Oh, gosh, I'm going to have to be honest with my siser

[Silver]

What sort of book is she writing? A novel? A chemistry text? A book on morals?

It is a fiction novel. I think she is attempting to go the fantasy genre route.

This was my response to her:

I suppose you want me to be honest and provide criticism, which I am going to do.

The first thing I noticed, and it certainly cannot go unnoticed, is that there is a heavy Christian religious element. My one problem with it is that unless you are going to send it to a Chrsitian publishing house, most other publishers are not even going to consider the book. The only ones who will want to read it are other Christians, because the general public does not want to read a fiction novel with such a heavy dose of godly devotion within every paragraph.

That brings me to my next point. There is nothing wrong with going the route of writing a religious fiction novel, if that is your intention, but you will need to tone it down somewhat. One does not read in every paragraph that the main character's devotion to god is great. It should be apparent after one or two simple tellings in the beginning; something to the effect of simply stating "He was a devoutely religious individual who read from his bible and prayed for guidance from god on a daily basis." Stating that once in the beginning and maybe once again in a later chapter should be enough to place the image of godly devotion in the reader's mind without overdoing it.

My next point is that you seem to overextend the journey to the point where I became bored and was skipping over parts. There was a great deal of traveling and hunting, but nothing of real value happening. Other than the part with the children, that is, and maybe you should extend the dialogue between them for the purposes of allowing the story to flow more easily.

The last point I want to make I think is in the form of a question. Is this a fantasy novel? It is certainly uncommon for general fantasy novels to have the element of a Christian religion, but then the religious novel route may your end goal. I am uncertain exactly what route you do want to take with it as far as genre is concerned, and that is something you have to consider. Your audience, of course, should always be your main concern.

I hope that helped. *hugs* Take care.