%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 Review #4803722 |
 | First draft start  [E] This is the first draft of a book I am writing in a series called Juno's Journal.  |
| (2.5)| Hello, I found this on the read and review page, and would like to take a few moments to offer you my thoughts. I saw that you were a new account, so before we get going, let me also offer you my warmest welcome to writing.com. I hope you find this community as helpful as I have over these many years. I'd like to preface this review by saying that I more often than not take an in-depth approach to the reviewing process. As such, it might seem like I'm really picking something apart. Some of these comments might seem a negative in their tone. I assure you, that is not my intention, I only wish to mark areas of the writing that I think could use some attention. I will say, there are many sentences in this writing that have something that could use a look. If I marked all of them, I'd basically be rewriting your story, this I think would be a tremendous disrespect to you, so I've only included some examples that had some heavy issues. If you would prefer me to go through each line, let me know and I will give you a private, line-by-line review of this. I'd like to mention that in some of my reviews you may see a word with a dotted underline like this. This is a spot in a sentence that I've marked for your attention. I've packed a comment within the notes that you can read simply by mousing over the word or phrase with this dotted underline. *** Opening *** Sadly, there's not much of a hook to the opening. There's a mild bit of tension in its delivery, but nothing in its substance that implores me to keep reading. The first line of your story is generally your one and only shot at grabbing a reader's imagination. The best first lines (in my opinion) use few words, bring tension, and tug on the emotional response of the reader. One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest by Ken Kesey ▼ Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury ▼ In your very next sentence there's a line that evokes tension and asks me to read more into the story that I think would do you well as the opening hook: First Draft by Juno Stardragon ▼ *** Style and Voice *** Passive Voice and Showing vs. Telling There's an overabundance of passive voice in the narrative which sadly diminishes the imagery. Passive voice in its simplest terms is the action acting on the subject rather than the active voice of the subject performing the action. A few examples of this (one being your opening line) are:  As the arena lit up , Juno started to tremble. In this current format, the sentence is delivered to the reader in an abstract way because I'm waiting for the verb to land somewhere in the sentence so I know who or what the sentence is referring to. This is not a terrific way to start a story, and most folks will say that passive voice is something to be altogether avoided. I'm not quite that emphatic about passive voice, but I think its use should be minimized wherever possible unless you're going for a certain shade of gray in the narrative and even then, I'd still caution its use. A way to fix this line to deliver in a more active voice: Passive Voice:As the arena lit up, Juno started to tremble. ▼ As Juno took in the speech, he could feel the stress in the air as Bildad, pulled the level, to start the trial , as the iron bar grate was pulled up the students stepped out onto the floor of the arena, ▼ looking to begin their trials. The entirety of this sentence is a run-on that should be separated into 2 sentences, however the bigger problem is that its format is entirely passive and lacks vivid imagery with all the telling vs. showing. As Max Griffin 🏳️🌈  says: Think of a story as a guided dream. An easy way to accomplish this is by avoiding key words such as saw, see, seemed, etc. Rather than telling me they saw x, show me through the eyes of the subject. In this example, the first bit of the sentence Juno takes in the speech. This sadly offers no good imagery to the reader. The speech over a crowd should boom, think of the colosseum scene in the movie "Gladiator" when the crowd gets addressed. Imagine that voice, and put it to words:Following that statment, consider Juno's stress. Rather than telling me that he could feel x. Give me visual cues of his stress i.e. his heart pumping, his fingers tingling, his head reeling, anything like this can show the reader the stress rather than saying, he is stressed. Using these methods you might arrive a sentence such as:  Bildad's speech thundered through the arena, echoing off the walls and into Juno's ears like a drum. His heart pounded in his chest as Bildad grasped the lever and pulled.This format puts everything into smaller, easier to digest chunks, holds the tension, and shows rather than tells. Your second half of the sentence above which is passive as well, is also repetitive. In a short span, you've marked that the trial is beginning, using the above suggestion, and really in general, you only need to say this once. To fix both the passive voice and repetition I'd suggest a restructuring which will also add a bit of imagery, like this: The iron portcullis rattled in its ascent as the students stepped out onto the floor or the arena.With these 2 suggestions you'd arrive at a reformatting like this: Bildad's speech thundered through the arena, echoing off the walls and into Juno's ears like a drum. His heart pounded in his chest as Bildad grasped the lever and pulled. The iron portcullis rattled in its ascent as the students stepped out onto the floor of the arena. The trials were about to begin.Then feeling the moisture on his feet Juno looks down and sees a strange mist begin to rise out of the floor of the arena, as it rises and begins to obscure the other students Juno reaches out and touches the mist , it feels as if a cool breeze is flowing through it and as is his hand is fully enclosed by the mist the hair on his arms tingle with static electricity. There are a lot of grammatical flaws in this sentence, as it is a gargantuan run-on that should be 3 separate sentences, but, ignoring this, the whole sentence is passive and telling based on the explanations above. I would restructure and reformat this sentence in a way that uses better imagery and less abstract action-to-subject structuring which I marked with popnotes above: Moisture cools Juno's feet as a strange mist rises out of the floor, obscuring the other students. He outstretches his hand into its thick wisps and a cool breeze tickles his skin and raises his hairs as it crackles with static electricity.REPETITION There is some repetition in the writing that I think is quite distracting. In a short span you mention starting the trial 5 times in almost as many sentences. This makes the writing bland and annoying and should really only be mentioned in something this small, once or twice. He looked up and saw the massive wall of the arena, with the whole village watching, and the massive wall carved with fine integrated lines that Juno could see radiating immense power .To be quite plain, the sentence is long-winded and doesn't read well due to the repetition, structure, and the telling vs. showing which I will explain further in a moment. Let me first discuss the sentence structure itself: The initial subject of the sentence is interrupted in its delivery by a separate clause that interrupts the original action i.e. with the whole village watching. This could really do better in its own sentence. Or as the opening as I mentioned above. I'd restructure this as follows: He looked up at the massive wall of the arena with its intricate carved lines radiating immense power. This structure arrives at your point much faster and keeps the reader engaged in the imagery, however there is still some elements that are telling rather than showing. In this example, the first element of telling vs. showing is removed by simply removing and saw and simply deliver the image straight to the reader without the hollow context of what he's seeing. The second element I left because this is really more for you. The immense power is immense how? Is it radiating light? heat? sparks of lightning? Remember when writing a story to pull on the readers senses: Sight, Sound, Smell, Touch, and Taste. There's a lot more that can be unpacked from the phrase immense power that can further deepen the image. Beyond what I've mentioned in the examples above, you switch from past to present tense about halfway through, with no break in the writing at all. The action up to that point, didn't read, nor do I think you intended it to be a flash through the past, so I'd suggest keeping everything in either present or past tense. Personally, I'd prefer past tense. You also then switch from the PoV which was firmly planted in Juno's head, to my own head i.e. from third person limited to second person. This was tremendously distracting. I was not part of the action up to that point, so there was no reason to establish the reader as a PoV in the story, keep the PoV firmly rooted in Juno for 3rd person limited, or both Juno and Mato for third person omniscient. I would however caution the latter PoV as it is quite difficult to write in that PoV seamlessly. *** Grammar *** "Welcome everyone to the Ironband competence trial," said Bildad, "this is an important day for our young students with all their training going toward this great trial, this trial will decide where these young students will do their apprenticeship and their starting rankings at Ironband." "If each student will please step into their assigned circle the trials will begin," says Bildad as he waves his hand above his , and 16 small circles engrave themselves into the center of the arena radiating, a little blue glow and a shimmer of light right above them.I already mentioned it in the style and voice section above, but your second to last sentence is a massive run-on that should be separated into about 3 or 4 smaller sentences. *** Typos *** The typos I found were marked in other sections of this review. *** Ending *** I don't think this was an ending. This is simply the beginning of a larger action sequence, that I'm guessing is going to be somewhat similar to a nod to Suzanne Collins' hunger games-ish battle royale it did however leave me wanting to see what was going to happen. *** Summary *** I think it has the makings of a good start, but there are many errors in the writing that need attention, as well as the passive voice and telling vs. showing. Overall, you have the right idea of the story, and I think it just needs refinement. The two biggest shortcomings of course, being what I mentioned. I will include articles discussing the differences between active and passive voice, and showing vs. telling. In summary, a writer should always strive to show vs. tell to keep the reader engaged in the narrative. It is intriguing, however, and I think once you put a defter hand to this, it could make for a great tale, because there is a lot of potential, as I quite enjoy the coming of age stories. Here are some articles discussing a few of the issues in the writing (Active and Passive voice, Telling vs. Showing, and Points of View) I hope these can help you further understand the issues I've mentioned in the review. They are written by two writers that I have a tremendous amount of respect for.
Thank you for sharing this writing, and I apologize if it seems I just hammered it with negativity. That is not my intention when I review. As I said, it has the makings of a good story, and a good foundation to build on, it simply needs some touching up. I again, welcome you to writing.com and encourage you to continue to pursue the craft. Improving writing ability is a remarkably rewarding journey! I hope to see more of this in the future. Should you add to this, please let me know and I'll gladly have a look at it again. Until then, keep writing!      My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
|
||||||||||||
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
You have not yet responded to this review.