Once upon a time, there was a young girl with light brown hair and gorgeous blue eyes. She always seemed to have an over-active imagination. Most things she would say would always be disregarded, much to her contempt. Such as one day she was playing out in the yard and she would imagine many people. Despite her wishes, they insisted on making her Queen. She argued that she could never be Queen even if she wanted to, for she was far too young. Well, that figures. Queen she became at their very insitance. Unfortunately for her, when she went away from the garden, her subjects followed her, for she was unable to stop imagining the wonderful idea of being Queen. As you can imagine, her parents could see no one, therefore, they rarely believed in the outragous things she told them, although they DID listen with rapture.
As she grew older, she did change in many ways, yet, despite her age, she continuously kept up with her imagination and wild thoughts. This, I realize, is a very short biography on this young girl. I did, however, neglect to mention two important things regarding this beautiful child: she is now 17, and her name is Alyssa.
Hi Katrina. Like I promised in our comment conversation on another site recently, I'm checking out your work in progress. I'm going to try to comment on each chapter that's up so far.
ReplyDeleteHere, I like the idea you've got. While "once upon a time" is a bit overdone for story openings, I think you're doing it because it's a take on Alice in Wonderland so I understand. You switch tenses (was to would see) and it gets a little confusing. Also, I don't think it's clear that the people she's seeing are imaginary so when you say "As you can imagine, her parents could see no one," it doesn't make sense. Hope this helps.
Ok, First of all, thank you very much for commenting and giving me constructive feedback. You are the first person (besides my best friend) to do so.
DeleteSecond, are you trying to say that I should find another, non-cliche way to begin the book? This is literally the only piece of writing in which I use the whole once-upon-a-time aspect. Of course, whether I did or not before probably has nothing to do with making this book as strong and good as it can possibly be.
Regarding the tenses, I realize that I do need an awful lot of work on that. Whenever I DO use past tense, I tend to use it as a form of present-tense story telling. It is virtually impossible for me to maintain a past tense. And believe me, I've tried to write books in past tense and I always fail. It always goes back to first person, present tense. So, I guess the question is, where in the introduction does it seem to switch tenses, That way I can fix it?
And I think I know how to fix the imagined people part. Turn "See many people" to "imagine many people." Does that make a difference?
i love what you have so for it is very good, you could be the next big thing of the writeing world, im being serious. and i love how you opened with once upon a time
Deleteyougotgame, thank you very much. I am glad you like it. Is there anything at all that you think I can or should improve upon?
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