How does this look? - Writers Forum

Vargshad · 03-14-2006, 05:29 PM

Vargshad: Tell me how does this look? Give me some advice or add a comment. Please don't be too harsh. This took me some time to write. Please reply^^

Barkus was a teenage WonderLander with good and bad qualities. Unlike a Teenage WonderLander he was lazy and hated the outside, unlike his younger brother who lived to be outdoors. Barkus as all male WonderLander were born with a brown cowboy’s hat on, and he had the ability to speak upon his birth. He was the eldest of two brothers in the family. His appearance was some what like a BlackHatGuy with pale bags under his big brown eyes, and small fangs. He dressed in a western attire, and wore shiny black dress shoes. Barkus receives fan mail every Sunday from WonderLander all around Almuaru.
It was a rainy spring Tuesday morning and Barkus was getting ready to spend his day lazing on the sofa. Once down stairs he saw his farther enjoying a leaf and berry bowl for breakfast.
Barkus’s father; Salvanbrose was 124 years old although some WonderLander said that he was over 400 years old. His father was tall which was unusual for a WonderLander. He was a Savoir of Almuaru and he was away most of the time doing rounds. But on a rare day off Salvanbrose was home for the day.

‘Barkus go get the mail today son.’ Salvanbrose asked as he popped a berry into his mouth.

‘Make Brangira get the mail!’ wined Barkus.

‘Brangira got the mail last week. Go-get-the-mail!’ ordered his father.

‘All right I’ll go but I’m not going to like it.’ Barkus headed towards the door.

Once opening the door thunder could be heard in the distance. Rain poured down endlessly on the cobble stone streets. Barkus made a dash for the mail box, he pulled out three envelopes two were address to his father and one was address to him. It was scarlet coloured letter that was held together by a red ribbon. He looked at the envelope address which was put in golden ink, and realized that it was from the Scarlet Combat School. High class school for only the best WonderLanders go, he heard of many rumours about the school and knew he had to hide the letter from his father. Quickly he hide the letter in his pocket and headed back indoors. He was wet from cowboy hat to toe, and leading a trail of water to the dinning room where his father was still eating his leaf and berry bowl.
Barkus handed his father the two letters that were address to him and turned to leave the dinning room when the letter from his pocket fell out.

‘What’s this?’ Salvanbrose bend down and picked up the scarlet envelope.

cbrmale · 03-15-2006, 12:50 AM

I think this belongs in the critique thread, but I will quickly do a couple of comments for you regardless. I don't normally critique other works, but I will spend a couple of minutes.

First up, the wording is quite cumbersome. The name of the people are WonderLanders, and this makes it quite is difficult to read. A professional would write 'tighten wording' which basically means to refine the cadence of the sentences. Read them out loud to see if they have the right rhythm. In this case, as you read it out loud, you will find the cadence is not there.

Basic issues with punctuation, the semicolon should be replaced by a comma, and there should be a comma before and after Salvanbrose. It is unlikely he would give a name and say son in the same sentence as well. Wined is misspelt (whined). Hide should be hid. Once opening the door (insert comma) rain. Change envelope address to address, change put in golden ink to in golden ink. Check all your wording and delete any words that don't really need to be there.

Foreshadow the rain with a little more emotion for impact. It is mentioned in passing, but it is better to 'show and not tell'. He hears rain on the roof or beating on the windows well before he goes outside. He whines about having to go outside into the rain and then he has to make a dash. Foreshadowing is a great tool, as is showing and not telling.

Last sentence, the 'addressed to him' is ambiguous; it could mean addressed to the father or addressed to the son. Better done by noting two letters were addressed to his father when he is at the letter box and he merely hands the two letters over.

I hope I am not too harsh, and I hope you get something from my comments.

Cbrmale

RebelGoddess · 03-15-2006, 12:51 AM

Well, there are a lot of grammatical errors and some spelling ones, but it's a good start.

I like how you've created new species, but I think you need to explain them a bit more. I got kind of lost reading your intro.

But defintely keep it up!

Racheal