It only gets worse - chapter 1 - adapted :)

She stood stiff, gaze never leaving the hungry sea below. So much had changed in the past few months; but for good or bad? She didn't know who she was, not really, just who she used to be and who she was turning into.

..................................................................


“Teenagers go through different stages of development, now for men these changes are slow, gradual, almost unnoticeable to those around them, unlike women... you can blink and everything about them has changed. The age of these changes are slipping further and further; one day it will be out of the crib and time for the hair extensions and piercings.” a ripple of laughter touched the otherwise cold and serious room. This pleased the lecturer standing lone at the front of the room. Her mismatching skirt blew precariously in front of her student audience “ I myself have three children – a son of sixteen and two daughters of fifteen and eighteen.” A groan came from a girl in the back of the large lecturing hall.
“Nineteen, I'm nineteen.” She tussled a blonde hair from her face forcefully. Her nearby classmates turned to stare as the nearby window acted as a spotlight on her figure, outlining every feature in her face.
“From observing the people closest to you, you can learn more than any psychological textbook. I owe the entire success of my career to my three beautiful children..” The girl ceased writing notes and abandoned her pen to hold her head in her hands, grumbling quietly. “ Further more I will continue boldly to say that the whole reason for me starting this career was down to my first child who sparked my interest at the age of five with her bizarre interest in chewing on socks.”
Again the girl dropped her pen. Her lips were pierced tightly, her fists clenched and eyes sweeping the room for all her fellow students expressions. What damage had her mother done to her reputation this week? The whole room had changed from concentration to a useless attempt to hide the humour of the situation. The girls eyes rested on the guy sitting beside her, grasping her hand. His lips were also pierced, but for an entirely different reason; he was shaking violently with silent laughter. She cringed at the joy her whole class seemed to be gaining from her pain. She stayed stiff. Her elbow jabbed into the guy beside her, his spine getting the brunt of her frustration. She glared viciously at him. He stopped laughing immediately.
“Thank you very much, class you can disperse, please before you see me again read up in a little more detail on 'The habit's of human kind during their teenage years'. For those who haven't already, please buy my book as it will greatly help you through my lectures. Oh, and can Annie stay behind after class?” Everyone looked, the girl cringed, the guy beside could no longer silence his laughter.



“Did I tell you what she said?” Annie was pacing Jerkily around a small box bedroom. “My whole class, a few other lecturers, my boyfriend; they all know, my university knows I used to chew on socks.” She blew a golden hair from her face. “Also, she mentioned the word socks but could she not have added the word clean, I mean god! They were clean. At least they were clean. My whole university thinks I used to chew on dirty socks!”
Laughter broke out on the mattress next to her. Her brother looked apologetic, despite still being unable to stop.
“I should just move. Go far away where no one knows my name and my mother doesn't teach all of my classes. Why shouldn't I just transfer now? move to France? I always wanted to live in France.” Annie snapped in despair.
“Are you quite done? Yes, you did tell me what mum said, you always tell me, word for word what mum says in class. She's embarrassing for us all. However from what you tell me I don't think your classmates, lecturers or boyfriend cares whether the socks were clean or dirty- nor the fact that you used to chew on them. It's being used as a way to wind you up, and being used well at that, because here you are complaining to us again. You went to this uni because it's near to home, near to your boyfriend and the best uni for studying human psychology in Europe. You are not going to move to France because you are near to home, near to your boyfriend, this is the best uni for studying human psychology in Europe, and you don't speak French. So either talk to her, skip her classes or move to France already, this subject is getting so old.” Eliza spoke aggressively, but with little emotion. Despite a 4 year gap between her and her older sister, her advanced maturity was easily noticeable. There was still a blissful innocence in Eliza's features that reminded everyone of her 15 years.
“I just don't get it. What does mum want from me? I've chosen her dream career, giving her the advantage of forever being able to rule my life. I'm living at home, I should be in student accommodation. I mean god Els what does she want from me?”
“If you ask me, mums just doing what mothers do. Being horribly clingy, controlling and embarrassing.” Their brother, Liam spoke wisely.
“Don't do that. Don't take mums side.” Eliza scolded, winking a deep emerald eye at her older brother.
“Yeah, god Liam stay out of this.” Annie turned her head, distracted by a noise.
Somewhere downstairs a key turned in a lock. All three were silent. A floorboard groaned, a kettle clicked and a cupboard wailed.
“Who's going to check this time?” Annie took charge immediately.
“We need to know if it is in fact mum.” Eliza continued, stating the obvious fear.
“Who else could it be?” Liam smirked.
“A burglar?” Eliza answered without missing a beat.
“If only.” Liam could hardly get through his own joke without bursting into quiet laughter. The two girls simultaneously rolled their eyes. “I'm suppose to be playing basketball at school; hate sports but apparently exercise is good for me. I can't leave this room, I'll get into so much trouble.” Liam relaxed where he was lying on an old mattress, his long chestnut hair chaos on his head. A drawer slammed shut downstairs.
“If she says one word on teenage behavior 'through the journey to adulthood' god help me I will... I mean come on she's trying to kill me, she's out to get me. Well not if I get her first!” Annie's voice had a menacing growl which made the exaggeration doubtable.
“Well I would prefer to stay upstairs locked in here forever than go down there and face her.” Eliza's voice was however somewhat resigned. Annie and Liam looked pleadingly at her “Do I have to do everything around here?”
She walked downstairs, freezing at every sound. The stiffness in her joints caused every one of her limbs to have a mind of it's own.
“What?” A voice sounded from downstairs. The voice was lower, older than Eliza and Annie's, but it contained the same harsh, resonant, geographically London tone. She saw some obviously dyed, short, red hair traveling quickly towards her
Eliza fled. Up two flights of stairs, along a corridor. She burst back into the room in which Annie and Liam sat.
“Did mum see you?” Annie pressed fearfully.
“She said 'what' I assume that means she heard me.” Eliza brushed a knotted, brown hair from her forehead, hand shaking unnaturally. “How come you sent me down there? You're both a lot better at sneaking around her.” Liam and Annie clasped hands for a second; a £20 note was exchanged secretly.
“So, do I talk to her, ignore her, or move to France?” Annie flowed easily back to her original topic.
“I vote France.” Liam declared, risking the evil glare from both of his sisters. Annie returned her gaze to Eliza.
“Why are you looking at me? This is your mess, I'm not going to get involved.”
Annie walked, frustrated, out of the room.

Hey! Well, welcome to YWS! Why not drop by the welcome forum and say hello? Just in case you didn't know, you're supposed to do two reviews (at least 250 characters long) for each submission you make.

But I'm feeling kind. So yeah. Hello. I'm Blink =]

So much had changed in the past few months; but for good or bad?

I think that by removing the end part of this sentence, the mystery will be retained and so we will be more interested in the character, with less input from yourself, if you understand.

unlike women; [semicolon] you can blink and everything about them has changed.

A [capital letter] ripple

A quiet [s]and[/s] groan came from a girl [s]in[/s] at the back of the large lecturing hall.

Proofread! See, I'm in the second paragraph and I've already been overloaded by small, intricate details that are difficult to overlook if you read through before posting. So much of the work on YWS is grammatically-inept; but by proofreading, all the mistakes that you know are wrong will be gone and you can focus on improving both the story, and those few errors that you always make without noticing. The story is easily the most important part of a piece, which will be ignored otherwise.

That said, I'll elude the petty grammar incidents. Focus on commas, apostrophes and random spaces/capital letters.

Oh no! I haz hormones! Call the police!

The first few paragraphs: this is such a painful way to introduce the story. You see, after the first line we're all expecting there to be some type of emotional struggle of teenage angst, but all I'm seeing is an ordinary girl subjected to the embarrassing mistakes of her family. That's nothing out of the ordinary, and most of this is just reciting from a textbook that frankly remains too reminiscent of my Biology lessons than a good, solid story.

You can keep this in as it does, after all, follow on from the initial opening; but throw in another twist. Make it funny, perhaps a little random to keep us interested in the story, or instead have this girl ignoring the woman and thinking about what's going on or the sheer embarrassment. How about an out-of-ordinary day? You see, the first line to this could go either way and the reader knows it. Everybody goes through puberty--everyone has to sit through strange Biology lessons. This really doesn't offer me much reason to keep going.

Think of it from this perspective; a young girl has to sit in front of her mother (?) talk about puberty with her own character subjected in. Use that to create a strong opening. You have only a few words to make us care about the long story to come, so make them good. Brilliant, in fact. Otherwise you rely too much on wanting us to care and we won't and will walk away.

Also, this first section lacks any real description. Think of it like this--you're in a café eating your lunch when two businessman sit down and start talking about the growing inflation of their business plans. Will you care? Let us know your characters early on through character development, because, after all, we need reason to be spending an entire novel with them. This is backed up with:

From observing the people closest to you, you can learn more than any psychological textbook.

Yes! So stop making us read this and let us understand the characters. Let us hear their emotions. Let us be the main character and interpret what everyone else says through their dictionary. Following this section, the story leads in but by that point we're not feeling humour at all.

Descriptions!

I won't quote any more parts, but I'll speak generally. Everything after the lecture went as a blur due to the lack of descriptions, heavy reliance upon dialogue and the amount of characters. I felt that I couldn't get to know anyone. Now, the benefit of relying on dialogue is that it will move quicker, and we can understand characters as the plot develops. However, I believe you did only the first of these, and thus, the reader is left confused and irritated.

Describe the scene, use more 'said's and speech tags and show us physical descriptions of the characters. Otherwise we've just got talking heads and it gets confusing; we have little reason to trust these characters with our free-time.

A great way to connect with the characters while at the same time keeping the realism factor high, is to use a very ordinary situation, but use imaginative imagery to compare with things that would otherwise seem fair to an onlooker. This is also essential in an opening section.

For example: "Tree danced like a ballerina, or what my mother may look like on steroids."

(Bad, but perhaps you get the idea. A bit of humour, a bit of character development, a strong simile.)

Oh, and I think this is lovely:

She stood slowly, gaze never leaving the hungry sea below.

I'm just wondering though: when did this happen? Is it like a year after or is the start of the novel? The character is so different between now and later on in the chapter, so perhaps a little clarification?

Missing: Young Orphan With No Name

Give everything you post online a title. It doesn't matter what it is for now, just something. Anything: it can change, remember. It needs to reflect the general idea in the story and give us a hint as to what we can expect/not expect. Like I said, teen angst is nothing new. So give us it and put it in the title, otherwise those first few words are everything or nothing and that's a big gamble to play.

When I go outside later and direct people to YWS to a new story I've just read, will I be able to say, 'Hey, go and read "So far unamed."'? I think I've made my point.

And...

So yeah. I felt that I was very negative there, but don't be but off! I loved your use of vocabulary, no purple prose and simple, easy-going sentences. I just felt that a lot of poor grammar detracted from the actual piece that I believe could go somewhere. Good, strong writing will soon come out of this, with perhaps just some minor editing.

Feel free to PM me when the next instalment is posted! I'd love to help you with this!

Best
Blinky

Thankyou for your opinion. I do overuse commas and have started adapting that plus give it a temporary title to show a bit more of the story line. I am also, from your comment, thinking of making the speech smaller and introducing the main character sooner.

My biggest worry was how strong the story line was and it's a relief every time i hear that it could actually go somewhere.

Hiya!

Characters: I'm rather confused as to your characters here. At first I though the lecturer was Annie's dad the way my dad embarrasses me, not her mom. That could use clarification early on.

When you start talking about the siblings, I lost track of who was whom. Because the relationships and characters aren't well established, so many names in one shot gets confusing. Spend more time talking about the relationships and who was the one in uni to make things clearer.

There is also your tendency to switch viewpoints. When you talk about Liam getting stabbed by a pencil, it's in his viewpoint since he hadn't seen Eliza when somebody else might have. The paragraph before, it was omniscient (as in, there is no one viewpoint character). Omniscient can be a tool to use, but I don't think it works well in this case. Because you're focusing on one character's struggle, it would be a good idea to pick the person with the best insight on the whole situation and spending most of your time in that person's head. You can still switch occasionally, but getting closer to one person is needed for a character-driven story like this.

Punctuation: I do believe Blink pointed out some of the issues, but here is an article for future reference. ^_^

Overall: This was pretty jumpy, and without real emotional involvement, it was hard to follow. There is a lot of promise for a character-driven story here, and with some more focus it'll be very good.

Keep it up! And don't hesitate to PM me.

~Rosey

Thank you, I am really finding it useful to hear what people think, whether positive or negative. I have a very fixed writing style which i am attempting to make more diverse and it's helpful to have pointers for this. I have written a lot more of the story than has been posted up and it gets clearer through it as i become more confident in the plot line. As i said, only the first draft but its nice to hear it could go somewhere with work.

Thanks,


Miriam

Overall: Very good. Nice emotions and realistic dialouge.

Characters: I got confused alot on who was who. Please add Liam whispered or Annie flipped her dark hair over should and shurgged

Descriptions: Eveyone was a stick figure. I had no way to know what anyone looked like. Please add character descriptions. PLEASE!!!
Also, describe the envoriment.

Again, just fix all your little errors. This seemed very rushed to me.

I've read most of this but i just wanted to say a little bit about what you can do to improve.

Perhaps give the characters a little description, however leave some details blank and let the reader imagine them. Also, i felt kinda like the lecturer was a man, maybe add a few hints that make the lecturer feel feminine from the start.

I don't want to have sounded negative because i love your writing - it's realistic and mature.

Just properly modified it. Hope there are less mistakes and it makes more sense. Its really helped to have people helping me. Thankyou all so much.

Miriam

[/quote] "Teenagers go through different stages of development, now for men these changes are slow, gradual, almost unnoticeable to those around them, unlike women... you can blink and everything about them has changed. The age of these changes are slipping further and further; one day it will be out of the crib....[quote]

instead of "out of the crib" you might want to put something more child like, such as "one day it will be out with the teddies", something more stero-typically child like, rather than strictly infant.

[quote]..and time for the hair extensions and piercings.” a ripple of laughter touched the otherwise cold and serious room. This pleased the lecturer standing lone at the front of the room. Her mismatched skirt blew precariously in front of her student audience[quote]

I know what you've tried to do here with the femininity and describing her appearance but it doesn't really work well, it sounds unnatural and out of place. Try adding it right at the beginning, so instead of starting with the lecture you could describe her and her surroundings before going into the speech.

[quote]“ I myself have three children – a son of sixteen and two daughters of fifteen and eighteen.” A quiet and groan came from a girl in the back of the large lecturing hall.
“Nineteen, I'm nineteen.” She tussled a blonde hair from her face forcefully. Her nearby classmates turned to stare as the nearby USED TWICE! window acted as a spotlight on her figure, outlining every feature in her face.
DESCRIBE THE FEATURE THEN!
“From observing the people closest to you, you can learn more than any psychological textbook. I owe the entire success of my career to my three beautiful children..” The girl ceased writing notes and abandoned her pen to hold her head in her hands grumbling quietly.[quote]

Instead of "the girl ceased writting her notes and abandoned her pen to hold her head in her hands", which really is too long and detailed for a quick reaction, you could put "the girl's hand's tightened on her lock of hair, and she dropped her pen with a thud on the desk." just a suggestion


[quote]“ Further more I will continue boldly to say that the whole reason for me starting this career was down to my first child who sparked my interest at the age of five with her bizarre interest in chewing on socks.”
Again the girl dropped her pen. You don't need this sentence! Her lips were pierced tightly, her fists clenched and eyes sweeping the room for all her fellow students expressions.[quote]

don't have time for anymore, will edit the rest later

see ya tomorrow

Thankyou for highlighting the selected changes needed, could i just ask for the next people who read this, how do you think this storyline would go from the first chapter. I am now on my 27th A4 page of the story and am starting to feel nervous it is going in the wrong direction.

Thanks for reading,


Miriam

Well. Pretty much everyone caught my mistakes. x[}
But I did enjoy that. I liked the way you describe and the suspence and what-not. But what I don't understand is the person downstairs. Who was she? Was she their mother, and if so, what happened to the personality she had in class?
It's very nice and all, but please give us a little more description on the person downstairs. You have to remember that readers don't automatically know everything, even if you do. [Hey, don't take that personally, I did the same exact thing. xP]
But nice work. Keep up the good writing. =}

Love & Blessings,
Aushy

You still have a few spelling errors like 'draw' should be drawer or drawers I'm not sure which you meant. But other than that it was good and ver captivating. I'd love to read more. Good job.

I really liked this. Not one hundred percent accurate grammatically but whose is?
I liked how you portrayed an embarrassing mum, we can ALL relate to that, that's for sure. I also liked how you showed the different characters of the siblings and how they relate to each other. I think this has great potential and in the next post, you should expand A LOT on all of these aspects.
Well done
me likee
S
xxx