Warning: This work has been rated 18+ for language and mature content.
John crashed through the wooden door of his house, barely noticing the loud noises he was making as he made his way up the stairs. His bedroom was up and the last door on his left, so it was a bit of a sprint to get there. He opened his bedroom door, barely paying attention to the old picture frames that held photos of his family and friends that lines the wall. His only focus was to grab his other phone and hid bag of clothes and get to a friends house, with or without his parents approval.
He moved swiftly throughout his bed room, grabbing a duffel bag he always kept stashed away in the closet just in case. Well, just in case he wanted to disappear for a few days without anyone bothering him.
His phone was in the third drawer down of his dresser, stashed away under some books he kept hidden there. He switched his usual phone in the place of it- this one very few people had the number of and mainly just a couple of friends who would help him out if need be.
He huffed, walking out of his bedroom and took a piece of paper from out of his pockets. He slipped it under his parents door, knowing they would see it whenever they got up in the morning. He straitened up, fixing his t-shirt and turning away, his heart barely feeling the sting of leaving for awhile.
His feet moved quickly down the stairs, his hands writing a message to his friend Alex.
Hey, you almost here?
He was at the kitchen door now, having dodged the dining room table and the fridge that was sitting beside the door itself. He looked out and spotted headlights beaming down the road, the blueness brightening up the kitchen as if within a lake. The reply came rather quickly.
Yeah man, I'm sittin' outside, you comin'? I gotta get Sasha back to her house before her bitch of a dad figures out she's gone again.
Yeah, I'm comin'. Just a sec
He turned around and opened the fridge, looking around for the six pack his dad always replenished before he went to bed. His face broadened into a smile as he grabbed the Budlight. He closed the door slowly and headed out of the kitchen door, seeing someone get out of the passenger side door open. A tall blonde girl was getting out, or at least a bleach blonde one. Sasha, I'm guesin'.
"Hey, c'mon! We gotta hit the road John." her words were slurred slightly, John could tell she'd been drinking. Well, maybe she won't remember this in the morning. John smiled sweetly as he met her at the car door, wrapping his arm around her waste and kissing her passionately. Her eyes widened in shock, but she slowly got into the rhythm of it and kissed him back. John pulled away from her and slid into the passenger side, propping the six pack in the center console.
"Damn John, you always did know how to pay me back." Alex's black hair was plastered across his face, barely touching his rather pointed nose. He reached for a bottle, but John slugged him in the arm.
"Yeah, not until we're at your house and I have your keys. Also, I'm going to be drinking so I can't take over." he grabbed a bottle and popped the cap, taking a long swig from it.
"Fuck you. Anyway, what's the emergency? Last time you wanted me over you was going to whip someone's ass."
"Heh, I'll let you know when there's not dead weight in the car." his statement was met by a slap in the back of his head, and the thud of a car door slamming shut behind him."Sorry, Sasha, I meant no disrespect. Alex, just get us out of here."
Alex grinned and put the car in gear, looking behind him as he reversed of the driveway.
Johns phone buzzed, and he noticed a text from Mark.
Hey, Sofie said we had to talk? What's goin' on man, no ones heard from you since work and your other phones off. I figure you might be gone again.
John hit his fist against the dashboard, tossing his phone into his bag.
Points:
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Canary word: Present
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125,008 Literary Works • 672,821 Reviews
RD3
Nit-picks:
I'm not sure if this is a personal thing but somebody else has said it to me before so I think we can assume more than one reader might have this reaction: passive ("-ing") verbs are kind of annoying. This would just flow so much better as "he barely noticed the loud noises he made".
Yay, room details! Just one thing, "lined" rather than "lines". Also two "that"s is a little repitive so maybe "old picture frames holding photos"
First of all, "friends" should be "friend's" because this is the possessive. Secondly, at first I thought it was any friend at first. To be more clear that it's a specific person, you might want to replace "a" with "his".
I think in the third person limited you've got here ellipsis instead of a full stop would be a good idea. It would make it clear he wasn't really as clear on his own thoughts as he might seem.
either "from" or "out" is redundant. Up to you which one though
straightened
any reason why this is in italics?
guessin'
semi-colon or full stop rather than comma
you missed the "out" between "reversed" and "of"
John's
~~~~
Character: Okay so, I'm not sure if this is intentional, but I all of a sudden have very little sympathy for John. First of all he's critical of Sasha's dyed hair, which isn't very fair. Then he kisses her to prove a point to someone else entirely. Given that we know Sasha isn't a pushover (she slaps him) it seems unlikely that she would just take that as you've described.
Setting: a little bit of description of the car might have been nice, but the detail about the room was nice.
Plot: I'm a little confused. Is he going to beat someone up? Is he going to beat Sofie up? O.O I feel like probably not, but I'm really not sure what's going on. I get why he's angry, and I have learned that he is the type to get really angry to the point where he would be likely to go off the grid. That all makes sense. Just unsure what he's got Alex in for. And not in the suspense way. Like, with suspense, there's usually a few possibilities it could be, some more likely than others. I don't really have that anchor here.
Flow: The flow of the chapter itself was good, but I thought it ended rather suddenly.
Hope this helps,
Biscuits
When he gets this angry he goes drinking and disappears. Thanks for the review!
Ah, this is much more my forte than lyrics.
)
Also, quick note, works with the f-word in them are actually required to be rated 18+, so I've gone through and changed that for you on this piece and the previous chapters that needed it (and yes, i did go back and read through the previous ones.
So, I won't talk about the previous chapters much because I'm not here to review those, but I'm not sure you want to start with flashbacks so soon in the novel. You already have the dreams, which feel a lot like flashbacks and which you hint aren't actually dreams - jumping a month back suddenly for a couple chapters just makes the timeline confusing. There are other ways to show what John and Sofie's relationship was like, even just through things as simple as having him think about her.
Right now, my problem with this is that I don't like your main character. Part of this is probably just that I don't like this genre very much - this kind of gritty romance - but even in darker genres, the reader still needs something to latch on to to make them want to read about this person. It's a good idea to look at it in terms of sliding scales - likable vs. unlikeable, proactive vs. inactive, competent vs. incompetent, etc. The best way to get around having an unlikeable main character, if that's what you're going for, is to make him more proactive and competent, as well as fascinating - sort of the 'what makes him tick?' thing, you'll usually see it with books that have serial killers as main characters. Of course, that's the extreme end.
If you want him to be more on the likable and sympathetic end, then firstly I'd recommend keeping the tragic background and trauma (that I admit I don't really know if he has, but it seems like it) to a minimum until we've got more of a chance to know him. If you introduce it all too soon, it feels like a pity party. (Yes, I'm exaggerating, but only a little.)
Right now, I'm mildly curious to know what's going on with him and Sofie, and to officially "meet" her, though I have no idea whether that'll happen soon or not. I'd also like to know John's age. Alex is definitely a character, and while I can't say I like him, he piques my interest more than John.
And that's all I've got for this!
Heh, I'm glad you didn't like him in all honesty. I'm not trying to make him likable, but I'd love to chat with you about this sometime! Thanks for the review!
Sure! Personally, I don't tend to go for books with main characters that are unlikable, which just means I'll be your harshest critic when it comes to making him proactive/competent/interesting.
Can you write the next chapter please, I really wanna read it, Im not much for romantic books and all, but this one is good and it is interesting and you want to find out what is happening next and it flows relly well and it is easy to understand what is going on and keeps you interested, well thats what I think, I really like it, the only problem is I wish there was more so I could read on, I think thats the only problem with yws, you have to wait alot for more of the story, but thats still a good thing because I get to wait for more, if you are writing more?
anyway keep it up, thi review is kinda what I felt for all of the chapters so good job!
Burrow
Posting the next chapter now ^^