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Last edited by Roal on Fri Feb 25, 2011 5:25 am, edited 4 times in total.
14 years have passed
And yet I'm unabled
To find a friend
For my existence is lower
Than a piece of grass.




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Awww this is so cute!!! It's almost like I can feel what they feel and getting attached to them.
Ok! The underlined means that shouldn't be there while the red means you need to add something. The green means it's completely optional :)


He opened the house’s mailbox and placed the letters in. He stared at the box’s gold plate that said, 'Benderick'

I think Benderick is supposed to be hyphened and maybe italicized.

“Hello, I’m a person from another class, but there’s something about you that interests me. Would you mind if we chat a little bit through this piece?"
“Hello, I’m a person from another class, but there’s something about you that is interesting to me. Would you mind if we chat a little bit through this piece? Reply on the back.”

Either one, but 'something about you that interest me' isn't right.

I don’t have that many friends due to my brother, so it would be nice.

If you said, 'I don't have a single friend due to my brother...' it'd make sense. But the sentence structure clashes.

After he got home; his parents worriedly asked, “What happened?”

You could add a comma instead of a semicolon or just take out the semicolon and leave it without punctuation, but a semicolon doesn't fit because it's not two sentences that can be made into one.

His mom grasped his arm and pulled him back, giving him a slight hug, and, saying nothing else, she dragged him to her car and drove off to the hospital.

His mom grasped his arm and pulled him back, giving him a slight hug. and Saying nothing else, she dragged him to her car and drove off to the hospital.

For the first option, the comma is in the wrong place.
The second option, a comma is a wrong punctuation.

When he went on to middle school, he went to a school where no Simon was here, he lived his two peaceful years there.

'Here' doesn't fit properly and a period could be added where the comma is.

He had only seen the girl again during their graduation ceremony, she fitted in perfectly now.

Fitted means 'To be the proper size and shape for'. 'Fit' works perfectly fine.

He growled slightly and quickly pulled out a pen and paper, jotting down any words he could thought think of and, taking the tip of the pen back, he put the pen to where it belonged.

The 'to' is just a word that's thrown in there, and 'belong' needs to become 'belonged'.

It has been was a few weeks after before their relationship was fortified;

The tense you're talking in changed with the 'has been'.

He pulled out the mails the same time the girl opened her door;

'Mails' isn't a word

This needed to be worked out later on, he had work to do, his mind adjusted to his job; (and )the question slowly hid itself.

This sentence confused me at first, probably because I'm an easily confused person, but the 'be' needs to be there and 'work' needs to become 'worked'. Taking out the semicolon is optional, but if you take it out the 'and' needs to be added

A pat on the shoulder shocked him as he hopped to see to the person responsible

'Hopped to the person responsible' sounds like, 'He hopped over to the person who tapped him'.

I can't wait for part two :D
& maybe it's true
We don't know what we have till we lose it
But maybe it's also true
We don't know what we're missing
Till we [find it]




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Thanks Michelle =3=
Mails isn't a word? MY COMPUTER LIED TO ME!! D;
14 years have passed
And yet I'm unabled
To find a friend
For my existence is lower
Than a piece of grass.




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Points 5567
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hey there,
Let me just say: This was great. i don't really mind the romance part coming later on since you've already got this atmoshpere built up. Well i have to say I liked your characters, their personalities were unique and quite catchy.However there were some places were your description regarding some of the charcaters were a bit confusing particularly simon. i really like the fact that you have this silent mysterious type of guy as your main character as it adds this suspense to the story and well with the romance and suspense together it might build up to be a really great plot. Well i will really look forward to your next chapter cause i think the concept is really intresting. I would just say be careful of your spelling mistakes and the small things and then it will be okay.
I would definitely encourage you to keep writing and please let me know when the next chapter comes out. If you need some one to review i'd be happy to help.

-budding writer
## My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations ##




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Hey! Thanks for reviewing :3
14 years have passed
And yet I'm unabled
To find a friend
For my existence is lower
Than a piece of grass.




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Gender Female
Points 1799
Reviews 365
Hello. Here as requested!!

Nitpicks:

1.
Spoiler
The boy exited his vehicle as he walked toward the house. He opened the house’s mailbox and placed the letters in. He stared at the box’s gold plate that said

viewtopic.php?t=2351
this is a link to a Topic that will help you with your beginning. It didn't pull me in.


2.
Spoiler
no time to chitty-chat.

Whats chitty chat????? do ya mean Chit-chat??


3.
Spoiler
Their ‘daughter’ was adopted, so the relationship between Simon and her wasn’t a taboo

I think you should re-phrase this to: The Bendrick family consisted of four people. The parents, Simon and *girls name*. THe daughter was adopted, and so on.


4.
Spoiler
Simon dropped the unconscious boy and woke him up by a kick. He coughed, choked, and almost threw up his lunch. He didn’t know what was going to happen next, another beating, probably. The boy’s leg trembled as soon as he saw Simon holding an iron rod that spelled “BdK”—Benderick. The tip of the iron was glowing red, the boy’s bully smirked as he said, “Grab that bug and hold him down.”

The two wiped the smirk off their faces and captured both his arms, lifting the boy’s shirt up, they waited for the show to began. The boy quivered, his expression from his first beating came back to him, and his lips became dried as his throat pounded. He squinted and mumbled, “Stop…”

Simon stopped for a moment before the iron touched his naked skin, the boy could still feel the hotness of it. The bully smirked and teased, “What? I can’t hear you, speak up, insect!”

“S—stop it!” he yelled, his arms fought back, one of the grabbers got angry and shoved a punch to the boy’s face. Simon laughed as he continued.

“Stop it!” his voice squeaked.


this needs to be in italics so we know it was a memory. YOu had me VERY confused.


Well, I was very confused. I can see your personality and your writing ability shine through, but I get the feeling you didn't go over it well. And if this was ch. 1 it was quite an info dump, which you don't need in the first chapter.

I have a job for you, before you write ch.2

1. Close your eyes. This story lacks feeling.
2. Imagine that your are the charecter. How would they feel? How would you your self respond to the situation?
3. write down the feelings you had. Not on the computer. On paper.
4. then adapt your story to the feelings.

Before you post ch. 2:
1. read the chapter out loud.
2. edit, edit, edit.
3. repeat this 5 times.


Overall I liked it.
~pointe
hush, my sweet
these tornadoes are for you


-Richard Siken


Formerly SparkToFlame




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Hey, Roal!

I was going to get to this yesterday, but then remembered that today was reviewing Sunday. Therefore, I thought that I better wait until today to review this. Yup, that's how my mind works. :D I'm sure you know the drill by now. If you have any questions or comments about this review when I'm done, don't hesitate to let me know. I'll be more than happy to help.

Overall, I have to say that I love this idea, Roal. Thinking about it, the one thing that I always adore about your writing is the concept of it. You're always able to come up with original ideas that are guaranteed to work well. Your characters are always interesting to read about and like the plots, they're original too. This piece is no exception. I definitely think that this is brimming with potential!

The main thing I noticed in this was that, at times, you had a tendency to tell, not show. I can't press you enough on how important it is to show your readers things instead of simply telling them. It wasn't a huge issue, but it did creep in here and there. Let's take the beginning, for example, where you were telling us about Simon and his sister, especially what their relationship was like. This is an area where it felt like you were telling us what your characters were like instead of us being shown what they're like.

The thing is that you don't need to tell us that Simon beat guys up if they went near his sister because we clearly get to see that later on with your MC. Therefore, the part at the beginning where you're describing Simon's love for his sister isn't really necessary. We can tell that he's aggressive and that he loves his sister when we see him beating up your MC. The problem with you "warning" us about his behaviour before hand is that when the violent scenes do arrive, they don't seem as shocking because we already know that Simon's aggressive. Does that make sense? Along with a few other scenes, it weighs the piece down a bit.

The only other critique I have for you is that I did find some parts in this confusing. This was a tiny issue really because there wasn't anything major that I wasn't sure about. The problem as well is that I'm not 100% sure on why this was sometimes confusing either. I'm so unhelpful. :P I think it may have something to do with the critique above actually: the showing, not telling.

What you have a tendency to do is do a wonderful job at showing us the story, then suddenly break into a bit of a telling spree. Think of it like this: we're engrossed into your story, then we have to pause on what's going on for a bit and get given some information. Then, when we get back into the proper story, it takes us some time to get back into it because of the brief pause with the information you were giving us. Because of that, we miss a thing or two and get a little confused. Hmmm... This is making less sense than my last critique, isn't it? Well, I hope you somewhat understand what I'm trying to say here. Basically, be sure that you avoid causing any kind of confusion - make sure that all details are clear and easy to follow.

Keep writing,

xoxo Skins
I didn't know what to put here so I put this.




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Hi there!

The boy exited his vehicle as he walked toward the house. He opened the house’s mailbox and placed the letters in. He stared at the box’s gold plate that said, ‘Benderick’. He looked upward to the daughter of the Benderick’s window; she smiled continuously as she flipped her book. Not waving or saying hello, he ambled back to his van. There were lots of mail that still needed to be deliver, no time to chitty-chat. The boy drove around town, putting in mails, and repeating the same thing. Most workers would use the synthetic maps for shortcuts, but the boy had developed the route where he stayed on the road to the Benderick. He drove back and forth, looking out his window and into hers. Once, she looked right back him, and it made him blanked out for a second, causing him to switch to the other side of the road and almost crashed.


Right now, I think your opening is a little dense to really 'draw people in' to it. For instance, your sentences are quite short, but each one is a little disconnected, which gives the reader a feeling of being plied with too much information. You'd do well to read through this aloud and, when it sounds awkward, just edit the sentences so that the flow better, and therefore work well as an opening. Also, make sure that you're using the right form of a word - a few words I've put in bold up there are wrong and should be changed.

With stories, you really want to develop an opening that interests a reader. The opening paragraph presents a really interesting idea, and that's great, but I think that a couple of the things mentioned above detract from it and therefore the idea presented gets a little lost in the presentation.


As your story moves on, it rushes a little bit too quickly. It's okay to follow if you read it over a couple of times, but it needs to be developed a little more before the story can really make sense. Your ideas are all brilliant, but the way you push them together means that it all feels really rushed and slightly confusing.

This could be better if you slowed down a little and started to show, not tell. Your narrative, whilst interesting, is long and it would be better if instead you focused on what's happening in the story rather than talking about it beforehand. People's actions talk louder than their words, but here you've ignored that and moved straight on to explaining everything so that when it actually gets to the actions nothing is particularly surprising.

I think you have a lot of potential here, you just need to let the story unfold in a natural way rather than trying to explain everything before it happens!

PM me with any questions.

-Amy
"It is curious how often you humans manage to obtain that which you do not want."

-Spock.


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