Together Fornever Chap. 1

200397 seems to have got a lot of the grammar feedback, so I'll just skip forward into the story and I think the rest can be sorted out with a few proofreadings. Firstly, well done on having a nice, substantial first chapter. Those can be hard to come by.

Dialogue--as stated above, check your usage of punctuation in dialogue. Once you understand it, you'll be fine. And you might in fact want to check out this website:

http://mrbraiman.home.att.net/page25.html Nice and simple, but stops me from churning it all out for you .

Throughout, I was suspecting more and more that you wanted to cram in everything about what our character looks like as soon as you could. Look at this, for example:

I pushed long dark hair out of my eyes, desperate to find my last class of the day, which was English.

Firstly, you going to want to make the hair possessive, since it is her hair that she's pushing out of the way, yes? Also, get rid of "long". If it's in her eyes, we know that it's long. And get rid of "which was" since it's unnecessary and lengthens out the point. Why can't she find it? Anyway, back to descriptions. You're throwing in a lot of adjectives that either aren't necessary, or just clog up the sentences in which they describe. You're not entirely prone to that, but be careful nonetheless.

The amount of times that you used "to be" and all it's verb forms bores me, quite simply. You need to find other ways of saying what "was" happening, with more interesting words and varied sentence structures. A lot of this comes down to telling us everything, and not showing, particularly in cases such as when you describe things as what they "were". When you say "the box was ugly", you actually mean, "I thought the box was ugly". Work with that--it could become, "It looked ugly". Then tell us why. The point is that you can use imagery and more active verbs for more powerful prose, such as, "I hated the box--the way the corners shot out reminded me of crooked witch fingers."

I walked in, at least five minutes late.

And the narrator knows this... how? And what's the narrator's name/gender?

First thing I noticed was the overpowering aroma of hospitals and the elderly, which Mrs. Beale represented.

Stop feeding us everything. And less of the "was", please. Rewrite this to something that doesn't explicitly state that she is old and goes to hospitals, but say: "At first, I cringed at the smell of old people and hospitals." Then explain that the narrator traced it back to Mrs Beale, eh? The use of "cringe" shows us that it's overpowering, and "stench" is a stronger word than aroma.

See: contradictory.

But right now all that mattered was that Mrs. Beale was going to be frustrated if I wasn’t in class, NOW.

“You must be the new girl.” She sighed.

How does she know Mrs Beale's character if they apparently haven't met, eh? Be careful when you write things like that.

I walked, like a slug, to the back of the room.

I just find that a little cliché, no? Any other ways of explaining her slowness? And why? Can you show us that she reluctant beforehand, as we might assume that she's just tired.

Right, I hope that I helped. Keep with the idea, although I do find that idea of another new girl at a school a little clichéd. But it could work, I hope.

Best,
Mark

Hey, Icefire! I hope I can help with this. By the way, what's with the title? "Together Fornever?" Is it supposed to be "Together Forever" or "Together For Never"?

I pushed long dark hair out of my eyes, desperate to find my last class of the day, which was English. After school I was going to pick up a supposedly abandoned duffel bag, [s]which was[/s] full of everything I would need for tomorrow. Did it matter I was stopping a thirty-seven man from becoming thirty-eight? This didn't make any sense, probably because it isn't possible, and I hope you'll explain. No, not to me. To him, it mattered, of course. But right now all that mattered was that Mrs. Beale was going to be frustrated if I wasn’t in class, [s]NOW[/s] now.

I walked in, at least five minutes late. First thing I noticed was the overpowering aroma of hospitals and the elderly, which Mrs. Beale represented.* She looked up from her desk, from behind pointed-amber glasses. Her amber eyes were glaring and [s]amber in color[/s] angry**. Her curly white hair was askew, as though she had just run a marathon.

*Rewrite: The overwhelming antiseptic smell of hospitals and the elderly, a perfect description of Mrs. Beale, hit me like running smack into a brick wall.

**A lot of writers use this "~~~~ in color" wording, but everyone who've I've spoken to has said it doesn't roll of the tongue and sounds weird. I think it would be better just to put the color before "eyes".

“Ahh[b],” she [s]said[/s] croaked, her grimace revealing yellowed teeth, and a stench of cigarettes*** wafted lazily over to where I stood. “You must be the new girl.” She sighed. “Sit. There.” She said, from behind those horrid, [s]croaked[/s] crooked, yellow teeth. They were making me shudder, as they were like little [s]yellow[/s] (You've used "yellow" three times now.) candy corns gone bad. She raised an eyebrow from behind an array of wrinkles.

***Cigs really smell. Wouldn't she have smelled that when she first came into the room?

“There.” She repeated and pointed to an empty desk near the back of the classroom. A boy was on my left, and Holly, with her sparkly emerald eyes and fiery hair, was on my right. She's new. How does she know anyone? And how did she know what Mrs. Beale was like?

I walked, like a slug, to the back of the room.****

****Get rid of the two commas in this sentence.

“Holly,” I said, acknowledging her.

“Jane,” she replied, without as much as a glance at me.

I don't want to put down five more stars But on the sentences above, you put a period inside the quotations and then went on and capitalized the first word out of the quotes. DON'T DO THAT. A lot of people do, but I don't see how you can. Use a comma unless they don;t continue afterward. Watch that.

“Who’s that?” I asked, glancing at the boy at my left. He had raven-colored (couldn't you just say "black"?) hair, and [b]his skin was deeply tan. Across his cheeks and nose were freckles. His eyes were somehow [s]only[/s] flat black, as though the iris had been swallowed by the pupil. He had comically large feet, which protruded out from beneath his desk, threatening to trip me.

“Zac,” she answered, her voice hiding all emotion from me.

Again, no period, just a comma and no capitalization.

“Hi,” he said, waving. I rolled my eyes at him and his ignorance, though he was cute.

“Maybe I should move," he [s]said,[/s] mumbled when I didn’t reply.

“Maybe you should,” Holly answered for me, while she scratched a heart into her desk.

“Zac?” a voice called from across the room. I immediately recognized it as Jenny’s, being a high pitched shriek, like a fire hydrant. “You can come sit with me, and leave those freaks alone before they hurt you.”

I looked down at myself. Sure, Jenny probably thought it was a disguise, but I had chosen it, down to the type of eyeliner. Bad description. I have no idea what you're talking about; you need to elaborate.

“Shut up!” Holly yelled across the room, and then made a fist at Jenny.

“Holly, shut up. You’re no help.” Where is the teacher during all of this? This doesn't sound quiet and unnoticeable.

Holly raised her eyebrows at me.

“I was just guarding, you know. Play nice and I’ll tell you about your Zane.”

My heart began hammering against my ribs, like a bird trying to escape its cage.

“Tell.”

“He’s alive, but hardly. They beat him every day. He'll die soon.” She broke off, coughed, and then restarted. “I’ll unlock his door at nine, and then unlock it again at eleven. You’d better be in and out before they catch you." Is there another chapter before this? Because I'm really confused. I thought you said this was Chapter 1.

“Thanks.” I said, my eyes tearing up.

“Jane, if they catch you, I won’t be able to save your life[s]. Again.[/s] again."

The bell rang moments later, but I was lost in a world with my Zane.

Very good. Your descriptions of Mrs. Beale were very imaginable. Just watch the comma/cap thing and you'll be okay.

By the way, is there a prologue? I'll go to your portfolio and look. PM me when the next one's up!

~Sunny