What do you think of part of the book im writing and suggest improvements?

Sorrel crawled through the hole and took a turn to the left down an enormous corridor of stone, which was shaped as an arc. The only light was coming from the torches which were wedged in the wall brackets. She jumped, cat-like, to one of the brackets and struggled to get it out. In the end it came out with a crash and Sorrel went flying. She suddenly twitched her ears and heard voices ; very faint and distant but they were near. She quickly hugged the wall with her ear to i tapping it as she went. She came to a stop and pushed the stone through the wall. She continued to push out bricks until there was a hole big enough for her to fit through.





The torch fell to the floor with a clatter which took a long time to settle.





I'm 13 by the way just wanted to know how good it was for my age. Point out any areas of improvement and overall thought. And im planning on writing a book my inspiration is chris paolini.

What do you think of part of the book im writing and suggest improvements?
I agree with the above poster. Most of your sentences start with She. It reads like a laundry list. She did this, she did that. You have to learn to vary the beginning of your sentences to make it more interesting. The easiest way to do that is to reverse them. Twitching her ears, she suddenly heard voices. Right there, I changed a sentence. I also made it active instead of passive. I am showing - not telling. Using action instead of just telling people what is going on.





You need to think of some different ways to vary your writing. That will come with time. My suggestion is that you are not ready for the novel. Master the short story first. Learn how to write good, interesting short stories with imagery, characterization and depth. My dear, you have to learn to walk before you can run. Jumping into a novel when you aren't skilled enough is not the way to go.





You need to find a mentor. Ask a teacher to read some of what you write. Tell them what you are interested in and ask for extra writing assignments. I had one when I was in high school and it helped me tremendously.





Lastly, if your inspiration is Christopher Paolini and you believe that you can do it because he did, I say that is great. But do YOU have parents who own a publishing company and will publish your book for you? Because he did. He wouldn't have gotten where he is without them.





Pax-C
Reply:You used "she" a lot. Not enough imagery for a book. And I have no clue what this is even talking about..
Reply:The first sentence is a bit of a run-on.


Count the number of times you say "she" in the paragraph. Try keeping the proper noun count and pronoun count as even as possible.





Other than that, it's great. I'd watch out for posting too much of your work online, though. Good luck!
Reply:It's very good for your age, but there is still room for improvement, as there is with ever writer, published and unpublished. I would suggest restructuring some of the sentences so that most of them don't begin with 'she'.





As always with writing, the best way to improve is to read good books ... and really bad fanfiction. That's how you get to know the differences between them. That's how I learned about paragraphing and all sorts of cool things.





Good luck with it! Hope to read your book some day!
Reply:Not bad for your age group. Why not begin the tale as to where and how your heroine found the opening and why did she enter ?What happens after the "bricks' or was it stone fell from the wall ?Twitching is generally associated with animals.How can something be distant yet near ? etc.
Reply:I thought it was alright. i'm thirteen to, and I would like to be an author when I'm older. but, since you're young, there's time to improve (even though I thought it wasn't so bad).





If you want to be an author when you're older, I think you have great potential!





GOOD LUCK!
Reply:Hmm...I like it, but let me help you polish it to gleaming near-perfection.


Well, let's start with me rewriting your story excerpt.


Sorrel crawled through the hole, and took a left turn, down a wide, arc-shaped corridor of stone. The only light came from torches wedged into wall brackets, shadows of faint light moving ominously across the dirty stone walls. Sorrel jumped, lithely, to a bracket, struggling to get the torch out. The [insert material: metal? iron? pewter?] torch came out, and Sorrel fell back with a crash. Twitching her ears, she heard voices: very faint, but they were near. Sorrel hugged the wall, tapping it as she crept along it. She came to a halt and pushed a cold, flat grey rock through the wall, continuing to push flagstones through, until there was a hole big enough for her to fit through.





The torch fell to the [insert material: straw? thrush? tiled? cherry hardwood?] floor with a loud clatter, echoing through the underground chamber.





[note: I believe it is an underground corridor-slash-chamber, based on the description]





1. you use 'she' too many times. I prefer to mix-and-match She and Sorrel for a feeling of freshness.





2. The sentences are too hard to take in all at once. Break them down into smaller, bite-size portions. Listen, teens aren't as literate as editors/agents. They will put the published version of your book down, instead of re-reading the sentences, for them to make sense.





3. Check your facts. First of all, you said it was a stone corridor, and at the near-end, you said it was brick. My reaction: ?????





4. It just doesn't flow. Compare my version to your version. Much better, if I do say so myself.





5. Is there anything such as too descriptive? Yes. Can you revise something, without losing the description? Yes. Check out my first and second sentences, compared to yours. More precise, easier to understand, same meaning, but saves a whole lotta trees. Keep that in mind next time you write: Save the trees!





Hey, it's pretty good. Polish it, perfect it, and it'll be better. Take some C.W. classes. Don't be afraid to dream big, no matter what others tell you, what they do to get you discouraged. It's just so sad that most of our elders are unwise and lack determination, and so spiteful, and tell us to be like that, too. How they think that the young 'uns just dream too big, how we're so disillusioned. I mean, really! Just look at them: they're teaching english for the mentally-disabled, while Stephen King is out there making a lot of $. They're sitting on their butt all day, surfing the net, while Google founder Larry Page is improving his site. Dreaming big is what Edison did, what the Founding Fathers did. And now we look back and thank them. Writing a book isn't as big as doing that, but hey, it's a start. It's a start.


I know that it is hard to present yourself to the world and be judged. But you can't improve if you're not judged, right?





email me if you have more questions/want revisions.