“Excuse me Mr. Patrick, your package is here,” said Postman Pete. He is always kind and trustworthy. He would deliver anything at the right place. Even if there was a thousand pounds in an envelope, he dared not touch the money. And his moustache made him look smarter. Everyone in the village liked him. “Thank you, sir,” I said, taking the package in. I put the receipt of the package on the table in the living room. I had ordered a whole box of video games for me to play upstairs, in my room. Now, my room had only two different types of video games and they were real boring. One of them was chess, a famous strategy game. I don’t really plan good so I chucked that aside. The other one was for my birthday and it was about keeping clean. No use to me because I am certainly a messy boy. My room is always messed up, but nobody could make me clean it up.
I took the box of video games in. Mum and Dad did not know about this. They told me to not buy these sort of things but I took no notice of their advice. Buying things online makes my life easier. I would not have to sneak out just to buy things. Everything will be delivered. All I need to do is just find time so that Mum and Dad would not see me taking packages into the house.
I settled everything down in my room. I stretched my arms a bit. “It’s game time,” I thought. Just as I was about to reach for one of the games I heard someone knocking on the door. “ Sweetie, it’s time for lunch,” Mum called. “Alright, Mum,” I replied. I gave a sigh. I was a bit lucky that Postman Pete delivered the package right on time, and I carried up everything just before Mum got out of her room. I pushed the package under my bed and ran downstairs.
I could smell freshly cooked bacons with fried eggs. Yum! I washed my hands and started eating. Dad called out to Mum, “Honey, do you still have the receipt for the groceries we bought that day?” “Well, yes. It’s in my bag. The purple one with a koala bear toy hung on it’s zip,” she said. Suddenly, the word ‘receipt’ reminded me. I left my receipt for my purchase of video games on the table. Dad would see that and I would be in a row. I was alarmed. This was bad. I imagined being grounded for the entire of Summer. What a fool I’ve been to place the receipt there. My heart was thumping fast. I felt like getting up but I could not go till I’ve finished lunch. My face soon turned pale. Mum looked at me with the most suspicious look. She knew I was up to something no good. And I was. How I wish I had not left it there.
Suddenly, I got a bright idea!
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139,050 Literary Works • 672,402 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
First Impression: Okayy....as far as starts to stories go, this is one of the simpler things I've run into, not too many stories that you run into where this sort of thing is the biggest problem, but it does make for a nice break from the very serious ones...xD. And well, for what it is, it does a pretty decent job I would say.
Anyway let's get right to it,
Okay...well that was kind of a two part introduction there...which is a tiny bit confusing to have at the start of a story. Now both of these are great, introducing the protagonist and a bit of what they're like while also mentioning this postman and how he's an awesome trustworthy person. Both characters seem pretty nice and relatively fleshed out, and I get why both characters are introduced because they interact, but just splitting this into two paragraphs would certainly help make that be a lot smoother and just be a better start to the story here. As it is, that's a big chunk of a paragraph where two very separate things are being introduced and that's not the greatest way to start off a story there.
Okay...looks like we have ourselves a bit of a sneaky operation going on down here, well, well, this is going to be interesting, certainly shows us more about the personality of the protagonist here and I wonder if this secret has something to do with the unknown secrets in the title there, this is certainly the most secretive thing that we've witnessed so far here.
Well, looks like this one dodged a bit of a bullet there...almost got caught with the package there although I do wonder how they intend to keep a package and the whole gaming thing hidden for too long there...it certainly seems like a plan that would not be easy to pull off...but well, at any rate, things are quite normal here, you get a sense that besides the secret game stuff, this one gets along alright with their mother here.
Oh well that turned horrible pretty quickly, oh no, that feeling when something like that could potentially be discovered is definitely a pretty relatable and you clearly see the emotions that erupt within this one as they have to process all and still try to remain impassive and normally eat their lunch but it looks like on this occasion the mother managed to smell out a potential secret pretty quickly there.
And that is a pretty lovely ending to the first chapter there...definitely, makes you wanna turn that page and see what could happen next. Not to mention it looks like this person's got a few tricks up their sleeve, which is always fun to see.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall, looking like a pretty solid start to a story here, and this does looks like something I would read on from, especially cause of that cliffhanger, cause to see how this person gets out of that tight spot seems like it would be pretty interesting.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Hello Tay, Flite here for a review. I'm putting a little disclaimer here that my review will be blunt and harsh, so be mentally prepared.
This chapter was pretty short, shorter than a normal chapter length you usually encounter on YWS. Because of that, my review is going to be pretty short don't have a lot to comment on. To hit off, I would like to talk about the tone of your writing a bit. You've touched the basic show and tell rule, you told us everything in this chapter, from what the postman looked like to what Patrick did. It was lay out neatly, like pencils on a table. Sharpened to precision with no variation between them. This is what your sentence and the tone sounded like, it was very monotonous and flat. With no life in them. There were several problems in your style that caused this.
1) Everything you said had been divided into short, little sections that made the piece sound choppy and no offense, something a grade one would write. I'm not saying the content of it is, but you didn't use any conjunction to link up your sentences and a lot of them are just simple sentences. One or two is fine, but your entire chapter is composed of this. Any amount of anything that repeats itself too much will be tedious. You need to learn to vary your syntax a bit. The majority of the sentences starts with the pronoun I, vary your sentence beginnings.
2) Continuing on my first point, your description of everything is generalized and you tend to narrate the story rather than show it to us. Let's look at the opening paragraph this time, specifically, the description of the postman. You told us he was kind, and everyone in the village liked him and that his mustache made him look smarter. Instead of telling us that, perhaps show us instead. Show us in his gesture when he hands the package over, or the friendly smile he's wearing. You have dialogue between the two, if he is so friendly, wouldn't he greet Patrick more warmly?
Look at the last paragraph if you want another example.
'I was alarmed.' 'This was bad'.
There were two problem with that alone. The two phrases repeat each other, if someone is alarmed then obviously it was bad.Be careful that you don't repeat yourself when you write. Secondly. Very typical telling there. That was stating something, the tone of that reminded me of a robot stating a fact. You need to show us these things, that's how we can connect to the story. Humans are visual animals. So, show us how he is alarmed. Did his voice go high? Did his palms start sweating? What was he thinking? You need to show us more intimate details into him, more personal details to flesh him out.
The ending was, interesting. However, I would phrase it another way, saying you got a bright idea doesn't flow very well. Instead try, I had a bright idea.
Sorry if I was harsh, but know that I'm only trying to help you to improve. If you any questions, or feel like chucking some dead fish at me, my inbox is open.
-Flite
To be honest, I wrote this long time ago, way way before I joined YWS. i just want to see how I did LAST time compared to NOW. So it's alright.
Here to review,
As far as first chapters go, I wouldn't call this one exactly riveting. Since this is a pretty short chapter there isn't a ton I can say about it. And now having said that ,I do have a few remarks to make.
So first off, I know I said this wasn't an entirely gripping piece, however, it isn't a half bad opening to a chapter. Have finished reading it, I find myself curious to see where this story is heading.
Your style of writing is light, not to dramatic, which makes it easy to read and after reading only four paragraphs I discover that I am worried that Patrick's parents will discover what he has been up to. Making me care in four paragraphs, that, Tay01, takes skill. Keep it up.
Wondering what happens next,
DG