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Hey Hannah!

This was good. I didn't see any looming grammatical problems, so it looks flawless. Though I am wondering about your two characters and what is going to happen between them. I know it is only the beginning but hopefully it gets conflict or something so your characters don't seem to perfect. You write well and you have me hooked, so I'm off to the next part.


Keep writing,

~Angel

Hey Hannah,

whoa, someone posted a lot today! [EDIT: Ahem.. yesterday...]Might be smarter to post one part of a story at one time, just to get people hooked and then post the next part after a little while...

Still I felt like reading this, since I've noticed you around, and I cannot say that I was disappointed. You have a nice, clear narrative and reading this was enjoyable and light.

I have a few issues though:

Tenses

Yeah, I know. It's annoying when someone starts with some grammar issue, but in this case it's one big thing that continues throughout the piece and when it's fixed, which is easily done, will make it easier to read, so I think it's worth nagging you about.

When you flash back you should change tenses to past perfect, because your narrative tense is simple past and you're thinking back on something that happened in the past and ended in the past.

It [s]was[/s] had been November 28th, as Georgia remembered, and they’d been walking back from drawing class together.

For example. As you see in the last part of the sentence you don't do it all the time, but I'd go hough this to make it consistently correct.


Tie it up and leave us hanging

I really like your opening sentence, it immediately catches the attention of the reader and induces the following questions:

Have what planned out?
Who is he?
What is going on?

You start in the present of your story and flashback to the past, seemingly only to justify why she likes her neck. Of course you do much more with the flashback, you introduce him, her character and their relationship. However you leave us off right after the flashback and the opening sentence and our questions are kind of pushed into the background. We're not curious anymore, we've merely learned about who they are. There's no hook to keep us asking about the present. The flashback is over and the old questions pushed away. Bring us back to the present again. Make what's going on now interesting and remind us that we're curious about what's going on.

Draw the connection to the present and that opening sentence, then you'll have a round, interesting first chapter.


Hope this was some help, keep going!

All the best,
~Kalliope

P.S. Feel free to drop me a PM with any questions you might have.

Hey Hannah!

She wondered if he’d gotten it all planned out the way she had.

When writing fiction, there are some low-class, icky words that should try to be avoided, because using them in your writing lowers the overall look of your writing. One of these words is "got" and all forms of it. Instead of using this word, just replace it with a different verb. In this case, you could just say, "if he had planned it out the way she had".

The mirror reflected to her a pretty enough picture – wavy blond hair to the small of her back (though it caused her untold troubles each morning as she attempted to drag a brush through the tangled mess); large, brown eyes with nearly indiscernible flecks of gold and gray that she’d grown into over the years; a small, puckered nose that was slightly off-center between those eyes; cheek bones that were relatively well-defined and constantly tinted with just the slightest hint of her NARS blush (Dolce Vita, ordered online for twenty-five dollars); not to mention a neck she’d grown fond of for its elegant contours after a certain someone had pointed them out.

Eek! The words here are nice, but the structure of the sentences within the paragraph is scaring me away a little. Your listing her features, and they're wordy, and that makes this paragraph very, very long, and I feel lost within all the description. You want your readers to fall in love with your writing, not just fall into it. First, don't use so many semi-colons within one sentence. Those are a lot of semi-colons before a period is anywhere in sight... Then, try to break up this paragraph, at least once. It's best not to start stories with very large paragraphs.

She’d giggled at his abrupt announcement and worked an elbow into his side.

You don't need the "had" in there. "She giggled at his abrupt". You said had in the previous, establishing the past tense in a way that we know what's going on.

Aiden turned to Georgia then with a repressed laugh on his lips, confident that she found the instructor’s passion for his subject every bit as absurd as he did. The neck on his paper was precisely a “cylinder wedged between the chin and shoulders”, even after a year and a half of education.

She parted her lips and strained them upwards, teeth clenched, eyes expanding slightly in an effort to silence his retorts without attracting the attention of the teacher; every fiber of her being – from the locks of hair that hung loose around her face, somehow escaping the grasp of her butterfly scrunchie, to the dirty, untied shoelaces that complemented the gray Puma California’s she’d bought earlier that week – seemed drawn towards Aiden and the mischievous smile he was flashing in her direction.

This sentence is much too long. I found myself getting lost in a maze, trying to find the concept you are trying to form. Shorten this description into separate sentences, at least two different ones.

then shook off her moment of reverie and she, too, returned to her work.

Rephrase it like this to remove choppiness (and long sentences): "then shook off her moment of reverie. She, too, returned to her work." The reason that this was choppy was because you had a long sentence, which was fine, a comma, which was fine, and then you threw in that and there, which was too excessive and created a long, choppy feel to the flow of the sentence. It's best not to even have the and in there, and without it you need to start a new sentence.

The girl he walked beside, his friend for two halcyon years, was surprised at the sincerity in Aiden’s voice;

Instead of "the girl he walked beside", say "she". Try not to phrase things too confusing.

Alright. Though your actual word choice is nice, you have an issue with long, choppy sentence structure. I pointed out all the instances, and already gave you suggestions -- it's easily fixable, and the reason you want to avoid is merely because it can be very confusing and halting for the reader, and the last thing you want is to put off your reader by confusing them with basic concepts.

Another thing I think you might want to do is perhaps describe the actual class itself briefly at the beginning of this, rather than just jumping into Georgia thinking back onto the class. The use of this (you can even keep it to a short paragraph) could be to merely introduce the two characters of Georgia and her love interest. Right now, I feel like we just jump into Georgia's thoughts as she's leaving class, and that makes me never really catch my bearing during the beginning of this story. Even just describing their actions briefly in class (her drawing, how she feels about it, what she senses, him drawing, his sensory experience) could bring us closer to the characters than this retrospective musing you have started with.

Yes. Definitely start within the classroom, rather than her thinking back to it. I'll keep reading, of course -- I want to see what's going to happen with Georgia and him!

I hope this is helpful! PM me if you have questions!

~ Clo

Hallo, Clo! Thanks so much for the review. ^_^ ~

I had been considering changing the first sentence to 'had planned it all out' anyways, so I will definitely do that now, with your advice! C:

I do understand your comment about long, confusing paragraphs as I've been told that I do that many times. >_< Haha, I just can't help wanting to squeeze everything together -- I think I'm afraid of having too many short, choppy sentences together. I will fix the later ones you mentioned, but I do want to keep my opening paragraph as it is. Also, the only reason I used semi-colons rather than commas is because one of the items in that list contained a comma, so the semi-colons were necessary to distinguish! ^_^

You don't need the "had" in there. "She giggled at his abrupt". You said had in the previous, establishing the past tense in a way that we know what's going on.

Ooh! Kalliope mentioned something about the transitions between flashbacks as well, so perhaps this suggestion will clear that up? ^_^ I'll try it! ^_^ Thank you~ <3

Instead of "the girl he walked beside", say "she". Try not to phrase things too confusing.

-nodnodnod- I will fix it. Haha. >_< I do that sometimes~

Yes. Definitely start within the classroom, rather than her thinking back to it. I'll keep reading, of course -- I want to see what's going to happen with Georgia and him!

Ehhh. I feel like a lot of these problems arise from having separated the story into sections that are read one at a time. >_> I guess, writing it, I kind of felt like they all fit together and over ALL would have made sense, diving into flashbacks a few times, then returning to the present and progressing on from there. >_< I'll consider it though, Clo!

Thank you SO much for your critique! I will get right on those suggestions! ^_^ -huggles-

-Hannah-

Hey Hannah! I'm impressed. While nothing out of the ordinary happened as such, I was kept interested throughout this section. Although it is short, admittedly, capturing my complete attention for that long while music blares in the background and people keep trying to talk to me is no small feat. ^_^

She wondered if he’d planned it all out the way she had.

This isn't a bad line, but I had a feeling of being dumped straight into a story with no idea what's going on. This feeling subsided as I read further, but as first lines go, it isn't the most captivating, but instead forces the reader to scramble to keep up with the sudden dumping in someone's thoughts. That said, this line does work, I just think you may be able to improve it. Remember, first impressions count. You want to hook the reader in the first few sentences.

The mirror reflected to her a pretty enough picture

Get rid of the 'to her'. The sentence still works without it, and is more economical, simpler and more effective. Extra, unneeded words always give a sense of awkwardness to me, and drags the whole sentence down with them. This doesn't seem an overly large problem as far as you're concerned overall, but I'll still point it out when I see them.

puckered nose that was slightly off-center between those eyes;

For some reason, 'those eyes' seems a little off to me. I'm not sure why, but my mind balked when I read it. Maybe just replace 'those' with 'her'?

cheek bones that were relatively well-defined

Relative to what? It's a phrase that annoys me somewhat. People say with it in every day conversation with out telling what the subject is relative to.

It was November 28th, as Georgia remembered,

Is this information needed? I apologise if it does have some significance later on, but if not- try not to give irrelevant information if it does not add to the character, plot, background or scene. It's a waste of words- if it's not significant, if it's not going to be used, if it does not give an insight on the character or plot, lose it.

Georgia turned her head to glance at him with a restrained movement and sent him a look that too-plainly revealed her happy embarrassment.

Why was she happily embarrassed? She hadn't said it, and why would the statement make her happy? Amused may be a better description.

She parted her lips and strained them upwards, teeth clenched, eyes expanding slightly in an effort to silence his retorts without attracting the attention of the teacher.

0.0 I just get an image of a deranged clown. Why did she do that? To reprimand someone I would draw my eyebrows down, frown slightly and shake my head slightly, or, alternatively, raise one eyebrow to say 'what the hell do you think you are doing?'
What you have here is... what you do at a camera when you're secretly thinking 'hurryuphurryupIneedtopeecomeoncomeoncomeON!'

She, too, returned to her work.
“Well, yes and no,” replied Aiden as autumn’s zephyrs whispered around his black pea coat.

Woah. Big jump here- it took moment for me to realise they were back in the corridor. Maybe give a breif line to clarify? An action, a short description, anything to make this transition smoother.

“Yeah, well yours is a pain in the ass to draw, Aid.

Okay, I'm being nit-picky, but why is everyone obsessed with donkeys?
We even had this argument in English class. Me and the teacher agreed on this one point:
Ass: Donkey.
Arse: your butt.
But, then I guess it is debatable, as it is slang.

crunching against the tri-color leaves that covered the familiar concrete path.

I assumed they would be in a hallway. This means, you obviously need to add a brief description of their surroundings earlier. This may help with the transitions, too.

Overall, you have got me interested. There is nothing overly new, so far, but you have written it in a interesting enough manner to keep me reading. Congrats ^_^
If you have any questions, feel free to PM me, I'll be glad to help.

-Nutty

I'm here!
Well, I was getting confused with the flashbacks and then the present...so maybe you might want to smooth that out. That was the only thing I noticed that you did wrong, it's a biggie, lol. I like your characterization, the characters seem so real. Keep writing!

Hey. Your stry's really good i didn't really notice any errors. Keep writing i really think you could make this big....Keep up the god work!

So, dear Hannah, I shall attempt to be as in-depth as possible for such short notice, but I can't promise oodles of nit-picking like in CotPC. 'Kay? You'll just have to deal.

She wondered if he’d planned it all out the way she had. To Georgia, it seemed the only possible explanation. It couldn’t be that he didn’t know her well enough -- they’d been friends for too long. It wasn’t that she wasn’t smart enough -- they shared the same classes and scored similar grades. It wasn’t her looks, because he wasn’t shallow, never mind the fact that she didn’t think she looked half-bad.

This is a good opener, I believe. It gets us really wondering a) what has or has not been planned out, and b) who the heck 'he' is.

The next paragraph, descirbing her is very sneakily worked into the story. I like it. You don't just blurt out what she looks like, but subtley connect it to the two paragraphs surrounding it. That can be hard to do, so kudos to you!

In the art room scene, you start with using 'had' and 'have' but then slip out of it and just use 'was' and 'were' and 'said'. You might want to drop the 'hads' from the beginning, or keep them up the whole time. Either way, that flashback-ish scene should be consistent.

“Oh shit, George,” he said, chuckling, “We’ve gotta spend an HOUR on this crap?”

It burns my eyes! Oh, the agony! There, my innocence flies out the window!

too-plainly revealed her amused embarrassment

Ditch the hyphen. And, cramming all these descriptive words in this sentence makes be confused on exactly what emotion she's feeling. Why does Aiden's comment make her amused/embarresed? Just don't lose your meaning trying to cram impressive adjectives or long words.

He took the hint, however, aided by the circling presence of Mr. Frett, and returned his lake blue eyes to his work. After taking a moment to control her silent giggles, Georgia, too, had returned to her work and they'd remained well-behaved for the rest of the class.

See? In this paragraph alone you switch between using 'had' and then dropping it. Consistency is your friend. Your readers like it too. *hint*

“Well, yes and no,” replied Aiden as autumn’s zephyrs whispered around his black pea coat.

By the time we got here after the art scene flashback, I had forgotten the quesion, or accusation. Is there any way to subtley remind us of it in this paragraph where it's brought back up again? And you chould make a smoother transition between the class and the walk back to the parking lot, I believe.

It was with a longing regret that Georgia realized she’d never be able to remember the first moment she’d seen Aiden – it was a reality that had been consigned to oblivion only moments after its occurrence, locked forever to her conscious memory.

The last sentence should, I believe, be the following: locked away forever from her memory. Here you cram another needless word in a perfectly good sentence. Less is more, my dear. Haven't you heard?

So! This was fun to read. You're very talented, Hannah, and when I read Charlotte I thought all your writing had the formal air. But, here you show that you are diverse and can switch character tones when need be.

I'm going to wait and give over-all impressions until the final chapter, so, off to part two!

~Evi

Hey there Hannah! June here!

I am totally unreasonably late with this! I feel terribly guilty!

Clo-dear has already touched on any possible errors that might have existed. The only thing that I would point out is:

“We’ve gotta spend an HOUR on this crap?”

Generally in writing/language arts, it is not commonly liked to capitalize a word like you did for hour. Italicizing it gives the reader the same effect, adding extra emphasis on that word.

Aside from that, this was very well written. It was evenly paced, and kept on rolling smoothly 'til the very end. Most of the time, people tend to stumble from one part to the next, but everything here transitioned smoothly.


I promised you that I would review this entire piece, and I really don't want to hold you up with the printing of this, so I'm going to move on to the next part. You have my permission to ask me to review the next four things you post, and I will do them . I promise.

It was a great read; I'll give a better overall impression at the end of the story, mmkay?

Keep it up! Great job!

xxJune

Huzzannah, I might not have too much to say about this, except, stop making me jealous with you prose talent. Srsly.

Okay so anyway:

(though it caused her untold troubles each morning as she attempted to drag a brush through the fair tangled mess)
I think you can get rid of fair here. You've already told us it's blond and the word really doesn't add anything to the description.

in her -shaped face;
Missing a word?

a look that too-plainly revealed
Hm. I don't think you need the too- here. I'm not even sure what too plainly would mean? Like...I don't know. I think just plainly is enough.

“Shhh”.
Punctuation inside the quotation marks. Always. This goes for other couple of times it happens as well.

“Well, yes and no,” replied Aiden
Eurgh. This took me two reads to figure out what was going on, but I'm not sure how to fix it, as you've already mastered the flashback transition. I'd suggest adding a comma now comma, but that would sound odd. So it's up to you as the author! Fix it or ignore it 'cause I'm slow.

Her defense-wall, laden with careless comebacks, shot up immediately in the face of something sincere:
I LOVE THIS. That's all.

at the head of her bed
Tee hee. This sounds funny. Actually, I don't think you even need it, since we infer from her comforter that she's on her bed? Or at least we don't need at the head.

Awh. This was so cute! I loved it. I have, like, two suggestions, besides those nitpicks.

The flashbacks were kind of confusing. You could get away with one. Maybe two. But you have one, one within that one, and then another one at the end. So I'd suggest getting rid of the first one, and then starting with when he says her neck is graceful? I do like your beginning, but then every time I come to the end of the flash back and I notice the hads or whatever I'm like, wait, what? Oh, right. So maybe a little less on the memories.

The other thing is, the beginning. Your first sentence is like, bam! And maybe I should read the other installments before saying this. But it's like, Ooh, plan what out? I must read on to find out! and it's good. And then it comes to the end and I'm still like, plan what out? Their relationship? Falling in love? It doesn't sound like either one of them planned it out. So...don't leave me hanging!

Anywhoodles, I'm on to read the next part! LOVE~-Mars