Part One
My name is Emily. I have never been acepted in the big popular crowds. I have some friends but they don't really want to be seen with me so I guess they aren't what you would call friends but they are the closest thing I have. Sometimes I woner what would have happened to me if my mum had never given me away to the care home, if Anne and Brian had never adopted me. I hope my life would have been better than it is now, a lot better actually but I can only dream.
My step farther, Brian is an alcoholic. I have never called him dad to his face. I don't understand why I should. I mean he's never done anything for me apart from give me abuse. As for my mum, well I never really see her. She's always off selling herself to old, drunk men. Then she will come home and tell me what a dissapointment I am to the family even though my grades are the highest in class.
School.. School is pretty much the same as home. People shouting abuse at me from the other side of the play ground. I try my best to keep myself to myself but I can't help but always somehow get in the way of things. I hate it.
I come home and lock myself in the bathroom. I cry into my teddy. Call me a baby I don't care. My teddy has been through thick and thin with me, without him I would be dead by now. He keeps me going.
I supose I should tell you how it all started..
My real mum Jessica, she was a wonderful woman, from what I can remember that is. She was only 16 when she fell pregnant with me. It wasn't her fault. She wasn't the typical teenage 16 year old girl. Who goes out every sunday and gets pissed for the fun of it then gets knocked up by old men in the toilets. She was a hard working girl always trying her best to get A's in her exams. She made one mistake, just one which cost her, her life. She stayed over at her friends house too late and missed all of the buses so she had to walk through the park at 2am in the morning. I'm sure you have guessed what happened by now if not she got raped by an old man and fell pregnant with me, Emily Smith. She gave me up because she was to young to look after me which I understand and I would have done the same if it was me. Thats all I know about my mum she has never tried to contact me since then. Its sad really..
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,018 Literary Works • 672,857 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: So, this was an interesting first chapter here, you've gone for a very specific feel here with this main character and I think you achieve it nicely here, and its pretty nicely done for the most part.
Anyway let's get right to it,
Well, this is off to a intriguing start. I'm sensing a general tone of sadness permeating through the air here in this story, and well it gets your attention quite quickly as a reader to see that we've got this person who appears to have a pretty rough childhood and is now reminiscing about it as she's introducing herself to us. Well, let's see where this is going I suppose.
Soo....those definitely don't seem to be particularly good people, I'm almost wondering how they were even allowed to adopt here if this is how they're treating this person. Its a wonder that such abuse has been allowed to continue, but well, this introduction is leaning heavily into a pretty bad living situation right here.
Well, things just continue to sound worse and worse here, you're certainly starting this story off with someone at a very low point in life having suffered from soo many issues that they're just about barely coping and trying to get through things...definitely a very appropriate title that you have here.
Uuhh....normally I am not the biggest fan of having exposition strewn about in the first chapter like this, but this actually provides some very nice context for that...and while I do still think if you'd reduced the information included here just a little bit that would be for the best, this is a still neat piece of information, certainly gives you a thing or two to think about here.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall, a fairly solid story here...I think its intriguing enough that one would in fact want to read more of this here. Anyway that's about all I've gotta say here.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Hey there, Becky,
You've sketched out a character with an interesting backstory for us here, and that's cool. However, there are a few things I feel I could say that would improve it.
I get the impression from this that the story is likely to be about Emily's life, and how she deals with the drama that turns up as she's growing up. I'd like to suggest that maybe it would be a good idea to begin your story with some scene of the drama she's going to have to deal with, rather than what you have here, which is more of a backstory info-dump - that is, telling the reader everything they might ever need to know about Emily's history. It's quite easy for readers to get bored of infodump, and if a reader gets bored at the beginning, they won't make it to the real meat of the story. I would advise starting with something dramatic and conflicted, and letting us know things about Emily's past through the things she says and does in response to the drama and conflict. We'd be more interested in seeing Emily argue with a classmate than in just hearing her say people shout at her.
I'm afraid there's also an element of confusion in what I'm reading here. Emily talks about her mum giving her up, about Anne and Brian adopting her, and then about her mum abusing her. I know it's tricky to deal with families where there are multiple sets of people who can be thought of as parents, and that's exactly why you need to make sure you're clear about it. I'm assuming Jessica as birth mother, Anne and Brian as adoptive mother and father, and that the mother who gives abuse is adoptive-mother-Anne, rather than Jessica. Related to this, remember that a step-mother or -father is the person married to one of your real parents, not an adoptive parent! Getting the terminology straight can really help in ironing out confusion.
I hope I've helped a little with this. I hope you post more, because it would be interesting to see more about Emily's life and what she's going through. Please feel free to message me with later parts, or if you have any questions about what I've said here!
Happy writing!
Cadi x
This is is a really good piece... This is so STARK and REAL. I can't help but commend you on the way you let Emily's emotions flow out like that! The message is so good, that it completely blinds out the the errors in it.
"My name is Emily. I have never been acepted in the big popular crowds. I have some friends but they don't really want to be seen with me so I guess they aren't what you would call friends but they are the closest thing I have. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened to me if my mum had never given me away to the care home, if Anne and Brian had never adopted me. I hope my life would have been better than it is now, a lot better actually ,but I can only dream."
(I have corrected an error too.)
This is a basic pouring-out-of-her-predicament paragraph. Although informative, it is quite short and in novels, don't you find out about a character's life story over time? That's what makes it good. If you do what's up above, it feels more like a short story, not the chapter of a book.
"
My step farther, Brian is an alcoholic. I have never called him dad to his face. I don't understand why I should. I mean he's never done anything for me apart from give me abuse. As for my mum, well I never really see her. She's always off selling herself to old, drunk men. Then she will come home and tell me what a dissapointment I am to the family even though my grades are the highest in class.
School.. School is pretty much the same as home. People shouting abuse at me from the other side of the play ground. I try my best to keep myself to myself but I can't help but always somehow get in the way of things. I hate it.
I come home and lock myself in the bathroom. I cry into my teddy. Call me a baby I don't care. My teddy has been through thick and thin with me, without him I would be dead by now. He keeps me going."
Contradicting, the same as the last paragraph. But I can't help but say this paragraph got me really interested. A few spelling errors, which will be correct below:(not really that much!)
"My step father, Brian is an alcoholic. I have never called him dad to his face. I don't understand why I should. I mean he's never done anything for me apart from give me abuse. As for my mum, well I never really see her. She's always off selling herself to old, drunk men. Then she'll come home and tell me what a dissapointment I am to the family even though my grades are the highest in class.
School.. School is pretty much the same as home. People shouting abuse at me from the other side of the play ground. I try my best to keep myself to myself but I can't help but always somehow get in the way of things. I hate it.
I come home and lock myself in the bathroom. I cry into my teddy. Call me a baby I don't care. My teddy has been through thick and thin with me, without him I would be dead by now. He keeps me going."
"My real mum Jessica, she was a wonderful woman, from what I can remember that is. She was only 16 when she fell pregnant with me. It wasn't her fault. She wasn't the typical teenage 16 year old girl. Who goes out every sunday and gets pissed for the fun of it ,then gets knocked up by old men in the toilets. She was a hard working girl always trying her best to get A's in her exams. She made one mistake, just one which cost her her life. She stayed over at her friend's house too late and missed all of the buses so she had to walk through the park at 2 AM in the morning. I'm sure you have guessed what happened by now... If not, she got raped by an old man and fell pregnant with me, Emily Smith. She gave me up because she was too young to look after me which I understand and I would have done the same if it was me. That's all I know about my mum;she has never tried to contact me since then. It's sad really..
(I have corrected what mistakes I've seen.)
First of all, old men? Again? This is really sad,true... But still, it looks like you're just trying to summarize everything. Write it out, scene by scene, in a prologue maybe? But just flowing all this out,...there's good and bad in that.
Overall, I liked this a lot and I'm truly interested in it. But it's so SAD!!