by Silverhart » Fri Dec 28, 2012 10:57 pm
Let me just say, I'm not really into 'Warriors'; I'll establish that right now. I do know the series and read the first few books years ago. But you asked for a critique, so I'll simply critique it on writing and not get all bent out of shape because names are wrong or whatnot. Speaking of which, I really like the names of the cats, like Gorsewhisper and Finchstalker. They seem creative, and different then the names in the books. Some people may say they're too creative, and don't fit in the canon, but who cares? I think they're clever.
I'm not sure what kind of critique you're looking for, so I'll just give my general impressions and suggestions by chapter.
Prologue: The only problem I see is I couldn't tell the difference between Grass-star and Brackenstar. It took me a while to figure out which cat was which. I think the problem may because you write a paragraph about the StarClan cats, and add a sentence at the end about Grass-star, which made me think Grass-star was a part of the StarClan cats. It'd be better if you introduced Grass-star in a different paragraph.
That was the only problem I saw. But I would encourage you to add more if you felt like it! A few more descriptive sentences wouldn't hurt this chapter.
Chapter One: Wonderful details here, especially in the first paragraph. You might want to consider breaking them up into smaller sentences though. The first sentence is especially wordy, with too many adjectives and subjects. But you can get all the description of the morning, the wind, and Silverdance waking up by breaking up that wordy sentence into a couple of smaller sentences. The flow will be better, and handled right, it'll build a lot more tension. (In general when you want to build more tension, such as during action scenes, you want to keep your sentences short and quick.) Keep that in mind when you're writing, as I noticed a few sentences that could be broken up. Reading your story out loud to yourself will help you spot where it's too wordy or where the pauses should be. As an example:
“She shifted on the hard stone floor of the cave; thinking of her father, tears were brought to her eyes, one of them escaping gingerly before she shook her head and tried to sleep again.”
You can replace the semi-colon with a comma, and the comma after 'father' with a period, so that you're left with two sentences. This flows better then rushing through the entire sentence, and the reader still understands why she is crying. They may need a bit of reworking after you've split them in two, but you get the idea.
Chapter Two: Couldn't really find anything to critique here. It's well written, the dialogue looks good to me, and you've introduced Grass-star's problem quite well! I guess if you want to add more you could spend some time introducing the other cats in the clan who will be important to the story, or focusing on adding more description.
Chapter Three: Didn't see much wrong with this one either. ^^ Honestly, you're a very good writer, and you'll only get better the more you write. I think you've got a good start to the story, and I would encourage you to finish it. Don't be afraid to add more description! I'm positive you can do some wonderful description when you set your mind to it - I can see some it in your writing already - and your story will definitely benefit from more of that. ^^ Watch out for those wordy sentences though, and try to catch them and break them up in editing. Remember to try reading out loud to see how the sentences flow, and where the pauses should be.
Hope I was a little bit helpful! I tried to keep it short and sweet. It's kind of a shame not many people have read this yet, as I'm sure a lot of 'Warriors' fans would enjoy it. It's pretty recent though, I'm sure you'll get a few more followers if you keep working on it. Good luck!