Water Under The Bridge Chapter One: Shawn

Shawn

Why am I here?
This is a question most people ask themselves at least once in their lives: Why am I in this world? What’s my purpose?
I don’t mean it like that (not that I know why I’m on Earth anymore than the next person). I’m wondering why I’m standing in this bland colored hallway, loud, popular, obnoxiously smart and perfect kids circulating around me. I’m still the outcast…why the hell did I move senior year anyway? Why am I here?
And where is room 2104? Everyone else has evacuated the hall like they’re running from a flood. A lone couple leans against the wall, sucking face (gag me). A security officer snaps at them to get to class, as he patrols the corridor picking up the remains of kids’ breakfast: water bottles, empty Diet Coke cans, donut wrappers. And then there’s me…schedule in hand, and looking for that damn room like a dog chasing its tail.
“Hey, you looking for something?” A voice behind me chirps. I turn to face a girl, probably a junior or senior, a mass of gold hanging in a braid over her shoulder and a pair of bright orange converse on her feet.
“Um, room 2104.” I mumble.
“Oh that’s World Lit with Gates. Supposed to be a fun class. C’mon.” she waves. “I can go that way.”
I awkwardly shift my flimsy bag and follow her. “Aren’t you gonna be late?”
“Oh, I got a pass,” she flashes the neon slip then stuffs it into the back pocket of her jeans. I notice the other is occupied by an MP3 player…what is it with girls and their constant need for music?
She leads me up a flight of stairs and around a bunch of corners…this school has too many corners, and twists and turns. What kind of idiot can’t build straight hallways?
“Hey, this is it.” The girl waves at a door.
“Um, thanks,” I say awkwardly.
“No problem,” she turns to go. “Get in there, you’ll be late.” She smiles. “See you around.” The late bell rings and she is gone.
Twenty-one pairs of eyes are on me, as I creep into that stupid room 2104, ten seconds late on my first day.
“S—sorry,” I stammer at the teacher—a tall middle aged English nerd with a bald spot.
He motions for me to sit. “It’s fine,” he says. “It’s the first day.”
He introduces himself, hands out a list of classroom policies and the syllabus. There are some boring books but some don’t sound too bad. But no one is listening. As I sit in that hard plastic chair, folding the corner of the page over and over, I’m wishing I was with Cassie. She’s gotta be having more fun than me. Is she making friends? I wonder. Is the teacher nice? My third-grade teacher was a bitch, but she might not be. Is she still mad about moving? Am I ready for this?

Very intriguing, stream-of-consciousness is very effective.

As they say on this site, "here are some "nit-picks"?"

"This is a question most people ask themselves at least once in their lives( place a colon here) why am I in this world? What’s my purpose?"

The opening question was a great hook to draw the reader in.

hallway, with loud, popular, obnoxiously smart, and perfect kids circulating around me.

Why am I here? And where is room 2104?---I like the little shift in what the narrator is thinking about, changing from pondering existence to just wondering where her room is, very sly...very good use of similes in that paragraph as well, dog chasing its tail, ext.

C’mon.” She waves.--maybe add to this, just something simple like, "She waves as she turns her shoulders, "she waves" is just kind of incomplete.

No more nitpicks.

One thing that is very effective is the inner conscious, as I have stated, but this definitely needs expansion---the narrator just makes remarks and then leaves it at that, par example:

"I notice the other is occupied by an MP3 player…what is it with girls and their constant need for music?"

This is a very interesting and singular thought, kind of out of left field--expand on it. Why do you think this is? You know, that type of stuff.

The reason I have a problem with some of this inner dialogue is because most of the narrative is very simple and straightforward, with these little trinkets of half-way philosophy thrown in---now this can work in a way, you know, simple girl, with very complex thoughts that she doesn't develop (maybe she isn't so simple at all?) And if you're going to go that route, than definitely expand it over the course of the work.

But if that isn't the story's angle, then definitely just go with the raw emotion that is captured at the end in the italics. You can never go wrong with raw emotion.

I like this, it is very intriguing and I'm going to see how much of it I can read here.

P.S.---are you from England, I'm not sure, but some of your words and dialogue make me think ENGLISH--

par example:

"sucking face" "donut wrappers" (they wrap donuts?) "bright orange converse" (Ive never seen a bright orange pair-seen yellow, red, gray, grayish blue, and all in between, but never ORANGE) "world lit" (we have "juniors" and "seniors" in America, but I've never heard of a class called "world lit" we just call it english, but maybe you're in college) "English nerd" (English as in loves books, or English as in from England?)

YOU CHANGE THE NUMBER OF THE ROOM FROM 2104 to 1204 towards the end...

"Some boring books, some don’t sound too bad."

I'd change this to "There are some seemingly boring books, and others that don't appear to be so bad."

P.P.S. Anyway, I do believe you are English (none of my business really, but I mean, donut wrappers?) But your writing here has compelled me to read on.

P.P.P.S.---hahahahah, epic fail on the signature!

For the most part it flowed very well, though there were a few off-the-wall statements.

try to put more details into it. try answering question like, what does the narrator smell, feel and hear? what do other people look like? just simple things like that will give your story more detail and life to it.

The only major error i see is that the room number when from 2104 to 1204.

Over all it was good, and i liked it. It was well-written and very interesting. i hope to read more soon!

I like the beginning. It pulls the reader in. I found this easy to like and have no nit picks as far as I know. So well done and keep writing.

Thanks guys. The majority of this is already written, I just have to decide how often to post. Glad you enjoyed it.
and Bugbug, I agree this chapter needed more description. I should have edited a little closer last night. The rest of the chapters will have more imagery.

And B, I am as American as it gets. I cracked up when you thought that. Sucking face=making out/kissing
Donut wrappers=the pieces of plastic that come around tiny pre-packaged donuts. Should I have said "packaging" instead? and I know, I couldn't figure the signature out haha. Thanks for the help both of you!

Emily! Hiya(: I'm going to try to review this but the others seemed to have gotten most of it. One thing I notice (or didn't notice...I guess) was that there weren't as many grammar issues in this piece as there were in the other piece I read. Maybe it was just your style maturing.

As for description, I hope the other chapters have a tad bit more because (I know what he looks like from the other stuff I read) I couldn't find one thing about his appearance. Was he wearing the right kinds of clothes? Was his hair a mess from rushing to get to school on that dreaded first day? We just need some subtle hints about what he looks like. Also when you described the hallway you used generic terms that could mean pretty much anything. I think Shawn would be the kind of person who would make fun of details, of things he hadn't seen at his old school or even compare the people he knew to the ones who look like them. And you did change the room number. I didn't catch that until my second skim through it. Pick one and stay with it(: If it helps write it down small details that will come up again (like room numbers or eye color or stuffed animals) on a sheet of paper or word document.

The story though, not much has happened. This happens in a lot of stories, the moving, getting lost, and there wasn't really anything memorable about it. Make something happen that the reader will remember. Try it with the dialogue or the body language. Make Shawn do something uniquely stupid. I don't know if you were just planning to do this later but it's best to do it early so the reader will have something to connect to the story other than,"This Shawn kid moved, isn't that sad." But the opening hooked, and I think you should run with that and just add some stuff. I personally am going to keep reading this because I liked the way Shawn thought. His voice and the way you described things in his voice, the things he noticed, that's what I liked. Don't stray from his voice though, get inside his head and write all of his story this way because you are good at that(:

I hope that helped. PM me or post on my wall if you post more.
~peanut~

I read it. Good job, and -hmmm- Shawn is very cynical, moody, and crass. It makes me wonder, "Will this person's incessant cussing and bleak outlook on life be explained later?"

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Words will fail you."

Great formslipper. and the answer is "yes!". Everyone's conflicts will come out shortly.

This is a nice beginning to a story, especially the first paragraph. There are a few things muddling me, but that makes me want to read more. I'm not much of a grammar person, so I have nothing to say about that. Over all, it's good.

This was interesting, and certainly intriguing. The style is different than most, as many people are on the fence between first person narration and third person narration, completely ignoring the fact that stream of conciousness is an option. However, while the new style brings with it new advantages, it also has its problems. For instance, I often found myself questioning the sintax (structuring) of your sentences. If the reader has to stop and figure out what you meant, or stop to rest their eyes, it distracts from the everything you've done well in throughout the piece.

The first time I saw this was when you put "(gag me)" at the end of your sentence. while this is a matter of preference, I would advice only using partentheses in the middle of sentences, or making this an entirely new sentence. short senteces like that can have a lot of impact, but the parentheses seemed to get in the way.

this: "I notice the other is occupied by an MP3 player…" should have a period, it's kind of confusing to trail off when the sentence is making a definitive statement.

Another instance that confused me was this: “No problem,” she turns to go. “Get in there, you’ll be late.” She smiles. “See you around.” The late bell rings and she is gone.
Sentences where a speaker uses three different pairs of quotation marks almost makes it seem like the speaker is pausing in indecision, and two of those could easily be condensed into one.

That's all that I have, other than those few errors it was fairly good, and I'll probably end up reviewing the next couple chapters as well.
Your friend,
---Psudiname

I totally agree about the structure of sentences in this first chapter. I read it back over and couldn't believe what I was thinking. Just need to get around to fixing it. I'm glad you like it and I'll be sure to catch the errors when I edit.

Hey-hi!

First off, I'd like to -- gah my eyes!

It's a small thing here, but really important: double check your paragraph spacing. I can see where they are supposed to be, but since there's no actually space in between them, the text ends up being this huge brick of solid mass that makes a reader's eyes bleed just to look at. It's easy to fix and in a small section like this, it's not as bad as it could be, but it still makes me pause and want to claw my pupils out.

I liked this character's voice a lot. He was snarky and crabby and it was fun to read his thoughts on things.

One thing that did bother me was the parentheses. I've never been a huge fan of parentheses in fiction, but it might be a personal preference thing. As it stands, if you use them a lot and consistently, I'm not bothered by them so much. If it's a style thing, it doesn't bother me. But when it's just used once or twice, it stands out as awkward. What you have in the parentheses here can easily be put into sentence form.

Examples:

I don’t mean it like that. I mean, it's not that I know why I’m on Earth anymore than the next person.

A lone couple leans against the wall, sucking face. Gag me.

Nearly the same words, just put in their own sentences.

My third-grade teacher was a bitch, but she might not be.

Why is he musing on his third-grade teacher? That seems like a really distant comparison to be pulling up when compared to high school. Was that the only bitchy teacher he ever had? Why is he still worried then? I was just a little confused by this.

I liked your character here. This chapter was short, but I found myself interested by it. On to the next one?

~GryphonFledgling