Young Writers Society

still needs a lot of work, but here is chapter 1

prologue- http://www.youngwriterssociety.com/viewtopic.php?t=68952


Chapter 1
Oota lake Cabin

The forest scenery passed by like a blur. Driving on a mountain road, a small SUV sped on a pathed road. The dense sea of trees began to clear and a small lake appeared into view.
Resting her head against the seat, a teenage girl watched the scenery with a bored glaze spread across her pale blue eyes. Thick black bangs, which clearly weren’t her natural hair color, were styled to the side, and covered her left eye. A varied array of different piercing and body rings decorated her face. She had spiked earrings covering up and down her ears, three grey stud nose piercings. A small lip ring was sticking out from her bottom lip.
Looking at the front seat, the girl frowned. “Mom turn up the air conditioner.”
The driver looked into her mirror and sighed. “Just take off your jacket.”
The girl grumbled. The girl’s mother glanced back at the road, her dirty blond hair was tied back into a bun strands of hair had escaped and hung freely in her face. She had a soft roman nose, and a long smooth chin. The two shared the same nose, eyes and chin; however, the girl’s natural hair color was just like her fathers, a dark auburn swirled with a golden brown.
The girl’s mother continued to talk. “I don’t understand why you always have to wear that thing. It’s too hot for a heavy jacket.”
The girl rolled her eyes. “Stop talking mom. I’m done talking.”
The woman frowned and a row of wrinkles revealed themselves on her forehead. “Don’t you take that tone with me Jennifer.”
Jennifer, or Jen as she liked to be called, glared at her mother and exhaled loudly. “Mommy are we there yet?” A small voice asked.
Jen didn’t bother to glance over to the other side of the back seat. She really didn’t want to deal with her annoying little ‘twerp’ of a brother.
The driver looked back at your ten year old son. “Sorry Nicky, not quite yet.”
The boy whaled his arms around and kicked the front passenger seat. “Stop kicking the seat. You’ll wake your father up.”
The boy stopped and crossed his arms. Staring forward again, the driver tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear.
Driving up a hill, the car reflected the scattered rays of light that escaped past the clouds. A few buildings came into view as they began to enter the town.
Slowing the car down, the mother smiled slightly. “Look’s like we made it to Nelson.”
The car sped past a large sign.
Welcome to Nelson, British Colombia

Stopping in front of a small diner, the mother smiled and looked back at her children. “Head on inside, I’ll park the car.”
Jen pushed her door open and exited the car. “Jen watch your brother.”
Nodding, Jen held out her hand. Nicky quickly hopped out of the car, and grabbed it.
Watching them enter the diner, the driver drove into the parking lot and parked the SUV. She stared down at her sleeping husband. Placing her hand on his shoulder, she smiled and whispered. “Eddy. Wake up we’re here.”
She gently shook his shoulder, till he began to squirm. Abruptly, he jumped up, his eyes wide and filled with fright. “Eddy what’s wrong?” She asked.
He looked around for a moment, and exhaled. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
She gave him a look, and he stroked her face. “Mary. I’m alright just a nightmare.”
“Alright, but we’re in Nelson. Just wanted you to know Hun.”
Giving a small smile, Eddy’s wife removed the car key from the ignition.


Hearing the car pull away, Jen took her hand back from Nicky. He pouted. “Mom said you-“
“Don’t care.”
Jen walked inside her brother following close behind. Walking into the small diner, she looked around. It was a typical highway diner. There was a bar facing the kitchen window, wooden booths replaced tables and chairs. A woman dressed in a brown waitress dress walked over holding a pen and small notebook. “Welcome to Phil’s. How many?” she asked chewing bubble gum.
“Four.”
Nodding the waitress answered. “Follow me please.”
The two siblings followed her to a booth on the right side of the diner. A large window was placed at the wall of the booth, and revealed some brick buildings and the long stretch of forest scenery behind them.
The two sat down, and Jen pulled out her cellphone instantly. “Great. Barely any service.”
Nicky frowned. “Mommy and Daddy said no cellphones during vacation.”
Glaring at him, Jen glanced back down at her cell. “You know their marriage is doomed.”
Nicky gasped. “What?”
“Yeah, soon we’ll be living in different places with either mom or dad.”
Frowning, the boy looked down and listened silently as Jen continued to text.
A bell rang in the doorway Eddy and Mary stood looking for their children. Spotting them, Eddy smiled. “You head on, I’m going to ask someone for directions.”
Mary nodded, and continued to walk towards her kids. Eddy, however, looked over to see a waitress sitting at the bar. Making his way over to her, Eddy smiled. “Excuse me miss?”
She looked up at him, and smiled, her teeth covered with braces. “Yeah?”
He sat down beside her. “Can you tell me how to get to Ootsu Lake Cabin?”
“Wuh?” She asked, looking rather shocked, “Why?”
“Well, I’m on vacation with my family for the next five days.” Eddy explained.
The waitress rubbed her neck and looked around. “Erm…I’m sorry but I don’t know,” she paused for a moment, “Why would yo-“
“I know where it is!” A ruff voice announced.
An old rather large elderly man appeared from nowhere. He was hunched over holding a long metallic cane, the top shaped like a puma skull. The girl stared at the elderly man rather shocked, stood up and walked away. Eddy gave an odd look but held onto his smile, “Really? That’s great.”
The elderly man took a seat beside Eddy and held out his shaking hand. His arm was just clammy skin clinging to thin frail bones his face’s skin was drooping and wrinkly, while small stubs of facial hair decorated his chin. Eddy took his hand giving a semi-strong grip, “Yes, I’ve been wai’ing for you an’ your family to arrive. I’m Tucker Paters’n the owner of the Cabin.”
Nodding, Eddy answered back, “Eddy Ford, nice to meet you Tucker.”
Eddy felt Mr. Paterson’s hand squeeze tighter, and it hurt. “Please Mist’r Ford call me Paters’n.”
Finally getting his hand back, Eddy gave a slight nod, “Sorry Mr. Paterson.”
Mr. Paterson gave a firm glare, and reached into his pocket taking out a folded piece of paper, “Foll’w the directions.”
Struggling to stand up, Mr. Paterson walked towards a hallway leading to the backdoor. The hallway’s light flickered, and as Mr. Paterson walked down the hallway the light made a small pop and died.
Eddy kept watching the hallway, and he felt a cold sweat on his neck. Glancing down, he unfolded the paper and read the directions. He was thankful that Mr. Paterson’s handwriting was readable. Carefully, he went over it. “Eddy,” A lone whisper echoed in his mind.
“Eddy.”
“Eddy?”
He jumped up from the sudden touch on his shoulder. “Y-Yes?” He asked looking at his wife.
“Did you get the directions?” she paused, “You ok? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Rubbing his neck, Eddy nodded. “You worry too much,” he gave her the paper, “and I got them.”

Hello Maki-Chan! I'm HP, and I'll be your reviewer for today!

So first, before I get to the meat of the review, I wanted to say that I like your style of writing. You don't try to use up 10 pages describing how soft the grass feels or how beautiful the sun is. There isn't really anything wrong with that, it's just not the type of stuff I most enjoy reading. So I enjoyed the fact that your writing is more straightforward and simpler, in a very good way.

So first, here are the nitpicks:

Resting her head against the seat, a teenage girl watched the scenery with a bored glaze spread across her pale blue eyes.

You said 'teenaged' here andI'm pretty sure that it isn't a word, though people still say it that way all the time.

A varied array of different piercing and body rings decorated her face. She had spiked earrings covering up and down her ears, three grey stud nose piercings.

You said 'vary' here when it should be 'varied'.

Nodding, Jen held out her hand. Nicky quickly hopped out of the car, and grabbed his sister’s hand.

This right here isn't really major or anything and you could most likely get by with it. However, repetition isn't always a good thing and in this case I don't think it is. You could try to change up the words or sentences to make it flow more.

Great. Barely any service.

Simple mistake here - you said 'an' instead of 'any'.

So now that that is over, I want to switch the review over to the subject of character development! CD is actually a weak point of mine, but I don't think it is for you. You really gave me a great picture of who Jen was, but you did it sort of gradually. It is true that I realized right away that she was a teenager with some issues, but you slowly began to show that she has more depth than that, mainly at the end when you realized that she was worried about her parents separating. So that's another reason I liked reading this! Let me know when you post the next chapter and I'll be here again to review!

Looking forward to more!
-HP

thank you! I am really glad you like it >3< I wanted to try something new with this. The straight forwardness was at first me just being impatient, but when I read it I realized that it sounded pretty good
I will work hard on the next chapter >:3

First, you have hardly any reviews! I would put these chapters into a novel because that is much easier to navigate through than links. It is way more user friendly and will encourage people to review especially when you get more chapters. Also, I suggest requesting reviews here:

http://www.youngwriterssociety.com/forum188.html

Secondly I would like to touch on your format. You don’t have the speech have a separated by a full two enters. This puts reviewers off because they assume that you haven’t put a ton of time into this. You did this in your prologue so it can’t be that hard for you. Plus, it puts off readers because, well readers like white space on the page. Have you ever tried to read a paperback book with tiny pages (about 700 of them), tiny print and now white space anywhere? If so you should understand my point. You should space out your speech in this same way.

Now I know that sometimes prologues are the easiest part of writing a novel, but I am really disappointed to see how much better it really was. When you write a beginning that is so good you have to keep the rest of your novel up to that slandered. In your prologue every word counted, every single sentence was pretty much completely enjoyable. Now, it doesn’t even seem like you are the same writer. Your style changed a lot! This bad, very bad. Not only did the quality of it go down, but it jarred me. If I didn’t promise to review, because it is so different, I might not even finished reading it! You have to be consistent in your writing style.
In your prologue you were wordy and told us tons of little details, you also used a lot of variegations in your sentence structure. This was your style. But, let’s look at an excerpt of the first chapter:

The driver looked into her mirror and sighed. “Just take off your jacket.”
The girl grumbled. The girl’s mother glanced back at the road, her dirty blond hair was tied back into a bun strands of hair had escaped and hung freely in her face. She had a soft roman nose, and a long smooth chin. The two shared the same nose, eyes and chin; however, the girl’s natural hair color was just like her fathers, a dark auburn swirled with a golden brown.
The girl’s mother continued to talk. “I don’t understand why you always have to wear that thing. It’s too hot for a heavy jacket.”
The girl rolled her eyes. “Stop talking mom. I’m done talking.”
The woman frowned and a row of wrinkles revealed themselves on her forehead.

Do you know what I am thinking? First look at all the ‘the’s at the beginning of sentences. You continue this throughout the whole thing. You need to have some variety in them. Spice it up a bit.

Here is a sentence with six words. O.K., here are six more words. Six word sentences are fine sometimes. After a while they become boring.

Do you get my point? Variation!

I would also like to touch on your beginning. Just because you have a great prologue does not mean you also don’t have to have a great beginning. I know some people who don’t even read prologs. One strong opinion I have about beginnings is they cannot have background information. This can come later. Maybe a hint or two, but you can’t just spell out: where someone is from, what they look like, and other background info. You completely tell us what this girl looks like. This doesn’t give the reader anything more to want to read about unless they can relate to this girl by what she looks like. I know at least I don’t want to know what this girl looks like before I actually know why I should care what happens to her.
O.K, another thing that bugged me in the beginning of this peace was ‘the girl’ and ‘the girl’s mom’. Even if you introduce them pretty quickly it is much easier on the reader and you to say:

The girl’s mom, Pam, blab la bla.

Or:

Jenifer or Jen as she liked to be called was grouchy.

Reading ‘the bla bla’ over and over again so many times in one small part is very annoying and tiresome.

This review might be harsher than the other one I gave you, but I felt the quality of this was much lower and I know you can do better. I could give you a very nitpicky review, because you do have some mistakes, but I don't want to so overwhelm you. If you have any questions you can P.M. me.

Hope I helped,

A. S.

P.S. Straightforward isn't bad, neither is more description, but you have to choose one and stick with it.