Young Writers Society

II.

It happened pretty quickly, all things considered.

Strange, really. Rumours were born in their thousands at recess but most failed to gain any legs or get anywhere at all. This one seemed to fly from mouth to mouth, gaining speed and vitriol. The rumour of the day was this:

Jenna Tremain was a slut.

Mickey Mulligan, would-be bully, full-time idiot, was doing what he did best – talking crap. It seemed everyone knew, without saying anything but that wasn’t the worst thing. It was the way they stared at me, wherever I went, expectant eyes burning with the same question.

What are you gonna do about it?

I didn’t know, just hurried on from period to period. My friends didn’t say anything, but I knew they wanted to ask the same thing. Until lunch, when Sam pulled me to the side of the cafeteria.

‘Don’t do anything stupid, okay?’

‘Who said I was going to do anything?’

‘Jake, just –‘

‘Whatever.’

I strode away, suddenly furious. Being herded by the collective unspoken was bad enough, but this was too much. People blurred by, faces blank circles of colour as a curious sort of heat radiated from my chest. He was at his usual table, surrounded by his posse. He saw me coming and smirked.

Before I even knew what I was doing, I was punching him.

We fell to the floor, scrambling about. Blood was pounding in my ears. It throbbed through my body with an overpowering roar, drowning out all else. There were only the briefest of sensations, a sound here, a colour there. Our classmates surrounded us, shouting and screaming in primal joy:

fight!fight!fight!fight!fight!

Mickey was a little smaller than me, thin and wiry. I was able to use my greater size to pin him to the ground and smack him, once, twice in the face before he bucked wildly and we were rolling once more. In moments – a tortured fever– it was over. We stood a foot apart, huffing, red in the face. I was glad to see his bleeding nose, a savage sense of satisfaction curled my fingers into fists and made me want more.

‘Boys! Stop that at once!’ Mr. Bones stormed across the Quad in long gangly strides, as ineffectual as ever. Our peers vanished as mysteriously as they’d suddenly gathered, clearing a straight path toward us.

‘We weren’t doing anything, sir,’ I said. My head was ringing.

‘Yeah, we was just muckin’ around,’ Mickey added. Idiot he may have been, but I couldn’t fault his survival instincts.

Mr. Bones wasn’t having any of it, though. ‘You’ll both come to the Office with me. Now.’

Shit.

We fell in step behind him as he took us through the school grounds. The Quad was surrounded on three sides by thick, double-storey buildings, each connected by an upper balcony. We went up the stairs and across the walkway, heading through a short corridor out into the more open ended Assembly area.

Mickey was only a foot away; he kept shooting me ugly looks. The air bristled between us. His scrunched features were dark in anger and he had to periodically wipe at his nose to stop the blood. He wasn’t going to forget this anytime soon. In the heat of the moment, everything had seemed justified and right but in the cold aftermath, I was left with a growing horror. Why the hell had I done that? I didn’t even care that much about Jenna, she was cool and everything, but to snap for no reason?

We were told to sit in small, generic blue chairs. Most of the office kept to the school colours of blue and red. It reeked of sameness. The smell, the muted colours, even the people were all painted with the same drab brush. I fucking hated it. Rough heat suffused my chest and I had to blink suddenly, surprised and a little shocked.

My hands were shaking.

From the corner of my eye, I noticed Mickey shifting uncomfortably, shooting glances at me. I didn’t look back. Ahead of us were three doors, spaced out: the Deputy Principal’s office, Head Administrative Office, and lastly, the Principal’s. Mt. Bones was in the Deputy’s office for some time. The wait was the worst part. Implications, self-recriminations and doubts flowered in the silence. I’ve done it this time, I thought wearily. Dad’s going to kill me.

He would be home for the call as well, since he hadn’t gone to work last night.

*

They sent me home.

For whatever reason, Dad hadn’t picked up. I was given a letter of suspension and a thick sheaf of homework to work on for the next few days. No rest, no reprieve. The sky bled in grey and black streams, a messy canvas of gloom. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen a sunny day. A storm was brewing, bigger than any I’d known. This was just the beginning.

My feet traced the now familiar path to Maharaj’s spot. I frowned. Was that the right term? Spot? Home? Temporary place of residence? It was irrelevant, I guess. Might be that he had a normal life and house elsewhere, might be he came to the bus stop for the same reason I did. Just what that was, well, that was another matter entirely. I doubted it though. It was hard to see Maharaj anywhere else.

I grinned.

He was standing in the middle of the road, face upturned. I looked back, but could see no cars coming toward us. I casually stepped on to the smooth black tarmac. He loomed before me, an earthen obelisk. With a grimace, I shoved off my bag. It was cold, I noticed, as a capricious breeze spat by. There was moisture on my cheeks. Slowly, I tipped my head upward. The air crackled with pent up electricity.

My heart thrashed in my chest.

‘Do you think it should rain?’ he said.

Look up to that turbulent chaos, look up, and rejoice.

I paused, hesitant to ruin the moment. ‘I don’t know. Does it matter?’

He looked down, crestfallen. ‘Of course it does.’ He let out a gush of pent up air, sagging before my eyes into something smaller, something shockingly normal. ‘Ah, never mind. I guess it doesn’t at that.’

He walked over to the bus stop, folding his lanky frame carelessly onto the bench. No, I wanted to protest, you were right the first time. But I couldn’t quite frame why and the words shrivelled up in my mouth. Maharaj picked up his top hat, fitting his domed head into it. He looked up expectantly from beneath its brim.

‘Well?’

‘Well what?’ I shrugged, unable to meet his eyes. Why hadn’t I noticed their intensity or shocking sky-blue colour before? Feeling suddenly restless, I joined him on the bench. Cars drifted by, ghosts of modernity. His smell enfolded me, stale sweat and earth, with a hint of tobacco and alcohol curling around the edges.

‘Seems that you have a story to tell, boy. And stories are meant to be told.’

I sucked on my swollen bottom lip; it was only just beginning to blossom. I wondered briefly if there were any other marks on my face.

‘Why?’

Maharaj peered up at the sky, lips pursed. What was he so concerned about anyway? Those grim clouds promising rain had leaked away, leaving a featureless grey dome. Looked like it wasn’t going to rain after all. ‘Stories are the stuff of life, kid. They teach us. They remind us of what we’ve forgotten. We live off them and we die by them.’

I stared at him. ‘I s’pose. You first, then.’

But he seemed to have used up his store of words for now, eyes locked on some distant place. We sat in silence for a while as night gathered in deepening folds. One by one streetlights popped on. I considered what he’d said but the incident was too recent, that itching fire still lingered inside, the one that urged me to move, to act, all else be damned.

‘I had a dream the other night,’ I heard myself say. ‘After we met, after the rain. There was a terrible storm, so violent, so real I thought it was going to tear the world apart. The sky was a mass of purple.’

The images were rushing back, faster, harder and darker than I remembered. My breath hitched in my chest. Why was I so afraid? My hands clenched into fists. I stared fixedly up. Into the reassuringly bland sky.

‘There was a raven, darting between bolts of lightning. Shit, I could feel the heat from them, was dizzied by the thunder. It was running from something – I could see the desperation, could feel it somehow.’

Maharaj’s gaze settled on me, then. I didn’t check to see, knew just by the sudden heat in my cheeks that he was watching. It was completely dark out. The streetlights cast feeble halos, like forlorn angels. I cast my mind back, trying to glean more about the dream. About the fear I’d felt, could feel even now, shuddering through my body. My hands were trembling. I closed my eyes and nothingness met them.

‘Easy,’ Maharaj murmured, laying a warm hand on my shoulder. His voice was deep and soothing.

Easy. I took a deep breath, followed that warm wave down into the depths of memory. ‘There were…,’ I frowned, trying to grasp the images firmly. Frustration gnawed at my insides. ‘Shapes, huge, strange shapes in the sky – it’s hard to say, it’s like looking through smoke.’

I grimaced, head aching horribly. I shot a glance to the side, meeting Maharaj eye-to-eye for a moment before quickly looking away. I shivered. There was something bleak and awful in his expression, something I didn’t want to face right now. He seemed to think the same thing.

‘You should go,’ he said.

I nodded, picked up my bag and went on my way.

Hey Omar. If I'm going to back into the habit of reviewing, I thought I'd ease my way back in by picking something that's bound to be written well!

I had a couple of concerns with it overall, though. First up, Mickey Mulligan is a bit of a stock bully. There's nothing to him: he's just the same old, stereotyped bully we see in all stories. The irony here is earlier today I stumbled upon Karsten's blog and read an article on bullies. So that might help you to improve that particular scene.

The other part I didn't like about the first scene was the passivity of the fight scene in comparison with his thought process afterwards. You seem to sort of skip over the details in preference to inner dialogue. To me it felt sort of odd. I also disliked the use of swearing when you said "I fucking hated it." I think you can do better -- swearing works in dialogue, but in inner dialogue it comes off kind of strange.

The ending could have been so much better! I liked it, but it seem to pittle out into nothingness when Maharaj told him to go. The conflict was presented -- his strange dream, what it might mean -- but there was no development, just a "bleak and awful" expression and that's all the reader got. It was almost like you were dipping out of the explanation. I'm a big fan of chapters that get to the point, rather than hiding from the necessary.

Other than that, I enjoyed it. There were little bits of genius in there, amongst a lot of standard first draft mundaneness (if you don't mind me saying), things like "the streetlights cast feeble halos" and "his smell enfolded me." I'd like to see more of that language all over, but that's a concern for a later draft.

I'm intrigued as to where the story is going! Which is why I want a real ending.

Keep writing, man.

Hey Jack,

Haha, yeah I thought some people might have an issue with the passivity of the fight scene. I tried to go by a fight I had when I was a fair bit younger -- during the actual swinging of fists I didn't have a single thought in my head, I wasn't thinking I should hit him here or there, it was just kind of furious impulse and then it was over in just a few minutes. It was pretty lame then, too, actually. And most fights are I think. But I shall work on it.

As for Mickey - I don't really see him as a bully to be honest. He just runs his mouth a lot, he prefers rumours and insults to physical anything, which is why he came off worse in that fight. He is, in fact, a bit of a wimp lol. In fairness, everyone's a stock character until you get a bit more into them. I shall try and avoid the pitfalls of such in the future though XD.

And I see this and chapter three as one, pretty much, I just didn't want chapter two to be twice the size of chapter one lol, so I split it. (And for most people on YWS, it's too long as is.) But you pointed out the things I was unsure of, so now I know to have a definite second look at them.

Thanks a bunch buddy.

’ello, Jigster!

Told you I’d get around to reviewing Maharaj eventually.

Anyway, whilst your writing is all very good, and you got a great imagination, and all that other stuff what you know you’re amazing at, I’m not feeling your approach to school life. It all feels somewhat dull, like I’ve seen it all before.

This is what I mean:

Mr. Bones droned on, leaving nothing to the imagination. Beneath his suitably dull tone, history remained dead.

As soon as I read this, I was reminded of Professor Binns, the History of Magic teacher in Harry Potter who also droned on like this. Everything is just too similar - even the names of the characters bare a resemblance.

I was staring out the window, lost. ‘Wool gathering’ they used to call it, ‘day-dreaming’ the teachers name it, but I have a different word for it – being.

The protagonist day dreaming whilst in class is a scene I feel I’ve read (and written) countless times. Seen it on TV and in movies a lot too.

Usually it’s then followed by the protagonist getting caught by the teacher (often with the teacher approaching the character without them realising).

Upon getting reprimanded, the character will sometimes then have a witty comeback, resulting in them getting into further trouble.

And this is exactly what happens here:

‘Perhaps you could share with the class the object of your fascination, Jake?’ A voice buzzed from directly above my head and I jumped. Mr. Bones was standing directly above me, bald head shining with a predatory gleam. He’d snuck up real quiet and the class was laughing at me now.

‘Is Julius Caesar in the midst of a Triumph outside?’ he asked. ‘Because I can’t see it.’

‘Seems you just missed him, sir.’

‘Don’t get smart with me, Jake. I’ll see you after class.’

And in Part 2 - well, Jack has already commented on this, but Mickey Mulligan feels like every other bully I’ve ever read in fiction or seen on TV. (Which is funny, because I’ve never actually met a bully like that in real life.)

He’s big, stupid, cowardly, ugly, looks like a caveman … basically, throughout this chapter, I pictured Mickey as looking like Nelson Muntz from The Simpsons.

I think you’re other stuff is good - especially the stuff with Maharaj, who is teh awesome, in my opinion - but it’s all let down by how cliché the school drama and life feels. The only part that felt authentic was Jake and Mickey both lying to Mr. Bones about not fighting - the rest of the time the school felt like it was inhabited by stock characters and cliché events.

I don’t want you going away with the wrong impression, though, because I really do love this, and can’t wait to see where you’re going to take it. So you best keep on working at it. =)


(Also, I find it funny that you've got 4 stars but only 2 reviews. Something isn't quite right here. I think people are intimidated by your awesomeness.)

Thanks for the request, Jigs! Sorry for any delay.

In moments – a tortured eternity– it was over. We stood a foot apart, huffing, red in the face. I felt an odd sense of satisfaction at seeing his bleeding nose.

‘Boys! Stop that at once!’ a familiar voice shouted. Mr. Bones came striding across the Quad in long gangly strides, as ineffectual as ever. It’s amazing how quickly a crowd can disperse – our peers vanished as mysteriously as they’d suddenly gathered, clearing a straight path toward us.

I find it odd that the teacher comes in and "breaks up" the fight after it's apparently already been finished. You'd think that it was the teacher who interrupted and restored order, or at least tried to, but since Mr. Bones doesn't come until the next paragraph, why did Mickey and your MC suddenly stop fighting? Either something's out of order here or you should perhaps explain why it was over so quickly.

The air fairly bristled between us.

Death to unnecessary adverb.

Mt. Bones was in the Deputy’s office for some time.

Unless Bones suddenly became a mountain, I think you mean 'Mr.' Also, you're pretty inconsistent about capitalizing the word 'Office'. Not sure why, really, and it's not a huge thing, but something you might want to double-check.

The air crackled with pent up electricity.

My heart thrashed in my chest.

‘Do you think it should rain?’ he said.

I paused, hesitant to ruin the moment. ‘I don’t know. Does it matter?’

He looked down, crestfallen. ‘Of course it does.’ He let out a gush of pent up air

'Pent up' seems repetitive here. Maybe because it's not an incredibly common phrase; I'm not sure.

When your MC (have I missed his name, or have you not said yet?) is telling Maharaj about his stormy dream, he suddenly seems to become a lot more eloquent. Phrases like "dizzied by concussions of thunder" and "the sky was a mass of purple" somehow seem too impressive for this character, especially in dialogue with a near-stranger.

Okay. About Maharaj. I like the character himself a lot, and I like his dialogue and your descriptions of him. The only thing I'm not as sure about is MC's reaction to him. Their conversation is strange, in a good way. As a whole, the magician is strange. But it doesn't seem as if the MC really notices this. He never really thinks, "Why am I telling this dude about my dream?" or "Why is he looking at me like that? What does he want with me?" And although this narrator does seem a bit dazed or lost anyway, he's not so far gone that he isn't even wondering who this stranger is, and what his presence means. I think it would be good if he did wonder a bit more.

Overall, this is very well written. ^^ You prose is really clean without being dull, with some images I loved (the one about forlorn angels). You pace everything perfectly. Best of luck, and if you need another review, you know where to ask!

~Evi

Hey all,

Sur! Chapter One, which involves the scene you mentioned, has been heavily revised already. I've dealt with what you mention. Also, I'm starting to get the impression Mickey has been misinterpreted quite a bit -- he's not big at all, or overly cowardly (though he tends to stay away from physical encounters) just a vicious rumour-monger...I feel a little like because I presented so little of his character here, everyone's reverted to a stock understanding of him....but that's entirely my fault. I'll work on him some more. This was a pretty rushed chapter

Thanks a bunch guys

Hey Jigsaw!

Your other piece looked lonely, but when I looked at it, I realized I had noooo idea what was happening. So it goes! I'd figure I would look at this then. >.>

Anyway, one thing that I noticed as far as the style goes was that you liked to explain yourself, maybe a little too much. This might just be me (because I am in the process of trimming every needless word from FREAK) but one thing that I kept on doing was to use narrative to explain what was happening. For instance, in your story:

‘Stories are the stuff of life, kid. They teach us. They remind us of what we’ve forgotten. We live off them and we die by them.’
I stared at him. It was the longest speech he’d made yet. ‘I s’pose. You first, then.’

Do you really have to say it was the longest speech? Probably not. But you did anyway.

There are other times you do this, but let's not beat a dead horse.

Now, you have a dream sequence, which is neat and all that. But I still say that you should describe it in chapter 1, even after reading this. Why? Because we get to see what the dream is and how he describes it to someone else. And by this we get a better measure of his character.

Thanks, Snoink. I just came by to look at this and it was all horribly formatted! Was it like that before? It had no spaces or anything. You should have said something! Luls. I fixed it up - I'm guessing I just copy and pasted it in, expecting YWS to do my work for me but it didn't.

Anyways, you're right about the needless exposition at times, especially when imagery and other things already tell the story. That's one thing my supervisor told me as well, that I show stuff well, but that I then feel the need to spell it out afterward needlessly. Cheers

Nah, lol. It's something to do with Nate changing the formats of the novels... it did some weird things to some of my stories too that I didn't space out! It was weird! And apparently, the reason why it happened for my work was because it had reset itself to "general" when I had previously put in "story." So maybe that's why!

Okay, so I was reading this again, just because it's an interesting problem! Anyway, this time I noticed this:

It was easy to track. Mickey Mulligan, would-be bully, full-time idiot, was doing what he did best – talking crap. People blurred by, faces blank circles of colour as a curious sort of heat radiated from my chest. He was at his usual table, surrounded by his posse. He saw me coming and smirked.

Before I even knew what I was doing, I was punching him.

This is where you gloss over the conflict. If you made it more meaningful, it has potential, but right now, just because it's so quick, it loses any possible effect it might be. You spend more time talking about the waiting for the administration versus the buildup of the fight, and that's where I think it needs to be refined... make the build-up of the fight better, if you indeed want to keep this scene.

Omarrrrr.

H'okay, so! Let's take a looksie, shall we? I hope I can get away without rehashing anything anyone else has said. -_-

It happened pretty quickly, all things considered.

You could probably cut this, actually. I think the reader can tell that the fight was over within a short space of time.

I agree with all the other reviewers in that the fight seems...anticlimatic, almost?

I felt an odd sense of satisfaction at seeing his bleeding nose.

Why is the satisfaction odd? Generally when people get into fights, they want to harm the other person.

In the heat of the moment, everything had seemed justified and right – the adrenaline was still kicking through my system, giving me a buzz – but in the cold aftermath, I was left with a growing horror.

I would get rid of the bolded part, my reasons for suggesting being that it would make the sentence more streamlined.

The sky bled in grey and black streams, a messy canvas of gloom.

I love this sentence.

Overall, I like this! I'm curious to see what happens. Keep me posted, and I hope that my review is helpful. =)

Sachi

Again, you really have a thing for beginnings. I liked that opening line - it was *BANG* for me, a perfect one-liner.

Since this is just to help me know what's going on, truth be told, I'm not particularly interested in what is happening at school. So...he's a troubled kid, with a screwed up family, he's acting out at school, there's a fight, and he feels pretty crap by the end of it. That is cliche, and furthermore, I could quite easily skip that bit to the magician part and just start reading from there, and I wouldn't feel like I'd missed out on any of the story. That's the thing, I think: instead of two interwined storylines, it appears as if it is two parallel storylines, neither of which really seems to be affecting the other. Plus, the 'normal troubled kid' one is just so overdone before, and the magician's story is what captures my attention.

I know you're trying to have a balance of everything. But when you begin a story in such an arresting way, I expect to see bizarre events happening throughout. I do not expect to revert to the 'same-old' for an interval, and then see the mysterious stuff.

The MC changes mood far too suddenly. First, he's grumpy, angry, feeling depressed. Then, as soon as he sees the magician, he grins. Even if he feels a little bit better about seeing Maharaj, I would not expect him to grin. I'd probably expect him to roll his eyes - a 'what next?' kind of expression. As soon as the MC sits down and starts talking to the magaician, he becomes interesting.

The ending, again, could have been much cleaner. Think about ending on a snappy piece of dialogue.

I despise the normal school scene too, the first half of this chapter needs to be changed I agree. I didn't think of him as depressed though -- he snapped, suddenly, and in a rage had a fight, and when that broke was left feeling cold and a little confused by it. The reason he grins is not because he sees Maharaj - but because Maharaj is standing in the middle of the road, staring up, basically, he's doing something strange in his uniquely Maharaj-way and it's an abrupt change from the bleh of school.

As much as I love Maharaj, I can't just focus on him. To do so would rob him of that specialness everyone is loving - without something bland to contrast against, he doesn't quite pop as much as I want him to. But there will be plenty more of him to come, don't worry. Thanks very much for commenting -- more than I thought!

Chiko---you're right! The satisfaction bit is a stickler. I will change it.

Cheers, all.