Black and Blue ch.1

So, the title is very much pending. It's really more of a stand-in for when I get a real one. Here is is!Oh, and don't waste your time correcting my quote errors. I know they're severely messed up.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Humans are curious beings. They are inquisitive, sensitive, rash. They think they are superior over all else, engrossed with themselves. They think they are powerful. They are ever so wrong.

“Come on!” Sara’s mom called. “School starts in five minutes!”
Sara sighed, running the gloss wand over her mouth. “Coming!” She yelled back. School, she thought, would be pointless if she wasn’t popular. She loved to watch people cringe as she walked down the hallway, scattering to make way for her, the queen of the school. She walked to the car, a deep blue Saleen S7 Twin Turbo. She felt untouchable, perfect. Powerful, she thought, as the car drove through the metal gates of her house.

West Heights Middle School. Prissy children, running to rooms where they are to be educated. I go now, but only because I am currently a child of 13 and those of that age must do so. However, I find it amusing to watch these young ones form powerful social monarchies, with unspoken rules and boundaries. I am an outcast. But there is always a queen.

New kid today, Sara thought as she walked into the school, surrounded by friends and followers. She liked days like this, where the air seemed charged, and heavy clouds loomed overhead, threatening to burst. She laughed at some one’s idiotic joke, knowing that not speaking would make her look dumb. She tuned in on the office, at the figures behind the frosted glass. The door opened, and there she was. The new kid was a girl. She was plain with shortish brown hair, slightly frizzy. A bit on the pudgy side, but with athletic legs and broad shoulders. Her face was rosy and kind of pretty. Then the girl faced Sara, locking eyes. Her eyes… Sara thought. They were a piercing, dark, electric blue. They seemed to bore through her, and in that single moment, Sara felt that this girl knew everything about her. New Girl smiled. No, not a smile, a smirk. Sara’s eyes closed to a slit. No one smirked at her. No one. And in that moment, she vowed that she would make this girl’s life miserable. After all, Sara was the queen.

My mind flashed, as it does when a problem arises. I turned around. Girl. Human. She was tall, blonde. Muddy brown eyes. Profligate amounts of makeup. I tapped into her thoughts. Oh, this one didn’t like me. Her name was Saraphina. 13 years old. Queen. Excellent. I enjoyed letting the royalty think that they were stronger than me; that I was weak. Once in a while, I would meet an especially annoying one at an inconvenient time, and lose control. Forget how breakable they were. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that here. I walked away, to my new classroom. Her glare followed me.

“No.” Sara breathed.
“What?” asked her best friend Ashley.
“New Girl smirked at me.” She growled.
“Ooo. Another soul to crush.” Ashley laughed, flipping her blonde highlighted, brown hair. Sara hummed in reply. There was something different about this one.
Sara sat at her cheap fake-wood desk, droning out the teacher. She was carving her initials into it with a pen when the teacher said something that actually interested her.
“Class, today we have a new student!” teacher gushed. “Come on up here, dear.” Sara hadn’t even noticed New Girl sitting in the back corner. “Now, sweetie, what’s your name?” Teacher asked, laying her hand on New Girl’s shoulder. New Girl jumped away from the hand like it was electric, earning a few giggles from the students. Sara got the idea that she hadn’t been trying to be funny.
“My name,” said New Girl in a voice like ice, “Is Nerezza.”Everyone hushed. Thunder boomed outside, and a feeling of coldness swept through the room. Nerezza walked back to her seat. Teacher said nothing, but looked rather shocked. What is so weird about her? Sara wondered. Something mysterious. Cold. Dark. Then she saw her opportunity. “A-hem. I would be happy to show Nerezza around the school!” She exclaimed, although she had no intention to. Nerezza stiffened and clenched her fists. Suddenly, Sara’s vision swam, and intense pain shot through her skull.
“Honey? Are you okay?” Teacher asked. The pain faded, and Nerezza slouched in her seat. Sara meekly nodded. “Well, I’m sure that Nerezza would love for you to give her a tour!” Then teacher turned around to write something on the blackboard, and Sara went back to carving.

Stupid, stupid girl! Did she not feel fear, even just a touch? She thinks that she is powerful. And this Saraphina will soon find out that she is anything but.

Hello, Dreamy! Sporks here.

Okay, since you're aware of the quotes, I won't go into those. But there are a few other nit-picks.

First off, spacing. The regular-colored font areas were a little harder to read through, try putting spaces after every paragraph, so it's a bit easier for us reviewers. You did a good job separating the two narrators. The one in blue I'm assuming is Nerezza, yes?

Powerful, she thought,

When quoting a character's direct thoughts, you should italicize it.

Story line

I rather like this idea. I'm pretty interested, and I'm curious to know what's going to happen between Nerezza and Saraphina.

Good luck!
~Sporks

Thankee. yeah, Nezzy will be introduced by name soon.

Hi, Dreamy!!!

Well, i didn't really find any nit-picks, your grammar is better then mine! I thought your characters were very well developed(do you know Sara means princess in Latin?), though when a character is thinking something, you should put it in italic:

New kid today, Sara thought


I like how you wrote both in 1st and 3rd person, however, i would like some background info on who both of the characters are. I love how mysterious you're plot is, and how the characters interact with each other!

Thanks! Yeah, it's supposed to cloudy at first. The first few chapters are like an unsolved puzzle but all the pieces come together. And on my Word doc. version of this, all my italics were correctly placed... unfortunately this doesn't transfer to here. But thanks!

Heya Dreamy

I'm here to review as requested. I haven't actually reviewed any fiction in quite a while... it feels like that anyway. Haha! There's a guy with a moustache crying on TV! Sorry...

School, she thought, would be pointless if she wasn’t popular.

You should italicize thoughts, it makes it easier for the readers to follow the story.

Powerful, she thought, as the car drove through the metal gates of her house.

Italicizing. Also, you don't need the comma I highlighted in red.

I go now, but only because I am currently a child of 13 and those of that age must do so.

This sentence sounded kind of weird to me. I don't really know anyone who speaks, thinks or phrase things like this. Maybe you should try rephrasing it?

New kid today, Sara thought as she walked into the school, surrounded by friends and followers.

She liked days like this, where the air seemed charged, and heavy clouds loomed overhead, threatening to burst.

You don't need the comma I highlighted here.

She laughed at some one’s idiotic joke, knowing that not speaking would make her look dumb.

This should be someone's.

I walked away, to my new classroom.

Don't need this comma.

“No.” Sara breathed.

This seems like a kind of weird thing to say. It would be better if you made Sara say something like, "cow." It would fit in better with the rest of the conversation.

“What?” asked her best friend, Ashley.

Thunder boomed outside, and a feeling of coldness swept through the room.

I don't want to sound like a part-pooper here, but this was really cliché to me. The whole thunder booming thing is something that happens all of the time in movies. Maybe you could edit that part?

Nerezza stiffened and clenched her fists. Suddenly, Sara’s vision swam, and intense pain shot through her skull.
“Honey? Are you okay?” Teacher asked. The pain faded, and Nerezza slouched in her seat. Sara meekly nodded. “Well, I’m sure that Nerezza would love for you to give her a tour!” Then teacher turned around to write something on the blackboard, and Sara went back to carving.

I felt as though this ending was rather sudden. You should have made Sara think about what had just happened. Surely, she would have noticed a connection?


Overall

This story definitely has potential! What I like best about it is the idea of the story itself. From what I can tell by this chapter, it's a pretty original story. If Nerezza turns out to be a vampire, which part of me thinks she might be, it won't be as original. If this is true, it's not necessarily a bad thing. I don't really mind cliché ideas, as long as you can put your own unique twists to them. Another thing that I rather like about this are your characters. Right now, they're a little stiff but they certainly have the potential to become interesting and very enjoyable to read about. Speaking of your characters, I like the way you structured this so that it was like Sara and Nerezza both had paragraphs in their POV's. You did this really well, in my opinion. When it comes to your grammar, it was very good! I found the odd comma issue, but that's fine. Comma's are pretty darn confusing! As for your spelling, it was perfect. I didn't find a single misspelled word.

My main critique for this is that I felt as though it was a bit rushed. It started off with Sara going to school, suddenly being in school, Nerezza and Sara seeing each other, Nerezza being introduce in Sara's class, Nerezza doing something supernatural to Sara, then Sara offering to show her around. All of this happened in a rather short piece of writing. I would have liked to have seen you be a bit more descriptive about what was going on. For example, you should have described how Sara was asking questions to herself about Nerezza acting so strangely. You shouldn't feel as though you have to fit a lot of information in a rather short chapter. Because quite a lot of stuff happened in this, the chapter would have been more effective and better if you'd taken time to describe and explain things more. If you're worried about the chapters being too long to post on YWS or something, don't worry, just post it in two halves or something. The main problem with things being rushed in a story is the fact that it's hard for a reader to feel connected to it, if you get what I mean. You should consider slowing this down a bit and taking time to explain things.

Another thing that I'd like to mention is italicizing. I know that you said you'd italicized the thoughts in the original version of this, but you can just italicize them here too. If you simply cop and paste things from word, or wherever, effects like italicizing and bold don't transfer into YWS. If you'd like to include these effects on YWS though, you can. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but I'm just letting you know in case you don't. If you do know how to italicize things, then this next part will be kind of pointless.

CodeSelect all

[i][/i]

That's the code for italicizing. Now, as for actually italicizing a word, sentence, paragraph or whatever. All that you have to do is write whatever you want within the two i's in brackets. Here is an example to make it easier for you to understand. If you're trying to say 'I'm cool', it would look like this:-

CodeSelect all

[i]I'm cool[/i]

After doing this, without the code of course, you will then have this. Well, you should ahve this anyway. I'm cool The simpler way of italicizing things is to simply press the i button that is located on the top of the post. If you do that, all you need to do is type in what you want to be italicized within the two brackets.

All that you need to do now is to take into consideration what us reviewers have said. Then you should maybe edit this up a bit. If you do that, you will definitely have a very nice piece of writing here!

Keep writing,

xoxo Rhian

Thank you so much! And NO, NEREZZA IS NOT A VAMPIRE. I would literally kill myself if I even considered that. See, in my Word document, all the thoughts were nice and italicized, but it doesn't copy into here. And I'm too lazy to change it. But thanks for the awesomefantabulous review!