Hello! The next chapter is out now! I tried to put a little bit more description into this one, but it was written three months ago and I don't feel like changing much so, uhh yeah. Hope you enjoy! Oh also, the character this chapter is centered around is male, the only male main character (so far) because I don't know how to write dudes, so keep that in mind! He is an absolute mess, later on, just a heads up. :) -Trashcan
Alexander, September 10th
Let’s see, home and careers, Gym, and ELA. I don’t get why they don’t just call it home ec., home and careers is a little inconvenient to say. I hear the class itself is a blast, I think we’ll have fun sewing and cooking together.
Gym class is a different story, I read books and play video games! It’s not my fault I can’t do like, a bazillion situps in a minute. At least we’ll be able to suffer together, she’s even worse than I am. The difference is, I take a trip outside every once in a while, it’s a miracle she hasn’t died from lack of vitamin D.
ELA should be alright.
Almost time to go home. 1 more hour, and then I can go home and talk to Maryland.
I hope she’s alright. Hopefully, she isn’t in the girls’ bathroom having a panic attack like last year. Surely she’s better now, she said she was ok earlier so there’s probably nothing to worry about.
I should check anyway.
“Mrs. Shepard?”
“Yeeeeeees?”
“Can I use the restroom?”
“I don’t know, can you?” Woman, I swear to God.
“May I use the restroom?”
“Of course. Take a hall pass.”
I grab the hall pass and make my way to the restroom. Hood up, Stealth mode activated.
I walk as quietly as I can into the girls’ bathroom. I can still faintly hear the light tapping of my footsteps on the hard tile. All the stalls are empty except one. If Maryland was in there I would hear her breathing heavy. Good, I can work without stressing out now.
I turn to leave. The stall opens, I turn to look, just in case. Stupid idea! Not her, and now she’s noticed me. Turn away! Turn away right now!
“Hey.” Why are you talking to me, and why do you sound so stern? “Do you...” she pauses. I’m frozen. “Have a hairbrush on you?” She’s coming towards me. What did I do to deserve this? Walk away. Walk away as fast as you can.
“Hey! Where are you going!” Go away. Don’t look at me. “It’s just a question!” She doesn’t sound angry.
Run. Homeroom isn’t far. Don’t look back she’ll see your face. I walk through the door to homeroom. And hand Mrs. Shepard my hall pass.
“Thank you!” I nod back to her. My hands are shaky.
Well, that was terrifying. I sit down in my seat.
“Welcome back”, Moriah says this in her usual disinterested tone.
A minute after I sit down the door opens again. Tuesday walks in. Oh no. I hope to god it wasn’t her back there. She hands Mrs. Shepard her hall pass.
“Thank you!” Mrs. Shepards cheery tone is a stark contrast from the sound of my heart and the feeling of butterflies in my stomach, crashing into the walls.
“No problem.” She has the same voice. It was Tuesday back there. Please don’t notice me. She sits right next to me, you idiot, she’s gonna notice me no matter what.
She sits down and smiles at me.
“Hey, you two, no hoods up in the building.” Moriah’s a stickler for the rules it seems.
“Sorry.” Tuesday is still smiling. Her voice has a kind of sing-song tinge to it.
“Oh, right.” I put my hood down.
“Hey, nice jacket. Alex, was it?” Why is she so happy?
“Uh, yeah.”
She smiles wider and chuckles a little. She writes something down in her notebook then turns the page and writes something else down, she passes it to me.
Meet me by the front entrance after school.
I look at her face. She’s still smiling. What is wrong with her? Is she insane?
What’s gonna happen to me?
End of chapter
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139,618 Literary Works • 672,630 Reviews
Hi! Lelu here, the one who stinks at reviewing anything other than copyediting! Here goes. Firstly, I like this. It's funny. You're not bad at writing guys, even though he's not average (sewing, cooking, sneaks into girls' bathroom). Most of your errors are punctuation, though I have trouble spotting anything else, so I'll focus on that. At the beginning, you need a colon after "Let's see." You also struggle with semicolons, though most of the world does as well. You need one after "home ec." and a lot of other places as well, practically in every sentence. Also, it should be, "I don't know. Can you?" The narrator has to use good grammar all the time, unless characters are talking, in which case they can talk like normal people. However, all characters have to be properly punctuated, even if they're not using good grammar. Happy review day.
Hi! Thanks for the quick grammar check! Appreciate it.
Hi! Lake here for a review, hopefully to keep the Red Pandas in first place! So, the first thing I noticed about Alex, or Alexander, whatever you want to call him, is a very protective person. At least, that's what I got from this. I'm intrigued to find out who this Maryland character is, and why Alex wants to make sure she's alright.
What I did get a little confused about was the beginning, because when I read it, I felt like you were opening in the middle of the story, not opening at the beginning.
"Let’s see, home and careers, Gym, and ELA. I don’t get why they don’t just call it home ec., home and careers is a little inconvenient to say. I hear the class itself is a blast, I think we’ll have fun sewing and cooking together.
Gym class is a different story, I read books and play video games! It’s not my fault I can’t do like, a bazillion situps in a minute. At least we’ll be able to suffer together, she’s even worse than I am. The difference is, I take a trip outside every once in a while, it’s a miracle she hasn’t died from lack of vitamin D.
ELA should be alright.
Almost time to go home. 1 more hour, and then I can go home and talk to Maryland."
This excerpt from your story, well it's the beginning, made me very confused. At first, the beginning sentence made me question whether I was actually reading it correctly. When it begins with "Let's see, home and careers, Gym, and ela." I felt as if you were trying to say that there was more to this person's day than what you lead us to believe. I would've liked to see more of his day, not just him saying his classes he has left.
SO, I would suggest that maybe, you introduce him before you begin the story, because what I love most in a book is when the author will tell you what the main character looks like before proceeding on. But don't just focus on what he looks like, or what Maryland, or even Tuesday looks like. Maybe give a few details of what they look like. For example, let's say I just saw Tuesday. "She had blonde hair, her hair slightly wavy. She had brown eyes and pale skin. The one feature that stood out the most was her lips, bright red from lipstick."
That's a good example of what I hope you fix in this. Obviously you don't HAVE to fix it, but like I said before, it's a suggestion. So, the next thing I want to discuss is the names of these characters. I found, well to me, that Alex was the only one in the story who didn't have a very "interesting" name. Maryland for example, is named after a small state in the United States. And Tuesday, she's named after a day in the week, which mind you, is very odd, but intriguing at the same time. I would love to know what you would've named Alex if he had an "interesting" name!
So, the story in general, sorry it took so long for me to get to this part!XD Anyways, even though I haven't read the other chapter in your rough drafts, I feel like I got a good idea of what this is about. So far, your story line is well put together, so I congratulate you on that.
So that's all for now, while there was a few grammatical errors I would've liked to address, I won't. Because it didn't bother me that much and didn't distract me from the reading. So, I look forward to see more from you in the future, so keep it up. While there are a few things you should fix, your rough draft appears to be perfect!
Keep up the fantastical work friend!
~ Lake
Hi! Thanks for the review.
I agree that the start is a little off-putting, this is because of the stupid way I decided to write this story 3 months ago. Where every chapter it switches perspective and the day changes, but the time stays the same. I won't be writing like this from now on, because, like I said, it is possibly the worst way to format a story ever.
You asked what his name would be if he had an interesting one, and that's a bit of a hard question because he was kind of an after-thought. But if he did have a special name, it would probably be something like Shay, of Felix. Something 'soft' sounding.
Hello, Trashcan! I'm here for another review.
Writing a male character is pretty much the same as writing any other type of character. As long as he's well developed with reasonable motivations and not a walking talking stereotype, then you should be absolutely fine. Actually, if the POV indicator didn't tell me that his name was Alexander, then I probably would have mistaken him for another main character. It doesn't seem like you're treating him any differently.
Here are two article links that may help you out:
5 Tips for Realistic Characters
Writing Rounded Characters
This chapter is definitely an improvement! The length is better and the character interaction has totally been kicked up a few notches, along with intrigue. The cliffhanger was really a nice touch! Some things can still definitely be improved on, though, like weaving more atmosphere and description into the chapter and working on a distinctive tone for your POV character, but this is a definite start in the right direction.
Like, I love this line. It gives the feeling of building atmosphere and it allows the reader to see through the main character's eyes for just a moment and experience interacting with his surroundings. This is what I'm looking for as a building block. Keep at it!
Something that I've noticed is that a lot of your sentences have repetitive word order. "She did this, she did that, then she did a third thing. I did this, I did that, I did a third thing." This causes the writing to sound stilted, rather than flowing naturally. I'd suggest diversifying the sentence structure to add some variety into the mix. Perhaps start some sentences with the verb instead of the subject. ("Writing something down into her notebook, she then ripped out the page and passed it to me.") If you're starting a sentence with the same word over and over again, then that's a good sign to change up how you're writing. Avoiding repetitive sentence structure does get easier with more description, because there are more tools to play with. Here's a nifty little article that I found on this.
Here's a small thing that I noticed: a lot of the sentences in the beginning paragraph contained comma splices. They're fairly easy to spot, though, once you know what you're looking for. Comma splices happen when there are two independent clauses connected together by a comma. To rectify this, you could replace the comma with a semicolon, turn them into two separate sentences, or keep the comma and add a conjunction. Either way, fixing the problem can also help with flow.
One: I love this line.
Two: The "s" in stealth should be lowercase.
I can't wait to see what the next installment brings! Hopefully some plot elements will begin to emerge, given that it will be the 6th chapter. I don't really have that many guesses as to what the plot might be yet, but I'm hoping that the next chapter will start raising some questions.
If you have any questions or comments, then feel free to let me know! Keep on writing!
-E
Hi! Thanks for bringing the repetitiveness and comma splices to my attention.
I'll try to improve on those in the future.
I tried to spice this character up a little because all the girl characters are pretty similar in personality in the beginning chapters, but that'll change soon.
Thanks for your articles! I'll be sure to find time to read them sometime soon.
I can't wait to read the next chapter, then!