Through Minds Eye (Chapter One)

"You cheated! That's totally unfair Vi!" I accuse. "You ran me off the edge!"

"Well duh, that's the point smart one" Violette smirks leaning back on the sofa. "I guess this means you don't want to rematch, huh?"

"Only in your dreams" I laugh standing up and tossing my remote onto the couch.

Violette gets up and walks over to the fridge.

"Dr. Fizz?" she asks, but before I can answer yes she tosses a can at me from across the room. I trip over the coffee table but manage to catch it before it hit s the ground and explodes. I tap it a few times to make sure it won't spill on me. I glace at the clock and dash up the stairs to change. Violette follows me and flops down on my bed sipping her H2Go. I go into my closet and grab a pair of skinny jeans, a graphic-tee, a black hoodie and my favorite pair of converse. My younger sister is in my bathroom, probably doing her spiky black hair so I quickly change into my outfit. "So where are you going anyway?" Vi asks when she finally walks out of the bathroom running her hand over her now completely gelled hair.

"I don't know. Zoe, Ashley, and Morgan are taking me somewhere as an early birthday surprise thing." I explain running a brush through my slightly curly red hair.

I walk over to her and stand beside her in front of my full body mirror. We stand there in complete silence for a few moments looking at our reflections. So similar, yet so different at the same time. We both jump when a car horn sounds abruptly from outside.

"That's them" I say grabbing my purse and cell phone. I yell a quick goodbye to my parents then turn to Violette.

"Hey Vi?" I ask.

"Yeah?" she says, not even looking at me.

"Rematch, tomorrow." I say. She turns and I wink then run out the door. I glance back as we drive away and see Violette at my bedroom window, staring back with a blank expression. I snap my head away quickly forcing the chill creeping up my spine back down.

"So where are you taking me?" I ask leaning my arms on the back of the drivers seat.

"You'll see" Ashley says, her Sapphire Blue eyes sparkling in the rear-view mirror. I sit back and look next to me at Zoe. "Don' look at me" she says wiping a sandy blond hair from her ocean blue eyes. "I'm not telling you anything."

"Fine!" I say crossing my arms. "Don't tell me."

"We're not!" Morgan laughs, her brown ponytail bobbing as she turns back to wink evilly at me. We drive for about twenty more minutes before Morgan reaches back and hands me a bag covered in shiny, "Happy Birthday!'s"all over it. I open it and hurriedly take out a pair of dirty, old sneakers that look like they've been through a tornado, a hurricane, a mudslide, and every other foul, nasty, disastrous thing I could ever think of.

"Awww, thanks" I say eying my present then dropping them back into the bag.

"It's not your present, they're just for tonight." Zoe explains dumping the shoes back into my lap. "So just put them on."

"Ugh, but they're so gro-"

"Now!" Morgan snaps twisting back in her seat to glare at me.

"Fine, fine." I mumble kicking off my converse and pulling on my "new" shoes. We drive for a few more minutes then pull into a parking lot. "Bowling?" I ask, slender eyebrows raised.

"Bowling!" all three of them shout stifling their laughter then propping their feet up on up. Their shoes are as bad as mine, maybe even worse if possible. We walk inside and get in line to get our bowling shoes. When I turn around though, I run into someone and fall backwards onto the floor dropping my bowling shoes.

"Oh! I'm so sorry!" I exclaim from the floor scrambling for my shoes.

"Nah, it's fine, it was my fault." a voice says above me. "Are you all right?" He asks holding out his hand. I grip it and he pulls me up.

"I..." I start, but I'm at a loss for words. I look at his face for the first time. His tousled black hair shines and falls across his face, partly covering his concerned, deep blue eyes. I don't know how long I stared at him , but it must have too long to be comfortable because I see his eyebrows raise.

"I'm, um, fine, thanks." I stammer, shaking my head and feeling very embarrassed. "You sure? You seem pretty dazed" he says with a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"No, really! I'm fine, i swear." I mumble, and feel my cheeks flush.

"Maybe you should get something to eat , or at least a drink. I can get you something if you want" he says timidly, his cheeks turning slightly pink.

"Actually, I'm here with my friends for my birthday" I say suddenly remembering them and standing on my toes to find them.

"Oh, happy birthday then."

"Not until Sunday." I say, still wondering where Zoe, Ash, and Morgan got to.

"Well, then happy-three-more-days-until-your-birthday!" He says flashing me a silly smile. "How old are you turning?"

"Eighteen"

"Cool"

"Yeah. Oh, and, um, sorry for earlier." I stutter. "I...I've got to go. My friends are probably looking for m, you know." As I turn and start walking away, he trots back up beside me.

"Hold on a second." he says, softly grabbing my shoulder. I spin around.

"Yeah?"

"So you run into me, space out, and you're going to walk away without even telling me your name?"

I uncap a sharpie from my purse and grab his hand.

"What-" he starts to ask, but I finish scribbling my phone number on his hand before he can finish. "I'm Piper" I say coyly, "and rain check on that food idea." I turn on my heel and keep walking. I pause when he calls out.

"Seth! That's my name." he says shyly. I smile to myself then continue walking. Then I see Ashley standing on a table, her dark blond hair swirling around her.I race over to her.

"What are you doing?!" I hiss.

"Looking for you!" She says glaring at me and leaping off of the table. I drag her away with Zoe and Morgan trailing behind us. I yank her into a booth and slide in across from her. Zoe and Morgan slip in next to either one of us.

"Where were you!?" Ashley exclaims angrily. "We did this for you and then you completely disappear us for almost fifteen minutes!"

"Well when I got my shoes I accidentaly ran into someone, and you guys-"I pause to look around the table and glare at them, "ditched me!"

"Ok, ok. Sorry, but still, who did you run into that was so cool you forgot about us for fifteen minutes?"

"Well, it...we, he..." I mumble feeling my face get hot.

"Ahhhh...I see now" Morgan says winking dramatically.

"What?" I ask innocently.

"You" Morgan says staring pointedly at me,"met a boy. A cute boy at that."

"Well, yeah, I ran into him, fell, he helped me up, said happy birthday, and I gave him my number." I rush quickly, feel my cheeks blaze red.

"Ooh lala" Ashley teases. "You fell hard!"

"Well let's bowl!" I say hurriedly changing the subject. I lean down to tie my shoes, hiding my face in my hair.

Hey there, I'm Hawk and I'm here to review!

H'okay, so this piece feels really rushed. It's just "gogogo!" all the way until she meets Seth, where things slow down for a bit, and then it's "gogogo" again with her friends. Slow down! We readers need to get an idea of this story; what the setting is, what the main character is like, and who all the rest of these characters are. For instance, Piper's friends. All I know about them is they sound hyper. When you're introducing characters, you want to do it gradually and not dump a bunch of names, descriptions, and details about them all at once. Take this part for example:

"You'll see" Ashley says, her Sapphire Blue eyes sparkling in the rear-view mirror. I sit back and look next to me at Zoe. "Don' look at me" she says wiping a sandy blond hair from her ocean blue eyes. "I'm not telling you anything."

"Fine!" I say crossing my arms. "Don't tell me."

"We're not!" Morgan laughs, her brown ponytail bobbing as she turns back to wink evilly at me.

Look at how many descriptions there are! I still don't know who anyone is or what each individual is like, and I'm certainly not going to remember all of these details about them in such a short amount of time. So when you start listing them off again later in the story, all I have is a muddled image of a bunch of loud teenage girls. They need more defining characteristics to separate them.

Remember, your characters are just like people in real life -- they all have their stories, their quirks, their likes and dislikes. It's your job as the writer to control when and how these little details are revealed to the reader. Just like in real life, you wouldn't blurt out your entire story to a stranger. You have conversations with that person and eventually find out little things through stories and memories and such. This is the same thing that you want to do when you write. Don't just info-dump; paint the picture for us with words, since we don't have a screen or our own eyes present to see everything.

As for the story's pacing, you need to slow it down. You have a tendency to list off actions in a telling way instead of showing. This is a common problem with writers (including yours truly!), and here's a good post with tips on how to avoid the issue.

Your story itself is interesting. I have to say that the part that intrigued me the most was when Piper glanced back at her house and saw Violette standing by the window -- making Piper shiver. It's creepy, and I'm hoping something's going to happen in relation to this; does Violette have some kind of a secret? Is she not quite what she seems? I'm looking forward to finding out!

This Seth character also interests me. He seems pretty insistent to get to know Piper, and then he turns all shy when she leaves. Inversely, Piper seems a bit frazzled and then suddenly turns all coy and flirty. I think the interaction between the two could use a bit of smoothing out; really pinpoint their reactions and make sure it's consistent with who they are and what's transpiring in the story. I know when you're writing that it can get easy to get caught up in the flow and go off on some obscure tangent -- but sometimes you have to take a step back and look at the scene and your characters and ask yourself, "Is that really the way so-and-so would act? Is that truly what they'd say?" I think doing this will help iron out the little details and make it feel more coherent and thus more believable.

Also, I'd just like to say that commas are your friend! Just don't go in the opposite direction and become too friendly with them, resulting in overuse. But, in this case, your lack of punctuation causes this piece to be read in a really quick manner and it's not easy on the eyes or brain to try and absorb the information without any pauses. Here is a good link about comma use. Another related topic to that is your grammar punctuation; this is an excellent link on the little details regarding when to use quotations, commas, periods and such when characters are talking.

Okay, so I know this is a pretty long review -- I'm really just trying to help! I'm sorry if I sound harsh with any of this; it's not my intent, I just get pretty serious and focused when it comes to reviewing. Please let me know if you've got any questions, comments, or whatnot with anything I said.

Keep on writing! Cheers. :]