Young Writers Society

I've edited it. Do not download this version, download the file several posts down.

Okay, this is my first try posting an advance critique, so let's see how this goes.

Brad Liftridge had a pretty good life. Sure, his looks weren't perfect and he didn't exactly love his step-dad, but he was still pretty lucky. Until the last day of school, when he found and read the old love note wedged in a corner of his locker. Then unexplainable "accidents" start happening. To save himself and his family, Brad must dig deep into his town's history and uncover the secrets buried there. But what he finds isn't what he expected, and it just might destroy him...

I was surprised at this when I read it. I didn't know what to expect when I started, and when I started out I was hoping for something more interesting...but then it got better at the end.

So nicely done. I think the only real thing that bothered me was the dialogue done at the beginning when Christian was in school. That kind of irritated me; they all sounded like poppy, dramatic teens...but then again, I suppose that's what all teenagers are like, or were like, so ignore me if you feel that I'm being stupid for such a suggestion...

Hm, I don't know. I'm not big on slang myself, so I basically just copied the people at my school. That of course, could be a problem, though, because Brad and company are three years older.

Any high school reviewers out there?

Hey Jamie!

Review Part One (I need to be off soon, so I'll review half your story now, and the other half later. Promise!)

I'm going to edit both in this post and in document form. I'll put nitpicks and small comments in the document (which will be black and in bold), and give you general, overall comments in here. All good? Now let me dig in!

I really like the intro scene. It's definitely an effective hook - it contains defined, unknown characters we grow curious about, and a shocking event without reason that is clearly explained. All of these things leave me wanting to keep reading... I suppose I am a little iffy about the "Like a movie" line, since I always think it's slightly cliche when I read things like that in writing, but it really isn't awful in this context and I'll leave it up to however much you like it.

The following scene change I find a little dull. I figure it's for character introductions, but I feel like maybe you dwelt with these characters talking and mingling in the hall for too long. I think being in school and and party discussion is something that should be described briefly, as it's a little boring and tedious for the reader. But I still feel the intrigue of the intro driving me to read further.

The dialogue after this is nice. It's realistic and flows.

You have a lot of characters in here, and it's very confusing. I can't really tell any of the others apart, beyond Christian and Brad. If there's any unnecessary characters who play no role in the storyline, you would be better off cutting them out.

Once you get away from these characters, alone with Brad, the story becomes much more concise and clear and I find myself interested again. A large throng of characters tends to drain a reader's focus and drives them off, so I think you should consider this and possibly slim the crowd scene down and focus more on Brad, who seems to be the focus of this story.

I'll finish the rest of the story later, as promised!

Oops, thanks. I don't have the slightest clue how I managed that little "ditch" typo. Thanks for the review, and no rush on the other half.

I agree with Clo about the intro scene--there are so many characters and not many of them important that it just seemed to drag on and on. I feel that many of these characters should either be cut, or introduced in later chapters, because to pile them all on like that at the beginning is, to say the least, disconcerting for the reader.

Once you start focusing on Brad, though, the story starts getting more purposeful--in particular, the scenes with Brad's family. I've got a good feel for all his family members by now, and they all come across as very vivid and real people. They go through trials and tribulations, but I can tell (at least for Brad, Kamren, and their mom) that they love each other nonetheless. I do have to question why Brad's mom married Brad's stepdad in the first place (particularly if she argued so vehemently with him that night...she didn't seem to like him at all), unless you're going to explain that later in the story.

Prose-wise, I noticed you had problems with overusing adverbs (something I'm still suffering from, I have to admit) and overusing adjectives as well. Adjectives are helpful but when you give long strings of them, they start losing their meaning. Rely more on figurative language and/or stronger verbs instead of needing adjectives and adverbs to prop up your verbs. In particular, I noticed you had a tendency to rely on the verb "look". Try to vary your verbs a little more, because it gets boring to just read "he looked" or "he got up" over and over again.

One final word of warning--you seem very fond of this kind of sentence construction: "Opening the door, he left the room..." (not an actual example; just one I made up off the top of my head). I forgot what this construction is called...>_> But while it's okay to use it once in a while, it gets jarring when you use it too much. Just something to think about.

All in all, this was very interesting--I like the character-centric nature of this story, even with the supernatural happenings like the mysterious girl (who I assume is a ghost?). You are very good at developing characters you focus your time and energy on (instead of the random students), like Brad, Christian, and his Brad's family, and the situation with Brad's family is intriguing to say the least. I left very warm and fuzzy inside at the end of the chapter, and believe me, that's a good thing.

The best of luck in your endeavors. ~_^

Okay, I've edited it, here's the revised version.