Hey, nice work overall, just a few comments.
One general comment is that you should put a full space between paragrapsh; indentations makes my eyes hurt while I'm reading something on the computer.
The news bulletin flashed onto the screen, once again. Up popped the picture of Shade Morgan, a tall fourteen year old boy, with short, black, greasy hair. It was the third time this week. Still missing.
I'm not sure why, but the opening sort of put me off. I liked the last two sentences worked fine, but the "up popped" sort of annoyed me. I think "up popped" seems like a light-hearted phrase to me, and so it seems out of place. Maybe "appeared" would be better. Also, it should be "fourteen-year-old."
His neck was thin and long, like a giraffes. He was extremely thin. He looked as if he never ate anything. I looked away and continued reading ‘The Beano’.
Should be "giraffe's" with an apostrophe. Also, this paragraph seemed to have too many of the same length sentences so it fell into a dee dum dee dum dee dum dee dum pattern, which gets boring quickly. Try to vary your sentence length using more conjuctions and maybe a couple of semi-colons.
“I wonder where he is. Do you know him? He is about the same age as you, Demi,” mum asked me.
“Hmm. What?” I replied.
“I said do you know him?” mum repeated.
“Who?” I asked.
“Oh Demi, do try and pay attention! Shade Morgan, he’s in your year at school. Do you know him?” she asked me once again, sounding slightly irritated this time.
This dialogue seemed off. I would change it to something like this:
"I wonder where he is. Do you know him, Demi?" my mum asked me. "He's about your age."
"What?" I didn't look up.
"I said, do you know him?"
"Who?"
"Demi, please pay attention! Shade Morgan, he's in your year at school. Do you know him?"
Something like that. Also, I think the exclamation mark should make the mother's annoyance apparant, so you don't have to tell us she's annoyed when her dialogue already has.
The news reporter spoke again.
So he was quiet the whole time? Maybe it should be, "The news reporter was saying, ...." and then launch into the dialogue.
The news reporter pointed to Hawkshead Park
How about just plain ol' reporter? News reporter over and over gets tiring. Or "anchor" would work too. Do you guys call them that in England?
It is not yet clear as to why Shade went missing, but his father is convinced that he would not runaway.
Here it should be "run away" because "runaway" is a noun. Also, later in the dialogue it says "well being" and I think that needs to be hyphenated?
I couldn’t be bothered listening to the rest. I wonder why he has gone missing. He is fourteen, the same age as me and I’m quite capable of looking after myself. The police are looking for witnesses, but I can be of no help, as I was having my tea at the time he went missing.
Why couldn't she be bothered to listen to the rest if she's going to continue thinking about it? Besides, it sounds kind of heartless. What about "I stopped listening" instead? You switched tenses in "the police are looking for witnesss, but I can be of no help. Should be could
The rain lashes against the windows, as I sit, hunched up in the corner of the living room in the famous Beatrix Potter’s house, eight miles from my home in Hawskhead. I sit, as if expecting something to happen. There is a strong wind outside blowing hard against the trees, making them creak. It is quite spooky. I wonder if anyone is looking for me yet. Probably not. I am just Shade Morgan, a boy hardly anyone knows exists. I have been gone for three days now, maybe dad will have noticed that I am not in the house. I doubt it. He never notices anything since mum left. He just sits in front of the box, watching the cricket, but there is no point. England are playing rubbish, but he doesn’t appear to pay that much attention. Oh well.
This really confused me. If you're going to switch POV's I think you need some sort of divider to let the reader know that we're leaving Demi and moving to Shade. And now we're in a different tense. You need to be consistent, unless you're always going to use present with Shade and past with Demi.
It’s freezing and dark outside, so it must be quite late. I curl up in my blanket and eventually fall asleep.
“I’m going to bed mum,” I shout.
“Night Demi,” she replies.
And we switch again! Give us a
**
or something so that the reader doesn't have to go back and reread because they feel like they missed something.
The rain has passed, but grey clouds still fill the sky. It’s about half past eight in the morning. It’s still the summer holidays, so nobody will be going to school.
Does it get really cold at night in the summer in England? Because it was cold and rainy and all of a sudden we learn it's summer. Also, how does he know what time it is? I don't remember reading about a watch (correct me if I'm wrong) and I thought he'd just guessed the time the night before.
My friend Sarah calls for me about midday wondering if I’d like to go down to the park. I accept the invitation and we walk at snails pace down the road. We don’t say much to begin with, it is Sarah who breaks the silence.
Should be a "snail's" pace. And there should be a semi-colon rather than a comma between "with; it".
As Sarah swings I notice her long, auburn coloured hair, blow in the breeze. The freckles on her face are more noticeable than usual and her green eyes shine, but not in a pleasant way. I look more closely at Sarah and see that she is crying.
It seems like you dumped a whole lot of description about Sarah on us all at once. Lay off the adjectives, and try to give us information about her looks more slowly.
Mum and dad split up last year, when dad pinned her up against a wall for throwing out a watch that his dad had given him for his birthday, shortly before he passed away. Mum did not realise that this was the watch granddad had given him. Mum and dad had argued beforehand, mainly because dad was grieving over the loss of his father, anything seemed to set him off. Mum had not realised that the watch was special to dad, because it was an old one, which my granddad had worn when he was alive. Dad got very angry with her. Mum got scared so she left, without saying goodbye to me. I miss her, but she walked out one me, so I learn to live with it.
I noticed that you're somewhat inconsistent in your capitalization of "mum" and "dad." The rule is that if you use a pronoun before, it's lower case. If no modifier is used, it's upper case. i.e. My mum/Mum and my dad/Dad.
“Sarah, I’m sorry, I never meant to upset you. I just don’t want to talk about Shade Morgan just now,” I tell her, feeling slightly bad.
“Don’t worry, it’s not you,” she says sniffling.
“Then what?” I ask her.
“Erm…” she says pausing slightly. “It’s Shade,” she answers blushing.
I smile with relief. “Tell me,” I say.
You don't have to tell us who is speaking every single time: "she says, sniffling" "I ask her" "she says pausing slightly". You can start out by giving it to us originally, then going back and forth for a bit, occasionally dropping in a "she said" or something. Dialogue gets tedious this way. I do like that you've added another character, though, because Demi's obviously not going to talk to her mom but she and Sarah will.
Then I remember. “He was, you’re right. I forgot,” I tell her feeling slightly guilty that I had forgotten.
“Shade loved reading. He was always talking about Beatrix Potter books,” I inform Sarah.
Then it hit me like a ton of bricks!
“I know where he is,” I say to her. “Come on!”
How about, "I think I know where he is. Come on!" instead? Also, I don't think it's necessary to always say, "I tell her, feeling slightly guilty" or "I feel slightly bad" because it becomes tedious. Hit me like a ton of bricks is a major cliche, please kill it. You can just leave it at, "then it hit me!" or however you want to put it.
Overall, nice work. You've painted a good picture of most of your characters so far. Try to be more consistent with your tenses, break up the paragraphs so they're easier to read and try to fix those few grammatical errors.
Enjoy the YWS and I hope to see more of your work soon!
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