Chapter 1:
I don't quite know where to start. This is so confusing. I never should have begun in the first place. He was stupid to suggest it. Maybe I should stick to fairy stories in the future. I can't stop now, though. But...I can’t write as if I was in the present. It would get even more perplexing then. I know. Imagine. Imagine ourselves back , way back, four years ago, when I was twelve years old. Let’s just rewind our memories back in time. At the beginning of everything. The past, where it all started. And it all started with a maths lesson, on a normal day. As these things do.
***
I hesitated, the pen hovering over the interactive whiteboard. Which equation was it? What was the point of finding out? I could feel the tears prickling at the backs of my eyes, and started to turn red with humiliation as the teacher sighed long-sufferingly. "Go on, Amelia. It's quite easy. Is it number one, resulting with a...." her voice droned on, going over the different possibilities. Ratios, fractions, percentages...this was useless. It was impossible. My hand had started to shake, as I heard the sniggers of the other Year Seven pupils echoing, the whispers and the pointing. I had never quite got used to it. My hand shook even more, and I dropped the electronic pen, its fall resounding with a clatter on the wooden floor. I turned red as a beetroot, and I felt the tears would come any second, what with the class exploding with wolf-whistles and calls of, "Yes, Amelia!” I leaned over to pick it up. Then swiped a hand across my cheeks to wipe my eyes, before I straightened again to face the board. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic,I told myself until the tears stopped.
I stared blankly at the board. The numbers blurred. At random, I tapped the answer that looked the longest with the pen. Through the speaker vibrated this loud belching noise, and then a robotic voice saying, "Wrong!"
I winced. Give me blackboards any day.
At break, I trailed around listlessly as usual, imagining things in my head. It was the same dream as usual – a genie coming out of a bottle and granting me a wish. The first wish would usually be the obvious – grant me as many wishes as I want. The second – eliminate the glasses, mousey bob, chubbiness and sickly white skin. Then, make me the most popular girl in school, and...I broke off from my wishing game and looked up. Yes, where I normally was at the third wish. Halfway around the quad, at the shaded part where the benches were, and where Kirsty Brightman and her gang hung out. Oh no. I'd been spotted. Kirsty sidled up, the three Mini-K's following obediently : Rhiannon, Martine, and Lucy. I have always called them Mini-K's because they were faded versions of Kirsty, all little blank airheads obsessed with fashion and dieting, all 'disciples' of the Kirsty sisterhood. Please let her go away, please let her go away...
She didn't. Instead, Kirsty simpered in a fake baby voice, "Oooh! Melie-Sweet talks to herself." I winced at the familiar nickname. On my first day of Year Seven, my dad drove me to school. I begged him not to, but he did it anyway. Despite the fact that everybody else walked. After we reached the school, he whipped my door open for me. Planted a smack with his lips right on my head, then told me, “Have a great day, Melie-Sweet.” Ugh.
Kirsty told everyone about the name after hearing it, and it spread around Year Seven. Talk about making a good first impression! Every-one started to think I was odd, and I didn't make any friends. All because my dad was into calling me made-up names.
I suppose I forgave him, just because for me, he was the perfect dad, and could do no wrong. Oh, he wasn’t a dreamboat. Not fat, but with the start of a paunch; not bald, but with hair thinning round the temples. He wore embarrassing jumpers and loafers when he wasn’t in his formal suit that he wore to the office. But I still loved him with all my heart. We were always closer than mum and I were; he always made that extra effort. Lovely things, like surprise trips after school, sweet, funny notes in my lunchbox, pound coins hidden under my pillow. Mum tried as well, but she could see that she wasn’t going to equal up to Dad, whatever she did, so she stopped trying. Mum hated feeling inadequate, so she became kind of distant to me for a while. She provided and cared for me just like a mother should, but there was never anything more. I suppose it was my fault, and my loss. Though I didn’t realised it then. I was too caught up with Dad. Once he’d said, "I'd never leave you, Melia. I could never stay away from you that long." I'd asked him if that was a promise, and he'd said, "Yes. I promise," and we'd linked pinky fingers like we were little kids.
Getting snapped from my thoughts into the current situation, I turned red, as I always did near Kirsty and when I heard that nickname, and stammered, "Errr, no, I don't ever talk to myself, not never...I mean not ever. Um...no, not at all..."
"Oooh! No, not at all!" said Rhiannon, imitating my voice. A bit exaggeratedly if you ask me. I stood there and muttered something about having to leave, but Kirsty persisted.
"You know, Amelia Steptoe, I've just seen a pair of trousers in this catalogue that I think you'd really like. They're kind of loose, and billowy. I mean, they don't suit me but guess what the size is!”
“XXXL!” snorted Martine. “Know what that stands for? Extra extra extra large!”
I flinched and started reciting nursery rhymes in my head to keep myself from crying.
"No offence, Amelia!" Lucy called out, and they stood sniggering until they grew bored of me just standing there with a red face and sidled off back to their bench, where they got a good view of the boys playing football. I continued my usual circle around the quad. Life was not good. But it was bearable because it was constant. Everything was normal to me, just a usual routine, like the wishing game. And everything would stay normal. At least, that's what I thought.
The bus stopped, and as a few pupils filed out, I felt a tap on my shoulder from someone on the seat behind. For the umpteenth time this journey.
It was Lucy. Again. I just ignored her – what would be the point of falling for it and turning round? She wouldn’t come up with anything particularly original, anyway, because Kirsty wasn’t there. Neither Kirsty or Rhiannon took the bus, it was only the dumbest pair of the foursome – Lucy and Martine.
Lucy said, in a very loud voice, to Martine, who was sitting next to her, “Martine? Do you like your food?”
“Oh,” sighed Martine, and I could see her in the window reflection, flicking back her fake blonde hair, in perfect Kirsty mimic, “Once in a while. Calories tend to freak me out though.”
Lucy leant back over the seat, so she was right in my face again. Turning to Martine, she said, “Hey Martine. Do you think she likes her food?”
They were killing themselves laughing; they were spluttering so much you would have thought they needed CPR. I gritted my teeth and bore it. It might not have been very witty, but it still hurt like a knife was being twisted around in my stomach. I couldn’t cry now though – not here, not now, not in front of everyone. I bit my lip as I always did when I was holding back tears - little imprints, two rows on each teeth, one from the braces and the other from my teeth. Blood would sometimes run down the corners of my mouth I bit so hard. My glasses fogged up in my attempt to keep my tears inside.
I got home, nearly in tears after surviving yet another episode of "Let's throw Amelia's jacket around the bus". There was worse in store for me. Much worse.
I waited a few minutes for Dad to come out – he was normally back from work by then, waiting for me, but I noticed his car wasn't parked, so I went in by myself. We lived in this shabby block of flats in a dead-end place called Drayton Road. This was quite embarrassing, but expected, because mum's waitressing job hardly earned us anything and dad's work as a copy-editor got us just enough to pay the bills. I always wished that we could own a house, like everyone else did, so I’d feel more confident about having friends round for parties and the like. Although, I wouldn’t really have had anyone to invite, anyway.
I mounted the stairs two at a time, escaping Mrs Brown, the ground floor resident, and her complaints about 'noisy feet clattering on the floor' and 'doors banging open and shut, open and shut'. Stuffy old bat. I wasn't in the least noisy.
The flat was silent and empty, and this scared me. I went into my tiny bedroom, and sat for a while on the windowsill, surrounded by what I like to call ‘creative mess’. This was because I fancied myself as a writer somewhat, and so adopted stereotypical traits of The Writer. This meant: messiness, absentmindedness, clutter, and disorder in general. My desk, which took up half the minuscule room, was cluttered with trinket boxes, snow globes, pen pots, stationery, clay animals and paper. Dad wouldn’t buy me a P.C, so an old and well-worn electric type-writer took on a rather supercilious air in the middle of the desk.
The windowsill was the place I liked to sit and get inspired whenever I had writer’s block, or just needed to escape for a while. I called it my dream-sill. It was extremely wide for such a small room, and long enough for me to sit with legs outstretched, although I preferred to sit curled up on one of the reed cushions. It was the perfect place for inspiration or escape because it overlooked not only the street but the opposite block of flats. You wouldn’t imagine the scenarios I had conjured up just by sitting there watching the windows. Behind every window lay a story; events happened behind them every day, leaving details to the imagination. With a vivid imaginations such as mine, this wasn’t hard. I’d already interpreted the baby’s scream and hushed voices from the top floor. The baby was a Russian prince, kidnapped from his native home by a couple of pirates. The pirates reformed, and settled down in England, adopting the baby. There’s a witch on the second floor, and on the ground floor resides a snake charmer. You could dream up anything by watching the windows.
And sometimes I’d spot Dad coming, and he’d spot me at my windowsill. He’d always pretend not to notice, and then I’d knock three times on the glass, whereupon he’d look up, feigning surprise, and mime climbing up the wall to the window. Whenever his car pulled up, the force of it made the silver wind chimes outside our house tinkle. He would always whistle softly, along with the wind chimes, and I would whistle back. Silly really, when I look back on it.
But Dad still wasn’t here, and neither was Mum. I felt a sickening panic attack coming on, so I sat down at my typewriter and wrote a few opening words to a story. I had no ideas though, and that didn’t go very far. So, to keep myself busy and my mind off worry, I went and paced around the house, nervously clicking my fingers. I didn't want to stay in the living room, with all the strange, modern paintings gaping silently at me, so I went into the kitchen, and sat at the crowded counter, rooting through homework for a moment. It was then that I saw a note clumsily pinned with blu-tack to the edge of the crockery shelf. I got up from the chair, and at the same time the note fell to the floor. It can’t have been very securely pinned, I thought. Whoever wrote it must have been in a hurry.
I bent down, and picked up the note. I read it out loud, crouched on the floor.
"Amelia,
Go to Sellyoak Hospital as soon as you read this."
It was in Dad's handwriting, big, slanted and bold.
End of chapter
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140,647 Literary Works • 673,580 Reviews
Thankyou so much, Demeter.
As usual your reviews are helpful and make me laugh.
Thankyou again for reading.
Any chance of bubbling to come in the near future...hint hint
Yes, I know. I'm very discreet.
xxx
Thankyou very much,
I would love it if you could maybe give some more details one what those problems are? Sorry, but I'm quite slow at picking out specific things for myself. Only when you have the time
Thanks again.
Sarah
hello dear, inspire i quiet admire your skills in writing. the way you make use of words and phrases to imply right meaning. your story watching windows is a bomb keep it up, i appreciate. there are quite some phrasal errors that need to be corrected although they didn't affect your work that much. there were some problems with your characters also. well, do correct them. thanks.
Thankyou so much, Sapphire.
That was incredibly helpful.
I'll edit it on the document I have and then when I have time I'll make the changes to the YWS version as well.
Thanks again.
xxx
Hey! Alright so I’ll just jump straight into the critique. Normally I’ll make suggestions in bold within the quotation. If something needs more explanation I might comment afterwards, but not always, so if you question why I’d change something, just PM me.
Immediately what struck me when I read the first paragraph was a structure issue. If you read it through, you’ll notice the first six sentences are similar length and it doesn’t flow as well as it could. I’d suggest making the following changes.
I don't quite know where to start. I never should have begun in the first place; he was stupid to suggest it. Maybe I should stick to fairy stories in the future.
But I can't stop now. I also can’t write as if I were in the present. It would get even more perplexing then.
I know - imagine. Imagine ourselves back, way back, four years ago, when I was twelve years old. Let’s just rewind our memories to then. Into the past, the beginning of everything. And it all started with a maths lesson, on a normal day. All these things do.
I’ve also changed some punctuation and edited a few sentences slightly, however they’re just suggestions.
I really liked this introduction, especially ‘Let’s just rewind our memories’. Those final sentences really evoked the same feeling one might get when watching a movie that moves into the past for the main story.
Also, just as a small punctuation side note, I think you should leave spaces after ellipses. I know the rules regarding them are a little blurry, but in most books I’ve read they tend to leave a space after them.
There’s a slight problem with the sense of what you’re saying here – ‘as I heard … the whispers and the pointing’. You can’t hear pointing, so it would be worth changing this around a bit.
I’m not sure if the ‘pathetic’s should be in italics. As lyrical_sunshine said, thoughts usually are, but with the first person narration you might get away with it.
I just thought I’d explain why I scored out ‘sweet’: with a list of clauses, normally if there is a comma within the clause itself, for example ‘sweet, funny notes in my lunchbox’ then you should separate them with semicolons:
Lovely things, like surprise trips after school; sweet, funny notes in my lunchbox; pound coins under my pillow.
In this sentence they would be a little over-the-top, so I took out ‘sweet’, the extra adjective. If you could find another adjective that conveyed both funny and sweet, that would be great.
Although technically it should work, ‘well-worn’ just sounds strange describing a typewriter. How about ‘old and overworked’?
I changed ‘watching the windows’ because the phrase appears again later and seems better placed at that point. That’s just a preference though; you might want to keep the repetition.
The last sentence doesn’t read very well but it just needs edited slightly. Perhaps:
With a vivid imagination like mine, supplying those details was not difficult.
Or another word for ‘supply’.
Most of what I’ve changed is for sense or punctuation. However you sometimes have a tendency to say the same thing twice. For example:
They were killing themselves laughing; they were spluttering so much you would have thought they needed CPR.
The second part of the sentence is essentially saying exactly the same as the first, but in a much more interesting way. If you find other examples like this when you read through it, just trust that your reader will understand what you ‘show’ (second part of sentence) without being ‘told’ (first part).
The final point I would make is that the words aren’t quite leaping off of the page yet, which can happen with first person narration. Amelia is a good character to tell the story, being a writer, but at the moment she’s only telling us. We’re not fully experiencing her memories. I think you can combat this by more references to the setting and more interaction with other characters. She communicates her actions but doesn’t often say what she sees, hears, and so on. Try to incorporate all the senses, though not all at once! As for other characters, we’ve had her encounter with the stereotypical girl gang and the maths teacher but they don’t feel like enough. Perhaps this is something that will change when I read the next chapters and see interaction with her parents.
Well, I’m away to read the rest!
Thanks Demeter !
That was so helpful.
Thankyou.
xxx
Hey, Sarah!
Thanks for it! So... let's get started.
I thought I would take a look on some of your work, because you've been reviewing mine religiously
I kind of like the beginning. It makes me want to read more and find out what has happened. So, it's like in the first paragraph she's 16 and in the rest of the story she's 12?
This is a little awkwardly phrased. Right now I can't think of any suggestion for it, sorry, but I hope you'll find a way yourself.
Everyone.
These little things tell us that even though Amelia is annoyed by the girls, she still has her own will and she doesn't have a total inferiority complex. That's good – she has potential of winning the girls someday, as soon as she gets some more confidence. A great piece of character development.
Ah, that's just like me and my mom! But it also goes well with A's character.
This could be more strong and dramatic, seeing as it's the "cliffhanger" of the chapter.
Characters
Amelia: You seem to know this girl well, it shows in the text. With her you did a really good job, congrats! The little things show us her personality little by little and we get to know her better throughout the text. She actually reminds me of myself, though I'm more of the feet-on-the-ground type. But I'm definitely as creatively messy as Amelia!
Kirsty's Gang: At this point they don't have many differences, and you might want to build them a little more, so they won't keep on going as the regular b*tchy girl group. As you know, there are a lot of gangs like this, so remember to give them enough personality. I like the idea of "Mini-K's"!
The Parents: Well, you don't discuss the mom much, but you described the dad rather well in my opinion. He and Amelia's relationship is sweet, and I'm waiting to get more info.
Overall, a promising story. Just watch out so it won't be this clichéed I'm-different-and-nasty-girls-tease-me stuff. I'll be reading more!
Demeter xxx
[b]Aww thankyou Shannon
In England, Year Seven is the equivalent of what I think is Grade Eight in the US of A.
Yep I'll be sure to look out for your reviews. *cries with happiness* Yay! I get reviews!
It's the first year of secondary school, for people aged 11 - 12.
Is that clear?
Maybe not...I never make myself clear but you'll have to forgive me
Sarah
xoxoxo
Wow, this was really a great start. It got me interested, it kept me interested, and I honestly, truly am anxious to go read more. I didn't catch any grammar mistakes (I usually don't, haha, grammar and I don't get along).
Ok, so I found the Amelia character really relatable. I'm kind of slow sometimes when I'm talking to people, because my head is usually someplace else. I'm not really loving the way I look. I hate and am absolutely awful at Math, and my Dad is kind of goofy (except for that he drives me nuts, and Amelia gets along great with her Dad.) I think that everybody can relate to a few of those things, which makes the appeal of the story even stronger! Anyway, I loved this, and I am definitely going to read the rest as soon as I get a chance, so expect more reviews. Also what age is Year Seven? You know, because the school system is different in the US and whatnot.
xoxo,
Shannon
I think that bullies will never really get anywhere in their lives. for anyone that gets bullied, i know this may now make u feel any better at the moment but believe me, what goes around truly comes around. Don't let people push you around. I personally look to god for all my problems and he always helps me.
aww this is so sad. i hate it when people make fun of others.
Thanks for all the lovely compliments and criticsm, jasminerose.
Oh so did you get bullied as well? I was for a period of time, and that is what helped me empathize, so at least something good came out of it
xx
Hello. I love this story and can relate to the character Amelia, I think a lot of people can. Some of the things that you describe happening to her, happens to boys and girls everywhere...and sadly I was one of them. But here are some of the things I saw:
*GASP* I'm not one for the type writers.
Love the ending, causing the reader to want to know more and turn the next page. Within the next few days I will be reading the next couple of chapters. No doubt about that. And of course one or two reviews. Keep it up.
[b]Thankyou so much for your comments, lyricalsunshine, I am reviewing the cliched beginning as we speak. Do you suggest cutting out the whole beginning and starting with the bit in the classroom, or just editing the introduction? Would like people's opinions on this please
Thanks a lot.
Comments!
This has the makings of a rather unique and interesting story. I am impressed. :D Amelia really reminds me of a friend of mine...the second you described her I could see her in my head, as clear as day. Good job on that. Just enough description to give us a mental picture, but not too much to be obnoxious.
The first paragraph is just a bit cliche...the whole "I used to be an average girl but now I'm not" scenario. When I read things like that, it generally makes me want to roll my eyes and stop reading. I'd suggest that you either get rid of it, or you make it a little more relatable. Not so much "I don't know what's going on, I don't know what's going on," and more little insights into how her life has changed.
On the upside, you were far less cliche than I would have been with an opening like that, so kudos to you. :D
Looking forward to more!
Your friendly neighborhood reviewer,
~Sunny
Thankyou Chiranthra
Yep, I'll be sure to review the spacing.
Wow,great story.
But you should perhaps keep spaces a little more often.see,
Put it like this:-
Well only spacing was the problem.Other than that I didn't find any mistakes.
Good luck.
[b] Awww, thanks, aspiringwritertobe for your review.
It really made me smile, I thought for a moment I was never going to get any review (:
Thanks a lot, I'm still trying to improve this first chapter.
The novel is actually finished, i have 21 more chapters to post, but I read you weren't meant to inundate the forums with chapters so I guess I must limit myself to two chapter posts a day
Thanks a lot, anyway. I really appreciate it (:
Sarah
xxx
OKAY....
I loved this. One of the best works I've seen on here.
You've really gripped me and the main protagonist is fabulous.
Am going to read your second chapter now.
Seeya
Katie
xx
Could I please have some critique/reviews please?
Thanks.
Sarah