Okay, to start off with, you’ve written an engaging and relatable story. You write dialogue quite well – it’s very flowing and natural, and you balance it well with description. You characterise Layla vividly, and I like lines like ‘On second thoughts, her mood just went down 20 points’ as they give a strong sense of personality. It’s these real idiosyncrasies that give characters their uniqueness and I think you could apply that to some of the other characters as well – such as Katie and Brian, who seem rather stereotypical at this point, to me.

I think you could possibly find a more dynamic way to introduce your character and her boredom – rather than saying she was bored, show us her body language to suggest that she’s bored. Could you say something about how her head is falling off her hand as she’s trying to prop herself up, or maybe her elbow keeps slipping off the table as she starts to drift off to sleep? The same could be used to suggest Cameron’s feelings towards Layla later on. Using body language rather than just feeding your reader the facts can be really effective! You have some really good examples in here (such as Katie’s perked up shoulders falling) but some more would be even better!

Some of your sentences also seem to be quite long – this one for example: “Luckily, she already had a head start on the homework the night before when she could not sleep and stalked out of her and her roommate's dorm and decided to study in the common room in their hall.” There’s a lot going on in this sentence – her head start, her insomnia, leaving her dorm, studying in the common room, and the common room’s location. I think you could possibly split sentences like this into pieces. For example, this one would be restructured to something like: ‘Luckily, she had already had a head start on the homework the night before. Unable to sleep, she’d stalked out of her dorm and gone to the common room down the hall to study.” You could probably cut that down even further. Another issue with some of your longer sentences is that there are literally impossible amounts going on in them, such as here: “Her fellow aspiring engineers muttered to each other as they packed their notebooks, exchanging goodbyes with Dr. Carrie on their way out.” You’ve suggested that the other students were muttering to each other, packing their notebooks, saying goodbye and leaving all at the same time, which isn’t really possible I think Again, what I would suggest here is to divide the sentence in two, possibly at the comma here.

I also noticed some problems with punctuation, mostly near dialogue. When using speech tags (he said, she replied, she announced – anything that can be spoken) you do not capitalise the ‘she’ or ‘he’ and the end of the dialogue has a comma instead of a fullstop. So: “She looks like she’s going to fall over at any moment,” he added jovially. You have done this in a few spots, which is great, but some parts have missed it out.

Another minor thing is your use of adverbs – I think perhaps you use a little too many of them when the verbs do the jobs by themselves. For example, ‘she energetically stuffed’ seems a bit like overkill to me – I think just ‘she stuffed’ would get the point across to readers.

I love the shift in focalisation from Layla to the unnamed boy – that works very well and is in an ideal position in the story. However I do think that it would be clearer to the reader if you included his name in the first few sentences. Just to help them orient themselves in the story. Also, the focalisation in the last sentence seems to shift to be from the perspective of the woman, so it might be best to stick with the man, just to make sure the point of view doesn’t bounce around too much and become confusing ^^

I’m so sorry; I feel as if my comment is almost as long as your story, but hopefully it helps! I know it was all very general, but if you want, I can go through it line by line and show you the specifics of what I mean?

A very interesting poem.  It reminds me of that old Greek tale of pushing a boulder up a hill and it constantly falling back to the bottom – in this case, however, it’s not a physical struggle, but a mental struggle.  As someone who suffers from bipolar depression, I can definitely relate to this poem.  It’s interesting that you invoked physical ailments in the piece, as opposed to mental ailments.  I know, in my opinion, the two constantly overlap.  What bothers me about my condition is that, even though my body experiences the physical pain of depression, I see no wounds, do not see or feel blood.  These lines are great:

“but the stairs are now slicker
from my blood as I slid back down.”

I almost want Depression to be personified as a demon under the stairs in this piece (just an idea).  Like, there is creature who is causing the pain, but it’s invisible to other people, and while you see the wounds, no one else does.  And in doing this, ask specific questions about your character:  if depression was a creature, what would it look like, what does it feed off of, what motivates it.  Then, also of the other character:  When did it appear?  How did it appear?  Who is it really, or what memories do you keep of it?

Also, I think resolving the situation at the end would be a benefit to the poem.  Calling for help is the response that it needs.  But, what shape or form does the help appear in?  For some people it might be in the form of spirituality/religion.  For others, it might mean your mother or father or close loved one.  Or, do you want to have some fun with the piece and introduce a ghost hunter who may be a metaphor for a doctor?
 
Anyway, I hope this brainstorming session helped some.  I found this piece through Project Comment.  Anyway, great writing, I definitely relate and think this piece is well on its way.

Sincerely,
Jason K. 

Let me start by saying this makes an excellent hook.  It grabs the reader's attention and makes them want to read on.  So to answer your question, yes it makes you want to read on to see what happens to Aneskia next.

You mentioned grammar.  Yes, there are a few mistakes which I'll come to in a moment.  But for someone who is writing English as a third language it's very good indeed.  I wouldn't have suspected it wasn't your first language.  This reads better than many stories I read on here written by native speakers. You have a good grasp of language and use varied and interesting descriptive phrases.

As for the grammatical errors.  Well, grammar is something we all fight with every day.  And sometimes I feel it's a losing battle
One point I recognise is something I'm still working on myself; overuse of commas.  Try to keep to one or two commas per sentence before breaking it up with a full stop.  Too many commas can make a sentence unwieldy.  It's not a massive thing but if you want to get published that's something they may pick up on.

I would also tend to break up the last paragraph.  Long paragraphs aren't terrible in print, but in online pieces like this they tend to make the reader glaze over.  I would possibly have started a new paragraph after "...what felt like a solid wall".  Because at that point you go on to describe the new antagonist, which is a different subject.  Thus a new paragraph.

At the start of the third paragraph try dropping the 'after'.  It's not really needed.  It's correct but sort of sounds a little like children's grammar.  The way they learn tenses at school.  As you grow more accomplished you get a feel for when you don't need them, like here.  You don't need to include a time continuation as the events immediately follow one another.
'Rounding the next corner, she...', as opposed to
'After several twists and turns, she...".
The after is only needed when several things or a distinct period of time or event has happened in between.

And lastly.  Spell checker is your friend (unless you are writing in British English like me, as opposed to the normal American style phonetic English you find here on DA).  In the first paragraph, rational has only a single 'n' in it.  You will find you get away with spelling mistakes more in later paragraphs, once the reader is engaged in the story.  But in the first couple of paragraphs they stick out like a sore thumb.

Now please don't take any of these very minor mistakes as criticism.  As I said before your English is better than a lot of the native speakers writing here on DA.  Your story has punch and grabs the reader.  Personally, I lie the fact that you don't specify what species Aneskia is.  It's a teaser.  Something to make the reader read on further.  You've hinted she isn't human but not said anymore than that.

I hope this helps, and I look forward to seeing that first chapter, and the subsequent ones here on DA (unless, of course, you intend to publish them).

While I can understand the premise involved, I wonder if you are trying too hard to be philosophical.

There are some good points here but on a whole the writing seems forced, as if you were just writing what you thought would sound deep rather than what you feel. And I'm not trying to be harsh or overly critical.

For instance,  "'Bad things happen to good people.' Not necessarily. Bad and good things happen to everybody." This is a good line,  because it offers thought and introspection on something most people can relate to.

However other parts seem meandering and not well thought out such as here: "we're not real to them, so no one is real. Maybe we have a separate life, where different thing happen" the abrupt change in subject might seem deep to some but I personally found it unprovoking. Try to add depth to what you mean with more detail or description and try not to abruptly switch topics, make sure each thought flows into the next one seamlessly.

What I'd also like to see and what I think might make this piece more meaningful is hearing more about how you feel about the things you have mentioned. I can tell what you think about them from what is said, but maybe you could try adding a touch of emotion or imagery for a more personal and deeper association.

This is a very nice starting battle that introduces two main characters and sets events in motion that will eventually bring them together (I'm speculating). Here are a few thoughts, and as always, it's just one person's opinion, so please feel free to completely disregard what I'm saying if you don't think it's applicable.

Introducing a character's physical description is really difficult to do. You've spent paragraph 2 doing this, but I'll challenge you: The characteristics you give Paul sound somewhat similar to what you'd find in a police report: height, weight, identifying features, haircolor, age. Thousands of guys fit this id, aside from the missing eye, it's not going to positively identify just one guy in say, Los Angeles. None of these features tell us about his personality. To give you an example of what I mean, here's one of my all time favorite character introductions, the father (who gets murdered) in Brothers Karamazov:

"I have mentioned already that he looked bloated. His countenance at this time bore traces of something that testified unmistakably to the life he had led. Besides the long fleshy bags under his little, always insolent, suspicious, and ironical eyes; besides the multitude of deep wrinkles in his little fat face, the Adam's apple hung below his sharp chin like a great, fleshy goitre, which gave him a peculiar, repulsive, sensual appearance; add to that a long rapacious mouth with full lips, between which could be seen little stumps of black decayed teeth. He slobbered every time he began to speak. He was fond indeed of making fun of his own face, though, I believe, he was well satisfied with it. He used particularly to point to his nose, which was not very large, but very delicate and conspicuously aquiline. "A regular Roman nose," he used to say, "with my goitre I've quite the countenance of an ancient Roman patrician of the decadent period." He seemed proud of it."

None of these characteristics tell us anything specifically police-report identifying about the character, but they guide us to form our own conclusions about the man's repulsive character and flamboyant sensuality, and it sets up a certain lack of reader sympathy for when the man is killed by his son later in the book. Instead of highlighting the basic features, the description highlights the unusual features, and often features that can't really be described in any way but by the printed word. The literature medium gives you a huge advantage by guiding your reader to focus minutely on the story and characters, so why spend the precious opening paragraphs without seizing that opportunity?

You've obviously spent lots of time polishing and repolishing your work here, and seem acquainted with standard writing conventions and tropes, so I'll just hand out a few thoughts on the rest of the chapter:

Beware of Hollywood exposition.

Conflict, conflict, conflict. The earlier the better. We're introduced to one side of this fight, but who are the other guys and why is everyone fighting?

Skip the dialogue pleasantries and get straight to the meat of the conversation.

There's a pair of lines: "Paul closed his eyes/Paul opened his eyes". The grammar nazi in me wants to say 'eye', but if you did, I think I would have laughed at the line, which didn't seem appropriate to the narrative at that point.

I'm enjoying your descriptions of the locations, the objects, and the setting. I also like your typesetting. Thank you thank you thank you for using a serif font! I appreciate the page format, the width of the gutters, and also the simple numbers at the bottom of the page. It helps readability a lot, and I know how much effort typesetting a book is! The overall story reminds me a bit of the inestimable H. Rider Haggard, who has written the most gripping battle scenes I've ever read. I'd suggest him as a comp, and recommend how he sets up his characters and the battles. King Solomon's Mines, all the way. Overall, it's a great start. Good luck with your work on this project!

So, where should I begin? Probably from asking you if you really are this much of a beginner. Giving all the attention you gave to details and editing, it seems that you're kinda used to the art of writing. Could this be a side-effect from being a visual artist? One way or another, the result's the same: nice work.

I really enjoyed the detailed portraying of your characters, amongst all things. Your protagonists are surely interesting, but what really intrigued me was that sinister, eerie instructor. He reminded me of my OC (or myself, heh). Really neat.

What to say about ambients? Not bad, but I would've liked to see a little more room destined to their description. Don't be afraid about shifting all of the readers' attention to the world, though, since the characters are clearly dominating.

Again, since this is your first time asking for feedback on lit, I'll end by skipping directly to the grammar evaluation. So, let me say that I appreciated your skills at paragraphing, as well as the indentation: it really pleases me to see that there's still someone who cares about these things.

The one and only tip I could give you is to skip references such as "the girl identified as Alis"; what an author wants to achieve is to draw and paint in the readers' imagination what they see in their own mind. This kind of structures has the potential to break the status of semi-trance you put the reader in, and you don't want to do that. Refer to your characters by names and/or physical/psychological traits, such as: "«What are you babbling about? A frontal assault is the only way to go!» the stubborn colonel yelled".

Aside from that, your work made my subconscious think about some new stories to write, so excellent! I'll read the other chapters as soon as I can.

Now then, the first and most important thing about this story is that it is, in fact, a complete story. Many beginning writers have the unfortunate tendency to write down a series of loosely connected events, and then abruptly cut the story short via some last event. Sometimes, this means throwing up their hands and just killing everyone off. Other times, it can mean just stopping the story right where it is, and then calling it a "slice of life" piece. (Yet even slice of life pieces actually have to have a sort of plot and the standard internal structure of a story.)

Fortunately, your piece of writing avoids this. It is, very much so, a completely self contained story, and as such the reader is left with a sense of closure at the ends. I can't tell you just how much this strengthens works of fiction. Any work of fiction is helped immeasurably by the very fact that it contains an ending, as opposed to an end.

Now then, I want to talk a little bit about the way you have organized your paragraphs, and their internal structures. There is a lot of online fiction that consists of a great many paragraphs, but yet have each of these paragraphs contain only one sentence within them. This is very sloppy form, and indicates a level of impatience on the part of the writer.

In general, a paragraph contains a series of sentences, each of which develop and illustrate the first sentence in said paragraph. Writing a single sentence paragraph implies a misunderstanding of the reader on the part of the author. It implies that you, as the author, have an entire image in your head, and that you expect the reader to comprehend the full magnitude of that image within the scope of a single sentence.

But such thinking is actually backwards. The point isn't to expect the reader to do the dirty work of extracting the full scene from a single sentence. Rather, the point is to use multiple sentences in a paragraph as an opportunity to develop and embellish the image or scene represented by that first sentence. This is why paragraphs exist: They separate the discrete moments of the story into easily recognized "camera shots" within the flow of the narrative.

To represent each of these paragraphs with a single sentence would be like Hayao Miyazaki animating his films with 3 scribbles per frame.

Having said that, however, there are reasons to use a single sentence paragraph. Probably the oft cited is to really bring home a particularly poignant image or thought. Having a single sentence paragraph does wonders for setting the mood and atmospherics of a piece of writing. Thus, it's actually quite justified in a narrative such as this one; This is a ghost story, after all.

But again, writers need to resist the temptation to abuse this literary technique. When one is blazing along a narrative, it can be all too easy to justify single sentence paragraphs as needed for evoking "atmosphere". But let's not kid ourselves, here. You have used the technique in this story too many times. There are too many places in your story where embellishing and detailing the image of the paragraph would have been preferred over simply writing a single sentence. The sheer number of them works against each of their individual effects, too, and dilutes their power.

There's really only one way of dropping this habit, and that is to write very long paragraphs for a while. I mentioned above that so many one liners make the writer look impatient. Well, if you force yourself to write longer paragraphs, you'll learn to deal with that sort of impatience. Having mastered doing so, you'll be much better at learning when to use a one line paragraph, and when not to.

I also want to mention the main character, ostensibly the ghost whom the family awoke with the Ouija board. The reader gets the impression that the ghost isn't particularly interested in actively haunting the family. Rather, she seems more like a disoriented entity that is only vaguely aware of just what she is doing to the family. As a result, she comes across more sympathetically than perhaps you had intended.

On the other hand, if you were intending to make a sympathetic ghost, then the words "bitch" scattered multiple times throughout the text make her less sympathetic. Having said that, I get the feeling like the word "bitch" was scattered around in order to evoke an "edgy" tone to the piece. Perhaps the main character was a gutter child in her life? Irrespective, it seems too forced. There's not enough development elsewhere in the plot to make her usage of the word "bitch" seem natural. This is an excellent example of where longer paragraphs can really come to the rescue.

There are other elements of the story that caught my eye. In particular, I feel like you were trying to be too clever with the first image of the second paragraph, " I am the absence of focused beams of purging light". This is obviously "darkness". Alas, the paragraph, and the image as a whole, would have come off much more strongly if you had simply used the word "darkness" in lieu of a clever metaphor. Indeed, the best metaphors are simple, not clever.

You evoke a good mood with your story. The story goes somewhere, and sticks the landing. It accomplishes what you want it to do, and that's a very good thing. There's a great deal of room for improvement, but I suspect you already know that. I definitely don't think you were aiming to write a Tolstoyan masterpiece with this story. You've got talent, and a knack for the sound of the words. Thus, if you keep practicing and polish your craft...

you'll go far, kid.

I found this interesting, and will share my thoughts on it. This might run a bit long, as I do tend to get detailed. First off, I read all poetry aloud, even free verse. For the most part, the rhythm of this poem is excellent. If I could make a suggestion, I would take out the punctuation. Originally, I was going to make some comments about possible changes in punctuation, but then thought that your poem might be better served without any punctuation at all. For example, the question mark after "Dreaming" in the second stanza seems out of place, and awkward after the "daylight;" in the line above. On one level, "Dreaming" could be the first word of a sentence that continues "of another place where nightmares cannot reach me. But it could also refer to the act of sleeping in a daze through the daylight. If there was no punctuation, the word dreaming would serve as a link between the two thoughts in that stanza. I have found that when there is some ambiguity, it leaves room for the reader to assign the meaning that they would like to it, or make them think more deeply about the poem. Now I did think of an exception to the idea of no punctuation. I really liked the way you repeated the first stanza at the end (I'll confess that I've done something similar in short pieces of prose fiction, so I may be biased), making us think of the cyclical nature of things. Adding an ellipsis (...) at the very end would emphasize that point, if that's something that you wanted to do.

After the third reading, I was struck with the sense that some was missing. I had no idea what was causing the nightmares, pain or anxiety. If you meant to leave the root cause ambiguous or unknown, I am not sure that this was necessarily a good thing. I don't think that you want your readers to feel empty at the end of reading your works. (I know I don't) You set the emotional hook but the reader is never reeled in to any sort of revelation or denouement. We cannot fully invest in the poem if we cannot identify with the narrator. We might feel an amount of sympathy, or think "I've been there", but nothing deeper. I am not saying that you need to be totally transparent in revealing the cause or causes, but giving the reader something to hold on to, or think about, can deepen the emotional connection that the reader has with the poem. You can word the background information in such as way as to leave some room in the readers' minds to draw their own conclusions based on their own experiences, fears, etc. and that added emotional connection will make the poem more meaningful to them.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. I will choose something that I am assuming was not the cause of the narrator's distress. Here is an alternate treatment of the last stanza:

My heart beats
Slow
Fast
Deep.
Pounding
Joined by another
Deep inside of me

In this way, I have told the reader that the narrator is pregnant without being obvious about it. Now the reader can connect the dots from the earlier stanzas. One can think of the many reasons why she might feel this way. How can I tell my parents (or husband, depending on the circumstances)? Should I keep the baby? Can I be a good mother? Will the baby be healthy? Depending on the scenario(s) that might pertain, you could give clues to these in the stanzas above. I hope that this gives you some ideas, whether for this poem or for your future writing.

Please feel free to ask any questions that you might have.

This drabble surprised me! I rarely see Vocaloid fan fictions where elves appear, probably because there are almost no Vocaloid songs about elves. How did you come up with idea for this? Maybe there is a song which inspired you?

I like how strongly you expressed Haku's emotions! While reading, I could feel upset for her myself. And how the director reacted to her words... His fear is also seen clearly because of his behavior with his pen. I like how you use those tiny details to show how your characters feel! And how Haku told the director about her mother - I like how you paint the cruel view... sushi part especially amased me! This is grotescue but impressive.

I also like how you start and end your drabble with the same sentence. This way, you reveal importance of the fact that Yowane Haku does not like being called something she is not.

She is half human and half elf? Are there any details about her appearance that show her blood link with elves? If there were any, then Haku would have a right to be so upset about being kept pure human. I'd advice that you included here something about her appearance which would show that the girl is half elf. Or, if she doesn't have any elf features in her appearance, you could mention this - this way, you would show in what difficult situation Haku is: she is half elf but she can't prove it for her appearance is entirely human.

I didn't expect the director to get scared like this just because Haku told him some scary things about Hokkaido elves. Students sometimes talk nonsenses just to show how cool they are - I thought that the director will remember this fact and won't believe Haku, but he was strongly affected by her words... I guess Haku is a good speaker in this fan fiction? Or maybe there is another reason why he believed? Did Haku's voice sound different when she was telling him this? I'd suggest you included the reason why the director was so strongly affected by what he heard from her.

Generally, I really like this drabble - it is short but clearly tells about the situation Haku is in and strongly reveals her emotions. Keep up the good work!

Okay, I immediately notice how liberally you used paragraph breaks. I'm going to admit that when I gave the story a precursory scan, that turned me off quite a bit. As well as all the caps, and the incomplete sentences without punctuation. However, I started reading the story and was pleasantly surprised by the direct stream-of-consciousness narrative style. Even still, it is quite eccentric and VERY fast-paced. It took a few re-reads for everything to sink in and for me to actually understand what was going on. I think in your attempt to capture the frantic, vengeful, bitter, and lonely thoughts of a ghost, you overdid it just a bit with the style.

But as for the story itself... I think it's refreshing to be told a story from the ghost's point of view. It's been done before, sure, but not often enough in my opinion, and especially with such a violent and bitter tone. I like how the first scene is about how the people stirred the ghost, implying that it was at peace before they pulled out the ouija board and their attempts to communicate is what set it off.

The scene in the middle where the ghost kills off the old woman actually read as humorous to me because of how bad it wanted a cigarette. That caught me off guard, but I liked the idea that addictions in life remain with us in death.

I like the implications of the line "I peel the wallpaper and show her the secrets underneath." It makes me assume the ghost died in the little girl's room and some sort of evidence of their tragic/traumatic death is written on the walls. It also has the connotation as to why the girl can sense the ghost more than her parents.

Now for the ending... I'm going to be honest, I like ambiguity, but I have NO IDEA what you're trying to imply there. Is the ghost staying behind now that their house has been vacated and reclaimed? Or is it somehow going to leave the house and possess/haunt the green bear (which I'm imagining as Good Luck Bear of the Care Bears for some reason) and the girl? Or you trying to imply that the girl will never forget the trauma she's experienced and the bear is a totem representing that? Is it even trauma? Perhaps the girl and the ghost formed a positive bond. Hmm...

Anyway, those are my in-depth thoughts. Do with them what you will, but know that I did enjoy this story quite a lot. Lots of subtext, mystery, and ambiguity which is exactly what you want when it comes to horror.

And good luck on the contest!

The first thing I noticed was that it your story is in second person, which is relatively hard to pull off. For me, it is actually pretty hard to get a hooked in a second-person told story.

Scales glint in the afternoon sun as the massive creature glides effortlessly away, spined tail flicking in the air currents.

Sighing, you crawl out from your hiding spot, covered in dirt and brambles.

Sighing you crawl out from your hiding spot, covered in dirt and brambles. Although beautiful, dragons are also deadly. A wild one such as this would consider you easy prey....and then there's also her nest to consider. Golden dragons are renowned for being aggressively protective of their young. This seems a little flat and almost boring. It doesn't really capture your reader.

For a hunter you are. You seek to claim for yourself a dragon egg. You sound like Yoda here. It's not very attractive.

Like a good child, you helped your parents sell their wares and even had a tutor hired to teach you what you would need to follow in their footsteps: reading, writing and arrhythmic. The way this is written, it seems like as a child you hired a tutor for yourself.

Instead of sticking to the basics of how to read ledgers and write inventory lists, he would produce finely crafted leather bound books from his satchel, reading tales of faraway fantastic places, full of colour, adventure....and of course dragons. Avoid things like "fantastical" it makes you sound childish. Plus this sentence is a wee bit long.

Once imprinted, dragons bonded to a single human for life, a strong telepathic connection that only death could break. You need to rearrange this. Once a dragon imprints it creates a strong telepathic connection with just one person that only death could break.

Over the years dragons and their riders have served in many capacities, from war heroes to intrepid explorers. In this current day and age however, the most highly regarded riders compete in the Draconic Challenges.

A stylised warfare where no holds are barred and injury....sometimes even deathisnot uncommon.

Yes, it is a race to the finish line in its simplest form, but only if you could make it through the course in one piece.

Winners were glorified; fame and fortune awaited them. And the losers? Well, although less glamorous, there was always work to be had, so long as you survived. Are you trying to say that the winners got the best jobs or that the winners win a bunch of money?

Your parents and older siblings despairat your foolishness.

No one of your modest means could ever hope to gather the gold required for such an extravagance.

Rarely done because it is almost suicidally risky, it's your only option if you wish to proceed. You should probably change suicidally risky to ... it almost spelled certain death,...or... because it is basically suicide, however it's your...

---

Now the story itself:
You have a pretty good base. I like the dragon rider/human imprint.
You're not very captivating. It takes a lot to really get into the story. This is probably due to the fact that it is 1. in second person and 2. it drags with the explanations a bit, which don't really help with the second person viewpoint.
Why do we care about the dragon challenges when we don't even have a dragon yet?
Honestly, the end doesn't really invite me to read the rest of the book.

---

Sorry, hope this helps you a bit.