Published February 16, 2016
Warning: This work has been rated 16+.
"Dad, what do you want for dinner?" I called. A muffled reply answered from the living room. Nothing. Again. "Dad you have to frickin eat." I yelled.
"Shut up, Adaline." He answered. My voice caught in my throat. Fine, I thought, I will. I searched through the fridge and freezer, looking for something to eat. I found frozen peas and a bottle of ketchup. There was soda, but that was hardly sustaining. And two week old tuna casserole. Gross. I slammed the fridge shut.
"Dad, can I go out?" I yelled.
"Of course not." He replied. I rolled my eyes. Like you'd even notice if I left, I thought.
"Dad I have to!" I said.
"Like I give a damn. You're not leaving, end of story." He said, "Come watch the game with me."
I rolled my eyes and growled, "You know I freakin hate football."
"And you know that I don't care. Sit your ass down on this couch." I stomped into the room and threw myself down on a chair. I glared at him and watched the game for about three minutes.
"I have homework." I announced and walked up the stairs to my room. I grabbed my bag, my wallet, and a few other things I would probably need. I would be gone for a while. I slid open my window and popped out the screen. I had done this a lot over the past two months. Left, simply because Dad wouldn't notice. I slipped my thin frame through the window and grabbed the small ledge from my window. The drop to the porch was about ten feet. Not bad. I let go and landed with a thud. Glorious. I felt for my car keys in my pocket. Damn. I left them in my room. I couldn't climb back up and leave again. Dad would notice the noise. So I started walking. He'll never even know, I thought. My phone began buzzing, and I slid my thumb across the screen to answer the call.
"Hey, Val." I said. Valerie was my best friend. She was spunky and a little wild, and the only one who seemed to care about me in any way.
"Where are you?" She cried into the phone, "We have to be there umm... about five minutes ago!"
"I know, I know. I'm about a block away. Come pick me up on my street and I'll change in the car." I told her.
"Okay, will do. Does you're dad know you're gone?" She asked.
"What do you think, Val?" I asked sarcastically.
"Right." She said, sadness in her voice, "I'll be right there." I clicked my phone off and waited for about two minutes. Valerie's old car pulled up to the curb and I hopped in. I began pulling my cheer uniform out of the bag. I put on the halter top and began pulling my hair into our classic high ponytails. I slid into my leggings and skirt. It was mostly black, but it had our school colors, green and sky blue, twisted into the design.
"Thanks for picking me up." I said to Valerie. She smiled at me and turned up the stereo. We blasted rock until we got to the school. We ran into the gym and watched the basketball team warm up with the rest of the cheerleaders. The other team started filing in and the stands soon filled up with students and parents. We took our places on the gym floor and Valerie and I stood in front of the other cheerleaders. We were the only seniors, and the Co-Captains.
"Let's go!" Valerie and I cheered. We began one of our cheers, chanting and dancing. Students joined in and I smiled, happy for once. The game started and we stood at attention, watching the game.
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141,735 Literary Works • 675,641 Reviews
Heya, Eevee! OH THANK GOD YOUR NOVELS AREN'T AS LONG AS YOUR SHORT STORIES! Cassy here to review for you again.
Okay, so let's get straight to it. Most of this chapter is made up of dialogue. NU. DUN DO DIS TO ME! Anyway, Here's a couple ways I think you could take dialogue out.
"We need to find," statements can be used in the context of the paragraph as an action statement. Basically, saying"this person is looking for this," and boom. No,"We need to find,"I'm not saying this chapter specifically, I'm just using this as an example.
Another thing that I noticed was this-
This could be restructured so it would sound better. The line"I would be gone for awhile," just seems so misplaced here. I say you could use it something like this- "I grabbed my bag, my wallet, and a few other things I would need for a long trip." Or something like that. Play around with it, find new words to mean a long period of time besides a while, it's so overused. I mean, all words are overused, but I'm just saying have fun where you can and make it sound better at the same time.
The next thing I noticed was this-
I've went over this in one of your short stories, but I'll go over it again. You're constantly using,"she asked," or,"she said." Be creative with it. As a reader I want to feel the emotion of your characters through their words and actions. Everything. Their thoughts, their emotions, their feelings. I want to be able to grasp this through how you describe them, and how they speak. Their emotions in their words, or their meaning, so to speak.
Anyway, I'm on to the next thing. Wish me luck.
Keep doing what you're doing and keep on keeping on.
Your friend, Cassy
Hi EverWinter!
I don’t think we’ve ever spoken before. No better way to break the ice than giving a good old review 
- I love this description. It’s sharp, witty and straight to the point.Things I liked;
Even though I don’t know much about why the relationship has broken down between daughter and Dad, I like how natural it’s feeling. Even the short bursts of dialogue seem real and that’s a hard thing to capture. Good job.
Again, the dialogue between Adaline & Val is really natural.
I like that we’re immediately getting to see that Adaline escapes the house by sneaking away to do cheerleading etc. It makes the reader connect to her and also want to know why she feels the need to escape.
Things I think you could improve;
I would put an apostrophe at the end of the word frickin’ here to make it known that you missing out the ‘g’.
- I think it would have been great if you would have given us a physical description on her Dad here. She could have gone into how he’s slouched in his chair, stains on his week old shirt etc. It would just add to the atmosphere of how she feels about her Dad if you add some negative description.
I think a full stop after the word ‘left’ would be more powerful and it would spice things up with some short, snappy sentences.
- I wouldn’t use the word ‘window’ in the same sentence twice.
This chapter is a little short. Or is this just part of your first chapter?
Good luck! Feel free to ask my any question, anytime. I’m always around.
Olive <3
It's just the first part. I'm unsure of how to enter in the other MC/Love interest. I dont want it to be cliche, because honestly, August is anything but. He's one of my favorite characters
)
Thanks for the review and I will fix it.
(Do you want tagged when I write the next part? I dont really care either way
Hello, Tulip here to give you a review on your chapter today.
Okay, so the way you have paragraphs formatted aren't a bad thing, but you should try to keep dialogue out of a normal paragraph, to give more of an emphasis on it. It is something that I noticed wasn't being done right from the start of the chapter. It is a little distracting not having the dialogue separate but we can slowly distinguish it from the rest of them. The only spot that I didn't like where you had it with the rest of the paragraph was at the end of the chapter. With a new set of actions and the introduction to a new setting, you want to make sure that everything is clear and precise.
Okay now for some corrections, that I suggest for you.
I'm hoping that this helps you a little bit.
Keep on writing,
~Tulip~
Thanks! I forgot to use spell check at the end, so I never would have noticed XD