6/23/2012 c2 18Queen Katrina the Seafarer
I highly doubt a Queen of Narnia would act the way Lillyana does. Also, concerning chapter one, maybe you could expand upon how she got hit by the bus. Was she standing in the middle of the road? I don't mean to be rude, just inquiring.

6/5/2012 c1 6Maharani Radha
Hi there.

First, I want to say, good for you! You took the initiative to put your writing out there. Good for you! Now, I will be honest with you, so please don't take my criticism as a personal affront. My only goal is to help you become a better writer.

1) Summary: I think your summary could use some punching up. The summary is what attracts readers to your story. Right now, all your summary says is about a character named Jane. It doesn't really give a hint as to how Jane is involved in the events of Narnia. I know a summary is a trivial thing, but when you first pick up a book, what do you do first? You read the back for the teaser/summary. That's the exact same thing for the summary of your story, except it's only 200 characters. Now your summary doesn't need to be long, but it should give general info as to what your story will be about without spoiling it and being interesting at the same time.

2) Grammar: Ok. Your grammar could use a little help. So far, your spelling is great, but your grammar needs a little work. English grammar is one of the toughest things to learn, trust me. We have all these rules in English and yet, we have one hundred exceptions to the rules. I don't exactly have room to explain all your grammar mistakes, but I can point out an example:

"Sliding in to a desk and setting down her books."

Right now, this sentence is a fragment. The general sentence structure is subject verb. Here, you have a verb, but you don't have a subject. Here's an example of how you can revise this:

"Jane slid into a desk and set her books down."

If you would like some more help with your grammar, PM me and I can point out the rest of the mistakes.

3) Detail/Character Development: This chapter is relatively short. You can make a chapter as long or as short as you wish, that's your prerogative. However, there is a lack of detail in the chapter. Everything seems a little bit too straight-forward. Details add interest to the chapter. Right now, I know nothing about Jane. All I know is that she has red, frizzy hair and considers herself a nerd. That can apply to millions of people around the globe. Here are some suggestions to "beef up" your character.

a) Why not give a little bit of Jane's personality? Have her interact with other characters. Let us see what kind of person she is. Is she smart? Funny? Serious? Annoying? Bitchy? Obviously, personalities aren't black and white. They are gray. Creating a character is probably the most fun part of the story. You get to pick what her personality. Play with it. See what you can come up with.

b) Include her home/school dynamic. Right now, we have a very monotonous description of what she's doing after school. It reads like this: Jane did this. Then she did that. Then she did this etc. and it just seems to go on and on. Why not include something about her schoolwork? She's a senior after all. She's had a lot of experience in school. What is her favorite subject? What's her least favorite? Does she even like physics? Does she like school? Include her home life. Does she get along with her parents (be careful not to put in too much Rebellious Princess Syndrome as that is cliche)? Does she have a lot of responsibilities? Does she have a job? What about a job?

You see, we're itching to know more about Jane. Right now, she's flat. We don't know anything about her. It's your job to make her come to life for us. It's also your job to make sure that we can empathize/sympathize with her. Why should we care about her? What makes her so special?

c) Show. Don't tell. Instead of telling us that Jane feels overwhelmed with the feeling of college, show us. This is that hardest part of writing. We have a tendency to just "tell" our readers things so we can get to the interesting parts. However, when you show us something, it makes it more interesting. Here's an example:

"Jane bounced in her seat, ready to receive her physics test. She had studied really hard for it and she was sure that she did well, however, she was not sure. No matter how hard she studied, physics never made sense.

"When the professor slipped a piece of paper on her desk with a disappointed look on his face, Jane knew that her grade wasn't good. Hesitantly, she turned the paper over and saw her score written in a bright red marker: 45/90 F.

"Silently, Jane cursed herself. She had, yet again, failed another physics test. She crumpled the paper into a huge ball and shoved it in the waste-basket as she exited the room."

Do you see the difference between this and a sentence that says "Jane was bad at physics"? Now, obviously what I wrote above is not perfect, but I hope that you can see the difference between showing and telling. When we read a story, we create a mini movie in our heads. This helps us to visualize things much easier. When you show us things, we can easily visualize what you are talking about and connect with your character much more.

I hope that this advice helped you. Again, my only goal is to help you with this story and help you become a better writer. If you would like me to beta-read this story for you, I would be more than happy to help you. Please, PM me if you have any questions.

Have a great day!