Chapter One
There was a monster right in front of me. It stared at me with unblinking eyes. I sighed and looked at my reflection for one more second before tackling my hair with a brush. It was going in all directions and my eyes were bloodshot. I had been up until two in the morning working on a paper that wasn’t due until next Friday. Over a week from now. But that was me. Always the good girl. A child prodigy.
After my long black hair was semi-under control and the little makeup I wear had been applied I headed downstairs. The smell of bacon and eggs filled my senses.
I saw a familiar sight as I stepped into the kitchen. My mother was setting food on the table with her brown hair in a bun and her suit recently ironed. Mom’s a lawyer. She’s stern and gentle. Understanding yet firm.
Dad was at the head of the table already half way done with his plate. He ate like a maniac but somehow stayed thin. It was extra surprising considering he was always on his computer. Dad is a writer.He wrote mainly horror and mystery. And even taking that into consideration, he still understood the more…emotional feelings and concepts. I’d asked him about it once and he’d said, “Writers understand all emotions Jess. Because every story has a little of them all. We have to understand what we write or it’s not worth writing.”His blonde hair is shaggy and he was still in his pajamas. He’s more laid back than mom.
And sitting in the chair that was added to our family table just for him was Tyler. His light brown hair matched my mothers more than mine did. His green eyes were alight with life and joy.
He was the first one to see me and he smiled a smile that broke my heart twice. First from seeing it and again from seeing it leave as he turned back to the conversation he’d been having with my mother. I love him so much, I thought as I sat beside him. We’d met when I’d moved into town sophomore year. He’d been my first friend and my first boyfriend after he’d taken me on my first date. We’d been together ever since, and he always ate breakfast at my house before driving me to school. He seemed to be anxious this morning, in a good way. He seemed like he wanted to get to school fast.
“So baby, what’s on this week’s agenda?” Dad asked me as I sat down. Of course I was prepared for this question he asked every Monday. And he was used to the stream of activities I already had planned.
He was done eating before I was done but sat their dutifully and paid attention. When I was done he went upstairs, but not before completing the morning ritual of kissing me on the head and saying bye to Tyler first. Mom had rushed out of the kitchen earlier in a near frenzy with a quick "Bye kids. Bye Bill," like she always did because she insisted in making breakfast every morning.
So Tyler and I ate our breakfeast quickly with little conversation, but with a lot of meaningful looks cast my way that I didn't quite understand. As we were walking out of the house towrd his car he suddenly stopped in the middle of the hallway.
He looked at me in an odd way that felt…calculating. Suddenly he looked as if he had come to a decision.
He asked me abruptly, “You love me?” My head started to spin. How could he possibly think I not love him?
“Of course I do. Why do you have to ask?” I wondered. His face didn’t change.
“How much do you love me?” Now I was getting worried.
I shoved him against the wall and cupped his face in my hands I was inches from his face, then I looked him in the eye and said, “You dummy. Of course I love you. I’ll always love you, and as to how much well let’s just say, fat kids and Twinkies have nothing on us.” He gave a sigh of relief and smiled. He wrapped his arms around my waist and kissed the tip of my nose which made me blush down to my toes.
“Good. And I love you too. Always. Which reminds me.” With that he pulled me out the door and into his car. He didn’t start the car though, like he normaly did, instead looked at me with eyes that I believed held the secrets of the universe. Suddenly he wasn’t looking at me but kissing me with such intensity that at first all I could do was sit rigged in my seat. Then I was kissing him back. All thoughts melted from my mind and there was just me and him. He pulled back with such a smug and satisfied look I almost smacked him(on the arm). Then he sobered up quick.
He pulled out a little blue fuzzy box and I drew in a sharp breath.
“It’s not what you think. I just saw it and you came to mind and…Well just open it,” he said quickly. I flipped the golden latch and slowly opened the box.
Shocked I pulled in a deep ragged breath and tears began to form in my eyes. It was a little silver heart that said I promise you forever, and whatever comes after that -Tyler. It was beautiful.
The tears spilled over and this time I was the one who leaned over and kissed him as if the world was burning and my love was all that could save him
End of chapter
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Hi, Writer. Here I am... reviewing for you!
I love your story, your writing style is amazing, and your main characters seem nice. This novel has potential, something I will definitely finish reading. Keep writing this, I'll look forward to read the next chapter. I also noticed you have not done your novel or novella cover, so here's the link of how to do it in case you don't know. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paWzpz5xwVU It's a video [user]Nate[/url], the admin guy, made to show us.
~Sol
Chapter One
This is a great start for a novel, it makes the reader want to keep reading.
After my long black hair was semi-under control and the little makeup I wear had been applied I headed downstairs. The smell of bacon and eggs filled my senses.
I would've said: Mom's a lawyer, she's stern and gentle. Understanding yet firm.(But that's just a personal thought, okay?)
Dad was at the head of the table already half way done with his plate. He ate like a maniac but somehow stayed thin. It was extra surprising considering he was always on his computer. Dad is a writer.He wrote mainly horror and mystery. And even taking that into consideration, he still understood the more…emotional feelings and concepts. I’d asked him about it once and he’d said, “Writers understand all emotions Jess. Because every story has a little of them all. We have to understand what we write or it’s not worth writing.” His blonde hair is shaggy and he was still in his pajamas. He’s more laid back than mom.
I think this paragraphs should be together, because you're talking about the same thing, Tyler.
“So baby, what’s on this week’s agenda?” Dad asked me as I sat down. Of course I was prepared for this question he asked every Monday. And he was used to the stream of activities I already had planned.
He was done eating before I was done, but sat their dutifully and paid attention.
When I was done he went upstairs, but not before completing the morning ritual of kissing me on the head and saying bye to Tyler first. Mom had rushed out of the kitchen earlier in a near frenzy with a quick "Bye kids. Bye Bill,"
like she always did, because she insisted in making breakfast every morning.
You spelled breakfast wrong.
"toward" I know... typos are evil.
He looked at me in an odd way that felt…calculating. Suddenly he looked as if he had come to a decision.
He asked me abruptly, “You love me?” My head started to spin. How could he possibly think I not love him?
“Of course I do. Why do you have to ask?” I wondered. His face didn’t change.
“How much do you love me?” Now I was getting worried.
I shoved him against the wall and cupped his face in my hands I was inches from his face, then I looked him in the eye and said, “You dummy. Of course I love you. I’ll always love you, and as to how much well let’s just say, fat kids and Twinkies have nothing on us.” He gave a sigh of relief and smiled. He wrapped his arms around my waist and kissed the tip of my nose which made me blush down to my toes.
“Good. And I love you too. Always. Which reminds me.” With that he pulled me out the door and into his car.
"Normally"
Suddenly he wasn’t looking at me, but kissing me with such intensity that at first all I could do was sit rigged in my seat.
Then I was kissing him back. All thoughts melted from my mind and there was just me and him. He pulled back with such a smug and satisfied look I almost smacked him(on the arm). Then he sobered up quick.
He pulled out a little blue fuzzy box and I drew in a sharp breath.
“It’s not what you think. I just saw it and you came to mind and…Well just open it,” he said quickly. I flipped the golden latch and slowly opened the box.
Shocked I pulled in a deep ragged breath and tears began to form in my eyes. It was a little silver heart that said I promise you forever, and whatever comes after that -Tyler. It was beautiful.
The tears spilled over and this time I was the one who leaned over and kissed him as if the world was burning and my love was all that could save him.
Hey there!
I like this.
However, something lacks in here. I guess it lacks the story-reader connection. You should add action.
The others already cited the other errors, so I'm just here to say, "Keep Writing!"
-KAT <3
The first thing I thought about this was that the voice is very... not passive, but kind of blah. It's like, you need more force in here! Right now the narrator sounds very apathetic, and it makes it hard to get into the story. Remember that the first chapter of a novel is what catches someone's attention!
I'm back! The prologue has lassoed me into the ring! Ahem, on with the review!
Red - Mistakes
Green - Corrections
Purple - Bits I Liked
Pink - Suggestions
Wow, this is a very, very impressive opening. Making a 'twist in the tale' story in the first three seconds is almost impossible to achieve.
Absolutely love the bluntness of your writing, clear, straight and to the point. Something I struggle with, I'm jealous.
I love when writers insert a quote that reflects a characters personality, a very nice and subtle way of painting an image in the readers mind.
I've stopped here purely because this line threw me a little, its a nice bit of description but describing your MC's boyfriend resembling your MC's mother is slightly odd, I'd suggest re-thinking the wording of this line. Maybe something about him 'being accepted like another son into the family', not sure where you were headed with that line so its up to you.
Okay don't quote me on this one, it may be because the colour of my heart resembles the night sky. But this line is pure cheese, you could try something a little more subtle. Its not necessarily bad its just not to my taste, but this is purely my own opinion.
I can't help but thing the first half of that sentence is a little pointless, you repeat yourself here. I'd suggest cutting one.
This is a good start, although I can't help to think that not much happens. There seems to be minimal conflict, I'm not sure if this is the best first chapter I've ever seen, I understand if you're trying to build it up slowly. But after that I was left feeling 'Well that was nice, but I can't see where its going?' There isn't much in there that makes you want to read on, I'd suggest maybe adding in a cliffhanger of some sort, or if there is going to be an explosive plotline, adding in hints this early on. I also love (like I said before) the bluntness of your writing, the 'no sh**' attitude is very refreshing, and mature. This is a promising start, you just need to work on techniques to draw in your reader. Situated anywhere else in the story, this would be a very good chapter, its not that it wasn't. It just didn't seem to fit, it was very 'Once Upon A Time, And They All Lived Happily Ever After' I hope this makes sense.
Good luck!
xo
I really did like this.
I'd read it in novel form, at least.
And...here's where you cry:
I liked it. But, of course, there's room for improvement other than what I pointed out above. While this is a great entry snippet, there is no conflict... Two of the four characters said nothing in the scene, and it sets a standard as the first chapter for the rest of the book to be a potential gush-fest. Although, I know how we writers think and I have an idea as to where this story would go later on.
And for that, I approve. Take the comments I made above and try to adapt and revise and fix problems. If you do, the piece will get better, and so will your writing style.
A major issue that I would caution you about is:
Do not use verbs of be liberally.
Verbs of be are cop-out verbs. Am, is, was, were, be, been, being. They set the grounds for passive voice (which is literary suicide) and make the text boggy and painful. Varying your sentence structure will help this problem.
The only other thing I have to say is that I thought this story was about me (my name is Tyler!). It's always nice to read something that makes me feel like I'm in the story, even though I'm really not. So thanks for giving me the sensation.
Whoa, good start. For a moment there I thought you were going to start off with a fight between your MC and a monster, but then you completely changed tack. That was a really good way to start what your character thinks of herself.
So, to nitpicks:
Way to describe him using a comparison, because by doing that you also described the mother.
This sentence needs some smoothing over. You just leap from one action to the other and it feel awkward. Maybe buffer it with a little dialogue or some more description about what they did between eating and walking out the door.
The sentence is blue was awkward. Maybe use "was" instead of "got". It just sounds weird the way it is. Like the fat kids and Twinkies thing
You jumped between past and present tense a lot in this paragraph. I can see why, but it really is more fluid if you stay in one tense, usually.
This is pretty emotional--you exaggerated their emotions a lot. These two are clearly very much in love. Not my style, but definitely good writing. You also use dialogue and flashbacks very well, too. Good job.
So I took into account that you wanted me to develop the tyler character and so i am going to add a little scene between him and jessica before the car.and made corrections.
Hello, my darling! Welcome to YWS! I, Loveless, will be reviewing your piece today. Well, let me get started!
(For the longest time, I though that was a piggy pirate.)
First of all, you should add more spacing into your story. With everything just jumbled together like that your story looks long and intimidating.
Corrections will be in something other than black, most likely red.
I apologize for my corrections and opinions being a little confusing. Especially at the beginning. Heh, I can't help it some of the times; i'm a confusing person.
Overall:
This was a good story, but I feel as if I walked in on the middle of it. It has potential but just needs to be polished a bit. You break sentences a lot which makes the structure very choppy. You also need to put more spacing and breaks in this, as I said at the beginning. I would like to see more of your characters developing, especially Tyler. Well, that's all! Bye, lovely!
Loveless~
Ok, I like the whole idea and setup that you have for chapter 1. some pointers i would give are you can break up the paragraphs to just one sentence.I will show you what I think would be more interesting for readers. Having all those paragraphs all together like that makes it alittle distracting for the readers or maybe it's just me.
It stared at me with unblinking eyes...
( my thought is the first sentence about the monster really did capture my attention but you might to let that stand out by letting it go online and skipping a line before doing your next sentence. Also I put 3 dotes after eyes to make it sound more interesting or to capture my attention.)
Another part where Tyle pulls out the fuzzy box.
He pulled out a little blue fuzzy box .....
I drew in a sharp breathe.
You might to center or single out what he says.
[center]"It’s not what you think. I just saw it and you came to mind and…Well just open it,”/center]
he said quickly
But overall I think of you have avery good start on a very well-detailed story.
P.S.-dont mean to discourage you ever