I'm Alejandra Smith. I live in an unknown Island. I call it "Wild Nowhere" since no one knows where it is located, not even me. I got here by accident. I'm 21 years old. I've spent, by my count, 735 days on this Island, that'll be 2 years and 5 days, trying to survive and hoping that someone, one day, comes for my rescue.
The reason of my being here is the trip I took 2 years and 5 days ago. I was supposed to go meet my aunt, Sarah, at Europe. She was supposed to be waiting for me at the airport, to pick me up. I was going to meet her because of the scholarship I won for "Best University For Fashion" at Europe. Man, that was supposed to be the greatest day of my life, but instead I ended up in an Island full of unknown everything –unknown plants, unknown animals, unknown food, and unknown location! As the time went on I found out that there are various venomous snakes, and fruits here at "Wild Nowhere". Various animals are wild, too. There are wolves and foxes, there are some ugly, hairy monkeys which most of the time steal my food. The animals here are sneaky. Intelligent, even. Let me tell you how this went...
I woke up in the morning, got dressed and ready, I was only 18. Downstairs my mother had my breakfast already cooked, I remember like yesterday that I had pancakes, bacon and toast with orange juice. I ate as fast as I could to head to the airport. When I got there, I had the chance to speak with my best friend Natalie. I knew her since kindergarten. "I'm going to miss you a lot," I said hugging her tight.
"I'm going to miss you, too!" Our friendship started in 2nd grade when we both thought that Emily's clothes weren't as good as she said they were. "I hope that you get the chance to have your face on the walls of the 'Hall of Fame'!"
I laughed, "why would I want people to decapitate me?" I joked.
"Don't be silly! I mean a picture of you with a tag on it that says your name!" she smiled. My best friend, sister almost, stood in front of me, and in a few minutes she wasn't going to be in front of me anymore.
I gave her one last hug before my flight was announced to leave soon. "All of those passengers with tickets to the flight towards Europe, please report to the door 14."
I looked at Natalie, "I'll call you as soon as I get there."
"You promise?"
"I promise," with that I left towards the door, towards my tragedy. Once the plane took off there was no way to stop it... I'm alone here with no other survivor by my side. I have no friends here, family or even a pet. The only clothes I have are the ones I founded in a woman's and my luggage. I wash them everyday at the bay of the beach... What was that? I'm at the bay now, but I hear a noise... It's not a noise any animal from here would make. It's more of a human screaming, yelling and shouting. I feel freaked out, I have never for the 2 years I've spent here, heard something like that!
I scan the area, nothing. I run towards the tomb I can call my home, take the torch, light it up, and hide in the deep end of the tomb. I sit down, relax, think. I have a few rats as neighbors, some of them I even know how to identify. They are filthy, true, but if they are the only animals that you can actually talk to without trying to kill you, you can get used to it. My best friend Natalie should be over my "death" now... Not feeling sad at all. My mom should still believe that I'm alive, and my dad should probably be trying to convince her that I'm in a better place. While I'm as my mother believes, alive and alone. My aunt? She should probably be happy since she doesn't have to "babysit" me anymore.
The noise gets closer, I hold up a pointy stick I created myself when I got lost here. As the sound approaches me, I stand up, guard and prepare for an attack. I see from where the sounds come, or from whom. What? The ugly, sneaky, hairy monkeys who always try to steal my food, all in a big pack running deeper with me at the tomb. I paralyze, how am I supposed to defend myself from all these creatures? I try to climb the wall and when I'm about to reach the top, I fall down where the monkeys already took place. "Ah!" I lost feeling of my spine, I even think is broken or close. I don't care if I killed a monkey or two, all I notice is that the monkeys aren't really attacking me... They are more of running away from something, they are climbing the walls just like me, some even fighting with themselves. I'm lying down on my back, my spine hurting, but I still manage to look back, and I catch a glimpse of a big wave entering the tomb...
I think I get adrenaline because my first impulse is to run east of the tomb to climb that wall, ignoring the pain on my back. The wave reaches me before I get to the middle of the wall. The wave smacks me with everything in it's way... I don't feel my heartbeat anymore... And I think I might die, I swim to the surface above me. Luckily I come fast enough to take air in, and I swim as fast as I can towards the exit of this dead trap. I'm starting to feel less heart beats, staying without air, slowly dying. And I know I will not make it, but I can try, right?
My hopes of surviving starts vanishing and I still see no sings of sunlight. Just a little longer, Alejandra! You can do this! I reach the exit and enthusiastically I head to the surface of the Earth, in the air's direction. Indeed I reach the surface, I can finally breath! I take deep and big gasps of air into my lungs. "Ha! You didn't kill me in 2 years and you're not going to kill me now!" I yell, I now nobody can hear me, but I imagine the island can.
The adrenaline's gone, my nose is broken, I bit my tongue, maybe I fractured a foot, and I feel a huge pain in my back! The worst thing of all? All my food and sources were inside that tomb that is now buried under water! Must've been a Tsunami that came from the south. A Tsunami here would be really unusual, there's always water fluid, but not a Tsunami, but what am I going to now, right? I've only spent here 2 years!
A/N: OK so, this is a little something of the story and it's plot. Not my best story but well... Hope you like it!
~Marde!
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128,020 Literary Works • 671,488 Reviews
Hey, Marde! Nice to meet you~ I'm Hannah, and I'm here to make up for your deadbeat Santa who didn't give you the two reviews you should have earned through the Secret Santa program! Better late than never, right? So Merry Christmas and let's begin!
I like that even though it seems like this story is going to be about a person all alone, you still introduced other potential characters through the best friend. What I mean to say is that writing about one person all alone is REALLY DIFFICULT, because most of what shapes us or provides conflict is one person with other people, so writing about a person on an isolated island is going to be really difficult -- there's gonna be lots of thinking, and readers don't really follow only thinking for a long time. We like to see action and base our own thinking off of those actions. So your choice to bring in other characters was really strong!
One thing that you can work on is some awkward phrasing. For example, we don't say "at" Europe, but "in" Europe, because Europe is a large region and people / countries are IN that region. Another example is your last line:
If you want to use the verb "spent", the time needs to come directly afterward, then the location. So you'd say, "I've only spent two years here!" Otherwise, you want to use the verb "be", like "I've only been here two years."
There are some other examples, and if you want a comb-through for all the examples, let me know! I'll come back and do a line-by-line if you want.
I also really like that you eventually brought some conflict in. When you mentioned it sounded like a human's scream, the impending conflict was really intriguing and raised the thrill level immediately. To find out it was a tsunami and had washed all her food away was pretty exciting. The fact that we thought it was another person -- what we and the narrator are both expecting -- was a bit of genius writing!
Well, that's all for now. I'm off to the next part!
Hello there! Here to review your work on this very fine review day! I will review as I read so that it will make much more sense for both me and you. I tend to ramble otherwise.
HERE WE GO!
You are only my second writer that I have looked at in the Teen Fiction section so I hope you're as excited as I am!
I love your opening paragraph. It's really grabbed my attention and I love the name of your island. It's different and quirky.
“I was going to meet her because of the scholarship I won for "Best University For Fashion" at Europe.” - This sentence should be, 'Best university For Fashion' in Europe.
The island can't be full of unknown location – It can only be in an unknown location
I really like your setting and I love that you flung me into a bit of action before it ended! I'm really intrigued where this character is going to end up and how she is going to get off this island!
Good luck! I look forward to reading some more soon!
HAPPY REVIEW DAY!
Olive. <3
I Liked It. Could use some polishing up.
Hi, Marde.
I'm here to review, as I promised.
Let's start with the start. I agree with tronks when he/she says the beginning doesn't really hook the reader. And I believe that it's because you're dropping all these facts (that are necessary for the reader to know), but in a very simple way. Most of the time, it's not about what we say but how we say it.
In this first paragraph, you're giving us obvious hints about your protagonist/narrator; you mention her name, her age, and where she currently lives. I think it is good that you want to keep the reader up with all these information - however, I don't suggest you to start a story with "I'm Alejandra Smith". Why? you may wonder~ Becaaaaause by doing that, you're giving the reader the wrong impression about your story; you're making it sound like an autobiography rather than a book. Here's my advice for you (I learned this, literally, three days ago xD), when you start a book, start with some action (it's okay to slap your readers right in the face with some action; they love it -mwuahahah). Like tronks mentioned, show us, don't tell us. Remember that a good writer doesn't reveal all her secrets at once.
If I were you, I'd start off by remembering the day she called the island "Wild Nowhere". That would be excellent, considering that that's the title of the book. Ask yourself questions like Why did she call it that? and What exactly happened for her to think of it as Wild? - Was she about to be eaten by some wild animal? Make a scene that gives the reader a little hint of what they will be seeing throughout all the chapters.
Nitpicks:
1) I noticed you wrote lots of numbers in this first post; I suggest you to type them out in words (if they're not long numbers), because that's what grammar demands.
2) I also noticed there is some confusion (I think) when it comes to punctuation in the dialogue.
That comma there should be a period. Why? Becaaaaause, you laughed -period-, and then you talked. So it should be two different sentences. Unless!~ You want to say "I laughed and asked "Why would I want people to decapitate me?" jokingly~ however, I don't think that sounds as good as what you wrote.
Same thing here; two different sentences. The comma should be a period. And the first letter of "With" should be capitalized. But now that I think about it, that does seems kind of weird, so if I were you, I would say: "I promise," I said. And with that I left towards the door.
3) I want to talk about semi-colons now! 8D Because I'm a freak of semi-colons; they make everything way more dramatic.
When you are giving more explanations about your main statement (like in the sentence above), you'd rather use a semi-colon instead of a comma - just to make everything more dramatic and less confusing.
4) Last but NOT least: describe. In this post, you have many opportunities to bring your story to live by inserting some imagery and descriptions into it.
Like for example in ^that^ paragraph there. While writing, get involved in your own scene and think about all your senses; think about what you smell, what you feel, what you see, what you hear ~ think of all the little things to make it more believable. In this particular paragraph, you can talk about how the heat from the torch is making your face warm, how the sand/sticks bother your feet (or how you're already used to that), and how those rats are smelly or big or creepy, etc.
The last four paragraphs are FANTASTIC! <3 It's just what I've been craving to see since the beginning; some thrilling action! It stimulated my imagination to run wild, and it was entertaining. I like how your character is human and real, how you don't eat commas, and how you don't repeat words unnecessarily. Those are little things that will get you far in this whole writing world.
Overall, your prologue is good, I like how it ends, and I'd definitely read another chapter.
Your friend,
Sol Valeria
The beginning doesn't quite lure the reader in because it's telling instead of showing. You need to SHOW us who Alejandra is, and show us her age (like, in her maturity for example) instead of telling us. Does that make sense?
Moving on from the intro, you have a flashback that I think might be more effective later on. At the start you should show us she's on the island, which will make us wonder why she's stuck there. How you have it now is written so that you describe what happened and then show us she ended up there, and there's not much mystery to pull me in at that point.
Still, I think a little rearranging will make this piece great. Keep writing!