I was walking down the hallway at school one day when I ran into him. His name is, Wesley Collins. I was running to class when suddenly I fell to the ground. I looked up and there I saw him. The schools most popular jock. All my things we scattered on the ground. "I-I'm sorry." I am afraid of talking to him. I mean he is amazing and perfect. Wesley Collins is 6’3, he has beautiful green eyes, and dark brown hair, but he’s a player. I am nobody. You usually will find me wearing a pair of skinny jean, some type of hoodie, and vanz.
"No, I'm sorry I wasn't paying attention. What is a beautiful girl like you running in the hallway for?" His voice was deep and husky. My god! How many girls has he used that line on? Even though that’s what I thought, I could almost swear that my heart was going to melt. I just sat there staring at him. "Like what you see?" When he said this my face became bright red. I didn’t even notice that I was staring at him. I was trapped in my thoughts. I looked down at the ground gathering my things.
"Wesley!" I could hear an all too familiar voice yell. I avoided looking up. I could hear footsteps come closer and closer until they stopped by Wesley. "Bae, what are you doing talking to her?" This one obnoxious voice belongs to only one person. It was Sapphire Johanson. The schools meanest girl. She literally had a reputation of making people feel miserable. She was clinging on to Wesley's arm. "What are you doing? We broke up!" By the sound of Wesley's voice he was irritated. His face was scrunched up and his eyes were staring right at hers. Sapphire took his face and kissed him. This made me feel awkward. As she was doing this she looked at me. Wesley obviously didn't mind it because he didn't try to break the kiss. I honestly didn’t care. It was actually disgusting. The second bell rang. I picked up the rest of my things and started walking away.
Before I got to the door Wesley yelled at me. "Wait! I didn't get your name." I looked back at him smiled, then walked into my first period. I had math. Which so happens to be the worst class of all, because we never do anything. I sat in the back row of the classroom away from everyone. I avoid people, because the last time I talked to a person beside Wesley and Railey, I got completely ignored. Now the only person I talk to is Railey, and I don't have a class with him until 4th period. Railey is my bestfriend. He is kind, gentle, and understanding. I first met him in 3rd grade. Some bullies were hitting me, but Railey came. Since then he has always been with me.
The entire class period was boring as hell. Nothing new. Our teacher, Mr. Charles didn't care what you did, as long as you didn't wake him up. My thoughts were interrupted by someone tapping on my shoulder. I raised my head, but there was no one. When I went to look down there was a piece of folded paper on my desk. I looked around, but no one was looking at me, I picked it up and unraveled it.
"Meet me on the football field after school." That's what was written on the paper. I crumpled it up and threw it in the trash. It is probably just some joke. "Jay!" Mr. Charles was calling for me. "I need you to run to the office for me to get papers." I got out of my seat and walked out the door. While on my way there I looked across the hall to where Wesley was. He was sitting there looking at the teacher. His face turned towards me. He smiled, but when I turned around I saw Daniel. Jace, and Connor behind me. They were exchanging weird faces between each other. I turned then ran to the office. I got the papers then got back to class. On my way back I thought about my life. It is boring. There is no excitement at all. I got to room 29, which is Mr. Charles class. I looked through the door window and nothing seemed to have changed.
When I walked in everyone was talking and yelling. Mr. Charles looked at me, then back at the class. "Okay class. You have a paper due in a few months. It is worth half of your grade for this semester." The whole class grunted. "Write it on whatever you feel. Just as long as you bring in your papers I'll pass you." Mr. Charles didn't really care. With that said the bell rang. We all piled up trying to get out. Since I already had my things for Ms. Dunivan's class I went straight to 2nd period. I sat at my desk and got out my notebook. I began drawing. No one else was in the classroom, but me. For about 5 minutes I sat in silence. I heard footsteps enter the room. I didn't bother to see who it was. They walked to the desk next to and set their things down.
This was unusual, so out of curiosity I looked up. Standing there was Hailyee she was like me. Lonely and always hiding. “Hi.” I was shocked. She actually acknowledged me. “Hey.” She was half smiling. The rest of the class walked through the door leaving our conversation at that. Today Ms. Dunivan made us watch a documentary on supermassive black holes. It was quite interesting. For once I actually enjoyed class. When she dismissed us I took my things then sort of ran after Hailyee trying to stop her. I took at a piece of paper and wrote my number on it. “Text me later.” She walked out and so did I.
Standing outside was Todd, my ex-boyfriend. He had a smirk on his face. "Everyone is gathering in the auditorium for the assembly. Want to skip with me." Todd annoys me beyond description" No I don’t. In fact I don’t want anything to do with you." He stood there with his arms crossed. I could tell he was getting enjoyment out of this “Don't be shy." He took his arms and trapped me against the wall. I couldn’t even move. “Leave me alone Todd!" At this point I was pissed. I raised my head and looked at him. "Move or I’ll make you move!” Todd is a complete jackass. The reason I left him was because like most other boys, I found him cheating on me. It wasn’t that much of a surprise. It didn’t even bother me a little. "What? You don’t like me anymore? That hurts my feelings.” He said this sarcastically.
I took my hand and clenched my fist. I punched him in the throat and ran for it. I ran our through the schools front doors and onto the basketball court. I got down and laid on the ground. I remembered all the things that happened here. Most of them were horrible, but there is one that I will never forget. That’s when Railey and I snuck out of the house. We somehow made our way here and watched the stars. I got out my earbuds put them in and turned on music. I pulled my hood over my head then lay up against the hoop.
I fell asleep listening to Christina Perri "A Thousand Years." In my dream there was a man. His lips were connected to a girls, but the only thing is I couldn't see their faces. "Wake up princess." I could hear someone whispering in my ear. I opened my eyes, and standing there was Railey. This made me happy. The fact that he still calls me princess. The last time he did that was when we were 5. I got ou and hugged him. At that moment I don't know what came over me, but I started to cry, so many things have happened. I just needed to release them all.
"Thank you." I told him. "Any time." He was looking at me, but I could tell something was bothering him. "Now if you plan on not eating lunch stay here, but I'm hungry." Damn! I slept for over 2 hours. I left my things there then ran up to Railey and jumped onto his back. He carried me all the way to the lunchroom. For some reason the first thing I noticed is Wesley. From where I was I could see him perfectly. He was sitting with Sapphire and her wannabe group. His gaze directed towards me. As soon as he saw me his smile faded. Then he looked back at Sapphire. His smile grew again.
I didn’t really bother me, but I thought it was rude. I guess he really is nothing, but a player. Railey carried my tray over to the lunch table that was filled with the rest of his friends, which so happen to be the jocks. I stared at my tray. The entire time I just played with my food. The entire time I could feel some ones gaze. It was like they were looking directly through my soul. I ignored it and continued to fiddle with my food. "I going to leave." I told Railey, but he was too absorbed in his world to notice me. I took my tray with me and threw away my food. I needed some fresh air to clear my mind.
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125,011 Literary Works • 672,841 Reviews
Hi there!
I'm not a big fan of the introduction of Wesley's name here at the beginning. The first sentence is wonderful, giving us an idea of the memory we're about to dive into. Then all of the mystery is thrown out the window and we find out who it is he ran into. My mind was going in eight different directions trying to figure out who exactly the MC had run into. Now I know before the MC even starts the memory. I'd put his name in after it's mentioned that Wesley is the jock. It could read something like this: "The schools most popular jock Wesley Collins." This makes it look like an automatic thought. Like, "Here's the school jock. His name is Wesley Collins." You get what I'm saying? Thought processes are very particular, especially when the story is written in first person POV. We're basically jumping into the MC's head and following their thoughts and views of the story. Why not make everything match their thought process?
Be careful with your tenses. I notice that you slip from past tense to present tense near the end of the first paragraph. I don't see it anywhere else so you don't have to worry about that. Just fix the one area there.
I have to say, your main character is quite original. I've read stories and books before where the boy wants the girl or the girl wants the boy and they're all the same (to me at least). Your character though is different than any I've read about. Not only is she not popular, no one cares about her. It's not often that you see a character like that in a romance novel. I like it. Gives your novel a reason to be different.
I understand the want to jump right into descriptions, but how does her outfit prove to us that she's a nobody?
Dialogue is always important in a story. It gives us an inside look at the characters's personalities, not to mention it furthers the plot and such. Your dialogue is pretty good, but it's formatted a bit awkward. Like in the third paragraph there are two people speaking: Wesley and Sapphire. However, I had to really concentrate to figure out that Wesley was the one who said they'd broken up. There are so many words around that dialogue that I get lost. A helpful tip is to start a new paragraph whenever someone new is speaking. That way it's obvious when there's a change in who's speaking. It also makes dialogue tags easier to come across.
I think the one thing you should consider is the amount of details in this chapter. As readers we always want to know what's going on and what a character looks like, but sometimes too many details can be overwhelming. Like tiger said below me, slow it down a bit. You don't have to explain everyone and everything in the first chapter. Think of the first chapter as an introduction. If you were introducing yourself to someone you wouldn't dive into your whole life story. You'll end up saying your name and maybe something about yourself. It's the same thing with characters. I always like to think of character development as building upon itself. Start with the "basics" and then get deeper as the story progresses.
One more thing I wanted to talk about before I close this review is the pace of this chapter. A lot happens, more than just the details of who everyone is. Something that works for me personally is thinking about my chapters in scenes. To do it with your chapter here I'd say there are six scenes: Wesley bumping into Jay, first period class, second period class, getting trapped by her ex, falling asleep outside, lunchtime. That's a lot of scenes for one chapter, especially the opening one. With so many they fly by fast and we don't get to experience the fullness. Maybe you could consider stretching the scenes out and pushing some of these scenes into the next chapter. Just something to think about.
You have a great start here. We've met the MC and the love interest. I have to say it's pretty cool that he's interested in her so quickly. Even with his [insert word I'm not allowed to use here] of an ex-girlfriend who goes around kissing him for no reason. Wesley is into Jay and nothing is going to stop him from getting to her. Although after reading that last scene in the cafeteria I'm not so sure. I hope so much that he's not just playing her. I'd be so upset.
Even though I commented about all of your details, I want to praise you for having so many. Something I see people struggling with often is not enough information to back up their plot or characters. I'm impressed with how much you have thought out your characters. There are so many people that are in Jay's life even though she's this nobody, and they've all been part of her life somehow. You've definitely put a lot of thought into this novel.
Let me know when you post the next chapter! I'll gladly come back and check it out.
Keep writing!
**Noelle**
hi, friend, welcome to YWS. I see this has been sitting here for a while without any reviews, so I'll try to read through it for you x_x
The first sentence here is an interestingly good hook. I like that you didn't say "
I was walking down the hallway at school one day when I ran into Wesley," deciding to force the reader to at least read one more sentence to find out who this guy is. It's very clever. A couple things:
Right so this is a pretty glaring typo, because you make it seem like they both purposely scattered her things all over the ground. You gotta read after your work, you shouldn't have a typo this early on.
So, we have the main protagonist who has a crush on Wesley Collins. Pretty straightforward romantic arc, so far.
I'd enjoy more backstory between characters like this. There are a bunch of characters, but we know so little about them.
So I read through this, and I can't say I enjoyed it too much. I think you took it too fast for your own good. I'd like the first few chapters to slowly introduce characters so we can better understand the relationships between them - its what romance stories rely on. We have Sapphire, Todd, Railey, Jay, Wesley and a couple teachers and we all know so little about them. The rushed relationships harm this story and its not well written enough to compensate for it. It definitely has potential, I like the dynamic between Railey and Jay, and the final two paragraphs are very powerful. Just work on making every character come to life, let the reader know more about them. Their favorite foods, their hobbies, their traits and flaws, let the readers relate to them and want them to succeed. Jay was bullied, and Railey saved her. That's touching and you should expand on that, for sure.