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139,617 Literary Works • 672,630 Reviews
*Evi alert!*
I don't have much time tonight, so this might seem a bit rushed/insane/rambling.
First of all, I think you could afford to have this expanded. There are so many things you could do with a scavenger hunt besides a bookmark in a book. You have a nice little love story here, but adding steps to the scavenger hunt would entertain us a bit more. That said, there's nothing wrong with the length right now-- I just think that it could stand to be longer.
Charactarization?
Description
Talking Heads
Unrealisticness
Aww, Rosey, this was so sweet! I think it was a wonderful idea, something very clever that I would never have thought of. Sorry for the delay.
I'm not going to go into nit-pick mode with you today. I simply haven't the time, dear. *sigh*
Meh, what can I ask you to do? It's a short story, and there's only so much characterization you can stuff in here. I think you did very well with your two characters, all things considered, except maybe a bit more stuttering for Daniel and more reactions from Clair. Does her heart accelerate as she finds the second clue? Is the boy behind her kind of cute, even before he's said anything? And has she ever noticed him at school?
Use more! Seriously, so far I can imagine the plot line perfectly, but not any of the characters or setting. Does the library smell of knowledge, of crinkling pages and stories to be told? Or is the librarian in the corner giving Clair an evil glare? Does her chair scrape against the carpet like the screech of a dying crow, or are soft footsteps echoing around her? See what I mean? You can set the story so much better if you place your readers into your main character's position and let us sense what she's sensing. Daniel can have description other than his appearance, too-- how his eyes dart everywhere in the room except Clair, how he drums his fingers against the air while she's talking, how he visibly relaxes when she asks him to study with her.
Ya?
They irk me. Yep, I think you should put much more labeling on Daniel and Clair's conversation. Description, like I said, can make or break a piece, and adding some more would make yours fantabulous.
I agree with Haruno, but I realize that trying to make it more realistic is impossible, since the unrealisticness makes up the entire story. So, to compensate for these strange events, I will again suggest more reactions from Clair. She should be...well...basically freaking out that this random dude is practically stalking her. Now, it's your choice on whether or not to have her freak out in a good way, as in OMG this super cute and super sweet guy stalked me that's so adorable blah blah, or in a not-so-good way, as in OMG what is this creep doing he has weird hair I want him to get away how did he know I was coming here.....
And so on and so forth. ^_^
Eek! I must leave now, but I hope this was at least a bit helpful! Keep writing, and PM me if you need anything!
~Evi
Review numero dos:
*Le gasp!* I'll cover this in your overall, but I just thought her reaction to this was a little overblown. Oooh, there's a book on her table! In reality, wouldn't she simply move to another table?
Hmm, methinks Clair should be thinking this. So turn this little bit of telling into her thoughts.
It can't hurt to look at, she told herself, flipping through the pages slowly. I do have a physics test... etc.
She never left the table. She was sitting there reading the whole time, wasn't she?
So this is your characters reaction when she finds Macbeth. I feel like she takes this too far. If this happened to me, I would think, "Huh, what a coincidence. Someone from my school was here." Not, "Oh my gosh! This is so weird!"
It took her thirty minutes to look up, like, two books?
The quotation mark is facing the wrong way; it should be facing the word problem.
Then why did she ask him to study with her? Then she would have to stay with him longer.
Overall
This was a sweet piece, Rosey.
My only problem was the unrealisticness. In today's world, most girls would be really freaked out if I strange boy left them notes.
What I mean is, in order to plant those notes, Daniel would have had to:
--Known Clair was going to the library
--Known she was going to find the bookmark in the physics book
--Known she was going to sit at the table with the book on it
--Known she was going to go searching for the other books
It just seems like it worked out too seamlessly. What if another patron at the library had found the notes? What if Clair had ignored the notes?
It was a cute story in the end, but I was thinking about how unlikely it was to actually happen..
Hope this helped,
Sakura
Wow, you left me hanging! Darn. I really was getting into it. I enjoyed that a lot. I really want to read more. Anyways, for the help. I don't know how much I can do with the help and tips you've received. But I think you should suspend the beginning just a little more and give some background on the MC. I loved it. Keep Going! PLEASE!
Here as requested, Rosey!
Ha, I agree with lhighton. Forgive me if I'm wrong (maybe this is a Canadian thing?), but to my knowledge the name is spelled with an 'e' at the end. Claire. Eh, it's not a major nit-pick, just thought I'd mention it.
Okay, so this concept of her being familiar with the library is never extended.
I don't really like this beginning because you basically start out by saying: "She hates the library. She loves it on weekends. It's Thursday."
This is being really nit-picky, but it just bothered me that she would spend her free time there, but acts like she hates it as well?
^^ That probably made no sense.
Oh well.
What this beginning does need is description. It's a bit bland at this point. Think about walking into a library. That familiar rush of artificial cold air. The still hush engulfing you. The light rustle of pages being turned.
Description in the first line is key -- it draws the reader into the story.
First of all, I think you should get read of the word some. I know you are trying to show contempt for the book, but you are the unbiased narrator!
When writing in third person, pretend you are watching the events unfold through a window. It is your job to portray the events to the audience/readers exactly as you see them. This means no personal musings. ^_^
Clair can think, Agh, what a stupid book!, but you, oh narrator, should not.
Leave the independent thought to your characters.
Also, it seemed unrealistic to me that she would have one week to read a book for a test. If she is researching Alexander the Great for a paper, fine. A project? That's good as well. A test? Eh... I'd change it.
Rosey, dear, I'm afraid it's ten o' clock, and my mother is yelling at me.
Review part to shall come tomorrow, ja?
Hope this helped,
Sakura
To be continued...
Hi Rosey Unicorn! Nice to meet you at last xD
To my knowledge, it's Claire or Clare, but then again I'm up for correction.
[My Overall Impressions]
I'm so glad this was not cliche-ridden. It was, thankfully, original and very cute. There needs to be more fiction like this, where the protagonist is a book-reader and not a bubble-brained ditz. I had an inkling this might follow the usual path of girl-meets-boy, blahblah, but this was (there's no escaping it) absolutely adorable. I mean, we can get all smug and say it was a bit teen-lit, hardly deep or profound, but so what? This does not pretend to be an intellectual read. It's cute. I want to meet a boy in the library!
Anyhoo, let's continue...
[Clair?]
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but is that a name? If it is, sorry. But I just wanted to draw a little 'e' at the end of her name every time I saw it
[The Notorious Nit-picks]
Righty-ho. Nothing major here... just that I think you began too many sentences with 'Clair'. This is something that sustains throughout. I believe it is only acceptale to use the character's name so often when there is more than one character in the particular scene. Otherwise the reader gets irritated. I did.
Comma after 'table'.
I love this! Allows us a little peep at his character in a subtle manner.
[So...]
As you can see, I was rather at a loss to what to nit-pick. One thing that concerned me was the abundance of her thoughts in italics. That was over-kill. However, wierdly enough, I found them more enjoyable to read than the third-person narrative. Odd, huh? There are just so many of them that they detract from the text. As a consequence, I personally think this story would be better wholly in the first-person. Hehe!
Lauren
Hi Rosey
You have done so many reviews for me on my story, I thought I might try and help where I can too- although this story does seem pretty polished already 
I think this sentence might work better with a her before weekends.
I'd change this sentence a little, instead of 'and not have to' maybe 'without having to' would work better.
You begin with 'This time' twice in this paragraph so I'd change one of them. I think you could rephrase the last two sentences, they sound a bit robotic. Something like 'Retrieving the book, she began flipping through the pages. Her thumb stopped just before the end.' might flow easier.
I think that's a bit of a jump from thinking it was a coincidence to thinking they knew her favourite lessons- especially as they give two other books so if they did know her lessons it could be completely random that they got her favourite. Instead of 'which one was her favourite' you could say something about them knowing which she needed to study for.
I'd change and to yet with a comma after end.
Instead of head I'd say 'ducked down'- just my preference
I'd replace an with one, again just because to me that sounds better.
I wouldn't really say that she would offer to study with him because she didn't want to stay on the subject and that's how this sentence kind of comes across. Maybe before things got awkward?
Overall comments: This is a really sweet piece, I love the idea
I think you quite a few times repeat 'went' and 'this time' where they could be replaced with more interesting actions or words so I'd go back through your work and see where you could do that. A few times some of the sentences seemed to be just showing actions where more detail could be used to make it more interesting.
I don't think you need to develop the main character any more as its quite a short piece and works nicely as it is
I'm not sure if you should have the main character asking what school he goes to either- I think it would make the rest more plausible if she vaguely knew him, as otherwise it just seems a bit stalkerish and you wouldn't really want to invite someone to study with you who you didn't know. Even if she just knew the sight of him I think that might be more realistic.
I like how the story pans out- lovely ending too so nothing I think could be changed there
I really enjoyed reading this- all my comments are just suggestions so ignore me if you want, hope I've helped!
Here as per request ^^
Feel free to come back and leave me another piece to review, anytime.
Today was a Thursday would sound better.
Clair grumbled as she set her books down at her unofficial table. Stupid mid-terms.
How is this an understatement? Whether she dislikes it, hates it, or absolutely loathes it, it still is her least favourite class all the same.
General note: Go hrough your story and see how often you use the word "book" ^^ and then do something about it.
It's cute how she meets the guy, and that they can help eachother out with studying, though I think you could add a bit more emotion and atmosphere to that scene. It's a bit telling rather than showing, at moments. I didn't realize it was going to take a romantic turn, so that was a nice twist in the storyline. Well done.
Her following the clues around is very cool, especially when it unexpectedly comes to the message "Turn around" rather than another call number. Nice ^^ you made it an interesting read. This is for a contest, yes? I've heard of that one. Good luck with it!
*Gold star* This is a cool story, m'dear.
XxxDo
Awww....Good job Rosey! I didn't notice this was romantic fiction until the end.
This sentence sounds a little weird. I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Are you saying it's because she goes to the library on the weekends? That's not the way it sounds like.
It would help to clear that sentence up, hon.
Do you mean the test is in a week, or if the test is later that week?
If it is supposed to be for later that week, you should probably change the wording to that.
Don't forget those commas.
The italized part sounds a little strange to me in that sentence. Techinically, if it stopped, it would be between two pages. Not just one.
So I think it would sound better if it was at any of the pages.
I think you left out a word here, between tips and he. Where would be a good word that would make sense there.
It's supposed to be spelled as straight. Or is the English version spelled like that?
Just one more time..... - You know that was only her second time. The first time it was Macbeth, and then she went to find the art book. Maybe add some more books or so. After only twice, I would still think it as a coincidence.
Overall, I thought this was a sweet and good story. Good job again, Rosey!
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.
*Cat
Although, maybe you meant to spell it the other way...
"Later in a week" didn't sound specific enough.
Rosey! *waves* Hi, darling! Anyway, I'm critiquing. I noticed you spelled some things the British way after I corrected "neighborhood". Sorry about that. Haha.
Well, I thought this piece was wonderful! It was so sweet. I love how he used all those clues and such to meet her. How smooth! Haha.
Is this a short story??? I'm guessing so, but, you know, just checking.
Overall, great job! Bye now! Haha.