Young Writers Society

Background of the story:
This is about a dream my boyfriend had a while ago. The character Amelia is me Emily, Jake is Joel.
This is the meeting of the two main characters, Jake and Amelia. This takes place at Glover Middle School in Spokane, WA. This part isn't really in the perspective of anyone, (except the narrator), but part 2 will be in the perspective of Jake.

Critiques and comments are much needed!


“Alright class, I want you all to turn to one another and shake hands and welcome the new faces.” The class groaned, seeing as they all knew each other from some other classroom this year. This one, Home Ec, was no different. Eighth grade year at Glover Middle School…how boring. With over exaggerated gestures, they all grasped each other’s hands, all except for one.

A chubby girl of about thirteen was sitting alone in her seat at the back of the room. Her long brown hair was pulled up in a messy ponytail, but a strand had gotten loose and covered up the side of her down-turned face. Whenever someone came up to her, intending to shake her hand, she just refused and went back to examining her fingernails.

A few seconds passed and a boy with long wavy hair came and pulled up a chair beside her. “This is so gay, huh?” he said, giving her a goofy grin. She looked up for a second, then turned her eyes back to her hands, picking at her nails more forcefully.

“You’re from my gym class, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Yeah.” was all she said, not bothering to even look up.

“Uh…” he said, disconcerted. He offered her his hand. “I’m Jake.”

HA! She thought to herself. How could she not know his name? He was the type of guy that, once you first laid eyes on him, you felt you HAD to know more about him. Him with his long, brown hair, his tan skin, his gorgeous green eyes…

“And you are…?” he said, jolting her out of her reverie.

“Oh!” She said, startled. “I’m Amelia.” Looking up, she took his hand gingerly for a brief second, then dropped it, her eyes darting back to the floor. The color rising in her cheeks, she resumed picking at her nails with more interest then even before, intending to let Jake know that the conversation had ended.

“Alright, class!” the teacher said, clapping her hands. “Go ahead and pick your seats!”

“Well,” Jake said, stretching out in the chair beside her. “I guess I’ll just stay here, I’m a little lazy today.”

Oh, great. Amelia thought. More opportunities to be embarrassed than before! “Uhh…great!”

The teacher began talking about the importance of the Home Ec class, about how they should all be glad that they were privileged enough to be part of this class, and the fun (Ha!) things that they would be doing this semester. When the teacher (whose name they learned was Ms. Rasmussen) had her back turned to them, Jake began flapping his arms around like a giant bird and using exaggerated expressions to imitate the teacher. When Ms. Rasmussen turned back around, he sat there as still as he could, keeping a cool, straight face. It was all Amelia could do to refrain from laughing.

When class was over, Jake turned to Amelia, intending to joke about how gay the class had been. But she already was on her way out the door, her ponytail swishing behind her.

Hey, ForgottenAuthor!

Oh, goodness, eighth grade Home Ec...who doesn't have horror stories stemming from it? ^_~ A cute boy is always a nice twist, though. I did enjoy the fact that your main character was definitely a flawed person. It made her easy to relate to.

FLOCK BEHAVIOR

This is going to be a very nitpicky thing over a small matter, but if you can get this down, you'll have writing about groups down forever--and depending upon what you're writing, this can be pretty cool.

At the beginning, you describe the class of doing one thing all at the same time--groaning and shaking hands with over-exaggerated gestures. Though for the most part this happens, you can make your particular class stick out by describing different key people. There are always going to be those suck-ups who do it in a very sincere way, as well as the jokers, and the people who are too embarrassed and pull away quickly. It depends on the temperament of the different kids. Differentiate, and it's a lot more fun for your readers to read.

TREAD CAREFULLY

- The Sarcastic Teen character, though vaguely amusing, isn't funny for very long. You've got to be really careful when characterizing Jake that you don't end up with someone who's really annoying. This varies from reader to reader. Try to remember that humor in writing is not necessarily developing your own sense of humor but of trying to understand everyone else's as well. And that means my sense of humor, as well. Your goal as a writer is to reach as many people as possible within a certain audience, Make your characters funny, but don't make them jerks.

- Try to avoid using colloquialisms, slang, and direct comments in your narrative when you're writing third person [parentheses (Ha!), "that's gay", etc]. The first has the potential to be funny, but not the way it's formatted now. The omniscent narrator shouldn't be cracking jokes, except in subtle manners. ^_~ The latter, I find really offensive. Granted, in dialogue I cuss up the place and use all sorts of gross exaggeration to get my point across (depending on the character), but in my third person narrative, it's all just flat observation. It's pretty objective, and there's no slang or colloquialisms used. Never swear or use slang in your narrative--you lose a certain sense of credibility when you do. (I cheat a little with the word 'ass', but that's only because 'derierre' is just a little odd.) You can go all out in dialogue, but you run the risk of offending people when it's in narrative. Don't ask me why. People are weird.

Thanks for the read, ForgottenAuthor! Feel free to PM me if you have any questions or want me to take a look at something else.

Nice work. It was well-written and pretty solid. It is pretty short, however, so I didn't have much to critique on by way of story.

All I really have is the mention of Amelia having to keep from smiling near the end. It breaks the reader out of the POV-less style and puts it into Amelia's POV. Also, it seems out of character with her. My suggested rewrite would be "Every so often, Amelia would smile a little, as if she were trying to keep from laughing. But it was always when Jake wasn't looking at her" or something like that.

Also, the two instances of parentheses use: I would get rid of them, unless you intend to use them extensively throughout the story. They work occasionally in sarcastic first-person POV and it could work in the POV-less style you have here, but in general, they are to be avoided, because they look very personal and sometimes sloppy. Just be careful...

Overall, I liked it. It was short, so please expand on it soon! Good luck!

~GryphonFledgling

*giggles at recent memories of stupidity when in the area of cute guys* I thought it was really cute and agree with the comments from Gryphon and Sam. So, since they got to pick apart your story, I can just kick up my feet and smile! Can't wait until more comes out !

This part isn't really in the perspective of anyone,

But your telling the story from the POV of Amelia.....

Anyway, great job! This was a great start. There is only one thing that I just can't stand.

The Teacher

Yep. The teacher is just.. soo... ugh! Please.

“Alright class, I want you all to turn to one another and shake hands and welcome the new faces.”

“Alright, class!” the teacher said, clapping her hands. “Go ahead and pick your seats!”

Wow. The teacher is very... like... unbelievable. Please, let me know when a teacher would actually say this. Sorry if I'm being a little nit picky today, but EVERY CHARACTER in your story, even if it's a short story, has to be developed. That may seem a little strange. You're probably thinking, "Come on! She's only a teacher. No one is going to remember her." Yeah. Well, we will.

And notice how both of her sentences start with, "Alright, class!" eek. A little cheesy, no?

Well done! All in all, it was really good. I would jsut flesh out the teacher and you'll be all good!

BBB

nice

Jake sounds like the class clown but in a way different.

Hello! Thought I'd stop by and answer your plea for a critique!

“Alright class, I want you all to turn to one another and shake hands and welcome the new faces.”

3B's right about the teacher. "Alright class" is a bit unrealistic, unless you plan to make the teacher a bit cheesy...you may want the students to show how they think the teacher's cheesy so the reader doesn't think this is an unrealistic character...?

Oh, and repetition of and. You can easily replace the first with a comma (as well as a comma before the last and). Or just delete one of the listed commands. Welcome the new faces is a bit cheesy. Unless this is a new teacher, he should probably have an idea that the kids no each other already? From past years? I could be wrong...

With over-exaggerated gestures, they all grasped each other’s hands, all except for one.

“Yeah. [comma instead]” was all she said, not bothering to even look up.

Watch your tags. This may just be a typo, and this is hopefully the only one. ^^

“Uh…” he said, disconcerted. He offered her his hand. “I’m Jake.”

This may just be me, but people don't say "uh". They hesitate or stutter, but they don't just say "uh" for the heck of it, even if they're disconcerted. So I'd adjust the tag accordingly.

HA! She thought to herself. How could she not know his name? He was the type of guy that, once you first laid eyes on him, you felt you HAD to know more about him. Him with his long, brown hair, his tan skin, his gorgeous green eyes…

Using all caps is like shouting. Ha! she thought to herself. Yes, she should be lowercased since it's a tag. HAD can just be italicized, not capitalized. It's a bit distracting to have all-caps. Only use all-caps for shouting.

“Oh!” [s]She[/s] she said, startled.

Yup, watch your tags.

Looking up, she took his hand gingerly for a brief second, then dropped it, her eyes darting back to the floor.

This bothered me, but I don't really know why... The fact that she randomly takes his hand when a second ago she wanted him to go away.

It was all Amelia could do to refrain from laughing.

This seemed out of character, as Gryph said before me. Before, she was a stubborn girl who was picking at her nails, shut off from the class. Now she's giggling over a classmate...

I'm thinking a bit more character development. I liked Jake, actually. You seem to do a pretty good job with him. I'm a bit confused about Amelia, though. I don't know if she's a smart kid, a prep (well, maybe not since she refuses attention), a bookworm, a goth...A bit more of her would probably help the reader out a bit.

Other than Amelia and the teacher, I think this was pretty good. I hope I helped. Keep writing!

Jabber, the One and Only!

It was good but I thought that it was kinda short... you should have made it longer.
It had nice originality and the layout was exceptional... it was GREAT actually!
I'm guessing that this actually happened and you felt like writing about it?
I liked the idea, the spacing, the EVERYTHING!!!
Keep working and maybe you should think about making it longer, you know what I mean?
shanan-cat!

Thanks, guys! Actually, this scene in the story actually happened, and the teacher...that's her personality. I tried to channel her real personality into the story, it just made the story seem a bit more realistic to me, I'm sorry if it wasnt the same for you.

I know this is really short, and I have some more coming!
I really want you guys to keep reading my installments, there is a really sad ending, I'll tell you this right now. It's probably going to be the best part! I have the whole story planned out up in my head.

And about Amelia...right now you don't know anything about her because, well, no one knows anything about her! I'm sure all of you guys know that loner kid from your schools, that no one knows anything about. This is me...um, Amelia.

Jake is well developed early on because he's one of those popular kids, one that everyone knows. Get where I'm going with this? Once Amelia comes out a bit more, you'll learn a whole lot more about her, like her background, why she's so withdrawn, all that fancy stuff.

Like I said, my boyfriend, (Joel, or in this case, Jake) had this dream, he wanted to write about it, but it depressed him too much so he let me do it. (woot)
But anyways, thanks for the critiques! I really appreciate this, and more is on its way!