Hi Ethwe.
I understand that you have formatting issues with this. I hope your future works are not also messed up. If you want to fix it, I would suggest copying the piece into a Word document, or a notepad document, notepad would probably be best, and then copy it from there into the text box for posting.
That aside, I think this is a very interesting look at a different world for me. I am very curious how much younger Chester is from the other boys, and what exactly he looks like. We know he is heavier set, and that he's not a high schooler, so where did he fit in, how did he meet them? All of these questions are things I really want to explore the story for more information to glean.
I do have a few questions about this one individually though, that I think should be answered up front. First off, how is Chester not in his own school? Why is he here at the high school waiting for this gang to skip? He doesn't appear to be told to join them because one of the boys tries to chase him off. If it's pretty common for Chester to skip and chase after them, you could just put again, somewhere and indicate that this is a frequent event.
I'd personally like you to develop a different first line. A school bell ringing feels overused from what I typically read and I feel like it doesn't really delve into the story enough to explain that these boys are actually skipping school. One of my teachers once told me that some people only read the first and the last line of the novel, so with that being said, I feel like the first and the last line are the two lines that need to really encompass the most mystery to hook the individuals into wondering what exactly happened in between, kind of like: We never knew that it would be this hard to clean it all up. Vague enough to make a reader curious, but specific enough to give them hints about what was going on. That's my opinion though, and not something I can really say makes a good/bad novel work.
The thing that I would really like to see improve in this piece overall though, is descriptions. I feel like we need more description of what is going on with basic descriptions of the main characters, and the setting. How hard is it raining? Does it stop raining? Did they get really muddy crawling under the fence? did any of them slip into the mud? How large is this place where they are beating up Chester? Did any of them fail at keeping a straight face and this really isn't an initiation at all? I think that taking your time and really delving into descriptions of where they are at will help improve the visual effect of the piece. One of the reasons this would be useful is because I feel like an aid should have caught them trying to skip school, but they weren't even yelled at in the first place while they left, so I have to wonder how the school yard is set up for them to escape unseen.
I am really curious about how Chester is going to handle this situation when he wakes up.
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