The Writer's Cafe discussion

I've been thinking about this story for a long time now, and I hadn't fully developed the plot until now.

I'm still an incredibly young aspiring writer (13), but I would still really appreciate brutally honest feedback and criticism. Criticism is what I work off of, and it's the main way I improve my writing.

Anyways, this is the beginning, although it's still a draft. It is a little boring at first, but it's supposed to (if everything goes according to plan *sighs* being a perfectionist....) get a little better and more action-packed after the first part.

So.... here is the first part of Pandora's Wrath.

*Note: Some parts of this chapter are supposed to be italicized or bolded, but since I wrote this on Word Document and copied and pasted it over here, those parts are not italicized or bolded. I apologize in advance for confusion, and I will try to edit it later.

　　“Pandora, the first woman created on Earth according to Greek mythology, was gifted by each and every one of the Olympian gods.” the museum guide spoke clearly and loudly to the entire group of students visiting, taking advantage of his naturally deep and charisma-filled voice. The man seemed interesting, but the students listening to him wasn’t paying attention for the sake of learning more about the myth of Pandora, but because in the eyes of most of the female individuals, the young man seemed undeniably cute. He was no more than 21—a couple years older than the seniors visiting. Although Adrienne didn’t want to admit it, he was actually kind of handsome and he looked rather dashing in his ironed suit, but she didn’t want to be like the other flirtatious girls who swooned and fanned themselves--in a rather stupid way—whenever the guide (they didn’t even know his name) passed near them. If the guide noticed their desperately waving gestures, he didn’t acknowledge them, but Adrienne did notice him flashing a couple of the girls a charming, lopsided smile every now and then.
　　“She was created by Zeus, almighty king of the Olympian gods, as revenge for Prometheus—the titan creating man—after he gave man powers stolen from the gods themselves that Zeus did not want them to have. The gift Prometheus stole from heaven and gave to man was fire. Zeus, deeply maddened, ordered the gods and goddesses of Olympus to create the first woman—Pandora—out of clay and water. After the woman was molded, the four Winds blew life into her. Pandora was endowing with gifts from the gods—Aphrodite gave her beauty, grace, and desire; Hermes gifted her with a cunning mind, wits, and a crafty tongue; Athena clothed her and taught her how to be deft with her hands; Poseidon presented her with a pearl necklace that would prevent her from drowning; Apollo taught her how to play the lyre and to sing; Zeus gave her a mischievous mind and an idle nature; and Hera gave her the gift of curiosity,” the man paused for a second after his brief explanation of Pandora’s creation.
　　Adrienne began to lose her interest. It isn’t because she wasn’t intrigued by the Greek myth, but it simply was because the guide told the same story that she expected to hear. Not that she wanted him to change the story up—she was just expecting something... More.
　　The guide pointed behind him to a relief sculpture of Prometheus creating man out of clay and water, and another of Pandora.
　　“Her creation scenes have been depicted in a number of different ways--one is Pandora being surrounded by the gods as she was breathed life into, the other way is Pandora rising out of the anodos—the earth—both were shown in an ancient Greek vase painting,” the guide supplied, while gesturing to two different paintings of Pandora surrounded by the gods and another that showed her rising out of the earth. “In a lesser known depiction, Pandora is shown surrounded by Satyroi, better known as satyrs, in a scene of a long lost satyr play of Sophokles.”
　　The guide stepped towards another sculpture of Pandora, this time Greek words mixed with a few English words were etched at the bottom.
　　
　　Πανδώρα
　　Derived from πᾶν [pān]--all, and δῶρον [dōron]--gifted, meaning all gifted or all endowed.
　　
　　“Pandora’s name means ‘all gifted ’ or ‘ the all endowed ‘,” the guide said, sweeping his arms across the engraved Greek and English words beneath the sculpture of Pandora. “Her other name—which is written on her on a white ground kylix in another museum in England—is Anesidora, meaning ‘she who sends up gifts’.”
　　Get to the part about the pithos already, Adrienne thought, refraining herself from letting out a clear yawn of disinterest. Pandora’s myth was one of Adrienne’s favorites—just the part about the pithos anyways. Casting a glance around her, Adrienne noticed that the remaining students that were actually interested in the guide’s talk about Pandora’s myth were the girls from before—who actually didn’t even pay attention to the story at all, but rather the guide himself. Adrienne also noted that the boys in their group wandered off to stare at naked statues of mythological female figures; she took a moment to laugh softly at one of the boys who stood gawking at the sculpture of Aphrodite and her ostentatious bulging breasts before one of the teachers flicked him behind the ear.
　　“Zeus took Pandora to Epimetheus, Prometheus’s foolish younger brother, for him to take her as a bride. But before he handed the seductive young woman over to Epimetheus, Zeus gifted Pandora with a box containing all the evils in the world—plagues, sicknesses, spirits—and told her not to open it. When she was with Epimetheus, she accidentally opened the box, releasing all the evils into man’s world—punishment for Prometheus’s theft of fire. Pandora, of course, did not know of what was held within the box, and opened it out of mere curiosity—the gift Hera gave her,” the guide paused once again, his eyes passing carefully over the students around him, waiting for someone to ask a question.
　　Adrienne drew in a haughty breath and sucked in her cheeks, contemplating the thought of pointing out to the guide that Pandora received a pithos not a box. It was a common mistake, although Adrienne expected the museums to know the difference.
　　“Any questions or can we move on?” the guide asked the crowd, flashing them another one of his trademark smile—which seemed a little adoringly babyish and it showed his dimple. Adrienne didn’t even know how she noticed such a tiny detail. She usually didn’t detect any slight or subtle detail in any boy—anyone in fact. Caught off guard by her sudden observation, Adrienne forgot that the guide was taking questions until one of swooning girls beside her raised her hand and tugged at the hem of her shirt so that her cleavage could be seen a little more clearer, which made the guide arch one of his eyebrows at her. He didn’t particular seem pleased by the girl and thought he’d seen better, or maybe he was just irritated.
　　“Yes, Miss....?”
　　“Danika, that’s all.” Danika gave him what she thought was a seductive and sexy smile, but was more of ludicrous grin to Adrienne.
　　“Please proceed to your question, if you have one, that is,” the guide said evenly.
　　“What time do you get off?” Danika asked, shooting him the same smile she did only a few seconds before.
　　This comment made the other girls around Danika erupt into giggles, except for Adrienne, who rolled her eyes, and another strikingly familiar girl with dark blonde hair that Adrienne instantly envied. Her hair was a glossy black, which made her face look gloomier than it really is. She never really noticed how pale and lifeless she seemed with her long black hair until she attempted to dye her hair blonde for a Halloween costume a year ago. Of course, blonde didn’t really have any effect on her hair; black to blonde was an incredibly drastic hair color change, and her hair turned a ginger/strawberry blonde—which didn’t look too bad—but it made her hair dry at the ends and it seemed generally dull. It wasn’t until a couple weeks later that her hair began to turn back into some form of normalcy, and she was able to change the color to a deep blonde, which made her notice that her appearance changed dramatically and that her blue eyes went better with the blonde than with the blue. Usually, blue eyes would go better with black hair, but her tint of blue was light like the sky, and the light blue and dark blonde contrasted better than she expected.
　　Her skin also tanned over the course of the last few days after spending too much time in the California sun, making her look even stranger...although she did look kind of exotic, but she didn’t exactly like that word describing her. Lanky build, tan skin, light blue eyes, black hair...not really an attractive appearance.
　　The girl with the dark blonde hair, however, seemed far more pretty than Adrienne—not that she was trying to keep an agenda of who was more attractive than her, it was just... Well, noticeable.
　　Adrienne’s attention was drawn back to Danika when the guide cleared his throat, looking over Danika. He visibly scanned his eyes over her perfectly formed body. Of course Danika would get the attention of such a charming man. She was vain of her looks and looked down on those not deemed worthy of her time, but she didn’t have unprepossessing appearance. Danika was very attractive in fact. Her bright ginger hair was just the right shade of orange, and her almond shaped green eyes made her face stand out in any crowd. Her face was thin, but not too skinny; her nose was petite and light freckles scattered across it; her lips were fully formed and bright in color. In any words, Danika was almost flawless.
　　“Any questions or comments involving Pandora’s myth,” he rephrased coolly. Danika was about to protest and pull another line, but the girl with dark blonde hair cut in.
　　“I’m sure that Pandora was gifted a pithos, not a box,” she said. “The interpretation that she received a box is commonly thought to be true, but originally, in Pandora’s myth, she was given a pithos.”
　　That was why the girl seemed familiar. It was Avalynne, the Know It All senior known by her nickname, “All-A Avalynne.”
　　Of course she would be the one to point it out. It seemed more fitting.
　　“You’re well informed,” the guide praised, smiling at her. “It was, in fact, a pithos; you’ve proved to me you’re the one who knows the most about Pandora’s myth here.”
　　A flare of annoyance shot through Adrienne. She knew that it was a pithos, too. Why did the smart one always get so much credit? Danika rolled her eyes next to her, and Adrienne felt the need to, too.
　　Cool down. Since when did you ever get this jealous because you weren’t recognized for your ‘great knowledge?’, Adrienne thought, although the thought only made her seem more irritated. Instead, when Avalynne turned around as the guide began to usher the other students towards another exhibit—Hercules, maybe, she flashed her a smile.

Hi, fair warning: I'm a pretty harsh critic.

The story shows promise and I definitely want to find out what happens next and how the myth of Pandora features into it.

However, the sentences are sometimes needlessly complicated.
I quote: Although Adrienne didn’t want to admit it, he was actually kind of handsome and he looked rather dashing in his ironed suit, but she didn’t want to be like the other flirtatious girls who swooned and fanned themselves--in a rather stupid way—whenever the guide (they didn’t even know his name) passed near them.
A sentence like that is way too long and hard to follow, it breaks the flow of the text.
The fact that they make the text flow less well is the reason why brackets should be avoided like the plague in narrative texts. Hyphens are a little better, but you should still try to use them as little as possible.
There also are several grammar mistakes in the story.

The way Adrienne's classmates behave is very unrealistic. It is still, after all, a school trip. In real life, they'd probably talk in low voices and maybe giggle a bit and pretend to be really interested in the myth. No one would behave the way Danika did, unless she was drunk.

Also, Adrienne's looks are another trope. She has: Lanky build, tan skin, light blue eyes, black hair . She looks like a runaway model. yet she somehow still thinks she's not pretty. It would be better if there was something that's actually unattractive about her (thin lips? too long front teeth? bushy eyebrows?) or alternatively she does look like a runaway model, but she spends a lot of time working on her appearance.

Ok, before I go critique crazy on you, I want to say that for a 13yr old, this is a good bit of writing. It was engaging, easy to read, and held my interest. What follows are some ideas of how to tighten and strengthen your writing.

Adverbs
You have over 20 adverbs in this short chapter. Use these sparingly. Most times these can be eliminated or you can convey it through action or dialogue. I think of the “ly” ad verb as cheating in my own writing.

Example: “The museum guide spoke [clearly] and [loudly] to the entire group of students visiting, taking advantage of his [naturally] deep and charisma-filled voice.

Try: The deep voice of the museum guide carried well and Adrienne felt his enthusiasm even in the back of the group of visiting students.

This also tells us from the first sentence who’s POV this is and where she is. I had a hard time picturing where exactly she was within the group of students.

At a writing group I attend every week we did an exercise where we wrote an entire scene with the use of adverbs or adjectives. It’s a good exercise and forces you to find other (better) ways of conveying things to the reader.

Sentence Length
Sofia mentioned a couple of long sentences. I agree. I ran the piece through a writing analysis tool that I use for my writing and your average sentence length is about 20 words. That’s just a bit high. Shoot for an average of between 11-18 words.

Example: “The man seemed interesting, but the students listening to him wasn’t paying attention for the sake of learning more about the myth of Pandora, but because in the eyes of most of the female individuals, the young man seemed undeniably cute.”
42 words

Try: Although the myth was interesting, the young man’s undeniable cuteness held the female students’ attention more than learning about Pandora did.
21 words

I literally spend hours re-writing sentences like this. It’s work. And It’s fun (at least I think it is!)

POV: You did an excellent job staying in a single POV. Most young writers struggle with this (heck, I do to sometimes). Here is one spot were we head hop just a bit though… “He didn’t particular seem pleased by the girl and thought he’d seen better, or maybe he was just irritated.”

You start off good “He didn’t particularly seemed pleased…” That’s Adrienne’s POV watching his expression. What might be better though is if you tell us what his face or body language looked like to make her think that. But when you add “thought he’d seen better” we are suddenly in the guide’s head. Easy fix there. “he’s probably seen better,” Italicized as Adrienne’s thought.


One thing I was waiting for though... where's the conflict?

I look forward to reading more.

@Sofia.

The sentence structures actually is something I struggle with. I tend to over-think when I write (or do something else I dunno. Come to think of it, it's probably because I talk in run on sentences most of the time in real life). The grammatical mistakes--I'll try to look over it... Word Document should've corrected most of them or told me that something was grammatically incorrect with the little green squiggly lines. -__-

Thanks for pointing that out. (Danika and how she acted)

I'll revise that part later. She does sound like a runway model now that I think of it. *sighs* XD

@James:

Why, thank you. :D.

:S I'll try to hold back on those adverbs.

I won't say anything about the sentences since I already mentioned them somewhere above in my response to Sofia's critique ^^ (Oh, and I do find [rewriting sentences] a bit entertaining at certain times.)

Point of view. I think that's mostly because I used to RP a lot and I wrote from a specific character's POV a lot.



Um... The conflict is a little bit off... but it should appear somewhere in the next part. (The thing about my writing is that I sometimes start writing without setting up my entire plan before I start, and I spend too much time thinking about the ending that I forget to think about the beginning.)

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Thank you for taking time to criticize my writing! I really do appreciate it. I shall start on the next part sometime soon, but first I'll revise the first part using the tips you two gave me. Thanksss again :D

You exhibit a lot of talent for someone your age. Keep writing and working to hone your craft. You have the best years of schooling ahead of you, take advantage of that.