Secrets of the Heart - Chapter Two

** I am no longer using YWS but I'd like to say thank you to everyone who commented on my work and helped me to improve it - you guys are seriously amazing and I love you all. Thank you!! xx **

Heyy

Ella was sitting at the back of the hot sticky classroom, staring blankly at the white board as their new form tutor, Mr Colling, was droning on and on about what an important year, year eleven was and 'how their exams were[s]are [/s]going to decide what they[s]'re[/s]were going to do when they [s]leave [/s]left school' and all that rubbish teachers think is a comforting pep talk for at the start of year eleven.

Woahhh there. All of the above is one sentence, split it up so it doesn't just sound like rambling. I think that you need to work on the beginning of this as well; it doesn't draw me in. How many stories do you read about the MC listening to a teacher drone on. It's perfectly fine to use the droning idea but maybe try and put it a different way instead of just coming straight out and saying it. Also if she's bored have her tapping her pencil against the desk, or doodling. Something that adds a bit of action.

Ella froze as she realised she had just said that out loud and Mr Colling and the whole class were staring at her.

Again we need a bit of action here. For example if you'd have had her tapping her pencil before you could write something like, 'Ella froze mid tap before reluctantly raising her eyes to regard the whole class, including Mr Collings, who were now staring at her.'
Also it Mr Collings sounds more natural to me - just a thought

"What was that... Gabriella is [s]that [/s]it?"

Doesn't sound teacher-ish enough for me. Maybe something more like 'Excuse me? Gabriella isn't it?"
Again, you can add some action here. "... isn't it?" Mr Colling said, his eyes flashing dangerously behind his overly large glasses.

"No that is not it. My name is Ella and I don't want you to ever call me by that name again[s].[/s], Ella said in a voice that could have cut glass.

I think it'd maybe sound a bit more natural if instead of writing 'is not it' you wrote 'isn't it' Most people tend to use the latter in everyday conversation.

"You heard me! My. Name. Is. Ella!" Ella looked round and caught Matt giving her a disbeliev[s]ed[/s]ing look [s]and [/s]before shaking his head at her.

She came over all funny as she looked at him and her insides seemed to be doing a good imitation of [s]summersaults[/s]somersaults[/b]

Find a better way of describing how she feels about this guy, maybe have her reluctant to break eye contact with him and Mr Colling snaps her back to reality. Anything that isn't involving her insides doing somersaults - everyone uses that

"Oh. I'm ever so sorry sir!"

LOL If someone said they were 'ever so sorry' to me I'd think they were being sarcastic. Perhaps reword?

"Who is that girl?" Matt whispered to Ollie[s],[/s].
"Who, Ella?" Replied Ollie.

Remember to put full stops at the end of sentences. Also the repitition of 'Ollie' makes it sound a bit off. Perhaps change one of them to something else like 'Matt whispered to the boy sitting next to him.'

"Yeah, what d'you reckon?"
"She's trouble mate, you do not wanna go there!" Ollie replied reproachfully[s],[/s].
"Why not, she's kinda cute and looks a total pushover."
"I know. Every boy in the whole year thinks so, but she doesn't let them near her. And trust me on this, she is not a pushover!"

Again, so, so little action. Break this text up with Matt brushing his hair back, or looking thoughtfully in Ella's direction. Or Ollie raising his eyebrow. Just something.
Also why do they all think she's a pushover, she just took on that teacher didn't she? Make it clear why they think she's a pushover because she doesn't really seem like one. I'd be scared to take her on

"Oh shut up Ollie, you're just being silly!" Matt playfully gave Ollie a little shove.

LOL Matt just used the word 'silly' that's cute. But if he's doing the whole 'I could nail any girl I wanted to" perhaps he would use something a bit more matcho than 'silly'

"We'll see 'bout that. I'm gonna play her along and prove to you all that she is a pushover, regardless of what you or anyone else says. She seems perfectly harmless to me and I'm gonna prove it!"

I'd put the bit after 'we'll see about that' as Matt's thoughts, it'll seem a bit more subtle that way. At the moment it seems like he's just saying that so you can flash the story line at us, it'll seem much more realistic if he thinks this.

Ollie muttered to himself, looking away from Matt who was staring at Ella.
Matt looked at Ollie, wondering whether it was a good idea to ask this Ella out or not. He shook his head, he was just being silly. What could a fifteen year old girl do to him?

Too many 'looks' change one of them to glancing or staring or something else.
Ahhaaaaa 'silly' I think that's adorable. He can use that word in his head, just not to his manly friends.

"You think you've got it bad! At least you don't have Mrs Bennet, who thinks she owns the place, trailing round in [s]everyone [/s]every one of your lessons!" said a rather hacked off Robert.
I don't know what he means by trailing around every one of your lessons... but that's probably just me being stupid

She stopped abruptly, put one of her hands on her hip while the other hand pointed at the both of them, and as she stood like that, staring at them with a face like thunder, they both looked terrified.

I'd ditch the whole 'and as she stood like that, staring at them with a face like thunder' and just use the 'they both looked terrified with a semicolon before it. 'She stopped abruptly, put one of her hands on her hip while the other hand pointed at the both of them, and as she stood like that; they both looked terrified.'

Robert and Lilia looked at each other and practically ran across the street to get away from Ella with their lucky escape.

Awkward wording there.

Overall Comments
Okay, so I think this is good, but I also think it needs a lot of work.

Exclamation Marks
Oh my God there were millions of the things! Although it's perfectly fine to add them in to your writing occasionally it gets a bit annoying when they're in every other sentence. It also makes your writing sound like it's for younger people. Just make sure you aren't using them all the time.

Grammar Lesson
When a character does an action straight after speaking, we put a full stop at the end of his sentence:
"Hi." Matt held out his hand to shake mine.

If you're just describing how a character said something you use a comma.
"Hi," Matt said.

Hope that helped a bit I didn't know until someone pointed that out to me.

Lack of Action
I know I pointed this out numerous times in the above, but it really is just a simple way to improve your writing so, so, so much. At the moment your characters are just floating around in my head; paint the scene for me. Is someone nervous; if so are they biting their lip? Is someone excited; if so are they jumping up and down? etc.


I hope I don't seem completely horrible when you read this because I do really think it has potential, I've just pointed out a few things you can do to take your writing up to the next level.

Hope I helped.
PM me for anything, and when the next chapter comes out
Complicated101

Whoa. That was long, but I enjoyed it.
Okay, for me...Ollie seems like a girls name. Yet it makes this story different for a boy's name. Which is a good thing. {if that made any sense}. Knowing that Ella can be rough on the outside, could she be soft on the inside? I like wanna know what happened on that date with Peter. But I guess I'll never know. It seems like Ella complains. A lot. Which could be the way her character is. Otherwise I don't care how she acts. A little more description of the scenery in the last paragraph could help. I like to know more about the beach. Oh, and the last sentence makes me wanna read more! Well I hope this helps.
-Merry

Oh my gosh! I loved it. I ussually feel bored to read long stories but this made me wish there was more of it. I really really enjoyed reading it.

Although you could make it more clear by describing the scenery around you. Likee for example the beach maybe. It was fine how you described it but a bit too brief. You could give more details about Mr. Colling. You could say:
Mr.Colling looked like a stern teacher/professor with the sharp look in his eyes he could make anyone melt. His bald patch shined in the bright light that he stood below and he had a deep, husky voice. (try not to use my example though as it stinks).
Try to stop using too many exclamation marks..it makes it immature and it loses the effect if you keep using it again and again. OK I guess thats it.....As i said before you are really capable. keep writing and PM when you right the next one..can't wait to read it!!

Thank you all for reading my chapter & I'm glad you liked it & lol sorry about the length, I sometimes get a bit carried away (:
& thankyou all for your critique, I will get to editing as soon as (I still need to edit my first chapter .. oops) & thank you again for reading it,
Lucyy xx

P.s, thankyou complicated101 I never knew that .. well they say you learn something new everyday

I must be honest about Ella. She is quite annoying and rude, isn’t she? It was a welcoming change from all the other MC’s there are out there. So please don’t change her. But I do think that you need to explain her relationship between her two friends. I mean, I wouldn’t be friends with her if she treated me like that, seriously. So I would try to explaint that she isn’t normally like that or something.

Also, why is she so eager to go out with Matt when Ollie told Matt that she wasn’t like that…? I would try to expand on that a bit.

Otherwise, can’t wait for more!

Thank you so much ashleylee for reading my three posts of this, I really appreciate it, they will come in really helpful in the altering process (:
But I'll let you in on a little secret, I've already written the whole story to this (it was the first thing I wrote that got me totally addicted to writing) so I've kinda given up posting it on here because it's not very good and I want to move on with my other projects, but I think I will come back to this story in time & post it & alter it, but for now i've kinda given up on it d:
Thank you sooo much though for reading & reveiwing all my work now - so kind of you!!
Lucyy xx