Chapter 1: Average
An average day for James Volt during Christmas break would consist of drawing, writing, studying, being alone in his room, and thinking about, well, what sixteen-year-old people think about. His bed would be clean and tidy. His room would glisten from his three massive computer screens displaying various kinds of learning materials, most of the time having to do with his favorite subject and passion, physics. His door would be shut and locked so no one could interrupt his hardcore study sessions. After, he would go to soccer practice. Soccer was his favorite sport, and his second favorite thing to do. Then, if he got lucky, his parents would be home and they would have dinner together. Since that was highly unlikely, he would just have some dinner with himself and his family’s butler, Henry. After dinner and a conversation with Henry, James would shower, study a little more, and watch some television until he fell asleep.
His looks were as good as his IQ. He was taller than average, for his age, and he was fit; not too muscular and not too boney. He always got girls’ attention, but he never gave them any. It wasn’t that he wanted to seem like a “bad boy”, he just thought it would interfere with his schoolwork and he would just be hurting someone’s feelings if he didn’t give the relationship the time and effort it takes. He was honestly a good guy, and a great acquaintance to other people. Anyway, he was overall a handsome, smart, modest kid. The only thing holding him from being social was his shyness. He got embarrassed easily, but he kind of liked being that way.
This was no average day, though. It was the 23rd of December, the date on which his relatives would come over his house to celebrate the Christmas holiday, with no absence. Every single Christmas that James could remember had been spent with his favorite relatives. Aunt Tesla, Uncle Chris, and their son Geoff never failed to come on the 23rd of December. I guess you can say it was family tradition. Although this was a time for happiness and joy, James wasn’t...feeling it this year.
James’ came from a higher-class family. His mother was a sculptor and his father was an accountant for accredited businesses. They always want to spend some time with James, but they never have time to, with their busy jobs and all. They loved their only son, and they wish they had more, but they simply wouldn’t manage. Although James’ relationship with his parents wasn’t the best parent-child relationship, they showed they loved him whenever they could. They seemed to have always been busy. He had his dog, Kaskade, though. James felt like that was his only friend. Kaskade was an Alaskan Husky, a very loving dog. He would sleep with James every night, they would go exercise every Tuesday and Thursday, and they would do fun things together. Kaskade only seemed to respect James and was always there for his best friend whenever he needed him.
When James woke up early on that day, the 23rd, he felt strange. He was convinced that he felt that way because he was getting too old to get excited for Christmas. He got an eerie feeling about many things that day, though, as if something was missing. James was already a very quiet, shy person. He kept many things to himself, such as emotions and things of that nature. But the feeling he was getting just made him that much quieter, almost nervous looking. Why was he feeling this way? He felt like he was being looked over, being controlled. He spaced out all morning, until he heard a loud commotion downstairs in the living room.
“Hi Uncle John, Aunt Marie,” said Geoff in that monotone voice of his.
“Geoff! You’re getting more handsome by the minute,” said James’ mother. Geoff rolled his eyes and walked straight into James’ room.
“Geoff is always so…happy, isn’t he?” said Uncle Chris to John. Chris and John laugh and go into John’s man-cave.
Tesla and Marie go to the living room and talk about tomorrow’s plans. On Christmas day, Aunt Tesla and Marie made a feast, as all the men would play basketball, board games, and challenge each other to any kind of games they could, until the food was ready to enjoy. Henry would visit his family in Paris, France. The Volt family would give Henry two weeks off to do whatever he would like. Everything would be in the perfect mood; no negative vibes would interrupt the feeling of being with family. On this particular day, things weren’t feeling right, though. He had greeted Geoff multiple times, and Geoff would ignore him every single time.
James and his cousin were very close, up until high school started. James stayed studying, not very social, always trying to stay on top of things that actually mattered. Geoff was into odd, dark things, dark music, dark-type studies, and dark clothing. After a while, his friends changed, he was getting more and more in trouble, and he tried hard to be something he wasn’t. James knew that Geoff wasn’t like that, and he didn’t know why he was being that way. They both became opposites, but they still had conversations once in a while, and would reminisce about the “good old days”.
Today was different. The vibe was different. As if depression was taking over James’ mindset, as if he desperately needed something specific, something unique to be happy. But James couldn’t think of anything he needed. Kaskade kept barking all day, as well. That wasn’t like him, and it made James feel even more nervous.
“Jimmy!” yelled his dad from the attic, in an exciting tone. Geoff let out a little, evil laugh as James blushed, embarrassed. For some reason, everything felt like it was in slow motion. All of a sudden, the mood did change. James was convinced his day was going to be lousy and was going to stay that way. Every step towards the attic felt like a complete eternity to James. This wasn’t like James Volt. He was a very positive, humble person. He couldn’t understand the feeling he was going through. Why was he so… depressed?
As James walks in, his father says “James, now I’ve been meaning to give you this for a while now. I can’t wait any longer, and I want this to be a father-son moment.”
With a nervous look on his face, James says “What is it dad?”
“I got this from my father. He got it from his dad. It’s been going through the family for generations and I want you to have it. To be honest, I never got around to using it. I regret that so much, maybe it would have given off more of a meaning if I actually would have used it. But oh well, I guess. All that matters is that you will use it. I know you will.”
James let out a great smile, a great faked smile, as the gift approached him. “Oh… thanks Dad. I love it.” said James in an odd manner.
As soon as he laid eyes on what his father had saved for years, this weird, strange, depressing feeling James was having, went into full force. The feeling was so strong, it was getting painful. He was in agony for what felt like ages. He couldn’t take this internal energy coursing through his body any longer. In the exact moment as he was about to make it noticeable that he was in this incredible pain, it stopped. This feeling of something taking over, of something hurting so much inside of him physically and mentally, had only lasted for about three seconds. But in that same instance, complete happiness and utter joy overcame James. What he received from his dad on the 23rd of December was something that would forever change James Volt.
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125,007 Literary Works • 672,816 Reviews
Hey Arlo!
~ This doesn’t need to be possessive, so nix the apostrophe.Sorry this took so long in the coming. I didn’t have any time the day you requested it, and I got sick shortly after. I finally got wifi, however, so I’m able to give you this review even while quarantined in my room.
So, skipping to the review...
~ I think this would read better if you swapped the words, beginning the sentence with ‘only’. “Only Kaskade...”
~ Nitpicky, but this might read better if you wrote... “Tesla and Marie [b]went to the living room to talk about the next day’s plans.”
~ Unless this is some insight into an eccentricity of James’ father, I don’t think a father would actually *say* that he wanted a father-son moment. I think he’d just act eager, and make it obvious he did.
~~~
Hi!
This is a bit of a slow start. Being wonderfully ordinary isn’t a good trait for a protagonist to have. However, the item that James received at the end of the chapter might very well change that, so I won’t complain about that aspect.
You wrote this chapter very nicely. Aside from the instances I pointed out above, your words flowed very smoothly and progressed very clearly. Your spelling and grammar is immaculate, which reviewers really, really appreciate. Thank you.
I did enjoy your story, though I hope to see more action in subsequent chapters.
If you need any more help or have any questions, feel free to PM or wall me.
Keep writing!
~Shady
This chapter, to put it bluntly, was boring. It was a giant mass of told information, and not even told in an interesting manner. Taking the first paragraph as an example:
The first sentence, which many people will tell you is the most important sentence of a story since it's the first thing a reader sees, is a list. Lists are boring and not very descriptive. The second sentence isn't particularly interesting either, and all the other sentences in this paragraph just tell the reader what James does without any hint of its significance.
Why is all this minutiae important? It isn't until the end of the chapter that James' ordinary routine becomes significant, and that is far too late into the chapter to be justifiable. Minutiae is boring, especially when listed and stated without any source of significance attached, and boring your readers from the first sentence is the last thing you want to do.
Now, I'm not saying that you cannot go over James' normal routine first thing. What I am saying is that you need to make the significance of this routine obvious from the start. The easiest way to make this routine significant is to show the readers how James feels about his routine. Something as simple as starting out with a sentence like "James took comfort from his daily routine" before going into the routine itself would go a long way in establishing the significance of the normalcy as well as hint that the normalcy will soon be coming to an end.
Another way to make the information more interesting to read would be to tie it into the characters' actions. Instead of just lumping all the information into discrete paragraphs, you could follow James through his normal Christmas break routine, showing the readers what James' routine is like instead of just telling.
The thing about telling is that it gets boring and tiresome very quickly, and readers are really not going to believe what they are told about a character's personality straight off. The characters' actions and dialogue are what will determine how a reader views a character, and being told by the narration itself that a character is "a handsome, smart, modest kid" is going to make your readers skeptical of every action that character takes and every word that character says, especially if those actions and words appear to conflict with the informed description.
Basically, my advice for this chapter comes down to "Show; don't tell". Right now, this chapter is all tell, and very little show, which makes for very uninteresting reading.
Your beginning should hook your reader -- not bore them -- and right now, this beginning is boring.
Thank you for this review! It is a final revision, but I haven't made it official. I will work on it
read Chapter 2 please, you should find that more interesting 
Again, Thank you! It means alot.
Hey there!
Alright so this story didn't really get me excited. Think about it, for half the story you seem to be going on and on about James and his life. Now that's what the reader doesn't want to see. A narration of someone's life story. It's pretty uninteresting and lots of people have the same kind of life. Unless your character has a unique family, or has something unique about him/herself, the introduction in the first part was really not needed. Jump straight into the actual story.
Now for the part where you actually talk about the family. It's pretty average, as your chapter suggests. Now this chapter got off to a slow start. And as I said earlier, don't talk about things that every has in common. The heirloom that was passed down from generation to generation isn't really common, and it could be anything. That's a good place to work on, and it should have been near that part that you should have begun your chapter.
Now about the father and son conversation. It seemed to be pretty valuable heirloom considering it was passed down from a few generations above. James's father though doesn't really seem to care much about it. In fact he just gives it to James like it's something very ordinary, as if it doesn't have any sentimental value at all.
Now for the character of James. You talked about him being depressed and feeling that something bad was going to happen that day. Why would he be feeling that way in the first place though? Did something happen before that or was he just having one of his bad days? Explain that or the reader will feel a little lost like I did. Recount if possible, the reasons for him having his mood swing that day and how he tried to cope with it. Placing something in the story without having it make sense will just throw the reader off track.
Lastly, I think being cliche is good sometimes and is probably even needed certain parts, but for the last sentence no.
" that would forever change James Volt. "
This is pretty much the sentence that goes "his life changed forever". Not only is it widely overused, it's not exciting any longer. Sure, for a kid's book it would be pretty fitting, but for a story that seems mature in this sense, this one liner kind of ending only makes it anti climatic. Replace the last sentence or edit the word choice a little. Spice it up, make it what a cliffhanger should be!
I hope I wasn't too harsh, and I apologize if I sounded like that! Cheers!
Well Lycando, thank you for your review! it means a lot. Let me explain some things to you as you seemed pretty lost. To full understand what the story is about, I HAD to talk about James and his normal life. This is chapter one. He has a story and a background like everyone else. This novel is not a "Catcher in the Rye" type story, it's a fictional story. There is something of interesting value in Chapter 2, which i will submit tomorrow if you would like to take a looik.
Secondly, his father doesn't have sentimental value towards this heirloom, as will be explained in Chapter 2. I wanted the feel to be as if James was having an off day because of the heirloom, and I guess I need to work on that part. James' days are normal until he receives the book. The part where I wrote "would forever change James Volt" was temporary and I used it because I didn't copy and paste everything right from my word document.
I thank you again for this revision, as I don't get many and I could use all the help I can get. ready Chapter 2, which I will be posting either late tonight or early tomorrow. Have a great day!