Young Writers Society

Hello.

You still haven't fixed dialogue punctuation.

Past that.

I am not sure where to begin. This is so devoid of emotional connection, with mental illness that seems more appropriate for a cartoon (in fact, I've seen many cartoons exactly like this) than prose. If you're going for phycosis or any other mental illness that deals with hallucinations then you'd better do an absolute bucketload of research in order to accurately portray it. If you're going for straight up depression and suicidal tendencies, know that this is pretty far off the mark. There's a reason I directed you to specific mental illnesses that are not depression, because for the vast majority of depression cases the whole idea of "a shadow that follows you" is nothing more than a metaphor. The feelings are much different, more much internal, and don't take the form of spectres unless some form of hallucination is present.

I'm not saying she shouldn't have mental illness, or psychosis, or hallucinations. I'm saying that these topics require in depth research in order to get them right. If you're trying to introduce the future supernatural concept by having this ghost follow her around, then I'd assume the ghost would be smart enough to make her doubt reality. If not and you insist on keeping this setup, then make it obviously not a hallucination. Right now, it could go either way, seeing as people do legitimately have nights like this and experience hallucinations very similar if not identical.

Even then, this is so far removed from suicidal thoughts and feelings that I can't get into it. Suicide might begin as external voices like this, but eventually it has to go internal. You have to start believing it, you have to feel something. Depression isn't about feeling sad all the time, and there are as many nuances to depression as there are people. While there are underlaying principles (feeling empty, lack of energy, no self esteem), everybody deals with them differently and you're lacking both the emotional notes and the nuances of depression itself.

Grief also isn't about feeling sad all the time; it has a lot of nuance and, again, I'm not seeing any of that nuance in your character. It's just "oh!" and sobbing and manifestations of depression that don't go with depression and hallucinations that are too adjective filled to truly be any resemblance of realistic or creepy.

Grief also does not spill itself out in massive paragraphs that simply state emotion instead of describing the primal, deep seeded, physical reactions that escape all words. You haven't established why I should care about this death, and it seems like a sympathy ploy to get us to care but instead I'm going "infodump, backstory, boring, goodbye."

You're lacking forward movement in the plot, going straight to a flashback after 3 paragraphs. Beginnings need a certain amount of forward momentum to be interesting and gripping. You're simply stating emotions instead of going in depth to the physical, internal, mental roots of it. The mental illness is loosely connected to a bunch of them without truly representing any of them (and you can have multiple; see: comorbidity). Your prose is adjective filled and while there are snatches of interesting description in here, most of them are incapacitated by improper comma use and a sheer volume of adjectives that let me picture the scene but don't actually provide strong description. Why say "left a filthy knobby claw on her shoulder" when you can say "smeared filth as it placed a clawed hand on her shoulder, knobs on knuckles and palms pressing into her skin"? Don't just list; be vivid.

Research. Develop character. Make this internal, instead of external. Give this character some substance and some nuance and some depth that comes from her own physical reactions to her emotions. Fix your dialogue punctuation. Once you actually have a strong character, you'll be well on your way to something amazing.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

~Rosey

Hello! KatyaElefant here for another review! Happy Review Day! (I'm sorry for how the person bellow me was a bit harsh. Please forgive them) Let's see what we have here!

This is a great start to a story! You have many options on which way you want to take this. This is the freedom of this! If this were a book, I would want to know what is happening or what the plot would be. At that point, I would look at the back of the book, but here,(I know it's still the first chapter) it's still rather unclear what the plot of the story is going to be. This chapter really hooked me in and again, I want to know what happens. I checked for spelling and grammar and it looks great. I didn't find any mistakes. Your organization is great too, none of the paragraphs were too short or too long or in the wrong place. I see this is labeled under science fiction and that is one of my favorite genres. I would love to know how this will play out as a science fiction book/novel. The person that was yelling at Gloria that she was a slut, is just really surprising, some people don't like that sudden change to a random person. One thing that you could do is maybe have a prologue in which, you could learn more about Gloria and learn to love her. That would make the readers think of that random person as a real jerk! Overall, good job! Have a nice review day! Keep calm and keep writing!

This review was brought to you
by Team Rocket.

Hello.

Honestly, this was pretty boring, riddled with mistakes, and I generally felt like I had no reason to care about the characters.

For starters, there's nothing particularly out of the ordinary about a headache and trying to ease one. It's fine if that is a plot point, honestly it had better be if that's the opening, but it's fairly dull when that's the only thing going on.

The mistakes are mostly in syntax, and the flat out grammatically incorrect "a little more older than twenty three". "More" and "older" are both comparatives, and you should never use two. This being in your second paragraph does not bode well for my impressions of the work, and you're, in general, sloppy with grammar. Statements such as "a headache woke gloria up" puts something inanimate as the actor, with the person as the object, which just reads weird. It's also not exactly compelling; putting the protagonist in the receiving position, as in, she receives the headache's pain, sets her up as a protagonist who doesn't make choices for herself. Protagonists, meanwhile, are defined by them controlling the plot and taking their fate into their own hands. She doesn't do anything on her own will past take two pills instead of one.

Everything else is her following orders. Her headache orders her to wake up. Her doctor orders her to take pills. Her phone orders her to pick it up. This is an artifact of your syntax putting Gloria in the object position in your sentences. She doesn't get to be the actor. She is the person acted upon.

Combine those two factors and I don't really care a random stranger called her in the night. Make her an actor and maybe I would care. Heroes might react, but they should still be the actors of their own lives and make choices on their own.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

~Rosey

a little more tired, a little more older than twenty three.

Gloria sighed watching the faucet snort out rusty water, and then cupped her hands underneath it as the stream cleared.

Her pink delicate fingers were only itchy for the red cup in the corner, and the small orange see-through jar next to it.

Filling up the cup, with water Gloria tilted her head backwards, and knocked back two blue pills from the jar.

They’d do the trick.

“You know me, well" The stranger continued, "We are old friends. That is why I care.” Every time the stranger spoke her name, Gloria felt like a spider was sneaking along her spine, it gave her goose skin.

What a creep! Gloria thought to herself.

Meanwhile the stranger's voice had taken up residence in her head. Filling it with questions she didn't own answers to. It was driving her against the wall.

Following their move to Willowcreak, Gloria noticed he'd become extra-protective almost overprotective.

Unfortunately, she had no way of reaching him right now, halfway across the city, with a phone that didn't have any credit.

and peeled her eyes to the moonless night on the other side of the window she’d left open.

With her mind's eye she could see the creep,

What if he climbs out of the darkness right now?

and then hesitantly closed her eyes to doze off with the stranger’s sick voice stuck in her head.

Your story, first of all, is written fairly well. You have an appealing writing style and the work has hardly anything to complain about where grammar and syntax are concerned. That's a huge plus, especially for readers like me, who find it quite a task to read through a work plagued with mistakes, regarding of how good the story is.

So your descriptions are pretty vivid, and you slowly build the intensity of the story. unlike many writers whose works I have read, you actually started the story at a relevant point, not wasting your readers' time. Some have the habit of starting a story somewhere useless and then trying yo lead up to where the real story actually starts, which can discourage readers from reading what is really an enjoyable piece.

Nice use of personification to give some life to your writing - "The forty year old plumbing inside the walls started to groan and protest loudly as she turned on the cold water faucet. There was no question that the whole building had heard that." - this was really good, and the metaphors were splashed about the two chapters, but not too much that it became annoying like bad poetry.

Some phrases you have might sound good but they really don't make sense, like "gloria thought to herself". I doubt there is telepathy in the story (if there is, ignore this) so we assume that if she is thinking, it is to herself.

All in all, these two chapters were well done in my eyes, and I might very well review more of your work.

AdjiFlex.

Andy here with your promised review! Over all, this story is very interesting and certainly a good start. There are just a few minor nitpicks I have. First, in the below chapter, you mess up your past and present tenses a bit.

"“Could be a migraine. Can’t really be sure until the test results are in.” The doctor at the polyclinic had told her, three days ago. Gloria observed the doctor’s stout brown fingers scribble nonsense across a piece of paper, but it was apparently the name of a powerful pain killer, taken by arthritis patients. “Ten for now. They’d do the trick. No more than one at a time.” He warned, tearing off the sheet and handing it to her."

You don't want to say "He warned", but rather "He had warned,". The only other thing that I was a little prickly on was when Philo suddenly bursts into tears at the end of the second chapter. I think you want a little more buildup or suspense before you make him 'snap'. It just felt a little bit too quick. Aside from that, you had two great opening chapters, and a nice bit of suspense at the end! I look forward to reading the rest of your works.

Hey there! I'm AnimeGirl and I'm going to give this first chapter a review! Now lets Jump/crawl/ fly/ or ride a turtle in!

so i wanted to stat off by saying that this is a great story that i would like to read more of, i liked the way the story started. it really hooked me, i like stories like that. i didnt see too many things i wanted to comment on, the story seems to to be fine as it is. so i guess this will be a short review, sorry about that.

so any way i loved the way you introduced your character and how you had her talk about her brother. i liked her reaction to the call and the caller, the detail you put into this story was great. over all i cant wait for you to write more!

keep writing and follow your heart!

~AnimeGirl

Hi there, Unpublishedperson here to review!

Overall, this had all of the things that I like to see in a first chapter. I got a good sense of who Gloria was, but you didn't give too much about here away at first. There are still a lot of aspects to her character that I will be interested to see.

In the same way, Gloria's overall situation interested me. I was a bit worried that it was going to come off as cliche and common- the whole stalker/ mysterious phone caller thing does seem to be a tad overdone- but the way you tied in Phil really made it interesting for me. I don't want to be reading into this too much, but it seems to me like he just might be involved in all of this in a possibly sinister note.

On that topic, I would like to add that I felt their was was a bit more of telling than showing when you said "He was always like a guardian angel to her. However, following their move to Willowcreak he'd become extra protective almost overprotective."

I get that there probably were not a lot other ways to put that bit in there, and after all that bit was what really made me interested in your story and what is next to come, but I guess you just might want to consider finding a way to rephrase that, and make it more subtle. It seems like a very important plot point, but to me it seemed a bit to forced and "out there," then again that could be because I was so interested in that one bit.

This looks like it is supposed to be something of a mystery, however, so I recommend you be careful about about how you go about teasing us with clues.

Another thing- when first describing Gloria you say "She had a terrible, old and, spent look about her." I felt this is far to vague, and I think you could go into a little bit more detail, using more specific words. It was sort of hard to form a good image of her with broad words like that. You do some other good descriptions though, like describing her itchy fingers and the like, so it was enough to keep me pleased on the whole.

Other than those minor details, I think this is a very strong opening- your prose felt very solid to me, and from start to finish this seemed like a fairly solid piece, one that was very easy to read and follow.

Hope this was a helpful review, and that chapter two will be up soon!

Hey round~
Here to drop a review as requested. You have a lot of reviews, so I apologize if I repeat something. I skimmed through them all, but sometimes you miss things.

Just a heads up, I changed your rating to 16+ for the curse word. I'll leave this here. It should answer any rating questions you have in the future.

Alright, other than that, this was pretty good.

What I really want is more emotion from Georgia in the beginning. We get her fear and panic in the later half of the chapter, but how is she feeling, being up in the middle of the night with a headache, looking older than she really is? How is that affecting her?

If Georgia's headache really doesn't affect her that much, why are so many paragraphs spent on describing how she's going to get rid of the headache? Really, if it has no impact, it's a wasted opportunity to hook the readers with the first sentence and inform them that they're not going to be able to put your work down for the entire length. You'd almost be better off cutting the scene altogether.

I do want to see what you make of it though before you cut it. It's a good time to let us see how Georgia is. If you need advice in this area, just let me know.

I can't wait to see what happens next. Tell me when the next chapter is out~

If you have any questions, concerns, or comments, let me know.

See ya,
Megs~

Hi Roundsquare, it's Catcha01 and I'm here to review.

Good job Roundsquare. It was a great chapter and I enjoyed reading it. It was very in depth and described very well. Thank you for asking me to read it. I was honored.

Okay first off

while a lazy yellow hue filled her small bedroom.

Totally unflattering for a twenty two something female

watched the faucet snort out rusty water, and then cupped her hands underneath it as a clear stream

“What do mean who am I... Gloria?” The sound of her name rolling of the stranger's tongue

Your narration seems a bit distant. Try using more direct verbs and remove the –ings whenever you can. And more direct I mean this: “It was hot and stuffy, and Gloria decided to open the window and let some air in.”

“It was hot and stuffy, so Gloria opened the window to let some air in.” See, you go around the “decided to” and into simple action “Opened.” Verbs that end on –ing or use to create distance, and sometimes distance is what you want, but for simple action you should go straight and use a strong direct verb.

It would be even better if you don’t say “it was hot and stuffy” at all, but instead show it through her. Something like: “the hot air weighted down on her as she crossed the room to open the window. The cool breeze that drifted into the room brought her relief and she could finally breathe again.” I mean this is me just improvising, but you get my drift.
Similar thing here: “it as a clear stream started to flow out.” Going around the “started to” directly into “as the stream cleared.”

And here “She almost immediately pulled back her hands” Almost immediately is unnecessary, the suddenness of the action is implied by the second part of the sentence.
So yeah, you get my drift, go direct. Just when you read it next, stop on each longer sentence and think about how to make it more straightforward. The less meandering there is in the actions the better.

Another example “Giving away a sigh, she sat on the side of the bed,” to “She sat on the side of the bead with a sigh, wincing when etc.”

“A man cleared his voice then and started speaking.” Cut it after voice. It’s more than obvious that he started speaking from the dialogue line. Else you need colon after speaking.
The passage about how the voice sounded was nice. But look over the previous two sentences I don’t think they are too necessary. Or at the very least not too clear, I think you can just go like: But it wasn’t Philo. *passage about the voice* No the stranger sounded, etc.

So that’s it. I don’t really see any issues. You have nice build up and tension, just work on that language a bit more, don’t afraid to be direct.

I like the way you have this story set up. I love thrillers, and mysteries, and this has a great deal of potential. Your main character seems really scared but at the same time a strong female lead, I am curious as to see how everything will escalate and how her brother will play a role.

My favorite line would have to be:
"Suddenly standing up like someone just remembering something, she peeled her eyes to the moonless night on the other side of the window, which she’d left open. With her mind's eye she could see the creep ogling her from the darkness just beyond it, taunting her with his sick grin. Never mind the fact that she was three stories removed from the ground. Her fear was irrational. What if he climbs out of the darkness right now? She knew it was a wild thought, but it didn't stop her pulse from beating faster, or her brain from thinking it."

Awesome! That is relate-able because I know when I'm scared, paranoid or angry, my mind lays tricks on me to influence me in crazy ways! Nice work on this one.

Hey, Roundsquare! Here is my review.

Okay, I really liked this for a first chapter. It's not too long and gets straight to the point with VERY good description in between. My favorite part is when you describe her turning on the water, "...plumbing inside the wall in front of her started to groan and protest loudly as she turned on the cold water faucet." That whole paragraph was so good and all you were doing was describing water come out of a faucet. Ha! Very well done.

Next, I just really like the premise of this story. It seems pretty different from other things I've read. The fact that this person somehow really knows her, but she has no clue who he is is very interesting. I definitely can't wait to read more!

Now, time for criticisms. As others have mentioned, there are some grammatical errors, but I'm not even going to waste my time telling you all about that, because you don't need 10 people telling you the same things over and over again, right?

So, my main issue is the lack of character presentation. I totally understand that this is just the first chapter and I'm guessing you didn't want it to be terribly long, but you need to at least mention a few things about your character (aside from appearance) that can directly or indirectly give us an idea of who this person is. From the beginning, we need to feel for her and be concerned as this man is randomly calling her.

Aside from those things that can easily be fixed, I really enjoyed this first chapter! I will definitely keep an eye out for chapter two. Message me if you need anything or have any questions. Keep doing what you're doing.

XOXO
Anabelle

Ah! Despite a few occasional grammatical errors here and there, that was quite good! Also, I actually want to find out what happens next in your story so nice job with captivating the audience XD Your description is quite good too. Hm, I feel like most of what I'd liked to have said has already been mentioned below so I'll skip the repetition. Overall, nice job (however, I do recommend a little double checking with the grammar and spelling). Keep up the awesomeness ^_^

Gloria watched the faucet snort out cold rusty water, and then cupped her hands under it as a clear stream flowed out. But she almost immediately pulled back her hands grimacing, as the icy-cold water pinched her skin.
First off, I love that first line (Gloria watched the faucet snort....). It's such an interesting, original personification, it just made me laugh! I also like how you compared her to an old woman. Very nice!
However, the second line doesn't need a but. Also, there needs to be a comma between hands and grimacing. Lastly, there doesn't need to be a dash between icy and cold.
This is what it should look like if you were to apply all previous suggested edits:
She almost immediately pulled back her hands, grimacing, as the icy cold water pinched her skin.
I just love the way you describe things!
Leaning into the basin
Comma should be after basin.
Filling up the cup with water Gloria tilted her head backwards, and knocked back three round aspirins.
Comma after cup (filling up the cup)
“Who are you, and why do you care?” She said.
You already described how she replied to the stranger; you don't need a she said after this. Also, it should be a separate line from the previous paragraph as a new person is speaking.
“What do *you mean who am I?” (there should be a you)
What a creep? Gloria thought to herself.
Shouldn't it be, what a creep!

Finally feeling drowsy
Comma between finally and feeling.

Wow, this really captured my attention! I want to know what happens next! Excellent start!
Overall rating: 8/10
+1

Timmy here for a review, as promised.

So here I come, expecting some story about a devil(probably possessing more than one sidekick, all bearing horns), and what do I get? A delightful story about a woman, and a relationship with her brother. The title is wonderful, and makes me ask so many questions, things that cannot be answered from just this chapter you have given me. Wonderful job. Now I am curious--no, that is not strong enough of a word--anxious to know what will happen in the next chapter.

This chapter seems to be the beginning of something big, yet almost like this was planted in the direct center of a story. We have no breathing time. The story is wound up as we begin our adventure in reading. Amazing. Anyone who can start a story off on an intense scene with a lot of questions, one that moves along quickly, can have a big hug from me, because I just love those. Books that start off slowly can be boring, and make me want to put them down. Yours was not so. From the beginning, it was an exciting read, and full of questions and suspense.

She couldn't see anything in the darkness and so fumbled about the nightstand for the lamp switch. She sat up and rested her hands on the pillow behind her as a lazy yellow hue filled her small bedroom.

She looked terrible, old and terrible.

Leaning into the basin Gloria splashed

Her headache didn't go away but

All she wanted was relieve from

but an hour later the clock’s buzzer woke her.

about all day, feeling her belly, and listening to the rain fall.

“That’s enough of that”

that it was in deed her brother calling.

Hi, Roundsquare. This is Pinkie here for a review. I will try to make this review not too harsh.

I like this story already. It is interesting masterpiece to read from. I love how you start this novel, but this is a bit too much details for this chapter. Maybe wait for the next chapters to do that to get us read this. Also, I agreed with EmeraldEyes. You should put the warning for language before people read this chapter. You need the warning for this chapter for readers who want to read your stories.

Anyway, you have some nitpicks on here. Like this sentence:

"Instead of driving off he watched his sister safely make her way to the front door of the restaurant."

You need a comma between 'off' and 'he'.

Overall, this is a good chapter. I enjoyed this chapter a lot. I can't wait for the next chapter. I hope you write more. Have a great night!

Good Job and keep on writing!

Cheers

Your reviewer, Pinkiegirl13

P.S: I hope I wasn't too harsh because I am not that mean.

Hello!

Love the title. But this work is too long. :/
It's a great start to a first chapter for a novel, but I think it just goes on a little bit XD
Also: WARNING! You need to put a content warning for language on this work. Like WHOA!

“I called you a top-notch slut, which you are. You think – you think that just coz you got yourself a half decent apartment, and a stinky cleaner’s job you can disrespect me… hmm! Slut!”

Just two dirty white wall interrupted by a door every once in a while.