Sunday Snippets Critique Blog Hop
In this hop, participants post 250 words of their work in progress to be critiqued. Then everyone hops around to critique others. Don’t have a post of your own? We’d love a critique anyway!
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This week I thought I would show a different work in progress then I have lately. It started out as a short story and just grew from there.
The story is called “Alei”. She is a trained assassin from another world. It’s set in the far future. It’s when she finishes her training and is about to be sent on her first mission.
Alei
Alei could not quite believe she had made it this far. She stood alone, facing the dais and the only person who could grant her the one thing that made all her hard work worth it. She heard the faint rustle of the crowd behind her. Her fellow classmates in the only school of its type. A place where its secrets out numbered its residents. Where to survive you had to be smarter, quicker and deadlier then all the others. And she was. She had proved that. It was a school that was well-known for producing the best assassins in all the universes.
She stood still, with only her eyes following the man above her. Her inky black hair spiky on top of her head. Her eyes, the eyes of her people. Deep purple with a black outer rim, slightly slanted. Her skin tan with the black tattoo’s that showed others she was of the tribe Aleiata of the planet Tambos. A once proud and majestic people, her tribe had been slaughtered by an army run by the very man who was standing on the dais in front of her. She was the only survivor, a baby back then, only five years old.
The man, a powerful assassin, named Drimel thought it would be amusing to take her and school her into what he was. He named her Alei after her people and thrust her in this school to be shaped and molded into what she was today. Twenty years later, she stood silent, nothing moving but her purple eyes. Waiting to be told she was a full-fledged killer. Waiting to told what her first assignment was. Waiting to kill.
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Click on over to these great writers to check out and critique what they’ve posted!
http://mermaidssinging.wordpress.com/
http://caitlinsternwrites.wordpress.com/
http://jennykellerford.wordpress.com
http://richardleonard.wordpress.com
http://itsjennythewren.wordpress.com/
http://wehrismypen.wordpress.com
The Last Chapter 
oooo, nice!!!! I love the description of Alei! Great 250!! I would definitely read more.
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Thank you! This story just wouldn’t leave me alone. Glad you enjoyed it.
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Wow! Great story. I want to read the rest of the story.
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thanks! I’m working on it. 🙂
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I am intrigued – good start! Just a couple of edits nothing major. deadlier then all the others. – than instead of then
thrust her in this school to be shaped – into instead of in
Waiting to told what her first – to be told instead of to told
Hoping you post more.
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thanks Mandy for all the great suggestions. I thought I caught all the then/than and other little things, but I must have let some slip past. I will change that pronto! I’m working on the story so hopefully will be posting more on Sundays.
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Wow, nice beginning! Intriguing world set-up, too.
It might work better if you cut the last line of the first paragraph:
“It was a school that was well-known for producing the best assassins in all the universes.”
There’s enough to catch our interest, and keep reading to see exactly what she’d been schooled for–a question you answer in the third paragraph.
Are these human/humanoid people? All the same species or different? I know you don’t have space to go into too much detail here, but just a hint would be wonderful. I’m not sure if your main character has purple pupils with a black rim, or cat’s eyes where the black is like eyeliner.
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Thanks for the feedback. sometimes it’s hard to know how much is too much description. Also some of what you ask will be revealed later on.
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I read this when it first went by in my reader. Really great story. Love this character and what she has become. I don’t know how you work on more than one at a time, but I’ve met several people here who do that. I suppose you always have inspiration for one of your works.
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It does get a bit crazy that’s for sure, but for me, a character will just take over my mind. I give one story a rest while I work on another. My mind is always going. ha!
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Intriguing story, which I want to read more of.
My tiny comments are regarding many fragmented sentences.In the paragraph you start with Alei’s POV. In the last, you mention ‘Drimel thought’. Is the POV supposed to be omniscient? If not, nobody knows what Drimel thought.
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