“Come on Alice! Wake up, you’re going to be late for school!” Mary, my older sister, yelled. She’s in charge of having to wake me up for school. I feel really sorry for her half the time but then again she gets to wake up earlier than me. I looked over to the door and there she still stood, her face red like a tomato. “I’m up! I’m up! Man, why do you always have to be so loud in the morning?” I whined, annoyed that she woke me up from a fabulous dream.
I guess I should introduce myself huh? My name is Alice Knight and I am a junior in high school. I’m 17 years old! My sister, Mary is turning 19 in a week. She thinks she is better than me because I happen to be in high school still. But despite her arrogance she really is a kind sister. Back in middle school I was ruthlessly bullied by a group of girls who hated me for no reason. My sister would always run to my aid no matter what.
“Alice hurry up already! You only have 10 minutes before you are late! Get up!!” I heard my sister yell again. I hurriedly get up and run into the bathroom, brushing my teeth while brushing my hair with the other hand. ‘I’m going to be late! Ugh why didn’t she wake me up sooner!?’ I think as I put on my school uniform and grab my bag. Mary is standing next to the door holding a piece of toast with butter on it and I rush to grab it after putting on my shoes and with a quick “See you later!” I am off to my school.
I finally see the huge blue building of the school and I start running faster after noticing the clock telling me that I only have 5 minutes to get to class. Just as I arrive into class the bell rings and thankfully my seat is the closest one to the door. “You were almost late again weren’t you, Alice?” My friend, Sarah says during lunch. “Yeah…Mary purposely wakes me up late I swear.” I mutter with my hand on my chin. I never eat during lunch, you see my family can’t afford to get me any of the food here. Me and Mary had to either pack one or not eat at all. Not fair!
My stomach picks the worst time to grumble and I blush looking embarrassed. “Here Alice, we can share.” says Sarah while holding up her lunch. I’ve never been more blessed than becoming friends with her. Her name is Sarah Archer. She’s the same age as me and we’ve been friends since middle school.
“I don’t want to take away your chance to eat Sarah. I’ll be fine when I get home. Honest!” I say trying my best to stop her from offering me any. As much as I would love to eat she still needs to eat too. “Jeez you’re always so stubborn. Come on please? Just eat some of my rice okay?” she insists. Ugh I can’t resist her when she insists like that. “Fine! I’ll eat SOME of your rice.” I need to build up my defense against her. Sarah has this way of making you listen to what she wants. Quite cunning for a sweet girl.
Soon the bell rings to dismiss us, I for one am glad. I cannot stand school. Sarah on the other hand loves it. Nothing makes her happier than discussing her favorite lessons. Seeing her smile is a joy I always love witnessing. Now for my favorite part of the day, going home and doing absolutely nothing but playing video games.
“I’m home” I say as I step inside the house and take off my shoes. “Welcome home honey” I hear my mom say as I pass the kitchen. Yum! She’s making my favorite food ever today. Opening the door to my bedroom I leap into my bed. ‘I’m home sweet bed!’ I think as I cuddle with my pillow. “Alice honey? Wake up, it’s time for dinner.” I hear a soft voice say as they gently shake me. Groaning I open my eyes to see mom standing above me. “Okay mom..” I get up off the bed and stretch before joining my family downstairs.
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,855 Reviews
Timmy here!
An initial impression of your book is unimpressive, I'll admit. You don't weave a sad story filled with teary drama, or an action-packed thriller with muscly men and guns. It's a simple story of a life, and I love that. In a world that always wants bigger, faster and scarier, it's nice to sit back and read a book a reader can truly relate to.
Let's look at a few things I noticed.
Your tenses need help. Throughout most of this chapter, you use present tense (I walk to the store), but you use past tense (I walked) in several places, too. Such as in the bit I pulled out above, you have sister, yelled in past tense, then the next sentence switches to present tense. In my opinion, you write best in the present tense. It seems to flow better in your style and for this book. It just fits. That being said, look over your piece and make that decision for yourself - which one you decide to keep, and the tense you scrap in the end.
Throughout the piece, you have numerous punctuation errors, most of them being a lack of it rather than too much. So what do you need to do? The fun stuff - study. My suggestion for you, instead of reading on the subject too much (that'll come in time) is to read fiction. While you read these books, look at their punctuation! Pay attention to those details, and it'll improve your writing faster than you'd ever believe. While my punctuation has come from completely awful to somewhat decent (so much to improve upon and learn), just reading books and paying attention to those details has helped more than anything else. Once you have that down, read on the subject and learn the rules and names of the parts of punctuation.
Always write your numbers out like seventeen, instead of doing 17.
Something to remember is that this is your first chapter. All you need to do here is introduce your character and the world she lives in - nothing more. No great detail into either one is necessary, and especially avoiding info-dumps. They distract and confuse the reader, inevitably driving them away from your book. It's something you'll need to think about both when editing and writing your following chapters, as you do quite a bit of info-dumping.
An example of your info-dumping. ^.^ Places like this don't move the story along or excite the reader in any way, instead giving them a big pile of information they're expecting to soak in... but without the necessary time and detail to do so. What's the problem? - too much, too fast, too soon. Also, remember to show these kinds of things. They're is a fine line between when you should show or tell something, but in cases like this it's not a question. You need to show by her sister's actions that she's really great as the main character says. Telling isn't enough. So spread it out, give us more detail, but not so fast and not at first! This chapter is an introduction, so limited detail on everything. Just get us in the book and moving forward, then allow the next chapters to pick up the finer details the reader needs to learn about and from the characters.
I'd say especially with character traits, always show them - not tell. It's more personal and gives the reader a touchy-feely way to read.
One final note: when doing dialogue, there's one thing in particular to look out for. To keep the characters' words separated from one another and distinguishable, always start a new paragraph when a different character speaks. It's a given rule of writing we all must follow. Keeps the writing neat and easy to follow. c:
Reading this was a breath of fresh air, even though I must sound as though I hate it from the nitpicks above. I hope I didn't come out as too harsh, because in all truthfulness, I really do love this piece. The character is realistic (as is the storyline), and it has this grounded ambience that draws me to it, something lacking in so many novels of today that explore fantasy, action and horror. I enjoyed this chapter a lot. If you write another chapter... please tag me? I'd be happy to review it. c:
~Darth Timmyjake, still in training
Hello ButterflyWriter235,
First of all welcome to YWS! I hope you enjoy it here
So, I can see you are a fan of anime/manga right? There is a anime feeling to the story and even some japanese habits included.
About Alice and Sarah's interaction scene I think you could have picked up a more intriguing theme instead of Alice not eating lunch and Sarah sharing her food.
At this point we don't really know anything about the story, just that this apparent simple and normal day was but Alice's dream. I don't know if you wanted that way, you know to keep the reader on the blind and later on show us the real story but I think you could add a little bit of information to this chapter. But it is your story and only you know it's direction and control over it.
Keep writing and hope to see another chapter soon!