it was early in the morning when Ben woke up to the sound of his phone's alert, the song that was playing was Karen's favorite song so Ben looked at his phone's calendar and what he thought was right "it's Karen's bday" Ben said to himself, even though he had been planning her surprise party for quite a while he had some worries about it like would she like it will anything go wrong but then he thought of the smile it would put on Karen's face when it came together so he put his younger sister who was a good friend of Karen in charge of keeping her away until they got it ready. Ben walked to his sister's room which was right across the hall and knocked on her door. after no answer he kept on knocking until he heard soft footsteps on the carpeted floor and opened the door "good morning Ann" Ben said to his half asleep sister "good morning Ben" Ann said with a soft yawn. Ben’s sister was 2 years younger than Ben and was fairly skinny she had long brown hair that was put into different styles but was down for now, she got along with Ben fairly well even though she acted like she severely disliked Ben but most of the time got along with him. " so you ready to keep Karen out until we can get this place ready for the party?" Ben said "sure what time is it anyway?" Ann said still half asleep " like 8 already, everyone should be here around 12 by then I’ll have stuff ready to be put up" Ben said "alright and Karen should be here in a few minutes right? so let me get dress and I suggest you take a shower and get dressed to" Ann said before closing the door. after Ben showered and put on a collared brown shirt and some blue jeans he met his sister, his little brother and his baby sister down stairs. "good morning" Ben said as he passed them to get some cereal from the cabinet "good morning Ben" said Ben’s mom Vivian "good morning mom, Karen's going to be here in a little bit so we need to hid the decorations until she leaves" Ben said taking the box of fruit loops from the cabinet and sitting at the table with his bowl "alright, I can’t wait to see how the party turns out" Vivian said with a smile. Ben’s dad wasn’t home because he had already gone to work. they all ate breakfast when someone knocked at the door, Ben walked up to the door and said "who is it?" and Ben heard the soft voice of star "it's me" she said, Ben opened the door and he was greeted with a hug and kiss on the cheek "good morning" they both said then Ben invited her inside "did you already eat?" Ben said as they walked to the kitchen " ya" Karen said when they got there "I got some stuff to take care of all day so Ann is going to hang out with you, what do you say?" Ben said looking at Ann "alright, also long as you make time for me later" Karen said "of course, now you two should get going" Ben said almost pushing them out the door " alright we're going" Karen said walking the rest of the way out of the door with Ann " why's he always so eager when he's busy" Karen said "well he's always been that way" Ann said, they laughed and that was the last thing Ben heard before hearing the metal gate open and close. now he went to the closet and got out the decorations and started to set up with help from his little brother matt finally after 3 hours of decorating it was ready Ben sat on a chair and admired his work from the pink streamers to the stars hanging from the canopies and the paper make flowers and little suns, the tables had different colored table cloths. Ben looked at his watch and it read 5:00 pm and people were starting to come, after half a hour of people Ben sent his sister a text that said "everything's ready bring her back" and he got a message that said "kk" 10 minutes later Karen and Ann were coming up the street and Ben said "their coming everyone hide" and they did when Karen came through the gate everyone jumped out and said "surprise!" Karen was definitely surprised and happy. " so, what do you think?" Ben said and Karen ran up to him and gave him a hug and whispered " I love it" matt took a picture with Karen's camera and showed it to her " what a nice photo" Karen said taking the camera " you’re welcome" matt said. the party went on people at the food Ben’s mom had made for the party. and star got to dance with Ben. "this is a great party Ben" Andy said when he sat at the table Ben and star were at "Ya you did a great job" Cindy said " thanks I tried my best, come on want to see my room you two" Ben said getting up "sure" Andy said "come on Karen" Ben said grabbing Karen’s hand "alright I guess we can slip away for a while" Karen said walking with Ben, Andy and Cindy to Ben’s room. they entered Ben’s room and it looked like your average teen's room a computer, a desk and closet but what made Ben’s room special was that he had one of Karen's albums. "oh what's this?" Cindy said grabbing the album "oh that's my favorite pictures that Karen's taken when we were younger, look" Ben said taking the album and opening it on a close by table, it had various random pictures that Karen had taken during school and times she had came over but one that caught Cindy’s eye was one of Ben And Karen dancing and they looked like Ben didn’t have a care in the world " Ben what happened to you? you look like you are so carefree in this picture" Cindy said pointing to the picture " I had gotten a concussion last year knocked out some of my early memories and well after that I was never the same, now I worry about a bunch of things, but Karen is getting me out of that" Ben said smiling " Ya I changed him to what he is today" Karen said with a laugh " thanks" Ben said laughing too and soon Cindy and Andy joined them in a short laugh. Cindy and Andy continued to look though the album wile Ben and Karen went out to Ben’s balcony " this party really is great, thank you" Karen said " I just wanted to keep that cute smile on your face" Ben said " aww, well mission accomplished" Karen said smiling, it was time for the cake and Ben’s mom yelled up the stairs " Ben; Karen time for cake come on down" Ben and Karen came back in from the balcony " come on let's go get some cake" Ben said putting the album back on his desk and they went down stairs. Karen sat in front of the cake and Ben stood next to her, the cake was a ice cream cake custom made by Vivian it had Karen's favorite picture of her and Ben after they sang happy birthday she blew out the candles " what did you wish for?" Ben whispered in Karen’s ear " Ben, you know I can’t tell you or it won’t come true" Karen said back "alright" Ben said then Karen cut her cake and they went back up stairs to eat on Ben’s table in his room. " this was a fun birthday" Karen said to Ben " it turned out better than I expected" Ben said laughing a little and then came the finally event of the night Karen opened her gifts then slowly people left and Ben gave Karen his gift a new picture for her locket: it was a picture of him and Karen standing in front of the very same tree at the other picture of them younger but this one was of them recently and they hugged one last time till Karen had to go home she thanked Ben and his family for throwing her a party and left.
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
i have read and am taking your comments into consideration. i'll be editing this and then post here.
Hi!
I like the way you've blended your physical description of anne into the plot, it flowed really nicely. However, personally I find there's too much description. Generally speaking writing is more exciting when stuff is happening as opposed to when things are being described. For example, instead of telling the reader that ann gets along well with Ben, you could show that they do through their interaction (although I did quite like that sentence).I think this piece needs a bit of an edit for grammer, just things like missing commas, full stops, quotation marks and capital letters. It kind of puts the reader off and takes away from the stories potential. I hope this is enough to work on, if you have ant questions just pm. Make sure you keep writing!
Firstly, I'd like to say that some of your sentences are too long, remember that each sentence should contain only one idea (just as a general rule)
-Rachel
Hey, Ben.
Before I start reviewing, I'd like to repeat what Squall mentioned. You need to chop your text into neat paragraphs, consider punctuating your sentences, and edit this out. I won't elaborate since Squall has already beat me to it.
1. When you address a person directly, you use a comma. Like, "Good morning, Ben." You need to sort that out. Also, when you're writing 2 years younger, you need to write 'two years younger'.
2. You made a mistake. You used to where you needed to use 'too'. I'm not specifying the place on purpose-because I want you to figure it out yourself. So, to help you out-here's a short article- Difference between 'to' and 'too' Don't worry-many people make such kind of error, so it's better the earlier you learn your mistake.
3. "their coming everyone hide" Instead of 'their' it has to be 'they are'.
4. Honestly, Ben there were so many mistakes that at a point I just got bored pointing them out. I don't want to sound harsh, but I don't know how I can say this without being a bit rude-your grammar needs serious work. Not to undermine your confidence or anything, but if you want to write you need to have a solid knowledge of the technicalities and the grammar of the subject you're dealing with. Or else, there's seriously no point.
I could help you with the problems in this text, and if you're interested, PM me. I seriously think you have huge potential to improve.
5. Conflict wise, there was nothing in it as a 'story'. It was okay if you see it as a 'memoir'. I guess that since the MC's name is same as yours, it's your personal story. Anyways, the things Ben did for Karen were really sweet-but nothing strike me in this to be called a story, if you know what I mean. It didn't have that spark.
6. Plus, you need to punctuate your sentences, as I mentioned before. Since you're 16, I'm pretty sure you do know the rules. You have to write the first letter of a sentence in its capital form. Just take care of that.
7. I've seen that many other reviewers have helped you out with the grammatical points. So, all in all, I'd suggest you work on your grammar-and yes one of the ways is to read more, and write more.
Good luck!
~Mia
Hey there.
So yea, first of all, you should consider paragraphing to make your ideas more clear and organized. Each new paragraph should talk about a different idea. Right now this is rather hard to follow.
Your sentence structure could also use some work. Notice how you tend to start with "Ben did this, Ben did that?" It's so monotone and boring to read. It also doesn't help that I think you have quite a bit of fluff here. You tend to describe exactly every single action or dialogue the characters, but it does little to move the story forward.
If you plan on editing this, sit back and consider what is important and what is not. The important things should be key points or vital info the reader needs. Leave the rest for the picture to fill in.
The first thing I would like to point out is the fact that you don’t always capitalize the beginning of every sentence. For example:
The "a" in after should be capitalized.
And to re-phrase what Demeter was saying, having a break in the story is not a rule exactly, it just makes it much easier to read. Try breaking the paragraphs so it’s not just a big block of words.
Should go more like
Now, you may be wondering about all those commas. I know I didn't quite understand them but I'll explain (please tell me if I confuse you, I always fear doing that. And if I come off as rude I am not trying :/ sorry if I am)
When Andy here is speaking, he is speaking to Ben, of course. If the character is talking to a character then you would need a comma before their name as seen in the example above. But this is only if they're addressing the other person.
Let us move along to the #FF0000 ">," stuff I added.
If the dialogue ends with anything relating to "said" then there should be a comma before the dialogue ends. Now if Andy had done some sort of action it would have been different. Example:
If the dialogue is followed by action and no "said"s in sight, then a period belongs there.
Another thing I noticed is how sparing you are with your punctuation. Your sentences are very, very long. Try putting in some more question marks or periods or exclamation marks.
That’s all for today, I suppose
~LP
Hey Ben, just a quick comment - people might be put off by the big chunk of text, so I suggest you add some line breaks to ensure you get more reviews
Thanks, and see you around!
Demeter
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