Hi Daes,

Wow! Thanks for posting a wonderful begining to an epic adventure.

This chapter will be fine for your assignment. There is so much to like about it.

The emotion of the piece is deep. It tugs on the heart strings and brings into clarity a moment of true sorrow.

It introduces a heroine and hints of a world different than our own. It is a great begining that poses many questions the reader will want answered.

What happened to her father?
What trials will she endure to return the star?
Who is the mysterious wizard?

Those are questions for the future.

For now, here are some things to think about in this chapter.

The leading lady's name is not common.
How is it pronounced?
Readers like to put themselves in the place of the main characters, the more difficult that names, the harder this is to do. You may want to rename your leading lady, or tell the reader what her name means.

What does she look like?
What does her father look like?
Why are they alone?
Why does no one answer her calls for help?
Where are they?
Is he dying a natural death?

We need a bit more information. If this is planned for chapter two, that's fine. If not, then it needs to be slipped in here.

Your next assignment is to do an editing refresh of this chapter.

Focus on:

* layout for an e-book or web page.
Read the assignment on doing so and help the reader by making paragraphs smaller when needed.

* change as much passive tense to active as possible
Ex. He shook his head and began to cough, blood trailing out at the corner of his mouth. -->
He shook his head and coughed. Blood trailed from the corner of his mouth.

* check sentence lengths and how you end them.
... does not end a sentence
Too many commas slow down the pacing.
Ex. She shook her head, feeling a shudder run up her spine, his touch was cold and clammy against her soft skin.
-->
She shook her head. A shudder ran up her spine. His touch was cold and clammy against her soft skin.

* Remove empty words and check to see if you are using words that end in -ly too frequently.
Ex. She only watched him --> She watched him
Ex. She sat down slowly beside him --> She sat beside him

* Play with sentence length to change the pacing.
Is there a tempo you want to create.
The longer sentences lull the reader into a calm.
Shorter sentence create excitement.
Ex. She took his hand in between her own and nodded, her fingers upon the silver star as his hand went limp between her fingers. -->
She took his hand in her own and nodded. Her fingers touched the silver star. His hand stilled between her fingers.

* Watch the sequence of actions to show your readers whats happening.
Ex. Look at the next line. "She clutched the star."
Where is the star? In his hand? In her own.

* Add a copyright line.
(C) 2006 Daes All rights reserved.

What else?

Congratulate yourself on the start of what will be an epic adventure.

Please post the refreshed version in this thread.

I'm am looking forward to seeing your next spin on this.

Have fun,

Ruby