Love to hear what you think =) (and I fixed the paragraph issue)
Chapter 1: Layla “Darling, won’t you ease my worried mind?”- Eric Clapton
A song can make or break a person, whether you’re in a band or not. Feeling angry? Go blast some Hawthorne Heights. Feeling sad? Pop in some Paramore and dance your heart out. Music is the one thing that can take your whole day and sum it up in about three minutes. And today was a good day, I could feel it. So, here I am dancing around to Stadium Arcadium (Red Hot Chili Peppers, if you didn’t already know). I had just gotten to the awesome guitar solo on ‘Snow’ when I heard a knock at my door, only to see Jude rocking out on an invisible air guitar. I couldn’t help laughing; I love my brother so much, and he’s all the family I’ve got at the moment. I mean, Dad’s down in Africa helping out with the whole Rwanda civil war. Don’t get me wrong, admire what he’s doing, but I just miss him so much sometimes.
The song ended and I flopped on my bed, staring at the sky through my glass ceiling panel. Our house is so amazing; Dad had it perfectly drawn to the smallest detail, and he was always adding stuff to it. We added two extra bedrooms, a loft and another bathroom after Rose (my mom) died. My Dad had inherited a substantial amount of money from his parents a few years after she had... left us. Jude threw a pillow at me “There’s still some breakfast down in the kitchen, if you want it.” I shook my head and kept staring until I felt Jude’s hand on my arm. He smiled and spoke softly “You’re guitar’s back, by the way. It’s in the hall closet.” I sat up suddenly. My guitar had been in the repair shop for the last two weeks.
I ran down the stairs, down the hall and opened the closet. There she was; my six-string acoustic guitar. Simple, basic and absolutely beautiful, I loved that guitar more than anything outside my brother, Dad and...Him. “I knew you’d want it, especially today of all days.” I turned and looked at him, confused. He smiled “Reilly and Robin are coming over. They just got back last night, and they can’t wait to tell us all about it.” Reilly and Robin Tegan, my other favorite people in the world; Reilly has been my brother’s best friend since before they were born. Our parent’s went to college together, and stayed close ever since. Robin, Reilly’s twin sister, is also thrown in there to make them the dream team that I love. They had gone off to Paris (France, not Texas) for a semester abroad, and I had missed them like crazy.
I walked into the kitchen, laying my head against are hard metal counter. I stared out into the purple sky, wondering what I would do today. Reilly’s coming home today...My heart did little back flips in my chest, my face warm with excitement. He’s coming home, and I can finally tell him how I feel. I can tell him how much I missed him, and how I spent the last eighteen weeks wondering what he was doing. Where he was, who he was with, and all the people he was meeting...Oh no. What if he met some little French chippie? I mean, I know he wouldn’t want me anyway, but still. I’ve been crushing on him since we were little, but it got really strong when I was fifteen and he told me that he would take me to prom. He was a junior at the time, and I felt so special, having someone already ask me before it was even an option. Over time, I thought he’d forget about it and ask a girl in his own class, but then March came around and he was asking me what color dress I had picked out for the dance. I was ecstatic that he remembered, and we had so much fun that night last year, going out to Santa Cruz and walking on the beach with Jude and Robin.
I looked at the clock and sighed, waiting for time to speed up so we could go meet them. Their parents had decided to stay for another couple months, considering they had nothing to get back to. This was their big retirement trip, and I remember Mandy (Mrs. Tegan) telling us how she’d live there if she had the chance. So we were now responsible for getting Ry & Birdie back home in two separate but equal pieces. It was the most important requirement asked of me all spring, and I was more than happy to tackle it.
I walked out of the kitchen, wandering down the hall to the double doors of the “Music Room”. It was sort of like a secret hideout for Jude, me and the Tegan kids; I opened the doors to reveal the comfortable white room, our black grand piano and all of our various guitars lined up in perfect order. His black Les Paul, my white Stratocaster, my dad’s old gold Gibson were all just right; flawlessly tuned, faultlessly maintained, hours of love and affection poured into them.
I looked around, seeing my mom’s old pictures all over the room; she had the same small body, same grey eyes, and same copper hair as I did. Dad used to say how when I was little, I looked more like her sister than her daughter. I remember, just before we found out she was sick, we went to the ice cream parlor and the server looked at me and said “So...Taking the little sister out for ice cream, are we?” We laughed so hard, we left the store in tears. I picked up my acoustic guitar, pulled the strap over my head, and unclasped my necklace to string my pick off the chain. That’s a thing we do; we never leave are guitar picks lying around, we wear them. Mine’s on a necklace, Jude wears his on a wristband, Reilly has his on a keychain and Robin has her in her ear. It’s just one of those things.
I took a deep breath, and I closed my eyes. I strummed the chords and kept rhythm with nothing on my mind, just the colors and shapes zooming across the darkness:
And I don’t understand what happened between you and me but,
You will probably end up with someone twice as good as me, so
I don’t care if you do look in my eyes and say hello.
You were blind to me, now I’m blind to you, oh.
It was now or never. While I played, I imagine the encounters of the airport and what we would say to each other; exchanging pleasantries while unloading bags off the carousel, sitting in the car for two hours listening to CDs they picked up in France. Stealing glances at Reilly when he’s staring out the window, counting how many shades of brown and blue I can find in his eyes. Waiting for Jude and Robin to get out of the car so I can tell Reilly that I love him; I love him. I really do.
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Canary word: Present
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,854 Reviews
Ok. This is my first review ever. So, here it goes. First, I really like the piece. It's really well thought out. I hope to see a second part out soon. Second, paragraphs would really help the flow and structure of this piece. That way it's easier to tell when you're changing speakers or a different direction is being taken. Overall it was really good. Keep it up!
So, usually I do a lot of nit-picking, but I think most of the stuff I was going to say was already pointed out. I'm just going to reiderate the need for paragraphs. People can figure it out, but we're usually lazy so paragraphs makes eveything easier.
I love this piece so far. Especially the characters. I hope to see a second part to this go up soon.
Good Job and Keep Writing!
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LittlePetRock already mentioned this, but you need paragraphs. Paragraphs make reading so much easier, and considering that a number of people, myself included, tend to review as they go, having paragraphs makes it so much easier for us to find our places after we stop to make a comment.
Semicolon instead of a comma would be more appropriate here because although the two halves of this sentence are closely related, they could stand alone as separate sentences. I'd also suggest getting rid of the "and" and rephrasing this sentence so it isn't necessary.
Just say "my mom". Is it really necessary for us to know her name right now? Also, why would they be expanding the house when there were fewer people?
Who is "she"? It's not clear if you meant Rose or the narrator's grandmother.
When did Jude get in the room? I thought he was outside the door?
What is the narrator staring at? Since when have they been staring?
How did the narrator know her (I'm assuming) guitar was in that particular closet? Also, you don't need to tell us every single step she took to get to the closet; it sounds like a step-by-step replay if you do. "I ran downstairs and opened the hall's closet door" still gets across that she ran downstairs, down a hall, and opened a door, but it's much less boring than how you have it phrased currently.
Semicolons are for when you have two sentences that are closely related; colons are for lists. In this case, you are listing what "she" is.
"Outside" really isn't the best word to use in this case. Also, capitalizing "Him" struck me as very cheesy. Can't we just have the name?
Who is "him"?
This sentence just struck me as awkwardly phrased. There's also a tense shift from past tense to present. Watch out for things like that. There are a couple other tense shifts scattered throughout which you should be able to find if you read things through carefully yourself. A good way of catching things that feel off is to read your work aloud; if it sounds funny, or if you trip over something, it's usually because there's something that needs fixing at that spot.
When most people hear "Paris", they think France.
Combined with the "Him" sentence, the first bit I've pointed out just reads wrong. I suggest getting rid of the "my other favorite people in the world" and replacing it with something like "my two best friends". It makes much more sense overall.
Why the abbreviation? Just write out their names, especially since R&R usually stands for "Rest & Relaxation".
"Requirement" is not the word to use here.
Grammatically, whenever you are listing people with yourself included, you always mention yourself last.
Whose Les Paul?
The semicolon does not belong here.
Overall, you need to work on transitions between ideas and actions. You also need to watch your pronouns and verb tenses; you use so many pronouns, it becomes unclear who the pronoun is referring to, and the shifts in tense are very jarring. Also, you need to learn how to use more advanced punctuation, namely semicolons, properly before you can use them in your writing. You also lacked descriptions; tossing around brand and artist names do not a good description make. How does your narrator feel when she is playing? What does music sound like to her? What shade of white is the Music Room? How large is it? What makes it comfortable? Etc.
As for the story itself, so far, it struck me as cliche material. It didn't capture my interest, and it didn't make me want to read on. Then again, I don't much like the romance genre in general.
Hi! this is my first review... I'll go easy on you as long as you go easy on me
Every thing is good! Keep writing, but remember to stay in one vein of the story, and whenever a character speaks, make a new paragraph, it makes reading it much smoother.
Those are called skylights...
It should be parents not parent's 's are possessive (as in 'Jill raved and talked about how much she loved Jane's dress' not 'there were two cat's prancing down the lane').
I think 'I glanced around, seeing photographs of my mom all over the room' it's reads smoother, in my opinion...
There's my first ever review!! *whew* glad that is over!