Hello Weirdone-Back in the games

My name is Dawn and I'll be reviewing your item in connection with "Gang's Monthly Review Board"  [13+] and with the "I Write in December-January-February"  [E]. These are just my thoughts and forgive me if I ramble. Thank you for sharing your writing.


Title:
Suitable since this is just supposed to be that, an introduction to the character. There will be other titles that come up I'm sure, but you're just starting so this is okay. The description says what it is for but not about the story or plot, that is something I would recommend maybe rewording because unless people are looking for character building types, they might skip this one over.


Initial Reaction:
Interesting. It started off a bit slow and I wondered at first if this was going to be one just to learn about the character and not have much conflict but the ending helped change that. Overall, I enjoyed the story the more I read.



Setting:
Typical fantasy so far. While it's not shown a lot in detail in this section of the story, there is enough to hint at the typical almost medieval but not quite fantasy setting with castles and magic, war torn countries and such. Would like to see a little more that makes it different, its own, but I'm sure you'll get around to that at some point.



Character Development:
The focus of this story is on character development, so it worked out okay for the most part. It feels more like the start of a story than a focus on character development though. We do get some information about Dafyd, but it felt more like just a regular story with the plot being a large focus, though it did show a caring character who is learning and growing.


While I am able to suspend belief about a bird growing to be giant (with magic after all), I had a hard time with the bird's name. It's okay to name it after someone but maybe since that someone is not only alive but in a good part of the story, it would be easier to use a part or their name for the bird and not the whole name. It would still be named after her, just with more of a nickname instead of her full name. I guess the full name isn't too bad, it's just since most recommend not having anyone with very similar sounding names, I'd imagine an issue might come up with a character and an important aspect of the story having the exact same name. But I could be wrong.


Plot:
Interesting so far, though the overall story still is yet to come and there hopefully will be more about this character. Right now the character reacts to what comes up but we don't know the goals and conflicts facing the main character.

I like that you introduced the bird first before bringing up the conflict that required using the giant bird. Always need to show the item that can save the day used in regular moments before pulling it out of the hat and going "tada!" and you managed to do that. At first we have no idea what the bird has to do with anything other than showing the struggle in learning magic and how caring the character is, not to mention that it's a younger character without the age actually being given. Though I almost think we need to see something else where that mantra about mistakes being useful or the one about trying could be used again before we get to a bigger moment when it becomes necessary to help solve a bigger conflict, but that depends on the real overall conflict and focus of the story.


Ending:
The ending is when things started picking up. There is a danger and a change in action that moves the character forward. It's more of a beginning than an ending in a way because it's obvious there is much story from this point, and so the end is just where the scene stops and not the story.



Nitpicks and Suggestions:
I don't have much here. There are some things that need developing but I think this is just a starting point and not something you want to publish as a short story, per se. So, I won't nitpick much on the minor details.

Or rather, it all began when his friend, the princess Brendora, stormed into the room holding an injured bird. - This is my one nitpicky point, because it caught my attention right away and since it's the beginning of the story, it stood out. My issue is with "the" before princess. Since this is an introduction to her character I get where you are coming up, however, I think it would work better just to call her Princess Brendora, instead of calling her "the princess Brendora". If you want to use "the princess" it would have to be more "the princess, Brendora, stormed into the room".


Good job and good luck with the story and challenges ahead.





My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .