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First and foremost, don't ever use your age as an excuse for what you've written. It's, in complete honesty, a really shitty thing to do as a writer, since what you want your audience to be concerned with is your work, not however old you are. A lot of people have been saying "good for your age" when talking about this piece, and that's not generally a good sort of compliment.
Okay. Your story. I'm going to do a line-by-line critique on this puppy. Essentially, it'll just be me saying what sat well and what didn't with me as both a writer and reader. I put grammatical corrections in red, and I'm going to look at each paragraph on the whole first, then take on individual sentences as I see fit. I've also made the font fairly small, to avoid a page-stretcher.
Quote: It was dark and cold, and I was much the same way. The moon was black in the sky ; even the stars hid their face s. In that darkness a massacre was about to occur. And I, an eight-year-old girl, was to be in the thick of it. An armada of tall and muscular men stood before me. The faded gleam of a far away street light reflected off their silver chest plates. Their skin faded into the run down alley walls, and only their hateful eyes even acknowledge me. By reading their body language I reasoned that I wasn’t seen as a threat. Big mistake…
Um. There are a number of things I want to address here. neutral
First of all, this feels forced. The style rubs off as an attempt to be all mysterious and perhaps terrifying, but it leaves this vaguely annoying effect instead. What I mean is that it's cliche. Used time and again. Not to say that cliche things can't work, but, in this case, I'm afraid it does not. A lot of this is do to sort of juvenile descriptions. You're telling me that's dark. You're telling me that these guys have hateful gleams in their eyes or something. You're telling me the alley is rundown (which is only one word, by the by).
You see all that telling? It's not effective. Like I said, it becomes annoying in an instant. Your readers are going to be more wrapped in the scene if you appeal to their senses. It's a rundown alley. How does it smell? Like piss and garbage? What makes it rundown? Graffiti on the brick? Used needles littering the ground? C'mon. Show me the scene. What about temperature? What effect does the darkness have on the narrator's eye sight? How does she feel? Nervous in the pit of her stomach? Irritated? Surprised? Amused? Clue me in to her emotions, not by saying "I was scared" or whatever. Describe body language. A smirk. Something.
And with the night. That description is really, really boring. "Dark." "Cold." "Black." Completely stock words. The description of stars hiding their faces is mildly good, but everything else doesn't do anything for me. I think you want to audience to feel apprehensive. Use words that should make me nervous, for the protagonist, for what's coming, for what's hiding in the shadows. This is your opening paragraph, man. Don't make it a throwaway one. You want something that will stick to people's ribs and make them want to keep reading. It's your opportunity to set the scene, and, frankly, it blows. I'm turned off five words in.
Quote: In that darkness a massacre was about to occur. And I, an eight-year-old girl, was to be in the thick of it.
I like the abruptness of this, though I would've stated it differently (hey, to each his own, right?). But I must ask, is it absolutely necessary for us to know that she's a girl right now? Why not leave it at "And I, eight years old at the time, was..." instead? Your call on that one, really.
Quote: An armada of tall and muscular men stood before me. The faded gleam of a far away street light reflected off their silver chest plates. Their skin faded into the run down alley walls, and only their hateful eyes even acknowledge me. By reading their body language I reasoned that I wasn’t seen as a threat. Big mistake…
...okay. She's an eight year old kid, and they sent an entire armada after her? Wow, she's either a really tough little girl, or they're excessive. Seriously, though, it seems silly to me that they would send so many people, even if she's some witch-girl (and that much power at eight? I'm talking about that later, but... Eh. You'll see.). Or if they were really there to assassinate her, why they walked up and stood there, then informed her later that they intended to kill her. Or, if she was such a powerful witch, why they wouldn't try to take her by surprise. I mean, really, they've got to be a bit thick if they required A) 128 men, B) armor, and C) cornering her in a dark alley, and they still decided to give her the opportunity to escape or kill them off.
Am I missing something here? To me, logically, it doesn't make sense. At all.
Quote: The faded gleam of a far away street light reflected off their silver chest plates.
Let me get this straight. There's the back of the alley, then the witch, then the big dudes blocking the opening, correct? Figuring that there shouldn't be any "far away" lights coming in from the back of the alley, seeing as it's a solid wall and wouldn't have light coming through it, it's coming from the mouth. So the only ways for the men to have light reflecting on their chest plates are A) they're facing backward, B) they all put on their armor wrong that morning, or C) it's an inconsistency. I think that we can safely rule out A and B. ;] Keep on eye on stuff like this, because readers notice it, and it shatters a story's credibility when there are simple mistakes like that.
Quote: The largest one grinned, his angry, amused brown eyes traced over me.
The description of his eyes is, well, kinda funny, to be honest. Amused and angry? Hmm. If he thinks this job is such a joke, why should he be angry? ._. It doesn't sound right.
Quote: “I’m sorry, little girl, but you’re going to die now.” He laughed. It was a joke to him, easy pay, he must think. That was the joke to me, I grinned, awaiting the assassin. He seemed disheartened by the fact I was not afraid, and ordered his men to charge. Then… it was over.
Uh. Dialogue? It's not working too well for me. It, um, it sounds like something from out of one of that old Flash Gordon movie. In other words, it's sort of ridiculous. I mean, if you're walking up with an army of big dudes right behind you, you're probably armed to the teeth and just there to kill the bugger before tea time, why would you say something like that? For that matter, why would you say anything at all? It strikes me as really cheesy. I think that you were intending to, I don't know, make him seem really mean or something, but it didn't pan out so well.
You used the phrase "it was a joke to whoever" twice in two sentences. Um. Not a good thing, I'm afraid. Why not shoot for something else? Do you even need to tell us that it was a joke? Because, again, you're doing a whole lot more telling here than showing. Have them both react like they found each other to be funny, and let the readers draw their own conclusion. Same thing with the assassin guy looking disheartened. Show me he's disheartened. A frown. Maybe he deflates a bit. I think that you can do better than saying "he seemed disheartened." ;]
Quote: It was a joke to him, easy pay, he must think.
There is a slight tense shift here. "Must think." It goes from past to present. "Must have thought" would be correct, or even just leaving off the "he must think" bit entirely and keeping it at "It was a joke to him. Easy pay," or something. I personally prefer that latter, but that's more stylistic than anything else. :]
Quote: Vines of gargantuan size tore through a soon-to-be-empty corridor. Thorns that measured at least two feet in width shot like bullets through the bloody halls. There was no time for screams in this chaos ; they were ended before they could even begin. Life was like mildew being shaken from tender leaves. And in it’s midst I stood, unharmed. They should have been stronger. If they wanted to survive in a world of witches, that was. I counted the dead bodies : one hundred twenty-eight. They sure did send a lot of people to kill me.
Before I say anything else, I need to establish that I really, really like the line "Life was like mildew being shaken from tender leaves." It's good imagery. Nice. :]
This is another perfect example of telling over showing. Appeal to the five senses. How does it sound when the vines rip through the walls? The ground? Do we hear metal splitting under the force of the thorns? Swords falling out of hands? What does it look like? Arterial blood dripping through the tears in armor? What about gaping mouths? Still-open eyes? Give me something macabre to imagine, something that will make this scene pop. What about how the vines look? Their texture? What about smells? Does the sudden rush of a weedy scent fill the air? Involve me in the scene. Make it feel so vivid that it's like I'm there.
Now for the actual spell. Wow. Godmoding, much? I cannot see a little kid pulling a spell like this period, much less without any side effects. It's like saying that an eight year old could out-swim Michael Phelps. It doesn't happen; if anything, it's sort of ridiculous. On top of that, there's no real consequence to the caster. I mean, c'mon. A spell like that? Shouldn't the force of the magic have some sort of adverse effect on her? It comes off as pretty video game-esque and silly, to be honest, especially since she just totally killed off over a hundred huge men without getting a scratch. Unrealistic. Maybe a clarification of how the magic system works is in order?
Quote: I counted the dead bodies : one hundred twenty-eight.
Uh. She sat there and counted one hundred twenty-eight bodies? Seriously? It's okay to make an estimation. I mean, it's a pretty stupid picture, imagining this eight year old sitting there for ten minutes just counting dead folks ("one hundred twenty-six, one hundred twenty-seven, one hundred twenty-eight. There! One hundred twenty-eight!" ).
Quote: They sure did send a lot of people to kill me.
Way to ruin the atmosphere. If you'd had anything built up prior, this line effectively sent it tumbling down. It's plain dumb in context. Why not have her sigh or something and comment about how the assassination attempts were starting to get really pathetic, or something that does not in any way, shape, or form include the word "sure"?
This is already pretty fricken long, so I'll summarize the rest of my thoughts.
No one describes their hair and eyes like that. It's obviously an excuse to tell us what the main character looks like, and it's pretty dumb. Bring up eye and hair color when appropriate, if at all. Also, are the age and name necessary right now? People can learn your character's name and age at other times that don't seem totally out of place for the moment.
The symbolism with her dog is obnoxious. I mean, really obnoxious. I don't like it much at all.
This girl's twelve and living in an apartment by, I assume, herself? What? That doesn't happen. She's twelve. How does she afford it, much less a Labrador (and, man, those are expensive dogs to keep. Do you have any idea how much they eat?)? It's not realistic.
Overall, you need to work on showing rather than telling, making sentences and paragraphs less choppy, making the reader care about the character and story, and your word choice. Didn't talk too much about that, but man. There's nothing special about the words you've chosen. They all are markedly dull or obvious, making for a markedly dull and obvious piece on the whole. Practice improving that, for sure.
Hope I helped you some.
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