This is an excerpt from a story I have started writing
1963 words. 1243

Why was it glowing? I quickly pulled up my teal hoodie, covering my shoulders. If someone had seen it, it's too risky! Especially in a motel! My birthmark was glowing. The only other time it did that was when I met Donna. Could it be? I looked over to the light brown-haired girl. Donna slightly nodded in agreement. She has seen me out of the corner of her eye and was still talking to Mr. Lance. She had her left leg behind her right. Hers had been glowing too.
Perhaps by the look on my face or just knowing what to do, Donna piped up. “Um, excuse me. Mr. Lance,“ she asked the motel owner, causing him to stop talking about the brunch menu they had been discussing. ”May I just talk to Izzi? Real quick?”
He nodded, looking a bit confused and we headed to the door. I was careful on my way out the door. Good, I almost bumped into the plant beside the door again. The pot is so short, I never really notice it! Once we were outside, I led Donna to the side of the building to get out of sight. She pulled out the journal from her pink sling. We knew Titanium had to confirm.
“Greetings, Ms. Donna. Ms. Isabelle.” a whirl of gray came out of the journal as soon as Donna opened it, eventually forming a familiar bowing wolf figure.
“Hi, Titanium!” Donna went over and gave the Koja a hug.

──────────────────── ❝Izzi’s Guide❞ ────────────────────
KOJAS
Kojas are spirit-like magical creatures. They were made long ago with the Twin Islands. They tend to appear as different animals or insects and are multifarious in size and color. Their looks can vary from looking like the actual animal it is imitating or looking more like a hybrid. They come in journals that can help to catch more Kojas. These journals can help them get stronger, increase their powers, and learn new moves/strategies. They can be easily carried in koper slings. Koper is a fabric made of silk from the fairies on the Twin Islands, where we are from. Kojas can be traded and gained through battles. There are some ancient Kojas that are more powerful. Tinklsters, the people that occupy the Twin Islands, get their Koja journal when they are at least 10. Kojas are only seen, heard, and felt by the ones from our world. There are many Kojas, Titanium was just the one that Donna’s parents had gotten to protect her before he was born.
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“Titanium.” I walked closer while taking my hoodie off, revealing a green glow coming from my club birthmark.
“Oh. Right!” Donna struggled, as she pulled up her navy leggings on her right leg, bouncing. She finally got it up, revealing her heart birthmark, glowing a light shade of pink.
“There is only one explanation to this.” Titanium answered after a couple of seconds with his eyebrows knitted together, deep in thought. “There would have to be another Tinklster!”
“How farthest they can be while still having the glow, Titanium?” I asked, trying to calculate everything in my head.
“Well. I- I don’t know. No one has ever asked me that. I would presume at least 20 feet.”
“Can’t we just look with someone with a glowing mark?” Donna piped up, rolling her leggings back down.
“Yes, I guess you can. We could also have me scare people and see who reacts to me. After all, only those of our world can see and hear me.” he had a smile on his face.
“Isn't it safer if we could split up and look? We’ll deal with Mr. Lance.” I responded while I heard Donna skipping to go talk to Mr. Lance.
“Okay, in 30 minutes then.” Titanium disappeared into the city crowd, with a flick of his tail.
I walked over to Donna and Mr. Lance and gave a nod before walking away. Donna followed me outside and we walked down the street. We came to a stop at the intersection. The breeze blew, softly whistling and blowing our hair into our faces. She went left and reluctantly, I went right. I wasn't worried that she would get lost. She was strong and smart. Besides, if she did, she would find her way back or Titanium would find her.
After walking for a bit, I could see out of the corner of my eye that the glow had faded. I must be going in the opposite direction. I turned and walked in the other direction as the glow grew stronger. The wind blew stronger and I pulled my hood up, ducking in alleys to avoid flying leaves. I had only been searching for about 2 minutes before I found something suspicious. There was a teenage boy, about my age, walking by himself with dark clothes and had a hood on. I started to follow him. He walked down a deep alley. I waited outside to see what he would do.
I heard a rustle and a faint glow of blue. Wait. A faint glow? I took a glance and saw a birthmark on his neck. A spade maybe? I couldn't tell because I quickly turned as he looked around, startled. Well, his black hair was also covering part of it. I had to go back and find someone! I stayed 3 more minutes and he just ate and sighed mostly. Well, besides some mumbling that was inaudible to me. Right before I was going to get up and look for the others, I noticed that Titanium was there too. He was crochet down much closer to the boy than I was. He should be careful! Then again, most people on Earth can’t see him.
He nodded in the direction, I believe, where Donna was. I carefully got up and started walking in the direction that Titanium had pointed to. The city was very modern but crowded. I hate tight spaces.
“Oof.” I heard a voice behind me, as someone was shoved to me. I was pushed forward.
“Hey! Watch- Donna!” I cried, recognizing her.
“This little youngster was in my shop!” A gruff voice of the store owner boomed from behind her. I looked up at him and he stared sternly before continuing. “Take care of your sister, young lady!”
“But, she's technically-” I tried, defending myself from him and the crowd that had gathered. He had trekked off. ‘Not my sister’. The rest of the unfinished sentence rang in my head. I shook my head getting the thought out of my head. I dragged Donna out of the crowd after mouthing ‘We’ll talk about this later.’ The crowd started dispersing.
“What happened!” I cried after we were far enough, scared of what would have happened to her.
“Well, I was, you know, looking for anyone that might have a glowing birthmark. Because we didn’t have it yesterday, I was asking some people if they had seen anyone new or strange around. That man was insane and kicked me out because I didn’t buy anything! Thankfully I saw you. Everything is a mess.” she looked down at her sneakers, disappointed.
I paused, playing with the idea of telling her the news. I eventually came to an idea that would work. “Lucky for you, we have already found the mystery person. Titanium’s with him. We better get there before he scares him away.” I winked, hoping to make her feel better. She giggled, and we started to skip to where Titanium was.
The only thing about alleys I don’t like is the gloominess. It’s so eerie and anything could happen there without anybody knowing. I guess that’s why that boy went into one. It is a safe spot to hide, for a little bit at least. I was so deep in thought that I was startled when Donna called me. “Izzi!”
“Yes!” I jolted, as I tripped over a box. I clearly haven’t been paying attention.
“You are just-” Donna started her mini-lecture she used every time I zoned out.
“Just too smart for the world, but if you continue to think deeply, you may fall of the side of the earth. You need to pay more attention, Izzi! I know, I know.” Within the 6 months I had lived with her, I had come to memorize this. It wasn’t that hard, as I heard it at least 4 times a week. I continued walking.“But, you can’t fall off the world, because it is round, therefore you would be more walking in circles than falling off, even if you could, which you can’t becau- WOAH!”
“Pfft.” Donna struggled to contain her laughter, as her expression turned into a twisted smile. “You should, hehe, be. More. fft, careful.” She quickly finished her sentence before turning around and silently laughing.
I took off the boxes that had landed on me and brushed off the dust from my clothes. I beckoned Donna to follow and turned the corner. I heard a weird noise behind me as I turned around frantically. Oh, it was just Donna at the corner. “Still laughing, I see.” I raised my eyebrows.
“Okay, okay. I’ll stop. I’ve got to put it on my list now.” She pulled out her journal and jotted a couple of things down.
“Hm? What?” I asked walking closer to see what she had written. It said right there. In lead.
Get a camera
Capture Izzi’s embarrassing moments
Lol
I would yell at her, but we don’t have time to lose. “Just. Just come on.” I said, flustered. I’m not a clumsy person. I just don’t pay attention to what I’m doing sometimes. Right?
We walked and turned a couple times before seeing Titanium’s tail, flicking from one side to another. It seemed like he was talking to the boy.
“Titanium?” Donna asked, walking up and tapping him lightly on the shoulder. “Is that the boy Izzi was talking about?”
The boy jolted up and looked scared. “You- you know who he is. You can see him. That girl behind you knows who I am. What’s going on, Titanium? You never said anything about 2 girls.”
“Ah, well” Titanium cleared his throat, looking a little nervous. “You see, um. This is Donna. The light brown-haired girl. She’s my owner. And the girl behind her is Izzi. She’s also my owner, I guess? Girls, meet Jason.” Ah, so Jason was his name.
“So. If you want to come with us to the Twin Islands, I have a proposition.” I crossed my arms and gave him a stern look. “You in?”
“What is it?” Jason grinned as if he would accept any challenge.
“You can come with us, but you’ll have to do school with us. You did bring stuff to learn, didn’t you?” Donna sulked but nodded to her unfortunate truth.
“You do SCHOOL?” he looked shocked. I probably looked shocked that he looked shocked.
“You are still in school right? I mean, you don’t look older than me.” Don’t tell me this boy wants to be uneducated. I grimaced.
“Yeah, I’m in school. Just not doing it. Spending a journey to get home. You wouldn’t need to learn during that time.” I darted my eyes at him, as his face turned into an uncertain grin. “Right?”
I wasn’t going to spend a lesson teaching this. This. Kid. About school and how education is important. No, I could do that during the journey. I inwardly smiled at myself. “You in? You are still going to need education. We’ll figure something out.”
“I guess so.” he shrugged and got his bag. “Who else am I going to bump into that is going to the same place as me?”
“That’s right!” Donna squealed. “We’re going to be best friends!”

Hi! You asked for feedback, and here I am! I'm not professional or anything, but I will try my best xD ok, so I like your plot. But it doesn't seem very intriguing. It's just a bunch of scenes in the story, written in like a fast paced sort of style. Maybe you could add some more imagery? If you don't know what that is, it's using figurative language and your senses (tactility, olfactory, etc). Because from the way I read it, it's just I did this, then this thing happened, then this, then my friend did this, it's just very boring? Isn't it? And also, you could probably describe the area. When I read it, it's just like characters in a black area. You could also describe the characters as well :3

Hey! Nice job with this, I really like your plot. But I agree with @-addie. Maybe add some figurative language, as well as some sensory details to impact your story's descriptions. You should also use a thesaurus and find some better words to replace some words used quite a few times in your story, and so the reader sees stronger vocabulary, and are curious about what the word means. This makes them continue reading. Anyways, I hope this helped a little bit at least!

hi! it's quite a good base to start from. your premise is interesting but perhaps tweak your writing to add more mystery and intrigue? your prose is a bit stilted as well, and you can try using metaphors/similes to make it more interesting. i also suggest italicizing thoughts + reading conversations aloud and seeing if you can make them more interesting. it's also in need of a bit more description and the “show, not tell” rule. all in all, a great premise hope this helped!

Okay, cool! So my initial reaction to this was that the storyline seemed really neat, with the different glowing birthmarks, and I wanted to know more about everything, especially the characters. I also love the ‘izzi’s guide' section, it's informative and really interesting! Now on to the actual critique

The first thing I would say is that I can tell the style is very fast-paced, with short sentences and a lot of back-and-forth of dialogue. This style works well in the context of the story, but I think a little bit more description here and there would go a long way, especially about what the characters are thinking or feeling, or even what their facial expressions look like so we can get a sense of their emotions. Here's an example of where you might add description: “Titanium disappeared into the city crowd, his gray wisp of a tail flicking and fading into the horde of people.” or “Titanium,” I said urgently, walking closer as fast as I could. I quickly removed my hoodie, revealing a green glow coming from my club birthmark.“ Hopefully that shows how I'm trying to explain a way to convey characters' emotions a little more

I'd like to add that I love how it starts with a bang! It dives right into the plot, and I think that fits your story really well. Nice job on the opening

In some places the flow of the sentences is a bit jarring. You could leave it if you like, but especially where it goes: ”The only other time it did that was. When I met Donna.“ I'd consolidate those little phrases into one sentence, like ”The only other time it did that was when I met Donna.“ It's easier to read that way, at least in my opinion.

The bit about bumping into the plant pot is a bit random and doesn't seem to add much to the story. If you're looking to add more description, try something that relates a little more to the plot, such as ”my heart raced as I dashed out the door" if the character was running out the door or something. That being said, it's totally relatable about bumping into things, and I understand why you added it. It's just a bit of a contrast seeming as there's little to no description in the rest of the story and then a random bit about a plant pot pops out of nowhere.

Overall, I love your story! The characters and plot are really interesting Great job!!

Um, ignore the 1243. next to 1963 words. ^^ It was a mistake. I don't want to edit it and have people think that I revised it after the deadline.

Hi! I know this is a bit old, but here's some critique: it looks like you have a lot of dialog, which is great, but maybe you can at a bit more sensory words to make it seem more real.
-Charlie (I'm not in SWC, but I'm in JWC which is very similar.)