Being me (Part 1)

Hey, Kamas, here as requested! As this was your only short story piece, I decided to give this a look-see.

Grammar

First of all, you have a couple of grammar issues. Comma placement, semi-colon usage-- all of the usual stuff that people get confused about. I'm going to link you to a couple of tutorials on grammar, and I think you really should take a look at them.

Semi-Colons
Punctuation within Dialogue

Check them out.

Now, corrections and nit-picks.

I took a deep breath preparing myself mentally to start all over again. My walk had been upbeat and confident when I had been walking to school but, now they had been reduced to small and timid strides.

Alright, so here are two grammar mistakes where your commas are either not there or misplaced. I'm not going to point out every single one, but I'll do this first one.

I took a deep breath, mentally preparing myself to start all over again. My walk had been upbeat and confident when I was on my way to school, but now the steps had been reduced to small and timid shuffles.

So, I'm going to explain a lot of these changes I made.

1.) After 'breath', you need a comma. Say the sentence aloud, then put commas where you take a natural break.

2.) In the second sentence, you use 'walk' and 'walking' very closely together. Using the same word twice will disrupt your flow and do nothing but damage for your story, so I reworded the second sentence a bit to get rid of that second 'walking'.

3.) The comma has to be in front of the 'but'. Like these:

I have taken years of art classes, but I still can't even draw a decent flower.
She would have to cooperate with the men, or she would face the consequences.
Jonathan liked baseball, and when he was at bat he always made a home-run.

4.) I changed 'strides' to 'shuffles' because of what you're describing. Strides tend to be long, confident, and graceful, whereas the steps you're describing are more shy and broken, like they're shuffling along.

So, that was extremely in-depth, but it covered three very important aspects to your story: comma placement, repeated words, and word choice. You must always pay attention to these things in order for your paragraphs and sentences to flow.

I was part of that but, what was I exactly?

Not quite sure if this is a mistake in wording or a mistake in semi-colons. It is a mistake in commas, though. Which of these did you mean:

I was a part of that, but what was I exactly?
I was a part of that; what was I exactly?

The closest thing I can think of is that media junk, superpowers, but then again, I'm no Superman or Wonderwoman. I believe that's what the scienist were aiming for when they created me but, they created something much more powerful.

Important! Important! Alright, so here is where your plot is coming in. Within the very first paragraph, you're alreay telling us that your MC has superpowers. Isn't this something better left for the readers to slowly discover? I mean, if that is going to be a large portion of your plot (which I have a feeling it will be) and you go ahead and tell us everything in the first sentences, what fun is there for us to slowly get to know your character? Same thing with telling us about the scientists. Instead of telling us now, why don't you stick in a flashback somewhere. Or have her reminded of those days in the lab or whatever during an everyday conversation. Don't just tell us. Show us her memories, her powers.

[s]Alright, I find myself doing this way too often, but I'll get back to this really soon, alright? I'll finish soon; I just have to go do something.[/s]

I'm back! Aha! Now, to continue!

In the paragraphs where you're describing Abby's ragged and exhausted appearance, why don't you add some of her reactions upon looking in the mirror? Is she appalled by her own reflection? Too tired to care about something as trivial as looks? Does she think the grunfy look gives her an edge?

That description is wonderful, actually. You've given us a great, clear mental image of your MC; I think it could be improved only the tiniest bit with some of her thoughts concerning that reflection.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

As far as formatting goes, this isn't the most important thing in the story; the actual story is. But I think just three asterisks, such as ***, would be more effective than this line of decoration. It's more subtle, and works quite as well if not better to seperate the writing into sections.

"Hello Gr. 12's!"

In YWS, we abbreviate only when absolutely necessary. You can either spell it out as Grade 12's, or 12th Graders. I like the second, personally.

This unleashes a round of unconrollable chatter, giggles [comma here] and shouts from the students.

You've done this a couple of times, so I thought I'd clear it up for you that there does generally need to be another comma where I inserted it. It's technically not always used, but it looks so much neater and gives the sentence a much smoother flow.

but the porshe was a total splurge.

Be consistant with your capitalization; Porshe needs to be capitalized.

Grammar. Again. And, Spelling.

So, you need to proofread your posts before you put them up, love. YWSers will gladly give their opinions on your story, but when there are a lot of spelling mistakes and typos within even the greatest story, it's distracting as we review. For example:

His response consised of a few hello's

Should be: His response consisted of a few hellos.

And that's only one of the cases. Run your posts through Spell-Check if you have to, which is right above the posting box. Okay? If you need more help finding grammar and spelling mistakes in this, you can ask me and I'll go through with a fine-toothed comb and find them for you, but I'd prefer you to find them yourself.

Overall

Brace yourself.

So, honestly, when I got your PM I was expecting a horribly-written, painful-to-read story with flat characters, a horrible plot, and agonizing word choices. I'm terribly sorry, but it's just what I was preparing myself for. I must say, I was extremely pleasantly surprised when I read this. Why?

Kamas's PM wrote:hi i like ur critiques and I've heavily dited some of my work.
Can you edit a piece of ur choice (preferably a writing piece though)
thanks a milion (even if you cant)

This is just some over-all advice that has nothing to do with this story specifically. On this site, try to be grammatically correct (with correct spelling and no chatspeak) all of the time, not just in the pieces you post. I would have been much more eager to critique this piece in the first place if your PM has read:

Hi Evi, I like your critiques and I've heavily edited some of my work.
Can you review a piece of your choice (preferably a writing piece, though)?
Thanks a million, even if you can't.

No chatspeak. Everything spelled correctly. As a writing site, this is what we want to see everywhere, even in PMs and Community forums.

This story, and such.

So, I think this is interesting so far! Despite that part about telling us you are a superhuman and were created by scientists, I truly enjoyed reading this. I can still use a little work-- mainly with Abby's thoughts, emotions, and reactions --but besides the whole grammar and spelling thing, you have a wonderful little opening here! I'm sorry it this seemed like a dreadfully harsh review, Kamas dear, but I really wanted to show you how much potential this story has if you edit a couple of things.

You actually have pretty solid word choices, with just enough larger words to challenge us but not make us reach for our dictionaries, lol. I think you can add a bit more description of the school, the weather, and the people around Abby-- that bit describing her in the mirror was lovely --and you'll be doing great!

If you need me to take a look at later installments, just PM me or post in my thread, and I'd be happy to.

~Evi

Kamas! Kamas! June here!

I need to review more of your stuff! I like it, it's always enjoyable, but I always never have time to leave a review!

Let's get crackin':

I took a deep breath preparing myself mentally to start all over again.

Comma after breath, dearie.

But in truth they were completely average, there was nohing special about them.

nohing should be nothing, dear .


I would suggest splitting your first paragraph into two, maybe three, paragraphs, dear. It's like, "Whoa!" when we open this . A giant chunk, haha.

They believe they are pushing those barriers to huge extents but it isn't true. Those boundaries are unpenetrable, if you try to cross them you're dead or sometimes worse. These boundaries have few things beyond them. I was one of those few things. I wasn't exactly human but they didn't know that, they'd just continue to try and push uselessly until they die like everyone before them.

unpenetrable should be impenetrable.

Also! Combine some of these sentences, dear! Maybe even leave some off; don't bring us too much information right away, dear-- let us learn it throughout the story .

I stopped in the bathroom and stopped in front of the mirror. With sigh i looked myself over, my night black hair was a mess the right sleeve of my favourite t-shirt hung off my strong fair skinned shoudler revealing a thin bra strap. My baggy jeans where the bottoms dragged on the floor had pen marks on them along with my purple converse from my unconciense doodling.I put my sleeve back onto my shoulder and pulled my messy hair into a loose ponytail. I grabbed my binder glanced at the

• The repetition of "stopped" makes this a bit boring. Substitute with a synonym, dear.
• Take a look at the underlined sentence dear; it should be with a sigh and you should end it with a semicolon instead of a comma .
• Shoudler should be shoulder, dear.
• unconciense should be unconscious; rather it should be subconscious because when you're unconscious, you can't do anything .

I put my sleeve back onto my shoulder and pulled my messy hair into a loose ponytail. I grabbed my binder glanced at the

mirror one last time as the bell rang. I paused in the hall letting the major rush past and walked quietly and quickly into the class.

Eek! Watch the stray line-breaks, dearie! Don't use them unnecessarily; How you use it here is a no-no. Pay attention to this throughout your story, dear! I notice you've done that a few times.

"Hello Grade 12! How is everyone?" he said in a [s]booming[/s] cheerful voice.

Lots of times, dear, it's better to just use one descriptive word per sentence . And! Is he asking or saying that question?

"Good" everyone responded in unison.

Include a comma inside of that tag, dear. If the dialogue tag continues a sentence, then use a comma. If the following text does no relate to the sentence, use a period.

Our collision had knocked him over too." Hi. Ummm Sorry about that" he said as he scrambled up and offered me a hand [s]up[/s]. I took his hand embarrassed, I normally wouldn't have fallen, it would have tooken thirty of him going and 100 miles per hour to knock me over.

• Begin dialogue on a new line, dearie!

• Watch the excessive letters in "Um"; two M's is good enough .

• Tooken should be taken .

"Well, um thanks, Sebastian is too, I guess" I responded

Comma after the last S in guess; and period after the D in responded, dear.



Remember!

• Nouns need to be capitalized; English is a noun, so the E should be capitalized. The pronoun I should also be capitalized.

• Remember to use proper punctuation is dialogue, dearie:

"Hi" he said

Should be: "Hi," he said.

"Hi" he said uncertainly. "Im mark"

Should be: "Hi," he said uncertainly, "I'm Mark."


• Remember to use proper spacing with punctuation!

There is no space preceding a punctuation mark:

This is the right way.

But there is a space following it.

This is the right way. In proper punctuating, there's always a space after.


• Remember to watch your paragraph length and spacing!

• Use commas correctly to show pauses and to separate ideas.

[/end-of-grammar-lesson] xD


SO!

Very interesting, Kamas!

You're off to a great start! I would really like to follow along with this story to see where it goes; Please, may you PM me when you have the next part?

I'm wondering, what IS Abby? Like, is she a vampire, or is she some other type of super-human creature?


Her character was portrayed well; we get a good image of who/how she is in this first part, Kamas, well done!

Nice work on this, dear, keep it up!

June

Hello! I'm The.Dreamwalker but most people just call me dreamwalker and I'll be reviewing your work this evening

Before I start, I think it would be best if I tell you that my reviewing style is best read fully through. You wont get much from just skimming it for I explain many things when I quote. Just so you know

Now onto my critique!

I took a deep breath preparing myself mentally to start all over again. I took my first stride through the door and down the hall ignoring the smirks and chuckles in my direction.

Okay the first sentence is definitly exciting but the how you transitioned into the next sentence wasnt very professional. Dont start a sentence with I took, the the second sentence with I took. Try to really sparse it out. make it not so redudant.

These people thought they were all that, they put other people down to make themselves feel more important, it's human nature.

The use of comma's in this bit is a little unnerving. Most of them could be sentences on their own, which means you have to use transitions to fix it if your using comma's. Using periods would only succeed in making it sound to fragmented so your best bet is to transition it.

Here's an example.

"These people thought they were all that as they pit other people down at make themselves feel better. Of course, it was only human nature though."

Hopefully that helps you out a little.

But in truth they were completely average, there was nohing special about them.

Transition it better and nohing should be nothing.

I don't like that kind of stuff, superpowers, superheros and supervillians it was just bullshit created by the media.

Careful careful. It should be transitioned out like this.

I dont like the whole idea of superpowers, superheros, any of that stuff. It was just bullshit created by the media.

they weren't real but unforunately for me I was part of that.

This makes no sense. They aren't real but she's admitting to being apart of it? Doesnt that make her not real? Either way, they should be capitialized.

The human race continues to try and push the physical, mental & social barriers set apon them. They believe they are pushing those barriers to huge extents but it isn't true. Those boundaries are unpenetrable, if you try to cross them you're dead or sometimes worse. These boundaries have few things beyond them. I was one of those few things. I wasn't exactly human but they didn't know that, they'd just continue to try and push uselessly until they die like everyone before them.
Quite simply I was super human. I don't like that kind of stuff, superpowers, superheros and supervillians it was just bullshit created by the media. they weren't real but unforunately for me I was part of that. I wasn't the only one but I'd never met anyone like me backat the laboratory or in the social world.

This whole bit seems terribly much like an info dump. Try to make this information sparse, giving tidbits throughout your storyline, instead of having it all in the same area. I know sometimes it cant be avoided, but in this specific case it's put in a place that would immediately turn someone away from your story. The writer, although using their way of art to create something, are also writing to entertain. Keep that in mind.

I stopped in the bathroom and stopped in front of the mirror.

Dont use the word stopped twice. To repetitive. Trying saying something like 'I stopped in the bathroom, stalling to see myself in the mirror' or some sort like that.

With sigh i looked myself over, my night black hair was a mess the right sleeve of my favourite t-shirt hung off my strong fair skinned shoudler revealing a thin bra strap.

This is worded silly. You are missing a few capitals and commas. It should be like this. 'With a sigh I looked myself over, my owb night black hair seeming to be a complete mess, the right sleeve of my favourite T-shit hanging loosely off my shoulder leaving it bare, only a thin bra strap visible'

I glanced nervously around the class, to my relief the only seat avaible was in the corner alone, beside another empty desk.

Avaible should be available.

I sat down avoiding the curious glances of my classmates, I didn't want them to think I was weird right away.

This should be two sentences or trying connecting them with words, but the comma doesnt work with this bit.

I put my sleeve back onto my shoulder and pulled my messy hair into a loose ponytail. I grabbed my binder glanced at the
mirror one last time as the bell rang. I paused in the hall letting the major rush past and walked quietly and quickly into the class.I glanced nervously around the class, to my relief the only seat avaible was in the corner alone, beside another empty desk. I sat down avoiding the curious glances of my classmates, I didn't want them to think I was weird right away.

This entire bit shows just 'I did this. I did that. I did this and that. I did this... etc' Try spinning it up by adding what she's thinking, some emotions. My eyes jetted this way and that or some sort. This is very bland.

I hated starting at a new school, people were usually too curious or too mean, and I gave
up making friends a long time ago, I didn't give people a reason to hate me unless it was nessecary or reasons to like me.

This is very long and there shouldnt be that many comma's. You really need to nail sentence structure in. The more you practice it, the better you'll get, and the quicker you'll realize that you can write fairly well. Just watch out for sentences that are too long and dont need to be, or no emotion in the writing.

While i was sitting with my eyes closed, the english teacher
walked in.

i should be capitalized.

"Hello Grade 12! How is everyone?" he said in a booming cheerful voice.

I would have put something like 'Hello my twelth grade students! or something. Saying hello grade 12 would be fairly awkward.

"Good" everyone responded in unison.

This sounds fairly steriotypical. A class of 12 grade students wouldnt just go 'good'. It sounds silly.

"Class today we have a new student.

Should be a comma between class and today.

Will you come up and inroduce yourself please?"

Inroduce should be introduce.

the class mumbled a few responses.

the should be capitalized.

I took his hand embarrassed, I normally wouldn't have fallen, it would have tooken thirty of him going and 100 miles per hour to knock me over.

Should be two sentences and tooken is actually supposed to be taken.

I looked up to see a boy with the most gorgeous melted gold eyes I've ever seen.

Sounds sort of Twilightish... might want to fix that up a bit.

Glad you could join us Sebastian

There should be a comma between us and Sebastian.

Sebasian blushed and walked over to the only avaible seat beside me.

I feel a cliche moment coming on very quickly. It has the whole twilight feel with the 'girl hates town, girl meets boy, boy changes girls mind, girl likes town, girl likes boy'. Thats just my opinion. Dont make this obvious cause a reader isnt stupid. They will pick up on things quickly.

He smiled at me warmly. His smile was so dazzling it surprised me.

Yep too twilight for words. You just used the word 'dazzling' for a golden eyed boy. Sorry, I just pick up on these things and it sort of bugs me. This character has been overused so many times.

The teacher called his name to egt his attention but he whirled aroud too fast and knocked over all his stuff. He stood there for a second with his cheeks turning bright red and he scrambled to collect his stuff.

Dont end two sentences with 'his stuff'. Too redudant. Also, I'm pretty sure egt should be get.

A few pencils rolled over to my desk so I picked them up and handed them to him when he sat own at his desk.

No need to say 'he sat at his own desk'. We all know if he was to sit it would be at his desk. It's kind of obvious and there is no need to state the obvious.

Overall

Okay so with this piece I see a lot of potential. Although I dont know much about this at the moment in time, from what I saw the characters were fairly static and cliched. Try to fix em up, give them some personality. Really make your characters stand out to me because at this moment in time they feel exactly like Edward and Bella. Nobody needs another twilight.

But we want something new and I'm sure you'll find yourself writing wonderful things in the future.

Oh and one more thing, work on your transitions and comma placing. Your comma's end up in the wrong places and are either unnecessary or needed badly. Watch out for that. Connecting words will be your best friend if writing is something you love.

I'm only being harsh with you though because I know that the more criticism you get, the better of writer you'll be. Never tell yourself your good enough because the moment you do, you're improvement levels will stay at one state. Always strive to do better even when you can write like Anne Rice or even the old classics like Jane Austen.

Keep it up and I'm excited to see the next bit. PM me when its up!

Ciao
-The.Dreamwalker