Published November 26, 2016
Sometimes, I sleep like a baby. I pass out at eight o’clock, don’t wake up until seven the next morning, and feel great when I wake up. Those nights are great. I don’t dream. I don’t revisit past experiences. I don’t mourn things that happened years ago. I don’t live in the past. I just sleep and escape all of the pain and unsettling feelings that remain dormant in my head. It makes life simple, easy, and jovial.
Most of the time, however, I struggle to close my eyes without seeing the demons of my past. They recreate feelings of inescapable demise and devastation. They are the demons of loss, solitude, and desertion. They make life unrelenting, painful, and inescapable. Sometimes, I embrace them. I allow them to run rampant in my head, controlling what I say and do, what I see and don’t, and what I want and don’t want. But, most of the time, I fight. I try to keep my head above water just long enough for the morning to come and the demons to retreat from the sun.
Then I go through my day, trying to smile and prevent everyone from seeing or becoming what I already am; controlled by demons. I don’t think I’m a bad person, not at all. I just think that the past influences too much of my present. I have things going for me that most could not dream of. I have a loving mother, nice friends, decent grades, a nice house, a car, and a dream girl.
Before we get into all the personal stuff, I should introduce myself. I, my dear reader, am Derek. Most people, however, call me Rek. Apparently it stems from my childhood when I used to ruin everything I touched. For example, the day after my Mom bought her new Mustang, I vomited all over the front seat. It doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, except that the seats were leather. To add to the tragedy, I, being the seven year old I was, didn’t tell anybody until forty minutes later when they couldn’t do anything about it except replace the seats in the car.
I also play varsity basketball, despite quitting for five years, another reason the nickname sticks. I supposedly wreck everyone, at least that’s what the team tells me. Everyone at school adores my determination to get anything and everything that I want, but how many of them know the truth? Very few, my dear, very few. The main problem with everyone in this awful town is that they just scratch the surface of everyone. Sure, most people know the big events that happen and everyone knows everyone. But, no one here wants to know more than your drama and how you look in public. They don’t ask about your home life, your past experiences, or the chaotic wreck that you may call your family.
Almost everyone is like that, but she is not. She wants to know everything about everyone. Their deepest secrets, their past, every crease and crevice of everyone. She is determined to discover all of the information possible for every person that she becomes close with. I don’t know why. Maybe she wants to use it against them in the future to better her situation. I seem to lean towards the possibility that she may just want to help everyone. My family and friends warn me about her, but what am I supposed to do? Just completely cut off the girl that I see as the love of my life?
More importantly, I don’t have any friends that know me or want to know me like that. I’m the type of person to be alright with everyone, not on incredibly bad terms with anyone, but I also don’t have any good friends or a best friend like most people do. Normally, kids my age go out on Saturday nights and have fun. Kick it, maybe have a drink or two. You know what I do on Saturday nights? Sit in my room and read. I don’t find a life of chasing highs and experiencing things that the law doesn’t want us to experience very fun. What is fun to me though, is the beautiful sound the net makes when a basketball slides perfectly inside. Or the sound the keys make on my laptop when I type words that might mean something to someone, someday.
All of this is the outcome. The end to an unsettling beginning. Let’s take a journey. A journey throughout my life. We’ll go through nearly 10 towns, 14 schools, hundreds of teachers, thousands of faces, and one girl who will forever change the course of my life.
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>Sometimes, I sleep like a baby. I pass out at eight o’clock, don’t wake up until seven the next morning, and feel great when I wake up. Those nights are great. I don’t dream. I don’t revisit past experiences. I don’t mourn things that happened years ago. I don’t live in the past. I just sleep and escape all of the pain and unsettling feelings that remain dormant in my head. It makes life simple, easy, and jovial.
aight good so far
>Most of the time, however, I struggle to close my eyes without seeing the demons of my past.
and wham i get practically punched in the face by the cliche. ow. it's okay to say "demons of his/her past" if another character's describing them, barely, but in my opinion saying that unironically about yourself is just... cringey. i know that's an overused word on the internet these days shush
>They recreate feelings of inescapable demise and devastation. They are the demons of loss, solitude, and desertion. They make life unrelenting, painful, and inescapable. Sometimes, I embrace them. I allow them to run rampant in my head, controlling what I say and do, what I see and don’t, and what I want and don’t want. But, most of the time, I fight. I try to keep my head above water just long enough for the morning to come and the demons to retreat from the sun.
this one feels 50/50 to me. it works, for sure. but this is the beginning of whatever you're writing, right? feels like the character's diving in way too deep way too fast. like a stranger just walks up and sits next to you on a park bench and starts talking about his divorce and alcoholism. like, dude. chill. i don't even know you.
>Then I go through my day, trying to smile and prevent everyone from seeing or becoming what I already am; controlled by demons. I don’t think I’m a bad person, not at all. I just think that the past influences too much of my present. I have things going for me that most could not dream of. I have a loving mother, nice friends, decent grades, a nice house, a car, and a dream girl.
>Before we get into all the personal stuff,
lol
> I, my dear reader,
>Very few, my dear, very few.
>But, no one here wants to know more than your drama and how you look in public. They don’t ask about your home life, your past experiences, or the chaotic wreck that you may call your family.
i'm getting serious mentally-ill-serial-killer vibes right now. if that was what you were aiming for, then bravo. if not... uh.
>All of this is the outcome. The end to an unsettling beginning. Let’s take a journey. A journey throughout my life. We’ll go through nearly 10 towns, 14 schools, hundreds of teachers, thousands of faces, and one girl who will forever change the course of my life.
this is your hook. granted, it's a nice hook, but you've just presented a full page of exposition to the reader on a character they don't even know yet. what you should be doing is cutting to the action as fast as possible. i have a feeling most of what you've written will be irrelevant to the story or can be easily slipped in later, when your reader is more comfortable and invested in your character, and ergo more likely to care about... Derek's basketball skills and "demons".
Hello, Bailey! I'm Artemis28 for a review. Happy Review Day!
But I honestly wish you the best of luck with a potential story, so keep writing!
Let's start at the very beginning. I noticed something right away--you repeat great (twice), and I feel like there are many much better words out there to replace it. How about amazing? Try to increase your vocabulary. On the other hand, your first line was interesting and a bit funny.
"I pass out at eight o’clock, don’t wake up until seven the next morning, and feel great when I wake up. Those nights are great."
Later, the repetition shows up again with the word "wreck." I suggest "the chaotic mess that you may call your family."
Well, that was the grammatical stuff. Now onto the content!
This was pretty interesting. I love how you keep the girl a bit of mystery because that draws people in even more. However, I feel like you tell more than you show (which is an important device in literature). You can say how this girl influences the narrator, but not directly. Maybe later in the story, you can mention what came out of her actions, but try not to straight-out say that she did it. Do you get what I mean?
I feel like the exposition went a little downhill. The whole talk about demons and covering it up was intriguing, so I won't say much about it. It kind of makes your readers expect you to do better, but my interest wasn't as captivated as before. Try to imitate the style of your first few paragraphs and see if that helps.
I hope you don't feel this review is too harsh. If you do, let me know and I'll try not to be too mean.
XOX,
Artemis28
This is a good beginning, but I would've liked it more if the story was less vague. There are two ways that I can think of off of the top of my head. The first could be to edit this chapter a bit and add some more description to your examples, so it'd feel less like telling and more like actually experiencing them. Another is to explain it in further detail later on in the book, and this chapter could just be a building block to a bigger story. I really like how you pulled it all together though to come to a single point, however. Especially with the outcome and sense of loneliness. Since you were referring to telling a story, I'm assuming you'll explain more in later chapters.