Hiya! I liked the idea enough to continue looking at this. Now, as for the review:
Taking a deep breath the four clambered out of their seats and walked up to the teacher’s platform.
So, they all took a breath at the same time? You're still in omniscient viewpoint here. Stick to Mila's head and have her notice her friends getting nervous. Also, your characters seem to have rather different personalities. Wouldn't they get ready in different ways?
“In ancient times; long, long ago, the Geeks—I mean the Greeks were a great nation: amongst the highest in civilization, which isn’t saying a lot –cos on the other side of the world some were still ‘ugh’ and ‘how’, beating each other up with wooden clubs. They believed in the gods and in Olympus…well you get the picture. Way back in these boring days there lived a certain guy called King Aegeus who fell in love with a maiden from Troezen, bla, bla, bla... So they married, but as soon as Aithra had conceived his son, Aegeus left, leaving behind his sandals and his sword under a rock on a beach.
Personally, I skimmed this. It sounded boring to me (mostly from the restart at the beginning), and it was hard to read this as one large chunk. Your dialogue, if long, should follow the same rules as anything else you're writing: when you begin a new idea, you begin a new paragraph. The way to do this with quotes is when you finish the paragraph, you don't end the quote. When you start a new bit of dialogue, though, you put the quotes at be beginning, like so:
"First idea
"Second idea
"Final idea"
Zoë obviously did not do this to Phoebe.
Personally, seeing "obviously" in prose bugs me. I find it stops the flow, because you're assuming the reader hasn't gotten that something is going on, and they usually have. You could re-work the sentence and the one following it so they fit together without "obviously"
“That was brilliant!”
“Super”
“Totally”
“You said it!”
You have a case of talking heads here. Talking heads is when you have several lines of tagless dialogue. Now, in a two person conversation talking heads are acceptable for a few lines, but when dealing with more then two people it is a good idea to use tags.
Look through everything to get rid of talking heads like this. You don't need to replace it with "said tags" (tags after the dialogue) and it would really benefit from "Action tags" (tags in front of the dialogue but in the same paragraph)
“Yeah well it seemed like a thousand. I hope it’s worth the effort though. Oh, come on Phoebe! We just started!” Zoë groaned
There should be something here that shows Zoe's change of tone. Perhaps put Zoe about to pass the ball to Phoebe and her leaving the court?
“I don’t care! I broke a nail already and I’m sweating so much that I’ll start stinking in a minute or two—Where’s my deodorant?!”
I love this line, but usually there is only one exclamation mark and/or question mark at the end of dialogue.
Phoebe hated being called ‘Phony’ but Zoë was feeling a bit reckless at the moment because Phoebe had ruined the basketball match by quitting when the game had just started.
Okay, this sentence might be grammatically correct but it is heard to read. Break it up into smaller sentences to make it more understandable.
Strategy time.
Hmm, I like the showing you're doing here, but I find something is missing. Maybe a look between two of them that shows they've done this before, and that the way you've shown it is the way things normally happen?
A line like: Mila and Pat exchanged glances. It was strategy time.
Pat and Phoebe had always been rather close, Phoebe liked Pat because she was so quiet and if it hadn’t been for her, Pat would be a big nerd with no dress sense. Mila and Zoë had always been a twosome. So Mila sat at a safe distance from the net while Zoë banged the ball around. Mila waited. She knew that Zoë wanted to think before saying anything to anyone. Zoë began to dribble a football up and down the court.
1- Break this up into paragraphs (the info on Pat and Phoebe into one, the info on Mila and Zoe in another). It would make it easier to read. 2- You never really tell us why Mila and Zoe are a twosome, while you tell us why Pat and Phoebe are best friends. Since Mila is your narrator (if I remember correctly) then it would really be a good idea to explain that.
It always seemed that the last lesson was the hardest in which to control the girls, at least that was Ms. Jefferson’s opinion.
The way this is worded you've made these lines Ms. Jefferson's viewpoint. If you were to add a line at the end such as:
She made it clear every time the last bell rolled around that they were too noisy.
Or something along those lines. That way you don't switch.
While Mila was telling them about a music concert of a rock band that would be coming up soon and how she was studying hard for her violin exam, Zoë was asking them if they would come and watch the final match of table tennis that night for support. Phoebe was begging Pat to accompany her to the mall the following day while Pat was talking about how much work she was doing and asking them if they were studying for their exams.
Oh-kay, I get what you're doing here by showing their personalities, but maybe this would read better as actual dialogue and not a summery. Like, have each person say something about what they want to do instead of giving us this block of description.
Mila was grinning. They’d won! They’d done it! She looked happily over to where Zoë stood and saw her jumping up and down, hugging Phoebe – Something highly unusual. She turned to Pat. She looked very strange, lost in daydream. Weird. She lent down behind her and waved her hand over Pat’s eyes. Pat snapped back to the Present from whatever she had just been thinking of.
Quoting this to let you know where you have nicely kept to Mila's narration. You tie things into her head. The only thing to point out is to put any thoughts in italics. I believe "weird" is a thought.
Somehow, the bell was heard over the din and their classmates gathered their things and left, one or two thumping them on their backs as they did so.
Your pronoun/antecedent relationship is off here. "Them" and "they" are often used interchangabley, but here they are referring to two different groups. Use proper terms like "the classmates" to avoid that.
She was still determined to find the cause or reason to Pat’s new, strange and silent mood but she would forget it – well for now.
These lines (if changed from third to first) could be read as thoughts or as the author showing their hand a little too much. Usually lines like "for now" are the author hinting that this problem will show up again, when, if it's a main subplot, it would be better to show us that it'll keep coming up.
If you do decide to keep the "well for now" at the end of this, might I suggest adding in a line about how Mira just wanted to have fun for the time being? That would make it work
Pat sighed and shook her head in expiration. “Honestly, did you or did you not do a project on Greece? Did you or did you not do your fair share in the mythology section? Aphrodite is the Goddess of love and beauty!” Pat said knowingly. Zoë cleared her throat in a dignified manner and changed the subject.
“We’re sharing a cabin right?”
Okay, I loved this until I reached "Pat said knowingly." You have already established that Pat is talking you don't need to put that in. Also, "Zoe cleared her throat in a dignified manner and changed the subject" is a tag. You can have it start the next bit of dialogue, like so:
Pat said knowingly.
Zoë cleared her throat in a dignified manner and changed the subject. “We’re sharing a cabin right?”
(Note on above example: I just kept the "Pat said knowingly" tag so I wouldn't have to show something that didn't need changing)
~~~
Viewpoint: You're still flirting with an omniscient viewpoint here. I have pointed out where you've stuck nicely to a single viewpoint in your narration. Use that as a guide for how to write the rest of it.
Characters: We're getting more of the different personalities here, but we could use a little more. I've pointed out where you have room to put more in. Also, we aren't seeing much of how Mira views the world, even though it's her narration.
Tags: You use dialogue tags exclusively here, which isn't really a good thing. By putting things at the end we need to keep reading to find out who's talking, and we also don't get much description. As for how to get a tone of voice without using dialogue tags, if you describe the action correctly you should be able to tell what the tone of voice is. I have pointed out where you've used action tags nicely.
Overall: You're idea in itself is amazing. I love Atlantis and things are looking very promising. However, I feel you need to work on your execution. That will come with practice and critiques. Check out the Knowledge Base (found here) for good articles.
If you have any questions, PM me.
~Rosey
Points: 89625
Reviews: 1272
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