Young Writers Society

Hey Skins, me again for yet another review. Hope you're not fed up yet

I have to say right from the start that I'm amazed at the leap of flow here; it's simply beautiful, especially compared to the first chapter 2 that I just read. Great work, great job!

I stared blankly ahead of me. It felt as though I was going to throw up. My head was spinning; my heart was beating frantically, and my entire body was shaking. Life as I knew it had vanished within a matter of seconds. My world had come crashing down, and all it took was one stupid mistake

As well written as this is, I am not completely confused. Huh? What? You should have seen me reading this; perched on the edge of my seat, devouring one sentence and then the next and then . . Nothing! What was the stupid mistake? That he'd fallen asleep in class? It was a great hook but then it expelled into nothingness. Unless there's something I just don't get here.

Jax and Cassie were chatting about a movie or something, but I wasn’t listening. Flicking his fringe off his face, Jax turned to me.

It would be nice here if you added, 'my friends Jax and Cassie', because, as was mentioned before, we didn't know he had any friends in the previous chapter and now bang! They're there and it's sudden and unexpected in a confusing way, you know?

She wasn’t going to expel me, was she? My parents would kill me. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I couldn’t think of anything anyway.

Ok, why would his first thought be that she'd expel him? We were under the impression that he was a good kid, why was it suddenly he had a fear of being kicked out?

As I passed the group of Britney Spears wannabes, I heard them snicker viciously. Freak, I heard one of them giggle. Gay boy, another one laughed

*cough* bitches *cough* meh! We all had them in high school, eh? Great work, you made me want to punch their faces in (hit me baby one more time!) LOL

After leaving the room, I felt a small shiver run down my spine.

It would help us readers visually here if after if you added a little more detail. Maybe something like, "the cold finger of dread ran up and down my spine', or a shiver of unease, of cold, of something. But just a shiver? Not detailed enough.

I stared at the pretty girl in front of me. The second I saw her, I knew that there was something wrong. Horribly wrong.

OK now! You're going to have to show us why something was horribly wrong. For a second now, I thought I'd really missed the big pic, that Annabel had died and he hadn't been seeing her for the past 9 years. The shock was beautifully written, I'll give you that but you must explain/show us why it's a shock. Has she never appeared to him at school? Are there silent tears tracing down her cheeks? We need to see it, Skins, help us do that, ok?

One more thing. YOu mentioned previously that Maxxie has seen dead people of his life but he wasn't quite sure at first and that Annabel was his confirmation. It would be nice if you included a chapter (it might be your transition chapter) where he sees other ghosts/spirits. It opens up new horizons: will the ghost and annabel see one another, will he realise at first it's a ghost, if yes why? if not, what will show him?

Ok, well, I think that's it for this chapter, once again great job, loved the flow of it.

Tanya

Hey,

Again amazing job! Darn. When you go to reveiw something, you expect to find some nitpick or plot whole or something to fix up but with this I found nothing. I admit it was a teeny tiny bit slow in the begining but that was overshawed by the pure epicness of it. Plus writing in a guys POV? That's tough. I could never do that, which is why all my stories have females as the MCs. Lol. Great job! Off to read chapter 3!

~JAsmine Bells~
Peace, love, music and writing

Review part two!

There's a teacher called miss cheddar? Haha! I love it.

"I hadn’t done anything wrong. I couldn’t think of anything anyway." This is a really nice touch that links the child Maxxie to the adult Maxxie.

The story so far is quite gripping, but as a reviewer I must be critical. Radical change number two Get rid of all -ing words. When writing in past tense, imagine -ing words as being mumbled or under-stressed. They tend to drop behind all the other words.

You use -ing words a lot, and your writing really suffers for it. Ignore what all the teachers in school say and don't be scared to use the word 'and.' Like 'said,' it's a word that gets simply skimmed over.

"Gritting my teeth, I dragged myself back towards my desk." That would be "I gritted my teeth and dragged myself back towards my desk.' Doesn't sound so bad, does it?

Now for the icky part.

"My life as I knew it," and "My world had come crashing down" are overly cliched and should never be used in any respectable piece of writing. "The world as I knew it came to an end" is also a never-use phrase. If you're trying to be dramatic never reach for those epic-sounding phrases.

On that note, when you use phrases like "what felt like hours later" think twice. Imagine actually sitting there for hours staring at this person, if that really what it felt like?

Again, this is a great start to the story, but the writing does need some work. It's mainly a process of weeding out those habits you pick up when you overthink things.

Okay, on to part three.

Hey there, I'm (finally) back for the next chapter! Gotta say, I love it. There's still a lot we don't know about the character though: age, appearance, etc. I also want some more insight on Annabel, not necessarily now but later. But really, my only complaint is that it's too short! I wanted to read more! *sighh* Well, onto the next chapter I suppose.
Keep writing,
~the StoryWeaver

I really enjoyed it! The novel really does have a great plot and I think your writing is great. I know a lot of people like this story already and so do I. I really enjoyed reading the story and I thought it flowed pretty nicely. I can't wait to read more!