Salutations!
In contrast with my regular, perhaps too detailed reviews, this one will be what I'm calling a "spot-check" - that means instead of focusing on your story, I'll pay more attention to your writing itself. I assume that will be of more use to you anyway, seeing as I'd otherwise be reviewing a story that I don't follow.
I sit in the back of my 4th-period math class as I and the rest of the students take a math test. My thoughts still on what my sister and I talked about last night, Alchemy's attitude and I rather having someone treat me bad then being alone.
Okay, here are a couple of things to discuss, all of them concerning sentence structure. That means you might want to pay closer attention to it in future.
♦ I'm not sure if this is an actual rule or simply the most common practice, but if your subject includes the narrator and one or more others, the "I" comes second.
♦ Regrettably, the second sentence doesn't make sense. The part of the sentence before the comma is undeniably a subordinate clause, which means it depends on the main clause for its meaning. We know this is true because if it stood on its own, it wouldn't have any meaning. However, what should be the main clause is a jumble of many different things. Is Alchemy's attitude what the protagonist and her sister discussed the previous night? And how does the protagonist's conviction of rather being treated poorly than being alone tie in with the rest that was said? All I see is confusion, and if the reader has to stop and wonder what they just read, you need to work on being clearer.
♦ Oh, and I only noticed this while writing the previous point, but you said "treated me bad". "Bad" is an adjective. Adjectives describe nouns, not verbs - that's an adverb's job. Even once you correct it to "badly", I prefer "poorly", since the alternative sounds overused and common.
She just started acting different once she got around a bunch of boys. When we got to high school, it just became worse.
"Got" is another hopelessly overused word you want to use as infrequently as possible. In some cases, it can't be avoided, but if it can, you want to find another, less cliché, option.
"You think it's okay to throw things in my class at other students, do you? And you thought I wouldn't notice?" She taps her long fingernails on his desk in an impatient manner.
The boy shakes his head, "Ms. Payge, I didn't do anything." Obviously lying to Ms. Payge.
♦ Question tags need to be handled correctly, but to do that, you need to know one fundamental principle: question tags are always a negative of the finite verb in the main sentence. If the verb is "did", the question tag contains "didn't", if it's "is", the tag contains "isn't". Keep that in mind.
♦ As it was, your second sentence was a sentence fragment, since parts were missing. All sentences need a subject, as well as a verb that is in the correct tense.
♦ If you had said "he said, obviously luing to Ms. Payge.", it would have been correct. A gerund is verb, so be careful.
"Thank you." I mouth.
The "I mouth" is like "he said", "she asked", and so on. It is therefore what I call a dialogue modified, and those are never preceded by full stops, but mostly commas. (Exclamation and question marks are fine.) You make this mistake throughout the piece, so please try to remember this bit of formatting.
We let go and Tannya rakes her fingers through my long black silky hair.
"Rakes" is a questionable verb here; an animal can rake/scratch/slash you with its claws. I think "run" is the verb typically used in such a case, but even so, people ordinarily run their own hands through their hair. Judging from the context, the friend would more likely stroke the protagonist's hair.
Good luck with your writing, and may you have a lovely review day!
~ Hunter
I apologize that I haven't read the previous installments of this novel, but it's time to get this out of the green room!
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Reviews: 293
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