Young Writers Society

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Hey lhighton!

I absolutely adore this genre of writing...so Austen...and my Wednesday night was so boring last night as Lost in Austen had finished...gutted!

But anyway, I did like this and because you mentioned the fluency of it in the beginning it's not really fair to comment on it again....

A read through will suffice, I'm sure. No major problems whatsoever to comment on so i feel slightly obselete....

It seems peculiar now, but it’s true; when Mother and I left the cab, we stood a moment simply looking about us, at the people motioning by in different directions, clearly knowledgeable of where to go.

In those days I doubt anyone would refer to them as "cabs". It is more likely that they would be known as taxicabs.

The moustached man looked at a space above Mother’s head – that being his advantage, in his tallness.

Tallness? That's new. Isn't it called height?

Compared to Farm Cottage, it seemed a palace, from a fairytale;

It's hard to understand. Was Farm Cottage a movie that they had seen? Or was it a description that they had recieved in a letter, in which case the capitalisation is unnecessary? Please elaborate. You need to mention that it's the name of their house, however unlikely a name it may be for a house, immediately.

My scope of vocabulary cannot suffice how it seemed to me, in all my naïveté and childishness.

Ooh, I just love that word: naïveté. Yay!

I had not yet let go of Mother’s hand, and it felt sweaty – still, it could have been mine, for I felt watery with faintness.

Er, faintness? the adjective is "faint". You can feel faint, but there is no such thing as faintness, unfortunately.

and smelled the smell of decadence, of agedness,

Again, you're making up words. It's "age", not "agedness".

Lady Marie, Eleanor’s mother, looked quickly, and dramatically, to the floor, but Eleanor’s eyes stayed fixed on mine, yet unreadable in the dim candlelight.

How is looking at the floor dramatic? You need to include this. Is it the way she is looking at the floor that is dramatic? If so you need to rearrange the words. The "yet" is both excessive and entirely unnecessary as it only makes the sentence sound, well, pompous.

One thing you did that I didn't like was how you told the story from Margaret's point of view, but she added comments like "I will first explain the room." This is inconsistent with the rest of the story, as it is told as a story, not a recollection. If you take out these kinds of comments, it will be more consistent and you won't need to remove the entire description.

The ending is great! I really enjoyed reading this, and I just love this time period. You actually seem to know something about it, which is a privelage not bestowed on all historical fiction writers. Anyway, this was fantastic, good work!

olivia1987uk - Hi! Thanks very much - your comment made me feel immensely happy! I didn't watch Lost in Austen, well, I saw about five minutes and switched off. But thank you so much for mentioning my silly bit of frill in the same line as Jane Austen!
Hope to review one of yours soon enough.

chichi - Thanks for the lengthy critique - I can see where you're coming from with the excessive nesses (although tallness, faintness, agedness, contrary to what you say, are proper words, I agree that they aren't stunners.) Thanks anyway.

Really? They're words? What dictionary are you reading? My trusty 2008 dictionary (now in colour!) says otherwise, but I'm open to correction.

Wow, if you really want to that specific about it, mine's a Collins. But I suppose it could be wrong.
I propose we shall have to agree to disagree, because this tangent could be seen as bumping(?).