Young Writers Society

As Drake moved toward the group, Mitchell scowled and averted his gaze back towards the sword. Drake, however, ignored Mitchell and spoke to Vanessa. "Vanessa, you have to help me. I can't sleep at all without the dream happening. I wanted to know if you could figure it out, since you are the best spellcaster here." At this last sentence Vanessa blushed a deep scarlet colour before speaking. "I wondered when you'd ask me Drake. We have been here for a week and you only spoke to me once. That was the second day back and you could hardly call that a conversation. It seems to me that you are avoiding me." Drake opened his mouth to speak, but, unable to find the right words, slowly closed it back up. Vanessa took this momentary silence and used it to talk to the scientists. "I need to talk to Drake, alone, so I will come back later to see what you have got done." Drake seemed to get his voice back. "I was worried about what Mitchell would say if we continued to see each other often. I was also worried about your feelings if I continued to be friendly with you. I see now that by avoiding you, I have just hurt my friendship with you." Vanessa said nothing, but she walked towards the door. Without being told, Drake followed. As Vanessa continued walking, Drake tried to speak to her. "Vanessa, come on, please talk to me. I know that you can hear me, so why won't you talk anymore?" Vanessa stopped walking and turned around to face Drake. "I can't say anything about your dream until we get to my room." She turned around again and continued walking to her room. When they finally reached her room, she slipped in, pulled Drake in and slammed the door shut.




I hope you all like my story, since I have been working on it for a few months already! Don't forget, this is just a part of the story that I am writing.

From the beginning, the descriptive words you use pull the reader in. For one example:

...blushed a deep scarlet colour...

It's so much better than just saying "she blushed". Some people are not so fond of these sort of descriptions but you don't overuse them and it's comfortable, at least for me, as a reader.

However, I think the story starts out in the wrong place because you leave the reader with those pricky questions. Who's Mitchell and what is this sword? You might consider starting the story with a different scene because of this.

Also, as you will probably soon learn, readers do not always need to be told everything. They actually really don't like it when the author states the obvious. This is just one example of what I mean:

Drake seemed to get his voice back.

It is unnessesary to state this because he is quite obviously able to speak again.

Since there is not much of a beginning, I can't judge whether I like the story or not, for I don't know what it's about. If this is the actual place you wanted it to start, you might want to reconsider. Starting with another scene could help the reader fall more easily in with the story.

On a personal note, when I first start reading a story I am usually most interested in the characters involved and their roles in the story. We know that Vanessa is a spellcaster and Drake has this strange, reoccuring dream but that's about all we know.

Hope I've been of some assistance.

As always,

POKE

well, it isn't the beginning. it is just a part in the middle, and everything is explained before now. i was just trying to see if anybody liked it. knowing that you liked it makes me feel a lot better since everybody who has seen this (online and school) all think it is good. i would post the beginning as well with this post, but since i don't have it, i can't. i will try to get it posted since you want a good beginning.

This is good, but it isn't really the best way to start a story. You as the reader are left with question that are unanswered. It's just as well that it isn't the beginning of the story as it doesn't really make much sense by itsself. With a bit more work to the grammar aspect and spacing paragraphs and speech correctly instead of it all being one big blob of words!

Hope that helped!

RR*

Work on grammar and punctuation. Also sort through this amorphous blob and make clear paragraphs (remember each time a new person speaks, new paragraph). Since you didn't do this it was confusing and overall frustrating. Not having correct punctuation give people the thought that you don't care enough, and then they don't read it carefully.

Like the people said above, you just jumped into the story completely confusing them aside from the terrible punctuation and grammar. I suggest you scrap that intro and re-write it [or you can just not use it as a intro, just put it in some part of the story](or if you really like this intro, just fix all the punctuation and grammar errors, and add an intro to this. Needs to describe the people kinda what they're doing, or where they are so the reader can get a clear picture of what is going on. Intro's require a bunch of description and scene setting material.)

on the whole its really good as before you need to work on grammar but i can't say much as my grammar is terrible as you can see but i love the story line so far don't let anyone put you down (love Jack)

like i said before, IT IS NOT THE BEGINNING! IT IS NOT THE INTRO! THIS IS ONLY A ROUGH DRAFT, I WILL FIX IT LATER! now, stop buggering me about that because i know that grammar is bad, spelling is bad, punctuation is bad, it is not an intro.

I like the idea you have, but you haven't given much description about where Drake and Vanessa are, so I'm a little confused; paragraph spacing would be helpful as well.

I hope that you post the rest of the story because I'd like to read the rest of it.

Best of luck

As DQ mentioned, this needs to be divided into paragraphs. I understand this is a rough draft, but it is extremely aggravating to read this piece if it is not properly paragraphed.

As has been said, your description is pretty good for the middle of a story and your dialogue seems to flow relatively well. I agree with rosethorn about Drake seeming to get his voice back.

Mitchell scowled and averted his gaze back towards the sword.

I think the word 'avert' sounds a little awkward here. Avert means to turn away or aside, not to turn towards. When someone averts their gaze, they are moving their gaze away from an object; therefore, Mitchell would not be averting his gaze towards the sword. You could say 'he averted his gaze from the (whatever he was looking at- I assume it is Drake) and glanced towards his sword' or something to that effect.

she slipped in, pulled Drake in

You use 'in' twice here. It sounds repetitive.

Nice description and please keep writing. I hope you post more of this.

If you have any questions, feel free to PM me.