Young Writers Society

Inner Power Outer Power

The sun has just risen. Her eyes opened to the sun light shining through her window. Kay got up and got dressed, brushed her teeth, brushed her black hair, braided it, put her shoes on, and then quietly left her father’s hut. Kay walked to a medium sized shack, she walked in with the other children. They could see the beautiful sun rising over the trees out the window. "Good morning class, today we will learn about outer power and inner power." Said Jade, the school teacher of the village. Jade was a young, pregnant elf with black hair and green eyes.
"Kay! What is inner power and outer power?
"Inner power is the power you are born with inside you and outer power is the power you can get and people want. But inner power is more powerful than outer power!"
"Correct, Kay! Outer power is hard to get, but inner power is what you already have and you are born with!" Kay smiled as Jade was explaining it to the class. But then she remembered,
"Oh no! Sorry Jade! I have to go."
"Huh? How come? You just arrived."
"I want to do some stuff before I have to do all my chores."
"Kay. You know you have to have a note to leave unless school is over."
“I know Jade. But I want to get some stuff done before my chores.” Kay started checking her pockets for old notes from her father, but she could not find any.
“Sorry Kay, but you don’t have any notes. You will have to stay till school ends. Understand?”
“Yes Jade.” Kay said disappointed. She waited for school to end. Finally after three hours school ended.
“Good bye children, have a nice day.”
"You to Jade!" Kay ran off to a secret area hidden from the town. Kay stays there a long part of the day to get away from others. There is a pond, river, lots of grass, flowers, a mini waterfall, and an apple tree. Kay picked a blossom and put it in her hair. It was a beautiful pink and red blossom that just bloomed that season, spring. "Hello Kay."
"Huh? Jarith?"
"Yep."
"How did you find me?"
"I come here to relax in secret."
"Me to." Jarith walked over to her and sat by her, Jarith smiled. Jarith has snow white hair, white skin, and leaf green eyes, he is about a year older than Kay.
"How are you?"
"I am fine. That blossom looks lovely."
"Thanks." Kay said with a smile.
"Do you know what I realized?"
"What?"
"Everyday is the same to me. Everyday I do the same stuff, wake up, get ready for school, go to school earlier than any other kid, explore the woods, come here, and then do nothing."
“Aw man…”
"What?"
"It is time for me to go home and do chores! I have a very tight schedule, I am never in one place for very long."
"I could help you with your chores! I would have something to do and you would have more time for fun today!"
"Sure! Let's go!" So they ran back to Kay's house and put on some working gloves and clothing.
"How could I help, Kay?"
"Um…go feed and water the cattle."
"Right away, farmer Kay!" He grabbed an armful of hay and ran in the barn, he fed each animal, even the dog and chickens!
"You are done with the animals already?"
"Yep! What is next?"
"While I finish cleaning the house you clean up the yard!"
"Alright!" He picked up a ball, some doggy toys, he raked up some leaves and watered the plants. Kay picked up toys, doggy toys, she washed dishes, and she swept the floor, and cleaned her room.
"I am all done! Are you?"
"Yep I am!"
"Then we are done with chores! What now?"
"Hmm… Hey! Do you like riding horses?"
"I don't know. I have never ridden one."
"What about this black one?"
"Nope, I do not know how, and Lightning does not like to be ridden."
"Well I could teach you how to ride her!"
"If you say so." Jarith put a bridle and saddle on the horse.
"Here Kay, Lightning is ready!"
"So how do I start?"
"You get on for one thing. Here, you get on like this, you put your foot here and pull your self up."
"Okay, I am ready to try it." So she got up on the horse and waited for Jarith to show her the next step.
"Alright, next you use these ropes the steer the horse. Pull to the left if you want the horse to go right or pull right to make the horse go left, that simple!"
"You know, this would be easier if I had some sort of a power. Maybe some way to control the horse."
"You don't have a power?"
"I don't think so...do you?"

Hello there, FireArris!

As you have no comments as of yet, I decided to stop by and give you some tips. So, I am not going to go through this line-by-line as most of this is dialogue and your narrative is pretty clear, but I will give you some suggestions for editing.

First, the good. Your dialogue sounds very natural and provides excellent characterization of your main characters; the limited description you did include was well-written, and this was a good start.

Now for some concerns:

1. Travelling - Every Writer's Horror.

In a story, it is often necessary to include some kind of travelling whether it is a character going next door or a character travelling across their continent. This can be hard, especially when a journey is terribly uneventful. The writer walks a fine line between stretching out the journey and making it boring and not including enough description, thus confusing the reader and making the pace lurch forward.

In this case, your travelling sounded rushed. Not so much in the fact that it was a one or two sentence journey, but in that you did not describe the original setting or the destination in detail. In example:

The sun has just risen. Her eyes opened to the sun light shining through her window. Kay got up and got dressed, brushed her teeth, brushed her black hair, braided it, put her shoes on, and then quietly left her father's hut. Kay walked to a medium sized shack, she walked in with the other children.

In this paragraph, Kay walks to a medium-sized shack. Sometimes one sentence journeys are all right, if you have already given the reader a good sense of where the character is, but here, we know next to nothing about where Kay was before this, what is looks outside aside from the fact that the sun has risen or what Kay is like. These kinds of journeys are apt opportunities for characterization in the sense that a character's reaction to travelling or their surroundings is an active way of conveying your character. To make this part less abrupt, I suggest describing the outside in more detail, and then describing the appearance/location of the shack as Kay nears it.

On another note, this entire paragraph seemed rushed. Your listing off of verbs seemed very sloppy and gave the reader a bad impression. Go into detail about Kay's morning routine (just don't over do it, please), and perhaps describe her awakening. What quirks does Kay possess? Does she hate mornings? The way this was written was very detached from the character and its rushed pace detracted from characterization.

A nit picky thing: I really don't think you need the first sentence; the fact she sees the light and is awakening shows the reader that the sun has risen.

2. Detail

Part of your rushed pace may also be attributed to your lack of detail. You describe some things very well, but the majority of this lacked the vividity that it needed. This comes with time, so I don't expect you to master it today, but I can advise you to be specific in your description in order to improve this. Describe body language of your characters, their reactions to their surroundings, the appearance of things. Detail does not mean including long paragraphs of information - it means adding vivid images even if in just a few lines.

3. Characterization

Your dialogue saved this piece - as I've said, your dialogue flows very naturally, but still, your characterization suffered from rapid pace and lack of detail. Being specific especially in body language and tone of voice will improve this.

That is all for now. I'm not trying to sound harsh here, and I'm sorry if I discourage you. I do not mean to. I am simply trying to help you out and give you suggestions for future writing. Despite my criticism, this was exceptionally good (and though I hate taking a writer's age into account, this was very, very good for your age). You have a lot of talent; it just needs some polishing. With time and writing, you will improve, so keep on writing and editing. And feel free to PM me if you have any questions or need anything else critiqued.