In ♥ With A Tomboi

Joey's POV:

I can't believe I had to move 10,000 miles away from all my friends! Stinkin' parents always ruining things for kids, with their rules and stuff.

"Hey, cheer up man." my cousin, Dan, says to me.

Dan has brown hair and green eyes. He was the same age as me and lived next door to me with his two brothers and his mom and dad. His older brother is Craig, he has curly blonde hair and green eyes. And his twin brother is Ben, who was younger than him by like 10 minutes.

I used to live in Chilly Canada and now I am here in Sunny California.

"It's so much better here, then it is there." he continued.

"Name one reason." I told him.

"The beaches, the babes, the-"

"I said one!"

"Whatever, let's just go site seeing."

"But, I still gotta unpack." I was surrounded by brown boxes, there was hardly enough space to walk around.

"You can do that later. Now, come on!" Dan practically dragged me out the door.

"So, you wanna go scope out some girls?" he asked me, after walking around for a while.

"Sure, what else is there to do?" I agreed.

We walked around for a while, then we saw some girls sitting on lawn chairs in front of a house.

"Hey, ladies." Dan winked at them.

One of them giggled and walked over to us. She had dark curly hair and green eyes.

"Hi" she said.

"Hi, I'm Dan.

"I'm Spencer. And who are you, cutie?" she looked at me.

"My name's Joey. Nice to meet you." I tried to sound polite. I didn't need some girl bawling her eyes out at me.

"So, who are your friends?" Dan didn't seem upset at all over the fact that Spencer liked me. Which was weird, because Dan was better looking than me, so I don't know why she likes me. I had sorta long black hair that sometimes covers my face, so it looks like I'm emo and light blue eyes. Dan and I followed Spencer over to her friends.

"Hey girls, this is Dan and Joey," she said, pointing to us. "And this is Alex, Jordan, Dani, Cam, Brandy, Michele, Riley, Nick, Bobby, and Avery."

Alex was a redhead with green eyes and a sprinkle of freckles. Jordan, Cami, Brandy, and Michele all had brown hair and dark brown eyes. While, the others all had black hair with either brown, blue, or green eyes. There was one thing I had noticed that they all had in common and that was their names. Most of them had names that boys would also have.

"Hey, wait a minute, so where's Izzy?" the girl named Riley asked.

"I'm not sure." Michele answered.

I was beginning to wonder if Izzy was another girl or a guy, but before I could ask, there was someone coming towards us.

"Hey, guys." the person said.

"Where were you, Izzy?" Alex asked.

So, it was a guy. He was wearing baggy jeans and a hoodie, with black converse high tops, and a black baseball hat backwards.

"This is Joey and Dan." Spencer said to him.

He walked over to us and I noticed that he had the features of a girl. He probably took after his mom or something.

"Hey." Dan and I said to him.

"Hi." I also noticed his voice was also kinda feminine.

"Your voice is kinda squeaky for a guy." I finally said.

"Well, maybe it's because I'm not a guy, I'm a girl." wow, I did not expect that.

He, well, she took of the hat and I saw long black hair cascading down.

"Wow." Dan and I both said together.

She was really pretty and stuff.

"But, maybe you just have long hair like a hippy's. Do you have prove that you're a girl?" I knew she was a girl, but I wanted to see what'd she say.

She looked at me and then unzipped her hoodie, underneath it I saw her wearing a black tank top.

"Well, she's definitely a girl," Dan said to me. "A very hot girl."

"So, if you're a girl, why don't you dress like one?" I continued.

"I don't tell you how to dress, so don't tell me how to dress. I dress like this, 'cause I feel like it." she answered.

"Izzy's kind of a tomboy." Alex said.

"Kind of? She's like the biggest tomboy ever that lives here." Spencer added.

"Ok, we get it, I'm a tomboy."

Izzy zipped her hoodie back up and put the hat back on and went to a small cooler on the ground and got out a soda. I stared at her, while she drank it.

"Hey, so we were going to the carnival, you wanna come?" I heard Spencer ask.

"Huh?" I turned around and saw her looking at me. "Uh, sure."

So, the girls, Dan and I all walked to the carnival, all except Izzy, who rode on her skateboard. It wasn't far and when we got there we had a lot of fun. Maybe coming here was a good idea, maybe it won't be so bad here. The girls became really good friends of us. Well, except for Izzy. For some reason we were always fighting. I never even knew when we would make up, but then we'd just start fighting again. I had fun fighting with her, but I also really liked her. If only I had the chance to talk to her and tell her the truth. But, till then I just hope Izzy and I are never separated from each other.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N:

Spencer, Riley, & Dani's Outfits:
http://www.polyvore.com/spencer_riley_d ... d=22594092
Jordan, Brandy, & Alex's Outfits:
http://www.polyvore.com/jordan_brandy_a ... d=22594584
Nick & Bobby's Outfits:
http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=22594712
Avery's Outfit:
http://www.polyvore.com/averys_outfit/set?id=22594904
Izzy's Outfit:
http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=22562877

Alright. Since you are new here this will be fun. I liked the piece, it had potential. But you really gotta add description! You got to add it in the right places though so it would make sense. The dialogue is, well, blah. You gotta make it shine. Please re-read the story and read other people's books/stories and you will see what needs to be done. The story went to fast. And when you wrote "So, you wanna go scope out some girls?" he asked me, after walking around for a while.
After what it said before you should have added something to let the reader know that the story transferred somewhere else.
Nike

Hello.

The first thing I noticed, before even clicking on this story, was the title. Usually, chatspeak and emotocons in a title are frowned upon, especially on YWS where our focus is proper English. If you have a very specific reason for using "♥" and "boi" (instead of love and boy, respectively) then it would be acceptable. But if it's just to make your title stand out, then please reconsider.

Onto the actual content. Your first paragraph didn't grab me as much as it could have, mostly because I felt very alienated by your main character. You've set him up as a somewhat whiny character, and as a shallow one (only caring about his friends and having no respect for his parents). This makes readers think he has an attitude, and not one they'd want to stick around with for the next few thousand words. It's hard to continue reading a first person narrator who has an unlikeable attitude.

In your second paragraph, I noticed you slip up on the dialogue (and continue to do so.) The period should be a comma. This article is on dialogue punctuation. I'd suggest you read it and edit your dialogue grammar accordingly.

Your third and fourth paragraphs really aren't needed. They're what's called an info dump, where you stuff a bunch of unneeded information at the reader's face. All we need to know is Dan's relationship to Joey; we don't need to know everything about his looks, family, or where he lives. It jerks readers out of the story, because they want to know what's going on now. Not a bunch of details.

Also, your tenses are a bit off. "Had" in line one implies he's already moved, yet the fact Dan is there implies he hasn't (Because Dan "lived" next door to Joey. "Lived" implies that Dan lived next door before Joey moved, and therefore shouldn't be in the scene unless he moved too.) It's very confusing. Get your timeline of events in order right from the start, establishing where they are and what all the characters are doing there.

Really, this needs a lot of work. Events are happening out of order and the character seems to be nothing more than a teenager with attitude and nothing more. Events happening out of order can be polished up by establishing immediate setting sooner (where he currently is, when he moved/moves, who came with him and why, ect), while taking a look at the Writing Tutorials section of the Knowledge Base can help with character development. Poke around in that forum to see which articles will be the most useful.

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

~Rosey