Young Writers Society

Hi! Thank you all for critiquing this, I just finished editing and revising in some places that needed it. I would be grateful if you could read it again to make sure its okay. Cause you never know, it could be worse. Thank you!

BLURB:

Kashmere Gallant is a normal twelve year old girl, other than the fact that she was born into the richest family in the state of Nevada. But as she gets home from her long months at boarding school, she finds her parents dead in the night, her being spared by a boy with maroon flecks in his eyes.
Maroon is a boy of twelve, living with his guardian, Justin, who is a serial killer, forcing Maroon to help with his dirty work. But Maroon doesn’t want to kill anymore, especially when he first meets the young girl Kashmere.
Three years after the murder, Kashmere doesn’t remember a thing about being saved by a boy with maroon tinted eyes. But when Maroon moves back into town, bringing recollections along with him, both him and Kashmere have to make a choice. Lie and love, or be honest and be hated.

Critting as I go. Excellent beginning so far. Nice hook, and the character is relatable. You don't go on longer than you need to about how much money they have, which is perfect. Enough information to add a certain flavor to the character, but not so much that you gag on it.

I walked away and shook my head to clear the thoughts from my mind. He couldn’t have really had those color eyes. He must have contacts or something, I thought.

Immediatly I know that those are not contacts, that those are his real eyes, and before they even find their seats, I'm wondering what sort of creature he is. Vampire? Werewolf? Fae of some sort?

Something to hold the surprise until later so that it actually is a surprise would be to state right off the bat that the kid had red contacts. Not in the character's thoughts, though that might work too. If done well, having your character think it would work, but it wouldn't lock it in the reader's mind as solidly as having the narrator state that, in addition to his gangster pants, the kid had red contacts. It just adds to the image of a tough kid. Then, to make the reader dismiss this kid even more, have your character think something significant, either for the plot or for her characterization, of him. Maybe that she was seeing more punk weirdos everyday and that was one thing she liked about school, the lack of punk weirdos. Or something. Something that would fit her character, but something along those lines.

That way the appearance of the kid serves a purpose right off the bat, and the reader can go back to thinking about the main characters. The kid will still be at the back of their minds; he'll still be there in their thoughts, but he won't be at the very front of them.

Must just be because I had to pee that I woke up, I thought.

Again, her thoughts give it away! Pesky thoughts. Don't give the reader a hint and then try to steer them away from it. Don't say he has red eyes and then try convince the readers they're contacts, tell them they're contacts. Don't tell them she heard something and then try to convince them she didn't, have her listen and hear something else, a common house sound. Maybe her cat is walking around, and jumps on her (the MC's) bed because it got kicked out of her parent's. Maybe a coffee maker/VCR/alarm is going off, or perhaps the smoke detector is beeping, telling the house it needs new batteries. The list can go on forever, depending on what sort of stuff she has.

For example, in our house, we have (had) these stop watches that would beep/go off every so often. No idea why. We didn't have them long enough to find out before we lost them somewhere in our closets. So now every so often we'll hear these random beeps and we'l jump at our closest, trying to find the watches before they stop. We never do, and we've cleaned out our closests more times than we can count. So we'll wake up in the middle of the night, thinking we heard something. We'll listen for it, here the beeps, groan, and go back to sleep, or go to the bathroom, or what have you. Because it's a natural sound in our home, we don't think twice on it, and if we were in your story, because we wouldn't be second guessing ourselves, neither would the reader.

Go through and weed the give away thoughts out. They're almost foreshadowing, almost really good foreshadowing, even, but the thoughts just throw it all out the window.

I grunted, “They did take me to the hospital anyway.”

In reality, unless they lied for her and said it was an accident, she would be taken to the hospital and then put on watch. Meaning for two-three days (depends on your location I think) they would watch her and pick at her mind to see if she was still insane enough to hurt herself or if they could let her go without worry that she would be back, or that next time she would succeed. If, after the 2-3 days are over, she is still deemed to possibly had suicidal tendencies, an extra 5 are tacked on and she's sent to a mental hospital where they can better help her. If, after the 5 days are over, she's still not well, she'll get more time tack one, and so on.

If they lied for her, then this doesn't really apply to you and your story, but it's very interesting information to have for later, if you write a suicidal character in another story. Interesting to know, and interesting for the reader, because then they're blown away by how much research you did and it gives them an inside look they probably wouldn't have had otherwise. That makes it even more interesting for the reader and it goes on. So it pays to do research, however minimal, because chances are at least a few of your readers will know what you're talking about and get excited.

“Kashmere,” he whispered, grinning. “It’s the end of the day.”

Hahaha! That was excellent. also, if I continue on like this, this critique will be longer than the bible, so just over all thoughts.

You did an interesting job of characterization and pulling in the different elements of high school and incorporating them into the overall story. There were a couple points that bordered on possibly being unrealistic, but because we don't have all the details, might possibly be alright. I mentioned one point above. The second point comes at the end, with the trial. If murderers had been at large for eleven years, had behaved like serial killers in their patterns (murder methods, target type, etc) then the trial would probably last atleast a month in a half, especially when you take into account Maroon's side of the story. Not only is he underage, but his hand was forced. On the other hand, he did help commit the murders. It would take a while to fully evaluate his case, and it would definitely take a while just to compile all of the evidence against the two.

Witnesses to be called in, old records to be reviewed, testimonies to be gathered, questions to be planned, research to be done... purely from an outsider looking in's perspective. I'm sure there quite a few more things that we don't know of that they would need to go through in such a court case as that.

A million kudos on giving the character strange eyes, and keeping him human. Not only keeping him human, but keeping him an average human! Well, as average as one could be under the circumstances. But he doesn't have any special talents/powers, he does have a 'dark' past but he doesn't be all grumbly about it all the time, doesn't have a perpetual glare on his face, doesn't act like a stereotypical badly written vapire, in other words. Maroon is such an interesting character, you did a really excellent job of pulling him off and doing him justice. Most other writers would take him and turn him into the stereotype, I think.

Justin was interesting too, but I think more work could be done. He's almost being written to his full potential, but not quite. I think his best scene was here:

“Tell me what’s wrong, or I’ll shoot you,” I said, threatening him

Not only is the a blinking brilliant line of dialogue (how could it get any better? Brilliant!) but it does an outstanding job of characterization for him. A moment before, he had not only been cheery, but had been ready to take Maroon out to celebrate. He notices something is wrong and asks about it, and when Maroon refuses to spill the beans, he spouts out that line. What makes it even better is that it flows so well with him, seems so natural and in character. Justin seems to have some fatherly tendencies toward Maroon, asking where he's going, asking about the feild trip, even if he doesn't really care, how he's doing, keeping tabs on him but not too controlling... But at the same time, he's still a killer, the man who killed Maroon's parents, in fact. He beats Maroon, and then threatens to shoot him. Very interesting character.

But he could be more. Something you might want to look into is the topic of serial killers and the psychology behind them. In fact, YWS has it's very own expert on the topic. If you ever see OverEasy in the chat, you should hit her up on it, or you could just send her a PM. Really, it's somewhat of a hobby of hers, researching them and learning what makes them tick. If you talk to her, you might find something that would be just perfect for Justin, make him that much more... complete. If you know what I mean. Definitely hit her up on it the next time you see her. You might even have her read this so that she can be more specific in her information so you get things that apply directly to the story.

Kashmere is interesting, especially when it comes to her memories and the trauma. She wasn't nearly as interesting as Justin and Maroon, but she was still interesting. I was pretty well cheering for her when she was escaping from Justin there. Loved the interactions with her friends. Had me cracking up every time there was a joke. Even when it was just her and Maroon and no joke was said (like the 'it's the end of the day') if it was just a funny scene, it was fun. Very enjoyable story, had me on the edge of my seat and near tears towards the end. Which is weird, because there was only one other story on YWS that brought me close to tears, and that one did make me cry. So congrats on that, you did an excellent job.

Something that might be better fleshed out or even give a line or two more to would be how her parents knew what was coming, and why they didn't run. It seems like there was a reason and that it was hinted at, but perhaps hint a little more? Pretend we're all idiots.

And ta-da! Perhaps the longest critique on YWS.

Wow. A very interesting story. I loved almost everything about it, and it was very interesting and cool. Since this a long one, I'll be be posting the review in chapters.

The first chapter was very interesting, and after fixing errors in manuscript format, I had to correct the first couple of pages. The rest of the chapter was great--it got better and better.

Kashmere

– Change Font to TIMES NEW ROMAN.
Is this the first chapter, or a prologue? You should probably make some mention of that.

My story is one that is impossible for me to ever forget.

Changed to ‘one’, as the repetition of story was not needed.

Money was definitely not an issue in my family.

Then why does your main character feel the need to mention this?

My father was a rich doctor and my mom was a lawyer. So, I had a nanny until I was old enough to go to school.

This section is pretty bland, dear. All you’re doing is stating facts, and in addition, they don’t really seem important. You can slowly weave them into the story without really mentioning them straight out!

I went to an all girls’ boarding school and was educated the ways of a lady, even though I didn’t think I would need it in Reno, Nevada my daily life.

Changed to ‘my daily life’ so it flows a little better. So far, this is not a good start. It seems to be setting the premise for the story that we’ve all heard about before: a rich girl with a bad case of rebellious princess syndrome.

But all of that changed on July 1st when I got to go home for the summer.

Hmm, I think that this words a little better as, “my last day of school.”

My parents and I decided to celebrate my sixth grade graduation

dear, this seems a little late to be mentioning a fact such as this. Try mentioning it at the very beginning of the story by going out to dinner.

We went to an expensive Italian restaurant, and that was when things started getting weird. We walked across the parking lot from our nice yellow Ferrari.

Is nice really a necessary adjective? It’s a Ferrari. Duh, it’s going to be nice. I walked into the restaurant I saw a boy about my age in a dark sweatshirt, looking at me from under his hood.
He had gangster pants and his eyes glimmered red

from what we learn in the next part of the story, your narrator only thinks she saw red eyes.

In this part of the story, you say the boy’s eyes were red, even though your main character would probably preface the description of his eyes with ‘I could swear’ so it read I could swear his eyes were red

“Mary, we need to go,” whispered my father as the boy and his dad sat near us.

If this a “fancy” Italian restaurant, it most likely has waiter service- which means the boy wouldn’t be able to sit where he wanted too.

That's that! I'll try to post the next part soon.

Here is my crtique of your novel. First off it's not long enough. A short novel starts at 50,000. I believe yours was in the 40 thousands. Anyway saying that this is a good begening. So in the link below I have put in some comments an I'll leave some here. Ok so here we go.

Characters

Kashmere- She is a interesting character. I found her entertaining in the beginning. And I discovered something about her. She is easily influenced my love, and once she believes she's in love, she is "blind" to her surroundings. A very interesting character trait. Where she lacked is common sense. The beer being a prime example. Everyone knows never to drink anything in which you don't know what it is. Granted this is part of the personality trait previously stated, but I think this is a bit to the extreme. Same with her feeling for Maroon. She forgave him way too quick. I suggest she doesn't forgive him until the moment he is shot. Also she tends to negate herself. For most of the story she is scared that Maroon doesn't love her or he likes someones else. This shows she insecure, but in another scene she say that she is sure that all the guys would be jealous of Maroon when they saw her in her dress. You see the level of vanity in that statement undermines her insecurities earlier. Overall a good character that with a few tweaks could be a strong character.

Maroon- I have to say I quite disliked him. Maybe it's because I'm a boy and don't really see the romance, but he killed her parents and then lies. From this I gather he's scared to lose her. Sweet I suppose, but this is marred by his self righteous attitude towards Jared( And I have a whole section about this) You may say that he was forced to shoot people. Which is true, doesn't change the fact that he's violent and possessive. He beats up Jared and pulls a gun on him just for talking to K. Not to mention all the times he wants to kill him. Despite killing people he still finds the superiority to call Jared despicable for giving K beer.

Jared- I think he can be much more developed. In fact I think it's paramount. I see two possibilities. In one scene you have K jealous over him going to the dance with another girl, and yet you never act on that. He is dropped in to late into the story, he should be there before she meets Maroon for the second time. Because I found it hard to believe that someone like him would have trouble asking K out. You may even consider having them dating already that way the whole I love you think is not a slap in the face. I believe the character is a bit impulsive but that's about all I know. He could become a very interesting character if you give him more time to show, not tell his love for K. To show that he's impulsive about his love. Right now I see no reason for him to love K.

Justin- As said in one of the previous reviews. He could be so much more. We get he's bad, but why. What is his motivation?

Other characters- The Adults don' play that big of a role. So develop that. The friends however I can't distinguish them. They all seem the same, I think Rob is supposed to be the funny spontaneous one, but I'm not sure. So develop them more, and work hard on individuality. Especially if you decide to give them their own point of view chapters.

Plot- As I said Jared needs to become more part of the story. I'd even say he should be in the final showdown. The whole treasure thing was interesting. Parts of the plot didn't make sense, most of which can be fixed by research and character development.

I want to apologize here if I was to harsh in this review. So before you click please understand that I want to help. I don't want to be mean I swear. I may have commented on things sarcastically, which is kind of a moot point in writing, but you'll see. Anyway again hope I wasn't too harsh.

I think I hit all my points, if not I'll come back. Anyway good luck.