Young Writers Society

Hello again, Cole! Lee's here for a quick review!

First off, I like how this chapter is easing things up a little. The last one ended quite strongly, which definitely left an impression on us! I'm glad to see you now take the time to develop your characters and plot without rushing things.

That said, the whole idea that the main character is suddenly willing to commit murder is a bit... off. I think you should have let him think about it a lot more, and decide only after receiving the file; the way things are, it's as though he made up his mind and then ask for the file. Which is honestly a little disturbing, and doesn't make me respect the character very much.

I also think you should take some more time to show the impact of Liu's death on his mother; she seems perfectly fine. There's no indication that she lost her teenaged son. She SHOULD be severely shaken, or at least have some tell.

On to specific feedback.

Why didn't you wake me?" I shoved the bread in my mouth

"I was planning on driving you today." She smiled

The lines outside the dialogue are written in past tense. They shouldn't be, since the rest of the story is in present tense.

Mr. Know-It-All: Kill this person and send me their head.

Send a head? that won't be possible. How would he even send it?
Perhaps you should make Mr Know It All ask for a picture to prove the man is dead?
Also, you should add a line where Cody finds out the man's address. He has no idea where he lives, after all.

I like the second half of the chapter, where Cody meets Rachel and Luke. It's pretty well written. Again, I think both of them should show some stronger reaction to the fact that Cody just lost his own brother; what they do display now isn't nearly strong enough.

Anyway, that's all I have for this chapter! I'm going to continue reading Afterlife, though, because it's pretty intriguing! I'll drop off more reviews with each chapter.

Have a good day!

~Lee

Mailice here with a short review!

I'm here to get the story out of the green room. I've already read the first chapter and now I'm here to add my pepper core.

At first glance it seems like a good start to the sequel and also the story. Movement comes in and you see a development of the protagonist that he doesn't want to give up so quickly with the search for the murderer, only he ventures into a very difficult situation that almost comes close to a dilemma. I like the development and how you handled it. It looks like a great, exciting story.

One thing I noticed is the lack of punctuation sometimes like the full stop or similar. It would only help if you just read over it after you've finished writing to eliminate most of those little mistakes. Here are two other points I noticed:

"ughh, what time is it?" I sleepily reach for my alarm clock "It's 7!?" 

I would rewrite the “7” to “seven” because it isn´t a big number.

And here:

I quickly sprang out of bed and rushed to get dressed. I was going to be late for school at this point! I already missed way too many days. Rushing out of my room, I ran into the kitchen and grabbed a piece of bread.

One thing I've noticed more and more is that your sentence structure always starts off the same way, which makes it feel like you're always stepping on a stone that's stuck in your shoe.

I would recommend that you try changing the voice from active to passive to create a greater dynamic. Otherwise it can quickly lead to the story getting out of breath with the development.

Otherwise, I found it a solid story and a good start to the next chapters.

Have fun writing!

Mailice

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

First Impression: Okayy....this escalated a lot quicker than I expected it to. Wow, I did not see something this crazy coming, but I already love it, throwing the reader into the deep end like this is always fun and I love how you do this introduction at the very beginning and then go on to a more normal day in this person's life introducing some friends that I'm sure will continue to be important down the line.

Anyway let's get right to it,

BEEP! BEEP!

"ughh, what time is it?" I sleepily reach for my alarm clock "It's 7!?"

I quickly sprang out of bed and rushed to get dressed. I was going to be late for school at this point! I already missed way too many days. Rushing out of my room, I ran into the kitchen and grabbed a piece of bread.

"Oh, you're awake?" I turn around to see my mother

"Why didn't you wake me?" I shoved the bread in my mouth

"I was planning on driving you today." She smiled

"You're going to drive me? Sure." I walk out of the kitchen before she can even say anything.

I have business after school anyways.

Okayy....well this is off to an interesting start here. The last chapter ended with that massive declaration and now this one is just kind of slowly starting off with what looks like a normal enough morning talk between these two here. You can immediately sense that this relationship with the mother isn't a very strong one as there's some good underlying tension being brought out there.

I was looking through the websites on my computer. How could I get information on my brother's death? Sighing, I went onto youtube, maybe some videos will clear my mind. I went onto youtube and clicked on my subscriptions. I always like horror stories. They were interesting to me. That's when I saw it, one of the videos that included the dark web. That's what I could use to find information. Exiting youtube, I went onto a new tab. I knew the dark web is dangerous, but I'll be careful. I entered my name as 'RH24'. I went through endless websites before I found 'Mr. Know-It-All', apparently he can do anything for the right amount of cash. I decided to give it a shot.

Okayy...well that escalated rather quickly there dipping close to the dark web of all places. Phew, this is taking some turns now, but then I love how oddly fitting this is. It seems like in this day and age googling is the sort of things someone might try instead of going around hunting for clues or anything like that. The one thing I must nitpick though is, if this person actually just went to the dark web here, that's not quite how you do it, there's a special browser required and everything, and Mr. Know-It-All sounds a tiny bit childish for someone scary to be using...but yeah that's just me being suuuper nitpicky, if you don't look too far into it, this is going well and I love the detail of them not using their real name.

RH24: How much would it be for you to investigate a murder for me?

I got an instant reply,

Mr. Know-It-All: $3,000

3,000 dollars, just to investigate a murder? I didn't have that kind of money.

Mr. Know-It-All: Don't have the money? That's fine, just do something else for me and it'll be paid off.

RH24: And whats that?

Mr. Know-It-All: Kill this person and send me their head.

He sent a photo of some man, I didn't know him of course.

RH24: You want me to kill him?

Mr. Know-It-All: Or pay with the cash. You have a week to decide

Whoa....I was definitely not expecting, oh my goodness. I don't know what I was expecting considering the whole dark web angle but I was expecting it to at least start off with a little bit of less scary stuff, but wow, its just instantly either pay a crazy amount of money or kill a person...the stakes have indeed been raised rather early here and I love it so far.

I sat back, what should I do? What can I do? If I have to kill someone. . . I'll do that. I need the information now. But I don't have any weapons, how will I take him out? Suddenly an idea popped in my head, leaving my room, I go to Liu's room. I looked around for a bit before finding it. His long, silver, pocket knife that he treasured. I looked up. Forgive me brother, but I need to borrow this. Exiting the room, I decided to complete my job tomorrow, but first I need information on the guy.

RH24: How much is this guy's head worth to you?

Whoaaaaa....this person just immediately jumps to murder. I mean, that's some commitment there. You can see they are extremely invested in this whole thing to find their brother, that they are genuinely just willing to kill this random person just for information. Wow, its almost a little hard to believe the turns this is taking. The pacing is really fast here.

Mr. Know-It-All: Funny. About 5,000, why?

RH24: For the extra 2,000 tell me about the guy you wish me to kill

Mr. Know-It-All: your a real amusing guy, okay I'll send you a file.

Just like that, a file was sent. After reading it, I decided that scum like him don't deserve life.

That's how my day today will be. After school I'll kill him and send his head.

Well....I mean...just a casual after school activity that everyone does...of course...why not. Nothing could possibly go wrong with tangling with something as shady as this and committing a literal murder just to find out the name of a murderer. Logically this is already a bad decision, but morally this is an absolutely horrifying decision and I hope this person gets talked out of somehow....cause it looks like losing their brother has really put them in quite a spot of desperation to be doing things like this.

I looked up at the school. It's been so long since I've been here, I nearly forgot about it.I look over at the gate, there he was.

"Luke." I ran over to him.

Luke Cardell, Liu's best friend and a second brother to me. He hugged me back,

"Hey kiddo, how're you doing?"

"I'm doing good." I smile at him

"Great, look I can't stay long but just know that my doors are always open, O.K?" He ruffled my hair

I nod, I wouldn't tell him my suspicions or really what I plan to do, I don't want him to get dragged into it. He turned and left, followed by my best friend running at me.

Hmm, well thankfully we have ourselves a sweet moment here after the whole death threats and death messages thing. I love to see that, it looks like this person's brother had some pretty good friends there by that interaction that we get to see so luckily this person does appear to have a decent support system even if their mother seems just unnaturally calm and dismissive about her brother dying cause she barely mentioned that in that earlier conversation. Most mothers would be unable to function for a few days after a child is lost like that.

"You're here!" she screeched as I toppled over

"Hey Rachel." I laughed

Rachel Harmen, my best friend for 10 years. She was the second person after Liu who I loved the most. I looked her over, she changed since I last saw her. Her normally long dirty blonde hair was now up to her jawline and her figure was a lot more slime.

"I look different huh?" She laughed

" yeah, you do," I replied "in a good way."

She smiled, "thanks."

"aww, look at the love birds." I look over Rachel's shoulders to see the worst guy in history.

Okayy...more happy moments in this school. This person definitely has some good friends with them here. Hopefully this one ends up telling this whole killing situation to someone and someone manages to talk them out of it before they end up ruining their life by committing a murder.

Michael Conners was the schools 'best' student. Good looks, good grades and football captain, you can see why everyone wanted to date him or be like him, but what they don't see is his horrible personality. I never understood why he always targeted me, he always made fun of me and made me miserable when at school. I wasn't taking it anymore, I couldn't take it.

"Shut up Michael, I'm in no mood to hear your stupid voice." I snapped

I got up and walked away, all of their eyes on my back. Rachel raced up behind me.

"That. Was. Awesome!" She laughed

"Let's hope nothing else happens." I mumbled underneath my breath, as I walked into the school.

Ahh..well, this is a school in a story after all, you've also gotta have that one horrible person that just tries to ruin everyone's day, well that got out of the way quickly at least, it looks our protagonist here is fairly good at dealing with bullies or at least now after all that's happened with their brother's death this person is no longer letting themselves get bullied.

Aaaaand that's it for this one.

Overall: Overall, a solid looking continuation here with this second chapter. I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes. I love some of the dynamics happening here already with this best friend and that other friend but of course on top of all of that I want to know what will end up happening with this whole murder situation.

As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.

Stay Safe
Harry