Young Writers Society

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever it is in your part of the world),

And I'm back for the first chapter. It is starting to sink in that I signed up to review 15 chapters. Anyway.

First Impression: Tone Change. Bit out of the blue but not a problem. Really does a good job as an opening chapter.

So on with it,

Now she was sitting on her bed, working on some super boring and easy algebra problems(algebra is boring, I agree.)

As she figured out which answer was the extraneous root in the quadratic formula(*faints*), her phone dinged. She pulled it out and looked at the text from her friend, Violet James.

Hey Alice, u wanna come over to my party? It read.

I can't, my parents won't let me. replied Alice.

Well, u could come anyway. Tell them u are going shopping.

What? I'm not going to do that.

Oh, come on. It's gonna be a really epic party.

Alice thought for a few seconds, but eventually gave in.

Fine. I'll come. She wrote.

Good little piece of banter. Helps us get a bit of an idea on her personality.

She left her phone in her room, because she knew her parents had one of those tracker app thingies. She snuck out the door and jogged a couple blocks over to Violet's house, where she saw several cars in the driveway. Then she rang the doorbell.

Now here it looks like she just straight up snuck out so why mention the shopping excuse earlier?

"I'm glad too," Alice replied with a laugh, ignoring another slight pang of guilt she felt at deceiving her parents.

More development on the personality. Good.

"Hi, Josh!" Violet almost squealed, staring at him. Alice looked at her accusingly. She knew that look. That was the look Violet gave all the handsomest(I'm no expert on teenage girls but I don't think they would use that word. Maybe cutest) boys.

"I'll, uh, go now," said the other boy nervously.

"What?" said Josh. "You're not going anywhere until you've made some friends, Isaac. Stop being so introverted. Now say hi."

"Uh, hi, I guess?" said Isaac.

Josh gave a big sigh. "Sorry about Isaac. He's a bit... shy."

"Okay," said Violet in a high pitched voice. She turned to Alice and whispered in her ear. "He's actually talking to me! This is so cool! Can you believe it?"

Alice nodded. Really Violet? He's not that handsome, she thought.

I assume these people play an important part.

Everybody continued partying late into the night, not noticing the multiple police and ambulance sirens that were going by outside. When the party was finally over, Alice said goodbye to Violet and her other friends. She left the house and began walking home. She looked up at the stars which were fairly dim. I suppose that's what you get for living in Chicago, or any city really, she thought. (Okay this paragraph is a bit weird. It starts out like a narrator then suddenly becomes Alice POV. Bit weird. I think you should just avoid the siren foreshadowing. It would give a better impact later too.)

As she continued staring up at the night sky, she saw something strange. She frowned. She saw something moving swiftly through the air, blotting out the dim stars. She couldn't see what it was very well, but it looked sort of like a small, black airplane, yet not quite like an airplane... she couldn't see it well enough to tell what it was.

Suddenly, it swooped incredibly fast towards some area ahead, disappearing in a flash of lightning. what the... ? thought Alice, startled. A gust of wind blew by, and she wished she was wearing more than just a T-shirt. She ran the rest of the way home to warm herself up, confused and bewildered about the thing she just saw.

Now this are a great couple of paragraphs. Draws the reader in.

Alice then saw the most horrible thing she had ever seen, other than on TV. There were a bunch of police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances, all around her neighborhood, with sirens still going off. Her house, along with a dozen of her neighbor's houses, were burnt to the ground. Oh, no! she thought. She stared in horror and grief as eight people pulled her parents from the wreckage and rushed them to one of the ambulances.

No, no, no, no! This can't be happening! She thought in terror. She ran up to a police officer in tears.

"How did this happen?" she cried.

"There seems to have been some sort of huge fire. Some of the witnesses say they saw an explosion, but nothing is certain yet," answered the police officer. "Are you okay?"

Okay I think it would be far more likely that she runs to the ambulance first to see her parents before doing anything else.

"I... I live... here... my parents..." Alice started crying some more. She ran up to the yellow caution tape at the edge of the wreckage of her house. She looked up at the smoldering pile of rubble that used to be her house, and she saw something that made her frown.

On top of the rubble there was a figure. his face was obscured by the darkness, but there was one feature she could definitely see.

His eyes were glowing, two pale ovals of blue light.

This is a great ending but I believe that a teenager would most likely only have one thought in mind at this point and that is to go look at her parents.

And that's that.

To finish off, this is a really good opening chapter and I definitely want to keep reading. Once again I hope I wasn't too harsh. Just trying to help out. Take what you think will help and forget the rest.

Onto the next chapter.

Stay Safe
Harry

Hi Necromancer14

I'm back again for another short review on the chapter. I'm glad you got right into things by the end of the first chapter. I was kinda worried that I'd have to read through a few chapters before we got back to the action, but yah for me that's not the case.

I've got a few theories already. Probably all wrong.

I'm wondering if that shape she saw was a dragon? Maybe it was what burned down the houses or maybe that was the boy with the blue eyes. I don't know. Just some random thoughts going through my head.

Anyway, no real criticism for this chapter. I might go more into depth once I get more into the story as you have a lot of reviews on this chapter covering most of the issues.

Keep writing,
Felistia

Yolo! Here for another review.

The beginning was very good for a beginning, so I won't get into that. Just one thing, when you mention Violet James, personally, I would have thought up of some other kind of last name. But that's just me.

Anyway, The first problem I saw was when she said that she was in Chicago. I was thinking, "Where are we?" Before this part. It's just kind of strange for the reader to wonder where your main character is until at the middle of the chapter. You can state it at the beginning of the chapter. Something like, "Ever since her family had moved to Chicago, her parents never allowed her to go to her friend's parties." Something like that. Of course, I advise you not to use my example, if it doesn't fit with one of your characters attitudes or backgrounds.

I liked the random dialogue between Violet, Josh, and Isaac. It introduces the characters, but nothing important happens. Well, nothing except that houses are burning this instant, but we won't talk about that part right now. These characters you introduced during this dialogue though have to be important in some way or another. Otherwise, this will just be random, and your reader will be able to tell that this was just a fill in dialogue.

When Alice realizes that her house is burnt, something's missing in her description of dismay. You can't just say, "She was terrified." That's too bland.

Loved the ending. I loved how you introduce the guy who had blue eyes and all that. Loved it. It was amazing.

That's it! Hope I was helpful!

Hey there! I'm hoping to get to chapter eight sometime today, if I stay on track. I think I owe you a lot of reviews since you've done so many for me!

Like before, I'll start with the places I think could need improvement before moving onto my general thoughts

Alice Wilkins was sulking in her bedroom. She was fifteen years old, and her mother had just a few minutes ago punished her for "back talking her parents." She was wearing a bright pink hello kitty shirt and a pair of shorts, with her homework sitting in her lap.

I mean, I'll have to do it eventually. she reasoned.

Hey Alice, u wanna come over to my party? It read.
I can't, my parents won't let me. replied Alice.
Well, u could come anyway. Tell them u are going shopping.
What? I'm not going to do that.
Oh, come on. It's gonna be a really epic party.
Alice thought for a few seconds, but eventually gave in.
Fine. I'll come. She wrote.

She left her phone in her room, because she knew her parents had one of those tracker app thingies. She snuck out the door and jogged a couple blocks over to Violet's house, where she saw several cars in the driveway.

"Hi Alice! I'm so glad you could make it without getting caught," said Violet cheerfully. Violet had raven black hair and was wearing red lipstick.

Alice then saw the most horrible thing she had ever seen, other than on TV.

Oh, no! she thought.

On top of the rubble there was a figure. his face was obscured by the darkness, but there was one feature she could definitely see.
His eyes were glowing, two pale ovals of blue light.

Hey Necromancer14! Katja here to review Chapter one. As always please feel free to disregard any comments or suggestions I make if you find them unhelpful. Onto the review~

Overall Thoughts

Chapter one shifts to a fifteen-year-old character, Alice Wilkins. She is not allowed to go to her friend's party since she was backtalking her parents but she decides to sneak out anyway after some coercion from Violet, her friend hosting the party. When she returns home, several houses including her own have been burnt down. On the rubble stands a figure with glowing blue eyes (our teen boy from the prologue?).

Very interesting direction you took this chapter. I like how the tone is very different from the prologue. At the end of this chapter, it doesn't tell us definitely if the boy is responsible for the destruction, but we can assume so.

Overall very cool story so far!

Suggestions

Mainly I wonder why Alice doesn't react as strongly as one would expect a 15-year-old to. She has a bit of a falling out with her parents and snuck out (she even felt guilty about that at the party) yet the mentioned emotional reactions weren't very strong. I feel like there could be more emotion put into her reactions- she thinks her parents are dead and her house is destroyed- a strange figure can be seen in the rubble.... but she simply frowns upon seeing this... I feel like terror, fear, anguish, confusion packed in a little more would really seal the deal here. Just my thoughts, though!

Oh and also, if Alice was able to notice the figure, I wondered why nobody else did? The police, in particular, you'd expect to be paying close attention. Not so much a suggestion as a comment~

That's all I have for suggestions!

Summary

Loving the plot so far! My only suggestion is on focussing on character reactions and development to help the reader feel especially affected by what's happening and empathize with the character. Overall very excited to read the next chapter and see where this goes!

I hope my review was helpful!

Keep Writing,

~Katja

Damn! When I started reading, everything about Alice screamed "TEENAGE". I liked how you wrote "Eventually gave in", to me personally, that made the whole dialogue sound like she hated her parents for not letting her go to the party, but she also wasn't that excited to go either, it was just the factor of "to spite your parents" thing. If I would have written that, I'd write "caved in" but "gave in" makes Alice a character with more depth. This is my first review so I don't know if any of this makes sense, but I need to review to get reviewed goddamit! And like, I am reading stories but I don't have anything to review until I saw this one.
Okay, in most writings, the story often focuses on developing the main character, or world-building, meaning there is some time before everything kicks into action, what I love is how your story makes it all effortless into one piece, where you also get what kind of person Alice is, and with, literally a fucking explosion(Which I wanna know what happened), you kickstarted the story into action, by defining the problem. It is also relatable, like a lot of times when you fight with someone you love a lot, and you realize they shouldn't get hurt while you're fighting, cause that would be the worst, so it speaks to me.
Atlanta is hot, like really, so the trope subversion "she wished she was wearing more than just a t-shirt" is appreciated. I mean, there are a lot of things to be said about this chapter alone. When you introduced the extra-ordinary element, I was actually thinking of things, like I bet it's a UFO, I bet its aliens, or maybe area 51. Apart from cultural influences, that might have clouded my judgment, I was so intrigued at whatever the heck is going to happen and the ambiguity of what is going on near the end, by just giving the obvious of details you've hooked me as a reader.
The ending of course, was a WHAT THE FUCK!?!? ending, If you go on, I'd want you to destroy the character of Alice even more(Cause I like that trope personally) but whatever you do, I WANT TO READ IT.
This might have sounded like a fan message rather than a review, and I'm really sorry that I didn't get you to get better in your writing, or improve it or whatever. But I mean, it's my first review, so forgive me, please?

Hello! Glad to read another of your stories! I'm excited to see a long, coherent story cut up into chapters from you

I really enjoyed the way this started. It felt natural, which is often the piece that's missing with teenager-based openings. That being said, I do think Alice is missing a bit of character. Natural is great, but generic teenager shouldn't be taken for granted. Sure, it's easy for readers to slap the teenage character into Alice, but it would be much better for you to bring it out yourself. Focus on her decision making more -- sneaking away from her parents is still big, even if she's the rebellious type. Focus on the guilt -- maybe talk about her trip to the party and how she didn't feel secure until she'd entered. Basically, I think it would be better to focus on her fear and introspection than her affliction with cute boys. (Or just do both :p)

The description of the thing falling from the sky was pretty well done. I can definitely see it in my head, so that's a win for imagery. However, the bit with the wind seemed unnecessary. (It was great actually, but perhaps it should have come sooner). I'd have preferred focusing on the thing in the sky, or even just more of Alice's thoughts about getting home quickly.

The ending was very impactful, so that's a win. One thing that was the fact that she saw her parents and didn't immediately rush to that ambulance. It's a little off that she would explore the rubble of her house, and it's usually better to make characters do things that make sense for them rather than things necessary for the plot.

Regardless, the introduction of the figure was gripping, and makes me want to read on, so kudos

Hm interesting! I've come from the prologue to take a peek at this next chapter, yet this is a lot different than what I thought would happen. This seems like the scientists from before might not end up being too important in at least the first few chapters, and I'm not quite sure if I like that or not.

Either way, I do have a few notes on this first chapter, especially after reading the prologue.

1. As the other reviewer noted below me, I'm getting a whole lot of "teenager-vibe" here that I wasn't getting previously. In fact, if this is going to be more of the tone of the novel, as in, teenagers needing to deal with aliens and superpowers and saving the world, then I think getting rid of the prologue all together would do you a lot more good than harm. Especially because then the appearance of the mysterious teenage boy gives off even more of a surprise appeal since we didn't just read about the whole experimentation in the last section.

2. Furthermore, I don't know if I like Alice's character just yet. Especially with teenagers, and the unavoidable angst and poor decisions, I'm decisive whether I like most young adult characters, especially females ones and sometimes I can't connect well with them at all. I can certainly feel pity for her losing her parents, but I do think expanding on her emotions here could really portray a more realistic approach to her sudden grief, and why exactly she would risk getting more in trouble with her parents by sneaking out of the house.

3. I'm quite curious, however, about who this unknown figure will end up being (besides clearly otherworldly) and what role he will have in this story. Will other teenagers lose their parents? Is his goal really set in stone as far as apparently destroying parts of the Earth? Interesting stuff here. I kind of hope that the scientists make a reappearance sometime to give a little more of their logic and knowledge about the alien world.

That's all for now! I'll be checking out chapter two next. ^^

Hi again, Necromancer!

Wow, the first thing I noticed here was the sudden tone shift. If I hadn't read the prologue, I would have assumed this story would be going somewhere very different. It's interesting that you can switch things up like that.

Well, u could come anyway. Tell them u are going shopping.

What? I'm not going to do that.

Everybody continued partying late into the night, not noticing the multiple police and ambulance sirens that were going by outside.

She looked up at the stars which were fairly dim. I suppose that's what you get for living in Chicago, or any city really, she thought.

She ran the rest of the way home to warm herself up, confused and bewildered about the thing she just saw.

"I... I live... here... my parents..." Alice started crying some more. She ran up to the yellow caution tape at the edge of the wreckage of her house. She looked up at the smoldering pile of rubble that used to be her house, and she saw something that made her frown.

On top of the rubble there was a figure. his face was obscured by the darkness, but there was one feature she could definitely see.

His eyes were glowing, two pale ovals of blue light.

Alright, I'll start off with your first paragraph. I think it's not too bad if you introduce her name immediately, though you could also show instead of telling us and let her mother call her name from downstairs or something of that sort. I also don't think you need to tell us she's fifteen right off the bat. We could infer that later on with some details you give. It's important to have a balance of showing and telling.

" Violet James."
This is a small nitpick, but I suppose I just wonder why their last names are so important. Not anything you need to remove I'm just curious I guess.

"Hey Alice, u wanna come over to my party? It read."
I think you could leave the It read part out, although it's up to you.

"Alice hopped out of bed and went down the stairs. What they don't know won't hurt them, she thought, trying to compensate for her guilt. Besides, if they were nicer I wouldn't have to do things sneakily."

I like how you show us some of her personality in here.

"She left her phone in her room, because she new her parents had one of those tracker app thingies."
*Knew

"She snuck out the door and jogged a couple blocks over to Violet's house, where she saw several cars in the driveway. Then she rang the doorbell.

It opened to reveal Violet, who let her inside."

This is kind of just telling us again. Perhaps add some more detail. What does the street/neighborhood look like? What's the weather like? What's Violet's house look like, etc

"Violet had raven black hair was wearing red lipstick. Alice had blonde hair and hadn't had time to put on any makeup. she felt embarrassed."
Maybe reword the way you describe her black hair. Ex: "Raven's black hair swept over her shoulders and her bold, red lipstick could easily attract any man's attention." Sometimes going into a lot of detail on appearences can help the reader picture it more. Also, maybe you could describe how Alice's hair is messy or something.

"They went inside, where everybody was eating pizza and a boom box was playing rap music overly loud."

Overly loud sounds a bit awkward, maybe just replace it with "too loud" or "annoyingly loud".

"That was the look Violet gave all the handsomest boys."
I honestly have no idea of handsomest is a word or not, though I doubt it. Maybe just say the most handsome.

"She looked up at the stars which were fairly dim. I suppose that's what you get for living in Chicago, or any city really, she thought. "

Good way of sneaking where she lives in there.

"Alice then saw the most horrible thing she had ever seen, other than on TV."
I think you can leave the TV part out. Without it it sounds more bold.

Also, woah! I was not expecting that whole scene at all. I thought it was gonna be a standard teenage life story. I'm quite surprised and taken aback in a very good way. Great way of hooking the readers in.