Delilah Shayne finished her make up solemnly, and looked at refection in the vanity mirror, and sighed. Her ash-blonde hair was in perfect place, softly falling on her shoulders, her emerald green eyes, was filling with tears.
What a week, first Johnny, my car, and now grandpa is gone… She thought to herself. Memories of her grandfather flooded her mind, going out to feed the chickens, playing chess, and eating her grandma’s cookies off the cooling rack, without her noticing. A heart attack killed him unexpectedly at sixty-eight. It would be hard, living without him; he was the only person she could confide in. Her room was very simple, light pink walls with white trim, a bed against a wall, a dresser, and a very large desk with a chair, which she sat in right now. Delilah got up from her desk and put on her black dress, threw her shoes on, and headed downstairs. Her mother Chloe Shayne, was waiting on the couch, along with her father Franklin, and her younger brother Carter.
“I’m ready.” Delilah said trying to fight off tears.
“About time!” Her twelve year old brother exclaimed. Carter was just hitting that awkward stage in his growth, like all boys do. He was tall and gangly, but trimmed with muscle from playing baseball since he was five. Sandy blonde hair that sat like a mop upon his head that dangled around his bright green eyes.
“Watch your mouth, Carter!” his mother scolded.
Franklin was already up and grabbed the keys to the family car off the key rack. Everybody got the idea and followed suit.
When they arrived at Graye’s funeral home, Delilah was already crying. Trying to hold back the tears and not to make a fool of herself in front of family and friends comforting each other. The Shayne family was just like any other ordinary family, it had its fair share of family fights, but they always made up. Delilah had one aunt, and two uncles, all married with children, which made up of five cousins. Aunt Sadie, the oldest of Grandpa’s children had one son, Daniel, age twenty. Uncle Jason had three children, Alexis sixteen, Amanda fourteen, and baby Billy, but he wasn’t a baby, he was the youngest of the cousins at age eight. Uncle Mark had only one child Ted the same age as Delilah; seventeen. Of all the cousins she trusted, it was Daniel. She rushed to him and they embraced.
“I miss him,” Delilah whispered.
“Me too Del, me too,” Daniel whispered in response.
Delilah and her family sat in the cold folding chairs, facing the open casket.
The funeral was brief, yet heart-wrenching, the minister talked about Grandpa’s life and his love for his wife Rose, his four children, and his seven grandchildren. He also talked about his devotion to God and the church, how he always helped out whenever he could. As the ceremony ended everyone approached the casket to say their final goodbyes. As Delilah got up to the casket tears continued to flow.
“I love you grandpa, more than you’ll ever know.” She whispered so quietly that even she could barely hear herself. She placed a tulip, his favorite flower, in his casket, and walked on. The minister stopped her before she could make it out the door.
“Samuel wanted me to give this to you.” He handed her an envelope.
“Thank you sir,” Delilah choked, tears still running down her face, ruining her make-up that took her an hour to put on.
“He always said you were his favorite.”
“I don’t know how I will continue life without him.”
“Just remember, you will see him in heaven one day.”
Delilah walked up to her father who gently put his arm around her.
“What was all that about?” He asked.
“Just some words of encouragement and sympathy,” She answered, not telling him yet about the envelope.
The graveside ceremony was quick; the minister prayed as the casket was lowered into the pit. The family hugged each other. Delilah walked up to Daniel and embraced him for one last time before he and his family would have to fly back to Dallas Texas.
“See you around,” he whispered in her ear. Delilah just grunted, still overcome with grief.
The number of parked cars faded away and Delilah and her family went home.
When Delilah got home she immediately ran upstairs to her room and changed into some jeans and a t-shirt. She debated for a long time before she opened the envelope. She tapped her finger-nails furiously on the tabletop, then she faced her curiosity head on; the letter read:
To my dearest Delilah,
I guess I’m no longer alive, I’m in heaven now, don’t forget you will see me again someday! There is something I never told you. You ever noticed that birthmark on your forearm? There is a reason for that birthmark, something out of this world. Now next time you go see Grandma let her see this note, and ask her for the mirror. It’s difficult to explain. You will find out about it in due time. Wait till the time has come Delly, you will understand it all.
I will always love you, Grandpa.
Delilah cried in grief over the loss of her grandpa, she missed beyond belief. Yet a tinge of curiosity hit her, and she couldn’t wait to see this ‘mirror’ grandpa spoke about. She looked down at her small strangely shaped birthmark, it looked like a sun. Carter made fun of it, every time he pointed it out. Something about it made Delilah afraid of it, scared that everyone would catch sight of it.
She shuffled down the stairs just in time for her mother to call.
“Hey guys, dinner is ready!"
Delilah mumbled throughout dinner, still not mentioning the note.
Don't worry! You'll find your rhythm soon enough!
Thanks guys!
It seems I have the curse of epically bad grammar.
Hmm... my first story I wrote too slow, now this one is too fast...
*face palm*
Review on chapter 3:
Hey again, here for the final review.
I hate to keep correcting grammatical errors, but I have to.
I noticed this in the other chapters, too.
When you are explaining multiple things and are talking about what they are doing, the correct term to use it 'was.'
example of a sentence explaining two things:
"Don and Marie were playing baseball."
example of a sentence explaining one thing:
"Don was playing soccer."
I don't know if those were mistakes or not, but it's standard for people to know that...
There was really only one thing I didn't like: I think you're rushing.
Before I said you were rushing the beginning, but now that the story is picking up, I can tell you specific things that can make your story more in-depth.
Explain the grandmother. We will be able to get a feel on her relationship with your MC and the grandfather if you explain her more. Explain the dinner; what is the mood, the setting? Are there mysterious things in the house that also relate to the 'sun' you seem to be using to symbolize something? We need to know your characters more.
Don't add unnecessary drama. That long list of 'depressing' things you named are not flattering to your story. She is already grieving over her grandfather, we don't need to pity her any more. We get the point. The cheating boyfriend thing is cliche, and it just isn't needed.
Have your MC go to school. I don't know where this is heading, but you are too far into the plot. We need time to take in things, and learn more about your MC. All I know about her right now is that she seems to like being depressed, and acts like a normal teenage girl. That's fine, but there has to be something different about her - something that'll keep me interested. By having her go to school, we can get a feel about how she talks to people, if she has friends, if she trusts anyone, and if she's smart, all really good things to know about a character.
I hope I helped! This story seems promising; it has an eerie tone to it that I love.
Questions/comments, PM me.
Classy
Review for chapter 2:
Pickyness:
I don't know if you know the difference between 'its' and 'it's', but since you make the mistake twice in one sentence, I will remind you.
It's is a conjunction of 'it' and 'is.' It is used to describe something.
ex. "It's so small." Do you see how "It is so small," works?
Its is a word used to describe something belonging to something.
ex. "Its wings were small."
Do you see how you used 'it's' in your sentence? Technically, your sentence is this "It is body was rigid with scales and battle scars, it is bat-like wings was rotted." Do you see how that doesn't sound remotely correct?
Also, the 'was' in this sentence is incorrect. Since you are describing two things, you need to use 'were' since it is the plural or 'was.'
Since you do incorrect dialogue punctuation twice in a row, I'll explain to you what's wrong in this.
To insert dialogue in a sentence, you write it like this:
"I don't like you," she said.
Do you see how there's a comma there, and the word after the quotation mark is not capitalized? That's correct.
Saying is a bit more tricky. Since you have the question mark there, you'd think the word after would be capitalized, right? Well, it's not.
And is wrong, too.
Let us break apart these two sentences on their own. You know that each sentence should be self-explanatory, usually, correct? That means having a sentence like 'Just about." Doesn't make sense. Of course it's dialogue, and people don't speak with proper grammar, but the sentence "Her father, Franklin explained." doesn't sound correct alone, or out-of-context, does it? These are all things writers have to catch when writing their stories. It should be:
"Just about," her father, Franklin, replied."
Overall
I like your main character. She is a common character that people love to read about. A common character is not a bad thing, it's just a sweet innocent girl with troubles taken from her comfortable environment. People love reading about admirable characters.
Your plot seems to be moving too fast. This dream is not very easy to understand, just for the simple fact that from what we've read already, nothing suggests this being a fantasy story, it seems a little random. I suggest, since you already introduced the letter, you make the next chapter about her going to her grandmother, because if not, we might forget, and wonder what the dream is about. I mean, nothing in her life has been weird or fantastic yet, so why does she have such a peculiar dream? You first need to introduce an unfamiliar thing, and then the hallucinations come.
I like it so far!
Questions/comments, PM me.
Classy
Hey there, Rock! I'm here to review as requested!
I have to say, even with all those things that you fixed, there was still an unbelievable amount of typos and grammatical errors that I found. I couldn't begin to call them all out, so I would suggest that you go back and (SLOWLY) read through these chapters to catch them for yourself. It's always best to do this beforehand so that your reviewers aren't distracted, and can focus on what's truly important in your work.
Also, I noticed a weakness in your sentence structure: in the places where there should be either a period or a semi-colon, you replaced them with commas. Never use a comma in place of either of these when there are two separate ideas on either side of the comma, regardless of whether or not the ideas run together, like this:
That first comma is correct; the other two should not be there. It should read like this:
See what I mean? Obviously, this is just an example of something you do quite often, but I just wanted to point it out!
I hope this helped a little, Rock. If you have any questions or would like another review, please feel free to ask!
-Knightley
Chapter 1 review:
Too much. I have been told I do this, too, that's why I want to tell you. This is in the first or second paragraph, if I remember right. This is just overwhelming me with description. Since she's looking in a mirror, have her focus on her eyes right now, and worry about the rest later. Right now, tell us how her green eyes are swelled from crying or something. We don't need to know exactly what she looks like; let the readers have a little fun with imagining things, hm?
What an odd transition between these two sentences. I wonder how you go from grieving over a loss of a loved one, to speaking about your bedroom. Think about it: If someone close to you died right now, would you be thinking about your bedroom? My guess is no...
Like I said before, you have a lot of unnecessary description in here. My suggestion is that you leave her looks, her bedroom, her brother's looks out of this chapter. Since the main focus of this passage is the grandfather's death, let it be about him. Develop your character. Show us how she reacts to certain things. You could play up your character so much in here. Make her go crazy, scream, run away, anything other than more description.
I just want to give you a little tip about writing that helps me out. I know it sounds crazy, and when people hear you, they might think you are, but it helps. Act out your characters. Imagine yourself in their shoes. Imagine you losing your grandfather, sitting in front of a mirror crying. What would you think? Say? Do? I know when I'm having trouble with dialogue, it always helps to say what I wrote out loud, and see if it's something actual people would say.
Again, too much. I have read a lot when this happens in stories. The writers add in all these names of minor characters that at the time, and even in the future, have no point in the story. Since you don't have any of these character's talk, except for Daniel, get rid of them all. They are just useless words to me right now. Unless there is something specific and important about a minor character, don't mention them until they speak (at least that's what I think).
I find this rude! Even if she is her grandfather's favorite, and the letter has a specific reason, it's still a little rude. To play up the realistic aspect, and just make the story seem more magical, have her brother receive one, too. That way when your MC is reading hers, we can year what her brother is saying about his, how it's all plain and just says 'I love you' while hers opens up a new realm of adventure.
I hope my review has made sense to you. I will go back and do the other chapters when I have more time.
Questions/comments, PM me.
Classy
Fixed!
Wow, it is amazing how much you mess up when you get to typing so fast.
I love Dallas!