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Review of My beginning...  
Review by Scarlet
Rated: E | (3.0)
Hi Mikey!

Things I liked in your story:

- Overall, I like your storytelling. You have a very smooth, logical sequence of events so the story moves along at a good pace.

- Your characters were introduced well, especially William, whom I can just see as an ambitious boy-man who’s ready to face the world and is already dreaming of the amazing things he will accomplish.

- There were a few places where I could SEE your story rather than just read it. Places like “he rolled over on his stomach and got to his legs. Looking over the hill towards their house on the outskirts of the village,” or “Freshly made bread filled William’s senses when he entered the livingroom…she always made the home smell like fresh flowers or good food. He walked over to the wooden chair by the hearth.” Keep showing the story and not just telling. That’s good.

Things I think you could work on (this is what put my rating down to a three):

- GRAMMAR! All it takes is a couple of proof-reads. There were lots of places that just needed a small change like making a letter a capital or taking away a comma (just doing this will get people to take you a lot more seriously as an author). Otherwise, things like using sentence fragments. I’ll give you just a few examples to start you off:
          o “...more powerful that the old ones in the village even.”
          o “He was a guard in the village and a great hero in william’s eyes.”
          o “William squinted his eyes at a clowd…”
          o “His mother waving him in as she saw him.” (fragment)
So just try reading through it once and look out for things like that.

- One thing to keep in mind…this is YOUR story. You are the one that knows the characters, the setting, and the plot. The reader doesn’t. So when you’re telling the reader, don’t leave them confused or wondering. This is how I felt when I read the first few paragraphs of your story.
A few examples:
          o “Most people only referred to it as Oak village…” So what is the town actually called? If that is not significant in your story, I would suggest you just name the village Oak village and just state, “This village was called Oak village due to the large oak tree that was growing in its center.” Or something like that.
          o “William squinted his eyes at a cloud, making it kinda look like a sword.” Kinda look like a sword? Kinda? If you just take kinda out, the sentence is ten times stronger. “William squinted his eyes at a cloud, making it look like a sword.”

This didn’t happen often, and mostly just in the introduction paragraph, but be aware of this and try to make sure you tell the story matter-of-fact. I hope that makes sense.


Thank you for sharing this story with us! I did enjoy reading it, and I hope my review was helpful. If you found it at all discouraging, ignore it! I really want you to continue writing, and continue this story especially. It’s a good story.

SCARLET

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Review by Scarlet
Rated: E | (4.0)
Hi! I really enjoyed reading this story. You did a really good job of conveying a mother's feelings, I think. The progression was brilliant and the verb tense you chose was interesting.

The one part that I didn't really like (to be honest), was the end. The image you drew of the mother sitting on a chair on the porch was beautiful. Really good. And going back and forth from watching the dog/things around her to wording her thoughts was very effective. However, somehow, the part about the dog and not being "completely alone" was rather sudden and didn't seem to fit with the story's build-up. Since the dog was barely introduced, it just somehow didn't fit. I like the idea, however, of the ending. I just think there might be a better way to make that ending fit with the end of the story.

I'm sorry if this was vague, it's kind of hard to explain what I mean, but I hope it still helps a little! But very good writing, otherwise. I genuinely liked reading this.
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