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Parallel chapter 2



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Tue May 17, 2011 5:46 am
IKnowAll says...



I'd like to thank the few people who've commented on chapter one, as it has helped me not only improve that chapter, but make this one better to begin with. For clarification, Storm is a guy, and this new character, Sage, is a girl. By the way, this chapter is from Sage's point of view, that's why it has her name. Enjoy!

("previously" in spoiler)
Spoiler! :
Storm and Angel, evolved humans in an alternate universe, entered a forbidden universe, one of 12 called earth. They end up being separated, with Angel in one of the two parallel universes, and storm in the other! Now for Sage's intro...


Sage


“I saw a little girl jumping from tree to tree. It was amazing, not humanly possible. But I know what I saw," I said. No one believed me. They’d made such a big deal over some weird cell phone thing that the kid dropped. It was the only thing that made my claim plausible, because the phone ran on systems far surpassing modern technology. It didn’t seem to have any seams, and no one wanted to open it. Nothing appeared to be powering it, and yet it’s screen was on, 24/7 it hadn’t turned off for a moment. It had symbols I could not understand, and everyone seemed to think it was some sort of code. But there was something about that girl. Something I couldn't tell them it was probably just the moonlight, but I was pretty sure about it...

“Can you describe her?” asked my interrogator. ...She had white eyes.

“She was pale, and looked around 7 or 8," I replied nervously.

“You mean she was human?” he asked.

“What do you mean? Why wouldn’t she be?” I asked.

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Someone said, as they burst though the door.

“Well about the cell phone thing, can I have it? I’ll be the only one to recognize the person it belongs to," I asked, a little shaken by his sudden appearance.

“NO!” he shouted. I looked longingly at the cell phone on the table.

“It was a little girl. She’s probably worrying about it right now..," I said, my voice trailing off. I could remember it all now...

Last night


I had been sleeping, until I heard a little girl’s voice, from somewhere in the nearby forest, yelling something in a foreign language, although it was one of which I had not heard before, then I heard a scream. A long, loud, little girl’s scream, that shattered the peace of the night. A moment later, I saw something unbelievable. A silhouette. It was high in the air, and resembled a little girl in a dress, an eerie sight, between me and the moon.

Then as she fell back toward the ground, a miraculous thing happened, she flew back up in the air, and began repeating the process, moving from tree to tree, at an amazing speed. But she only got about 100 feet away from where she started, before something flew up at her, and she was spun off midair balance, falling to the ground. I ran over to the doorway of my house without a second thought, found a flashlight, put on my slippers, and ran down to the forest, still in my pajamas.

I turned on the flashlight, and ran quickly, I was almost there, when I saw that silhouette again, in the middle of a clearing. I pointed the flashlight at her, and approached her slowly, for she was in a panicked state, looking left and right, trying to see through the bushes. I made a rustle as I entered the clearing, and she slowly backed away from me, with a limp, saying things in that same foreign language. She tripped backward, and I ran over to help her. I set down the flashlight. From this close, I could see her more clearly. Her facial expression showed nothing but confusion and fear, and I don’t know how it came to be, but her eyes were... White. I looked at her with concern, and she looked more confused now, but less afraid.

She took something out of her pocket, it looked kind of like an iTouch or something, but the screen and the rest of it had were fused. It had no seams, and had no logo or anything like that on it. It was glowing. She put her thumb and pointer finger on it, and rotated them 180 degrees. Text appeared on it, again, in a foreign language, and tears came to her eyes. She threw the cell phone thing to the middle of the clearing, sniffed, looked around, then ran away, Saying the same thing over and over, but I didn’t know what it meant.

I looked around, and as her voice faded, I picked up the cell phone, then realized why she’d run away. Because I felt my eyes sting, and smelled something that was bad news for me: Smoke. I vaguely recognized this place, so I was able to run to the road before the fire got to me, but then I realized... My house was in the middle of that forest, and my parents had been asleep. As the truth dawned upon me, My eyes flooded with tears. I had become an orphan. I shivered in the cold as I slouched against a nearby tree.

Current time


But I wondered, was she worrying about it? The man walked over and reached down to pick it up, but then an alarm went off, and a moment later, everyone had left the room, leaving me alone with the phone thing. It began to glow, and my eyes grew wide. I took it out of the bag and hesitated. Is this really a good idea? I wondered. Oh well. I tried to remember what the little girl had done when it was glowing, then repeated the process, placing my thumb and pointer finger on the screen, then twisted it 180 degrees. It opened a message that was for some reason in English.

But the message was not something I was happy to read. It said: “Return this object to us. We’ll be waiting outside :)” I couldn’t tell who sent it, though. The sender’s name was in the same foreign language. I didn’t know what else to do. I passed through a few doors, turned a few times, and eventually found myself outside. There was a man in a tux walking toward me, he reached out to me, then looked to his left quickly, and swatted me out of the way. I found myself 10 feet away, clutching my stomach, having the wind knocked out of me. Once I’d caught my breath, I looked up to see the tux guy in combat with someone. I couldn’t tell who, at first, because she was moving faster than my eyes could keep up with. But upon further inspection, I realized that it was that girl again. The silhouette.

She dodged his every move, and eventually pulled his fist toward herself as she sidestepped, and caused him to fall over. She shouted something at me that I did not understand, sighed, then ran over to me, snatched the cell phone thing out of my hand, pointed at me, then at the ground, and ran off.
Last edited by IKnowAll on Tue May 24, 2011 2:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."
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Fri May 20, 2011 10:26 pm
RacheDrache says...



Hi, IKnowAll.

Good job with the paragraphs, and the cutting down on ellipses. Much better, though you could probably get rid of the rest of the ellipses here anyway with no harm done. (But, just if you want to. Fine as is, really.) With those things cleared up, it's easier to see that you write with what I call "good instincts." This had a fairly good flow to it. Flow's always good.

Usually, I go straight to technical stuff when I review, but I actually want to start with some storyside comments. You did a nice job of giving Sage an Earthling/human perspective. I did keep thinking she was a guy, but that's usually just how first person goes when the character's a girl but the author's a guy. In the end, I just give you props for going for a first person female point of view (POV)... and not overdoing it. Makes things really quite realistic, so keep that up.

Also, you did a good job of just dropping Sage into this mess. The part where the man in the tux walks in, she has to be thinking, "What the heck?!" because it would seem so random, this girl and this dude in the tux and the weird cellphone thing. So good job on that too.

I am a bit confused on a few things, though. One big question: "Where is she?" School counselor's office? Police station? FBI headquarters?

The others are toward what's going on in Sage's head. Is she weirded out by being in the police station or wherever she's at? Is she confused as to why people are making such a big deal over it ( thinking, "Probably just the new thing from Europe/Japan" or "Adults. They did the same thing when iPods came out.")

Most of wall, why isn't she more sad about her parents dying?! Her sliding down the tree was a great touch... but if I were in her shoes, I'd be pissed that these FBI/authority people are asking me all these questions after my parents died in a fire.

...how did that fire start, by the way? Is it necessary? Do her parents have to die? (I only ask because if you don't want Sage saddled with emotional problems for the rest of the novel, it might be a good idea.)

Oh, another thing: props on how you dealt with the issue of language.

I forget what you named formerly-Angel, but I'm getting a good idea of her personality from this. I especially love the last line of this. I can see that so clearly in my head.

...isn't she in pain when Tux Dude sends her flying, by the way? I mean, ouch!

So, yeah. If you go about answering those questions in this (and I think you should!) be careful not to simply tell us. Just show us. You're doing a great job of showing us Sage's curiosity toward the girl, for instance, without ever stating, "I was curious about the girl." So, don't tell us, "I felt destroyed' if that's how she's feeling... show it to us in her anger or tears or frustration or whatever. Does that make sense? I don't know how familiar you are with the "Show, don't tell" rule of writing and I don't want to bore you if it's all old news. But, if you'd like more explanation, let me know.

And... I think I'm going to leave you alone on the technical side. It's really quite amazing just what adding more paragraphs and taking out the ellipses did to your writing. Like magic, really.

Anyway, again, let me know if you have any questions!

Rach
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Tue May 24, 2011 6:03 pm
Shearwater says...



Hi there, Know - Pink here!

I'm back to review this second chapter of yours. First of all, it's pretty short so I don't have much to say about it. Not to mention that Rach got here ahead of me and did a pretty awesome review. Nonetheless, hopefully I can give you a pointer or two.

The first thing that I noticed was that you actually had a lot more description in this chapter than your previous one. This was able to grant your readers a bit more imagery and objects to work with in their head while they read. However, it's still missing clear descriptions here and there. Although there is improvement, you'll have to push yourself a little further. Try reading it out loud and trying to picture your words. Or you can even try to get yourself a proof-reader or beta reader to double check if your words are working with the imagery and creating a clear picture. It's something important so you might want to check up on that bit of your writing.

Also, some of your grammar needs to be brushed up a little. You have some words that are capitalized which shouldn't be capitalized. Go back through your writing and proof read it before posting. ^^

As for your character here, I don't understand her. Well, more like I don't get the naive things that she's saying. She's really going to ask for the phone, which is evidence of something alien and out of their comprehending zones? I think it's a little weird of her to ask unless she was like ten years old or maybe even if she was twelve. Either way, I think she should know that she can't really have any evidence that the police or FBI have so she can return the it to the girl/ rightful owner. Unless, she's completely naive.

Also, even if the alarm went off or some reason, I doubt the police/special agents/FBI/military/etc (You never stated who they were) are dumb enough to leave any evidence which could be tampered with inside the same room as the person they're questioning, don't you think? Remember to think for all your characters. If you were the police or these special agents or whatever, would you do that? Wouldn't you tell her something? Have someone else watch her? Take the evidence?
Another question is how in the world she was able to just walk out of the station like that? Did everyone in the building just leave? Was there some kind of bombing or terrorist activity that she was able to escape custody like that, lol? Some things in this story don't add up to all the rest. It seems like things are working out so perfectly for the protagonist here - it makes it all too easy. Also, the smiley faces are really annoying me! XD

Also, wasn't the phone all in some foreign language? Why was she able to read what it said in the end? Unless Angel, I'm guessing, knows how to write 'English'.

Overall, this is good and I really like the idea that you have - as I said before. What you really need to work on though is the foundation. Remember to show us details of what's going on and also give us a glimpse into your character's head and what she's thinking while all of this is going on. Otherwise, she'll act just like a puppet for the story instead of someone the readers know and care about.

Keep up the good work, I already saw such a great improvement with this chapter than the last so I'm happy that you're learning and getting better! You'll probably be totally skilled with writing in no time and I expect to see more from you in the future. ^^

Remember, if you have any questions - let me know and I'll do my best to help you out.
(I don't bite, don't worry.)

-Shear
There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
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