(RUNAWAY) Chapter One: Paralyzed * title subject to change

Thanks, bkwrm!

I'm glad you like it, and thanks for the nit-picks!

Very good! The description again was very, very good. It gives Skye a poetic side to her nature, instead of being the complete teen rebel who doesn't give a monkey's about whether something's beautiful or not.

The first shadows of dusk thickened outside my window, spider-webbing the silhouettes of tree branches across the lawn. I set down my pen for a moment to observe it.

I don't know why, but that last bit really threw me off. It was all shadows and spiderwebs and silhouettes and then that came up and it was like a kick in the pants. Maybe, I set down my pen for a moment and watched.

Or you could have her play with the pen instead... or is Skye not that type of girl?


I don't quite get why Skye thinks that the other bloke used her. All he did was ask her whether Janet had said about the date.


Otherwise, it was very good!

Part One seemed far more interesting than Part Two. The second section, full of italics, only served to overwhelm and intimidate the reader. You could solve this problem by turning it into a passage (E.g.: "I sent her emails telling her of the arduous amount of homework...").

Anothet thing: try to cut down on the italics. Used sparingly, they can be effective, but otherwise they become repetitive and lose their impact.

The introduction to your story was absolutely wonderful. One of the best I have read in a long time. It pulled me straight into the action. Mesmerising stuff. Now all you need to do is make the characters more definable, tangible entities rather than just actors in a play by the author. They need to feel like living, breathing humans. What do they look like? What are the surroundings like? How is the character really feeling? (Free indirect speech can help here.)

Speaking of which, Tanya seemed a redundant character. Either cut her out completely or make more of her entrance: go to your greatest lengths to imagine her for the reader. If you can see her clearly in your mind's eye, your audience will do the same.

I think you had the right balance between description and dialogue, but more relevant description would greatly help. Don't try and think of the most amazing image every time; only show what needs to be shown - and no more! That way, your images will be more arresting and unusual.

You have stated that Skye is in "junior high" and so am not sure of the relevance of this question.

Hope this helps. Your talent is clear and with some work, it will improve no end.

Gahks

I loveed it. This had the right amount of info to get someone hooked and not so much that the reader is bored. Skye seems like she is suffering from exteme depression or some emotional sickness. I'm wonerding if the guy she like is a jerk or the IM was misinterpreted by Skye. The MSN thng did work it added more effect. I like how you give so little in the plot and leave alot for later parts in the story. Can't wait to find those things out.

I swung my head around to glare at Mrs. Watson, my advisory teacher. She sat placidly behind her cluttered mahogany desk, hands forming a steeple over piles of half-graded papers.

Really, this is purple prose uneeded info, is it so important the desk mahogany? This just seems so baseless to tell us this. You know what colour mahogany is. You know what colour it is? If it's so important then show us rather than telling

Questions: (please, please answer these in your critiques!)
1. Do you get any feel for Skye's personality yet? If yes, what helped to build up her character? If not, what could I do to improve?
She seemed rather cliche in some ways. Typical teenagers, angst and nilistic. I understand you're trying to write that sort of character but only the verbose prose kept me intrested not the character. I felt she was a bit of a brat truthfully. What you need to do, is make her more realistic but less cliche. Give her something intresting and perky that will wipe away the cliches.

2. How do you like the style of writing so far? Too much description? Too little?
It's very exellently done and innovative but you do have a habit of telling us rather than showing as I point out at the start. A lot of it is uneeded.

3. How old do you think Skye is?
To hazard a guess fourteen or fifteen, too young sounding to be any older. Plus her cares are so trite and contrived.

1. Does the MSN thing work, or is it too boring?
Not the first time I've seen something like this. But it was intresting idea. You give us an idea of personality with the way it shown web address and all.

Overall: The main character bothers me right now she's just too negative and nothing about really intrests me. You need to think why would a person want to read about such everyday things with such a bland character. Hope this helps.

Good luck
VSN

Thank you all very much for your excellent reviews!

Skye is fourteen, just so everyone knows. There. Most of you guessed right.

In case anyone's wondering, I won't be doing much editing until I've finished five chapters. (If I try to perfect each chapter before I continue, I never get anywhere.) At the moment, I'm just fixing grammar and stuff -- but as soon as I'm finished ch.5, I'll be revising everything.

Plus her cares are so trite and contrived.

I intended for her cares to be slightly... trite, borrowing your adjective, but do they seem too much so?

---

Anyway, thanks, you guys! I love you all.

Cheers,
Camille xox

Hey, Camille! Sorry it took me so long to reply.

(questions one and two) I got the impression that this chapter was a lot more plot-driven; and as such I didn't get much more new insight into Skye's character. With your introductory chapters, you're going to want to build information about the characters as you go along. It's what makes first chapters so tough. You want enough plot to draw readers in, but you also want to properly introduce your characters.

A few things you might want to look at:

- Why does she like/care about this boy?

- Why does she have such a rocky relationship with her parents?

(MSN) I thought you dealt with pretty well. However, I would take out the email addresses--on mine, it just shows the name and a time stamp, and it's easier to read. There's so much to skip over with the addresses added.

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^_^ Good chapter, Camille! As usual, poke me if you need me to clarify something.

Hi, Camille!

Sorry I haven't gotten this to you earlier *grumbles excuses* I'll do separate reviews for part one and part two.

Part one...

Nitpicks

Under other circumstances, I would have been captivated -- I could write about it -- but not now, not in detention.

I think there should be a "usually" after "I" and before "would." There's nothing wrong with it the way it is, but I think it would flow better if you changed it.

The bell rang then, razoring through a silence broken only by the steady patter of rain.

This is awkward -- maybe you could say "...razoring through the steady, rain-pattered silence."

Mrs. Watson wasn't actually that bad -- for a teacher -- but now I would need to come up with an excuse for being late from school, because my parents would be just dying to know.

Shouldn't the bold word be "knew?"

Everyone, including my friends, would be either hanging around the park or on their way home.

Minor detail: hanging around the park? In the rain?!

"Share?" she offered, as if guessing my thoughts.

I would delete "as if" because it's obvious that she's guessing her thoughts. You would only need to say "as if" if it was something that wasn't really possible, like "as if reading my mind" or "as if she knew my thoughts." But guessing is perfectly normal, and it's obvious that that's what Tanya's doing.

Rain sheeted down from wolf-grey clouds, peppering the street with tiny silver explosions as each one fell and broke in its turn.

Saying "in its turn" is repetitive, because you said "each one" earlier, which emplies the same thing. :wink" I would delete "in its turn."

We walked in an uncharacteristic silence until the park, Tanya turned and said, "Well, see you tomorrow, I guess."

This is awkward, maybe: "We walked in an uncharacteristic silence until WE REACHED the park, WHERE Tanya turned and said, "Well, see you tomorrow, I guess.""
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Questions:
1. Do you get any feel for Skye's personality yet? If yes, what helped to build up her character? If not, what could I do to improve? So far, she doesn't feel like anything special. She seems to me like a very normal teen going through very normal teen problems. I don't particularly care for her (not yet, anyway). I wouldn't change anything about that yet; there's still the whole rest of the story ahead. But you should definitely think about it. Also, she seems (a little) like you in that she's a writer and... well... she gets grounded a lot. >.< No offense intended, of course!

2. How do you like the style of writing so far? Too much description? Too little? It's very... pretty. About the description: you describe the rain extensively, and beautifully, and I love those descriptions... but you don't really describe anything else. I understand that the rain is a powerful part of the setting, but still--what else does your character notice about her surroundings? Smells, maybe? Think about it.

3. How old do you think Skye is? I dunno... somewhere between 13 and 16, I'd say. It's difficult to tell this early on.

I'm really sorry if I repeated anything: I didn't really look at the other peoples' reviews.

Please don't take this review too harshly! I will be coming back for part two ASAP.

Hope this helps, and you can PM me as always if I was unclear.

~Azila~

P.S. Add me to the list!!

Hello, Wolf -- I've returned for more!

Nitpicks

Mrs. Watson called tonight. About a half hour ago, my mom had come tramping up the stairs, red-faced and angry.

I'm not quite sure how to explain this, but I'll try my best and hope it makes sense. The part sounds as though it's a journal excerpt, being written a half hour after the incident... but the rest of the narrative isn't like that. For example, here's a "corrected" version: "Mrs. Watson had called earlier that night. My mom had come tramping up the stairs, red-faced and angry." I don't know if that made any sense or not.

Grounded for a month, no computer access, the usual.

No YWS? *gasp* Lol.

A skeletal gate of trees laced over it, black and twisting without their leaves.

This is kind of awkward... maybe try: "Trees, black and twisting without their leaves, formed a skeletal gate of trees laced over it, black and twisting without their leaves."

Screw homework, I thought as soon as I heard the door slam.

You might want to clarify which door this is, because I thought at first that it was her bedroom door.

The house rang with an eerie silence as I waited for MSN to load. It was like a silent, gaping scream -- without sound, but somehow, you just hear it.

I don't like the repetition of "silence/silent." Also, I think that should be "you just HEARD it." Past tense, rather than present.

heyy. What's up? you sound kinda sad > the (U) in your name...

Huh? I don't use MSN, so I don't know what the (U) means...

Michael turned and muttered irritably to his friends before starting in, across the rain-slicked road.

You used the word "irritably" to describe Michael's speech a few paragraphs ago. Find a different word. ^_~
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1. Does the MSN thing work, or is it too boring? Yeah, it works. The email addresses add insight to the personalities of your characters -- like some reviewer said before me, *is too lazy to see who.* The only thing that I would change is that the MSN dialogue is a bit too good. Put in some more typos and uncapitalized letters, and left out punctuation. I see that Skye makes Tanya capitalize her "i"s, but what about the guy she likes (I don't think I know his name)? He doesn't have to capitalize his "i"s. Definitely add in more typos.

Another problem I had with this part of the chapter is that time seems to pass too quickly. That short MSN conversation seems to take up a LOT of time, because she starts it right after her parents leave and by the time she finishes it it's already a half hour after she should have put her brother to bed. I don't know when her parents leave, but this seems wrong. maybe make her do some other things BEFORE MSN? Like check/write email, maybe myspace or facebook... or YWS? Okay, maybe not. Maybe she sees that Tanya isn't online and does something else for a while before checking back to see that she is online?

I also have to say that I don't like Skye very much. Of course, there's NOTHING wrong with that, (three cheers for terrible characters!) but it's something to think about. A good thing about her is that she's a writer, and I can relate to her that way.

So far, the plot (and characters) seems cliché. I trust you will probably sort that out, though, and this is just the first chapter, so I won't pester you. ^_^

PM me if you want to!

Hope this helps.
~Azila~

Hi Wolf! Haven't seen you in a while...

Anyway, add me to the list! I'm interested in seeing where this is going.

1:Hmm... Obviously she's having trouble in school, and seems a bit rebellious. But it also seems like she has kind of a sentimental side, like when she is realizing how beautiful the rain is on the window.

2: I liked the amount of description, though I'm sure I've heard 'pregnant with XX' before.

3: fourteen or fifteen.

In the second part:

A skeletal gate of trees laced over it,

I think I've heard 'skeletal' as a way of describing trees before too... I just can't think where, and it's driving me crazy. Have you been recycling stuff from your other pieces?

I love the part on MSN. That was really well done. Nice job!

"What?" he said irritably. All around him, his friends swirled to a stop: dancers pausing, limbs drifting to rest as their sides. I thought -- ridiculously -- that it looked almost... enigmatic, something to write about later. Like the way little coins of moonlight trickled in through the sparse canopy of leaves, the way the grass trembled ever so slightly: tiny brush-strokes of ink, a carpet under bare, calloused feet.

I'll admit I skimmed here. It didn't seem to really fit in with the rest of the story, for whatever reason. I would tone it down a bit here, or delete some of it, but it's up to you.

Overall this piece drew me in and kept me reading, which is great. I like the second bit much better than the first, since it was much mroe original and fresh.

Nice job!

~Lupis

PS: Did I tell you to add me to the list?????