Alchemists 1: History

Chapter One: History
Felicity Weather-Spoon stared blankly at the white board at the front of the room. The teacher, a short, fat man who looked like he belonged in a retirement home, looked just as bored as she felt. She sighed and rested her head on her folded arms, staring out the window. A black crow was sitting lazily in the tree, pecking at the trail of ants which ran up the length of the branch. Felicity rolled her head, blew her blonde hair out of her eyes and looked at the presentation which was playing on a projector screen. It was explaining the history of England in excruciating detail. The narrator had a voice that reminded Felicity of nails scraping down a chalkboard. Felicity lifted her head and looked around at the other students. Not a single one was paying attention. Not even the super nerdy kids, who usually would stare at the teacher like he contained the answer to life, were paying the screen any attention. Felicity noticed that most people were either texting on their phones underneath their desks or just idly scribbling all over their history books.

She turned back around and she got hit in the back of the head with a ball of paper. She looked around angrily for the culprit when she heard a snicker coming from the back row. Felicity leant out of her seat to get a better look at the culprit. Her boyfriend, Cameron, his arms folded over his muscled chest, and her friend Jason, wild hair sticking up at every angle, smiled cheekily back at her from the last two desks.

Cameron made a heart with his hands and pointed at the paper. Felicity rolled her eyes and picked up the paper. Cameron’s untidy scrawl was scribbled all over the paper, most of it unreadable. She could decipher only two words; love and eternity. Even then it was only just readable. Felicity squinted at the paper, trying to read the rest when another piece of paper flew through the air and landed in front of her on the desk. The teacher looked up from his desk and frowned in disapproval. Felicity smiled an apology and smoothed out the second piece of paper. Jason’s neat writing was written on it in straight lines. Fel it said,
Sorry, I should have written the note myself, as Cam has no literary skills whatsoever. He really wanted to say,
The sun rises above the hillcrest,
as does the joy of my heart;
Rays of warmth and love;
from you I will never depart.
And even if you do not want me,
I shall never lose heart.
I enjoy the stillness and calm,
watching as you smile and dream;
you bring me to serenity and peace,
like that of a slow silver flowing stream.
I’ve been handed a sweet princess,
A sweet princess to love and to protect.
I will love and always cherish you,
until my last breath... until my last day.
And unto my grave I lay,
I will love you forever and until the end of eternity.
Felicity smiled and tucked both notes into her book. She turned her attention back to the crow in the tree. It croaked in a somewhat bored way before spreading its wings and taking to the sky.
“Lucky bird.” She muttered as it flew into the distance.

Felicity opened her book to a blank page and started drawing in the corner. She drew long, twisting lines in lead pencil before picking up a red pencil and going over it again. Before long, she found herself immersed in the flowing and twisting movements her red and orange pencils made on the paper. She lost track of time and when she looked up again, an hour had passed and the paper was covered with drawings. The lines and colors resembled flames and it looked quite impressive. Felicity became aware of someone breathing very close to her shoulder. She hunched up into her shoulders and tried to ignore it. She refocused her attention on the page and nearly swore. In the middle of the page, surrounded by the flames, was a tiny version of herself, dressed in a red skirt and a red midriff top. She had a minute red tattoo winding down her neck and across her chest. Felicity balled her hands into fists on her lap.
“You know, you, red colors, and paper are a terrible combination. You can do some pretty creative things, but it’s pretty dangerous don’t you think?”
Felicity sighed and eased out of her tense state. Cameron sat on the front of the desk and kissed her. Jason walked up from behind and looked at the book.
“Shit Fel. You’ve got to be more careful. Thank God class was let out twenty minutes ago; otherwise you might have well run around the school yelling ‘I’m the Fire Alchemist!’ Come on, I want to get some food.” The three of them got up and left the room, but Felicity left the notebook behind. The cupboard door creaked open and a hand, which was covered in scars and had a small black heart tattooed on the thumb, snaked out and grabbed the notebook, disappearing back into the cupboard and closing the door with an inaudible click.

Saw this listed under the NEW and I decided to check it out.
From this alone it sounds pretty interesting(cool names too).
I made this same mistake when I first posted something but hit preview before submit and you'll see what your entry looks

Rays of warmth and love

this hsould be italisized and there's [/i] that's at the end of the poem that shouldn't be there. Space out your paragraphs too.
Try using more description too, show how excruciating the presentation is, what do the characters look like, stuff like that.

Hi, Serenity! I'm Rach, here to review for ya.

First, I have to echo what Matthew said above me about spacing out your paragraphs. It's a bit tedious on your part, but when a reader clicks your work and encounters huge block of text, it's intimidating to that reader. So, do them (and yourself as a result) a favor and space out the paragraphs, since the site gets rid of any indenting you might have when you post.

Now that that matter's out of the way, I can talk about far more important things.

And first among those important things is that I like this a lot. This is well-balanced and has a good atmosphere. In other words, it has a great feel to it, and it isn't rushed and it isn't dragging. You introduce enough to keep us interested but you aren't drowning us in the information or bashing us over the head with "cool stuff." If none of that made sense, just keep up what you're doing.

I also like that Felicity isn't on the Oh Pity Me I'm Average and Boring train. This isn't an angst-ridden chapter about how she doesn't have a boyfriend or any friends, or how she wants the hottest guy in school but she's just a lowly unpopular girl, etc. And on the converse, this isn't about how Felicity is oh so perfect, look how hot she is, look at her perfect boyfriend, etc. Nope, once again you strike a great balance, and I'm interested in reading more about Felicity and why she was drawing fire all over her notebook way past when class got out.

So, in general, I'm very intrigued and am looking forward to more (so post more!). This chapter was short so it's hard to make any sort of useful comments on the critique side, but one line stood out to me...

Jason had been put up a grade because he had been kept down unfairly in primary school because the principal had not liked his father.

This seemed very random and out-of-nowhere to me. I have two theories. One is the line is random and out of nowhere and you just wanted to provide some more information--in which case you can cut the line. The other theory is that this information is important for later somehow, important to the plot... in which case it's drawing attention to itself, so you might want to cut it still anyway

All right... I think that's it for now. Please, please let me know if you have any questions! Also, my Wall is always open (as is my PM inbox) if you ever want to talk plot, character, need to vent about your novel, etc.

Rach

Wow! I thought this was really good! Nice!
I only found one thing I didn't like. In the poem, instead of "you," "u" was written. It just seems low-quality. So, change it to "you," and it'll seem much more professional.
But all in all, great job!

Whoa. Well, let me just say that I really liked this! It gave just enough information about Felicity to be mysterious, without giving the whole "I'm magical, blah blah" speech. This was really good writing!

I think you did much better description on chapter 1 than you did on the prologue. You made a spelling mistake though.

Chapter One: History
Felicity Weather-Spoon stared blankly at the white board at the front of the room. The teacher looked just as bored as she felt. She sighed and rested her head on her folded arms, staring out the window. A black crow was sitting lazily in the tree, idly pecking at the trail of ants which ran up the length of the branch. Felicity rolled her head so she was looking at the presentation which was playing on a projector screen. It was explaining the history of England in excruciating detail. Felicity lifted her head and looked around at the other students. Not a single one was paying attention. Not even the super nerdy kids, who usually would stare at the teacher like he contained the answer to life, were paying the screen any attention. Felicity noticed that most people were either texting on their phones underneath their desks or just idly you’ve already used ‘idly’ in this chapter, so it’s noticeable when you use it twice in a row. This is where thesauruses come in handy. Maybe ‘lazily’ or ‘carelessly’ instead. scribbling all over their history books. She turned back around when she got hit in the back of the head with a ball of paper. She looked around angrily for the culprit when she heard a snicker coming from the back row. Felicity leant out of her seat to get a better look at the culprit. Her boyfriend, Cameron, and her friend Jason smiled cheekily back at her from the last two desks. Jason had been put up a grade because he had been kept down unfairly in primary school because the principal had not liked his father.
Cameron made a heart with his hands and pointed at the paper. Felicity rolled her eyes and picked up the paper. Cameron’s untidy scrawl was scribbled all over the paper, most of it unreadable. She could decipher only two words; love and eternity. Even then it was only just readable. Felicity squinted at the paper, trying to read the rest when another piece of paper flew through the air and landed in front of her on the desk. The teacher looked up from the desk and frowned in disapproval. Felicity smiled an apology and smoothed out the second piece of paper. Jason’s neat writing was written on it in straight lines. Fel it said,
Sorry, I should have written the note myself, as Cam has no literary skills whatsoever. He really wanted to say,
The sun rises above the hillcrest, as does the joy of my heart;
Rays of warmth and love;
Fresh dew apon upon the Gass, grass?
Young birds chirp in their nests;
I watch u gently sleep,
my love to u I silently profess.
I enjoy the stillness and calm,
watching as u smile and dream;
U bring me to stillness and peace,
like that of a slow flowing stream.
My heart and soul flow with love,
and I smile as I quietly reflect;
I’ve been handed a sweet princess,
A sweet princess to love and to protect.
A vow to myself I make,
as u quietly sleeps away;
To love and always cherish u,
until my last breath... until my last day.
I will love u for ever and until the end of eternity. I think you meant to make a lot of the ‘mistakes‘ in this poem, but still I think you should use proper grammar. The way you just say ‘U‘ instead of ‘You‘ makes it seem like lazy texting and not very poetic. [/i]Felicity smiled and tucked both notes into her book. She turned her attention back to the crow in the tree. It croaked in a somewhat bored way before spreading its wings and taking to the sky. Felicity opened her book to a blank page and started drawing in the corner. She drew long, twisting lines in lead pencil before picking up a red pencil and going over it again. Before long, she found herself immersed in the flowing and twisting movements her red and orange pencils made on the paper. She lost track of time and when she looked up again, an hour had passed and the paper was covered with drawings. The lined and colors resembled flames and it looked quite impressive. Felicity became aware of someone breathing very close to her shoulder. She hunched up into her shoulders and tried to ignore it. She refocused her attention on the page and nearly swore. In the middle of the page, surrounded by the flames, was a tiny version of herself, dressed in a red skirt and a red midriff top. She had a minute red tattoo winding down her neck and across her chest. Felicity balled her hands into fists on her lap.
“You know, you, red colors, and paper are a terrible combination. You can do some pretty creative things, but it’s pretty dangerous don’t you think?” Felicity sighed and eased out of her tense state. Cameron sat on the front of the desk and kissed her. Jason walked up from behind and looked at the book.
“Shit comma Fel. You’ve got to be more careful. Thank God class was let out twenty minutes ago, otherwise you might have well run around the school yelling I’m the Fire Guardian! Come on, I want to get some food.” The three of them got up and left the room, but Felicity left the notebook behind. I love how you waited until the end to reveal that Felicity was the fire guardian x)

Overall you did a great job, the pace was great and it was very easy to read with hardly any grammar mistakes that I can spot. You created a mood easily by describing the bored expression of the teacher and the class’s disinterest and it felt very real to me, like it was one of my own history classes.

In this situation, some writers would make their characters be like ‘oh my god my life sucks I’m getting hit by spit wads and there’s still forty minutes left in class and just kill me now’. Felicity just handles it with grace though, and that makes me like her and want to read more about her. I also like her friend and boyfriend so far.

Rach already mentioned this, but I noticed it too.

Jason had been put up a grade because he had been kept down unfairly in primary school because the principal had not liked his father.

This line felt extremely out of place, and even though it gives us a bit of detail about his character, it simply doesn’t fit in context. I would suggest cutting it, but of course the choice is up to you.

Well, if you have any questions/comments don’t be afraid to send me a message!