Lonarosa

Hey everybody! This is my first story, so I would like for you to give me advice and tips if you don't mind! But, please don't be too harsh! Thank you!
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My name in Lonarosa Saltory, but my friends call me Rosa. I'm 15 years old with a huge imagination and a heart the size of Jupiter. But I'm not saying that in a bragging kind of way. I was brought upon this wonderful world in the year of 1995, April second to be exact. I was twenty-one inches long and 8 pounds heavy. Some say I came out as a non-judgmental, caring baby--which I tend to believe. I was always a gentle baby to everyone. Everyone except Koby Marshall. I just flat out didn’t like the guy. Every time anyone asked him if he wanted to hold me, he always sneered and rejected the invitation. How do I remember you ask? Oh, I don’t. My parents have told me, my cousins have told me, and there are tapes to prove their statements. Oh yes, old Koby doing his “reject and sneer” was caught on tape. That guy makes me cringe.

Koby Marshall lives three houses down from me and my parents. He lives with his mother, Teresa Marshall, in a two-story house with a beautiful garden full of purple lillies--and he is thirty-three years old. I don't really like to speak bad about others, but I think that is a little unnatural. Our neighborhood is really close together, so we all see eachother pretty regularly. Everytime I see him, especially when I'm with my parents, he always puts on a toothy grin and attempts to say hello. It irks me terribly.

I live in a tiny town called Goshea, Alabama. Population--three hundred and one. Everybody knows everybody. Now, as for liking each other, that’s a completely different story. Since we are such a miniscule town, there is always the whole “he said, she said” ordeal. Now, I don’t know about you, but when this starts coming about, there really isn’t anything I favor about it. So I made myself a little hiding spot for when fights start to disperse. I like to call it “Rosa Garden“. See what I did there?

I consider Rosa Garden my getaway from the world. When you walk out of the back door to my house, there is an underground pool. If you glance to the right, you'll see my father's vegetable garden. But what most people don't realize, is that there is a very small green house one hundred or so yards to left of that veggie garden. That is my Rosa Garden. Most people do not notice it's there because it is hidden inside a circle of gigantic old oak trees. Inside, there are three rows of wild flowers on each wall. There are all different assortments of colors--just about every flourescent color there is. On each end there is about three feet of wall left for me. There is a tiny couch chair in the corner next to the door, and across the house on the other wall is a tiny bookshelf I took from my room. I have several old books of mine resting upon it's shelves. Right outside of the door is a small stump, blackening and beginning to fall apart. Right inside the middle of it is a little whole, where I hide my diary, everyday. No one would ever think to look there. I think it's pretty clever.

To make you have a clearer idea of what Rosa Garden is to me, I'll let you look at one of my old diary entries. I was about eleven at the time, so that puts it around the year of 2005. Take a look.

June 15, 2005
Dear Diary,
Rosa here. It‘s been another dramatic day. Since you are the only friend in walking distance, I must confide in you. Koby is going psycho these days. We were eating dinner in the dining room early today, and just having our usual daily chat. Momma was going on about how Mr. Buttons, our crazy dog, had been eating her squash in the garden. Whenever she began describing her plan to get our dog to stop eating all of her tasteful squash, weird ole Koby came rushing into our kitchen. Before I knew it he was grabbing up all of our food. He stuffed cornbread in his pants, chicken in his shirt and Lord knows what else went other places. He finally grabbed the tea pitcher obviously thinking he was going to get away with it. Daddy wasn’t going to let that happen. He snatched Koby’s arm and food went flying EVERYWHERE. I got freaked out and ran to where I am now--Rosa Garden. I have no clue as to what might be happening at the moment, but when I left things were pretty hectic. Now I'm just sitting in this smelly old couch chair. I'm thinking of spraying some air-freshener around here.

We’ve always thought that there was something wrong with Koby. Everyone’s said he might have a mental disability. Now, I don’t have any kind of problem with mental people. I think they are cute. But Koby needs to calm himself or at least get help.

OH, they are coming this way! I’m hiding you back in the stump. I've gotta get out of here before they see me coming out of here. I’ll explain in more detail later!!

Yours always,
Rosa

No matter how many times I wrote about Koby in my diary, I just didn’t feel relieved. Even then, I realized something was wrong with him. Even then, I knew something was wrong with his mind. But I was merely a child and no one would believe me even if I got on my knees and ate dirt just so anyone would look into it. I mean really. He came into our house and stole our dinner, when we were eating it! Something wasn’t right, and I was going to find out what. To this day, I still haven’t.




CHAPTER 2: First Time for Everything

My friends and I aren’t exactly what you might consider popular. I know I’m going way off the subject of Koby, but I think this is something you need to know. There are four of us. Me, Tully Marlub, Jenson Strout, Rochelle Grate and Lanny Drat. Tully and I are best friends and Jenson and Lanny are best friends. Don’t get me wrong, I mean we are all like gum stuck to one shoe. But before we became a group of four, that’s just how it was. Then we kind of just became one big group. We are freshmen at Goshea High. There are only about 300 kids at the school, but everyone is pretty regular.

There really isn’t a lot of drama between us four, but when it hits, it hits HARD. I’m going to keep giving you diary entries, because it helps explain things a little better. Our high school is seventh through twelfth grade, so you can imagine the way we felt when we first entered as “underclassmen”. We had a lot of pressure on us, which made the drama level even higher. This was in the year of 2007.

August 28th, 2007

Dear Diary,
I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS HAS HAPPENED. Our first real dramatic fight. Tully and I were walking to the break shack at break to get ourselves some chips. Jenson and Lanny were standing over next to the door to the math building. We were planning on meeting up in the middle of campus right when the bell to second block rang. That is not what happened. At all. What so ever. So, this is what happened.

After Tully and I left the shack, we went and stood in the middle of the campus so we wouldn’t have to rush to get there after the bell. Five minutes later, the second bell rang. No problem, right? Wrong. We see Lanny and Jenson walking to class, Jenson giving us a really weird look. We had library next block, so we’d all have a chance to talk as our teacher is really lenient. So, we get in the room, spot the girls, and head their way. Only, they see us coming and head a different direction. I yell Lanny’s name, and she stops. Okay, this is better. I thought. Well she starts walking our way, but Jenson stays put. I set my books and my bag down, march over to her, grab her arm, and pull her over to where we are.

We all sat around a circular table, looking at eachother. We sat there in silence, staring at eachother. I hate silence, so I decided to break the ice. “What’s going on Jenson?” I asked.

“Like you don’t already know,” she smarted.

“What are you talking about?” Tully and I grieved in unison.

“You two have been talking about me, and I do not like it. Lanny said that some random girl came up and was all, ‘Rosa and Tully are talking about your friend, Jenson. Just thought you should know!’ and walked off.”

“She was lying,” I stated firmly.

“Do you even know the girl, Lanny?” Tully stated with a sense of authority.
“Uhm, no.” Lanny replied.

“Exactly,” Tully and I said with anger.

After this Tully and I both stood up and stormed into a row of books. I haven’t talked to Lanny or Jenson since, and I’m eager to see what’s going to happen tomorrow.

Well, I’ve gotta go home, it’s supper time.


Yours truly,
Rosa

So this is kind of like your character telling events which happened in the past. Is this the whole story or is this the first chapter or the prologue? I would really like to see more written, because I felt that it was rather empty, without meaning. As it stands right now, I am disappointed with it, given the fact that it is pointless. It is merely a person looking back in her life, and sharing it with her friends.(in this case, ourselves) I would strongly suggest that you add onto it, form a plot, and complete the book. Something interesting that you could do, is have the character tell about her PAST, and then change the tense into the PRESENT, when her problems from childhood play out. There could be a much larger plot, and the beginning when she is telling about her past kinda paves the way for the reader to understand the present.

@Nemesis

Thank you for your review. I agree on most of what you said. I know I've only talked about her past, but this is a work in process. I've only written what you see above, and intend to extend everything about it. Give me some time! Thanks!

So, first things first, the intro. Now, there is nothing wrong with it per say. The only thing is, it doesn't really grab the readers attention, and since this is the first thing the reader sees, that's important. I would question if it really needs to be included. If you want to include the information that is in the intro in your story, I might just integrate it with the rest of the piece.

I would suggest putting some action in these first few paragraphs. All you have right now is back story and while its important, I think it could be told in a more creative way than just putting it out there. While I appreciate the diary type format, maybe we could learn this information by some re-creation of scene or incident, that would really add interest. (Like another diary entry, perhaps ^.^)

Now, I realize that this is the just the first few paragraphs of a story, but I really think Lonarosa needs some personality. While I love her name, other than that this girl could be any girl in a small town. What makes her different? Special?

And finally, the biggest issue for me was that I was really confused when I read parts of your piece I still don't really know about this Koby guy. Is he a neighbor? A friend? How old is he?

Whenever she began describing her plan to get him to stop, weird ole Koby came rushing in.

Does that mean that Koby came in multiple times, because the word whenever makes me think that. Its easy enough to clear up, thought I would point it out.

Also, I still have no idea what Rosa's Garden really is, other than the fact that its a place where Lonarosa goes and hides. Is it a Garden? Where is it? etc. Easy enough to clear up though.

As a side note, I loved how you described the action in the diary entry. I found that to be to be engaging and just plain awesome

If you need anymore help, just PM me.

Keep Writing!

This is good. I like how you give some background on your character.

Let me know when you add more to it.

Thanks! I love constructive critisism. When I said "Whenever she .." I was talking about to dog. I'll go in and clear that up. I'm going to take your pointers to interest and I will defiantely be taking you up on that PM eventually.

And thanks to you too! (sorry i can't go back to get users) I really appreciate it! More to come!

i absolutely LOVE this!! you need to write more. definately.

Hey undertheshadow,

I will be a bit harsh and say this is a beautiful author's draft. What do I mean by author's draft? I mean a draft that the author writes in order to get all the information on paper and find out where the story's going. An author's draft has more details than would ever show up in the story, the barebones of all conflict, and too much telling because that's the only way everything's going to get out of your head.

This is perfectly fine.

This also means that you need to do a lot of editing work on this, to turn this author's draft into a reader's draft. A reader's draft is close to the finished product, in that you're just taking all the ideas and turning them into the condensed conflict, dialogue, and the showing of a good book.

And before I get into what needs fixing, allow me to say your writing is impeccable. Your grammar is spotless, the sentences flow well, and the character voice shines through the first person beautifully. I can tell you worked really hard on this.

Now, for what needs work.

Beginnings:

The beginning in a story is where you snag their interest. You give them a sense of curiosity, a sense of wonder as to what will happen. This means a beginning needs to have as few needless details as possible (I'll get into those a bit later) and have something interesting to grab us. Beginnings cut any excess backstory and start right in the middle of something interesting. Backstory can always be filled in later.

Right now, you're beginning is all backstory, full of details that aren't really important. Remember, a reader's draft is condensed. That means all extra details are cut and the beginning starts with what'd be the most interesting to the reader. You can check out this article for tips.

Extra details:

Extra details are the bane of every first draft. Believe me. I've had to cut so many details from draft to draft because I just wanted to get my story completely out there.

The problem with extra details is these choke a story. By "choke" I mean they make the story hard to read. The reader can be left wondering where the plot is, or left impatient, because all those little details we don't really need to know are slowing down the story.

Think about it. Do we really need her weight at birth? If she has siblings that died because they weight too little, or her parents were overjoyed she was of healthy weight because that's not normal, then sure. But if you're just giving the weight to show she was normal, then reconsider putting that detail in. Readers will assume everything is normal if nothing is mentioned.

And, some more extra details are all the bits you put in about Koby's house. It's a pretty picture, but do we need to know that right at the very start? That's another bit of choke, right at the beginning. Choke can be bad anywhere, but at the beginning it's worse because readers aren't fully into the story yet. They want to find out what's happening before they find out what things look like (most of the time). Find a way to work those details into the story later, when you can take the time and start explaining what the setting looks like.

Another extra detail is last names, or too many names thrown at us at once. Give each character breathing room when introducing them, so we get their personalities and we can get to know them without getting confused.

For more tips on extra information, read this article.

Telling and showing:

Ever heard of "show, don't tell"? It means that, in your writing, you should get into the details of a story, and show the reader the way something is instead of telling them about it.

Telling would be saying something like,

It was cold.

Showing would be saying,

She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, pulling her jacket closer around her.

See the difference between the two lines? One gives the reader all the information they need to hear in order to get a picture, but it's not the most interesting thing there is to read. But in the showing example, you can almost feel cold because everything about the sentence implies that it's cold outside.

That doesn't just go for description, either. You can use it for character traits too.

Telling:

She was stubborn

Showing:

Rina grabbed the jam jar and wrapped her hand around the lid. She twisted, hard, but the lid didn't budge.

Her mom reached for the jar in Rina's hands. "Here sweety, let me do it."

"No!" Rina yelled back. "I can do it myself."

Instead of just saying a trait, you have a short (or long) scene to demonstrate the trait without actually saying the character is a certain way. If there were a lot of scenes showing little Rina wanting to do everything herself, then the reader would make the assumption that Rina was stubborn. You might not even have to say "she was stubborn" in the whole story.

Your story right now has a lot of telling. You tell us how in a small town, there's a lot of gossip. You tell us that Rosa is nice to everybody. You tell us she dislikes Koby. Show us the gossip, Rosa being nice, the time she spends with her friends, how they're not popular, everything. If things start to get boring and you feel like you're repeating yourself, then you can tell, but for introducing all the concepts properly it's a good idea to show these little details.

For more tips on showing and telling, check out this article.

Conflict:

Conflict, in short, is plot. If there was no conflict, no two people on opposite sides of an issue and working against each other to reach a goal, there would be nothing to drive the story forward.

That's why it's so important to take the time to show a conflict and make readers really feel a part of that conflict. If the reader has no sympathies to any character, or has no desire for any side to win (or, even worse, they wonder why they should even care about the conflict that's shown) then they're not likely to keep reading. Really take the time to explain at least one side of the story, and make us feel for those characters who are about to be put through a roller-coaster ride that they don't want to go through.

Right now, you have two conflicts. Koby, and her friends. As I said above you need to take the time to show these conflicts in order for us to want everything to work out alright for Rosa. Write scenes of how awkward she is with Koby, how she and her friends are always getting along. It might mean putting a bit more of her history in, but those historical details would make Rosa come alive.

For more tips on conflict, read this

Overall: You have all the information needed for a pretty interesting story all out in the open. Now all you need to do is edit it so you're showing a lot more. Really make us interested in what's going on, and make us feel for Rosa and all the hardships she's going through.

One thing that might help you is reading the difference between an author's draft and a reader's draft. Pardon me for using my own work, but here and here are the author's draft of my novel's beginning. After some reviews I've revised it and it now looks like this. Please don't comment on any of those works. I'm just showing them for example purposes.

As I said before, this is a beautifully written author's draft. It just needs to be turned into a reader's draft to hold a lot of people's interest. And I actually wouldn't edit this right away! Get farther into the novel to get more of a feel for the story and characters before you start making the shift from author's draft to reader's draft. The thing about a reader's draft is, you need to be very familiar with the story before you actually write one.

So, take all of this into consideration while you keep writing, but don't go attacking this to edit just yet. Get to know your characters a bit better, then start editing.

Hope this helps! PM me if you have any questions.

~Rosey

Thanks! I'll definately use your help.

Hey there undertheshadow. I wanted to read this novel from a long time but then I didn't get time. Really, I was intrigued by reading the synopsis to it.

Chapter-1

My name in Lonarosa Saltory, but my friends call me Rosa.

This is not a good beginning according to me. You shouldn't bounce on your reader with the direct introduction of your reader. Try to make the reader interested in it first with a compelling start and then disclose the identity. I think its possible in every story no matter what the plot is.

I'm 15 years old with a huge imagination and a heart the size of Jupiter.

There was one thing I liked in this sentence and one that I didn't.
You should never use digits to write the age, weight or anything with digit but number names. Its acceptable if only you're writing the address.
I loved the metaphor, the comparison with Jupiter. That's very creative.

I was twenty-one inches long and 8 eight pounds heavy.

You used the number name in the first instance but then missed out on the other one!

Our neighborhood is really close together, so we all see eachspaceother pretty regularly.

I consider Rosa Garden my getaway from the world.

There's not any grammar problem with this but I just think that you can write it this way:
I consider Rosa Garden to be refuge from the world.
OR

Rosa Garden is where I take the refuge from outside world.

No one would ever think to look there.

'No one would ever think of looking there' should be rather used.

Before I knew it, he was grabbing up all of our food.

I have no clue as to what might be happening at the moment, but when I left, things were pretty hectic.

Chapter-2

Don’t get me wrong, I mean we are all like gum, stuck to one shoe.

“What are you talking about?” Tully and I grieved in unison.

Liked this sentence!

Now a detailed review:

Starting:
As I have said to you before, I didn't quite like the starting to the story. It was dull and lackluster, to be precise. Your starting should be one gripping your readers and making them sit tight on their seats, and unable to stop themselves from reading. You could have also started with a current situation in her life described in a beautiful way, not letting the story unfold. I mean you could've included if she was sad in the beginning, what her life is going through now. just a bit, not much. That also would have been a better start.

Characters:
I would like to say that Lonarosa is an unique and pretty name and I also like the nickname to it. She seems kind of a good person and I would like you tell more about her big-heart spirit in the forthcoming chapters as its the epicenter of the story. I kind of liked the minute problems she has with her friends which kind of makes the reader in a state to relate with her.
Also, try to give more depth to her friends' characters even though they aren't the main people. try give more description of how they all look, including Rosa and I would definitely love a more good work on Koby. Give us his mannerism in general, how he looks(which can be interesting), where he works. I know that's all what you would have definitely planned to do in the next chapters but I just gave you a rough idea so you have no problem. Don't mind it!

Story:
There hasn't been going on much so I really don;t have much to say about. But I just found
a little bit hard to digest the fact that Koby comes so easily and takes their food. i know their is lot of fight after that but that just went over my head. Maybe it was just me!
I liked your idea of giving us some of the diary formats for making us understand the story better. I liked it!
Also, it was nice to see that you made your character so frank with us like..'I will give you a diary entry to make you understand more. The idea of Rosa Gardens was also nice!

Overall: It was a nice attempt but it really needs more help and you should bring in some moderators or experienced reviewers to review it to help you improve. I strongly recommend you to do so. But next time, make the town where she lives more clear to us..like does she loves it or keeps on cursing it?

Please would you drop in a request at my WRFF column the next time you post more.

Flying off for now!

~Shubhi!

thanks! i'll definately use this. i'm going to be up writing more. after i get a lot done, i'm going to go back, read all of my reviews, and use the critique i've been given. all of my reviewers have helped extremely. i just need to get a little bit further and much more familiar with my characters before i can tweek it. but i'm so greatful for all of the comments!