Young Writers Society

You might not want to post so much next time!

My main complaint is that your characters are really boring. You've got my attention with the weird girl and everything, but why on earth are all the teenagers and the younger sister Disney stereotypes of high school students? They're all...really uninteresting. And why do so many of them have weird names? Are you naming the sister Kamren instead of Cameron just for the heck of it?

Now, I did warn you in my Will Review for Food thread that I dislike critiquing prose unless it's really good, and this isn't quite at that level. The quick and dirty is that this wasn't fun to read because it just drags on and on. Blah blah blah. Why should I care? The parts where the kids are getting out of school could be cut down to practically nothing. The dialogue is a poor attempt at teenager-speak, and it doesn't sound realistic at all. This is a story supposedly about believable people, not people in a Disney Channel show. How do real people act, for crying out loud? The situations described are cliches--the crowd after the end-of-the-year bell, the popular boys surrounded by cheerleaders. The number of characters is also confusing...Brad, Christian, Shawn, Kent, blah blah, I can't keep them straight, particularly because they're all uninteresting people.

And to go into detail for one moment:

curvaceous

Dear god, I'm going to die of laughter. The word curvaceous should never be used except in comedy.

-Colleen

Okay thanks.

I did do the * thing after those first few paragraphs, though.

As for Kamren though, I know a nine year old who is in love with Chris Brown, so I don't think it's that much of a shocker for her to like a fifteen year old.

And since a lot of people don't seem happy about how I spell my characters' names, would someone care to tell me which names I need to fix, and how?

Okay, I've changed my mind. I edited it. Please tell me what you think now.

Hi there! This was a pretty good, though frankly, it's not without flaws, either.

Good things first, though: the intro was a really good hook.Your dialogue was well-written and flowed very well. I thought some of your characterization was pretty sound: the sister, especially, was a spot-on little sibling: sort of annoying, but someone you love anyway just because she's your little sister. And, at the end, i thought you described the car accident very well.

Though the problems aren't really major, they did drag things down a little.

First, some nitpicks, mostly grammar.

She was clad in a black cat suit that made her almost a part of the night, and flashes of star shine glinted off the thick glasses she wore.

I think starshine might be one word... but even then, are stars really bright enough to make reflections on somebody's glasses?

The thick grass muffled the sounds of her bare feet as she padded over to the body. In one swift movement, she bent down to check a bloody wrist for a pulse and straightened back up.

Having finished the chapter, I guess you must have had some reason for her to be barefoot, but it seemed kinda silly to me. XD Sorry... I kept thinking, now wouldn't it be funny if she ruined the whole dramatic moment by stepping in dog crap, or something?

"I'm sorry Eddie, but you really shouldn't have ignored me like that.

Comma after "sorry."

In a swath of shrubbery on the far side of the clearing a branch snapped, revealing a face looking out with shocked and terrified eyes.

I... don't really understand this sentence. A branch snapping is a sound, so how could it reveal a face?

The blessed end-of-year bell rang through the hallways at Clover High School.Before the last echoes had faded

There should be a space after the period.

Wedged in the corner of his locker was a folded up paper, yellowed with age.

I think "folded-up" might need to be hyphenated.

he worked in out of the corner and stuffed it into his back pocket.

I think you might have meant "it," not "in."

and a little group of Freshmans,

Kind of a nitpick, but I'm almost positive that the plural of "freshman" is "freshmen." Also, I'm pretty sure it shouldn't be capitalized.

Then somebody over here tired to get us off the hook by asking her if she would really punish us for somethin' we didn't do,

I think you mean "tried," not "tired."

Becca cut him off, "You had an idea? Better tell us before it dies of loneliness.”

I must say that this comeback really made me laugh.

"Yeah, I had mom call her yesterday. I', going to Christian's to plan a party." He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth."

XD Where did the grammar go? "I'm," not "I'," and get rid of the quotation mark after "mouth."

Now, as for your characterization... for some characters, it wasn't bad. I really liked the sister and the parents, and I'm interested in finding out more about Weird Barefoot Girl. However, the teenagers, especially Brad... not so much. Actually, I spent most of the time I was reading wondering if you're deliberately trying to make Brad seem like a big jerk, or if it's unintentional. He just wasn't very likable at all, frankly. Same goes for his friends. They all seemed a little flat and cardboard-y. Like Cade said, they kinda felt more like Disney Channel stereotypes than real people, and I had a lot of trouble telling them apart. However, I'll stick around to see if they get any more development. After all, this could be part of a bit of a prejudice on my part-- most of my thoughts were along the lines of "Who honestly acts like this?" but, then again, I'm a shy nerdy kid who hangs out with slightly cooler nerdy kids-- I might just not know the people who are this way.

I think, at the beginning (as soon as the scene with the shooting ended), I was a little confused as to what was going on because the POV wasn't very consistent, I couldn't work out who was telling the story.

I did think the dialogue was pretty good, so give yourself a pat on the back for that.

I also thought it kind of sagged in the middle. While the beginning and end were interesting, I really thought we could use some more foreshadowing to keep the middle from being boring: perhaps having him continue to be haunted by the content of the letter, which would keep that from kinda dropping off the face of the earth and give us some more sympathy for him as he tries to fake a normal, cheery attitude to hide his fear. I guess. I dunno, just a suggestion.

Anyway, I'm sorry if I sounded harsh. This story isn't bad, I just think it needs a little polish, especially in the characterization and pacing departments. Once that's cleared up, I think it'll be a lot stronger and more enjoyable to read. Good luck, and I'll get to the second chapter ASAP. ^_^

Okay, thanks. Not harsh at all, just helpful. A question though:

Why exactly do people tend to think that this comes off as Disney style? You've said that, multiple times. It would be nice to know what comes off as Disney, and why.

I thought this was pretty good. I like how it is just the typical life of a teenager besides the catsuit girl and stuff. All the dialogue was pretty realistic and the way the teenagers reacted to each other. I thought the cussing didn't need to be in there but that is just me. Yeah it made it more realistic but it's really not a necessity.

The shower thing was pretty creepy. I liked that. I felt it was a little strange that the girl was in a catsuit. Like someone said above I thought immediately of Halle Berry as catwoman. Though this is only chapter one so I am sure you will explain what the deal with that is.

I felt like you probably should of told us what the paper in the paper bag had said. I'm assuming (though I don't know for sure) that it connected to the catwoman somehow. Maybe you could tell the reader what it said so him receiving the note and then all the creepy stuff after that, including the car crash would make a little more sense. But I do feel like in a way it was clever of you to not say what was on the note because you added some mystery. Now I really am curious to know what that note said. So if it was all to hook the reader than it makes sense.

I felt like it flowed very well overall and you moved the plot along nicely. Nice job!!

Thanks. And about the paper, I would tell you what it said, but I'm romantically challenged and don't have a clue what to write in a love note.

The blessed end-of-year bell rang through the hallways at Clover High School.Before the last echoes had faded out,

Hardly noticable, but you need to put a space between School. and Before.

Christian had tanned skin, and was remarkably taller, skinnier, and handsomer than Shawn.

I don't think handsomer is a word

Still speaking to the floor,

The blessed end-of-year bell rang through the hallways at Clover High School.Before the last echoes had faded out,

Hardly noticable, but you need to put a space between School. and Before.

Christian had tanned skin, and was remarkably taller, skinnier, and handsomer than Shawn.

I don't think handsomer is a word

Still speaking to the floor,

I have to leave right now so I will finish this when I return. I promise.

Ok, I am back. My mom is going to take the laptop soon, so I'll get done what I can.

Somethin' about us not doing our math homework last night. Then somebody over here tried to get us off the hook by asking her if she would really punish us for somethin' we didn't do, and somebody almost got us beat to death with her yardstick."

As far as I could see you made minimal grammar and spelling mistakes, it's very discriptive and I can visualize parts which doesn't happen often on this site. Anyways there's no help I can give you storyline wise. If you need more reviews you know where to find me. Au revior

Boon the Werewolf

Thanks for the reviews. I'll be working on chapter two a lot more so those chnages probably won't be made for a while.

Hi. I'm not sure if someone already answered this question but what they mean by Disney is that it's sort of little kiddish. Disney is known for having shows that are made for older kids rated G and for sometimes having a poor reputation when it comes to what is likely to happen (ex: High School Musical; you're not going to see people start randomly dancing in the middle of the hallway. First off, people don't just randomly appear from classrooms. Second off, there's no possible way that any of the school Administrators would be okay with it, unless they were doing a play. Finally, there are talent-less and uncordinated people in the world like me who can't sing or can't not trip on feet to save their life.) Lifetime movies are the same way. They aren't little kiddish but everything is over-dramatic, the ending is predictable and more than half the time, if they didn't miss one tiny detail, the story would have been over in less than an hour but then they wouldn't have a plot then, would they?

Ignore my ramblings; it's early in the morning. For that same reason, I'm going to look over this review when it's light outside to make sure I didn't miss anything.


Grammar, sentence structure and things that don't add up

Without really thinking about it, he worked in out of the corner and stuffed it in his back pocket.

This part bothers me; wouldn't you want to know what something in the corner of your locker was and read it then? Why didn't he find this at the beginning of the school year, when his locker was first clean?

Brad scanned over their faces to see if the Freshman he had seen Christian hit was there.

I don't understand the last part of this sentence. Try rewording it.

Hang out all day in that hell-hole just to find out you cut and went home early?"

Technically, they're still on school grounds so it should be "...this hell-hole..." because they haven't left it yet.

"Yeah right.

There should be a comma after the first word because a comma indictates a pause and you normally pause for a short second after you say "Yeah."

Why were you late anyways?"

Anyways isn't a word but to make it right, just take off the S.

"Ms. Bitch-acre held us late. Somethin' about us not doin' our homework last night."

This two sentences are okay but try to hold them together by a semi-colon. For some reason, it doesn't seem right to me that the sentence is started with Somethin'.

hips rolling smoothly.

What does hips rolling smoothly have anything to do with the rest of the paragraph?

As the guys were walking up Christian's driveway, he pulled up behind them on his skateboard.

Shouldn't he have already been there? I know his arm is broken but that doesn't have much to do with how fast he rides. Considering they stopped for a few minutes, first to talk to each other, then to talk to those girls and went toward the girl's house, there is no way he couldn't have been there before them.

"Where were you?" Kent asked. "You should'a been here before us."


Christian grinned. "I had to walk Kathlina home."

I didn't see this a second ago but after reading a few more lines into it, does he mean the "total babe" is Kathlina or someone else? If it's Kathlina, he really should have been there after them.

"Yeah, but I been late everyday

"Yeah, but I've been late everyday..."

Brian Liftridge stooped to hang his coat on the back of an antique style coat rack,

Calling him his first name is okay here, so we're introduced to him as something other than just his dad but here

Brian cut him off

start saying "Brad's dad"

"And I'm sure you asked your mother if you could go already, because I certainly haven't been informed."

First off, don't start a sentence with a conjuction; it's a connecting word, not a beginning word. Second off, you need a question mark at the end of the sentence instead of a period.

Pausing half way up he turned around and added, "Well, sort of."

I'm confused on this part. Why would he say "Well, sort of." when she granted him permission to a party? In my house, I'd say that and get the response "Well, if you added 'sort of' on to your begging to go when there are still a few days til that party and we could easily change our minds because it's not final yet, then you must not want to go as much as we thought."

"They're both still here. But they called home; they can go.

Try combining these two sentences because you're not suppossed to start a sentence with a conjuction and it makes it look a little better.

Brad got a bad feeling.

You skipped from talking about his little sister to him getting a bad feeling. This fits somewhere else but not here.

wafting up from

Wafting? I've never heard that word before and even though I can figure it out with context clues, you might want to use a simplier word. Some people aren't good with context clues and they may not have a clue what you're talking about.

His dad shot him a sympathectic

This line isn't finished! Finish it.

I don't remember ever using yellow paper. Must be old.

He's thinking this so put it in italics.

Wonder who Eddie is.

Put in italics for the same reason listed above.

Just as he was about to get out, he thought he saw a shadow through the glass door, as though someone was standing in the bathroom. He slid it open a crack and peered out, but the room was empty. As soon as he closed it though, the shadow returned. Bigger this time, like it's owner was closer to the shower. Again he peeked out into an empty bathroom.

This part creeped me out when I first read it.

of his mouth."

There shouldn't be quotations there but I'm guessing it's just a simple typo.

That's weird. I don't know no one that wears glasses.

Put this in italics and replace No One with Anyone.

Brittney's house she got out without

Comma after House.

Since I covered a lot above, below are going to talk about the characters, plot and suggestions.

Brad
I liked him. Since I'm just starting high school in a little under two weeks, I can only go on what I've read from books. He seemed realistic enough but nothing big stood out about him. He was a good brother (once again, judging from the books I've read; I'm an only child) and he reminds me a lot of what my older cousin has done to me when I won't listen to him or I'm just annoying him. I liked how he was with his friends and he seems to be the best one out of them.

Christian
I don't like him all that much because he's one of those players that girls seem to like. He seems like he's the ringleader of this group; that everything his friends do basically center around him.

Arik, Shawn and Kent
You focas a lot more on the other characters than on them. I understand that they're minor characters but maybe tell us more about them.

Plot
I didn't understand the prologue at first but I know that you clear some of it up in the next chapter. The plot idea isn't really original but I liked the twist and how it happend to one of the football player's friends and not the football player.


Suggestions

Brad and his dad's name are too similiar. Change one of the name.
Go over your story before you post it or preview it; that way you can find little mistakes that could have easily been avoided.
Work on your sentence structure and sentence flow. Try reading the lines out loud and that should help with that; you're more likely to catch mistakes if you actually hear them. You can always PM them to me if you aren't sure about something and I'll help you; I've edited a prologue, a chapter and a half of a chapter just by PM.

PM me for anything at all.

-alwaysawriter

Hi Jamie! I'm soooo sorry this is so late! I'm shocking and you should fire me. ^^

But! I have my answer for you. I think your characters are slightly stereotypical. And I think your situations are as well. Your whole first section is so very... ick. It's contrived and feels like a B grade movie scene. It's been done before - and, to be honest, done better. We don't get the mystery from it, or the shady feeling of terror and suspense, as I know I'm meant to feel.

Your characters aren't just stereotypical because they're highschool kids - most of whom are boring and similar - but because you describe them in such a way that I'm left thinking "Oh I've heard this before and can see where it's going" The unremarkable best friend of the amazing guy. Who's probably in love with the girl who ends up liking Brad/the best friend or dies. It's all foreseeable right now.

What I think you need to do is not thinking about what you're writing, but just write. Because right now it isn't a story, it's a recount. I couldn't ever get into this, because it feels like it's been laboured over to be readable, you know? What you want is for the reader to be able to sink into the narrative and then later say "that was written amazingly, I hardly remembered it was writing and not real" You don't have this yet - which is cool, you're young and so is the story.

What I would suggest is reading over this again and thinking about what you want to say. Make a list of your characters and their traits, and where you want them to go. See how similar these are to the movies and books you read of a similar kind to the genre of your story. This should let you see how stereotypical your characters are or are not. It should also help you get into the character's minds a little more, know where they're going and what they're thinking. This will help you make your story more realistic then it is right now.

This has potential, don't get me wrong. You just need to give it some more work and look at it in a different light. I hope I've not upset you at all with my amazingly deconstructive comments. But I do think you can do well if you work at it.

*Hearts* Le Penguin.

No, not too harsh at all. It was a lot of help. Thanks for everything, though I can't rewrite just yet what with school back up and working on chapter three, but when I do rewrite I'll remember this. Thanks again!

Sorry I was so very slow in getting around to this!

From the looks of it everyone else went super in depth with this, so I guess there's a chance I might end up bringing up points other people have already mentioned.

She was clad in a black turtleneck and dark jeans and flashes of moonlight glinted off the wire-rimmed glasses she wore.

I think you could get away with just saying 'dark clothes' rather than naming what she wearing piece by piece.

"Well, Shawn, I thought I'd invite Brad, Ash, X," he listed names for a few more moments, and Shawn started to look slightly disappointed."

Unless you mean a person actually called X (I suppose it could be a nickname, but it doesn't really seem like on anyone would end up with) then just add in another name to make it seem more realistic.

Cutting off a tiny chunk, he popped it in his mouth and gulped it down with a swig of Dr. Pepper. His dad shot him a sympathectic

I think a bit of your sentence got cut off there XD


Sorry this isn't too long, but I'm pretty sure that everyone else has picked up on other points already. Hope that this was at least of some use to you, even if it is a little late XD.



Other things:

-Some of your names have inconsistant spellings, such as Shawn and Sean.

-Pretty much every character is introduced with their full name, when really you just need to give the first, otherwise there's just too much to rememeber, just like if you were introducing someone to a friend you'd usually only give their first name.

-It's clear that Kent has an accent, but sometimes it can be a little difficult to understand, so toning it down a little might help

-It seems a little strange have Brian's parents being called by their proper names, just plain old mum and dad might be better fitting.

-Brian's parents seem to let him go to the party without much hassle. I'm not too sure how often the 'you were quite a partier when you were younger' line would work, most parents tend to be more protective of their kids, and try not to let them make the same drunk mistakes that they did XD

-Brain and Christian's phone conversation gets a little confusing because it's not mentioned at all who is speaking. By the end of it I wasn't really sure who was saying what XD It happens a few times with other streams of dialoge, so try putting in more he said she said, that sort of malarky.