We have an announcement to make! The deadline for VOTING in the November Prompt Challenge has been extended to December 9th! Please go check out the amazing entries we have for this month. The winner will be announced at December 10th. Go everyone!
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Vote! It helps NBR ;)
Commenting time frame (CST): 12/2~12/11
Moderator: swiftiegirl1010
Comment Topic: Comment on the author's use of body language and dialogue to bring forth their main character.
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Author #1: Bluehall
Book Title: Silkenbeard
Spotlight Chapter: Chapter 1
Summary: Shane Fox discovers Teagan Sparrow is not an ordinary girl. She leads a secret life. With secret powers. And a secret mission: to ensure the life of Lila Nash unfolds as it's supposed to. Only ... Lila Nash lives in a different dimension. Together, Shane and Teagan travel to Silkenbeard, where things get complicated fast.
Author's Note:
1. Which bits worked for you?
2. Which bits didn't work and why?
In-line comment preference: Welcome.
Genre: YA (Teen fic)
Rating: PG
Winning Comment: Firstly, I'd like to applaud your ability to tell us what the character thinks. Usually when author's try to sneak that in i get annoyed but you managed to keep me intrigued and avoided making his thoughts the only form of communicating what he was feeling. Good job!
One thing I'd like to mention, is that you didn't really explain what was happening around shane. Speech was great, you're characters have their individual voices and all, but the descriptions in this book (or at least the description in this chapter) need a little augmentation.
It's not that it's important to tell the reader that the hallway shane and Taegan were talking in was dimly light- but it adds to our visual connection to the scene.
It's not important to the plot if you mention that a couple of tiny wrinkles formed at the corners of Taegan"s eyes when she smiled- but it's the little things like that that help the reader distinguish your characters and their special traits and use them later on as the story progresses. Then everytime you mention Taegan smiling, the audience will automatically imagine her eyes wrinkling at the creases and so on and so forth.
ou've got great dialogue, like I mentioned before, but the things you're making your characters say don't really seem unique.
Let me explain:
You had Shane's friend ask about miss higgy's mount everest talk with the same (or closely resembling) words that were too close to when Taegan asked that question that there would be no way of knowing who said it if you asked the reader to tell you.
I would suggest that you add a catch phrase/word they often use so that the reader can link that word to the character. I would also suggest that you go against your impulses as a writer and maybe put the words out of order or change up the way they say things to make their specific voice stand out.
You're chapter was great, don't get me wrong, but I want to do my best to help you so I'm pointing out the few flaws I could find and not wasting any time with praise (since I'm guessing you already know how good of a writer you are ^-^)
Again, hoped that was helpful.
Network with this winner: NeverTrustAnAuthor
1st runner up: LLMontez
2nd runner up: Hayleyautumns
Final Author's Note: The Spotlight week was a tremendous learning experience. The NBR reviewers were extraordinarily generous in their time and their willingness to really help improve the text. The feedback was thorough, insightful and it has helped me develop as a writer. Each reviewer offered unique insight and for all of that, I am immensely grateful. Now it's up to me to use this. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone!
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Author #2: Claudia_Witter [抖阴社区 Featured Author]
Book Title: The All Mads: The Complete First Season
Spotlight Chapter: Rewritten Chapter 4 (It's the very last chapter in the book)
Summary: After agreeing to take on the powers of a spirit animal and becoming a Phenomena—a human infected with a paranormal disease—Victor used his new abilities to murder his abusive parents. But he doesn't remember doing it and, when seeing his parents' corpses, forces himself to believe that they aren't dead. A witch named Mia arrives the next morning and asks him to become a rumor detective, a sort of police force for the supernatural world. Now he's learned that the reason he can't remember murdering his parents is because he suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder, and he has completed his first rumor detective job. Shortly afterwards, he's approached by a boy about his age, who he learns is going to be living with him and Mia.
Author's Note: Firstly, I'd just like to thank the NBR moderators and reviewers that made it possible for me to be in the spotlight once again. I'm editing the completed draft of TAM right now in the hopes of getting it published, so feel free to tear this chapter apart if that's what it takes to improve it. I'm certain I'll need my writing to be as polished as possible in order to have a chance at success.
1. Before my writing was, well, a bit of a wordy mess. After reading everyone's feedback and ChayAvalarias's 'Advance Editing: Tightening + Word Choice,' I've been trying to make each chapter easier to read by lowering the amount of unneeded words and smoothing out the descriptions. Does it work, or does it feel like there's too little now?
2. When Victor tells Mia about his parents' other form of abuse, does it feel unrealistic that he says so little about it? Before it had been longer (basically a speech), but I felt it was too dramatic and unrealistic that way.
In-line Comment Preference: Welcome
Genre: Paranormal
Rating: M. (There's gore and a brief, non-descriptive mention of sexual abuse.)
Winning Comment: #NBR [First:]
Hello! Congrats on both the spotlight and the Wattys award! I'm sorry for the late (well, barely-on-time) review.
Comment topic: I thought you did a good job in portraying Victor's character! I'll focus a bit more on his body language and dialogues, and then I'll mention other aspects of his character (and maybe some other characters too), if that's alright with you. (Wait, scratch that. I'm going to do that anyway--whether you're okay with it or not xP)
You've made use of dialogues pretty well, both portraying Victor's emotions and his story through them. "I get nervous" is an example of this. Victor then goes on to tell Mia his story with his father, and this also shows the reader about his past.
One thing about the way you format the dialogues rather than the content of them: you tend to begin some dialogues with "...". While an ellipsis is good for pauses in between or at the end of a dialogue, at the very beginning, it just takes the place of a sentence like "He hesitated". In some of these places, I didn't even feel like a pause was needed. I'd suggest going through all the places where you've used an ellipsis at the beginning and then deciding if it's really needed
Coming to the content of the dialogues, there were a few things said which made it hard to believe that Victor is 12. I don't think it's what he means to say that makes him sound older, but the way he says it. Take "I am" for example (said in referance to him being hungry). When you think about it, a 12-year-old would be more likely to say something like "Food! I need food. Food is good." Basically, they'd get excited over the prospect of food and would say more than the simple "I am". Just go through the chapter once, and try to format what he says in a way that you an imagine any other young(er) kid saying. The would almost entirely take care of any problems you may be facing regarding his age.
#NBR [2nd:]
Sebastian too has a dialogue which sounds much too old for his age. "I look forward to moving in tomorrow". Perhaps he'd say "I can't wait", but I can't imagine a 10-year-old saying "I look forward to".
One thing I really liked about the dialogues in this chapter was how they were all rather distinct, and you could tell one character apart from another simply by reading the dialogues!
Coming to his body language, I thought you did a pretty good job with that. You show things like him jerking his foot away and other movements regarding his body which portray to the reader what he's feeling. I didn't spy anything related to his *body language* (the way he holds himself) but that's all right--I think you've managed to make the actions work well enough. Though, there was one point where I thought you could have shown him hang his head or rub his eyes, right after the dream, to show that he's still sort of scared or musing. I believe I mentioned this in the in-line comments.
Also, some of the times, you added in a lot of dialogue tags which kind of hindered the flow. And a fair amount of them where "said". While "said" is the most inconspicuous dialogue tag, if you use it enough times, it'll become pretty evident too. I'd suggest going through the chapter and trying to remove some of the dialogue tags. If you need to show who's speaking, try adding in an action before the dialogue.
One thing I wanted to mention, was that a lot of the time, when portraying Victor's emotions, you tend to tell them to us rather than show them. You've told them using dialogues (eg. "I get nervous"), and through the normal narration in the story (eg. "Despondent, Victor..."), but there weren't may times where you simply described his expression or his thoughts and left the reader to figure out his emotions. While giving them out through telling is okay once in a while, it's not a good idea to do so every time.
#NBR [3rd:]
Another thing I wanted to point out was the shortness in length of time as Other Victor (I'm assuming it was Other Victor). This is probably normal, and Victor probably switches back and forth all the time, but the way in which he switched back to normal seemed a little... lacking. Not lacking in the sense that the writing wasn't good, or even in the sense that it felt too abrupt, but in the sense that it didn't feel abrupt *enough*. Try making his switch back to normal a little more sudden and jarring--then the reader will feel like they switched back right alongside him! :) (Maybe you could say something like "All at once, Victor returned to himself" right after Mia's dialogue.)
Overall though, I'd say you made good use of body language and dialogues, and you showed Victor's character really well! Everything flowed smoothly and seemed pretty believable too, so no problems there. :)
Questions:
1. Wordiness: Compared to your last spotlighted chapter, this was amazing. There's a lot less redundancy and wordiness, and you seem to have a good idea of how to shorten unnecessary things. There were a few places which were a bit wordy that people have mentioned in the in-line comments, so just going through those should have this perfected.
But one thing I noticed was that in trying to remove all the unnecessary bits, you've ended up removing some of the necessary parts too.
There are a few places where you've shortened descriptions and the like so much that it feels like 'telling' rather than 'showing'. Take the part where you're describing the bedroom, for instance. You say "There (were) drape curtains concealing the windows, a small mirror...". You simply list all the things in the room and their positions. Avoid doing that. Try to show the room through Victor's eyes--perhaps have him walk up to one of the objects, trail his hand over it, and note its texture, before having him "take in" the rest of the room.
#NBR [4th:]
Adding in things like texture will also really bring up the way in which you get the reader immersed into the story and the setting. Try using all the senses and all imagery rather than just one (sight). Bring in all the different aspects of the setting, and try to tell them through Victor's eyes to avoid telling. Adding in more about the setting can also help build up tension (till the abuse scene).
What I'm saying is; yes, you do need to shorten some phrases and cut down on wordiness, but not to the point where it deteriorates the writing.
2. The abuse scene: I'd say there were both plus points and minus points over here.
To begin with, like I said in the in-line comments, I didn't think there was enough hesitation on Victor's part before he began his story. Considering that this is a very serious and emotional topic, his emotions need to be portrayed through his actions, and if he doesn't hesitate even a little bit (even though Mia already knows of it; this time, it's coming straight from his mouth, and he may have a hard time recalling what happened), this won't seem very serious at all!
The way he started telling his story, also seemed very "story-telling", as though he was reading out a book rather than retelling his past experiences. "I was ten the first time..." can be switched to something a bit more life-like. Perhaps "I was ten... Father came into my room. I thought he was going to punish me, but it was... different. He was different."
Adding in more ellipses here will also make it seem more realistic as the pause will sort of highlight the abundance of emotions he's feeling.
Moving on, it seems a little odd that he says all of two lines. Yes, an entire paragraph would have been too much and rather unrealistic. But the same goes for two sentences. Try to expand just a tad. Maybe have him say something like "I didn't know what was going on, at first" to further show his innocence when *it* happened.
#NBR [5th:]
Emphasize a bit more on his emotions since, well, it was a traumatic experience, but try to set a word limit on his dialogues in this scene, so that you know that you've not had him say too much.
Picture yourself in his shoes, and have him say and do what you would say and do. Perhaps have him look down upon his hands while talking. Personally, that's what I pictured him doing, but as I reread it, I realized that you never mentioned anything of the sort, meaning he was looking at Mia while telling the story. That seems a bit unrealistic.
The aftermaths of his "story", I thought, were much better-visualised, and seemed more real to me. I can imaging him insisting that he's "okay", and the "I don't like hugs" bit really worked well! I could also picture Mia having the natural instinct to hug him, even though she knows that he's normal Victor again.
And then there's the "I'm not gay" line. I thought this line--somehow, just this one line--worked really well to show us some of the things he went through due to the abuse. He would have been confused, scared. But at the same time, he doesn't want anyone to think of him differently--to see him differently. That line, to me, seemed to carry more weight than his entire two lines of story-telling, I'm afraid.
Overall, I thought this was a very well-written and interesting chapter! Other than a few minute details here and there, this was amazing! Great job! :)
Network with this winner: infinitysbeyond
1st runner up: theemmpress
2nd runner up: KillYourDarlings7
Final Author's Note: hanks for a wonderful spotlight week everyone. It was difficult to choose a winner, but I ended up choosing infinitysbeyond because not only did they provide many helpful in-line comments, they also gave me an honest review that will really help me improve the chapter. Thank you for all your help! I'd also like to thank theemmpress and KillYourDarlings7, and everyone else that took the time to review The All Mads. Every comment provided some helpful feedback to help me improve.
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Author #3: HappilySinister
Book Title: Monster Minds
Spotlight Chapter: Prologue
Summary Thus Far In Book: I was nine years old when my father sent me to prison.
I didn't go because I was a criminal, a murderer, or a monster; I went because he told me to.
...
Emily is obsessed with criminals, the insane and the guilty. There are questions she can't answer herself... Questions only a criminal could answer.
The state prison has become safe haven for Emily, a place where she is heard and a place where she is valued.
But, being the eighteen year old daughter of the Correction officer, Dane Silverman, is both a blessing and burden in disguise. Emily has unlimited access to the prisoners, so when a body is found and people start going missing, it is up to Emily to put her questions to some use.
Vans Waltz is the only one ready for her questions as he seemingly watches her every move. With his sarcastic humour and his endless charm, it doesn't take long for Emily to question who is guilty and who is telling her the truth.
Author's Note: Hey guys! I'm so happy my chapter is being spotlighted this week and I hope you enjoy reading my chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it. I know the prologue is a little short and not as capturing as I'd like it to be, but the first chapter was too mature to be reviewed, so please bare with me!
Question 1- As an informative introductory chapter, does the prologue give you enough descriptive information and knowledge to hook you into the story and into the life of Emily Silverman? If not, how could this be improved? (e.g. more description, better ending hook, dialogue etc.)
Question 2- Does my writing style, accommodated by Emily's character, and my description accurately drive the story forwards and evoke sensory responses within you as you read? It is really important for me to know that my writing has an impact that makes you envision the world of the character, enabling you to relate and become involved in the story. So, does it do this? If not, why and how can it be improved?
In-line Comment Preference: Welcome
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Rating: PG-13
Winning Comment: The funny thing is, when we read the first line of your prologue, Stephanie said, "Oh, okay," and then she did a double take and amended, "WAIT--SHE WAS ONLY NINE?"
And that was her first reaction. Our first reaction, shocked. Nicely done with that first line.
Hello, @HappilySinister!
Clever definition and word at the top, we'll have to use it on someone one day when they're annoyed with us :). Just kidding, but we're so excited to read your piece and review it. It looks terrifying, interesting, looks like your words that make this story up will be delving into monsterly mind and sinister feelings. And we're excited. So let's get on with it, shall we? →
Your first question asks whether the read hooks us or not, and as readers, we thought we would let you see into the minds of people who are going to be reading your story for the first time. So piece by piece, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, we're going to show you exactly what are thoughts are and how the whole 'hooking the reader' thing works, so you'll get to see into our minds as we're reading. :) (Kind of like a first reaction video!):
>"I didn't go because I was a criminal, a monster, or a murderer; I went because he told me to(...)but, as he would've known, that was an empty promise." Our thoughts (merged from four minds into one, of course): He told her to go to prison? Oh, goodness. But wait, did she do anything monstrous and wasn't planning to go to prison but her dad told her she had to? Her father must be crazy sending her to a prison at such a young age...and empty promises--oh no.'
>"As a child, I had imagined red skinned(...)clinging to the rattling railings." Our thoughts: 'Oh, goodness, that poor child. But does every child envision monsters...hiding behind rattling railings or in their closets or under their beds? (The only monsters in closets are the messy piles of rubbish and clothes!) She has a very vivid imagination!'
>"Of course, it wasn't really like that(...)never to be felt again." Our thoughts: 'No, it wasn't really like that. It was metaphorical---so her dad is most likely a police officer. Poor Emily, but maybe that's a good thing that you're not seeing real, red-skinned devils or blue-eyed gargoyles?'
>" 'They aren't monsters on the outside, Emily'"(...)his ability to figure things out that others couldn't fathom." Our thoughts: 'So her father's a Correctional officer? Interesting! Hm...her father seems a little biased...what if every human being had a little monster in them? And are monsters really evil, Mr. Dad? That is the question. But back to reading.'
>"Two years later, when I was twelve... " Well, if she was nine before and there were two years that passed then she would be eleven UNLESS she was about to turn ten, but maybe you could clarify this a bit more? We understand what you did there, though! "(...)maybe he just couldn't bare my endless talking." Our thoughts: 'They didn't watch her? In a CORRECTIONAL facility? AND THE DAD THINKS THEY'RE MONSTERS IN THEIR HEADS? WHAAAATTTT? Hmm... maybe he does know something Emily doesn't, and if that's the case--let's go find out →'
>"Soon after, it had become normal for me to visit the prisoners weekly(...)I wanted to learn and I wanted to understand." Our thoughts: 'All four of us can relate to what, why, and how she wants to learn in this chunk here. We've questioned and wondered the same thing at one time or another.'
>'missing knifes in the kitchen..." should this be 'knives?' "My father finally began to understand this and gave me my first job on the site(...)I began talking to the prisoners, whom became my friends." Our thoughts: 'To some degree, the four of us would be absolutely terrified (mostly Stephanie, she's a scaredy cat sometimes ;)). But we'd all have a range of fear working on sight at a correctional facility.
Although, some of the prisoners might be interesting. They might be interesting friends...let's read on to find out what happens with these friends → '
>"There was one man who always treated me with kindness(...)sand that had dried too quickly and had been stomped on by laughing children." Our thoughts: 'We don't want to think. We want to know what HAPPENS.'
>From the previous ending all the way to the end→ Our thoughts: 'Wait, what? Prison brawl...that's bad...Uncle George seems to be a monster himself, a disguised blue eyed gargoyle and the TENSION and now we really actually want to know what's going to happen so we're going to plan to read your book in the future because...AH!'
S0 by our thoughts throughout the story, you already know that it hooks us. One of the things that kept us on edge the whole entire time was the fact that you never really said what George and Emily spoke about, and we weren't sure whether that was deliberate or accidental, but it was CLEVER. Now we don't know, which leads to a chain of events that makes us want to continue the story: What George was talking about with Emily → whether he started the prison brawl, or what his role was → What secrets does Emily know?
See, that kind of chain of events that build upon the potential energy of your story are moving, moving, moving it along and forwards, especially because she is a teenager. Allowed to wander around a prison. Partially unsupervised. Talking to prisoners. Talking to Uncle George.
You asked what can be improved to help hook readers into the story, and we don't have any suggestions for this particularly, but we did want to tell you how each mechanic in writing helps build, hook, and keep a reader so that you'll know for the next time you start a story or you're revising this one:
Dialogue: Dialogue. Crackles. Crackling dialogue will hook a reader instantly, whether it be sarcastic comments, cleverly played wording, or eerie words strung together to form a sort ofdark character. They say eyes are the windows to the soul (now that we think about it it's SO true), but anyways, so is dialogue. Dialogue is a way to get inside a character's head, even if their head is full of lies or false information.
Characters: Characters. Twist. Characters twist and morph and form and when you have characters in your story that twist and morph from societal stereotypes, you gain the interest of a reader. We have many friends outside of our group that dislike stories because there was 'the popular clique, the unpopular good-girl, the bad boy, and the whole love triangle' or something like that. When characters are really twisting, diving away from society, they make for great hooks for readers.
Descriptions: Description. Sparks. Description sparks and sizzles like fire, little bits of descriptors and words used to describe things that need to be describe and leaving out the bits of detail. In a way description is a lot like a fire in some ways, glowing and sparking with words strung together to form phrases that haven't been said before. Every fire is different, have you noticed that? Some are more yellow than others, some orange, some a dazzling blue. So since description sparks, make description like fire and change it up. Instead of saying, "Blood trickled down the side of my head," like so many other writers would use, become a fire and spark a different set of words, spark a different descriptor, and set your story ablaze with heat: "Blood snailed down my temple. Blood curled over the curve of my jawline and sank into soft flesh." (We noticed this a lot with your story, by the way.)
Grammar: Grammar. Cleans. Grammar helps clean up writing from looking disheveled and disorganized. Good grammar will keep readers reading. Heck, they expect good grammar.
(Alison CAN'T STAND when she's reading an old document in class, like something from the seventeen hundreds, and there's, a comma, between every, two words.) *That might've been the grammar in the seventeen hundreds, though. Who knows? * But you get the point. :)
For your second question, are thoughts in the beginning nearly covered this. We could envision the world through her mindset, but what about a little more worldly descriptions based off what the characters see. What does the prison look like--is it a confusing network of halls, or a vast set of wide corridors filled with cells? Are the cells grimy? Clean? The walls---do they pool with shadows, dance with light, or creak as if they were made of bruised metal? You might have added this inside of another character, but in order to completely follow Emily, maybe just a dash of the worldly descriptions we were just describing could be added throughout a single paragraph when Emily first visits the prison when she's nine years old.
We keep asking the question, "If her father thinks those people are monsters, why does he let his daughter roam free with barely any supervision in the prison?" Could you make this clearer? Maybe he could give a reason to her or the guards, saying that Emily won't need much supervision because those people are behind bars. Our minds kept drifting back and wondering why he would let her do that, and it just didn't make sense. But hey, what writing rule says writing has to make sense? Exactly. But anyway, you understand our point.
Could you describe the kindness of George? We found that the father's overreaction was unbalanced, or a bit harsh, because there was only the phrase or something similar to "George's kindness..." well not exactly that but something similar to that. BUT the father's reaction wasn't overreacted when he found out, it just FELT that way because you described George's kindness a little vaguely. We understand that you might want to keep what George said a secret, but if you DESCRIBE the little bits and pieces he did to earn the characterization of kindness, this would be different. He could've, "thrown out sweet little words to me," or "would speak in a calm tone when I walked by," by still not describing what they had been discussing during those times. This way, the father's reaction will make a lot more sense. (Not that it didn't already make sense); the reaction would be more balanced.
We like the way you detailed out that Emily cried for nights when her dad took away her tape recorder. It shows that she want to learn, wants to explore, and really cares about the prison. This goes with body language, because the way that she and her father feel about the prisoners are completely different. Emily cares for them, wants to understand them. Her father wants to keep them locked up without giving it a second thought. Throughout the body language in the chapter, we could infer that. Emily learned the prisoners, her father trapped the prisoners. And the body language of those prisoners, too---them rattling with their hands curled around the bars. Man, we could envision that, most certainly.
You did well by setting up the scenes in this chapter; it all was in a flashback, but the way you built upon each layer was well-done. Characters were formed. Dialogue was interesting; it mostly came from Emily's father, but it was certainly interesting and building on the form of eerie. The way things were placed were done, too, just remember what we said about worldbuilding, and as an add-on, we think that sounds will add to the eeriness of the prison you're trying to present. It doesn't even have to be a long description, just something to build upon the eeriness as you've so well built up the scene (nicely done!); you could say something along the lines of; "The rattling of the bars were akin to several jangling chains clacking against each other," or somethings as simple as "the walls creaked."
One of the things we would suggest is to make it more vivid that Emily wants to learn and understand the psychology and minds of the story. She wants to see and hear and feel what these prisoers see and hear and feel, and that desire drives the rest of the plot onwards. We would suggest making it strong, almost as if to say 'explode through the rest of the story,' by pointing out that she questioned and questioned hard. You could let the readers know what sources she went to to learn about psychology, some of the questions she asked her father, or even just the tiniest things, like describing her mindset and determination more vibrantly, vividly.
There's a nice, even balance of your writing here, from the showing vs. telling, to the way the secondary characters really did seem to be in Emily's memory as she remembered from when she was nine to eighteen. The evenness of the writing made the plotline flow easily without any bumps. It's kind of cool how those things intertwine, don't you think? How evenness results to a great flow of the chapter? Either way, you did a great job with your chapter here.
Thank you so much for reading this review; we hope it was helpful. There are so many wonderful things that we love about your story, and we hope our thoughts as we went piece-by-piece through the chapter gave you enough insight on the two questions you were asking, as well as the rest of our review. We hope you're having a terrific spotlight week, too! It's always so much fun to read and see what everyone else says :). Good luck with the revisions on this chapter, and with your story. We will be reading on, so be looking for our votes. :) Thank you so very much, again, for reading this rather lengthy review. Remember to k e e p o n w r i t i n g!
--Rachel, Stephanie, Alison, & Clary
Network with this winner: PassengersOfWind
1st runner up: LLMontez
2nd runner up: infinitybeyond
Final Author's Note: Thanks so much to everyone for commenting and a huge thanks to everyone who organises the contest and gave me a chance to spotlight my work. I really appreciate all the comments and the time everyone took to read my story :) thanks again x
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