Published December 27, 2008
“What are you reading, Sam?”
I looked up from the book and glared at Ben, who interrupted my “personal time.” I held up the book to show him the title of the book; Twilight.
“Le gasp!” Ben said, covering his mouth as though horribly shocked. “I thought you said it was nothing but a load of crap!”
“It is!” I snapped, “I just wanna know what the big craze is. Why are girls going so crazy about this book?”
Ben shrugged and sat beside on the bench, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “Girls are complicated creatures, my love. There is no use in trying to figure them out.”
“You make it sound like I’m not a girl,” I said, slouching a bit.
“That’s because you’re not,” Ben laughed and put his hands in front of his face as I leapt up. Before I could maul him, he quickly added, “You’re above them. You’re a goddess!!”
I grinned at that. A goddess, huh?
“Didn’t you already read that book, anyways?” Ben asked, as he took the book from my hands and flipped through the pages.
I nodded. “Yeah, but maybe I missed something. I mean, I’m a girl and I’m not crazy about it. But it drives me nuts when other girls are all, ‘Oh my god! Isn’t Edward hot!?’”
“You probably have no vagina, then.”
“…I’ll kill you.”
Ben put the book on my backpack. He smiled at my threat and wrapped his arms around my waist. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, laughing when I pretended to strangle him. Looking at the book, he made thoughtful face. “But I am kinda surprised you don’t appreciate the book at all.”
“And why’s that?” I asked, resting my chin on his shoulder.
“The book’s the reason we went out, remember?”
I nodded.
We were nothing more than partners in crime, making jokes out of one another. Then one day I said, “Hey, let’s go out, just to see the reaction on their faces.” I was referring to our group of friends. They often said we were the most incompatible couple.
“Yeah!” Ben grinned. “But you do know, that I have to be the man in the relationship, right?”
“You don’t have enough testosterone to be a man!”
We decided that to make it more unbelievable, he was going to ask me out in public and make it look like he just fell in love with me over some stupid reason. I was reading Twilight and when I finished it, I yelled, “That sucked!”
Ben was there and he said, “Really? Me too. Let’s go out.”
Needless to say it did kinda shock everyone, but not as much as we had hoped for. But we continued to “go out” until one day, Ben said, “…Hey, I don’t want to pretend anymore.”
“I know. Wanna pretend to break up instead?”
“Not, exactly. I want to go out with you for real.”
No one ever discovered that it was meant to be a joke, but as we went out for real, people noticed the difference. I would glare at just about any girl who got too close to him, and Ben had even once spent his whole allowance to get me a collection of books. He even let me in on a little secret…
I’m not saying I love the guy. I mean, come on! I’m just seventeen. But I have more fun around Ben than I do with anyone else.
Ben puffed his cheeks at me and gently blew at my face to snap me out of my little flashback. “Hey! Are you even listening to me?”
I frowned at him. “Sorry, I thought I heard God there for a sec. What were you saying?”
“I said,” Ben began, leaning his forehead against mine. “That I think I know why you might not like it.”
I rose an eyebrow at that. “You do?”
“Uh-huh.” He grinned widely and, for the first time in a while, I noticed his abnormally large fangs. “Cause you know what real Vampires would do in relationships.”
-End.
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140,903 Literary Works • 673,707 Reviews
Um, okay, I'm totally stupid. I don't understand the last line. Will someone please explain?
I absolutely loved the title for this one, it drew me in from the Featured Stories even though I try to stay away from the vampire stuff until Twilight dies down. But, it got me curious, about what real vampires would do.
Of course, most of the stuff has been pointed out by all of the previous reviewers, but I'll give it my opinion anyway. I do like these characters, although I do think that they could use some more depth to them. If this is a short story, then we should get a real good glimpse of these characters.
I know that this has been pointed out before, but I really don't like this line. He's basically saying that he sucks and that they should go out. If I heard that, then I would think that they were joking when they went out together. Of course, if he asked her out because he didn't like the book, or if she brushed him off until he tried again, I think it would work. But, I still can't get over the fact that his big 'go out with me' line was 'I suck, let's go out.'
I love how this line blends into the other paragraph, I didn't even notice it until I started really looking at this story to critique it. I think that this sentence could use a bit of work, though, maybe something like: 'He even let me in on a little secret of his.' I'm of two minds about the word 'little,' because I like how she dismisses Vampires as 'little,' but I also don't really like that word in this sentence. Maybe a synonym, or maybe just leave it out.
I do like this line, because I like how Romance isn't the 'One True Love' as soon as they meet. Although, even though I haven't read Twilight, I can tell that this is a part of bashing it. I think that this part could use a bit of detail so that it reads less like a blatant bashing.
And, again, I have to agree with some of the other reviewers, this line kind of needs an answer. I mean, Sam might know what real vampires do in a relationship, but the readers don't. I do love this line, and how it reflects back to the title. I just think that maybe Sam should have one last line, or else make Ben's line where he repeats the question that she missed in the flashback really stand out. Because, I didn't notice that it was an answer to "I know why you don't like Twilight."
I did love the originally to this, although it was also tied to parodying Twilight. But, this was a great moment in time, and I'm sure that your rewrite will help to make this short story really stand out in our minds as a story from beginning to end. And then we'll still probably ask for more.
Hey, I'm kind of a sucky critique, but I'll give it a go!
So I enjoyed it, it was funny and a good read. I personally thought the dialogue was a smidge unrealistic, but I'm a bad person to ask because a) I don't hang around people who act like this and b) I read WAY too many books written more than a hundred years ago. It was still good though!
Descriptions weren't 100%. I was kind of lost, where are they? Why is there a bench? Are they in a park? Are they at school? Does Sam just happen to have a bench in her living room? Lol.
So, to finish, you know, good characters, fun read, yeah! woot.
@_@;; [ish shocked at the number of reviews] xD; Thank you everyone for taking you time to read my story! I really didn't expect this many reviews. But each of them really helped me spot the flaws in my story. Now I want to go back and edit it like crazy. e.e I shall re-work on it now! D<
Thank you again,
-Poppy
Hey there, poppy!
I'm Sarah and I'll be your reviewer for today.
Insert 'me' after 'beside.'
This makes relatively no sense. Furthermore, there's no need for Vampires to be capitalised.
Overall Comments
As a simple fan fiction, this just about cuts muster with me. But as a proper story that you're serious about, not really. For one, the characters weren't 3-d. There was nothing to empathise with. There are several steps to developing a persona and carrying that persona through at an event. The best personae do not spring fully realized from your brain. They are generally little sparks or funny ideas that pop out at the oddest moments and are then developed over long periods of time, like children who are born, then grow and learn. As your character develops, you will find yourself staying more in character at events and you will purchase clothes and props for the character. (My character even goes shopping with me.)
We use it everyday. It is the basis of most human communication. It is language. And when we write fiction, it’s called dialogue. Dialogue can make or break a piece.
Whether you use only one line of dialogue or a majority of dialogue, if it doesn’t fit your character, if it’s n
ot clear, if it’s not plausible, the entire piece can fall apart.
Writing dialogue can be daunting, though we all speak most everyday. But, when writing dialogue, we aren’t writing what we would say, but our characters. Through a few relatively easy exercises, realistic dialogue will only be a keyboard away. As long as we always remember that dialogue is central to characterization, plot, and interest, we can take the apprehension out of writing dialogue.
One of the most important and best things you can do when writing dialogue is to first read your dialogue ALOUD. If you are not reading your dialogue (or your whole piece, both dialogue and non-dialogue) aloud to yourself, you are not giving your work a chance. To read aloud you create a detachment between your mind and the work. You’re able to edit with a little less bias. You hear what the reader reads. Sometimes, you read your own work with a skimming eye. After all, you wrote it; you know what’s there. But, when you allow yourself to voice the words, you just may find some clunky phrase that just doesn’t fit; that will make the reader go “what?” and lose their train of thought, lose their interest in the story. By reading aloud you can fix those phrases and work them out so the piece becomes a continuous whole.
Okay, I'll stop rambling now.
Good luck!
-Sarah
WOW! I so didn't expect that! I have a friend named ben, and he's a big goof ball. So i imagined ben like that. WOW! Total surprise when I found out that Ben was a vamp. I thought it would be a couple of posts about how she really meets an Edward, like, just like the real one, and they fall in love and stuff. That was so good. You have got a talent, or you just ahd a really good idea. Either way, your good at this, kid, and you should so keep writing. Who knows? You may be the ne J.K. Rowling or Stephenie Myers. Oh. Did you write that because you don't like Twilight? My mom hates it, but she loves the movie and the sound track.
Oh no. I'm rambeling! I tend to do that sometime, espesially about Twilight. I remember once--oh no! I'm doing it again!
Anyway, just PM me when you see this. I want to know if your a Twilighter or an Anti-Twilighter.
Cheers.
Poppy Mare, I must say, your title caught my attention right away
You use "book" in both sentences. I would use "novel" or something else for the other just so it isn't so repetitive.
Add "me" where I did above ^^^ =]
Good cover, Ben! lol Loved this part. Typical boys trying to escape from a mauling hehe
Again, use something other than book in the close sentence proximity. I think using "novel" for the second one would work great ^_^
Go into more detail here. You just kind of brush over this and it gets kind of rushed. Slow it down just a tad.
Oh, great!
~ ~ ~ ~
All right, very cute. I would have never thought of writing that and I give such credit for switching it up like that
My only concern was the pace. Too quick for me, but not by much. I mean, this is supposed to be a stand-alone piece and you don't want it too long, but adding just a tad bit more detail would definitely help.
Otherwise, wonderful work
Hiya. ^^ I enjoyed this very much. there isnt' much I can say that others haven't already. I would like to suggest not having long parts of your story in italics. It's a proven fake that it takes longer for the brain to process the meanings of the words. (I read this time on an agent's site, and I'm sure one day you'll want this published.)
But really everyone else hit the nail. Fang-tasic job. ^^
Wow, great twist at the end! I love the idea and the way you carried it out, but Ben's dialogue is completely unbelievable.
If Ben hates Twilight so much, you'd think he wouldn't talk so much like Edward.
... I don't think anyone would /ever/ say that. It's very unrealistic. The whole thing sounds like a dialogue between you and what you think a boyfriend /should/ say, not between two characters you have made up on your own.
I can see how you've kind of modeled this to parody Myer's literary faults, but please don't let this spill over into your real writing!
I'm reviewing this as I go along, and right now I don't know who is speaking, what their tone is, their expression, and so on and so forth. If you start a story with dialogue, you absolutely need tags.
“That’s because you’re not,” Ben laughed and put his hands in front of his face as I leapt up. Before I could maul him, he quickly added, “You’re above them. You’re a goddess!!”
1) "Leapt" is not a word. Find another verb.
2) Use only one exclamation point. It's weird when you use two or more.
No comma =]
Shut up!
I know who's speaking, but it'd still be nice if you had tags. "Ben smiled." And maybe some afterthought after "I'll kill you," like, "I wanted to rearrange his face" or something =]
It'd be better if you added a tag after the first line, then add "I nodded" as a part of the same paragraph. Like, "... went out, remember?" Ben brought up a valid point; I nodded.
~*~*~*~
Woah! That ending surprised me. Can't wait to read more =] Anyway, let's get into the overall:
CHARACTERS
BEN
A vampire, eh? Isn't that getting a bit cliche? And he seems a little bit... predictable, really. And his lines aren't that realistic. Actually, all he has are lines. You don't really tell us any of his actions, expressions, tones or anything. Just dialogue, which is bad. A story can't contain just dialogue, but we'll get to that later.
SAM
Huh. You know, I can't really say anything about your characters because the chapter was so short. Sam is nice and sarcastic, the typically charming writer/reader chick. Bet you ten bucks you base her off yourself. Anyway, she's a funny girl, but you have to tell us more about her. This is first person limited, therefore you have a lot of leeway when it comes to sharing her thoughts.
PLOT
Oh boy. Vampires. This'll be fun.
DIALOGUE
If there wasn't any dialogue, this chapter wouldn't exist. I would recommend this exercise: Read your story out loud, and when you come to a piece of dialogue with no tag, read it in monotone - why? Well, the reader doesn't know how they're saying it, so that's pretty much how it should sound like. Can you tell by the words they're saying? No, you can't, and nobody ever will be able to, so don't assume. You're dialogue is too cute for me to say it's unrealistic, but it's definitely predictable. I would actually cut out some dialogue, or work more on the back of it, like what's happening while the person says the line, what Sam thinks when the person says the line, what Sam thinks after the the line is said, and so on.
GRAMMAR
When I bold something, that either means I want you to add, delete, or replace something. I'm leaving it to you to figure it out because I'm lazy =] I basically covered grammar above, so I'll keep this short. All in all, it wasn't horrendous, but not totally perfect. Read some articles to improve yourself. We have lots on YWS.
OVERALL
Nothing I haven't read before, but it was pretty cute. Sam and Ben have some chemistry, and the humor keeps the mood lighthearted and leaves the reader wanting more. I like the irony of how Ben is a vampire, and she doesn't like Twilight... what I don't like is that she's seventeen, and how they weren't expected to go out... in other words, pretty similar to Twilight. I hope you don't plan on totally mimicking the storyline, or... you know.
I liked it, and hopefully you'll take my suggestions into consideration. Toodles!
~*Sara*~
Hey, I'm Jas. I just thought I'd throw in my two cents here.
I think you mean 'sat beside me'
~~~~~~~~~~
It may just be me, and how ridiculously slow I am at things, but this quote doesn't really make sense to me. Besides the fact that 'vampires' doesn't need to be capitilized. I don't get the joke.
~~~~~~~~~
Besides those two things, I loved your dialog. It was very realistic. I don't think you should continue this, however. It is an outstanding stand alone piece. Good job.
But I still don't get it.
XD
xoxo Jas
Ooh, very nice.
I loved the relationship between the two characters. Seriously. The whole "Twilight"-bashing thing is getting a little old for me (even though I don't like "Twilight") and so when I first started reading it, I was kind of like "meh, more bashing, but in fiction form... wheee..."
Then I actually read it and I loved the character interactions. And the dialogue! ZOMG! The dialogue was just pure win. I actually liked the characters! They were both so snarky and yet so sweet with each other. Most excellent.
So she actually has noticed his abnormally large fangs before? You might want to make that a little more clear. And why exactly is 'Vampires' capitalized?
Anyway, pure win. I loved how the "little secret" was undercut a bit and the whole thing was pretty much downplayed. These were two normal kids with a normal relationship and one of them just happened to be a vamp. Very nice.
*thumbs up*
~GryphonFledgling
I loved it. Great balance of humor, love, and Twilight. Exactly what I'd be looking for in a story.
I'd love to hear a part two. If you come up with one, PM me! :]
I loved this! The dialogue was really natural and it was very well written. The flashback is a bit jerky but very relevant which is good.
It feels like real people with real egos having a real conversation!
Shouldn't there be a ` before "cause"? Also, I don't know why you capitalised "vampires".
I don't like Twilight much, either, so I'm completely on Sam's side
PS: Love the avvie!
Overall: Very well written. It was a really sweet story, and it was really origional. Girls you usually see in vampire stories aren't this origional and don't have such strong personalities. Especially as someone who doesn't consider romance your thing, you did a really good job. The relationship was really well developed. Great job.
Plot: I liked the flashback. It really helped us understand their relationship better. The twist at the end was really great.
Great job, let me know if you ever continue this. I'd love to read more of it.
Thank you everyone! Romance isn't really my thing, but I wanted to do something different for a change. Thank you all for the review! ^^
-Poppy
I would just like to first say that I absolutely loved it! From the very first line it sucked my right in. That's one of the most important things in stories. I also liked the way it felt like a real conversation, a real couple. You have some great gifts for writing
Keep going!
wow. I loved how you turned Ben from a cocky boyfriend into a smart vampire!!
I;m a bad critique, I tell everyone, so..... Terrific Job!
Hey there!
Your title is what dragged me here, as I just love vampires and I thought it was going to be the beginning of your typical vampire love story and then I found out and then as I read this I couldn't help but bask in the humor and the lightness of this. It was a well-written story and though I would say that it could use a little bit more description I won't because this was enjoyable to read all by itself.
Favorite Part:
Good job and Keep writing,
~Angel
Hi there! I'm Dark Angel, and I'll be critiquing your story today. >.<
Great work!
So, for starters, that was a wonderful beginning! I saw it on the front page, and it just hooked me right in. Also, I absolutely love the way you portray this love between Sam and Ben. I hate how stories always portray love as this godly, heavenly thing mere mortals will never understand, and this makes it seem more real and human, just how I like it.
However, I do have to nitpick it a little bit - otherwise what kind of review would this be? So, here goes my grammar Nazi routine...
"Craze" and "crazy" right next to each other is a little repetetive. Try a synonym for one of them?
That should probably be "sat beside me." Also, where exactly are they? What's the setting like?
This part was really funny. I laughed for probably a whole minute. xD
I love the sarcastic humour here, it makes Sam a very well-rounded character. I actually really like her, you did a good job with her. (:
Okay, I just have to love this ending. I was confused at the title, so I wanted to read more of your story, and now it all falls into place. Great clarification there, gives the story a nice hook!
Overall, wonderful job - 10/10, I'd say! *claps* Nice work!
~Dark Angel
PS: Feel free to PM me about the review or anything else.
*hehehehe.* Wow. That was really good!
I didn't see that coming at all!!
I saw no grammar mistakes either!!!
I think that you should do a second chapter just for laughs!