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 Review #4154554 |
 | Dougal's moor  [13+] First attempt of using my mind  |
| (3.5)  Welcome to WDC from "Newbie Welcome Wagon" !  First Impressions: A very intriguing start to the story. There were quite a few mysterious elements in this first chapter that made the readers curious. The setting was quite dark with the image of the moor, the wind and the impending rain. It immediately gave the readers a sense of something sinister going on, and since this was only the beginning of the tale nothing was explained, you only introduced the idea and the different dark elements that might be at work here. You said a bit about the main character and it was probably enough for a first chapter although you will want to give the readers more details about him later on. For now, the readers got the idea who he was and that his being there wasn’t something he had planned – a good hook to make them want to read more about him. There was also the question about the sheep that behaved very strangely, on the one hand treating him like a friend, on the other hand keeping their distance because they had been told not to touch him which sounded extremely odd. And then there were the dreams that seemed to go a little further each time and reveal a bit more, but never quite get to the ending – not yet, anyway. The relationship between the two boys was nicely described but it wasn’t clear yet who they were or what they were doing.  Suggestions: yet another tedious trek As this was right at the beginning of the first chapter, I think you will need to tell the readers a bit more; to simply say that this was a regular occurrence wasn’t enough. You could describe why he took the journey or what made it tedious to flesh the details out a bit. and wearily continued on his way I think this would work better if you showed the readers that he was weary rather than saying that he was. You could describe the way he walked, for example. as had become increasingly common I wasn’t sure if this was an error or perhaps a hint that something wasn’t quite right. It appeared that he lived alone so obviously no one would ever answer him. If it was a hint then I think you will need to expand this a little to make it clearer. The little one looks at his companion At first I thought you meant to put the main story in past tense and the dream in present tense, but the tense change appeared to be an error because you then continued the main story in past tense and later switched back to present tense. I think it would work to keep the dream separate by putting it in present tense, it would just need to be consistent. as that though crossed his mind Just a typo, “thought.”  Final Thoughts: It’s not a bad thing that there was some vagueness in this chapter because it is likely to keep the readers turning the pages. For a longer story, you want to keep up the suspense and only tell the readers enough so that they can understand what was going on. I’m not sure you’re actually doing that here though; I did feel like there was one strange occurrence after another and none were explained or the connection between them revealed. Like I said, I don’t want the story to be all wrapped up after the first few pages but it needs to flow and to me, it didn’t do that because the events were too disconnected. The chapter did have an unfinished feel so I am guessing that you were planning to write more. If you do, I think it would be important to at least loosely fit some of those puzzle pieces together so that the tale doesn’t feel quite so random. If the readers at least have a clue at the end of this chapter where the story might be going, they will probably want to read on because so far, it looks like quite a unique idea.   My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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