Young Writers Society

[Deleted at Author's request]

Hello, Plus here! (Or whatever you want to call me! )

Firstly, just a few little grammatical things I picked up! :

At the moment the words came out of my father’s mouth

This doesn't sound right to me, I think 'From' fits the sentence better!

Even though I thought of myself as selfish to think so, I did not care that he was appointed the King

Appointed the King? Or do you mean BY the King? Or TO the King?

I still didn’t think it was fair however. Instead of thinking negatively, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

I think this sentence would flow better if you changed the full stop after 'however' into a comma.


Other than that, it's a little too early to judge what I will think of the story, but a very solid prologue with some marvelous language. I am a little unsure about the 'Lobster' in the time that you are setting it, presumably it would be hard to keep Lobsters fresh on a journey from the South Coast to York...But I will leave that for you to look into (or maybe you already have!).

None the less, I look forward to the next installment!

~Plus

Hello there! I'm GryphonFledgling and I'll be your reviewer today!

This was well-written and pretty solid grammatically, but it felt a little description heavy. There's very little action and a lot of description. We get a lot of information regarding how things look, and yet, I'm not really feeling the emotion behind it all. Maybe put a bit more about how your POV character doesn't want to move, doesn't want to leave. You describe what she loves about York, so let us know that she doesn't want to leave, so that when she reconciles herself to moving, the reader feels just as upset and resigned as she does.

One little grammatical note: when following a line of dialogue with tag ("he said", "she said", etc.) you put a comma instead of a period at the end of the sentence of dialogue and the first letter of the tag is lowercase.

ex. "You're so mean," she whined.

When you are following dialogue by a sentence that is not a dialogue tag, you end the sentence of dialogue with a period and the following sentence begins with a capital letter.

ex. "You're so mean." She whirled around and stomped up the stairs.

Looking forward to seeing where this is going...

~GryphonFledgling

Wow. I really liked this. Your sentences flow really nicely and you get in enough description for good imagery. A few grammatical errors, but nothing major. Plus, I believe (and please tell if I'm right) that you put feeling into this piece. When I read it, I could feel how heart-broken Madeleine Gray was to be leaving her home. Keep writing, I would like to see more. ^^

Hiya ThornedRose, I'm Becca! Welcome to YWS!

Okay, firstly nitpicks:

At the moment the words came out of my father’s mouth, I felt a hard, sharp pain in my stomach, as if the sound of his sharp, cold voice had formed into a thousand tiny swords.

Eh, I don't think you should repeat words like that. It makes it sound weird and kind of uncreative. Try something like bitter.

The buttery and crisp lobster on my plate, which I always had loved so much, had suddenly become cold and uninviting.

I don't think cold is really the right word. Maybe just unappetizing will work? Okay, now you've made me hungry.

I felt like crawling in a hole and never coming out, because, frankly, I didn’t want to move.

But wouldn't you have to move to get into the hole? I feel like this should be reworded to something along the lines of: I felt like crawling into a hole and never moving again (or ever coming out). This is just a suggestion, so you can ignore it if you want to.

Especially, it meant my own home, which was a pale red brick and dotting the city boundaries.

Hm. I don't think this is how you should use the word 'especially,' maybe 'mostly'?

All I had now was 3 more months to savor the last bit of home.

Three should be spelt out, just to be proper. :]

Maybe this is what god wanted for me.

Since God is a person, his name should be capitalized.

Maybe I was moving to face my destiny.

Oh, hey! I love things like this (for some reason), where a sentence can have it's own line. So, yeah, to make it more dramatic, seperate it. I think it would make a better ending.

Overall;
This is too short to give a proper critique. But! So far so good!
As for lobster, it makes me think the family is rich or at least has a little more money than most families? Well, it looks like Gryphon alrady got the grammar thing.

Please PM me when you post more!

Good luck and keep writing!
Becca

At the moment the words came out of my father’s mouth, I felt a hard, sharp pain in my stomach

This part of the sentence was all right. It has some some hook to it, which is good! The first thing I wondered was, "What did he say that makes her like this?"

, as if the sound of his sharp, cold voice had formed into a thousand tiny swords.

...and then you had this line. You realize that in this one sentence alone, you have six adjectives, two of which are the same? This is not good! Basically, this means that you're describing the whole scene using adjectives. Consider, if you will, you have a huge Roman temple that has to be supported with awesome description. The pillars are made of nouns and verbs that can describe a person. After all, if I said that the cafeteria food tasted nasty, you might shrug it off, whereas if I told you that I had to pick off the mold on my hamburger bun and soak my hamburger patty with water before my hamburger was edible, then it shows you how bad it really is. Adjectives, on the other hand, are the little details on those pillars. If you only have adjectives, you won't support much at all.

Mind you, adjectives aren't so bad, but six in one sentence? You may be overdoing it. Especially since that last part of the sentence doesn't really say anything. You tell us in the beginning that she feels pain from her father's words. This is good. This tells us that her words really did affect her this much. But then you have his sharp, cold voice (which really doesn't make sense) and the thousand tiny swords (which offers a humorous picture) then this is not good. By overemphasizing this pain that she has on her father's words, you're making her into an angsty character, overdramatic character. This means that you're setting her up to be hatable... and I don't think you want to do this.

I dropped my fork, and it landed on the table with a shrill clang. The buttery and crisp lobster on my plate, which I always had loved so much, had suddenly become cold and uninviting.

Yay, action. Though check the diet back then... I have a feeling lobster wasn't a very big delicacy.

I felt like crawling in a hole and never coming out, because, frankly, I didn’t want to move. I didn’t know how my sister or my cousin felt, but to me, York was home. Even if we moved, that wouldn’t change.

Boo, no action.

Instead of having internal whining, try adding some dialogue. For instance, you can have her say:

"We're moving?"

We already know that she feels like she was punched in the stomach by her dad's words. Move on with some action!

Home to me meant the vast, rolling green hills and deep blue skies. It meant the grey stone spires of the York Minster from the heart of the city. Especially, it meant my own home, which was a pale red brick and dotting the city boundaries. I did not want to leave a single centimeter of it behind.

So she's going to leave that and go to the ocean.

...yup. Totally makes sense. (Not.)

No, seriously, since she is going to be a pirate queen and whatnot, you have to make sure that you make her she has a really good reason for wanting to go on the sea. So something BIG has to happen to make her want to go to sea as opposed to going to the streets, going to France, or whatever. If she is already this homesick about leaving the land, imagine how homesick she would be being in a place with no land whatsoever.

Also, as a side note, in the 1700's, SI units were not around. You're not dealing with centimeters. You're dealing with traditional British units.

[quote]I looked around the room, across the black wooden table. I stared at the faces of those who would also be affected by this move; those of the full, pinkish lips and fair skin of my sister and the high, gaunt cheekbones and rosy skin of my cousin. They were both expressionless.[/quote]

Obviously they aren't affected by this. So why are you describing them? The conflict comes from her desire to stay, not their desire to sit there and have full, pinkish lips. You might as well describe a goldfish.

Remember, conflict comes from conflict. She is the one feeling conflicted. So describe her! Just remember to throw in some action. You can easily do this with a couple of lines of dialogue. Plus, by seeing her talk with somebody, it shows us who she is, which can make her a less hatable character, if you want her to be liked. And that works out because instead of whining internally, you can see her probe the world around her about ways that she could get out of having to move, which makes her human. Good? Good! The more human your characters are, the better they'll be.

“I’m happy for you, father. I’m really going to enjoy Port Royal.” my sister smiled,

GAH. GRAMMAR.

It should be either "Blah, blah.... Port Royal," my sister said, smiling... OR "Blah, blah.... Port Royal." My sister smiled...

Two things!

Your sister cannot actually "smile" the message. She "says" the message. So you put "said" afterwards, unless you want to start a new sentence. Second of all, if it ends with a period and you want to continue the sentence by saying, "she said" ... well, you can't. Periods end sentences. They're awesome like that. So you have to put a comma instead of a period.

...okay. Moving on!

breaking the awkward silence.

If you had action in here, you wouldn't even have to use the word "awkward." It would be apparent that it is awkward. This is what you need to do. Don't try to support your roof with pretty details... support it with strong columns. Stick some dialogue before so we get a picture of the family.

She took a bite of her lobster. Oh, curse her. Curse her for being able to say that line with such joy and happiness. Even though I thought of myself as selfish to think so, I did not care that he was appointed the King. The only way that it was affecting me was negative. I looked back at my cousin, who in turn began to speak.

...he was appointed as the king? And she's not happy? If he were the king, I imagine that he could keep the house and she could live there. It's good to be the king! And I'm sure there would be much more formality in this meal. After all, you would have all these people vying for the king and the favors he could do for them. Although... if he were appointed as the king when the previous king was beheaded... then this makes things a lot more worse. And you would have to complicate things. For one, her conflict at being moved would be wayyyyy lower than his conflict of being a king. S that means you have to concentrate on the king's conflicts instead since he is the leading conflict.

That makes no sense...

The bigger the conflict a character holds is the one you follow. For instance, in my novel, I had a teenage girl and her father. The teenage girl was mostly, "Oh! My father hates me!" whereas his conflict was, "Ahh, the secret police are going to go after my family and kill them!" Guess which conflict had the most importance when deciding the plot?

So, if you wanted to continue this story with her as the lead, you might want him to not be a king. Maybe he can be a merchant that moves? I don't know! But it has to make sense.

“It will be exciting.” she whispered.

Correct the grammar.

I rolled my eyes, groaning. I began to open my mouth to speak, to talk back, to speak my true feelings. However, I realized there would be no use in arguing.

Too many actions crammed in one little sentence. Mind you, I have done this before in my writing, but usually my characters are on the brink of insanity, if not already insane. So this sort of trick with your style leaves me amused but not really emotionally affected. You're using a cheap writer trick, not making me care.

My father had already accepted the position. All I had now was 3

Don't be lazy, write the whole word out.

more months to savor the last bit of home. I still didn’t think it was fair however.

Continue this thought? However implies that you want to expand more. Or you can shorten it and say, "But it wasn't fair."

Instead of thinking negatively, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Maybe this is what god

God, not god.

wanted for me. Maybe this move was going to help me make a difference in the world, like mother had told me. Maybe I was moving to face my destiny.

...and done! Hooray!

The problem with this prologue is it really goes no where. If I read this, I would think, "Okay. She's moving. What's so special about this, beside the fact that it happens to be in the 1700s?" However, most times I would simply skip the prologue altogether. I haven't actually read the first chapter yet, but I'm wondering at this point why should I? There's no cliffhanger, besides the fact that she might meet her destiny, and I don't even really her know her that well, so I'm not even sure I want to continue reading. It's like facebook... yes, I can accept that random person as my friend and I can follow her life through her status updates, but really, do I care about her? No. So I'll usually deny that person.

What you need to do is make it have more action. A prologue should be one gigantic cliffhanger. My favorite example for cliffhangers , especially for young writers, is this piece, located on YWS:

topic5436.html

If you read it (which you should!) you would finish the ending and thing, "AHHH, WHAT HAPPENS NEXT???" With three question marks and all capital letters! Because it's that amazing.

Your prologue should be the same. It should shove the reader into your story and make the reader have to know what happens. Maybe this means that your prologue only slows down the reader and makes them want to stop, which means you should delete this prologue and continue on with the story at full speed. If that's the case, then do this.

Remember... Dumas didn't allow any angsting before he opened the story. He just opened it with action and described later. Since your story is an action/adventure story (I wouldn't call it historical, lol) then you should start it off with some action.

Best of luck and happy editing!

'ello Thornedrose! I'm Ashley and I'll be your reviewer today

At the moment the words came out of my father’s mouth, I felt a hard, sharp pain in my stomach, as if the sound of his sharp, cold voice had formed into a thousand tiny swords.

Whoa! Too much action and describing for one little sentence. Break this up a bit and have some in-between time. Maybe try: The words that came out of my father's mouth made me feel ill. It was like his sharp, cold voice was cutting into my stomach with thousands of tiny swords. or something like that. Break it up and give the reader something to work with.

The buttery and crisp lobster on my plate, which I always had loved so much, had suddenly become cold and uninviting.

It should be "which I had always" instead of "which I always had". It flows better that way.

**Question!** Right now, I feel kind of lost. I'm only a few sentences in but I'm already wondering why her father's voice hurts her so. You have yet to give any indication why except that she doesn't want to move. And that makes her hate her father's voice? More info on that please! ^_^

Especially, it meant my own home, which was a pale red brick and dotting the city boundaries.

This sentence is wierd to read. I feel like "was a pale red brick" is a fragment admist a sentence. It sounds funny. Try rewording and also, "dotting the city boundries" makes it sound like her home is a town of its own. Really capture what you want the reader to see so there's no confusion.

“I’m happy for you, father. I’m really going to enjoy Port Royal.” my sister smiled, breaking the awkward silence.

Not proper grammer here. I think other reviewers pointed this out alreay, but you either need to put a comma after "Royal" or change up the end so it starts with a capital letter.

She took a bite of her lobster. Oh, curse her. Curse her for being able to say that line with such joy and happiness. Even though I thought of myself as selfish to think so, I did not care that he was appointed the King. The only way that it was affecting me was negative. I looked back at my cousin, who in turn began to speak.

Okay, so far, I know that her father has been crowned King, uplifting his family and their roots to a new land, which must be frightening for the girls and their cousin. But I have yet to really grasp why the girl is so upset. All these things make sense but isn't there just a twinge of excitement for the unknown, the new. Really get inside your main character's head and let these throughts spill to the reader.

~ ~ ~ ~

For a prologue, it did its job. Cliffhanger, check. Beginning Plot line, check. Introducting characters, check. But your missing what makes writing fun! Where's the action? The drama? Right now, its the move that's driving this story. But that can only hold for so long and usually the prologue emphasis a main drama.

It's up to you whether to add more to this or now. I guess it works for now but I feel you could do so much more with a bit of tweaking and adding.

For now, I bid ado, but if you need any further help, let me know