I think you had a good, hooking beginning and I like the action throughout. I guess I prefer happy endings, but hey, not everything in life ends happily, right? :) I also know that it can be hard to fit in a strong conclusion in only 300 words. Nevertheless, I still think you did a good job. I like your creative idea, and the suspense maintained throughout the story.
Great job, and wish you the best in future writing!
Nice job, Chester! Good creative idea, and I like the humorous ending. I bet it would have been easier if you had more words, but you still did well nonetheless. One thing--Should the last sentence be "Neither would I, if the heavy M encyclopedia and giant dictionary WERE dropped on my head."?
Great job once again! Wish you the best in future writing.
Great job! You've got a creative idea and a good writing style as well. A thought I had:
Now I'm not exactly sure what you're using this for, but you may want to work on creating a "story" for this story. I think it'd be more engaging for the reader. It kinda seems like this guy is telling us all this different stuff, and there's not exactly one story that runs through it all. A big rule for writers is "show; don't tell"; and I think a lot of the story is spent telling us things. I think it'd be more exciting if the character really showed us a story, instead of just telling us an overview. Hopefully that makes sense. Perhaps you could show this man in battle from the start, and while he's in battle he could explain different things that he sees. I also think it'd be a good idea if you had a character change at the end of the story in some way. Take it or leave it though...I'm not sure what you are using this for, so it's up to you.
Once again, great job! You are a great writer, and I hope I do not sound too critical. This was an awesome idea, and you did a great job describing World War II in a different sort of way!
Great job! This is very well written, and I can tell you are a good writer. A few thoughts:
- First sentence. One idea I had was to switch the first and second paragraphs. It's important to really hook your reader with that first sentence, and I thought that if you started your story with "What'cha doin' there son..." it might be a little more of an exciting hook.
- I thought you did a good job of showing instead of telling. Beginning writers can struggle with simply telling something such as "Benny was mad at his dad", but you did an awesome job of actually showing these things in action. You also did a great job of allowing the reader to visualize things. Especially in between the dialogue the characters would do various things that helped visualize the scene. I thought this was good.
- Increase the tension. In the middle of the story, when they were on the island, it seemed to get a little slow. I think it might keep the story exciting if you kept Benny and Jana in danger somehow. Maybe there's a storm and the floodwaters threaten to drown them? Or one of them gets sick and there not sure if they will live? There's a lot of possibilities, but I think maintaining the tension in this area may help your story.
- Benny deciding to run. Kind of a small detail, but for some reason I thought it sounded a little sudden when Benny said "Run!". To change the mind of fearless Benny, I feel like there should have been a little more said than "The creature screamed again, but this time it sounded closer." Maybe something like, "Just then, there was a earsplitting cry and Benny's eyes grew wide with fright as he knew the creature could only be a few feet away."
Once again, this is great! I hope I do not sound overly critical, and I thought you did a very good job with this piece of writing. I liked the character change of Benny at the end, and I also liked all the excitement and suspense throughout.
Great job! A good start to a novel, and I hope it continues to go well. Here a few thoughts I had:
- Engaging Beginning. The beginning of your novel is one of the most important parts. It decides if your audience will keep reading, or set the book down. I would recommend starting off with action, instead of the various descriptions that are given. Perhaps there are necessary things said in the first paragraph, but I think that it would better said as the book progresses, rather than throwing a bunch of information at your audience right at the start. Plus, by removing the explanations the little mystery that remains could encourage your readers to keep going. If you just started at the "In the nation of Sonia trouble is stirring....", I think that would work great.
- Show; don't tell. This can be one of the hardest things to implement into your novel, but one of the common pieces of advice that a lot of great writers give is to, "Show; don't tell." What does this mean? Well, instead of simply telling your audience various things (For example, "Everyone who lives in Cenia know nothing but hard work" or "Crystal was always rushing around."), actually show this in action. While it may be harder to show this happening, instead of just saying it, this way is much more powerful to your audience and engaging for your reader. Perhaps instead of just telling us about the princess and her toys, one of the toys could be laying on the floor and the sergeant is reminded of some past time when the princess was with her toy dragon.
- Correct tense. Not a big deal, but starting at "In the nation of Sonia there is trouble stirring....", there are some sentences put in present tense, while most of this is in past tense. I would recommend just sticking with past tense.
- Establish Protagonist. It's probably a good idea to establish your main character early on, and stick with him or her throughout the book. The audience wants someone to care about. The novel seems to start with a focus on the sergeant, but then he is killed off very shortly. Then we switch to Will, and I'm not sure if the story will stick with him or move on to yet another main character. If you established your protagonist early on, I think it could really help your novel.
Once again, great job! I hope I don't sound too critical...just some thoughts I had. You are a good writer, and I'm happy to have all this action in the opening scenes. Wish you the best in future writing!
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