Young Writers Society

The wind tosses the leather traces back toward his teammates.

Balto won't allow it. He leans hard to the right, straining against the taut leather. Behind him, arranged in a fan shape, are four other dogs. Balk is just behind him; then Stella, Tem, and Silver.

Sensing the change, the driver calls out, "Git along, dowgs!"

Balto grins. So his master wants speed?

He puts his weight into the harness. Behind him, Balk lets loose a sharp cry. His brown-and-white fur, plastered to him by the wind, flutters wildly.

They finish the run well ahead of the other teams.

Panting, the team settles down on their haunches. There's an almost smug atmosphere around them; they're the lords of the trail, and it shows. Tem circles slowly. Balk throws back his head.

His cry will echo long into the night. In the morning, he'll be greeted by silence.

All right, you blokes, someone post on this! Please!

You should write more of it, it sounds interesting enough.

What in tarnation?!

I think you're either terribly confused, or lacking imagination at the moment. If it's the former, then I suspect you either meant to post a lot more, or meant to post this in storybooks, maybe? If it's the latter, you seriously need to make longer posts. That was 150 points spent on on 62 words, silly. Quite a rip-off! Anyway, I hope you check this 'review' and clarify what's going on.

If this is actually the beginning of a story, I apologize. In that case--

The wind tosses the traces back toward his teammates

Traces of what?

Nice dialogue for the driver.

Wait...Balto is the dog! Aha! I'm smart today. Either that needs to be more obvious, or I need to wake up more before attempting a review.

Good luck on whatever this is.

I happen to love dogs and dog stories, so when I saw this one, I couldn't help but read it. Here is what I found (below), but other wise this was good.

The wind tosses the traces back toward his teammates.

As the first sentence, you should explain who the subject is. It can confuse the reader even though the subject is in the next paragraph.

His cry will echo long into the the night.

I just wanted to point out you have two "the" above.

I think it would help to add some more description to this and expand on the race. How long is it? What are the opponents like? You can even add some information on the dogs.

I see this as a promising story so I will be looking for more. Keep up the good work!

Hehe I came to bookmark this and then saw how short it was so I read it!

I kind of like how you write it is a very different style to a lot of stories I read. Instead of long sentences and lots of descriptive words, you have short sentences and I quite like it.

One thing for me, and I think I am being picky, is when you mentioned team twice in quite a short space.

'They finish the run well ahead of the other teams.

Panting and sweating, the team settles down on their haunches.'

It sort of brought me out of the story for a moment but again as I say that could just be me. I am interested to see if this will go anywhere though

Hey there Stori! June here!


The title drew me in. Black snow sound fabulous... almost like fantasy. It made me want to read this.

Half of me was disappointed when I saw how short it was, but then I read it, and I said, "Wow, this is brilliant."

It is.

Because it's short. It almost feels incomplete, but it isn't. It's perfect.


I love it.


Your opening line is rather vague, but I like it. Maybe you could slight clarify "traces" but it's not necessary.

Your lines are simplistic; short and clear-cut. There's nothing other than praise for this story, sir, it's incredible.

This story speaks so much more than the words show, dear. It shows us the setting-- a snowy dogsled race scene, the pressure of their master, the determination of the dogs. It is a perfect story, sir.


The length doesn't matter; I think you should leave it as it is. Expanding on it might ruin it for all of us. Perfect.

*stars*


Fantabulous job, Stori. 10/10.

June

[Keep it up!]

Yo, Sto, Stella here!

Hm... short. But you get extra credit for using the name Stella . Attaboy (what? "Attaboy" seemed topical ).

I. NITPICKS

The wind tosses the traces back toward his teammates.

What traces, m'dear? Describe them? Carrion? Something of the sort?

Sensing the changes, the driver calls out, "Git along, dowgs!"

Personally, I think "change" would sound better. More natural.

Panting and sweating,

*laughs at memory of funny conversation in bio class regarding this* Dogs don't sweat. Or else your neighbours are short of a toilet and are playing a really funny joke on you. *sniggers again* Okay, you probably don't get the joke, it's funnier with a German accent, I guess. But the reason dogs pant is because they can't physically sweat. That includes wolves, huskies etc. I guess.

II. UM...

It's just a bit confusing, that's all. Straighten things out. For instance, I had to read your first two sentences twice to work out who your subject was. I get it now, a huskie, isn't it? Or some type of sled-dog. But you're trying so hard to make your words pretty (which they are) that you're sort of neglecting their purpose, helping us understand it. Just a bit of tweaking will do.

III. OVERALL

It was short, and more description never goes amiss. But I actually quite enjoyed it and it sounds really interesting. Could you, s'il vous plait, PM me if you put more up?

Hope I helped!

-Stella.

The wind tosses the traces back toward his teammates.

As others pointed out, traces of what?

This was short and pointless. You began the story, sure, but left if completely unfinished. There's no hint of trouble, no plot development. The dogs were running. Yay. This needs a purpose. If you want it to be short, fine, but add something significant to this so that we as the reader know the next chapter holds something important.

And it may be just be just me, but I don't like the name useage of Balto. I mean, you may be using him because he's a legend and all that, but I think this would be better if you made a character of your own, one that is new to the world and will make his own legend.

That's all I saw, I think. You could use some detail, like how cold it is or if it's cloudy and snowing. Is the driver's nose red? Is it dark out? You get the idea.

Good luck with writing and editing.

KJ

This story sounds as if it could be god, it just needs more. Also, I think it would e good if you added some more detal, such as: what do the dogs look like, and the surrondings of where they are at.
Great story though. Keep adding and it could do wonders.

Interesting. I didn't see any mistakes in grammar and punctuation. You could definitely use some description here. The lack of it makes this almost boring. Almost.

Also, it took me a while to figure out that the dogs were the subjects. You should probably try to make that more clear to the reader. And the first sentence doesn't make sense to me.

Other than that, I enjoyed reading this. Add some description and characterization and I'll review again. Thanks!

-Winter

Hmm... It's so short, it's almost hard to comment.

I find it very interesting that you've chosen Nome and that team of dogs, that would later be responsible for the Audinerod (sp).

Might I suggest instead of Balto, use Togo (I think that's the name) since he was the real hero, not Balto.

I'm not quite sure why the story is entitled, "Black Snow?" Lack of description and imparative details forbid any conclusion. While I understand you want to keep things short, you're actually doing your story a great disservice by purposely negating information. I can gurentee it's forgetable and this is not good. Expand and be awarded.

Cheers!