Rushes of excitement and nervousness fill my body. It is time for me to go, leave my friends and family behind to start a new life at Nordington Prep Academy, the most prestigious school in England. It is only one hour until we arrive at the airport, and four hours until my flight leaves. All I can think about is if I will like the school or not. It is too late to turn back. Ever since I made my decision, I have been filled with mixed emotions, but somehow, deep inside of me I know I made the right choice. It’s kind of like a sixth sense, I have always been able to sense something deep down, telling me whether to do something or not. Sometimes I think it is the reason I do so well in school. Almost like cheat notes, deep inside my body. But, I’m pretty sure the main reason I do so well on tests, is studying, every night I study for 4 hours, no matter the circumstances. I may not be the most intelligent kid in the world, but sure do I study hard. When I was young, I was told I may have a learning disability, but boy, did I sure prove them wrong when I got straight A’s all across the board in grade three. My parents even considered moving me up a grade, but they decided I was already being teased enough, and that would just make matters worse. But, I don’t think it could have gotten any worse, I have been teased for a long time, just because I’m smart. It just doesn’t seem very fair to me, maybe moving up a grade would have even helped. I never seem to fit in, even though I have only been to one elementary and one high school. Everyone, even the new kids seem to fit in fine, but that isn’t the case for me. That is one of the main reasons I am going to Nordington, I really want to fit in somewhere for once. My mom tells me that there will be me other kids like me there. Smart, hard-working, and dedicated. I don’t even need the students to be like me, I just need to be able to get along with them decently. As I look out thehe window I catch glance of a sign, it reads ‘Pearson International Airport’ and had an arrow pointing forward, we were going to be arriving very soon! My emotions went spinning, I was so excited though! Then, I thought about leaving, and flying off to England, leaving my parents behind. I suddenly got a sick feeling to my stomach. A feeling I have experienced before, when I was young and my parents went away for a weekend. But, I have never been away from my parents for more than one week. The only time I have even been away from them for one week, was when my parents went on a cruise 2 years ago, and it wasn’t that bad at all, to be honest, it was kind of fun! I am not the one to get homesick. So I know, once I’m there, I’ll be fine.
The car came to a sudden jolt, I looked up startled, but it was just the car parked in the parking lot. That was kind of stupid of me. I was so lost in thought, I forgot all about it. I open the door, and jump out of the car, there was a fresh white blanket of snow surrounding the car. “I think I might even miss this snow.” I say to my parents. They chuckle a bit and when they’re done laughing my mom says “Don’t worry, you’ll have the rain to make friends with.” I give off a small smile. We take our luggage out of the trunk and carry it towards the airport. When we reach the airport, it is packed, the line ups are huge. Last time I was in the airport it was coming back from visiting my family in British Columbia, and there wasn’t nearly this many people. Well, it was at 3:00am, and I don’t completely remember how many people there were, but I still didn’t think there would be this many people here. We walk over to the end of one of the never-ending lines and wait, and wait. It seems like nearly an hour has passed when we’re next in line. We walk up to the counter and give a uniformed man our luggage, and he checks our passport and that’s it, we’re done. I can’t help but complain about that line, I am very impatient! “All that waiting, just for that?” My parents don’t reply, all they do is roll their eyes. That is all they ever do when I complain. In general my parents are quite quiet, but we can do this thing where we understand each other from our facial expressions. We've passed security and are in our gate, and we still have one hour left until the flight leaves. Not much to do and a lot of time to blow. I had breakfast on the way here, so I’m not hungry. There is nothing I want to buy. So there isn’t much else to do besides sit down and think, like I always do. Once again I get lost in thought, I am completely incoherent when this happens, everything around me has no meaning, I just think about the most random of this, such as why there are wrinkles on my knuckles or about computers and how they work. Whenever I sit down for a long period of time, I always get lost in thought, it allows me to tune people out and reflect on my day. I am totally out of it when I hear a voice come from the wall, “Flight 406 to London, England is now boarding.” “That’s me.” I say to my parents. I gather up my carry-ons and give my goodbyes to my parents. We all gtt a little emotional, I think my mom was crying but I can’t be sure. I was able to keep my tears under control though, it would be embarrassing for me to cry in public. After I have said my goodbyes and hugged my parents it was time to go, time to go off, and start a new life, in a new country. I was next in line to board, I hand over my tickets and look over my shoulder. I don’t say anything though. I just stare at my parents, telling them good bye with my facial expressions. I turn around and walk down the long corridor on the way to the plane. Everything is so similar. I have only been on a plane twice before, but both times, I walked through a tube similar to this one. The walk seemed much longer than it was, I used the time to think more, more about leaving this life behind and starting a new, fresh one in England. I get to decide who I am. I get to have a new reputation, new friends, and a new school. This is something many people never have the opportunity to do, but I do, I am lucky enough to escape the tortures of my new life and start a new one. It isn’t long until I am on the plane seated and the plane is in the air. I don’t pay much attention to the people beside me, a middle aged couple. One of them has his earphones plugged in, probably watching the movie on the screen, and the other seems lost in a world of her own while reading a book. I look at my watch, 2:30pm, it is still very early, but I am very tired, so I decide to have a sleep. I slowly drift off. I have always enjoyed the sensation of movement, cars have always helped me sleep, and the sensation of being in a moving jet isn’t much different.
When I wake-up, not much seems to have changed, other than the fact that almost everyone around me is asleep. I look down at my watch, it is 8:00pm, so only 1 ½ hours until we arrive in London. I slept much longer than I expected, but it will do me good. The time is five hours ahead in London. So by the time I arrive at the hotel, I will only have 2 hours to sleep, and then we'll have to meet with the dean of the school and get settled in my dorm, and hopefully make a few friends. I am glad I don’t have to start with classes right away, and that I am arriving on a friday. That gives me the chance to recover from the imminent jetlag. With nothing else to do I close my eyes, and drift back to sleep. Soon I am awaken from the wound of a voice, coming from the speakers, “Hello, this is the captain speaking, we are now going into descent please fasten your seatbelt and put your luggage under the chair in front of you, thank you.” I quickly fasten up my seatbelt and get ready for our descent. I begin to wiggle my jaw back and forth, to prevent my ears from popping. By, now I am not as nervous as I once was, I am much more excited. Excited to start up my new life! As we are descending I stare out the window, from this height, London looks exactly like Toronto, tall buildings, lots of lights, that is all I could see. But, as we begin to get closer I notice more, no snow, and no rain! That’s good! I didn’t want it to rain on my first day here, I wanted at least one day to settle in before the rain started down pouring. As we are about to touch the ground, I have a look at my watch, 9:22pm, exactly on time. I brace for the impact, but the landing seems very smooth, I couldn’t really feel anything, just hear the wheels rubbing against the asphalt. It took about another minute until we were completely stopped. And then, everyone began to clap! I didn’t really know what for, but since everyone was doing it, I did as well. Since I was on the seat closest to my aisle, I was the first one from my row to rise. I took out my single carry-on from underneath the seat, and tossed it up and over my back. Once again, when we walked out of the plane door, we arrived in a long corridor, this one though, looked a bit different. The flooring was green opposed to the usual blue. And, there were different ads on the walls. Of course for Canadian National Airlines, the airline I flew on. This time, the walk through the tunnel didn’t seem nearly as long as the first time. Maybe it was because I wasn’t completely lost in thought, or maybe it wasn’t as physically long as the last one, or a combination of both. When I am out of the tunnel, I look around. I was told there would be my guidance counselor standing with our school sign, he would be the one take me to the hotel for tonight, and the school for tomorrow. I quickly locate him, and walk over over to him, unable to hold my smile. As soon as he notices me coming towards him, the guidance counsellor calls out “Hello, you must be Kevin, my name is Mr.Carr.” I quickly noticed his thick London accent. He holds out his hand to shake, I hesitate, but I do decide to reach my hand out and shake hands. “Hello, Mr.Carr.” I say quietly. I have always been quite a shy person, but I thought I would be more confident when I first met my guidance counselor, Mr.Carr. I think Mr.Carr can sense my nervousness, and doesn’t say much the rest of the way through the airport, besides the occasional “I’ll get that for you” or “This way.” Mr.Carr seems alright so far, and if I can’t make friends right away, I’ll have him there to talk to. I let out a small sigh of relief. But, I wasn’t too worried about not making friends anyways, especially with my roommate. When you’re with someone in such a small space for so long, you can’t help but make friends. Well, at least that’s what my mom told me, and I think I can trust her. Once, I gather up all of my luggage and out of the airport, Mr.Carr and I head towards what I think is his vehicle. It is quite a long walk, it was probably about twenty minutes. As we were walking through the parking lot, I noticed all the different cars, most notably the steering wheel was placed on the left side of the car. I wasn’t at all surprised though, I knew that the cars would look like this, I just never really saw one up close. Mr.Carr’s car was the same, it was a nice burgundy colour, and the steering wheel was placed on the right side of the car. I was going to comment on his nice ride, but I decided I shouldn’t. I was afraid it would come out sarcastic, because I wasn’t really sure if this was a good car. So I decided to say nothing when I got into the front seat of the car. The grey leather was nice and clean. I was pretty sure he didn’t have any young kids. I remember, when I was younger, the cars got so messy. I would throw my tissues, my food, and anything else on car floor. But, this man’s car was very clean. During the ride home I got to know the guidance counselor better. “So, Kevin, you’re from Brantford, Ontario?” he asks.
“Yes, have you heard of it before?”Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,856 Reviews
Hey Alex, Em here with the review as requested.
Spelling and Grammar:
‘As I look out thehe window I catch glance of a sign’ I’m pretty sure you meant to say ‘the’ instead of ‘thehe.’
‘They chuckle a bit and when they’re done laughing my mom says “Don’t worry,’ I think you left out a comma in-between the word ‘says,’ and the quotation marks, so it should look like this, ‘They chuckle a bit and when they’re done laughing my mom says, “Don’t worry’
‘British Columbia, and there wasn’t nearly this many people,’ I think ‘wasn’t’ should be ‘weren’t.’
‘We all gtt a little emotional,’ ‘gtt’ should be ‘got.’
‘I am glad I don’t have to start with classes right away, and that I am arriving on a friday.’ ‘Friday’ should have a capital ‘f’.
Seven times you spelt ‘counselor’ wrong, it should be ‘counsellor.’
‘I quickly locate him, and walk over over to him,’ you say over twice.
‘Mr.Carr,’ should look like ‘Mr Carr’
‘Once, I gather up all of my luggage and out of the airport’ I think there should be the word ‘get’ in-between the word ‘and’ and ‘out.’ You can use a different word there if you like.
‘When we arrive at the hotel lobby, there is a man and a woman behind the front desk’ you need to change the ‘is’ to ‘are’ since there are more than one objects behind the desk (the woman and man.)
‘“Yeah, everytime a new student from a foreign country comes to Nordington Prep.’ ‘everytime’ is too words: ‘every time.’
‘we always stay in this hotel, that is how I got to know them’ ‘we’ should have a capital.
You spell ‘tv’ without capital letters, it should look like this, ‘TV’.
‘There was no shows I recognized,’ this should be, ‘There were no shows I recognized.’
‘Before I know it, I am off to sleep. With my computer sitting on my lap, and 2 pillows behind me,’ this should be one sentence.
‘ I no I shouldn’t be nervous to talk to Mr.Carr. But,’ ‘no’ should be ‘know.’ And it should be ‘Mr Carr, but’ because it should be one sentence.
‘but this time there is two different managers at the front desk.’ ‘is’ should be ‘are’.
‘I stop and look at them for a short moment,’ you have an extra space in-between ‘a’ and ‘short’
‘When I sit down in the car I notice how tired I am. Even though I just slept for a while.’ This should be one sentence.
‘All of the dorms were located in this one building. And all of classrooms and campus on the other side of it.’ Again, this should be one sentence.
‘with what looked to be man made carving on it’ ‘man made’ is one word, ‘manmade.’
‘And is dressed in what looks to be a suit. A crisp black suit, with a collared red shirt underneath.’ This should be one sentence.
‘your our dorm number is 1486, you are on floor 8,’ this doesn’t make sense, you either meant to write ‘your dorm number is 1486, you are on floor 8,’
‘She then reaches her hand out and over her desk to hand my a room card,’ ‘my’ should be ‘me’.
For a plot that would generally be boring to most people, you did keep me interested. I think this may be because your character really engages with the reader. When I was reading it though, I did expect for something to happen apart from your character going to London and starting at a new school. Your title makes me think about your work, and it intrigues me. To make your reader read the next chapter, I suggest you hint that something big is going to happen.
‘Little did I know, this school held deadly secrets’ as a bad example. You just need that last sentence to keep the reader interested.
I think since your character Mr Carr starts to act hostile you’re hinting that something isn’t right. This intrigues me into wanting to read more.
You developed your main character nicely, I feel like I know him just by reading your story.
I recommend braking your story up into shorter paragraphs just to make it easier to read.
Maybe, adding a prologue to your story would help engage the reader. My prologue in the novel Lunar Blaze involves a battle and lots of action. I wrote this prologue to introduce the bad guy, and to draw my reader in. I’m not sure where you’re going with your novel, but I don’t think a prologue wouldn't hurt.
Now, for your age, I consider this really good. You sound smart, you have some good description. You only have a few mistakes, I think i've pointed them all out.
If you have any questions or anything, just shoot me a PM, I am more than happy to help. I’m sorry it took me so long to review. It’s been a little hard for me to concentrate lately.
Yours truly, Em XD
Hey AlexWaterfall,
(First of all, so that I don’t confuse you, I’m MorningMist – I had my name changed and also changed the name of my WRFF thread to fit it. Anyway, I’ll get straight to the review; thank you for requesting it!)
The first thing I want to say about this chapter is that I really do like quite a bit of what you’ve got here. There’s a lot of detail here, and quite a firm foundation to the character of Kevin. As a read, I’ve found out quite a lot about how he reacts to things in this – also that he is an intelligent boy, and wishes to be an astrophysicist. I like all of this. All the same, there are a few more things I would like to know about Kevin through the story; for one thing, how old is he? I would also have liked to find out his name a little sooner through the course of things. Perhaps I missed it, but the first time I noticed his name was quite a way through the chapter, when the dialogue begins.
However, although I like quite a bit of this as a draft, I also think there’s a lot here that needs work. I’ll point out all of these things now; with some editing, I think you could make this a lot better.
The main thing that I had trouble with in this was the size of your paragraphs. There are no set rules on how long a paragraph should be; in professional writing there are paragraphs of all sizes, some of them being incredibly long while others are comprised of just one short sentence. However, I do think for a beginning chapter that the paragraphs in this were consistently too long. As I read it, I found that my eyes didn’t like the great long paragraphs so much and began to skim them, just a little. My advice would be to read through it, and just split it into a few more paragraphs. Always move onto a new paragraph when the topic changes slightly, there is a gap in time, the character is thinking about something else, the story has moved to a new place, etc. If you need a guideline, try aiming for about 5-6 sentences in a paragraph, but let paragraphs which are naturally meant to be a bit longer or shorter run their course.
Moving on, I want to talk about your opening sentence. Opening sentences are hard – it can be really difficult to find one which is both original and draws the reader in. Yours is fairly good. It made me wonder almost immediately where this excitement and nervousness was coming from. At the same time, it didn’t strike me as a particularly unique one. I think that through editing and thinking about it, you could come up with one which will draw a reader more into the story. Which brings me to my next point: in the first paragraph, you’ve presented the reader with a lot of information.
As I already said, I liked that there was a lot of detail in this chapter, but so much information in this one first paragraph may be too much for many readers. I found myself beginning to skim it, quite honestly. Which brings me to the importance of showing, and not just telling too much. Here, in the first paragraph, the narrator – Kevin – is telling us about his academic history. This may be important to the story, but told in what seem to be over twenty sentences in the first paragraph, it’s too much and not likely to draw many readers in. It’s not creating images in my mind, not making me feel as if I am there, not making me relate to Kevin much. The aforementioned things are those which tend to draw a reader into a story and root them there.
Showing, rather than telling, would be to create a picture in my mind – as you have in some instances here in the first chapter. Sometimes telling is necessary, but it should be introduced at appropriate points and kept to a minimum. I think you could do a lot better if you showed us some more in the first paragraph – perhaps you could jump straight into Kevin’s story at the airport – make the reader feel more grounded, right there with him.
I noticed this a lot throughout the story. The glimmers of a really good story are rooted in there, but often buried deep underneath piles of information we don’t really need so much. You could sum up in a few sentences that Kevin is a gifted student and this is his reason for going to a school in England – but as soon as you’ve done with that, jump into the moment. Don’t clog this up with too much backstory.
Similarly, whenever I begun to feel drawn in, I was faced with another of those long paragraphs with just too much detail in. Pick the most important details and keep them; the ones which really stand out and create that scene and story. Again, be careful not to repeat yourself too much. This could easily be sorted out just by going through the story. Always keep your first draft of a chapter, even if you prefer the new one so far. Cut the sentences which aren’t absolutely necessary to the story, and try to find other new ways to make the reader feel what your character is experiencing. By doing this you are polishing the story and making it more compact, living, breathing. There’s a lot here which I really think would make a good beginning to a story were you to do that.
There are a few small errors I noticed in this, which I’m not going to dwell on too much but thought I’d better point out all the same. For instance, although most of this is in present tense, I noticed a few slips – I’m not quite sure if some of them were deliberate or accidental – back to the past tense. I suggest, again, that you just go through this and try and clear up a few of those slips. It confused me as a reader when the tense suddenly changed for a few sentences and I could see no real reason for it to do so.
There were also a few typing/grammatical errors in this. I noticed quite a few small ones. They don’t matter much, though, and can easily be straightened out by putting the entire story into a word document and running a spelling/grammar check. Note that word sometimes messes things up, though, and therefore it’s good to go through it yourself, as well.
I’ve focused quite a lot on the technical side of things in this review, rather than the story. To return to the story – again, I like what you’ve got so far fairly well, although as this is the first chapter it hasn’t developed so much and so it’s difficult to say much about it. However, I am curious to see where this goes – how you develop Kevin as a character, and what the deal turns out to be with this ‘school like no other’. In this first chapter the events seemed to be pretty ordinary. Since I like drama and excitement quite a lot, this almost disappointed me a little – perhaps you could add some more interesting event, such as something going wrong at the airport, to this when you edit? Still, I expect there’ll be a lot more events of interest as the story unwinds and I’m curious as to what they’ll be.
I think I’ve mentioned just about everything that needs to be mentioned here now. Again, I can really see the beginnings of something really good here. Your passion for writing comes through, but in some places it seems like you have tried to include too much. In a way, it’s better to include too much than not to include enough! Editing is the way forward. I hope none of this seems to harsh – again, I just wanted to try and point out everything that came across to me while I was reading this – and that you do carry on writing and developing this.
Keep writing,
~Niebla~