Emotions (Don't Move On Revised and Edited)

Chapter One



I revised it. Please edit.

"Who even likes the water?" Abby asked me. I rolled my eyes, and dripping with sarcasm, I told her, "Just about all the normal people around here. But there aren't too many, so you don't have to worry about it." She scrunched her face at me. "Did you have a bad day today?"
"Oh no! Failing math is my favorite academic activity," I hissed. Abby pinched the bridge of her nose.
"You know, sometimes you're too sarcastic. It really gets on my nerves. And sometimes I can't tell whether you're telling the truth or being sarcastic." She stopped to take a breath. "Cause you're always being sarcastic! It really gets on my nerves. Did I say that already? It just-" I sighed. For a six year old, she could sure blast her mouth.
"You know, a good time to stop talking is when you start repeating yourself." Abby shut up, but began tugging her auburn hair. For five minutes it was complete silence, except for other people's shouts and the splashes of salt water.. The little girl began dancing around. "You know, Duke, I wish I had curly blond hair, like Sarah. Sarah's my best-est best-est friend in the whole wide world. Did'ya know that, Duke?" I sat down and took out my cellphone. I had to let my mom know that I'd be late for dinner.
"Abby, blonds are nothing but trouble."
"But you dated my sister and she was blond!"
"We broke up though. Because she was nothing but trouble."
She stuck her tongue out at me. "That's what they want you to think."
"Does that even make sense?"
She gave me her, you-just-had-to-go-and-be-a-jerk look.
"Maybe it doesn't have to."
I smothed my sun-bleached hair back. "Whatever you say."
She ran over to me and gave a giant hug. "Duke, when I'm older, will you marry me?" I coughed. "W-well. It's a bit sudden for that. I mean, we're eleven years apart, Abs'."
She stuck her nose up to that. "Mommy and Daddy are twenn'y years apart and they love each other!!!"
"Abby. I am you're babysitter." I said sternly,
"And future husband!!" She crowed.
"No."
"Yup."
"Not happening."
"It already did!!" I rolled my eyes.
"Uh-huh. I'm sure." I checked my watch. "It's getting late, Abby. Lets get home."
"Okay, honey." She looked up at me in awe.
"Down, tiger."

One week later....

"Change the frikin' channel, Shaun!!!" I growled at him across the room. No response. Walking over, I saw that his jaw was dropped and eyes horrified. "What the f-" A picture of a burning plane was on the screen. "...Plane crash, on it's way home to South Beach, California..." Oh my God. That's where we were. "...From Fair Oaks, Texas..." Shit!! That's where Abby had vacationed! The reporter went on, "..luckily it was a private jet..." OMFG, I thought. Abby.
"...Most of the family survived, execpt for..." Please no. Please, God no."
"Abigail Kiki MicKinley."
_____________________________________________________________

I smoothed my black tuxeto. She was so young....she had so much to look forward too. I looked at myself in the mirror, and saw a sharp looking young man with misty rainstorm eyes. Turning away, I heard a shout, "Duke! C'mon. I'm leaving," Shaun yelled. "Alright. Okay." I jogged down the stairs and presented myself. "Looking good." Shaun muttered, trying to find his keys.
"I could say the same for you." I smiled.
We walked out of the house and into the car. The engine roared a we made our way to The McKinley House.
______________________________________________________________

As we walked in, I looked over every person there; Kira was there, and as good looking as ever. Abby's mom was there, sobbing on Mr. McKinley's shoulder. That was who I recognized. I bet some of Abby's friends and Grandparents came too. I walked over to Kira. "Hey," I told her softly. She whipped around to look. Her face immediantly softened when she saw me. Her big green eyes were filled with tears. "Hi..." I pulled her close. "I'm so sorry, Kira. So sorry-"
She interruptred me, "She really loved you, you know that? She told me the last day she saw you, 'Duke's gonna marry me, Kia!!'" She laughed, but the sparkle that normally showed up had abandoned her. I smiled, "Yeah. It was cute." We were silent for a moment, and she pushed me away.
"Where did they put her body?" No need to say who, I thought. "They burnt it," She replied. "While we were on the plane, she said to me, 'As soon as we get back, I want to go to the beach with Duke.' Unfortunatley-" She smiled grimly, "We couldn't make you into a pile of ashes too." She paused for a moment. "I get to choose where to spread them. But, I don't want to spread them." She looked at me. "I want you too."
"Kira, I really don't think I shoul-"
"What's her favorite T.V show?" She asked quickly.
"Doodle-Bops" I replied instictively. She told me about all the shows.
"Favorite drink?"
"Green Tea frapachino with two bags of sugar."
"Favorite possesion?"
A twang of pain hit me, "Cross neckless with an emerald inside."
"Who gave it to her." It was a statement.
"Me," I said, "For her last birthday." Kira smiled. "My doubts are denied. You will fling her remains, like it or not."

...mmm...okay..well, I have to say the story was kind of pointless. I'm sorry, but, it was just....odd. I have to say Abby kind of annoyed me, which I guess was your point, but I don't know anything about the narrator!, and the story didn't tell me anything about anyone. If it's the first chapter you should make it more interesting, I just..well didn't like it.
I'm sorry, I know it's a bit harsh, but it's just what I think.
You should keep developing the story, make it more interesting.
Good Luck.

Hello. ^_^

"Who really even likes the water?"

The "really even" part is a little annoying and difficult to read for a first line. I'd get rid of "really", to be honest, since it's more natural and has a better flow to it.

Failing math

Capitalise "math"; you're referring to the subject and not the... "thing", "process" or whatever.

Cause

Stick an apostrophe before the C.

It just-"

I'd change that hyphen to two, instead, since that's how you do one of those dashy things. And I'd suggest ending the paragraph here. Since we have "I sighed" so close, I thought that the narrator was speaking.

water..

Two full stops? Why? Typo--? I think so.

Didja'

I don't like the "ja" at the end. When we speak, we have a tendency to scrunch together the "do you" together, like a "Did'ya" or something of the like. Try pronouncing it--they're practically the same, except the latter is more accurate.

At the end of the piece I was entirely sure who was speaking anymore. Throw in some more speech tags and emotions/reactions so that we aren't stuck with bobbing heads. And I'd like some more on the descriptions front. Right now, I can't picture anything. Just a nine year-old girl dancing, type of thing. Throw us into the building and have your characters move. You could describe the looks of your characters easily, which would be quite important to the piece. How do they know each other? Their relationship? Stretch the conversation into something more substantial, and bring out a more vibrant first sentence--I mean, what's the relevance of the water?

First chapters really have the burden of needing to draw us in. Well, I couldn't grasp much of anything, because there was no real goal of this especially short extract. Was the point to make the reader away of the past relationship? Well, knowing of its existence tells me little. Show us. How does your character react upon the mentioning? Give it a goal--each line should in some way contribute to the story. Be it expressions, or thoughts, or whatever--remember than any narration is the voice of the narrator.

Because of the little character development you have going on here, it's important to remember that dialogue is thus hard to relate to and understand, if you have no idea what characters you have. Sure, there was some development coming trough in the later lines, but not much. Put it this way--two men come up to you and start talking about their business plans while you are drinking a coffee not far away. Will you be especially interested in what they are saying?

I hope I helped--there wasn't a lot to say, just keep writing!

Blinky

hahaha I like this as just a random bit of writing. It made me significantly happy. (:


BUT this needs more meat to be a first chapter, I think. Fill it out a little. Give us more insight than always-sarcastic-Duke and little-nine-year-old-Abby and the troublesome-blonde-Kira. Also, the dialogue should sound more natural. I got some really good advice from an instructor at a writing camp I went to and he said to create good dialogue, listen to someone's conversation and write down everything they say phonetically. This works wonders, trust me. (;


Anyways, thanks for entertaining me!

Yeah, I have to say I lost interest in this after the first few paragraphs. There's no point, no mystery or romance. Just a conversation between two friends. This would be great if it were somewhere in the middle of a chapter, but having it as a beginning doesn't work. Sorry.

~Sunny

There's a lot of simple grammar mistakes in the passage, but besides those here is what I think: The story should be much longer. I like it so far, and I want to know more about Kira and the main character. This really cannot be considered a chapter at all, it's more like a small snippett of a chapter, really. Please post more of it, I'd like that.