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August Prompt Challenge has been published: "Write about the stupidest yet most meaningful and poetic thing you can think of.  For example: A marshmallow falls in love with a mug of hot cocoa. He loves her so much and knows that in order to be with her he has to melt. And have a slow painful death, but for her." 

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Comment Topic: From this chapter, were you able to identify the Protagonist's internal need, how has the author achieved/not achieved this?

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Author #1: CoraFoerstner

Book Title: Dragon Speakers

Specified Chapter: Chapter 1

Summary Thus Far in Book:  N/A

Author's Note: I'm excited and thrilled to be spotlighted and receive your feedback. YAY! I want to give a shout-out to Dawn and all those who work to make #NBR the great place it is.

Note for reviewers: the target audience for this book is at the lower end of the YA spectrum. I realize this won't be a widely popular genre. So if you aren't into this kind of fantasy, no worries. I do look forward to your feedback on character, conflict, etc.

My questions:

1. In this chapter, I'm introducing Gwendolyn, the MC, and Risby, her friend who stays with her throughout the story. I'd like your responses to both characters. Are they distinct/developed and were you engaged with them?

2. This chapter sets up the beginning of the story problem and conflict. I also tried to set up some mystery and suspense as well as point toward the antagonist who isn't physically in the chapter. Do you have a good sense of the conflict, antagonists, and would it be engaging for younger readers?

3. Please make any observations you think would be helpful to improve this chapter. First chapters are difficult for me, and I'm looking forward to your feedback.

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Rating: PG - some violence

Winning Comment: Hi there, congrats on the spotlight. I'll try to answer your question and the set question first, then highlight things that struck me. So I do see that @SamSchloesing has already covered quite a few of the points I spotted.

One general comment. This chapter is VERY long. For Wattpad, and for the audience you are targetting. Is there any specific reason? Yes, fantasies are longer but this is not written for adults but for, as you say 'YA at the lower end of the spectrum'. They won't have the same attention span.

I also found your novel started very abruptly with a low-conflict piece of the telling about the queen. Yes, it frames your setting but does it attract? Or is this typical for close to MG writing? I would not know, I write Adult or New Adult.

Your first question: Did I engage with your Mc. Engage is maybe too strong a word. I found she clearly has a conflict (father, annoying wizard who could be anywhere, including the garden). She also seems to be either very shy or shunned by the other girs. (she hides when those turn up).

So she is the loner/misfit character. She also has a temper, an issue with cleanliness and to be quite honest, I could not connect to her, given the way she treats Risby in that chapter. Now, I'm also convinced she has a reason of her own, but he was clearly trying to protect her and she went all out on him. I disliked her when she did that, got the vibes of a petulant girl when he is being the voice of reason. I'm sure it isn't quite like that but she was coming on very strong and any traces of sympathy I had felt upon meeting her went out of the window.

Now, the good news about that reaction is, it addresses your second question i.e. whether your characters are round/three dimensional enough. I thought they certainly had that quality. A lot of it is achieved by your meticulous setting which is painted with loving and highly realistic detail. When she fixes her pony tail, or her holds up her cotton skirts (cotton? would hemp or flax not be more realistic? But that's just an aside) I could see her there, flitting about in the sunlight. That, I thought, was well done. Your characters act and interact in a natural fashion, in a developed setting and that gives credibility to the beginning of your story. This will certainly appeal to readers.

Loved lines like 'like a black haired, long limbed Daddy long legs' I have a very clear picture of Risby - gawky, kind all that. Beautiful.

So the response is a bit mixed. They are very realistic, Risby I enjoyed reading about, Gewendolyn made me want to slap her. Not PC I know but she made me think of a spoiled brat. Which she clearly is not

As to conflict there seems to be a lot of it. This is good. There#s conflict between Gwen and her sidekick, there is her father, we have the mysterious dragon date - dragons are obviously unmentionables and Gwen a bit of areckless rebel to even mention dragon dates.

And there's the wizard who I believe to be the major antagonist - rather than her father. At least they are in cahoots with each other.

So she has a lot of potential for getting things wrong and that worked very well for me.

The mystery with the dragons and what the evil wizard might be up to also creates a good hook.

Whether it appeals to younger readers, I cannot tell you. What sort of younger readers to you actually have in mind? 13? 14? It's a bit hard for me to gage that bit. Also, that early in the story it's a bit hard to establish whether it works. I think it might, given the traditional fairy tale vibes, but I do wonder whether the story is not a bit too - mild for modern teenagers. The protagonist is 15 but she struck me as much younger (hence my question about the readership). Maybe, it might be better to go for middle grade readers and adjust the premise a bit. But with 16 year old heroines demolishing monsters on battlefields the whole set up might be too pastoral to appeal.

Don't get me wrong, I really like your tone and I think the story works but I get the impression the age group might be a tick off. Well, you did ask! XD

'First chapters are difficult for me' Ha, join the club, lol First lines, first paragraphs and first chapters are incredibly crucial - and so hard to write.

So, does yours work.

Not completely, I'm afraid. First of all, the beginning is rather tame and does not create a hook. That is due to

a) the telling

b) the mundane message you give.

'To celebrate the break in the summer rains, the queen gave...'

What this does - it gives us medieval vibes, which is good. But otherwise - the weather? And a jolly celebration, told instead of shown? To my mind that doesn't make for the best hook.

Also, I don't believe your novel starts where it should. You have all these information up front with Gwen slipping through the corridors, the book from her mother etc.

This is not wrong but it creates a wave at the bow of your novel that drowns reader interest.

What is the key conflict in your novel? Presumably Gwn vs. the wizard and they have an issue over the dragons (this is what I think we might be facing. Or rather she might)

So, this needs to come as early as possible. Could you start her IN the garden. Hearing a noise and be worried the wizard might be there? Going for the plant and there thinking about her mother's book?

I would also try and tighten the plot a bit more, there is a lot of text and backstory, explanation etc. which at times made it hard to follow the elements which ARE important.

As mentioned already, I found Gewndolyns extreme outburst of anger problematic. It creates a lot of tension, but is that the sort of tension between her and her sidekick you want at this point? Should the tension not be between her and the invisible wizard, the fear of discovery? The mystery what happened to her mother? After that dialogue I felt drained and I had lost the threads of the mystery you were building so well beforehand. i would recommend to adjust that scene. Not that they cannot have an argument - but I would not have it upfront, in a a first chapter such a strong conflict between key protagonists is tricky. Now, having them argue, him being the voice of reason and her being unreasonable. Fair enough. That would work and tie into the plot. As it is, you are building another obstacle to draw your reader in.

#NBR question

As to internal need - I got that bit, the author has created a lovely setting and made it very clear, at least in the beginning what the issues would be. The roles of the two characters also are clearly rendered. We have an antagonist, a parent/child conflict - all of this is visible and shown through thoughts and actions. My main issue is that this conflict then gets pushed aside by the action of the two protagonists - see below. This weakens the plot and the hook.

Okay, hope this was helpful. If there are any questions, do let me know I will respond. Please note - I focus on developmental edits. I will do copy edits as well but as I said I saw quite a few of the points I stumbled over had been addressed already.

Network with this winner: linahanson

1st runner up: TorissaNikole This critique helped me consider Risby and how I could add to his character in this first chapter.

2nd runner up: Forbidden_Beat  (YA): I appreciated the young adult opinion and insights she brought to her comments.

Final Author's Note: First, I want to thank everyone for commenting and giving me your honest reviews. I had so many excellent comments and great observations that picking a winner proved difficult. The positive comments were encouraging and helpful. I especially loved the reviews from those who identified themselves as young adults and want to thank each of them for their insights.

Choosing a winning comment and runner ups was more challenging than I imagined. There were so many helpful comments that I found I had to read, reread, and narrow comments down. My first list had 10 commenters.

I selected Linahanson comments because she pinpointed areas I had concerns about, and she understood what I was trying to do in this chapter. She also identified some character, plot, and internal issues I wanted to make in this chapter, giving me a good sense of what worked and what didn't. Her comments gave me a lot to think about for revision.

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Author #2 [Triple Crowner]: arathi1

Book Title: Æsir's Curse

Specified Chapter: Chapter 1

Summary Thus Far in Book:  N/A

Author's Note: I stumbled across NBR by accident. At first, I was a super excited participant; every week without fail I would be here doing my fair bit. And then life threw some challenges and I stumbled. But NBR continued. And continues still. I don't know how you guys do it. To make something a priority despite everything else going on. So I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone who works hard to ensure that NBR is up and running week after week after week. We may not know who everyone is and what their contribution may be, but we're eternally grateful! Kudos to all of you.

Æsir's Curse is an experiment; one that mixes Norse, Greek and Roman mythology. We all have our favorite supernatural creature - vampires, werewolves etc. But there's a whole other overlooked set of creatures that makes our mythologies equally rich. Im hoping to bring to the forefront one such creature. There's a fair amount of history, myth and imagination in the book; some of it may be borderline contradictory to everything we've been exposed to so far. Bear with me as I try to hash out this journey :)

Since I'm no poet, the poem is not going to follow the rules of poetry. So please don't critique that; I'm more interested in ideas that will help me better integrate the poem into the flow of the story.

The narrative is a mix of Third Person Limited & Omniscient; There's also a past and present tense mix. Do these mixes add to the story or does it take away from the story?

Dialogue is my weakness. Did it come across as natural, revealing and interesting?  Can it be better?

Genre: Mystery/thriller

Rating: PG works

Winning Comment: Other ideas: (Things we jot down as we read):

.The sentence, "So much for hoping that the bell would ring..." (in the second paragraph) we feel would be better as another paragraph because you're changing from a narrative to internal monologue.

."Instead, all she could focus on, were her troubled thoughts..." (Third paragraph) Two things here. One: The comma after the word "on;" is it supposed to be there? And in your author's note you mentioned a tense change and a couple of them...is this it? Otherwise, we like the wording on your sentence here.

.You did a great job of making us feel Hanna's anxiety as she wonders whether to get up and give the report or not in the beginning of the story.

."What irked Julie even more, was the unreciprocated love undertone to the tragic tale..." A few things about this sentence: One, is the comma after the word "more" supposed to be there? We'd suggest removing it so it flows better grammatically. The next thing is that maybe you should change the word "unreciprocated" in here and add for a more "showy" word...something that shows what you're trying to say a bit clearer. Or consider deleting the word overall, as it sounds redundant and we understand what you're saying really clearly without it, and the sentence is already so well written.

.We love your wording and the style of writing you do. It's every unique, different, and we really admire it. :)

Ideas on how you can better integrate the poem into the flow of the story:

Usually with molding things together, you want to sort of look at the content before the poem and then the content after. So let's take a look there:

You have a lot of buildup of anxiety on Hanna's part and little buildup of the notebook. Now, while you kept it mostly a mystery for little hints and pieces here and there about the poem, we felt that you could better incorperate the poem with the rest of the story is you added more about the background of the poem. You could weave in her thoughts about the poem and drop back on Hannah's thoughts of worry and instead thoughts a little more about the poem. But other than that, you did a very well job executing the poem and the poem itself was introduced with lots of emotion and YOU ARE AN AWESOME POET!!! Okay, sorry, Stephanie's a mythology lover (as in she knows everything there is to know about Greek mythology) and she kept rambling about how wonderful your poem was. The other three of us think it's really cool as well!

Do your tense mixes add or take away from the story?

They took away from the story for us. We didn't understand why they were there. We found the POV changes to drop the plotline in the chart as well. Here are some things you can do to help this if you like:

Point of Views - You had Hanna's POV, then jumped to Julie's. This felt a bit confusing in the story.

How to fix it - Keep just Hannah's point of view. It'll help the readers connect with her and you want a strong first chapter at the beginning of the story. Stick with one person's POV at the beginning.

Tense mixes - What was the reason they were there?

How to fix it - Keep them if you want them there, by all means! But don't just allow them to be there, really express why they're there by adding more of them at really plot-turning points. -OR- you can use a lot more of them.

Did your dialogue come across as natural? Can it be better?

With writing, anything and everything can be better. :) Anyways, we felt that your dialogue came across as old timey, which was a really good setting builder if that's what you wanted to execute. Here are some suggestions and tips we would give you for your dialogue, as we know in the author's note you said you struggled with it a bit. These can be applied to your chapter, mostly, but anywhere else as well:

>Take out unnecessary dialogue, the things that don't add to the plot. There we very few places we felt you did this throughout your story--great job about that, friend---but we can't tell you WHAT to take out because it's your story and you know what's important to the plot. :)

>Don't provide too much information in dialogue your conversations at once. This can make your readers a bit confused and can pull away from the story. You want a slow build. Look at Linus' and Hannah's conversation...we felt as though we weren't getting a clear picture of what was going on, but if you take out just a little of the information pouring through their dialogue, we would definitely be able to see what you're talking about a lot clearer.

>Don't overdo dialogue tags. You did a very good job with this, but it's just a suggested reminder in case.

>Allow the dialogue to flow smoothly. With this, you may want to avoid saying "It is" and instead say "it's," as that's what is used more in typical speaking pattern...contractions. We noticed a few of those throughout your writing.

>Pay attention! Pay attention to what you think really makes a character jump off the page, and what types of dialogue help accomplish that.

>READ. But for dialogue, don't read other books in your genre, read books SET IN THAT TIME PERIOD. Doing this will help set straight how people talked instead of what you think they talked like, even if what you think might be accurate, and you'll find yourself getting better and better after every book, story, or chapter you read with that time period in it!

Comment Topic:

Let's take a look: We knew the character's internal need was that she didn't want to read the poem, and some dangerous thing would come from it if she did. There was a lot of anxiety that was stretched to the point that it was a little repetitive, but if you drop back a bit and focus more on the poem itself, you'll really be able to smooth out that some bumpy spots there and also have a very good balance.

But we really, really liked your chapter---a lot. We loved the feel and the wording and you're an awesome writing. Please keep up the great word and the great story; these were all just suggestions we hope you found useful! Thank you so much for reading!

---Clary, Rachel, Alison, & Stephanie

Network with this winner: GirlsCanRockToo

1st runner up: TorissaNikole

2nd runner up: DragonGirl_97

Final Author's Note: I've been a member of NBR for months, and I put off the screening and review part of NBR for pretty much the whole time I've been here. I don't know why. Though I guess in part it was because I didn't want to subject myself or my work to the level of scrutiny that NBR encourages. I believe that since most of us here are writers, somewhere we'd all agree that while it's important to get feedback and it's important to learn and move forward, each of us is to some degree, possessive about our work. What I didn't expect, was to actually enjoy understanding how each of you saw my work, what you thought were its mysteries, its setting, flaws and strengths. I tried, I really did, to say thank you to each of you after your reviews. Unfortunately some of them came in a bunch together and I feel like I missed thanking a few people. If you were one of those who didn't get a thank you, please don't be upset. The time you spent reading, the energy gone into critiquing it was all well spent! I appreciate everyone's effort to say something, no matter how long or how short. I truly believe I have walked away with something new from each of your reviews.

The winner selection process, prior to my review, I had figured would be easy. Yes, a lot of you have mentioned how hard it was and I couldn't figure out why. At least not till it was my turn. I'd like to list everyone. Unfortunately that's not how this works :( so in trying to come to a decision, I did so by categorizing reviews based on what was personal preference vs what really contributed to the story. 

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Author #3: by-athenas-owls

Book Title: South of SomeWhere

Specified Chapter: Prologue (Part 2)

Summary Thus Far in Book: After being presented with many instruments, Waverley decides to learn how to play the violin, and she intends to give her debut concert at the royal ball, the start of all her troubles.

Author's Note: I cannot express how happy I am to be in the spotlight this Friday! NBR has been a great learning experience, and I've enjoyed each week of critiquing other author's brilliant works and reading their stories. Now, I can't wait to hear what y'all have to say about my book. Thank you NBR for giving me this opportunity and being so supportive. Ok, now for the questions!

1)    Is the plot realistic and believable?

2)    Do you think there is anything I need to change? (Please feel free to make as many corrections as you want -grammar, sentence structure, etc. - and also, I'd love to hear any questions y'all have regarding...anything really.

3)  Do any of you think this could be a successful published book? (I'd love to throw this out - if anybody would like to help me edit my book that would be amazing.)

I feel like a lot of authors ask this question, but would you read ahead and give me some critique on my other chapters? Nothing serious, just some ideas on how to make it better. Thank you so much in advance for your feedback! It means lots.

Genre: Adventure

Rating: PG

Winning Comment: 

#NBR

1. I couldn't tell what time period this was supposed to be. Initially it seemed Medieval or some close time period, but you kept making references to modern technology like saying "like a movie on fast forward" and mentioning stage lights. This broke my suspension of disbelief. It made it very difficult for me to not only understand what this world is like but to believe it could be real. You should out some basic ground rules for your setting early on in the book. Where is it set? When is it set? How is it different from the world we know? Try to interweave these without making it obvious. You could have two characters talk about the kingdom, therefore giving it a name and a possibly a general location. You could have someone mention the date of the ball since that's one of the main events of the chapter. Just try to do some subtle world building as early on as possible to give your reader some sort of reference point for the rest of the story. If there's magic in this world then say so. You don't have to explain everything now, nor should you, but you have to start somewhere. The plot is more believable if you don't consider the world build; however, the reader has no idea why any of this is happening. I understand that Ayvee is young at this point in the story and probably doesn't know or care about politics, but you can't just have a war start without an explanation. Have her mother talk about it to Nanny, and Ayvee can over hear it. She could be happy that the ball wasn't cancelled due to tensions with country x. Give a basic explanation somewhere in here that can be elaborated on later.

2. I think it would be best if you read through this to fix all the little mistakes. There are spelling and grammar errors throughout the chapter, and while they are not too distracting, the chapter would flow much better without them. You may want to have someone else read through it too to pick out anything you miss. Reading it out loud is another great way to catch all the little mistakes.

There was also one thing that really bugged me in this chapter. You try to foreshadow at Ayvee's real identity throughout the chapter, but it's just too obvious. As soon as her "mother" is introduced it's more or less stated that she's not actually her mom. Her mother even says more than once that Ayvee isn't her kid. Then you take time to compare the appearances of Nanny and Ayvee, which highly implies that they are related. The man that attacks them even says "princesses" not "princess," which might be a mistake but makes it sound like they're sisters. You absolutely should foreshadow to Ayvee's identity in this chapter but you just do it too much. I think the best foreshadowing you did was when her mother said something along the lines of, "I wish she was ugly and mean, so I didn't have to love her so much." Nowhere in that does it state Ayvee and her mother aren't related, but it's certainly suspicious. Do little things like that, things that imply something isn't quite right but never state it.

3. I honestly think it depends on how much work you are willing to put in. I'm assuming this is a first draft, so you'll need to do a lot of editing. I'm not just talking about grammar either; you'll have to be willing to find beta readers, take some criticism, and even start from scratch if need be. No first draft is publishable, it's just not a thing. If you're willing to put a lot of time and effort into this manuscript, then I think you can do it. Just remember to accept criticism and never doubt yourself or your story.

Comment topic: I think Nanny hit the nail on the head when she said Ayvee only cares about her dolls. Or at least little Ayvee did. It sounded like this was being narrated by an older Ayvee looking back on her younger self. While younger Ayvee only cared about toys, older Ayvee clearly wants something else. It's hard to tell what exactly she wants but it has something to do with this point in her life she's looking back on. I liked this aspect of the story."

Network with this winner: Indigo_Night

1st runner up: AhsokaJackson

2nd runner up: KurokageJS

Final Author's Note: Thank you all so much for your comments! Over the next week I will read each and every one and try to respond to as many as possible. They were very informative and gave me lots to think about and to correct, which I know will make my story better. :D

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