Chapter One.
The Last Day of High School Forever.
"Kail. Hey Kail!!!" My mind veered off into the unknown black hole that was math class, I suggest my advice to all incoming freshmen: DO NOT have math before lunch hour! I hadn't noticed the empty classroom around me, my teacher called my name a few times until I came back to reality, or what I concluded to be reality.
"Math is over, dear. Unless you'd like to stay for another hour." My math teacher was the sweetest lady. Her appearance was aged no more than 38. Some people thought she could have been younger but the Grey hair years that come with 2 children add age to such a fit women. Her name was Allison Cassor.
"No thanks Ms. Cassor! you know me, I can't stand Math!" I laughed scooping up my books and somewhat rushing down the thin freshly painted hallways of Rome City High. My name is Kail, and today is the last day of my pathetic high school life. The story I'm actually going to tell you isn't entirely about myself, its about how I met a girl, a girl who never had a chance, a girl on the verge of killing herself, and the life within her.
That summer She came to our small town of Rome city, Indiana, population: 1,361. In the beginning, I knew I wanted her, but it hadn't occurred to me what was really going on inside her cute little mind.
Rome City, Indiana. Only thing to do for fun in this town is go to Sylvan Lake. Houses crowd each other fighting to get a spot next to the brilliant glimmer of the lake, people come from all over North East Indiana to ride around in their speed boats, or on their jet skis. Down at the landing, where people drop off and pick up their boats, there is a petite ice cream shop. Aunty Liliths homemade ice cream, with your choice of waffle cone or regular cone! If you were a middle school kid, in the summer, you could be found there, or down on the so called "beach" of Sylvan. It's not your typical fancy beach, obviously, but it still gets the job done, little kids are happy with it, giving their parents the relaxation they need.
My adoptive parents own a house on the round island, an admirable one at that! 2 stories of breath taking beauty. Large glass windows, cabin wood exterior paneling, the front porch is elevated slightly from the water, you could almost use it as a dock! The kitchen remains my favorite part, the cabinets; a soft unstained wood, the counter top; silver chrome matching the stove, fridge, sink, and microwave. What I loved most growing up in this home would have to have been the island in our kitchen. I would always put my leggo houses on it and play while mom made me food. Inside this magnificent house in general was cabin like, yet carpet covered most the floors. in the living room worn down black leather couches, have been made into half leather half polyester seats. The house originally has 3 bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms, but my father made one into a study for reading and to store or computer.
4 more classes to go then I'm out of this H E double chopsticks for ever, "Hey Kail," Melanie Carter, head cheerleader, and ex girlfriend of just about the whole baseball team, walked up to me dressed in her snooty, flashy, cheer leading uniform, "would you like yo be invited to my graduation party? We're going into Fort Wayne for the night."
"Nah I'll pass, I promised my Grandma I'd get her flowers planted tonight." Melanie was easy anyway, she got anything and everything she wanted. I did also, but i acted as if i was a poor kid, it makes my life easier, you never hear stories about the poor handsome guy, getting made fun of. At least I don't.
"Humph! Suit yourself Kail Anderson, you'll be missing Rome City's biggest grad party." Melanie clicked away in her cute white tennis shoes.
"Does she thinks shes hot?" Vince, my best friend of 5 years came up beside me, we both watched Melanie's tight firm butt sway underneath her short skirt, "I think she's do-able." A long pause, ecstatic laughter poured from our lungs.
"Yeah go ahead take the risk of some STD's bro!" We started the walk back to my house, Vince lived 2 houses down from me, but not on the lake, he was less unfortunate, but his house was still outstanding, "did she try inviting you?"
"Ha Ha Zail very funny!" Vince kicked a rock into the brush next to the empty back road, "Melanie Carter doesn't even know i fricking exist!" I kinda felt bad for him, Melanie was the kinda girl who had outrageous high standards, Vince had one, her name; Melanie Carter.
"Dude you should really move on ya know." We started up my driveway, but to our left something crashed to the ground with an ear ringing shatter. Both Vince and myself ran over. My next door neighbors were in their senile years and usually kept to themselves, every once in a full moon, their only daughter would come to visit. This time she brought along a new face. Ariana As soon as her clover green eyes met my own amber brown eyes a spark was created. My heart felt like it jumped from its tight knit spot between my lungs into my throat.
"Are you ok?" Vince asked extending out an arm to help this beautiful women.
"Yeah, I just, I just don't- I'm not used to so much fresh air." Her laugh, like sweet velvet rose petals. My heart still pounded hard in my chest, why was I becoming so overwhelmed by his girl?
"Where is it your from?" Vince wasn't even blushing!? If we would have been talking to Melanie, he would've been tripping and fumbling over his own words.
"New York, New York." Ariana's brilliant ivory white smile only gave my heart more reason to be in my throat.
"Ohhh so your a city girl huh?" Vince laughed with her as he held out his hand, "I'm Vince, and this is Kail spelled like mail." When we first became friends Vince always spelled my name wrong so i had to remind him, almost everyday, Kail spelled like mail!
"Kail, thats a cool name." She aimed her deathly alluring smile at me and reached out a gentle hand. When i grasped the small softness of her smooth skin the fire was lit. I'd make this girl love me before summer was over.
"Kail spelled like mail" Another pleasing giggle.
"Ariana, the sandwiches are don- Oh i see you have met the neighbor boy Kail." Lisa came out from the house her usual bouncing curls, crimped into waves of black.
"Do we have enough for 2 more mom?" Ariana was in a tight pair of denim capris with a gucci pull over buttin up, and underneath probably some Victoria secret panties with a matching bra, possibly C cup on the verge of D.
"Sure we do, come on in guys." My heart finally relaxed, but the wonderful Friday wasn't over yet.
Chapter Two.
One Door Closes, Another Opens.
"Good morning Ariana," he said after he turned it off.
Chapter 3.
Fighting Resolves Conflicts.
"Dude! I hope Melanie is there, she is so cute." Vince was sprawled out on my bed looking out the window as the sun shined high up on its clouded throne.
"Vince if you think prisssy preppy butt hole cheerleaders are 'cute' then you have a messed up mind!" I pulled on a casual collared black shirt, nothing fancy, nothing crappy. I adjusted my dark navy blues up at my hip where they belong and I clip my cowboy belt to itself. I pull on my favorite out-on-the-town country boy boots, the had snake skin from a bal python.
"She's not ALL bad, she has good taste." Vince sat up and stretched, "so why did you tell Ariana that other girls were going with us?"
"I dunno maybe she'd feel better with other girls?" I sprayed my self with a little body spray, nothing too musky.
"What ever but we better get going, it's already 2:30." Vince snatched my spray and doused himself, I began choking out and turned my fan on high, punching Vince in his upper arm.
Vince had a good heart, but I swear he lets Melanie stomp all over him! Vince was the kinda guy every girl wanted, and that Melanie didn't know existed (whole heartedly yet). He was loyal, sweet, caring, and very patient. Why would he pick the one girl in this town who only saw men for their bodies!? Vince wasn't fat, but he wasn't BUFF either. Melanie preferred BUFF swimsuit models, or the occasional jock.
I ran my fingers through my muddy brown hair. It was getting a little long, touching my ears is pushing it. We pulled up to Elizabeth's dock and tied my speed boat down.
"Hello again you too, hows my favorite boys doin?" Elizabeth was the closest thing we had to consider a grandmother, Vince and I both never get to see ours and my mom is good friends with her.
"Pretty good E how you holdin up?" Vince gave her a hug, and i followed.
"Oh pretty good I guess, my daughter is just going through a rough time, and Ari is taking it pretty bad too, it's tough coming from a big city to a small one!" Elizabeth dryly smiled and gave a laugh to go with it.
"Maybe we can help cheer Ari up." I tried to put a bright side onto the situation just as Ariana came out from the back french style doors.
"Alright so are we driving my car?" Ariana came outside in a somewhat fancy dress, maybe Gucci? I liked her roman styled sandals, but her crazy excessive accessories! Hockey puck size hoop earrings, a flashy small jeweled ruby necklace. Then only thing I really liked was the small teardrop shaped gem hanging from a thin golden necklace.
Me and Vince chuckled until we saw how serious she was being, "Nah Kail's truck is parked in the Sylvan landing parking lot, they have a certain spot for island residents." Vince began walking to my boat. Ariana was being hesitant, "I've never been on a boat before."
I gave her a its-cool smile, "I'll drive slow." I smirked toward Vince, "but first you may wanna take off the hoop earrings and the ruby necklace, we aren't going to a party."
Ariana rolled her eyes and came back out looking annoyed but a lot better, "I like the necklace you kept on it looks like an ash-"
"Yes its my dads ashes." she walked right past me down to the dock. Maybe I was poor judgement on this girl! She has the cute face, but DANG she acts kind of like Melanie.
I slowly pulled the boat up to the landing dock, "Look at that Vince! Not a single drop of water on the boots!"
Vince's hand shot up and met mine mid air making a SLAP. Ariana giggled and waited for one of us to help her off the boat, still bobbing in the water. I held out my hand, "I got you." I smiled again and her cheeks flushed pink when her fragile yet strong hand met mine.
"Vince! Kail! Wasssup Brothas!!?" Our closest friend Josh came up to Vince and I, we "bro" hugged and i introduced Ari to him,
"Shes a city girl, New York!" I laughed, "though she barely has an accent."
"City girl huh? Nice to meet you Miss NYC." Josh winked an eye like the summer sky at her and nodded toward Aunty Liliths Ice Cream Shope, "come on I'll introduce you to the fiance." Josh was that kinda guy who didn't care about anyone but his own hometown, he was a farm boy at heart, who was family oriented. He's like the perfect father figure! Tall, slender, muscular, sweet, and he had great social skills.
The next 3 hours went great! Ariana finally opened up and she began hanging out with Melanie, they seemed to get along. I stuck around Vince and Josh.
"Okay people Bon Fire at my house 9pm sharp! Everyone in this building is invited!! BYOB!!!" Josh called out and the 25 or so people in the shop laughed and filed out.
Back at the boat Ariana brought Melanie back with her, "Yeah I'm having my grad party in Fort Wayne. Its the 2nd largest city in Indiana."
"That sound like so much fun! New York parties were crazy!" Ari laughed along with Mel.
"You guys don't care if I tag along do you?" Melanie smiled at me, and for the first time i saw her as innocent! It had to have been Ari, she had the innocent vibe and it rubbed off on by standards.
"Not at ALL." Vince smiled opening the tail gate to my truck.
"MELANIE!!!" a voice of familiar tone made Mel freeze. Her ex, Tristan. Super buff football player... "get the HECK over here!"
"Hey Tristan, no need for foul language in front of the ladies!" Vince was a good 3 inches shorter than Tristan, and about 45 pounds lighter.
"Shut up WIERDO, move!" Tristan shoved Vince to the ground, and took Mel by the wrist.
"Tristan let GO!" Melanie tried to budge from his grasp.
"I'm calling the cops!" Ariana was begining to cry... she was freaking out. I guess she didn't know redneck cops cheered on the fights. Mel tried by hitting him in his groin, that was the shot, and in the split second it took him to bring his enormous hand across her face, Vince was up and ready to beat some BUTT!!!
He threw Tristan onto the ground and started throwing punches left and right. Blood began spotting Vince's knuckles, I pried him off of Tristan, and then laughed at Tristan crying on the ground a bloody nose and blood all over his face. Ari was helping Mel back up off the ground, I let go of Vince and he jolted to Mel. Tristan ran off.
"Mel are you ok!" Vince was on one knee over Melanie, "are you bleeding? Should we take you into town? are you dieing!?" He put a smile on her face, and she looked up at him, Ari stepped back.
"You're bleeding." Mel held a hand on her face.
"I'm ok, are you?" Vince gently pulled her hand away, "lemme see hun." he looked at it, then looked back at her, "you're still beautiful." he smiled putting her hand back. Tears welled up in her eyes and she looked at the ground, "awe Melanie don't cry, whats hurting?" when she didn't respond Vince scooped her up, she clung to him like a baby away from its mother. When he tried to set her down on the tail gate of my car, she wouldn't let go of him. Mel only buried her face deeper into the crevice of his neck. Vince stood there holding her, "shhh" he cooed, "It's ok Mel. I got you, he's gone." Until this moment, i had no clue how much Vince actually liked this girl, how much he loved her. Ariana had gone out of view on the side of my truck she sat on the cement looking out onto the waves of the lake. She looked dead almost.
"Lets just go to my house ya'll." I locked my truck, Vince let Melanie down, but she grasped his hand tightly, everyone was silent on the, what seemed liked a decade, ride back to my place. Melanie sat and fell asleep on Vince. It took about 8 minuets, no wake, to get back to my house, Ariana began shivering when the sun disappeared and i gave her my jacket," Thank you."
Once back to my place we sat around our own small fire in my back yard.
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125,024 Literary Works • 672,762 Reviews
Hey, MissRose18,
This didn’t make all that much sense to me. It veered *off* into a supposedly black hole of a maths class that was over?Right. First of all I think I should warn you that I’m going to look at this pretty critically and not hold back from being a little harsh in this review; however, any harsh comments are only there in order to try and point out what I think you need to improve on in writing. As there are three chapters here I’ll go through the chapters and review each separately at first. Here we go. I’ll mix in little nitpicks with more major points.
CHAPTER ONE
Okay, so this is the introduction, the part which is supposed to intrigue me and drag me into the story. Here I want clear foundations, at least, of the characters – and an idea of what kind of story it’s going to be. The first line is pretty important, and since it’s incredibly likely not to come out quite right the first time (unless maybe you spend ages agonising over it, or are just amazingly spectacular at first lines) but it does need to be edited – as does all of it.
The first line – and paragraph – the bit that was supposed to draw me in – struck me as really kind of clumsy. We have a line (which doesn’t strike me as the kind of way a teacher would say this, either, but maybe this particular teacher is different) punctuated with way too many exclamation marks, and then no line spacing between that and another character’s actions – which at first made me think that the character who turned out to be Kail was actually the one speaking first.
Then there’s that fact that he was sitting there without having realised everyone had left in the first place. Of course this is possible (if you’re really immersed in your thoughts, or a real daydreamer) but there seems to be no explanation here whatsoever. What was Kail thinking about that had distracted him so much? This didn’t draw me in, or convince me.
Seems like an odd description of his maths teacher to me. Plus, there’s the contradiction there: she looked like she was no more than 38, but grey hair (grey hair comes with two children?) adds age to such a fit women? Her name seems unnecessary, and honestly, so does the entire description. Unless she’s going to be some major character in the future (in which case, I want a more convincing description), we don’t need this info-dump about her so early on.
1. I think you already established that his name was Kail.
2. I think you’re giving away too much here. If you’ve just told us that he met a girl on the verge of killing herself, why should I read on? I don’t want to know so much yet, not in this way.
3. If she’s on the verge of killing herself, I’d kind of take it for granted that she was also killing the life within her. Where’s the difference? Unless you mean that she was pregnant, in which case you should make it clearer. Or better yet, just not mention it at all at this point.
I don’t need to know the population, not here, not now. Maybe if you describe the town at another point, but otherwise…I don’t know if you’ve ever read Twilight, but for some reason this sounded to me very strongly like a part of it.
Heh. I’m not sure if this is supposed to sound sweet or not, but personally I thought that it sounded a little patronising. So far, I have to admit that I don’t like the sound of Kail. He doesn’t seem to acknowledge the fact that this girl is a real person. Not only that, but I haven’t yet gained an insight of anything that makes him him: an individual, memorable character. Not convinced yet.
1.5 bathrooms? If this really is possible, please do explain.
This personally strikes me as pretty melodramatic, but that may just be opinion.
Okay, I’m a little confused. I assume that the girl Kail was referring to earlier was Ariana – who else? But from what I read just there – and what I read a little further on, too – you were intending at least partly to make Ariana seem a somewhat depressed character – even on the verge of taking her own life.
I’m not saying that this means she isn’t allowed to smile, even laugh. But she doesn’t strike me in the least as a depressed character in all three chapters. I think you need to give more indication of her real state of mind; especially when it comes to the next chapter, told from her POV. Perhaps she hides her feelings and emotions very well from others – but they must come out somewhere, at some time.
Which brings me to an overall summary of the characters. At the moment, I’m really not too convinced. The characters all strike me as petty and only sketched out as it is. Kail…who doesn’t seem to have much to him, other than liking Ariana; Ariana herself, who is meant to be depressed and grieving for her father but shows almost no indication of that whatsoever; the clichéd Melanie, and Vince, who seems to be an important character—yet I honestly feel that I’ve learned more about Kail’s maths teacher than Vince at this point.
I’m being extremely harsh here. I mean, there’s definitely a foundation for something here, but I feel that it needs a lot of careful thinking, reworking and editing. At the moment it’s not an effective opening. It’s a walking cliché – nothing interesting or new seems to have really happened. Boy switches off in maths, meets girl and “instantly falls in love with her”, end of chapter. There needs to be more substance, more depth to the characters. Who are they really? Why do they do what they do, say what they say?
Yet please don’t take this too much to heart or give up because of this harsh review. I think that if you take all the above points into consideration, and think about all of this, try to allow your characters space to be living, breathing, real, and think about what actually happens – this could be improved by far. Keep working on it.
CHAPTER TWO
Okay. First thoughts: “Huh? What’s going on?”
It took me a couple of sentences to realise the story had switched to Ariana’s POV. This is just an idea/suggestion, but how about putting the character’s name just below/next to the chapter, so that the reader immediately knows who’s telling the story?
Again, the thing that strikes me as strangest is the lack of traces of sadness/grief in Ariana, despite what was said before. A suggestion is to try to work at implementing hints at this into this; try and show through her actions and dialogue how she really feels inside. As a reader, I want much more than the outside shell – which isn’t, at the moment, striking me as particularly interesting.
Okay, from here on I think I’ll just quote bits and explain what the problem with them is/suggestions to improve it.
How can she sound so incredulous at the sight of a lawn mower? It’s hard to believe that it’s so difficult for her to recognise one, and also gives me the impression that she’s kind of spoilt.
Two things. The first; this attraction between Ariana and Kail is seeming really kind of unrealistic to me. Is that the only thing she has to think about him – that he’s hot? You might be able to get away with that if, again, you hadn’t implied earlier more than once that Ariana was meant to be depressed. But only through telling; you’ve showed no evidence of that through her actions. So she’s hopelessly depressed, but her main thoughts of the morning are about how hot the boy mowing her lawn is, and how sexy she needs to look?
In a real situation, would “they” really tell a victim of rape that? To tell them they are lucky seems really insensitive, for one thing. And then the second part; “most women don’t live after their predators attack them” – who are you referring to as predators, exactly? Additionally, where’s the truth in this? What does attacking include in this case – just what happened to her, or other attacks?
I’ve not got as many suggestions for this chapter as the first, but here are a few more that popped into my mind as a reader:
- The characters still don’t strike me as great. I didn’t find that the second chapter developed on them as much as it could have – Kail still doesn’t seem to have all that much personality to me, and Ariana just doesn’t seem right. I’m only getting a very shallow glimpse of them at the moment – what are their deeper thoughts and intentions? Whatever they are, I want to see more of them.
- Even the story is beginning to seem just a little unclear to me. So Ariana and her mother moved in with their grandmother? Maybe I missed something, but that doesn’t seem to have been mentioned before.
Okay, onto chapter three.
CHAPTER THREE
This is very nit-picky, but I’ve noticed that while talking about other characters and describing them, you’ve used the present tense. Makes me wonder why you’ve suddenly started referring to Vince in the past tense – does that mean he’s dead by the end of the story, or is it just an inconsistency?
Ari is taking it pretty badly? Again, I’ve yet to see much indication of that.
I’ve got quite a few issues with Kail in this chapter. Again, perhaps he is not meant to be a particularly likeable character – but likeable or not, I’d like to at least understand him so as to be able to relate to him to some degree.
Why does he seem to be so obsessed over what she’s wearing? Ordering her to take off her accessories really seems a bit much. Again, maybe he’s that kind of character, but why?
The second issue with this chapter was how convincing certain things were.
For one thing, Tristan just seems to randomly pop up, and start shouting at Melanie and trying to drag her off. Whoa, what? I assume they’ve not been together for a while, so why now all of a sudden? I want some reason for his sudden appearance and stupid actions.
Then, again, as I’ve mentioned already – there’s the fact that Ariana’s actions just don’t seem to correspond with her story at the moment.
From most of what I’ve seen, she really seems happy enough. It may be all a façade, but I’d like some indication of it.
Another thing I’d like to mention is the importance of showing, not telling—
Telling. We’re not actually there, in the moment, and it sounds completely uninteresting. It’s almost like saying “I went to school, met a new friend, had pizza for lunch.” I want to be there, in the moment, or at least have this interlude phrased in a better way.
In what way did she look dead? Some more description to really help us visualise her right now would be good.
These are pretty much all the nit-picks over – and I’m sorry for there being so many of them. There’s just one final thing I want to mention, and that’s grammar. Generally it’s alright but I’ve noticed quite a few places where apostrophes aren’t quite in the right place, the wrong things are capitalized, etc. I’d just suggest you go over it and make sure you iron out any of these mistakes.
Again, editing should make this a lot better—you can make sentences sound smoother by sorting out the ones which don’t quite fit, adding in commas where it feels like there should be a pause, and so on. ^_^
So – overall:
You’ve got quite a bit of writing here, much of which I think needs a lot of work and editing, but which I think could be turned into something much better. I’ve just given you an amazingly huge and nit-picky review which I hope will help you sort out at least some of these things.
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions!
~Niebla
I like to say I enjoyed your story to a certain point. There was a certain weirdness to Vince liking Melanie after the made a joke about her. Then there's the dialect which kind of threw me off it was all relatively to how I speak and I live Cali now I know there isn't a whole different language but I thought it would be useful to use more of country terms. Then I didn't like how you executed ari being raped making her say she wants to look uber sexy doesn't make any sense someone whose been raped would have trouble being alone with a guy and totally would not try to look sexy because it suggests she wants to do it. The other thing was the cow boy boots a country guy wears cowboy boots to horseback, dance, look appropriate for a special occasion, or look like a cow boy. Last thing you say that ari grandparents are senile yet they don't seem to be that way how your making them act.
Ok so to clear things up Rav1209, Kail made the joke about Melanie, Vince just laughed it off. Secondly, Indiana is country but not yeehaw country like Louisiana or Georgia. We don't eat grits every morning or go feed the cows. So the need to make it more country would throw people into thinking we're all a bunch of rednecks and thats not what the characters are about. And Ari's character is not defined by her rape. If it was then why would she be strong enough to put it past her? Ari has dreams and she's very ambitious. And since when does the word sexy mean easy? Obviously if she was easy Kail and her would've already hooked up, and her dialect would be flirty. Sexy can be classy sexy or trashy sexy and obviously if she wants to be a model she's going to look like a classy uptown new york girl. Now the boots. Maybe back then boots were for special occasions but anymore they can be part of an everyday outfit, they're like a country guys tennis shoes. Just clearing things up for you, thats all.
I love you Laila XD (this is the other Author by the way, She wrote chapter 3.)
I MEAN TWO!!!!!