The Chronicles of Adeline Baker (1)

I woke up to the sweet, tantalizing smell of cinnamon rolls. I rolled out of my comfy bed and strolled in to the toasty kitchen. A beautiful woman placed the plate of rolls on the table and held me in a tight embrace. A handsome man was sitting at the table reading a pater and drinking coffee. I ran over and gave him a hug. I sat down and was about to start eating the ---

"MADELINE! GET UP YOU LAZY BUM," screeched a high pitched voice as my Aunt Nancy rapped the storage closet's door. "YOU NEED TO CLEAN THE HOUSE!!! MY FAMILY AND I ARE HAVING IMPORTANT GUESTS OVER TONIGHT. YOU NEED TO DUST, MOP, SWEEP, VACUM AND CLEAN EVERYTHING YOU LAZY BRAT!"

I groaned. She interrupted my dream and after twelve years of me living under her roof she still doesnt know my name. It's Adalene. (Add-uh-leen) I dont get how it looks like Madeline, but when I try to correct her she ignores me. It was 4:30 a.m so that means Nancy had to of gotten up early so that I could be out of their sight during the day.I got off the cold tile floor and turned the light on. Since I live in the cleaning closet I don't have to walk far to get the supplies. First I would have to sweep, mop, than vacum, then dust and then take Windex and clean everything I dusted. And than I would have to all the food for dinner and dessert so that Aunt Nancy could heat it and make it look like she did it herself. How fun.

6 hours of excruciating work later, it was only ten in the morning. The family went ot

Hey Huggybear

I will be your reviewer for this piece so I do hope it helps.

Have you ever read Harry Potter? A boy, who is in fact a tween, is locked in a cupboard by his Aunt and uncle who are remarkably mean to him. He dreams more than anything to escape them and become his own person rather than doing chores permanently. Sound familiar? I do think the plot of your story has been done before. But that aside, let's take a look at what we can help you with as far as the writing itself goes.

Perspective: You have written this in the first person. It's a brave thing to do but it can make or break your story. You need to keep one or two things in mind when you're writing in the first person. The first thing to note is that you are coming into seriously close contact with your character. This means that if you want to sound credible as a narrator you need to become your character. You have to develop your writing vision so that you can tell us exactly what it is that your character would notice to such an extent that us readers get transported into your world.

As a first person narrator you can only notice what it is that the character would notice. In fact it's not merely what the character would notice, it's what the character would tell us as well as how the character would tell it to us.

Now, remember, your story is in the past tense. This means that at the time you start telling the story, you as the narrator, know what is going to happen. This means you have to describe it such. From the starting point you know that you were dreaming. That means when you tell the story you must tell us the dream, letting us know that it is indeed a dream while you tell us. I'll give you an example, taking your first paragraph into account:

Master_Yoda wrote:The dreams that I have about waking up are always the most deceptive. Every night it was the same dream. I would wake up to the sweet, tantalizing smell of cinnamon rolls. I would roll out of my comfy bed and stroll in to the toasty kitchen. A beautiful woman placed the plate of rolls on the table and held me in a tight embrace. A handsome man was sitting at the table reading a paper and drinking coffee. I ran over and gave him a hug. I sat down and was about to start eating. But my account of my dreams ends there.

If you look at my above rewrite of that first paragraph of yours, you will find that to be able to portray an accurate first person narrator, I told the story from her point of view taking into account everything that she would know at that point. Remember, when you become a narrator, you have to tell us the story exactly how the narrator would. If at the time of telling the story the narrator knows that it is a dream, you have to tell it as though she knows it is a dream.

Becoming the character also entails not narrating unnecessary details, or details that you wouldn't have noticed. You don't need to tell us "you groaned". You should rather tell us about your feelings of frustration, because the groan is merely a way to show your frustration.

Okay, next point:
Grammar: Always mind the rules of grammar, so that when you break them it will shock the reader. This means no allcaps screaming. Tell us that they screamed and it will be enough. No multiple exclamation marks. If you use exclamation marks scarcely enough, we will know that a use is denoting something very emotive. Remember, the rarer you use a grammatical inconsistency for effect, the greater effect it will have.


Tense change: You change from past to present and back to past. If you can limit your change in tense and keep it all in the past tense it will make it easier on all of your readers'(me included) eyes. That means taking this portion:

She interrupted my dream and after twelve years of me living under her roof she still doesnt know my name. It's Adalene. (Add-uh-leen) I dont get how it looks like Madeline, but when I try to correct her she ignores me. It was 4:30 a.m so that means Nancy had to of gotten up early so that I could be out of their sight during the day.I got off the cold tile floor and turned the light on. Since I live in the cleaning closet I don't have to walk far to get the supplies.

and changing each present tense word to the past tense. The mix is remarkably offputting.

Your name: I don't know where you're going yet, but you don't need to spend so long on the idea that this wasn't your name unless your name is going to play a vital part later on.

Repetition:

First I would have to sweep, mop, than vacum, then dust and then take Windex and clean everything I dusted.

You don't need to repeat that. You said it above, and it's always tiring for a reader to read something that's been repeated. Just say it once and it'll be enough

Overall: I think you should try working on a more original plot, but if nothing comes to you, this should help you improve your writing even if it's been done before. My own first attempt at a novel was a real lame crib off of Harry Potter. At least yours hasn't quite lost most of the credibility that mine had by the first page. You write fairly well, but need to practice some. Writing and reading and observing will help you develop the style that you want. I hope that my review helped.

Have a great one!

Hi.
Well, as Master_Yoda said, I do agree about the general plot being done before - and if it's the first paragraph then obviously that's not a very good impression to make.
So i'd say adapt it a little. I don't know the rest of the story so i'm not sure how to help you with that.

On the contrary, I liked the little sentence about the pronunciation of the character's name. I thought it was pretty clever, because I didn't know how to pronounce it before. J.K does a similar thing with Hermione's name too, so you have similaritis of course.

I'd also try to lift the mood of the character. In my opinion, she's a bit dreary and tired - which of course, she must be if she does all those chores - but you need to make sure that the reader can relate to her. Not alot of readers will have gone through that experience, so maybe make her a little more optimistic or give her something to look forward to.
I guess you want the reader to sympathise with her, but you also need them to relate to her - because you want them to have that reader-character connection. Especially as it's in first person.

Good Luck with it anyway, it has some potential in there so keep working on it.
Hope I helped, and hope i didn't repeat too much of Master_Yoda's comments.

To me, this was just too abrupt and cut down. You could expand this whole thing, make it more interesting, add description, more dialogue, character development, know what I mean? Right now, in my eyes, this is an extremely condensed version of what it could be. You have an interesting idea, but it needs work.

Before working on this, I want to suggest reading some introductions to some of the best books out there (in my opinion, at least). And because your piece reminded me, for some reason, of the first Harry Potter book, why not start with that? If you do read it, though, careful not to make it too similar.

Good luck with your writing and I hope I helped.

KJ