Published May 2, 2011
My mom is on the phone crying when I get home from soccer and my older brother Adam wraps his strong arms around my sweaty frame.
“What’s going on?” I ask, dropping my gym bag to the floor. Did somebody die? What happened? Mom never cries.
“Nathan just called,” he says, running a hand through his sandy hair. “He and Kate got engaged last night.”
My face breaks into a grin. “That’s awesome! We’ll finally have a sister.”
My mom gets off the phone and wipes her bright eyes. Her eyeliner is a little smudged and her face is red with pleasure. “Did he tell you Ryan?” Mom sinks into a chair, finally off the phone.
“Yeah.” My cheekbones hurt from the massive grin plastered to my face. Kate is already like a sister to us. She and Adam have been dating for almost three years and she's almost part of the family. Now she really is one of us.
“Next should be Ben and Taylor!” Adam says loudly, referring to my brother’s ex. It didn't end well between Ben and Taylor last year, but we all love to tease him about it. Dang, Taylor was a sweet girl. I miss her.
Ben he flips us off from the couch beside us. It’s bittersweet these bozos are leaving for college in two days. Ben’s a junior and Adam’s a freshman in freaking college. And, wow, Nathan is getting married. We’re so old.
“With any luck,” I say, thinking aloud. “I’ll be an uncle by time I graduate.”
Adam laughs. “I hope so.” He claps me on the back. “You’re sweaty, man. Go take a shower.”
I roll my eyes and take off to do just that. By time I’m done, damp under my sweats, Dad is home and my mom is nagging my brothers again.
“Come on, you guys are leaving in two days and neither of you have started packing.” She puts her hands on her hips. “We bought you stuff, and I did some laundry. All you guys need to do is get it together.“
“Boys, really,” Dad sighs. I brace myself, expecting Ben to throw his giant "I'm a damn adult and I don't need you to tell me what to do. Eff off world." fit. But he doesn't. They just roll their eyes and head upstairs. Mom moves to the kitchen to start dinner.
“Hey Dad.” I sink into my brother's butt print in the soft brown leather of the couch and put my feet up. My thighs ache and my calves are cramped like twisted rubber bands. I don't remember soccer having so much running.
“Hi there,” he smiles, leaning forward in his recliner. “How was school?”
“My sophomore year sucked!” Ben calls to me from the steps.
“Cause you were a discipline case and a pain in the ass.” Adam retorts, and then I hear him cry. “Ow!”
“Boys, go pack!” My mother yells at them, ripping open a package of salad.
I shrug. “It was fine.” I tell Dad. “History will be fun…chemistry sucks. Anna and Logan are in my Lit class.”
“Awesome." He opens a bright red Coke can. It fizzes. I lick my lips. "How was soccer?”
“Fun, but hard…I’m tired.” I smile a little.
“Out of shape.” He teases. But I can’t help but feel that’s true.
“Try outs are next Monday.” I tell him, stretching out in both directions, arms reaching high.
“Can you make the A-team?” Dad raises the can to his lips.
“I dunno. Maybe…depends on how good the other kids are and how many sucky freshman we get.”
“Aww little freshman.” He laughs. “That was you just a couple months ago, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.” I say. “But I mean it, it’s all on seniority.”
He nods. “Just do your best.”
Yeah…but my best isn’t Adam’s best. Coach remembers him. Coach definitely remembers Ben…every coach remembers their star player.
Because I know whoever meets me is thinking: Okay, is he cocky or smart or athletic? Is he loud and outgoing? Is he charming and funny?
But the truth is, I’m none of those things. I’m relatively smart: I like history and most of the time English. I’m a decent sweeper on the soccer field and an awesome second baseman on the baseball field. But I’d just as much rather curl up with a book or my guitar and chill out with my friends.
My brothers always made the scene I didn’t want to. But they’re leaving, buh-bye. I want to now.
Sorry all, kind of short, but I hope you like the interaction between the brothers. Ben is my favorite haha
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140,178 Literary Works • 673,037 Reviews
How odd is that? I also have a brother who got engaged, under similar circumstances.
On the subject:
You told us before that Nathan is engaged, not Adam.
Back again!
Ha, seems like my comments last few chapters about paragraph spacing were unnecessary for the future. Much better here. My eyes thank you.
I know you just mentioned a sentence or two ago that it was his brother Adam, but it was a sentence or two ago. Between then, you've mentioned the gym bag and Nathan. I know it seems silly, but repeating Adam's name would be helpful when it comes to determining who is talking here.
Mmm, this chapter, while fun with the bantering between folks, didn't hold the same punch for me as the others. I can't really put my finger on why, but I didn't feel like I was getting a handle on the characters like I was in the past few. I think I would have liked to get inside Ryan's head a little more. In the past few chapters, we've really gotten to see their thoughts on things. Here, we get a little bit of it, but not much. I'd like to see Ryan's thoughts on things, a little more explanation. This just felt somewhat sparse after the last few chapters.
Description-wise though, I loved it. I'm not a huge description junkie and I have to say that I love the amount that you have put throughout this entire story. Definitely enough to give us a sense of place and tangibility, but not so much that it's clogging up the action or being distracting. Very nice.
Again, didn't like this chapter quite as much as the others, but by no means did I hate it. I'm interested in seeing how Shawn connects with Ryan, Brooklynn and Anna, who all obviously know each other. Looking forward to it as I read on!
Drop me a line if you have any questions/comments!
~GryphonFledgling
I definitely understand what you mean about establishing setting, in this chapter in particular. I can see why you were confused. I'll fix that. I get the back story. It would've been a matter of adding one more sentence. I'll fix that so you're less confused. And wow, you're right about the strange wording. I added that at the last moment and didn't even think about it. and this was helpful, thanks. I'm gonna edit real quick and fix them.
Emily! Hi(: First off to make it to where it's not all scrunched up go to edit. Then there should be a thing at the bottom that says options already showing all the details. You will see formatting, change it to story. That should space out between the sentences.
Nitpicks:
Like Teardrop said this isn't very gripping, as far as opening lines go. Maybe start out with the part about his mom crying. That will make the reader want to know what's happening and it's only a matter of switching the sentence around.
It always bugs me when I explain this because I'm not sure if I'm doing it right. But I'm like 99% sure that the only time you put a comma after dialogue is when it's saying something like "Yeah," I say, a huge grin plastered on my face." When it's telling how the character is saying something or how they are reacting as they say it. Here there should be a full stop, a period, after the dialogue.
I'm confused. Is Taylor Ben's ex? If she is then why would he be getting married to her? I know we don't know a lot of the back story but this is something that we need to know a little bit more about. I think when you edit this you should make it a little longer and more detailed.
This doesn't make much sense either. We don't really have that much of an idea where anybody is. We don't know where Ben is on the couch is he lying down or is he sitting? And the hand thing doesn't make sense. Why not just say that he flips them off?
Comma before man and semi-colon or period after man. Since they are two separate sentences.
It might just be my personal opinion, but I really hate parenthesis in prose like this. There are a lot of ways to redo this sentence so that you don't need them and you can still keep everything in there.
This is worded strangely. I would put "I'm a decent sweeper in soccer and a second baseman in baseball."
Overall:
Em, you have to establish a setting. Make sure we know where each character is because I wasn't really sure. They were in the living room, I think when Ryan walked in. I figured his mom was in there too but then all the sudden she was in the kitchen. Yeah, it was confusing.
I liked the dialogue to sort of get to know the characters but I really only got a sense of the dad. And then I only got a sense that he's sort of playful and teasing. But I didn't really get much out of the other characters. You might want to look at this page (post708612.html?hilit=dialogue#p708612) to get a sense of the dialogue punctuation. Read back through and fix it(:
I like the story so far, the other parts. But this part didn't really seem to fit into the rest of the story. More details about each of the characters will help a lot with the story and it will help you as a writer.
I hope this helps(: Message me if you need anything or have any questions.
~peanut~
Okay. thanks. This is a chapter that I've thought has needed editing/adding. the next chapter is better. Could you suggest how I could add depth? Ryan gets better as this goes on, but he's still so flat!
Mhmm yeah when you post, there's an option at the bottom that says "Story Mode" and if you fill in the bubble next to that it will organize it for you, i'm pretty sure. Yeah, I enjoyed reading it and thought it was good but thought you could have added a bit more depth to it to make it even better. You shouldn't hate it, it's good! Don't beat yourself up. ^__^ I liked it!
Not sure why it bunched together so much. You said it was good...but you also said it lacked emotion and detail. ? I know this chapter isn't great. I've always hated it. I'm gonna edit when I have time.
Hi! I'm Teardrop! First of all, this is kinda bunched together, try spreading it out a bit more!
Anyway, I think you really lack emotion and detail. Really put yourself into your character's shoes, and describe all of their senses and feelings. Make the reader feel like they're really there!!
Okay, so you should check this out-http://www.youngwriterssociety.com/topic44898.html It's an article about punctuation within dialogue, I think you should check it out!
Anyway, I thought this was good! Keep writing!!
~Tear