Woohoo! It's finally here baby! I finally gathered up the motivation to write two more reviews! So umm, yeah. Enjoy! -Trashcan
Ginny- September 8th
It’s that time of year again: The beginning of the year where all the popular boys start playing oreo, picking on all the new girls and the outcasts. Although they normally don’t start this early, normally they wait at least two or three weeks. Hmm, normally there’s more than just Nick and Thomas playing, guess the others are actually working on what they’re supposed to.
If you’ve never played oreo before, it’s this dumb game where people do rock paper scissors and whoever loses has to ask out a person of the winners choosing. If the recipient says yes, the person asking them out has to date them for at least a week. Normally the people that get picked are the new kids, the outcasts, or people that seem fragile or insecure about something. The worst thing is, the rules of the game state that the person being asked out is not supposed to know that the person asking them out is playing oreo. So, most of the time, they pretend that they were actually interested in you, so you’ll say yes, and be dumped in a week. Makes me wanna pull out my teeth and eat them.
End of chapter
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139,618 Literary Works • 672,630 Reviews
Hey, Trashcan! I'm here for a quick review. I quickly read all of the other chapters, so I have a pretty good general sense of what's going on.
One of the first few things a potential reader and literary agent will take into account when starting to read your book is the first 250 words. The first 250 words should be gripping in order to pique interest, but don't necessarily have to be action-packed to achieve that effect. A good hook can easily be managed by giving the reader a few questions that they might want answered or introducing something new to get the ball rolling.
I mainly bring this up because I'm on chapter four of this novel and I have... very little clue what's going on, but I also don't have any specific questions that I want answered. The name of this novel is "Average", but what's it in reference to? Average teenagers? What's the interest there? What's the intrigue? I'm not exactly certain where the plot is leading to at some point, nor do I have any guesses. So far, this just feels like snapshots into the lives of different individuals, without any connecting threads. Why should the reader care currently?
Since Oreo is the name of a game, it should probably be capitalized.
While the introduction to Oreo was certainly necessary to understanding what happens in the rest of the chapter, the method of introduction feels disproportionate to the actual scene that it sets up. The intro and explanation of the game takes about 200 words, while the rest of the scene is only 100. To maybe even out the word count a little bit, I'd suggest... maybe drawing on an instance of this game that the POV (Point of View) character had witnessed? (Perhaps, watching this happen to a personal friend?) It could help us get a stronger sense of her character, since the explanation could also explore her reaction -- in real time -- in regards to watching it happen to someone else.
Then, when the bombshell of, "I only ever fell for it once." is dropped, it could feel even more jarring. (By the way, I loved that line.)
Another thing that could be done to even out the word count of this chapter is to simply extend the scene with Ginny and Thomas, potentially adding more descriptions about their specific reactions and letting the awkwardness hang in the air so the reader can really experience with the characters.
A problem that I noticed with this novel is the lack of atmosphere description. I know that the story takes place in some sort of school; but as the reader, I have no idea what the school is actually like aside from some teacher and student interaction. (Is it clean? Is it a school where creativity comes to die or does it foster the imaginations of its students?) This is a problem, since a lack of atmosphere can make it harder for a reader to fully sink into the world and setting that you're trying to create. It's hard to envision something when there's nothing there.
Atmosphere can also be really useful when trying to differentiate between the main characters. One main character could look through the word with a lens that makes everything they interact with vibrant and noisy -- they might point out the splashes of color that decorates the school walls, or how the news on the intercom wouldn't shut up, or how music on their iPod wasn't able to drown everyone else out. Another main character could look at the world and only see negativity, pointing out the trash that they saw on the floor, commenting on the fact that the cafeteria trays were still sticky, or the fact that they could hear a fight happening down in the next hall. Differences in how characters perceive things can help set the mood, while also really building up the differences between main characters.
Here's one good article on setting the mood, here's another, and here's a third.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to respond and I'll totally answer them. If you end up posting any other chapters, then let me know! I think that you have potential, so I'd love to follow this and keep up with your progress.
Keep on writing!
-E
Hi! Thanks for the review.
I hadn't noticed the lack of atmosphere before, thanks for bringing that to my attention. You mentioned that the characters don't seem to have interconnecting lives. I assure you, their lives will interconnect very soon. I may have dragged out the introduction a few chapters too long, but the REAL plot will start at some point. I promise. I have trouble writing beginnings and endings to stories, but I promise the middle will be much more interesting. 
Feel free to let me know when you post the next chapter! Because I'm really looking forward to the interesting middle.
If you want tips on how to write beginnings and endings, then there are some good articles that I can supply!
Oh, sure! Send me a link to them if you can.
I'll try to remember to tell you! It should come up sometime near the next review day!
Beginnings:
Getting Beginnings Right
How do I start?
Endings:
Five Steps to Finishing a Novel
How to End a Story
Thank you! I'll read through them when I get the chance!
Hey, Trashcan! Storm here for a review, so let's jump right into it.
Since this chapter seemed so short, I went ahead and read the ones before it to get an idea of what's going on, so I'll try to keep those in mind when reviewing this too.
Ah, I remember oreo, though no one ever played it in junior high school, to my knowledge. Maybe it's just school culture differences.
I'd like to see you elaborate on this. You have an opportunity to give us more backstory on Ginny and show us what she's like, but you didn't take it. Your audience wants to get to know your characters, but so far you have 4 in this novel. Since you have so many, you really want to work on making each one distinct and original.
You could stand to show more of Ginny's emotions here. How does she feel about this guy talking to her? Is she annoyed? Uncomfortable? Sad? Hopeful? You've been doing a good job of showing Ginny's internal thoughts and making them interesting to read, so doing more of that here would help a lot.
I also want to say that there are other ways of displaying the emotions of your characters. Using description, you can also show how characters feel about something. If you would describe Thomas, the audience could have more of an idea of what Ginny thinks of him. Maybe he's attractive but has a nasty smile. He could have dull, unintelligent eyes. There are countless ways for description to tell the audience how your characters feel about a person, place, or thing (otherwise known as a noun).
I'm noticing most of the chapters in this are rather lacking. There's not a lot of characterization for any of the four characters you've written chapters for, and that's a big issue. Characters are a huge part of any story! We need to be able to root for them, but it's hard to do that when there's no reason to other than they're the main characters and we're supposed to. On the same topic of characters, are you going to have any more? I think more than four points of view in a story is far too many, so be careful with that.
Another thing I notice this chapter (and story in general) lacking is description, and by extension setting. We know this is set in a school (junior high maybe? you might want to clarify what grade these kids are in) but that's about it. Describe the school. I told you before about how you can help characterize the people in your story by using description, so describing more (and more effectively) will not only improve the overall writing but if you follow the advice I gave above, your characters too. This article might help you further: https://www.nownovel.com/blog/character ... s-authors/
I also want to mention how short this chapter is. You can make it longer, if you wish. Most chapters in published books are much longer, but it really depends on the author and their style. If you like the shorter chapters, go ahead, but I just wanted to mention how abnormally short this one is.
Overall, I think you have some good ideas going on, though I'll warn you not to play too much into the 'outcast' trope because it's often very melodramatic and overplayed. Kids are mean, but reading about characters simultaneously angsting about how they don't fit and being upset that all of their peers are shallow idiots is really tedious to read. I particularly enjoyed the stream of conciousness style of writing you have going on!
You have room for improvement, but you're on the right track. Keep writing this! If you have any questions or comments on this review, feel free to ask or tell me them in a reply to this review or a pm!
~Storm
Hi! Thanks for the review.
You mentioned that the characters don't have much individuality to them, this will change, they get more and more different as the chapters go on. I'm just introducing them to the reader right now. I'm a little ashamed to admit this, but outcast characters are really the only kind I know how to write because that's all I've ever been. They're still really different though! I'm altering this one's personality slightly because of a change of plans later in the story. There is one more point of view, he's the hardest to write for, (and kind of a last minute decision honestly) but his chapters are a little bit longer and he's important to some parts of the story. Sorry, this comment is a such a cluster! Thanks for reading!
I just want to point out that it's important for your characters to be distinct from one another from the get-go. They need to be easy to recognize and have their own distinct voices.
Yeah, I've been working on that since I started this project but it's kinda hard to write characters. The next one different though, at least I think so.