Heyo Bean,
Shady here with a review as promised. My style tends to be pointing things out as I come to them when I'm reading, with a general summary at the end. Let's get started...
Flashback• "Marli come join us!” Lucienne yelled as she and my other friend Isolde giggled. Okay this is fifth grade... why are we still doing this?!
Okay, so a couple of notes on this. I suggest you find a smoother way to integrate flashbacks than explicitly stating it's a flashback. Typically I do it by hinting there's going to be one, and then transition into the flashback being in italicized text so that it's clear that it's a flashback and not something currently happening.
Also, for the last sentence in the bit I quoted: "Okay this is fifth grade... why are we still doing this?!" I didn't really understand it. Is it a thought? Dialogue? If it's a thought you should also make that clearer. Typically I made thoughts italicized as well, and frequent have a "I thought" tag afterwards just to make it clear.
.“Yeah... Okay” I rolled my eyes as I got up from the bench I was sitting on. “So... we just, we just run around?” I asked staring at the group of guys playing soccer. How I wished I could join in.
Okay. So the paragraph I took this from is massive. I suggest you break it up. Typically you want a new paragraph for each new thought -- or, in the case of a story, for each new speaker. Having it all mashed together makes it harder to understand who is doing what, especially when actions are being thrown in there too. Typically I either have it like one of these formatting:
"Dialogue," someone said. "And more dialogue."
"Dialogue," someone said.
"Dialogue." The person speaking does an action here.
"Dialogue." The person speaking does an action here. "More dialogue."
Does that make sense? I'm afraid I'm being confusing with how general I'm being and I don't mean to be -- feel free to hit me up if you don't understand. I just mean follow one of those patterns. It's okay to have someone speaking, or even speaking with an action, but each new speaker should definitely get a new paragraph -- and as a stylistic choice I also prefer if you start a new paragraph if the same person speaking needs to have multiple non-speech actions between their dialogue. That's just my quirk though.
Lucienne nodded her, coarse black hair shivering as she grabbed a piece. “Lucy you’re fine. Don’t eat your hair.”
Grabbed a piece of what?
I don’t need anyone. I have my friends.
These statements are pretty contradictory. If you don't need anyone, then why do you have friends? Maybe make the first sentence a little clearer about what you're trying to convey? Don't need anyone else? Don't need any romantic relationships?
~ ~ ~
Okay! So as you've probably noticed at this point, most of my complaints lie around mechanical issues. I think if you can clean up the issues I mentioned you'll have a story that is less distracting to read, so that your readers can focus more on the plot. Speaking of which...
The plot. I like the concept. The flashback is good for the backstory that leads us to young teenage love story. I will say however that I was a bit confused near the end. Why in the world did Al show up at her house? That entire exchange just kind of confused me. It was like he was there for no other purpose than to give her his number and then run away after telling her to meet him later. It was a little too convenient. She's thinking about him -- then suddenly he appears for no apparent reason.
I do like your characters, though! You set up some nice tension and could easily expand this story if you wanted to -- definitely set up questions of what Al wants to tell her and how that meeting is going to go. I like the intrigue of it all and the cliff-hanger feeling that you leave us with. Well done!
Keep writing!
~Shady
Points: 2806
Reviews: 935
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