Published January 18, 2011
Chapter 1 Emily Gray-The 'Nerd'
January 16, 2011 Melanie High School 8:30
Can’t wait until recess. Summer is over and now school had been reopening for a week.
Time does fly fast.
Another two hours until recess.
10:35
I love recess. No, actually I hate recess.
I wish I could just stay in class all day long. Especially music class. I love music class.
I sat at a corner eating my bread and cheese brought from home in a corner of the cafe. Mum always helped me packed lunchbox and even thought I like doing it myself, she still insisted on helping to pack it
Where’s Lesley….? I thought Lesley would be here.
And Irene.
“Hey Cody.” Lesley called.
He is with Irene. The both of them were my BFFs since… When…? I think it was since kindergarten. Now, they both date each other.
“Hey Les.” Lesley was holding a tray from the café. On the tray were two plates of pizzas and two bottles of Coke. Holly.
“So, how’s the new girl?” Irene asked. Curiosity filled her eyes.
“Who girl?” I reply teasingly.
“The new girl in your class! Emily Gray!” Irene replied with an astonish face.
“Oh! You mean ‘the nerd’?” I asked with a sense of humor.
“Stop it Cody. She’s a human too.” Lesley looked at me and said. I stared at him and giggle. “Don’t you tell me you didn’t look at her and think her as a nerd!”
Lesley was quite for a second. Finally he confessed. “Alright.”
“Lesley!” Irene stared at her boyfriend. “How could you?” She continued.
“What?” He asked innocently.
“You are so cute.” Irene started to laugh. “No, you are.” “No, you.” Now they are starting to irritate me.
Couples.
11:32 am
Music class. Gosh, I am almost late. I ran quickly towards the music room. Everyone’s already there. I knocked on the door and walked quickly to my seat.
I normally sit alone. Today was different. Someone’s sitting beside me.
Golly. It’s Emily Gray.
I sat down. “Hi,” I said dryly.
“Hey,” She smiled. I looked at her. Her eyes. Her aqua blue eyes. They were so beautiful. I never noticed them.
I smiled too. Miss Hathaway, our music teacher started talking.
“Now, your assignment is to write a duet with your friend sitting next to you. After writing, you need to compose it. Save it into a cd and bring it to me this friday.” Miss Hathaway kept smiling while she talks.
She smiled. A lot.
Great, a song with your friend next to you.
I turned around and looked at Emily. She turned around too and took out her hand.
“Emily Gray.” She smiled. I shook her hand. “ Cody Stewart.”
She seemed to freeze suddenly. Emily kept staring at me. Her eyes were widening open.
She took her hand back and turned her head back to the front.
I think she knew something. She doesn’t looked at me again.
1:26 pm
What actually happened to Emily just now? I think she is hiding something.
I decided to asked her on the way back to school.
She moved here a few weeks ago just a few block from my house. I knew where she lived but never visited her. Now there’s a chance, to get to know the ‘nerd’ of my class.
Actually that was not the first time she acted strangely. Lesley told me a few friends of his told him that Emily react like this when she shook hands with them. She stared at them a few seconds. Does she has some super powers or what? I need to find out.
I have my excused of writing the song with her. The perfect explanation of finding out the truth.
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137,562 Literary Works • 672,043 Reviews
Hey DylanRay!
RandomTalks here with a short review!
So this was a decent first chapter. We get to meet our narrator and get familiarized with his life and the people in it. I am already a little curios about Emily and her strange reaction at shaking hands with him. It is mentioned that she gets this same reaction with everyone she shakes hands, and it makes me wonder if Cody is right with that super power theory. I personally think it won't be something as obvious as that, but since I am pretty sure that this is an abandoned story, I guess we will have to take this up in our imagination.
However, there are certain problems in this story. First of all, when you are starting with a novel, you have to include at least some kind of introduction, so that we get at least some kind of idea about this new world we are entering However you open into a random scene from a boy's life and it does not work well. Your narration feels like someone is reading it from the pages of a journal, but even then there are hardly any descriptions or settings. You need to work on that or else we will not be able to imagine the scenes or connect with the characters.
Then there is the pace. A several points in the story I felt like you rushed through events and conversations and as a result we are not able to connect to anything. You really need to slow down, take a breath, and look around and explore. What is he seeing? What is he feeling? What is he thinking? Exploring these questions at random moments in the story will help you to build and expand on this world you have created.
Last and most important is the tense. Your tense is all over the place. An I mean it literally. Sometimes you start a sentence in the resent and end it in the past tense. For example:
See what you did there? 'kept smiling' and 'talks' contradict themselves and you can find such inconsistencies throughout the chapter. I would suggest you to pick a tense and stick with it. This is one of the most common problem almost every writer faces, however, it does get better with time and experience.
And editing. There are certain typos in this that can be avoided through rereading and editing your works. They are mostly harmless but they disrupt the flow of the story.
I apologize if this review felt too harsh. I personally think this has a lot of potential. It just needs to be taken to 'that place'.
Keep writing and have a great day!
I am sorry if it is too short. I wrote it in a rush and post it quickly. I haven't even write the plot and all that yet! I will write the chapter 2 longer! Thanks for all of your support and comments!!!( If there are any~!!^^)
Love~~~Dylan