Pen Pals Since Ever

I got up at six-thirty still feeling tired. Today was just the first day of sophomore year. The sun was shining into my room which made me feel a bit more awake.
I slide off my bed letting my feet touch the rug. It was soft to the touch.
My brother was already in the bathroom taking a shower. He must have gotten up at five or something!
The window was open so a warm breeze flew into the room. I didn’t hear anything but the shower and my computer bleeping.
I opened my grey laptop and checked what that was.
It was an instant message from Selena.
LoveSelly: gurl, r u up yet?
She must have gotten up earlier too.
My eyes started to close but I had to keep them open. School was just beginning today!
Musicme: uh barely
LoveSelly: me 2. God that party last night was HUGE!
Musicme: Yeah! I’m popped now!
LoveSelly: But guess what.
My fingers stayed on the keyboard but I started to feel less sleepy by the minute.
Musicme: wat?
Selena is my best friend. We’ve been tight since Kindergarten. No one ever brought us down. We have everything in common! She is the best friend anyone could ever have! Whenever I need advice she’s there. But there are flaws in every person. She falls in love too fast. Her last boyfriend ran away from her like a speeding bullet! She thought they were gonna get married in a week. Poor Thomas, she scared him away.
LoveSelly: do u remember Tyler from the party, the 11th grader?
Musicme: yu huh
LoveSelly: we talked the whole time there! When you were hanging out with the rest of our 4 some
group I was talkin to the love of my life *melts into puddle of love*
You see what I mean?! Melts into puddle of love after one talk with the guy…
Our group of friends was created in sixth grade when we all met. We all met in Science class. The teacher split the class into groups of four so we got chosen to be together. That’s how the amazing friendship started. It consists of: Me, Selena, Toby, and Caitlin.
Musicme: u don’t think dat this might be a little 2 fast?
LoveSelly: NO! How cld u even say dat?
Musicme: how cld I not. U do this ALL the time. 1) u meet a guy 2) love
LoveSelly: and…? He cld be my ONE emm.
Musicme: u said that about Thomas…
LoveSelly: *looks disapprovingly at Emma*
Musicme: well it’s true!
LoveSelly has signed off
Musicme: Hey! Come Sel! Its true, u can’t deny dat!!!
I kept my fingers on the keyboard waiting for Selena to get back on.

“Emma…?” my little sister stood at my door.

I turned around and saw her standing there with her lucky stuffed animal in her hands.

“What Georgie?”

She came up to me, every step quieter than the one before.

“It’s your first day of school! Why aren’t you ready?” she hollered.

I rolled my eyes.

“Look, I’m going in two hours. It starts at nine.”

Her blond hair was in a high ponytail.

“Well, I gotta go in an hour. Can you help me with my outfit?” she asked.

Even though she was just thirteen, she cared about her appearance more than any other thirteen year old.

“Sure, just wait for one second.” I turned back to the computer.

Still nothing.
LoveSelly has signed on
LoveSelly: fine… *sighs* ur right.
She finally spoke back up. She finally get’s it. Her love life is too powerful.
Musicme: thank God.
LoveSelly: u ready?
Musicme: 4 wat?
LoveSelly: SKOOL… duh …
Musicme: yeah. Gtta help my sister w/ her outfit she’s so cute!
LoveSelly: go help the fashion star *gets camera and takes pictures of Georgie*
Musicme: Okay, brb!
I got off the computer and scanned my sister from up to down.
I tied my blonde locks into a ponytail and jumped off my desk chair.
We both walked down the peach wall and into her room.
It was covered in blue and red stripes and symbols in many colors.
She ran to her closet and opened up the white closet doors. The clothes hung in color order as she picked through them.

“What type of outfit would you like to wear?” I asked her.

“Today it will be a Miley Cyrus.” She answered smiling from ear to ear.

Hey there Nike!

I'm Tanya, here for a review.

Ok, first off, this was an interesting piece, but it was slightly confusing.
The messaging, I would suggest, should be done either in another format, or in italics. Way too hard to follow, and trying to sound out the chat speak. At least if you put it in italics, it'll be easier to follow.

Also, I'm not sure why you wrote this. Pen pals since ever? Ok, for a short story competition or just for fun? Because I frankly couldn't see the whole point of this, the plot of it. I don't want to know about Selena, I want to see it myself. Have them interacting at the party, have them talk it out.

Then the sister? She's 13 years old but she's dragging a stuffed toy with her? At 13, I was shunning my stuffed toys. And why does her sister have to help her pick an outfit at that age? I figured maybe it's to show the closeness of them, but there are other ways to do that.

Overall, it has potential. Very modern and realistic since we can identify ourselves to that. Failed relationships, checking the laptop first thing in the morning. It's also the first thing I do in the morning

I would revise this and work more on showing instead of telling. BUt this definitely has potential.

Hope this helped!
Tanya

Bonjour Nike!
I’m Incognito, and to be frank, I haven't reviewed in a while so bear with me as I try to get back in the game.

This was an interesting piece, though as borntobeawriter has stated, I don't quite necessarily see the point in it. If this is not a finished piece, then you should state it. There wasn’t necessarily a plot. I think what you might have been doing is making the point that Selena is 'fall in love' too fast and that she needs to stop, and that is like the moral of the story. If that is indeed so, you need to add more to those fleeting remarks of 'her last boyfriend left her' and dwell on them a bit, make them more interesting and get the emotion behind them. Eh, I went off on a tangent. The moral of this is that I’m trying to make clear the point of this whole story, there is no obvious conflict. There is only the characters and a brief discussion. Maybe you could clear that up for me.

I also agree with borntobeawriter on the two other aspects also, the italics and the thirteen year-old. Might I recommend making the thirteen year-old younger, perhaps maybe somewhere from eight to ten? Because surely, when I was thirteen, I cared about my appearance and I would always try to be older then I really was. They wouldn't need help with choosing an outfit.

Here comes the important part of why I am reviewing this piece.
I noticed frequently when I was reading, this;

I got up at six-thirty still feeling tired. Today was just the first day of sophomore year. The sun was shining into my room which made me feel a bit more awake.

I bolded those words because they showed you were righting in the past tense. All good right? Yes. But then you did this:

I slide off my bed letting my feet touch the rug.

and you get into descriptions like this;

Selena is my best friend. We’ve been tight since Kindergarten. No one ever brought us down. We have everything in common! She is the best friend anyone could ever have!

Yes, those things I picked out are correct in how they are formed but they don't follow your consistency of writing this story in the past tense. 'Slide' should be 'slipped' or 'slid', something that makes that clear, and as for the description it is a bit different. Yes they may still be friends, but for the sake of being grammatically correct you have to keep this description in the past tense. You have to make it seem like the person telling the story is looking back on it all.

You could even look at it this way if it helps, if you were ever planning on continuing this piece and these two characters got in a fight, they wouldn't be friends anymore right? Even if they became friends again, they wouldn't have been friends for ever right?

The moral is that you have to keep your tenses all the same. Choose either past tense, or present. You did it frequently in your piece. Just read through it and find all the inconsistencies. They aren't big and are easy to fix.

Other then that, good work and keep it up. (:
If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
~Incognito

I got up at six-thirty still feeling tired. Today was just the first day of sophomore year. The sun was shining into my room which made me feel a bit more awake.

I slide off my bed letting my feet touch the rug. It was soft to the touch.

This is pure telling--boring. It's like a list. Also, I hate it when stories start with people waking up or getting out of bed; again, boring. Try starting with the IMs, or something, or at least describe what's going on. "My feet touched the carpet. The carpet was soft." just doesn't quite work. I also noticed that you switched tenses. (I got up------I slide off)

I opened my grey laptop and checked what that was.

It was an instant message from Selena

Does it matter that the laptop is grey? If not, don't force the description in there just for the heck of it. Also, try to avoid the kind of description where you do a "question answer" thingy: "I open the box. What's in the box? A necklace is in the box". Etc.. You could've just said something along the lines of "I opened my laptop and found an IM from Selena."

She must have gotten up earlier too.

My eyes started to close but I had to keep them open. School was just beginning today!

It's kind of obvious that she's awake, so that's redundant. I feel like the voice could be a little more unique here too--you know, "Oh, crap, school's today." that kind of thing. Otherwise she sounds too...... fake.

Musicme: Yeah! I’m popped now!

Popped? As in popcorn?

Selena is my best friend. We’ve been tight since Kindergarten. No one ever brought us down. We have everything in common! She is the best friend anyone could ever have! Whenever I need advice she’s there. But there are flaws in every person. She falls in love too fast. Her last boyfriend ran away from her like a speeding bullet! She thought they were gonna get married in a week. Poor Thomas, she scared him away.

Woah, one second I'm getting involved with the IM conversation, and next it's INFO DROP! Also, waaaayyyyy too many exclamation points. Work this info in later.

Ok, on the actual plot--nothing's happened. All you've written about is this scene with a party--it's like a first chapter. This is a short story, right? (If not PM a mod and they'll move it.) If so, I'd like at least some kind of character development, conflict, etc. With a short story, you really need to use all available space--and I think this drags on quite a bit, especially with the IM conversation (Plus, that chatspeak made my eyes hurt... ) Generally, we'd see a) a conflict, b) a worsening of the conflict c) how the conflict is (at least partially resolved) and d) character change.

As for writing style, you've done pretty well--there aren't too many errors that I can see. But I think you have two main problems:

A) Description

Like I said earlier, you're just taking details on to sentences for the heck of it--what we want is an idea of what things look like, but not at the expense of the narrative. This is *particularly* a problem when you're describing the MC--as in "I toss my beautiful blond hair back". Nobody talks like that. I know it's hard to work in details, but still. Also, avoid "listing" things--it was green with stripes and blah blah..." One way to avoid this is by showing character reactions to details (after all, it you're showing them, they're important to the story) like so: "The stripey wallpaper never failed to give me a headache" Ok, lousy example. But you get the point.*throws back beautiful blonde hair* onward!


B) Info-Drops

This goes hand and hand with description--especially in the place I pointed out, you have a tendency to suddenly decide that the reader needs background info and slam them in the face with it. This is better than no information at all, but it still has the effect of jarring the reader out of the story. Give us some credit--we can figure it out. For what we can't, work the details in with the rest of the story when possible--at the most one or two sentences of backstory when needed.


As for the characters, I like them, but we don't have much to go on. Her sister does seem a lot younger than thirteen, but maybe that's just me. All we know about her friend is that she falls for guys instantly.

All in all, I'm not sure what to make of this. If it's a long story, then I suggest starting with something more exciting--conflict--rather than a simple conversation. If not, then I think you need a bit longer to develop the situation. Either way, I like the idea and your writing style--with a bit of work, I'd like it even more.

Hope I helped, and let me know if you ever need anything!

Lupis