Guardians chapter 1 part one Edited and extended

It was fine
had alot of errors but those can always be fixed
=P good luck

Hey Bolt! One review, coming right up!

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I was supposed to be matched with a couple today. Yet again I would fail to get them and be trapped in the orphanage still.

To be trapped for who knows how long. But it was a ritual I had to endure, and would.

“Hey James.” I [s]heard and[/s] turned to see Zeke at the door.

[s]Zeke was my best friend. We were like brothers. And some people thought that, if not for our total difference in appearance we actually could be[/s]. See me and Zeke had been at the orphanage both for fourteen years. We had been dropped off at the same day, and the same time.

I had dirty blond hair, while Zeke's was snow white and my eyes were electric blue while Zeke's were a pale almost white gray color.

And while that may seem like enough to be brothers it wasn’t.

“Again you say that every time. Get some new material, or stop perching.”

“Be right there.” I called back after her. “Well I’m off to keep my life the same if not worse.”

The women was slender and skinny brunette, she had green eyes and a beautiful face.

The man was tall and muscular, with short black hair and brown eyes. They had my approval of parents so far.

“Is there anything else you go by,” the wife asked

“No I prefer James.” I answered back.

“So you like to write?” Jared asked sounding truly interested.

“What do you write.” He asked again truly interested.

Now I am going to skip this part because it went on for two hours and there is nothing in there relevant to the story I am telling. So lets skip to the end.

And this was the same gaze I always got. It looked like they wanted me to come with them, but they were being forced not to.

“Yeah I guess your right,” Nathan agreed.

Okay boltage, time for a bit of critique. There are a lot of errors here, so I don't think I'll try pointing them all out. You have some issues with punctuation, especially commas and dialogue. Also, a bit of a problem with infodumping.

he was a freighting tower,

“Hey guys,” He said to us.

“Where have you been,” She asked us.

“Not really.” I said as always.

I was supposed to be matched with a couple today. Yet again I would fail to get them and be trapped in the orphanage still. To be trapped for who knows how long. But it was a ritual I had to endure, and would. Because who knew what would happen, though my hopes were not high on adoption as an outcome.

She was a small old lady around fifty five who always wore pink. Her hair was jet black with a touch or dark red to it, with strands of gray running through it. She has the strangest looking eyes you could imagine, they were a mix of every color you could think of with a black tone the over took the others slightly.

boltageman wrote:Tick Tick Tick. The clock rang as the time passed. I looked up and sighed. It was three o’clock, which meant I had another fifteen minutes to dread before my interview. I was supposed to be matched with a couple today. Yet again I would fail to get them and be trapped in the orphanage still. To be trapped for who knew how long. But it was a ritual I had to endure, and would. Because who knew what would happen, though my hopes were not high on adoption as an outcome. The door opened and I heard footsteps.

“Hey James.” I [s]heard and[/s] turned to see Zeke at the door. Zeke was my best friend. We were like brothers. And some people thought that, if not for our total difference in appearance we actually could be. See me and Zeke had been at the orphanage both for fourteen years. We had been dropped off at the same day, and the same time. We were found at the door next to each other in baskets. And while that may seem like enough to be considered brothers, I didn't think so. I had dirty blond hair, while Zeke's was snow white and my eyes were electric blue while Zeke's were a pale almost white gray color. So, I chose not to completely believe that we could be related but, I treated the situation like so.

[s]And while that may seem like enough to be brothers it wasn’t. While I had muddy blond hair, Zeke had snow white hair. While I had had bright electric blue eyes, Zeke had pale almost white gray eyes. So I chose not to completely believe it, but treated like I would a brother.[/s]

“Hey Zeke,” I said, standing from the perch on my bed.

“So you think today’s the day?” Zeke asked[s] me[/s].

“Not really,” I said as always.

“Why not? I heard this couple is eager for anyone,” he responded.

“Because. One you always say that. And two, I always seem to do great with them, but then right before they accept it’s like something comes over them and then they say no.”

“Eh. Just because you got a few no's doesn’t mean you won’t get a yes eventually. So why can’t it be today?”

“Again, you say that every time. Get some new material, or stop preaching.”

“James!” I heard the shrill voice of Ms. Syder, the lady in charge of the orphanage. She was a small old lady around fifty-five who always wore pink. Her hair was jet black with a touch or dark red to it, with strands of gray running through it. She had the strangest looking eyes you could imagine, they were a mix of every color you could think of with a black tone the overtook the others slightly. And though she seemed nice she was mean, and the meanest to me.

That paragraph about Ms Syder is all description, and a bit boring to read. Try and mix her description with her actions, that way us readers won't feel like it's just been dumped onto us!

“Be right there,” I called back after her. “Well, I’m off to keep my life the same, if not worse.”

“Wish you the best,” Zeke said as I left. Walking down the stairs I [s]had[/s] didn’t have much [s]more[/s] to think about. I think you should take out that sentence; it doesn't add anything to the story. I arrived in the interview room to find a quaint little couple who looked about twenty-five each. Ms. Syder sat at her desk facing them, her face covered in a hefty layer of make up. Her black hair, with much gray, was tied in a bun. You said it was jet black, before. Stay consistent. The couple was much more appealing to the eye. The woman was a slender [s]and skinny[/s] Slender and skinny mean the same thing. brunette. She had green eyes and a beautiful face. How is it beautiful? Tell us! The man was tall and muscular, with short black hair and brown eyes. They had my approval of parents so far.
I took my place with Ms. Syder. Sitting down, I tried to smile but I could tell it came out like more of a lip twitch.

“Hello, I’m Jared, and this is my wife, Cindy,” the man said smiling.

“James,” I said.

“Is there anything else you go by?” the wife asked.

“No, I prefer James,” [s]I answered back.[/s] It's obvious that he's answering, so you don't need the tag.

“Okay, James. So where do we start?” she asked.

“Well, usually you ask a few questions about what James likes, then you chat a bit, and then we finish,” Ms. Syder explained.

“Okay then. What’s your favorite subject in school?” Cindy asked.

“I don’t know, English. I take a creative writing course,” I replied.

“So you like to write?” Jared asked, sounding truly interested.

“Well, yeah. I write a lot. I keep a notebook full of stories with me,” I responded.

“What do you write?” he asked again, truly interested.

“Mostly fantasy and sci-fi, but sometimes a more down to earth fiction,” I said. I tried to sound enthusiastic but I couldn’t. This was so remedial to me by now. It was something I did once a month at least, and it was hard for me to suffer through them knowing rejection was going to come in the end.

“Any sports you enjoy,” Cindy asked happily.

“I like tennis, and basketball,” I told them plainly.

“Well, anything-“Jared started to speak, but his phone began to ring. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a blackberry. “Oh sorry, I gotta take this.” He strolled out of the room phone in hand.

“Well, if you don’t mind I’ll take this time to go to the bathroom,” Cindy said. “Where is it?”

“Turn right out the door then it’s the second door on the right,” Ms. Syder said.

“Thank you,” Cindy replied and walked out the door.

“James,” I heard Ms. Syder say.

“Yes,” I answered.

“You need to try harder, James, or you’ll never get adopted.” Ms. Syder said this in a way that almost sounded sincere. But it wasn’t.

“Okay, I’ll try,” I told her, acting cheerful.

A moment later the door was pushed open and Jared came in, followed a few seconds later by Cindy.

[s]Now I am going to skip this part because it went on for two hours and there is nothing in there relevant to the story I am telling. So lets skip to the end.[/s]
That's very unnecessary - it's okay to skip events in a story without telling the readers! ;-)


* * *


“So,” Ms. Syder said, when the time had run out. “What do you think?”

“Well, I think it's obvious that we are going to ado-“ Cindy started but then seemed to freeze for a second. Then with a shake of the head she resumed. “Well, we’re going to have to say no.” Then the couple got up and walked out. But before she walked out I saw them look back. In their eyes I saw what looked like pure sadness, mixed with a hypnotic gaze.

This was not the first time I got a look after rejection. And this was the same gaze I always got. It looked like they wanted me to come with them, but they were being forced not to. But I never really paid attention. All I cared about was the fact that they had rejected me, the reasons unimportant the gazes even less.

So after a minute I got up and left. Ms. Syder didn’t even say a word of comfort. She never did. And it wasn’t because I didn’t listen or care, it was because she didn’t care. I didn’t mind that she didn’t, I wouldn’t care either way. Walking up the stairs I shook off the little bits of disappointment and sorrow I had. When I finished my journey to my shared room I was met with the site of Zeke, along with Nathan.
Nathan was my other best friend. A fellow house kid. He was a tall kid, about six foot two; he was a frightening tower, though he could never hurt a fly, outside of a video game. He had red hair that he usually hid under a hat because it was so short and his eyes were a pale[s]d[/s] green that always looked a bit frightened.
They were both standing in the center of our room. The room was one of the larger ones I was rewarded with for my birthday. See, the rooms in the house were sorted by age, and when you turned a certain one you get moved up. The reason was because most of the time the older you got the least likely you were to get adopted so they thought that if you were going to be here long you should be more comfortable.
The room [s]though[/s] was pretty plain. It was a cubical with four beds parallel each other with plain white blankets on top of each and then same type of nightstand and lamp next to each of them. We had limited space so we couldn’t really hang posters and the ones we could had to go through Ms. Syder’s insane rules on them. Insane how?

“So how did it go?” Zeke asked [s]me[/s].

“Well, I’m here alone, so guess.” [s]Was my answer.[/s]

“I’ll go with it being no,” Nathan guessed half-heartedly.

“Then you would be correct,” I said, before crashing into my bed face first.

“So what you wanna do now” Zeke asked.

“Let's go to the center to play some video games,” Nathan suggested, but it sounded more like a command.

“Sure,” I said and hopped out. “I could use some brain numbing violence right now.”

So with that we got up and out of the house. The shabby little hut didn’t look like much from the outside, but for me it was home and that was enough [s]for me.[/s] We arrived at the center about a minute or two later. The center was a community center that all the kids at the orphanage spent most of our time at. It was for the whole town, but no one else really came. They all had the stuff in their quaint little suburban homes.
As we pushed the door open we felt the cold rush of air conditioning hit us. It felt good. The inside of the center was its usual plain self, blue walls and blue carpet with a few tables. A few doors were placed on the sides and we selected one on the right. The door revealed a TV with an Xbox and Wii.
Nathan walked over and turned the Xbox on then plugged it into the TV. Selecting a random control I collapsed into a beanbag chair and welcomed the site of Halo three. For the next hour we battled with the guns and lasers. I imagined the others characters as the couple I had met. It felt good to release my anger from them. But eventually the time ended and Bobby strolled in.
Bobby was a kid who was seventeen. He had abnormally long hair down past his shoulders and eyes that he said were green but we could never see. His clothing choice was bright and mostly tie-dye. His whole look screamed hippie, and he was, sort of. He drove a van with the swirled colors, he went to peace rallies and all the other stereotypical hippie things. He also was in charge of the center when the adults were away. Sounds like more than "sort of" to me. Maybe you could insert a "but" to tell us how he's not like a hippie, if that makes sense.

“Hey guys,” he said to us.

“Hey Bobby,” the three of us said in unison.

“Sorry, but we’re closing up for the night. So you got to go,” Bobby said, and gestured us to go out the door.

The three of us got up sourly and piled out the door. We left the center and arrived home in a minute. There we were welcomed by the unwelcome sight of Ms. Syder. "Welcomed by the unwelcome" sounds weird.

“Where have you been?” she asked us.

“The center,” Zeke said, as he pushed through. ...pushed through what? Her? The door?

Nathan and I were about to follow, but before we could Zeke came back. In a moment we found out why. Standing next to Ms. Syder was Mindy.
Mindy was Ms. Syder’s assistant and if Ms. Syder wasn’t the devil, Mindy was. She was a small girl, about four foot one-even though she was thirteen- and was skinny to the point of creepy. Her red hair fell down past her waist and down to her knees. And her eyes were an unnatural black color, and they were filled with what to me looked like pure evil. Which they were, just like the rest of her. All she did was tattle on the other kids, or try to find something they loved and take it. Everyone in the house hated her, but Ms. Syder, and because of that we couldn’t touch the little devil.

“Oh no no no, you are not going any where mister.” She said that with so much authority I almost froze.
I looked to Nathan and saw he was a bit panicked, like he always was when Ms. Syder was around. No surprise there. But Zeke was one. He was actually frozen, and I don’t mean just still, I mean frozen. His right foot was suspended in step about an inch above the ground, His eyes were in mid blank and his mouth partly open, among other things. But I knew he wasn’t joking. Because he was quivering, his whole body was shaking [s]because it was hard for him to do it[/s], he looked like he wanted to move but could not.

I looked to Ms. Syder and saw she was staring at Zeke very hard. But when she noticed my gaze had landed on her she stopped and then Zeke moved. His foot hit [s]and[/s] the ground and he stumbled, his eyes were watering and he was panting from the energy it took him to stay like that for so long.

“Now come,” Ms Syder commanded. And before I knew what had happened I did. It was so strange, my body just started walking on its own. Following Ms. Syder involuntarily I was lead into her office with Zeke and Nathan. “So, did you know we sent a search team after you?” Ms. Syder continued.

“You did? Why didn’t you search the center first, that’s where everyone goes,” Zeke told her.

“Well, we didn’t exactly call the search team,” Mindy said shrugging. “We asked Jim and Nick to go look for you, but I think they probably just wanted an excuse to go goof off.”

“True, they are a kind of lazy,” Zeke agreed. Which was a first for him.
“But still,” Ms. Syder continued. “You disappeared with out a word and have been gone for four hours. And you expected us to not worry. Really, your generation is such a pain. But never mind that pain, right now it's time for punishment. I’m sorry to say this but I am suspending your center privileges for two weeks.”

“Two weeks,” Nathan whined. I felt sad for Nathan; he was obsessed with video games and TV, so with the center away he would go mad. While me and Zeke could deal, I could escape into reading and writing to fill the center’s gap, and Zeke…well he could deal with anything, how was beyond me it was his secret.

Nathan wanted to argue with Ms. Syder but I grabbed him shoulder and dragged him out of that. “Arguing will just make it worse,” I told him as we left.

“Yeah, I guess you're right,” Nathan agreed. So I was able to release my grip on his shirt and let him walk freely to our room.

You still didn't fix any comma errors.

You may not realize it, but it is extremely difficult to read this piece/chapter without an adequate amount of commas.

Read this story out-loud, Boltage Man (notice my use of a comma there!). I believe you'll find you don't read out-loud they way you want your story to be written.

Commas indicate a pause in the text. With out them, you run right over natural pauses, and the story becomes very confusing.

~~~~~~~Sakura~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay I swapped the stories out in the first post on this.

Also thank you everyone who reviewed already, much appreciated.

Hey, Boltage (is that a word?) Man!

Right now there are far too many errors to do a line-by-line critique.

Instead I'm going to give you some (hopefully) helpful grammar hints.

Comma Usage

Commas are used to separate independent clauses. In other words:

I love dogs. I love cats. These are two sentences. They can become one sentence: I love dogs, and I love cats.

You also need to set off interjections with commas. Interjections are words that have nothing to do with the main idea of the sentence, but are simply added in.

This includes names.

Names should always be offset by commas.

Correct:

"Hey, John, let's go to the movies Friday."

Incorrect:

"Hey John let's go to the movies."

Correct:

"Wow, Richard, your pet bird is crazy!"

Incorrect:

"Wow Richard your pet bird is crazy."

A good way to learn where to put commas is to read your writing outloud. Whenever you naturally pause, add a comma.

Take the sentence:

"Susan Jacob and Lily walk over here please."

Where do you naturally pause?
You pause after the words:
--Susan
--Jacob
--before and
--after Lily
--before please

So write it like this:
"Susan, Jacob, and Lily, walk over here, please."

I'd recommend reviewing your basic knowledge of commas.

Here are some websites and articles:

dailygrammar.com

viewarticlebody.php?t=19162

Proof-reading

You have many blaring spelling errors. Run this through spell check before you post it.

Sorry to be so harsh.
Fix these little errors, and I'll be glad to do a line-by-line.

--Sakura

Hello. I've been much anticipating this. Here are my comments~ (They're in bold)

“Hey James.” I heard and turned to see Zeke at the door. Zeke was my best friend. We were like brothers. And some people thought that, if not for out total difference in appearance, we actually could be. See, Zeke and I had been at the orphanage both for fourteen years. We had been dropped off at the same day at the same time. We were found at the door next to each other in baskets.
And while that may seem like enough to be considered brothers, we weren't. I had dirty blonde hair, while Zeke's was snow white and my eyes were electric blue while Zeke's were stormy gray. So, I chose not to completely believe that we could be related but, I treated the situation like so.

“Hey Zeke.” I said, standing from the perch on my bed.

“So... you think today’s the day?" Zeke asked.

“Not really.” I said, as always.

“Why not? I heard this couple is eager for anyone,” he responded.

“Because, one; you always say that, and two; I always seem to do great with them, but then right before they accept it's like something comes over them and then they saw no.”

“Eh. Just because you got a few noes doesn’t mean you won’t get a yes eventually. So why can’t it be today?”

“Again you say that every time. Get some new material, or stop perching.”

“James!” I heard the shrill voice of Ms. Syder, the lady in charge of the orphanage call. She was a small old lady around forty five (where I come from, 45 is considered middle age.) who always wore pink. And though she seemed nice she was mean, and the meanest to me.

“Be right there.” I called back after her. “Well I’m off to keep my life the same if not worse.”

“Wish you the best.” Zeke said as I left. Walking down the stairs I had didn’t have much more to think about. I arrived in the interview room to find a quaint little couple who looked about twenty five each. Ms. Syder sat at her desk facing them, her face covered in a hefty layer of make up. Her black hair with much gray was tied in a bun. The couple was much more appealing to the eye. The women was a slender and skinny brunet with green eyes and a beautiful face. The man was tall and muscular, with short black hair and brown eyes. They had my approval of parents so far.
I took my place with Ms. Syder. I sat down and tried to smile but I could tell it came out like more of a lip twitch.

“Hello, I’m Jared and this is my wife Cindy,” The man said smiling.

“James.” I said.

“Is there anything else you go by?” The wife asked.

“No I prefer James.” I answered back.

“Okay James. So where do we start?” She asked.

“Well yeah. I write a lot. I keep a notebook full of writing with me.” I responded.

“What do you write?” He asked again.

“Mostly fantasy and sci-fi….” I said. Now this conversation went on for another hour and I’m not going to bore you with the tedious details. So I’ll skip to the end of it.

“So.” Ms. Syder said when the time had run out. “What do you think?”

This was not the first time I got a look after rejection. And this was the same gaze I always got. It looked like they wanted me to come with them, but they were being forced not to. But I never really paid attention. All I cared about was the fact that they had rejected me, the reasons unimportant the gazes even less.

Well 'ello there!
I will review your story for you! Its a classic orphanage/orphan thing is it? No matter, its all fine by me. It interesting, can't wait for the magic part! Anyways onto the review!.....

foot steps.

if not for out total difference in appearance I might to.

Me and Zeke had been at the Orphanage

“Hey Zeke.”

“So you think today’s the day.” Zeke asked me.

they saw no.”

my life the same in not worse.”

twenty five each.

skinny brunet,

I said/

“Is there anything else you go by” The wife asked

So where do we start.

I don’t know English.

I keep a notebook full of them with me.

and sci-fi….

Then with a sake of the head resumed.

I was meet with the site of Zeke

“I’ll go with It being no.”