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Young Writers Society



(New Book) The Other Side

by Nike


I'm in my room doing my homework as the music from my iPod Soother fills my room; I can see the blue light from the Soother fill the room. I'm doing Math but I'm almost done.

"Nicki!" Mom yells.

I look up from my homework "What?" I yell back looking at my brown glass door.

"Someone is at the door for you!" She yells.

The thing is that I have been moving from place to place so I don't really have any good friends, so yes, this is a shocker to me. It's been from America to Poland and back and forth. But now we're still in Poland. Cracow, Poland. I love this city! There is a crisis in America so here is where we can get jobs and have a life.

I run downstairs and look at the open door.

"What the hell are you doing here?!" I ask bitterly.

The guy I see is the worst ass-hole I've ever seen in my life.

"We need tu talk again," his accent rang in my mind.

"No," I shut the door in front of him.

"Come on Nicki!" He slammed onto the door.

I open the door. "What Tomek, really what. You practically used me and you think I will let you into my life after that? Huh?"

He looks at me with a serious face. "E'm sorry," He says with his accent.

"Sorry is not gonna work."

"Nicki, can you please forgeve me?" He holds onto the door.

"No, I'm not stupid anymore."

I just walk upstairs telling Bart (my brother) that Tomek is here.

"Okay!" He runs downstairs letting Tomek in.

Please comment and tell me what you think of it! :thud:


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19 Reviews


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Mon Mar 22, 2010 7:35 am
Forgotpzwrd wrote a review...



hello!


see i'm not going to review the story bit by bit, i'll let others do that, ^^,

so, what i think as a whole-- the story lacks the need to hold a tight grip on a reader, by this i mean, there's suppose to be a mystery, the attitudes of the characters suppose to captivate us, the goal of the story suppose to let us think, what's going to happen next?, i didn't read much of that... so it needs some work.. :D

i'll continue reading your work if you'll post the other parts of it! promise! :D

:elephant:




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Sun Mar 21, 2010 2:51 am
Coffee_and_Karma wrote a review...



Hi Nike! I'm Karma. You have a lot of little grammar issues here, especially in dialogue, but since Evi already suggested a guide for that, I'll focus on the big picture.

1. What's the real point of the first part, where she's in chemistry? It's honestly not very gripping, which is never good for a beginning. We learn her name and age, that she likes writing and complaining, and she hates chemistry. How much of that do we really need to know right now? Her name only, maybe her age and possibly that she likes writing, but I doubt that will have a lot to do with the whole story. The complaining just makes her seem unsavory (more on that later). Her name, and less importantly her age definitely can be introduced in a better way. I'd cut the whole first part, and start with the second. :)

2. There are two problems I have with Nicki, the main character. The first: the passive-aggressive shtick she pulls on Tomek. What do I mean? Well, let's say you like your guy-friend. We've all been there. Now let's say this happens.
- You ask him out. He says no.
-You keep asking him out. Still no.
- He starts to flirt with you and act like he likes you. OMG, you might have a chance!
- You ask him out again. He says, to paraphrase: "No way, I was only pretending to like you because you're so annoying and disgusting and I wanted you off my back. Ew, you dirty pig!"
That's a terrible thing to do, right?
Yeah, that's basically how your MC treats Tomek. So he just thought having a girlfriend would be cool, and he picked your MC as the absolute coolest girl to date. Not nearly as bad as what she did. She acted like a b*tch. Seriously.

3. The second problem is basically what Evi said: your narrators voice is so... shallow? A big problem was the chemistry scene, she just seemed so whiny and entitled, like she should never have to answer a question or learn her chemistry. Also, her failure to see that Tomek treated better than she treated him.

You should try to write her maybe a little more mature, and more importantly she needs to have serious consequences for her actions. Something bad needs to happen because of her behavior, towards Tomek and maybe even just in general. I can't really tell if you're going to do this, but the fact that Tomek keeps coming back doesn't bode well.

I know it's hard to hear a lot bad things about your writing, but trust me, I'm just trying to help, and a lot of it can be fixed simply by your character not going through the story all righteous on her high horse.
Keep Writing!

~Karma ;)




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Sat Mar 20, 2010 8:35 pm
Evi wrote a review...



Hey Nike! I'm Evi, and I'm going to be completely honest in the hope that you take none of my constructive criticism the wrong way.

This needs work. The biggest issue here is your main character, the narrator: I simply cannot take her seriously. Starting with the opening sentence, I can imagine her as this ditzy teenage girl talking into her bedazzled cell-phone saying, "Like, OMG, I totally hate chemistry! It's, like, so not cool! And, omigod, did you hear? Tomek likes me! *squee!* But he doesn't really-- he's just using me. It's soooo not cool. Whatever."

This is not the impression you want your narrator to leave.

Start by purging the overenthusiastic italics. You're italicising seemingly-random words in every other sentence, and it's distracting as well as unnecessary. As for grammar issues, although the previous reviewer seems to have helped, there are still little wayward periods:

I always said "No,". But a couple of times I faked liking him so he would stop asking, and later I would say "What are you talking about? I do not like you that way! Ew!".


Needs to be: I always said "No", but a couple of times I faked liking him so he would stop asking, and later I would say, "What are you talking about? I don't like you that way! Ew!"

"We need to talk again," He spoke english well, but not good.


How can someone speak English well but not good? You're contradicting yourself. If you're trying to say that the character stutters, or has an accent, go ahead and show that in their dialogue and action.

Also, the dialogue tag (in this sentence, "He") shouldn't be capitalized.

Check out this tutorial on Dialogue Punctuation by Demeter. It'll help you sort out your commas and capitalization and such.

Back to the character. I warn you of making her...well, exactly like you. Now, I don't know you, so I could be way off. But so far, she's Nicki, and you're Nike. You're both 15. You both like to write. Hopefully, the similarities end there.

Also, avoid saying things like, "The history goes like this:". That is an example of the first-person narrator actually addressing the reader, and should only be done by advanced writers who can actually pull it off, and neither you nor I are quite good enough to pull that off yet! ;)

As a last note: show! This is one of the most common issues in writing. Right now, I can't imagine your setting or your scene or your characters. Take the time to describe a bit, and weave those descriptions into the action and the prose. In other words, don't dump a huge paragraph in the middle of the story where Nicki describes everything in her house in full detail. Be subtle. ^_^

Best of luck, and PM me for anything.

~Evi




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Sat Mar 13, 2010 6:16 am
LittlePetRock wrote a review...



Hi there Nike! (nice username :) )
I like your story so far!
I shall review this in #FF0000 ">ravishing red!
#FF0000 ">Nit-Picks:
Be sure to always capitalize your 'I' and put periods at the end of sentences. How old is the character? The dialogue seems a bit flat too.


Oh My God! Why did #FF0000 ">I have to have Chemistry today? The teacher always picks on me, and #FF0000 ">I hate Chemistry!#FF0000 ">You used 'have' twice in one sentence. Try using a thesaurus, it's become my best friend :lol:


"Come on Nicki," Ms. Jack's says#FF0000 ">.
#FF0000 ">Be sure to use a period after each sentence.


"Okay, #FF0000 ">I want you to write down this problem," #FF0000 ">She showed me the problem#FF0000 ">.


"What are you waiting for? Finish the problem!" She yells#FF0000 ">, which brings tingles down my spine.


"Class will end in 5 minutes, so your homework tonight will be to do problem 5 from page 12 in your Chemistry book," Ms. Jack #FF0000 ">'s says#FF0000 ">.


#FF0000 ">Remember to spell-check and grammar-check! Don't take me wrong, but this has a lot of mistakes. Always re-read your work over a few times to make sure you don't have many mistakes before posting.





I don't care what the miserable excuse is for showing the death of books, live, on screen. Men, I could understand; but books! -
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