn't grieve over this, though. Your story will have a significantly better beginning which, in the long run, you will be happy for.

Hope this helped!

-Kafka

There is no sound in the great dark ballroom, but for the slight swish of elegant evening gowns, the quickened breathing of dancers, and my pounding heart. The black subterranean lord Diablo detests all form of music.
I dance in a neverending waltz with his eldest wraithlike son, my fear of him only rivaled by my sisters, paired each to a prince of her own. I shudder each time my wayward gaze makes it into my partner’s eyes. Cold, icy black, with radiating veins of scarlet through each iris. His white, sunless pallor reminds me of all the zombie and vampire stories I have ever read or been told. I avert my eyes for the hundredth time, wishing I could make this whole palace disappear, and the cruel king along with it.

Wow, I have to say these opening lines are amazing. Incredible descriptions. You perfectly set the mood and drew me into the story.

I quite like the idea of this story. How her mother literally made a deal with the devil in exchange for children, and the price is dancing. I can't say I've heard of anything like this before, so to me it's really unique. I have no idea where you are going to take this story, but I'm really excited to read on!

I do think that most of this prologue was spent explaining the situation, but even still I thought it was interesting. And that's kind of what a prologue is supposed to do, in my opinion. Give us the low down on the situation. Now that I know what's going on, I feel like jumping right into chapter 1!

Finally, when I was ten years old, she died.

There are a few situations where your main characters feels a little too detached while explaining things. Like here, she says 'Finally, my mom died.". You wouldn't want to say something like 'finally', since finally is something you say when you've been waiting for something to happen. I don't think she was really waiting for her mom to die. If that makes any sense x) It would be more like 'Then, when I was ten years old, she died.' But it's really not that big of a deal so take or leave it.

I don't have much more critique, just keep at it and keep adding on chapters. I'm sure you'll come back to this for more editing once you have more of the story figured out.

I can't wait to read more! Let me know when new chapters are up!

I'm redoing it a bit, with a better prologue. Will you reread that? Its going to be rather different but the actual chapter one will start the same.

I like this - no, love this. It is beautiful and has a nice little twist to it.

There's nothing there for me to nitpick at.

Keep it up, I reeeaaaaally like this.

PM me when you add more?

-Love and other things,
fictionfanatic

Yay! I love this fairy tale so much, so I am glad you're doing a remake of sorts. It makes me happy! Also, I think the new twist that you put (SATAN'S BALL?!) is pretty awesome too. And I'll be curious as to how you make a modern twist out of it.

The one thing that I think you can improve on this piece is your descriptions. You use a lot of adjectives! Why do I mention this? Well, generally it's a good idea to make sure that you use strong verbs and nouns first, and then worry about adjectives. So, adjectives should be like a seasoning as opposed to the actual meat and potatoes. You only need a little seasoning to make things tasty! For example, one time when I was learning to cook when I was a wee little piglet, I accidentally put too much taco seasoning into the beef. So I got all upset and said to my mom, "Mom! I put half as much taco seasoning in!" (At that point, I didn't realize what the difference between "half as much" and "twice as much" was, because I was little.) Anyway, she looks at me and says, "Don't worry! We can just add more. Let me just taste it..." So she tasted it, and it was TWICE as much and she gagged and said, "It's twice as much!"

Case in point? Too much seasoning can be a bad thing!

Let's look at your first two paragraphs...

There is no sound in the great dark ballroom, but for the slight swish of elegant evening gowns, the quickened breathing of dancers, and my pounding heart. The black subterranean lord Diablo detests all form of music.

I dance in a neverending waltz with his eldest wraithlike son, my fear of him only rivaled by my sisters, paired each to a prince of her own. I shudder each time my wayward gaze makes it into my partner’s eyes. Cold, icy black, with radiating veins of scarlet through each iris. His white, sunless pallor reminds me of all the zombie and vampire stories I have ever read or been told. I avert my eyes for the hundredth time, wishing I could make this whole palace disappear, and the cruel king along with it.

Okay, now let's look at the two paragraphs without the adjectives:

There is no sound in the ballroom, but for the swish of gowns, the breathing of dancers, and my heart. The lord Diablo detests all form of music.

I dance in a waltz with his son, my fear of him only rivaled by my sisters, paired each to a prince of her own. I shudder each time my gaze makes it into my partner’s eyes. Black, with radiating veins of scarlet through each iris. His pallor reminds me of all the zombie and vampire stories I have ever read or been told. I avert my eyes for the time, wishing I could make this whole palace disappear, and the king along with it.

A little bit bare, isn't it?

Personally, I like it with all the adjectives better, but I think some of the adjectives should and ought to stay. But, I think what's more important is to be able to use verbs and nouns in better ways so as to make it more interesting. For example, maybe you bring out some of the details that you've put in your story and draw them out. And, especially emphasize the actual story!

The ways you can do it is that you figure out what are the important parts and what are probably not as important. For instance, were I to rewrite your story, I would probably concentrate more on her and less on Kaizer being a zombie... especially since you repeat that quite a lot. And I would also put more of the sisters in... maybe they feel the same way!

Also, you can bring out some of the details. For instance, you state that she has on a ruby bracelet, and I thought that was a pretty cool description. However, you didn't really continue on with that description. But, wouldn't it be cool if that bracelet was weighing down her hand? Wouldn't it be neat if she was daydreaming about taking it off when the party ended? Or maybe that was the only good part about her evening... that bracelet? So, by adding these little descriptions, it gives us an idea of who she is, which means that we connect with her faster. Cool? Cool!

Were I to write the story, I would probably start with something like this:

There is no sound in the ballroom, and yet I am dancing. My partner is Kazier, and he is leading me in the waltz. Him, the son of Lord Diablo. The son of my kidnapper. And I can't look in Kazier's face, not without shivering. I focus my eyes on his chest and pretend that I can see through him. If I could, I know I would be able to see the bracelet that he gave me. It's studded with rubies and diamonds, and it reminds me of stars winking at drops of blood. Maybe there are drops of blood, my blood, on it now. The bracelet cuts into my wrist and every movement makes me wince.

My sister passes by me, another demon in her arms, though he looks like a zombie instead with the way he is doing the waltz. "Twenty more minutes," she mouths to me.

And so yeah. I mean, what I wrote is obviously bad. But, that's kind of what I mean when I say that you can take little details that you have (the ruby bracelet caught my eye, so I used it) and expand it out. Plus, that way you are not only describing the scene, but also the general character as well. And I focused less on Kazier's looks and focus instead on how he affects her. So, little things. But, hopefully that helps you understand her as well?

Also, there are only three adjectives in this what I wrote, believe it or not. There's every (every movement makes me wince), twenty and more ("Twenty more minutes").

So, this is what I mean when I say you don't have to use tons of adjectives to describe things. You just need a bunch of strong nouns and verbs and a clear sense of conflict in your writing.

I am curious to see why Diablo cut them off! So you should definitely continue!

Xyra. :]

Took me a moment, but I've arrived!

Now, things I really liked. You dress up this scene so beautifully. I was intrigued by the atmosphere and the storybook/fairytale appeal. It gave me images of masquerade and such with the ballroom setting. Your writing was very clean and lovely to read. So nice work overall! Though, I have to get into this a bit deeper than its intriguing aesthetic appeal.

I really am not sure what's going on to the clearest extent. I have a pretty vague description, which sounds lovely in essence. But things seem to go from a gentle pace to a sudden stream of excitability toward the end. Again, maybe I've missed something. Though I really loved the length of this, I think for a first chapter you could do a little better in giving it some more thickness and detail of the accounts that take place.

I would have liked to see you put a little more love into your characters! They seem interesting but you sort of stop short in building your story with them. Rather, they become objects of your story. Which can count for some off putting flow in the gist of things. I'd like to see you mold them into your story a little more personally than how you have them now.

You seem to already have gotten so much lovely feedback and I don't want to be one to point out things that have already been brought to light, so I guess I'll cut this short here! Nice work, Xyra. You write beautifully. I hope you give editing this a little thought. I think you'd be quite content with a second draft.

-Smylin'

Thanks all for the reviews!! <3 Its greatly appreciated. I will revise and make changes to the awkward chapter two I have floating in my mind.