First 250 Words Smash! #53

Most Wonderful Author: Hafza @ Tumblr
Most Evil Critique Master: Rebecca
Working Title: "Those Who Walk the Darkness"

“Shh, yes, that’s it.” His mother’s voice guided his hand. There was a shift and he slipped. “Oh, be careful, it’s hard to get good ones like these now. They’ve started watching now.”

“But they can’t always be watching, right, Mummy?” His voice was small and childish in the flickering lamplight. There was a low laugh from beyond the edge of the light.

“That’s right, my son. They can’t always be on guard. The darkness cannot be banished for long, and they can’t escape the shadows forever.” He finished his last stroke and reached for the cloth to wipe. “You’re not finished yet.” His mother’s voice was sharp. He sighed as only a small child can, dramatic and exhaustive. “Moth-er!”

“You know that we are not done. Come, I shall show you once more. But from then on you must do it properly yourself.”

She bent to the table and made two caressing movements with the knife. “Can I try it again, Mother?” She looked down at the little boy and smiled. “Not now, my child. Now, we must leave. The Coven is calling, and we have tarried here too long."

“Come here now.” She gathered him in her cloak and disappeared in a swirl of shadows, leaving behind a lone figure on the table. As the lamp flickered out, the last fingers of light illuminated a girl’s face, mutilated and bloody, with two long cuts extending from the corners of her lips, stretched in one last gruesome grin.

Strong Points –
Wow, what a hook! I think this is a great place to start the story, sparking a lot of questions that the reader must keep reading to find out. Why is the Coven calling? Who was the girl, and what was their purpose in carving up her body? How many more bodies have they and will they get away with mutilating?

But at the same time, I really love the contrast of that gruesome ending with the sweet interactions between a mother and child. There were a lot of great moments where the mother-child bond was shown really well:

His mother’s voice guided his hand.

As well as her “caressing” movements with the knife! Add into that the mystery of his mother always just outside of the lamplight, and her mysterious shadow-swirling powers, and we have a really intriguing set-up for a story!


Some Tips –
Making the reader ask some questions is a great tactic to keep them reading, but if the reader asks too many questions, they’ll start to lose their immersion in the story’s world. A lot of what this scene so far is missing is setting—where and when the mother and boy are located. Are they carving up the girl in their personal basement dungeon, or is this out in the woods under a full moon? Is it maybe even in the girl’s own house, where someone could walk in at any moment? Don’t feel pressured to come right out and tell us “This body is located in the basement of 221B Baker St,” but leaving little hints to allow the reader to draw their own conclusions will do the work for you.

For instance, I think we already have some idea of the time period from the mention of the flickering lamp. I assume this takes place sometime before electricity, when lanterns were common. So let’s look at the other furniture we have: the table. Is it a dining room table? An operating room table? Just an ordinary, nondescript oaken table, but with old stains and cuts carved into the wood? Think about what that table could add to the story with the perfect choice of detail, and perhaps there are other props in the immediate surrounding that can help set this scene as well.

A large portion of the lack of detail also stems from the scene’s tone and its balance of Shock and Suspense, the two building blocks of the horror genre. This scene was written with the intent to shock and scare with the big reveal at the end, which is a tried and true storytelling technique! But in order to convey that big shock, I think a lot of the details were withheld from the reader so it would be a greater surprise, resulting in a lot of ambiguous actions occurring in empty space.

This scene could benefit from more concrete details, but those details don’t necessarily have to ruin the surprise at the end. Instead, choosing to reveal the right details should instead ramp up the suspense and make the reader dread the final reveal even more.

For instance, what is the strongest surprise at the end of this scene? I would think that creepy grin and the girl’s dead body. Currently the scene neatly avoids it, and I can almost picture it like a movie camera, zooming in so we can’t tell what’s really going on! However, does the knife need to be hidden in the same way as the body? Let’s look at the first lines of action.

His mother’s voice guided his hand. There was a shift and he slipped.

As I mentioned before, I love that first sentence. The construction is simple, but effective. Subject (voice) followed immediately by verb (guided) and direct object (hand). The first part of the next sentence though is written in the passive voice, “There was.” Those two words in combination tell the readers nothing, yet take up the most important roles in the sentence: subject and verb. The only reason they’re used is to avoid mentioning the knife to the reader. In fact, the final paragraph has such wonderful active and strong verb choices, I think all of the passive voice is a side effect of hiding information to make the twist that much more shocking.

So let’s imagine the same sentence, but this time, show the reader the knife in the little boy’s hands. That sentence can instead read as “The knife shifted.” Or perhaps we’ll get more specific with how exactly its slicing, with “The knife stuck” or “The knife twisted”; or maybe even it’s the boy’s hands that are unsteady, and we can change it to:

The boy’s hands shifted and the knife slipped (in his grasp/and sunk in too far/etc.).

See how much clearer of an image we get from those sentences without even knowing what the knife is cutting? And you can bet the first question on the reader’s mind is “What the heck is that little boy doing with that knife?” But at the same time the right verb choice will make the reader who goes back to reread the scene cringe even more, which is exactly what we want them to do.

Doing a quick read-through of the rest of these sentences and keeping an eye out for more passive voice and weak verbs will help solidify a lot of this scene’s details. For more examples on correcting passive voice, check out Word Smash #42.

Finally, I want to touch on dialogue a bit. On my first read-through, I’m not sure how much information I got out of the dialogue, because I rushed through a lot of it to get to the action and figure out what the mother and son were doing. A lot of that will be corrected with the ambiguity and passive voice fixes I mentioned above, but then I will probably read through just as fast out of pure suspense. I don’t think that’s a bad thing for readers to do, but the writing should take that into account.

A lot of people advise eavesdropping and writing down conversations as people actually talk as an exercise to improve dialogue. While I think that is certainly an important step to get used to flow of conversations, I think it’s also important to remember that dialogue in fiction should cut a lot of the wasted words, like um's and Well's and all that filler we squeeze in while we think of what to say next. Contractions also help move the reader's eye along, unless a character is overly formal. While there's something to be said about Character Voice, dialogue can still be kept simple, so think really hard about every word, to make sure it is working towards either conveying information and moving plot, or revealing the character of the person speaking.

Try making a list of all the important info that the reader should get from the dialogue. For this scene, I would have things like mother teaching son, someone is onto their plans and "started watching", and “The coven is calling." Then I would try and cut the filler that gets in the way of the reader remembering that information. For instance, notice how you could take all of these bolded words out without changing the meaning of the dialogue:

“Shh, yes, that’s it.” [ ... ] “Oh, be careful, it’s hard to get good ones like these now. They’ve started watching now.”

Personally, I’m especially harsh on interjections like “Oh” because I recognize that’s a problem in my own dialogue. Seriously. I’ll look at five lines in a row that all start "Well, Well, Well!" So sometimes I make arbitrary rules for myself, like only one "well" per scene. I probably wouldn't cut all the bolded words in that sentence, but I would take a moment and think, is this word working to reveal my character's voice and tone? For instance, that first Shh—perfect for showing the mother's caring tone and also perhaps the secrecy of the scene. I would vote keep!

On the other hand, I did notice a lot of “Now” recurring in this scene--five, in just six short paragraphs! I would recommend cutting the ones that aren't necessary for sentence meaning to avoid word overdose. Same for names and ways of addressing other characters. We already know from the action that these two are mother and son, so we don't need to hear that except when it's necessary (Like that whiny "Mooo-theeeerrr!").

And on a side note, it's usually good style to have a new paragraph begin when a new character speaks up. That way when readers are reading super fast because the scene is so intense, their eyes can use the empty space to keep track of who is speaking! In Paragraphs 3 and 5, I would make the lines of dialogue into new paragraphs, just so the reader has an easier time keeping track of who is speaking. And between paragraphs 5 and 6, I wouldn't put a break there unless there's a line of action or description in between.


Would I Keep Reading?
Not yet, but I'm curious where you could go with these fixes. I already see a lot of those things working so well in that last paragraph, so I'm hopeful I won't be able to put the next version down!

First 250 Words Smash! #42

First of 2014 Super Awesome Author: Sadie @ Tumblr
Still in Dinosaur Years Editor: Victoria
Working Title: N/A

In the morning stillness, Desdemona could only hear her own footsteps. She was walking slowly so she could scan the ground, but her efforts were only serving to frustrate her further.

She bent. Pressed a hand to the ground. Grimaced, since the moisture of the spongy earth rushed to engulf her fingers.

Everything was brown, soggy, and mostly dead.

She clicked a soft noise of irritation with her tongue and stood once more, continuing her slow walk. Her attention wandered, though, over the mossy trees and mushy dirt in the distance. It was hard to have hope when the forest looked like a dying swampland.

Having any kind of hope was harder since the magic had died, really.
She shoved a hand into her satchel as she walked, counting her findings for the day. Two round penn leaves for healing, three fignius leaves for focus, and one mushroom, barely on the brink of life. They would have to stew it immediately to get anything from it.

“’Mona!”

The voice of her teacher only exasperated her frustration at this morning’s bounty. But she turned and started her way back.

“Coming!”

The morning was brisk. She rubbed her hands together and remembered when she could use the friction of her fingers to pull life and healing from the leaves. The two crumpled leaves from today’s plants would boil to create a simple drink for colds, nothing more.

“Pathetic,” she muttered, and hurried to meet Cal.

Strong Points -
Though it might not be an action-packed start, this is a nice way to drop hints and questions. You have Mona collecting for spells and it leaves us to wonder what sort of world we're dealing with. These questions are great, they're what keep us reading. I want to know if Mona's doing this in secret, if she practices magic without others knowing or maybe she's poor and embarrassed so she collects the ingredients without others knowing. And the dead forest turned into a swamp, what the heck happened there? You've found a nice way to weave these details in without cramming them in, and that's awesome!


Some Tips -
The very first thing I noticed was the use of passive voice. It's in the first paragraph, "was walking" and "was only serving". Using "was" (or "had") plus the verb can at times be necessary, but most of the time it removes us from the character preforming the action and greatly slows down the pace. It's also a lot wordier than necessary.

"Mona walked slowly so she could scan the ground." To me, this has a stronger impact, as there are less steps between me and what Mona's doing.

To strengthen this even more, I might choose a more descriptive verb than "walked" just so to avoid using the adverb with it. Adverbs definitely have their places,  don't get me wrong. But if abused, they lose their effectiveness. Sometimes, they border on telling instead of showing.

Telling is a really hard habit to get out of, but becoming aware of it is one of the best things a writer can do for themselves. Learning to describe and effectively show the reader to a conclusion is so much stronger than just handing over a one or two-word description.

For example, "Everything was brown, soggy, and mostly dead." Well, what does that mean? That doesn't give me much of anything to picture. I probably don't know what a dead forest is supposed to look like, so just telling me that there is one there, and that it's wet, that's not helpful. How did this forest die? Did it burn? Are the trees sick and withering? Is there too much water for the climate and thus the trees have begun to rot? All of these things are very probable, but also very different in presentation. This will probably require research on your part if you don't know what this is like, but the end result will be totally worth it.

Another great way to help this is getting rid of dialogue tags. "Muttered" is telling me how she spoke, instead of showing me with the dialogue or how her body language  reads. If she's just saying one word to herself in the middle of the woods, I can probably deduce that she's grumbling it. Other things like shouting or snapping should be clear in the way the sentence reads. We say fewer words or pick more abrasive things to say when we're pissed. Even in text messages or blog posts, a tone is conveyed without us ever having to hear it. Again, dialogue tags are certainly not taboo, and have their uses, but learning to write without them can really help those description muscles.


Would I keep reading?
Not just yet, unfortunately. I need a little bit more before I'm invested in Mona and her world, and I didn't feel completely immersed. So please, resubmit so that Sarah or I can take a second look! Thank you so much, hope to hear back from you!

First 250 Word Smash! #34

Determined and Courageous Author: MBWriter
Hideous and Monstrous Editor: Victoria
Working Title: N/A

“You know you’re going to change the future, don’t you? I just know it. You’re just too special to stay here your whole life. First, you’re going to go to the sea. Then you’re going to soar above it like a seabird. You won’t know it at first o’ course. You’ll glow brighter than any other. You’re my seabird. That’s right. I know you’ll be my seabird. Fly faster. Fly stronger. You, my little seabird.”

The village sat quaintly in a valley. The wind blew. Winter, though unwelcome, intruded upon everyone’s doorstep and begged to be let in, but no one would oblige. Everything appeared dead--abandoned. But there were glows that could not be seen from afar, a little life breathed into the fireplace of its heart. Though it was weathered, this small village refused to be swept away by the foe.

When it came to it, the village was not awakened when a foreign darkness intruded its sleep. It was another darkness that had seeped into the corners of its streets. The desert was too vast and flat for much of anything to escape the attention of this village, but still it slept on. To the human eyes, nothing had transpired. Nothing could be seen. It was, as it had always been, a desert village.

“Seabird…you’re my seabird.”

The mother’s soft voice was at first only heard by her son. However, the darkness intruded upon the unsuspecting corner house and then they were being watched...

Strong Points -
Wow! Some of your description is really great, and you have a style and a tone that is definitely all your own. It sets a certain mysterious and whimsical ambiance for the rest of the novel, which is really intriguing. I like some of the visuals you have in here, like the glow of the fireplaces, the deadness right before winter sweeps in, the contrast of a desert to the ocean  and a seabird. You have some really interesting concepts going on!

Also, the mother's dialogue is pretty distinct. She has her own way of speaking, and if you can do that for one character, I'm willing to bet you can give all of your characters their own individual voices. Well done! that can be a really difficult thing to accomplish.


Some Tips -
The main issue that really stuck out at me was that you use a lot of passive verbage. Sometimes that can be okay, but it would really strengthen your narrative if you restructured your sentences and made them a little more active.

What do I mean by that? Sentences like "they were being watched" and "the village was not awakened", instead of just saying "(something or someone) watched them" or "the village slept on". When you keep "was" or "had" in there, it puts more words in the sentence and sort of dulls the effect and turns your sentence into a passive one.

For a better idea of what I'm talking about, check out what WriteWorld has to say about passive vs. active voice here. They've covered it a lot clearer than I could ever hope to!

Also, I'm not really sure if this is just a lot of background information or if this is where your story actually starts. So perhaps you need to ask yourself if this is something we can learn as we go, or if this is really where the plot begins. Is this immediately relevant, or is this a character's background that we can discover when it begins to become necessary? That's not something I can decide, only you can.


Would I keep reading?
Oh my gosh this is a really tough answer. I still have a problem with not being sure if the story has actually begun yet. For now I think I shall give you the benefit of the doubt and say yes, if not just to answer my questions. But always feel free to resubmit! We love hearing back from our writers, and we hope to hear back from you!

First 250 Words Smash! #24

Most Wonderful Author: HRH Evvy || Farleythewolf @ Tumblr
Most Evil Critique Master: Sarah
Working Title: N/A

She nearly missed him.

Work had finished an hour before nightfall. The rain was filtering through Miko’s hair, and pooling in the little trench in the lid of her empty thermos. She exhaled slowly, the weight of the mist and her weariness compressing her chest.

She glanced, out of habit, at the space between buildings— not really wide enough to be called an alley— that marked her as only a block away from home. Brownish brick walls, unmarked by doors or windows, extended back to the dead end.  On a sunny day, the light picked out the green leaves against red-tinted brick, the cement bluish, giving the spot an unkempt prettiness. Sluiced with rain, the colors muted to monochrome and make the whole place feel sketchier than it was already.

Obscured by overgrown blackberry canes as he was, she would have missed him, if not for his hair.

Startlingly white, it was rain-plastered against his face. She guessed him to be around her age, mid twenties or so. A ragged tee shirt and jeans, at least two sizes too big, were also saturated with rain and clinging so that Miko could see that he was skeleton with muscle and little else on top. He’d been sitting scrunched up in the space with his eyes shut, but at the scuff of her feet, he moved his head off the wall and hung it, looking up at her through his curtain of sopping hair.

His face bothered her, because she recognized him,   

Strong Points –
This is a really good intro. Structurally, with hints of character voice and an easy flow of varied sentences, I can see style developing and being explored, and that’s awesome. What I love most are the little artful details, the little nuances of description that might have seemed superfluous if not done well, specifically, “Pooling in the little trench in the lid of her empty thermos.” This tiny detail gives a sense of setting, of time and place, right up front, and it also hints at the character.

I also love the detail of the overgrown blackberry canes and the contrast of the alley-non-alley in the light and in the rain. Everything is extremely visual, and being that I’m also a visual person, I love when visuals are done with the least amount of words possible, because I’m also hungry for fast pacing. I like the question posed at the very beginning, and I like the way details are unpacked.


Some Tips –
There are only a few things I can suggest. One, there are a couple times where the passive voice weakens the sentence. As an example, here’s a passive sentence:

“The rain was filtering through Miko’s hair, and pooling in the little trench in the lid of her empty thermos.”

Same sentence, active:

“The rain filtered through Miko’s hair and pooled in the little trench in the lid of her empty thermos.”

My last suggestion is, I think, a combination of two things. The description is good, but I was occasionally confused, felt like there were pieces missing in the setting, something that I wasn’t getting. My understanding was that the alley-non-alley she looked in was a dead end, and I didn’t understand why there were leaves because I hadn’t been shown there were trees or plants yet. The second part of my occasional confusion was I think because of vague descriptors and subjects.

“Startlingly white, it was rain-plastered against his face”, as an example. Especially since this sentence begins a new paragraph, the subject “it” is muddled. It’s always good to lean toward the specific over the vague, the concrete over the ambiguous. Combine sentences and ideas if needed.

Another line I was confused with was “He’d been sitting scrunched up in the space”, because I didn’t know what “the space” entailed. Don’t hesitate to root the reader, to ground them in things that are easy to see versus concepts. Concepts are misleading. Victoria does this sometimes too, when she describes something along the lines of, “His hand hung there.” What is “there”? Where is it? What does it mean? “There” is an empty word, like an invisible place marker, it doesn’t carry its weight. Neither does “the space”.


Would I Keep Reading?
Yeppppp. I’m intrigued by this guy, even by just the shape of his body. I love, love, love visual writing with good pacing, and I would definitely keep reading to see if the pacing keeps up with what I like.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

First 250 Words Smash! #7

Most Wonderful Author: M.A.B. || Writers of Yore

Most Evil Critique Master: Sarah

Working Title: Mwyr

History: Word Smash #3

Chan's lungs were starved to the point of bursting, struggling for air with each gasp. That didn't stop him from urging his horse on faster. He sat forward in the saddle and leaned low over the neck of his horse, teeth ground together to keep from biting his tongue.

He could feel the beat of the wings more than actually hear them above the din of hooves and the distant rumbling of an approaching storm. Each stroke tainted the air with a current of dark magic, and the creak of joints echoed through his own bones. Unearthly creatures chased after him, and he had no other choice but to flee.

If he could only just reach home—

Chan's gaze focused on the ancient tree that grew at the side of the road. It meant that he was close. He allowed himself a small smile and patted his horse's neck. “Almost there, old girl. We'll be safe soon.” He could only manage a whisper, and even that was whipped right from his lips by the wind.

The horse must have understood all the same because her pace increased a fraction.

As they neared the tree, Chan realized that someone was standing beside it, either ignoring the steadily increasing rain or completely oblivious to it. She remained still as a statute, an odd flash of color in the dreary landscape. He pulled up short, legs clamping down to keep from falling off as the horse reared back in surprise.

Strong Points –

Chase scenes are pretty darn awesome. I can see this as a natural lead into what’s going on, starting with this guy and the reader asking the questions of who’s chasing him and what’s chasing him and what the heck he did to earn being chased in the first place and how home will save him from these creatures and— /run-on sentence.

There’s a very strong sense of his character already, especially how, in the midst of whatever’s going on, he can still maintain enough wherewithal to soothe and speak to his horse. Just from the way he orients himself around the horse, he starts to climb out of the page.

My favorite line is the description of the girl as a show of color in the dreary landscape. I cling to visual bits like this, anything the ones that can paint a very stylistic picture in my head. This one is also very realistic in the sense that, in this moment of the chase, he doesn’t identify her details just yet, only vague concepts, such as color or movement (or shape or size, etc.). Many writers feel pressured to get details in as quickly as possible, but there are more important details alluded to here, such as how she’s standing completely rigid. These sorts of details move the reader effortlessly onward.

Some Tips –

This goes into some grammatical language that I’m sure someone else could explain more effectively and accurately than I could, but here’s my “The last time I took a class in grammar was fifth grade and I got a C” version.

This is a great example of action and reaction, or how the action is defined after the action has been made. A smooth flow of action is generated by a formula like this:

a + b = c

As in:

“She opened the door and walked outside.”

But this formula (which I almost typed formular) gets repetitious and boring, and writers will seek ways to work around this. Oftentimes, this leads to a reverse formular formula that looks more like this:

c = a + b

As in:

“She walked outside after she opened the door.”

Of course, in its simple form, it doesn’t read well. Like creative alternatives to the “said” dialogue tag (she whispered urgently; he roared angrily; I gasped breathlessly), this formula can jolt the reader from the story. But in a more complex form, it often does the same thing:

“Almost there, old girl. We'll be safe soon.” He could only manage a whisper, and even that was whipped right from his lips by the wind.

There’s actually two reverse formulas in here. One is this:

“Almost there, old girl. We'll be safe soon.” He could only manage a whisper

c: “Almost there, old girl. We’ll be safe soon.”

a: He could only manage

b: a whisper

The other is slightly different because of its passive tense, but:

He could only manage a whisper, and even that was whipped right from his lips by the wind.

c: He could only manage a whisper

a: the wind

b: (and even that was) whipped right from his lips

In this case, the action is made, and then refined after. It’s like taking two steps forward and one step back when an action scene should charge forward and never (or rarely) look back. During moments of conflict, tension must be at its highest. Shorter, simpler sentences are one of the best ways to convey and propel the reader into a riveting pace. I’d consider rearranging the pieces to look something along the lines of this:

The wind whipped from his lips the words he could only manage to whisper. “Almost there, old girl. We’ll be safe soon.”

a: The wind whipped from his lips

b: the words he could only manage to whisper

c: “Almost there, old girl. We’ll be safe soon.”

(I took each fragment and rearranged them respectively, although this can also be made simpler at the writer’s own discretion.)

The above allows no steps backward. In moments of panic or high levels of adrenaline, the mind works faster, and a good way to replicate this is to make your narrative sharp, clear, and brief:

The tires lost traction. Rubber screeched. He jerked on the wheel and the car swerved. Impact.

Compare that to this:

Rubber screeched when the tires lost traction. When he jerked on the wheel, the car swerved and hit the barrier.

The second example loses the energy and tension that drives the pacing of an action scene.

As an example from the passage above, take this:

The horse must have understood all the same because her pace increased a fraction.

And consider this:

The horse must have understood. Her pace increased a fraction.

Or as another alternative:

The horse must have understood—her pace increased a fraction.

Also make sure to do away with unnecessary words. The phrase “all the same” doesn’t carry enough weight or meaning and doesn’t change or help the sentence. Voice is important to convey, of course, even in third person narratives, but phrases like these are heard and read so often that readers will glaze right over them anyway.

Also, beware of passive tense! The very opening sentence could be so much stronger if “were starved” was fixed, along with other moments further on. “He could feel the beat of the wings more than actually hear them,” I understand is a moment of unreliable narration, which can be a great tool to tell a story, but at this point the reader has just been dropped into this new world and is trying to understand the mechanics of it and what’s going on, so the ambiguity in this instance isn’t readily grasped so early on into the intro.

Would I Keep Reading?

The introduction of the girl near the end was the extra spice for me in this intro, and I can already tell she’s special and I want to know why and what she’s going to do and what he’s going to do and—arg, SUSPENSE.

So, yes, I would keep reading. Work on fine-tuning your style, clipping unnecessary and empty words, then resend it to me so I can focus more on the content!

♥!

First 250 Words Smash! #4x2

Most Wonderful Author: Kendra || Hintsloveswords @ tumblr

Most Evil Critique Master: Sarah
History: First submission

Original Post:

The keep was burning.

House Morier, the most powerful house in the kingdom besides Marlow itself, had fallen.

The true culprit of the act will never be determined, but anyone with any mind knew that Syson was behind it. Syson, the man who made it very clear that he hated his brother, King Rogan, and wanted the throne for himself.

It was well known to the people of the kingdom that House Morier was very close with House Marlow. Why, the young prince himself was betrothed to Morier's infant daughter. It was really no surprise that Syson chose Morier as his first victim.

The screams of the dying could be heard for miles. All of the servants and minor nobility who lived in Keep Morier were burned alive. Lord Raffin and Lady Tara were already dead, of course, killed by Syson's assassins before the fire. Their three children, two adolescent sons and one very young daughter, were said to have been forced to watch their murder, and then killed themselves.

This was not certain, however. There was much confusion that night, and the next morning the keep was silent. Smoke drifted from the blackened ruin of the once magnificent structure like fingers reaching for the sky. The nobility wanted nothing to do with the place, and the lower class kept well clear of it.

Only one strange old woman approached the fallen keep that day, drawn by the weak, pitiful crying of a child.

Revision:

Tavia clutched the hard hunk of bread and dried meat strips to her chest as she darted through  the countless pairs of legs, her small mouth stretched in a grin. Nothing could dampen her  excitement, not even the few people swatting at her when she bumped into them. The bronze and copper coins jangling in her pocket made her do a little skip in delight. She felt rich. The  coin, along with the food, was going to feed the two of them for at least two weeks. Jorah was  going to be so proud of her!

She was heading into the most crowded part of the market street now, and she had to slow  down in order to get through. Merchants and workers alike shuffled through the street, eyes  downcast and dull, faces drawn and streaked with dust and dirt. Their clothes were tattered  and dirty, just like Tavia’s. Her own sturdy coat had holes worn in the elbows and her trousers  in the knees. The men and women around her paid no attention to the little beggar girl running in their midst, and Tavia liked it that way. Jorah always told her that the less notice you got, the  less likely people would hurt you. Tavia was glad that she was so small, able to slip through  crowds without so much of a second glance.

Finally Tavia happened upon the small abandoned building that she and Jorah called home.

Strong Points –

This is much better! Right away I'm drawn into the world you're creating, and as a reader chasing after a character, this is a natural opening and easily lures me into your story without really thinking about it. The questions in the opening are good ones, "Who is Tavia and how did she acquire her hull and what will Jorah think?" Starting out your opening with questions is key, and you've done this well. It's definitely much better than your initial prologue as the beginning!

Also, I like the small sips of world-building you give, what with the coins jangling and the merchants and the workers. You've managed to sneak some atmosphere in there that I really liked without cramming it down the reader's throat! That's tough to do in 250 words.

Some Tips –

The passive voice is still getting to you. You've got some moments of it that work, such as: "Their clothes
were tattered and dirty, just like Tavia’s." This is an organic usage of passive that works in context and doesn't take away from the strength of the narrative.

Here's an example that you can tweak:

"The coin, along with the food, was going to feed the two of them for at least two weeks. Jorah was going
to be so proud of her!"

A basic fix for this is very simple:

"The coin, along with the food, would feed the two of them for at least two weeks. Jorah would be so proud of her."

Fewer words, and more power in each word. Also, I eliminated the exclamation point. The emphasis of Tavia's joy is already taken from the context of the sentence. Children are happy when parents/guardians are proud of them. Most of the time, exclamation marks aren't needed in narrative outside of dialogue, because if you're pouring the requisite emotion into the passage, then the exclamation can be inferred.

(I've been told not to use exclamation points in dialogue either, but pfff, I like my exclamatory dialogue!)

Also, be aware of inconsistencies. In the first paragraph, you note that Tavia gets swat at. The second paragraph, no one notices her.

One last tip: repetition. A way to trim down the fat of your manuscript is to look at whether or not you're repeating yourself needlessly. Here's an example:

"Her own sturdy coat had holes worn in the elbows and her trousers in the knees."

The above is implied when you mention the following beforehand:

"Their clothes were tattered and dirty, just like Tavia’s."

I used to have this problem too, and I spent a long time trimming down unnecessary fat from my manuscript. What happened in the end was a quicker, sleeker pacing. I suspect this is a MG (middle grade) or early YA (young adult) novel, in which case pacing is key.

Would I Keep Reading?

I actually caught my eyes moving on looking for the next lines before I was like, "Oh, that's it? Is that really only 250?" which is a good thing. So, in this case, I would have tested the next few pages. Your content is solid so far, all I'd recommend are a few tweaks to your style, which are easily fixed.

Good luck! Lots of ♥ ♥ ♥!

First 250 Words Smash! #4

Most Wonderful Author: Kendra || Hintsloveswords @ tumblr

Most Evil Critique Master: Sarah

The keep was burning.

House Morier, the most powerful house in the kingdom besides Marlow itself, had fallen.
The true culprit of the act will never be determined, but anyone with any mind knew that Syson was behind it. Syson, the man who made it very clear that he hated his brother, King Rogan, and wanted the throne for himself.

It was well known to the people of the kingdom that House Morier was very close with House Marlow. Why, the young prince himself was betrothed to Morier's infant daughter. It was really no surprise that Syson chose Morier as his first victim.

The screams of the dying could be heard for miles. All of the servants and minor nobility who lived in Keep Morier were burned alive. Lord Raffin and Lady Tara were already dead, of course, killed by Syson's assassins before the fire. Their three children, two adolescent sons and one very young daughter, were said to have been forced to watch their murder, and then killed themselves.

This was not certain, however. There was much confusion that night, and the next morning the keep was silent. Smoke drifted from the blackened ruin of the once magnificent structure like fingers reaching for the sky. The nobility wanted nothing to do with the place, and the lower class kept well clear of it.

Only one strange old woman approached the fallen keep that day, drawn by the weak, pitiful crying of a child.

Strong Points –

Your technical skills are good and solid. Your sentence variation builds up tension, and this is a skill that often takes time to build up naturally and lyrically, so it seems like you have a natural eye for that.

I see some promise in your prose with phrases like “Smoke drifted from the blackened ruin … like fingers reaching for the sky.” I want to see you push that, and I have a feeling if you take my advice below, I’ll see more of it. Either way, I’d still like to see you push it harder, because I can see you’ve got it in you.

Some Tips –

Firstly, you almost had me at the opening, except for one minor detail: passive voice. While passive voice can often work in narrative, it’s always good to double-check with a non-passive variation and see if that’s not stronger.

“The keep was burning” versus “The keep burned” (or smoldered or blazed or what have you).

I do like the pow of the first sentence, and I’m always fond of brevity and an opening line that’s its own paragraph, but after that, you fall into the trap that many opening manuscripts of the epic fantasy quality have: the submergence of exposition. I used to do the same because it felt like a great and epic way to start off an epic story, but it isn’t. A great and epic way to start off an epic story is to start with the story. History lessons should not be lead-ins. Your story doesn’t need a history lesson in the beginning to create intrigue or make sense. Start exactly where the story begins, or where the “conflict” begins with your main character(s).

I critiqued a piece once that had the same problem, and after she took in the advice from me and other readers, she did much better. I’m going to make the same suggestion: throw out this entire opening. Start with your main character (which I presume must be the source of the wailing) at the point in which the story actually begins. All the history can be unloaded organically through the action and dialogue of your story instead of spoon-fed.

I’d even recommend (the same recommendation that I also gave the aforementioned writer) that you abstain from the epic omniscient flair in your narrative, such as “Why, the young prince himself…” and “This was not certain, however.” This can fall into the category of gimmicks to create that epic fantastical feeling, but you don’t need that.

Also, in what tense are you intending to write your perspective from? Past? Present? Future? Because you’ve got a little bit of everything in there: “The true culprit of the act will never be determined”, “It was well known…” and “were said to have been forced…” are examples of all different perspectives.

Would I Keep Reading?

Not yet. I’m sensing that this is a prologue, and personally I put down any novel that begins with a prologue or some sort of preface. Here’s why. (The writer of that particular blog entry is a very respectable agent at a big lit agency as well, and anytime I critique someone with a prologue, I send them thataway.)

If you do decide to take this advice, I would love to see a redo of your opening. I feel like this isn’t a proper demonstration of your skill as a writer, so I hope you do resubmit!

Good luck! ♥