Young Writers Society

First off I'd like to thank you both for the comments/suggestions. As to your question prepareyourself2 as to why Nora thought to her sister " You think you're funny don't you" is because her sister knew she liked Russ and her leaning forward was her silent way of picking on her about it... And I'll definitely try to put more description in there but I don't think I can bear to rid of all my dialouge, but I'll do my best.

Hi!

Welcome to YWS

Alright, a lot of this is made up of dialogue. That means (and even if there were less, too!) proper dialogue punctuation is a must. Tossing grammar aside, it'll look better - and visuals and first impressions are very very miportant. Demeter wrote an article about it, will probably help: topic44898.html

So, dialogue. Dialogue is the core here, dialogue is the most important, dialogue is in the spotlight. But dialogue also makes up most of the chapter, and here I'd like to say I want you to build around. See, at the very beginning, there were two fully-fledged paragraphs - terrific. And after that, it was dialogue dialogue tag, ev. a sentence after that dialogue. And that pattern kept repeating itself.

The unneeded dialogue, I'd cut (for example the time incident - it could be mentioned, doesn't have to necessarily be passed on through dialogue). See, so many people appearing and talking, there's so much of that talking. At some point in the middle, I started to not care who's saying what and why they're saying it.

We know what they say and sometimes how they say it. But it's abrupt, choppy. We go from flower to flower, from one person to another, and move on, move on, because they say sthing new. In my opinion there's simply too many people this early on... I hadn't had enough time to learn to care for them. My advice would be to introduce those characters gradually. Who's truly important to Ch1 and who can come later?

So having deleted unnecessary dialogue and characters (for now), expand what's left. Give depth to Nora, focus on characterization more. Flesh it all out. Now they're speaking, yeah, looking sthing, but that's all. I forget when I stop reading.

Show people, not only from dialogue's perspective. Hmm. Perhaps try cutting out all that dialogue, all, but still remembering who says what - and try to convey those feelings, emotion, without any spoken words at all. Of course, "why" won't be asnwered (dialogue ) so it'll be confusing as hell, but try. Focus only on the characters, on their appearance, reaction. Keep the dialogue empty. And when you've done that, add the dialogue.

Emotion. It's an emotional paragraph, judging from the dialogue. But that dialogue and choppy, hastily written tags are the only indication. I mean, drama. Drama! More drama. Right now it's two Englishmen talking about weather on a hijacked plane.

Things are definitely happening, there's a plot, there are characters. Groundwork is done, and it's good. Now work with what you already have to make it better Show us how all those characters function in your imagination, because the reader only knows and sees what the writer will write.


Esme

This is pretty good. I like the characterization you used here, and how you make Nora's personality distinct. However, I can't help but feel that you're introducing too many characters here. Maybe it would be better to start establishing the relationship between a few of the characters in detail, and then introducing new ones as the story goes on?

Also, there are a few small nitpicks here:

When the smallest beam of light peeked through the slits of her blinds Nora's eyes pushed open quickly followed by a sigh. After blinking the sleep from her eyes and leaned forward to peer down at the foot of her bed to check on her brown and black calico Murfey. Without so much as disturbing the sleeping feline she got out of bed.

Her soft feet padded across the worn oak floor to reach her small half empty closet, when she opened the door she revealed how barren it really was, after sifting through them she decided on a faded blue oldnavy shirt and an old pair of blue jean shorts.

"Me miss you birthday,' He continued," Never."

"What's the matter?" Russ called out his open window. Laycey stopped and jabbed an [b]accusatory[b] finger in Nora's direction.

"What are you talking about?" the confusion evident on his handsome face.

"He won't leave her, this is your fault," Laycey bellowed while tears began rolling down her face smearing her mascera. Against her own advice Nora walked over to Laycey and letting her cry into her shoulder.

"I'm sorry about your shirt," Laycey muttered, the only thanks we would give. Nora shrugged until she saw Jason looking at them with a pained expression.

"You can thank me by going to talk to Jason," Nora offered.

"That was a nice thing to do," Russ commented when Laycey went back inside. Nora looked down embarrassed by his praise.

"You must think you're so funny don't you?" Nora demanded silently.

Chrissa trampled through the woods towards them, her long black hair catching twigs and leaves off of the overhanging branches.

...

"Hey," They both replied as Heath, her younger brother emerged from the brush, his brown hair laying across his forehead.