Published July 14, 2016
I lay in my bed, reliving the impact, the glass, the pain, but it’s washed out by the defining sounds of sirens that ring in my ears. Even closing my eyes, I can still see the flashing lights and rushing paramedics. My heart beat won’t slow down and my hands keep shaking. My face stings from the tears that cling to my cheeks but I can’t complain. I may be a little bruised and have scars, but I’m laying in my bed, alive. Some people don’t even have that, like Tessa.
Twenty six hours earlier…
“Girls get in the car we’re going to be late!” Mom shouts from the kitchen, closing the fridge and grabbing her purse.
“Coming!” Tessa yells and hurries down the stairs. I’m not far behind her when my mom starts screaming again.
“Jamie! Get down here or we’re going to be…” I stop her before she gets a chance to finish.
We scramble in the car, Tessa in the passenger seat and I’m in the back, like always.
“So, I’m hanging out with Zara after school if that’s alright.” I say, stuffing a granola bar in my mouth.
“Are studying for that science final again?”Mom asks making eye contact with me through the rearview mirror.
“Well, it’s already Junior year, so if we want to get into AP classes next year a few days of reviewing can’t hurt. I mean, college is right around the corner so we better start working hard now.” I explain. Mom doesn’t really understand how important it is to get things like scholarships and that would require amazing grades.
“Well, either way, be home by curfew.” Mom says in a serious tone. As if I would any reason to be out later than 10:30.
“I can pick you up after your done if you want? Tessa asks, reapplying her eye shadow in the car vanity mirror. “I mean, I’ll probably leave Alex’s party are 10:30 anyway, so I just swing by Zara’s before going home.
“Don’t drink Teressa if you are driving, especially with Jamie in the car.” Mom warns, just as we pull into the high school parking lot.
“Bye Mom!” Tessa says, as we grab our bags and get out of the car.
“Have a good day girls!” Mom says waving at us.
Who would of know how important that moment would soon mean to mom in a few hours.
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140,080 Literary Works • 673,000 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
First Impression: Well...this was quite an interesting little start to a story here....well..quite sad at any rate....knowing what we know from that little introduction, well...this is truly quite emotional to read...ahh...just knowing what's about to happen and witnessing the setup to it is...ahh.torture.
Anyway let's get right to it,
Alright, getting things straight to a flashback I see...that's an interesting decision there...starting off with the end result of things in that introduction and then going back to the beginning....well I've seen this start a lot in movies but hmm...not in a novel before...but alright, setting the scene quite well so far, pretty relatable scene of the mother yelling at everyone to hurry up.
Okay...seems like your typical early morning scramble that you expect to see in pretty much all families...xD..certainly that you can easily relate and so makes for a pretty decent little star to this chapter here.
AHh...loving this conversation here, certainly does a wonderful job really showing how such situations tend to play out here in real life...and well also lets us know what kind of relationship the people in this car share, which is also pretty helpful to the story here.
Hmm...yeah that is a pretty late curfew...well...as threatening as her mom being protective there sounds, it actually looks like her mom is relatively lenient there at any rate...also hmm...someone having to convince their mother to go do some extra studying is something that not all of us can relate to...xD...that is usually the other way around.
Uh oh....judging by the way that that introduction earlier went it looks like that is going to be that fatal car ride...and ahh...well now I'm already quite sad..knowing that its two sisters that are going to end up in this crash and it looks like one of the sisters will be lost in said crash.
Well, that's a very appropriate ending there....oh my...well...a very dangerous ending there...just creating an eerie and echoey feel of death just heading their way...and the feeling of a mother saying goodbye to one of her daughters for the last time...ahh...well...this was more emotional than I expected it to be.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall, a pretty fitting start to this story, judging solely based off on the introduction, you create the background of this loving family and then show how they connect to one another, and also establish what I assume is the fatal car ride...and well...that's going to make that impact when it finally happens...be just that much more powerful.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Hey there, here as promised. I'll start with nit-picks:
So I'm thinking that it might be a good idea to put "the glass, the pain" into parenthesis or put ellipsis around it or something. If you separate it in some way it would change the tempo and we would hear your narrator dwelling on the thought of the pain as if they really are back in that moment.
I realise the yws formatting doesn't help much with this but you probably want to distinguish this in some way from the other paragraphs. I quite like doing this: "***** 26 hours earlier*****" but style is up to you.
This is 2 sentences.
You don't really explain how the character stops her. I'd assume it's by getting down the stairs and meaning she has no reason to shout any more, but I shouldn't have to guess this. Just slip in a "by slipping past her and out to the car" in there somewhere, or something like that.
You missed a space.
The first full stop/period should be a comma in both of these instances. It should only be a full stop if the verb after the speech marks doesn't have anything to do with speaking, like sighed or stared or something.
This sentence doesn't really make grammatical sense. At the very least it's two different sentences, so you want to cut the "and", but you probably want "they" instead of "that". Also, this is less nit-picky because it's an actual point I want to bring out later. Be very careful about just directly telling your readers things. It is way more fun to deduce things like that yourself. This is something my teachers always complained at me for, so don't worry about forgetting it at times. Just always think - "show don't tell".
I think you're missing "have" between "would" and "any". Also ten-thirty is remarkably specific. Is that your character's curfew or something?
You missed speech marks
and a "can" between "I" and "just".
There should be commas around "Teressa". It's also a slightly awkward sentence, imo. I would write it as, "Remember not to drink if you're driving, Teressa". It just seems unlikely that this would be the first time Tessa has ever been told not to drink and drive, which is how the sentence reads.
There should be a comma after "says" but I've seen you do that plenty of times so I'm sure that's just a typo.
Two things about this little bit. 1, "know" should be "known". 2, I know it sounds like "of" when you say that phrase out loud but it's actually "have". "would have known".
*****
Onto more substantial stuff.
I've touched on the show don't tell stuff so if you want any further explanation of that let me know.
I like the way you are trying to put the first person narrator's voice into what is happening, but it doesn't always quite come across. You could try using some less than impartial adjectives to describe actions. So I'll give you an example. "Tessa avoided Mom's eyes then said, "Bye, Mom!" and scrambled out of the car." So here you could have the character describing Tessa as acting guiltily, which would indicate that she didn't want to promise her mum she wouldn't drink and drive. Of course, I don't know that that's what's going to happen, but there's been some hints and that's not really the point anyway, just an illustration.
You might also want to add a little more of how the other characters feel about each other. I got the narrator thinking the mum didn't really get how school worked, and the mum having a tendency to nag, but it would be interesting to know how Tessa views the mum and how the mum views Tessa. The warning about drinking goes some way towards the latter but it's not really clear whether she thinks Tessa would actually do that.
Let me know when the next chapter is up and hope this helps,
Biscuits
OMG THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH! You found all of my mistakes that I missed and your ideas are great! Sorry I haven't been on lately but I'll review for you right now. Thanks again:)
No problem, and thank you in advance!
Heya! Casanova here to review!
I really like this. But it's been a while since I've done a review for a chapter, I'm mainly sticking to poetry and songs. I'll give it a shot though!
The first thing I noticed was a run on sentence, which was the first line.
"I lay in my bed, reliving the impact, the glass, the pain, but it’s washed out by the defining sounds of sirens that ring in my ears." It seems as if this could be broken into two sentences and written,"I lay in my bed reliving the impact. The glass, the pain, but it's washed out by the defining sounds of sirens that ring in my ears." It seems to give it a better flow, and works well.
The next thing I noticed was,"My face stings from the tears that cling to my cheeks but I can’t complain." It seems as if you should use a comma here,"My face stings from the tears that cling to my cheeks, but I can’t complain."
The next thing I noticed was,"I mean, college is right around the corner so we better start working hard now.” I explain." Instead of using a period here to separate the voice speaking and the sentence, you should have used a comma(I think!!)
Besides things like that, I really didn't notice anything of importance. I make these mistakes all the time myself, so they're not really that big of a deal.
I really like your chapters, and I hope to see more from you. I WANT THE REST OF THE STORY DANGIT. SO GEHT TO WRITIN' BUCKO!
Sincerely yours, Matthew Casanova Aaron~
Thanks. Just a few things to address, like the first sentence. I wrote it like that to give it dramatic effect. Like everything was just piling up in her mind. Thank you anyway.
Hey, this is really nice.
Grammatical Etc. errors:
There should be you in between are and studying.
There should be have in between would and any
This seems like a typo and I think you meant to saw at instead of are.
Ok so this section is a little choppy and almost robotic. I just feel like someone would actually say this in this way. I like the main idea of it though so maybe try re-writing it. Here's an idea
Anyway that's just an idea.
Characters: We don't learn that much about each character personally except a couple tiny things. It's not bad, but just a little lacking. Hopefully you will add more in the next chapter.
Descriptions: You had very little descriptions. I could see the background just barely, but you didn't gives me any specifics. Maybe add what type of car their mom has. Also there was no description of the characters so i don't know what to see when I try to imagine them. You do have a good amount in the first paragraph, but after that it drops off.
Plot: The plot seems interesting and seems to have a lot of potential. This chapter leaves us with lots of questions. Including one's like, how did they crash?
Overall this is really well written piece that I definitely enjoyed reading. I can't wait to read more.
Good Luck and Keep Writing
Sláinte -Junel
Thanks!