Gary sat up and looked out his window. The only light that made it through was that which miraculously made it past the permanent clouds that seem to shroud Seattle. He glanced at his clock. It was eight in the morning and the orphanage was already in motion. He threw on a t-shirt and jeans and went down the stairs. It was adoption day, not that that mattered. Gary wasn’t going to be adopted. He was seventeen, in four days he would be eighteen and there was no longer any need.
“GARY!” yelled a voice from downstairs.
“I’m coming Miss Hafmon.” he replied.
Gary went down the second set of stairs to the bottom floor, dodging frantic children as he went. Gary spotted the director.
“What is it Miss. Hafmon?”
“Gary, you are up late! Today is a big day, you might get adopted!”
“Seriously? I’m going to be eighteen in four days, I don’t need to be adopted.”
“Well, nonetheless you have an eight thirty interview with a family, you’re almost late? Scoot, scoot!”
The patron pushed me toward the interviewing room, which is usually the younger children’s playroom. He opened the door a crack and saw his potential parents. They were each about middle age, all smiles and laughs, as they talked to each other, the type that thought that everything was perfect. Gary sighed, this one was going to take every ounce of his ability.
He entered the room and the pair stood up.
“You must be Gary,” said the man, “I’m Ralph and this is Charlene.”
Her name is Charlene, Gary thought, this was going to be harder than he thought. He smiled, and sat down across two chairs.
The couple stared at Gary for what seemed like eternity, expecting him to say something, but it never game.
Eventually the women broke the silence.
“So,” said Charlene “what do you like to do in your free time?”
“Smoke pot,” retorted Gary “lots, and lots of pot.”
The pair looked dumbfounded.
“Do you want some?” Gary asked reaching into his pocket, “I have some righ-“
“NO!” said the couple bolting upright out of their seats. Gary was having a hard time keeping a straight face, this was some of his best work.
“Fine then, more for me.”
Another pause.
“Um, well… Gary, what else do you like to do?” asked Ralph, not yet giving up.
“Oh, I’m in a band.”
“Oh really! I was in a band as a kid, what kind of music do you play?” inquired Ralph, cheerful again.
“Well, none of us know how to play any instruments, so we mostly just sit around and smoke-”
And that was it. The couple was gone. They flew out the door before Gary could even finish his sentence. Gary could finally laugh, his best and final performance was over, he might as well go back to bed. As he left the room, Miss Halfmon just looked at Gary and sighed.
“Why Gary, why,” she said, “you’re a wonderful kid, why won’t you just let yourself get adopted.”
Gary just shrugged and went up the stairs.
For almost eighteen years now Gary had been avoiding adoption, for no better reason than he didn’t want to be adopted. He couldn’t put his finger on a reason; he just assumed that because having parents didn’t go so well the first time, there didn’t need to be a second time. The orphanage was pleasant, and a good place for him to live. Plus, now that he was the oldest of the orphans he got his own room in the attic and he was respected by all of the younger ones. He helped the orphan instructors and kept the place running. Just last summer he painted the entire orphanage, but now it was time to leave. Gary did well in his studies, but of course, he didn’t have the money for college. He just guessed he would go get some minimum wage job and do his best to live off of it.
Gary stared at the mirror hanging on his wall, the one piece of furniture that belonged to him. Apparently it had been a gift from his mother. He looked at his rough complexion. His nose, slightly bent from when he was trying to teach some of the younger kids baseball. His light blue eyes seemed to faintly glow, apparently they were his father’s, not that Gary had ever met him., he had died in a fire before Gary was born. The boy’s hair was short, and kind of ragged from years of giving himself haircuts when the instructors weren’t looking. Gary wasn’t particularly tall and fairly thin, with slightly defined muscles visible on his arms from his work around the orphanage.
Looking away from the mirror Gary sat down on the floor and leaned against the wall, staring out the one window that his room had. It was still grey out, but it had begun raining. Gary supposed that he should get up and help with something, but he couldn’t seem to make himself stand.
Suddenly he saw something flash by the window, a gray streak, moving too quickly to be identified. Gary blinked and thought about it a moment, he was three stories up, what could possibly be flying past his window? He stood up, curious. Walking over to the window, he saw the flash again, this time, a little more clearly. It was fairly large, definitely not something that could be thrown this high. He opened the damp window, allowing the rain inside. He stuck his head out the opening into the cold air and looked around. Suddenly, he saw it again, but this time clearer. It stopped, in midair right in front of his face. It was the figure of a girl, around the age of sixteen he guessed, floating in the sky, three stories above the ground.
Gary stumbled backwards, landing on the bed, the floating girl followed.
“Who-who, are you?” Gary muttered.
“You can see me?” asked the girl, seemingly shocked.
“Of course I can see you!”
She paused a moment.
“You must come with me.”
End of chapter
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138,653 Literary Works • 672,189 Reviews
Gary is not the proper name for someone in a ghost story. In fact, it is considered quite offensive by some Bavarian Hindu Sects. Maybe you should be more sensitive to other people's cultures, you capitalist misogynist pig.
Love it! I noticed a few typing errors in your writing, but other than that I couldn't really find anything wrong. The story doesn't move to quickly or to slowly, plus it made me laugh. I loved how he made the potential adopters run away, he seems like a neat kid. I honestly wasn't expecting the ghost girl. I'm wondering if he;s a necromancer or something, that would be cool. I like the idea of an orphan kid who's just about to get out of the system discovering that he can see ghosts. Yep this is definitely a good read. Please keep righting and good luck.
Me again
I found something that might be wrong (It doesnt have to be it just because I say it is). In the begining there is: "the patron pushed me" and later you're back to "He opened the door..." Is that intended or just some mistake?
There is also no description of potential parents, I think it should be changed. You could at least mention their complexions, or their clothes or whatever would be fine.
There is also the ending. It could have been better if you wrote something after "you must come with me", but that's just my opinion. I've half-expected him to fly out the window, but nothing happened, which left me a bit dissappointed.
But it's just small things I'm picking at, the story's good otherwise.
You might want to look into the next chapter
Zeph,
/Kuzco sass is really starting to get to me. Let's get this review on the road, shall we?
I'm back, baby!
Technical I thought the pacing in the beginning went just a bit too quick, almost like you're trying to rush the story to get us somewhere; probably the beginning paragraph was fine, but then you get to the dialogue and you just get a bunch of talking heads rather than a scene that effortlessly moves - it's more just dialogue that desparately needs some sort of tag, or some action to go along interspersed with it to help with your pacing.
Also, watch for your spelling, grammar, etc. I would just quickly peruse this and proofread for stuff. You have 'game' where it should read as 'came' also, this:
I am a bit confused by that statement, what exactly is going to be harder, and what does that have to do with her name? In any case, the rest of it was pretty kooky and funny ^-^ Gary seems like a lot of fun to write, simply because he's totally being intentionally nuts. Your adults seem less believable as adults as far as their reactions to this - but i think that fits with the comedic tone and world you're going for, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.
Content
I am liking Gary C: I think it's interesting that he is living in this orphanage and he's the "big fish in the small pond" kind of character, I like that the little kids look up to him - but I almost want to actually /see/ that as a scene. I suppose if you ever feel like going back to this, I would love to have that build-up there, where we can see how Gary is like in the orphanage without it being told to us through the narrative. Building and crafting scenes is the best way to get your readers invested into Gary's story, and it's also a good way to develop your characters further - overall it just makes for a much more compelling piece.
The idea that this is the ordinary world and something fantastical comes and takes the main character out of the ordinary and into the extrordinary - obviously this is something that has been deen for ages - but it still compells us as it satisfies this need within ourselves to explore the new, the exciting, the powerful. I am excited for this story - and I'm excited to see where you will take this. But I'm not exactly compelled to it. I want more character development, again, I want to see with my own eyes how Gary treats the younger kids and how he interacts with them, and it would be a nice contrast to see that side of Gary in comparison with the side of him that strategically drives all of the other foster parents away.
On another note - this girl in the window - she's very intriguing, but as of right now, I would've liked a bit more description as this part of it felt a bit rushed. Again, it reads as just a skeleton and we're able to follow the story, but right now it's not exactly quite fleshed out. And that's OKAY. Because eventually, I hope you can continue with your story, finish your story, and eventually flesh it out later
In any case, we'll see where this takes us.
~ as always, Audy
Alright, hey Sephiroth, let's get a-crackin on your first chapter.
Again, I enjoyed this. There weren't many mistakes either, as far as I could see. However, the piece, more pressingly about the orphanage, lacked description (even though, I assume he leaves it quite quickly).
Alright, nit-picking.
You repeat 'made' twice in a brief sentence. That sounds kind of awkward when I read it through in my head, ya know?
Watch that full-stop after Hafmon, there should be a comma.
Watch it, should be 'woman'
Instead of retorted, maybe 'answered.' He's not arguing, after all. Also, I assume the orphanage doesn't want him to be adopted, else they'd warn people he'd try to lie and such. Orphanages usually want the children to get the hell out as soon as possible. Children cost money.
Well, why does he want to avoid adoption, and how is it possible he's had that opinion for so many years? And, even if he does become an adult... he'll have no degree from highschool (those are important, over here at least), no nothing. What will he do? Admittedly I don't know how the process works very well.
Well, that's that for the nitpicks. Once again, this was quite good! You just have some minor, but almost irrelevant flaws.
Hope this helped
~Ita
So you’re saying he was trying to avoid adoption since he was a baby? Highly unlikely.
Overall impressions:
I think my biggest problem with this is the amount of telling in it. So much time is spent talking about his background in the orphanage that it leaves little for the reader's imagination. Also that bit about his father being already dead was not needed.
There needs to be more focus spent when Gary is talking to the couple I think. It's rather disjointed, how it goes from the encounter and his cheeky remarks to them to somehow talking about his background. You could possibly show (or hint) all that through having a longer and better written conversation between Gary and the couple, and how he interacts with the staff at the orphanage.
By the way, I like how you decide to have Gary be a crafty but troubled teen, but that needs to be carried out more. For example, when he sees the crow girl, I expected him to say something witty back to her.
Hope this helped.
Andy.
Hi zephion! This was a really cool beginning. The whole orphan thing has already been done a lot, but I liked that Gary wasn't the typical I-just-want-a-family orphan. I loved his encounter with the people who wanted to adopt him! Very funny.
Shouldn't it be "matron" instead of "patron"? I'm pretty sure that a patron is someone who provides financial support, like a donor, not someone who would actually help run the orphanage. But I might be wrong.
It seems strange to me that Miss Hafmon is still trying to get Gary adopted. He's almost 18. Why wouldn't she have given up by now? It's not like he's going to be adopted for four days.
This is a run on sentence. You should put a period after "bed" and make "The floating girl followed" its own sentence.
The big thing that needs work here is your descriptions. You did a good job describing Gary, but what about Miss Hafman? You didn't say anything about her appearance at all. What about the couple? Even the setting doesn't get described very much, which makes it very difficult for the reader to picture what is happening. What does the inside of the orphanage look like it? Is it chaotic, with toys and books everywhere? Is it old and depressing, or do they have colorful walls and lots of decorations to try to make it more cheerful? Don't be afraid to use all five senses to give the reader a lot of detail. You don't want to go overboard, of course, but we need a little more to work with.
Other than that, I thought that this was very interesting and entertaining. I'm interested to see if Gary will go with the girl, and, most importantly, why is she flying around? Send me a pm if you post anymore of this. I'd love to read what happens next!
Hope I helped!
Magnus
Well there is a prologue too, btw I love your name. Such an awesome series
NVM You already reviewed it. Thanks!
Firstly here is my constructive criticism before the praise.
"“I’m coming Miss Hafmon.” I replied." - This exemplifies a switch in voice from you narrating the story to a first-person perspective. Perhaps "he replied" would have been better suited to make the section flow more smoothly.
"“Do you want some?” Gary asked reaching into his pocket, “I have some righ-“" - I liked this. Usually I would use a "..." before suggesting the character was interrupted but this seems more natural, very smooth.
"For almost eighteen years now Gary had been avoiding adoption, for no better reason than he didn’t want to
be adopted" - Formatting issue around this line. Might be worth a look to edit the unnecessary gap.
Overall very promising submission. You have one heck of a cliffhanger with the girl asking Gary to come with him. Some of your descriptions of Gary however emerge until the latter half of the submission. While you do a good job setting the backdrop in the first paragraph, more planning could have integrated Gary's appearance details earlier rather than its current position.
Yours truly,
Elitehusky
Firstly here is my constructive criticism before the praise.
"“I’m coming Miss Hafmon.” I replied." - This exemplifies a switch in voice from you narrating the story to a first-person perspective. Perhaps "he replied" would have been better suited to make the section flow more smoothly.
"“Do you want some?” Gary asked reaching into his pocket, “I have some righ-“" - I liked this. Usually I would use a "..." before suggesting the character was interrupted but this seems more natural, very smooth.
"For almost eighteen years now Gary had been avoiding adoption, for no better reason than he didn’t want to
be adopted" - Formatting issue around this line. Might be worth a look to edit the unnecessary gap.
Overall very promising submission. You have one heck of a cliffhanger with the girl asking Gary to come with him. Some of your descriptions of Gary however emerge until the latter half of the submission. While you do a good job setting the backdrop in the first paragraph, more planning could have integrated Gary's appearance details earlier rather than its current position.
Yours truly,
Elitehusky