It was late morning, almost ten o' clock, when Sam was woken up by a soft knocking on her door, followed by a voice,
"Soumya, are you awake yet?" the voice said.
"Well, I am now. And, grandma? It's Sam, not Soumya." Sam answered.
"Just get out of that bed of yours, it's time for breakfast."
"Ok."
Sam pulled the covers off and put her fuzzy slippers on. She put her glasses on and then made her bed. Before walking out of her room, she glanced at the picture of her parents and her adopted older sister. They had died 4 years ago in a plane crash on the way back from her sister's field trip in Quebec, which they were chaperoning. Sam was living with her grandparents then and had been doing so ever since. Suddenly, her brain flashed back to the night of their last conversation, they had been about to board the plane and were reassuring her that they would be home in time for her birthday, which was the next day. Her sister's classmates had all returned two days earlier and were saved but her parents and sister, Shreya, stayed. Half an hour after the plane took off, it crashed, and her family never showed up for her birthday, they died on July 6, 2012, which was today's date, except it was 2016 now. She wiped the tears from her eyes and walked to the bathroom to brush her teeth, then proceeded to walk downstairs. The moment she reached the last step her grandfather greeted her by calling her Soumya, she explained to him for what felt like the hundredth time to call her Sam, to which he replied with, that she would forever be his little Soumya. After a little back and forth the conversation turned to her parents. This conversation was becoming increasingly difficult to bear, it being her parents' death anniversary and it was harder for her grandfather to continue to. Apparently, Sam's grandmother could sense it too, and she came to the rescue by stating how she heard the proper Hindi names she was using for her parents, and thus chided her for not using the Hindi names for her grandparents,
"Ok dadi. So, dada," she said the last word a bit louder to satisfy her grandmother, "what were you saying?"
"Nothing, just asking what your plans for the day were," her grandfather replied.
"I think I'll read a little more of War and Peace, then I'll memorize another 10 digits of pi. Maybe reread the Sorcerer's Stone, and at around four, I have plans to meet Ryan, she's going to a party at her friend's house later."
"Big plans. Haven't you read Harry Potter a few too many times?"
"You can never read Harry Potter too many times," she answered with a small smile.
Her grandmother then walked into the dining room with breakfast. A bowl of milk for Sam, so she could put some cereal into it, and scrambled eggs, for herself and Sam's grandfather. Then, her grandmother started chiding Sam about her appearance, telling her to comb her awfully tangled hair, shower, and how she should have done all that before she came downstairs. Saab shot back with protests, stating how she stayed up late last night with a fascinating book on physics, and was too tired in the morning to care about her appearance, and it was summer, so she shouldn't have to worry about how she looked.
After breakfast, she walked upstairs and did as requested by her grandmother. She wrestled with a comb for entirely too long, so her hair would become smooth and silky. She dressed in the clothes that she had chosen for herself, white capris, and a pink top. Even though it was the kind of weather for shorts, Sam never felt comfortable wearing them. She looked in the mirror and saw her olive skin, big eyes with unnaturally curled eyelashes, and her slim figure in the mirror. It was getting harder to see herself in the mirror now, due to her increasing height, she was five feet, nine inches tall, and that number was increasing.
She walked downstairs and found her grandparents looking at an envelope.
"I can't help thinking if we should send her," Sam's grandmother said.
"Nonsense! She's going to go. We went and look what happened," her grandfather said.
"Yes, yes. We met, fell in love, and got married after college. Not to mention the skills and education that got us jobs."
"And that's exactly why she should go!" her grandfather almost sounded agitated, as though they'd had this conversation many times before.
"Yes, I suppose you're right."
At this point Sam felt the need to point out that she was there, she cleared her throat and her grandparents looked up.
"I'm afraid you are going to have to cancel some of your plans today," her grandmother replied.
"This letter is for you, you are going to be switching schools." her grandfather, who was beaming with pride, said.
As she took the unopened letter from her grandfather's hands, her hands were shaking. She was almost scared to open it, and when she did she wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. All she knew was either this was a very cleverly thought out prank, or the truth.
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140,369 Literary Works • 673,125 Reviews
Heya, SummerSunshine! Casanova here to do a review!
The firs thing that I noticed about this was the amount of dialogue. Some dialogue is necessary, but the amount of dialogue in this was rather off-putting. I would suggest dialing down on the dialogue and playing around with describing things through characters actions and such. It's a promising venture, I promise you that.
I feel like you should give us more about Sam. Not exactly information wise, but personality wise. You give us the details about her, but you don't let us get to know her. What I mean by this is what she's like. We know nothing really besides she's living with her grandparents and that her parents and adopted sister were killed in a crash four years prior too when this is going on. Mess around with ideas, come up with a constructive personality. I find she's a bit bland.
The grandparents characters were alright, I don't really have much to say about them.
The plot was decent, I suppose. It's not really that interesting, and it didn't really leave off on a cliff hanger that makes me automatically want to read chapter two. Drama, and suspense, are two things that make you want to continue reading a work, whether or not you can. So I'd suggest messing around and finding what is suspenseful.
That's all I have to say, hope this helped.
KEep on doing what you're doing, and keep on keeping on.
Sincerely, Matthew Casanova Aaron.
I understand that. I have never been very good at describing things without using dialogue. As for Sam, the next chapter is really where I focus on her. In the next chapter of the story, however, you are going to learn something very interesting about Sam and her new school. I am probably going to redraft this, using the suggestions I got. After that feel free to come back and review again, I could really use the help.
Hmm, okay. I'll follow your story and review as you post then. Make sure to ping me and I'll get around to doing it
I made some changes. I still feel like there is too much dialogue, do you have suggestions on how I can fix it.
Maybe the part where she tells her gma it's sam. You could take out the question and just nake it,"And, grandma, its sam." Also, you ciuld do that with a lot of the dialogue.
Ok, thanks.
It looks much better now. I am now going to start working on Chapter 2.
Hey SummerSunshine,
First Impressions: While this is not the epic, action packed piece that so many are looking for, your writing style is clean and realistic enough that even a so-far-so-simple story like this can be an interest grabber, and the real life examples will be fun to read.
Positives:
Your characters seem to be pretty real to life, especially their little sarcastic conversion that you've built. This is really what makes a book good, so, props for that.
Negatives:
Death is a very serious thing, even for those that are grateful that someone died, which isn't necessarily the case here. I think for purposes of making Sam more human, and the story more realistic, you could alter this a bit to help us feel the emotions of your character, and the depth of the event.
You use the common pronouns a lot to open up sentences, which can become dull after a bit. I would consider trying to spice it up by finding some new and interesting ways with some different vocabulary to make things flow a little better.
Here you have used the exact same sentence pattern, one right after the other. This takes a lot of points away from the writing, as readers never like to have that little "echo" going on. Reordering your sentence structure could easily fix this.
Overall: I feel like this is a piece that definitely needs to be coupled with the rest of the book, which means I'll have to wait for it to come out. Once you upload it, you could post on my wall to let me know and I'd love to take a look.
I give it:
Thank you. I will make those changes.
I made the changes.