Shut Up and Review

#14: The Goddess

The Goddess's Chosen by Jessica Powell

The Goddess's Chosen is a story that takes place in an alternate reality where magic is a closely guarded secret. The protagonist lives in Colorado, inside a protected enchantment until she breaks out on her eighteenth birthday only to be struck by tragedy.

First things first. As soon as I read the opening paragraph, I was almost immediately about to say that a narrative style of history telling isn't the best way to start a story. However, a few paragraphs later I was proven very wrong because as it turns out, it was a narration within the story. And that's not a bad thing at all.

It's definitely a different way to start a fantasy book and I must admit, while it originally threw me off, I really liked the prologue. There was a certain amount of mystery and good brief descriptions, enough to get your attention and to get the reader to come back for more. If the sudden switch-up between the narration and the rest of the prologue was always the intention, great! You've done it really well. However, if it wasn't, try starting the narration with quotation marks instead.

I absolutely loved the contrast that chapter one brought. Ivory as a much older person feels trapped by the very barrier that is supposed to keep her safe. You've done a great job in the show vs tell area. It's something a lot of writers miss. I did notice small inconsistencies with the tense. For instance, in chapter one, the first few lines read:

**All I have to do is step through**

**I reached out ...**

If past tense is your desired mode, as it seems to be from the rest of the chapter, then the first line should have said "had." Same again in paragraph 11, the sentence should read "I didn't understand." There are a lot of similar examples throughout the chapter and subsequent ones. Have you tried using a word processing editor like Hemmingway Editor? Pop your chapter on the editor before you publish it. It's a nifty little tool that points out small things like tense inconsistencies and complex sentences.

Another small nitpick I had was the way your direct speech was written. I'll pop some of the rules here to make it easier.

If the tag is written before the dialogue, don't forget that the beginning of the speech is still the beginning of a sentence. You have to capitalise the first letter.

**Mother came up behind me and took the lid from my hands, "if you keep disturbing it, it will take longer to cook."**
The "I" of "if" should have been capitalised.

Alternatively, dialogue tags at the end always start with a comma if you use "talking verbs" like said, asked, whispered etc. However, if you use "action verbs" like do, be, point, stand etc. then a full stop and a capital letter is the way to go. In that case your sentence:

**"Ah ah don't touch! It's not done yet." My mother warned.**
Should have a comma after "yet" and a small "m" for mother.

Grammar aside, there were a few other things that would help the flow. Ivory longs to see the world outside and connect with people, while that curiosity is understandable it wouldn't have lasted until she was eighteen. At least not to the point for her to try and sneak out of the enchantment. Eighteen years olds are past the rebellious age.

In addition, the inward groaning and rolling eyes is more consistent with younger teenagers. At eighteen, teenagers have more developed emotional abilities. They are a little more mature and rarely have emotional outbursts. In comparison, Xavier seems far more mature.

There is the possibility that Ivory was intentionally written as immature because of her lack of social interactions outside of her parents. If that was the intention, ignore me completely.

The story does follow slightly typical werewolf lores of finding and recognising their mate. However, the mate being the chosen was a nice twist.

Overall, I definitely enjoyed the story. It was a well-written first draft.