Okay, I had the first three chapters up, but I was told it was a bit too much, so I will revise and when it seems good, I will post the nest chapter.
I have the entire book done, but what fun would it be to post more and spoil everything.
Still open for revisions, but I do want to get the next chapter up.
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The Beginning
“Rose...what's with you lately? You've barley said two words since the party. What's wrong with you?” Kelly asked me. Kelly and I have been best friends since birth, before now I couldn't imagine lying to her. There is just too much to tell her now, too much she wouldn't understand.
“Nothing." I mumbled so low that I could barely hear myself.
“See? That's what I mean; you didn't even give me two words that time. Rose, this is stupid. I'm your best friend, talk to me!”
She is my best friend, but I really didn't want to talk to her about this. I could feel that she really was worried about me. I know I have been acting weird. The party on Saturday turned out to be worse than I thought it was going to be. It was so hard to even think about, never mind opening up and telling her about it.
“Hellooo?” Kelly asked, annoyed.
“I'm sorry Kelly, I just really don't want to talk to anyone right now.”
“I don't care Rose, this has gone on for long enough! It's Friday for god's sake and you haven't talked to anyone all week. It's stupid! By keeping quiet you're not solving anything.”
“Listen Kelly, the party just sucked for me last Saturday, like big time. In addition to my dad really pissing me off.”
“Fine. Are you going to either of the parties this weekend?” She asked.
Usually going to to these parties were all I could think of. They were thrown by the most popular people at school. The cheerleaders, the jocks, basically anyone who was anyone would be there.
“No, I'm not. I don't really want to. I have to do some stuff at home.”
“Well can I come over tonight then? I'll sacrifice my Friday night party and hang out with you.” She asked, dramatically.
“No, I told you, I have some things I need to take care of tonight. Go to the party and have fun. Be careful though. Those parties are getting out of control.” I warned. The crazy boys thought they owned the girls and could do whatever they wanted to them. It was scary and I don't want to be involved in that anymore.
“Okay mom!” She joked.
“I'm serious, Kelly. Why do you think I have all the bruises and shit all over my body? That all happened at the party.” I told her seriously.
“Did William do that to you?”
I hesitated. “No, he didn't.”
“Don't lie to me.”
Lying to her shouldn't be this easy. There is just no way I could talk to Kelly and have her understand without freaking out. I am a terrible friend, but this is how it has to be.
“I'm not. I swear.”
“Okay, I'll believe you for now. Try to have some fun tonight.”
“Thanks. Have fun at the party.”
She waved goodbye and walked away. The final bell rang, letting everyone in school know that a new weekend had started. The narrow halls filled quickly with snobby girls and loud guys. All of them talking about the amazing bashes this weekend. I had forgot to have my first period teacher sign my withdrawal form, my head was somewhere else. He was the only one I had forgotten.
“Where ya headin'?” He asked, trying to be a cool, casual teacher.
“I'm going to live with my mom.”
“Why's that?
“I don't know. I guess I just want to.”
“Oh, I'm sorry to see you go, Rosaline. Best of luck to you at your new school.”
“Thank you, Mr. Tyke.”
I flashed him the best smile I could manage, then headed to the main office where I would hand in my withdrawal form. Mrs. Rowe, a woman who I ate lunch with when I had lunch detentions was there waiting for me. I can honestly say I was really going to miss her. I had gotten kicked out of the Cafeteria for swearing at the teachers on a day to day basis.
“I'm going to miss eating lunch with you, kid.” She told me.
“I know, I will too. I'll miss you.”
“E-mail me so we can keep in touch.”
“I will. I'll tell you about my new school and everything.”
“Do you have my e-mail address?”
“Yeah. Thanks, Mrs. Rowe, I'll miss you.”
She gave me a brief hug and I walked out of the office to my car outside. My dad had given me a small crappy van. It was very ugly and old. The color was a faded and rusty maroon. Gross. My guess was that it was new in the early nineties. I was about to get in when I heard my name.
“Rose!” The voice shouted.
I turned around and it was my friend Clayton. He was gay, and he always knew how to make me happy. I'm not sure why he was always so happy, but somehow he always saw the bright side of things. I have never seen him in a bad mood, or be mean to anyone.
“Hey, Clayton.” I said.
“You looked pretty sad this week. Is everything okay?” He asked concerned.
“Yeah, just having a rough week.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. Peter broke up with me on Tuesday.”
“Aw, I'm sorry, Clayton. You can do better than him anyways.”
“You always know how to make me happy! I don't know what I would do without you.”
Oh crap. I didn't want to leave everyone here. It is too hard. I have to leave right now.
“That's sweet Clayton, but I have to go, I have a lot to do tonight.”
“Party?”
“No, stuff around the house for my dad. No parties for me this weekend.”
“Oh, well that's too bad. Call me okay?”
“Yeah sure!” I said.
“Bye Rose. Talk to you later.”
“Yep.”
I jumped into my out of date van and started it up. I would have to remember to save Clayton's number. I didn't care what my dad said about not telling anyone I was leaving, I was going to call Clayton. My dad sought any way to avoid drama, so he felt that me not telling any of my friends would lead to less drama. I don't know how he saw that way, but he did.
My drive home was exactly like it was everyday. It was starting to snow though. That made me angry. I had to leave right when it started to snow. Winter was my favorite season. The snow was beautiful and the cold was nice because you could go home and curl up in front of the fire. It was the perfect season.
When I got home my dad was in the living room sitting on the couch, waiting for me. He gave me an angry look. I stopped and stood in front of him.
“What?” I asked him.
“What took you so long?”
“I actually have friends dad, and guess what? They talk to me.”
“Don't be a smart mouth, Rosaline. What did you tell your friends?”
“I didn't tell them anything. Except that I was being forced to move to California.”
“Rosaline Marie Faire!” He yelled.
“Do you honestly think I would do something against your word? You might beat the crap out of me...”
“You well deserved those beatings. If you didn't get in trouble every damn day, we wouldn't have a problem would we?”
“Your the freaking problem! You're sick!”
“Oh yeah? How so?” He asked, mocking me.
“You make me do everything, cook, clean, and basically worship you.”
“That's a woman's place in this house. Vikki agrees with me.”
“That's because Vikki is a delusional tramp.”
“Oh, Rosaline don't make me beat the life out of you.”
“Go ahead, then explain it to mom.”
I turned to walk away.
“Don't you dare walk away from me.” He flared, anger thick in his voice.
“Screw off, David.” I said, as I fled to the stairs.
“Since when do you call me by my first name?”
“Since you're not really my father. A father is suppose to love their children and you hate me, Ben and Justina.”
“That's bull.”
“Shut up.” I screamed, shaking my head.
I turned down the hallway, stomped up the stairs and quickly turned into my room. I slammed the door and locked it. My dad had filled my room with boxes. I turned on As I lay Dying and blasted it so I couldn't even hear myself think. They were my favorite metal band and the music always cleared my mind.
I started to pack and I actually got most of my room done. It was getting late and I was getting really tired. I turned off my music, crept into my bed, underneath my blankets, and drifted into a semi-sleep.
I woke to my father banging and yelling for me to 'get my ass up' and I screamed at him. I really shouldn't have because it was almost noon. I just didn't care, this was bullshit. I heard a woman's laugh, it was a laugh that sounded like the wicked witch of the west from the original Wizard Of Oz. I hated my dad's girlfriend just as much as I hated him.
I heard them go down the stairs then I heard his bedroom door slam close. That's all they did was have sex. It was so annoying. When they were in the bedroom it was safe to go downstairs. I quickly went downstairs trying to ignore the disgusting sounds coming from my father's room and get something to eat. I wasn't supposed to eat in my room, but I didn't care what he said to me anymore.
I half ran back up the stairs and closed my door, and locked it once again. My dad was horrible. He would sometimes give me beatings then make me watch him and Vikki do things. I remember one time he actually tied me to a chair and made me watch as he and Vikki stripped each other. It was horrifying. I hated him.
I spent the rest of the day packing up my things. I wanted to go to sleep so I could wake up and leave my dad. I finally fell asleep, and I woke up once more to my father banging the door.
“Bring your shit to the car, Vikki and I have to talk about some things before I bring you to the airport.” He laughed.
What he meant was he needed another session with Vikki in bed, then we could leave for the airport. He disgusted me. I did as he said though. I hurried down the stairs so I could get out of the house. I didn't want to hear anything. I rushed to put my bags in the car. Once I got back inside I looked at the clock and we were running behind.
I walked to my father’s bedroom door and banged on it.
“What do you want?” He said, obviously annoyed with me for disrupting.
“We have to go.”
“Ugh, Vikki stop. Wait for me once I get home. We will finish this discussion when I get back.”
My father came out of his room buttoning up his pants, and he gave me a look. I rolled my eyes.
“Let's go.” I demanded.
End of chapter
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140,891 Literary Works • 673,705 Reviews
Okay, I think you have a good start but you need more descriptions and emotions. You kind of jump around. Be consistant and detailed.
I'm sorry, I'm running out of time but if you have any other questions, just PM me
Hopefully this helped!
I agree Its a great first chapter
When you are going to finalize it you should try to be descriptive as possible it makes the reader feel as if he/she is the main charchter and they will get sucked into reading it
I for one enjoyed it
Okay, I really like this! I want to know what happens next chapter! I wanna know why the dad is so...disgusting, what happened between the mom and dad, why she is going to Cali, who is this Will dude, and...that's it! I hope to find out all that stuff in the enxt chapter! I can't wait!
I didn't find anything wrong. That's good!
Well, I really like this and please PM when you post the next chapter!
Hello again!!!
Yay revisions!
A few things that you mussed were the Tag punctuations. I pointed most of them out to you and you caught them, but there was still like two or three that werent corrected.
The correct tags are as follows.
"Blah blah," he said.
"Blah blah!" He exclaimed, raising his voice.
"Blah blah?" He asked, tilting his head.
See what I did? If you still don't see it, then there is an article somewhere on this website that can help you out a little more.
Second thing, you're 'van' What I'd suggest is to actually give it a name. Look up different types of vans so you can paint a prettier picture for your readers. Also, Nineties is gross? Are you serious? If you're really going for that 'out-of-date' image, go for the seventies...nineties are still in date a weee bit.
Other than that, i have no complaints.
You did a lot better this time around with your descriptions. Very nice.
Pm me when you post the next chapter, please. =) =)
--Jazz
Just so you know, even one of your chapters is considered a little long for a post, so all three is way too much. I'd suggest you just put chapter one in one post, wait a while for it to get an audience, then post chapter 2 either in a new post or the same one. This will get more people to review for you since it isn't one huge block of text staring you down.
For now I'll just do chapter one, so here we go. As a side note, I didn't read the Jasimine12's review, so pardon any repeats.
Put a question mark after 'lately' and capitalize the 'y' in 'you'. Also, change 'you have' to you've. It flows better and is more realistic for today's lingo.
you need the second quotation mark after 'nothing' so that they surround it. You also need a comma instead of a period. So it should be- "Nothing," I mumbled...
You do this a good few times in your story. You use a comma where periods should be. In this one, you need it after weird, and then don't forget to capitalize the 't' in 'the'.
Another thing you commonly do is use semicolons in spots that call for periods, such as here. Semicolons aren't ever used too often. You just think you need them, but you actually don't. I personally almost never use them.
The way he's speaking makes him sound like a teenager. A teacher most likely wouldn't speak like this. He'd probably ask, "Where are you going?"
This paragraph was pretty choppy. You should combine a few of the sentences and vary the lengths to increase fluidity.
Overall this was pretty good. You got me interested with her abusive father and such, but there are a good few problems in the actual writing. The main problem was that your descriptions are almost completely absent whenever people are talking, and they're only 'okay' everywhere else. You need to describe her surroundings, the people, gestures, etc. At the beginning, for example, I had no clue where they were until the long conversation was over. You could have described the sounds, what was happening, etc.
Well, that's just about everything. Basically the story is good, but you need some work on describing things. I might come back and do the other chapters, but for now I'm done.
Oh. Almost forgot. I have one thing in particular that I want to praise. You wrote an entire story. I've only been able to write short stories since I can't keep myself on one idea for too long. So for that, bravo.
Hey Jessica, here as promised. First off, if posting an entire story, post the chapters individualy. You'd get more reviews. Having something so long is actualy overwelming for reviewers. Kay, lets get started shall we.....
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Two things here. 'You have' sounds too formal. Try 'you've' Second, with the tag. I think you should say Kelly asked me. She has been my best friend since.... or something along those lines. It's better to give some background info on characters in between dialog.
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Ooop. Mix up here. The tag is inside the quotes.
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Tenses are kinda funky here. First you say she 'was' her best friend. then you say she 'knows' shes been acting weird. Choose one.
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“I'm sorry Kelly; I just really don't want to talk to anyone right now.”
"Kelly askedcomma annoyed."
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You could split this up into two sentences.
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Again, two sentences.
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This is where I'd throw in some inner monologue. Tell us about these parties. Who's throwing them. Who's gonna be there. What kind of parties are they. That kind of thing should be squeezed in dialog.
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Comma after 'Well' and comma after 'Asked'
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Again, inner monologue here. What has happened at a past party to cause your main character to warn her friend. Why did they scare her? Make her shudder or SOMETHING.
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When you are addressing a person, make sure you use a comma before their name.
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Why does she feel like she has to lie to her?
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reread this. It doesn't sound right.
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Fix this. Talk about the halls, then talk about the teacher. don't throw them together like this. If you need stuff to fill sentences, talk about how she wont miss any of the students that are pratting away about weekend plans. And how she forgot to have her first period teacher sign it when she was in the class... maybe
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I'm not to sure about you, but i wouldn't spill the beans to a teacher. make it more subtle.
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Again, comma if addressing someone by name.
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Run on. try reworking this sentence a little.
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Run on. Why did she have lunch detentions?
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Okay, addressing rule applies here too.
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Maybe talk about its color or something. Something to show the reader how icky nasty the van really is.
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This is kind of vague. You are leaving a little to much for the readers imagination. What makes him so happy all the time and what is it about Clayton that really makes your MC smile?
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She's addressing Clayton.
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Why would he do that?
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Why?
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OOOOph. That is a little harsh a little fast. Also, Comma before 'Vikki'. Comma before 'Dad' and after dad put a period and create that as your next sentence.
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Addressing rule.
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Period instead of comma and I'd go with an ! instead of the second period.
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Hands on hips maybe?
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Addressing rule. What are they doing Physically wise? Seriously, just standing there? Walking around the kitchen maybe? Something PLEASE!
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Addressing rule. What possessed her to use his name?
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Comma isntead of a period.
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To many 'Ands' in this sentence. Work this out into maybe two sentences?
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This doesnt really flow. And dog tired? do people really say that?
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Run on.
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Period after the first laugh. And did you mean, the wicked witch of the west? If so, then say that. What you said didnt really make much sense.
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I know this type of thing is awkward. but have her remebmer an event then like shudder and go back to the present. you know?
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Okay, I'm stopping here because, well it is quite overwelming. But i will continue later.
But before i go, A few things.
Your MC needs some inner thoughts and monologue. Maybe remember some of the beatings or something along those lines.
She has no feeling of facial expressions. along with the people around her. You didnt really describe her room or anything like that. What does her best friend look like????? that type of thing.
Okay, I'll come back to this later.
I am hooked....NICE!
--Jazz