first chapter of my book! i can't say the name!

This isn't all the chapter; I'm still working on it.


"I can't believe there's only five more days 'till graduation," Kourtney Fitzgerald exclaimed as they pulled out of the school's parking lot. Both Kathy and Kourtney ruled the school with both their beauty and brains. They were the top of their class and both girls had huge secrets to tell. Kathy Harris and Kourtney Fitzgerald were both ruthless ninja's. Not only are ninja's though but they can sense when danger is around so the crime will be stopped.
Most people believe ninja's are asian warriors who wear masks and have nun-chucks or swords. Neither one of these girls had swords or wore masks.




sorry it isnt that much but im in some kind of rut!

A pretty good start! A couple things, though:

1: When you first said they were 'ruthless ninjas' (which, by the way, no apostrophe in ninjas I believe), I thought you were using a metaphor for how they went about ruling the school - not that they actually WERE ninjas!

2: I'm not 100% sure on this, but the only time you end a character's thoughts/dialogue with an apostrophe is if they speak again, uninterrupted, later in the paragraph. Kourtney doesn't speak again, so it should end with a period. (Can someone please confirm or deny this??)

3:

Not only are ninja's though but they can sense when danger is around so the crime will be stopped.

This whole sentence just seems clunky and rushed to me, along with it missing some words. Here's how I would write this out...

Not only are they ninjas, though, but they can sense when danger is around and can help stop the crime.

Read your sentence outloud to yourself, I bet you'll see what I'm talking about.

4:

Most people believe ninja's are asian warriors who wear masks and have nun-chucks or swords. Neither one of these girls had swords or wore masks.

This is an odd way to end your chapter, even though it isn't completed. Even in the drafting stage, a story should have clear endings to chapters, thoughts, etc.

5: When you say both girls had 'huge secrets to tell', it seems like a filler. Unless you continue on that thought, describe it, or use that point later in the chapter, I would consider either revising it or cutting it entirely.

All in all, a nice start. Keep at it!

- G

Hiya,

In the future, you should probably wait till you've completed the chapter before you post it. If you don't want to, you can make that you are posting intriguing enough that makes the reader what to continue on. Right now, you don't really do this. You try to cram too much into one little paragraph, and there isn't a clear focus as of yet.

Secondly, why can't you share the title of the story? When posting literary works here on YWS, authors only have two things to judge a piece by; the title and the genre. Genres are broad topics and all of them cover terrible works as well as masterpieces. So, what about the title? It needs to be catchy and in someway correlate to what the story is going to be about. This can be as obvious or as subtle as you'd like. I don't know why you aren't titling it. If you do, it'll benefit your readers by gracing you with more critiques.

You start off well in the first bit, seemingly introducing the conflict. Then you take a frightening and quick turn to and entirely different kid of story. Because the gap is so quick, we're left wondering if they actually are ninjas or if it is just a metaphor. In urban fantasies like the one that you want to create, the characters are introduced, foreshadowing is made, and then we're introduced to the fantasy-like aspect of the story. Right now, you could expand upon several ideas you've mentioned here. How did they rule the school? Why are they friends? When did they first find out about who they were? What made them eligible? How does it affect their schooling?

Right now everything moves along so quickly that there's really no time to stomach it all. It's like if a roller-coaster went too fast, we'd fall off, right? We'd see it taking place but never really know what it was like. Keep this in mind when you revise, and PM me for anything.

-Elinor x