Heather groaned. It was Tuesday, perfect time to sleep and enjoy the life of being a power of the greater evil. Her teacher, Mr. Young, had showed the whole class of her power leaving everyone-including her friends- to not talk to her. She would try to tell them that she was harmless and could help the human race in times of when the power would go out, but no one has listened. Heather has even tried to talk to her mother but it had seemed she has heard of the news and ordered Heather to stay in her bedroom until her mother has figured out what to do with her. Heather just wanted to be a quiet person in the back of the class without but poof, her dream was forever lost.
Now, Heather was doodling on a piece of paper in her bedroom. It was boring looking at the same paper and the same drawing, nonetheless, thinking about what to draw but nothing has come to mind. She had hated having a power of cytokinesis and everything to do with it as she never knew she had had it. Heather closed her eyes, ignoring everything as she felt a cold wave wash over her. She shivered before opening her eyes, rubbing her eyes and decided that even her mother would hate her having out of her bedroom, she needed something to eat.
She stood up, walking past a mirror before seeing her reflection and noticing someone else in her place. Heather’s jaw dropped as her reflection had long red hair and green eyes. Her face was rounder with freckles on her tan face, while her body was slimmer with a different top that Heather was wearing. Heather fell backwards onto the bed, looking at the mirror once more shaking her head, thinking it was a trick of the light in her bedroom. Heather got off the bed, looking at the mirror once more pushing a red bang out of face and taking a deep breath before closing her eyes, the same cold feeling rushing over her body.
Heather opened her eyes, seeing herself in the mirror. How did I do that, she asked herself as she walked to her door and opened before walking out into the kitchen.
Her mother saw her, smiled before walking past into her bedroom. Heather grabbed chips and noticed on the clock it said the time of when she had to go to school. She stuffed the chips in her mouth as she raced down the stairs, opening the door, and slamming it as Heather ran to her car. Now on the road, she looked out at the area around her; beautiful place to live with birds singing and cars honking. Heather closed her eyes, before feeling the cold and opened her eyes to see in her rearview mirror the same red hair staring at her.
She sighed, pulling into her car into the parking lot. As she got out, people looked at her smiling and nodding their head. Heather looked at the ground, biting her lip as she reached the doors of the school. The person behind the desk smiled as Heather smugly smiled.
“Hello Mrs. Denison.” The lady said with a smile. Heather was about to say something when Mr. Young came into the office. He saw Heather and in his eye he knew it was Heather, but coughed and walked past. Heather sighed, signing in and walked out of the office, to her locker.
“Cambi!” Someone yelled as Heather shook it off, considering it could be anyone. But voice rammed into the locker next to her, smiling.
“Cambi! It’s me, Janni?”
Heather didn’t say anything as she grabbed her books, ignoring the haughty look on Janni’s face.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you sure? Because ever since you left for Hawaii, you are a different person. Like we were close friends and now you are just getting farther and farther away from me.”
Heather had no idea what this person was talking about.
“I have to go to the bathroom.” Heather stated as she walked past Janni. She walked into the bathroom, looking in the mirror with a smile of fear and enjoyment. She shook her head, closing her eyes before feeling the same cold rush over her body and opened them to find herself there. She sighed, grabbing the books while Janni raced past her.
She screamed, of course making Heather roll her eyes. She trudged on the day until Mr. Young’s class.
“Today, class we shall talk about illusions. Like things you see but aren’t there like a rainbow. Now an example would be, “he looked around at the sea of students before he settled his eyes on Heather, “would be Heather. Could you come up here and help me?”
Heather sighed and thought how she hated being the class Guinea Pig as she stood next to Mr. Young. He smiled, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“Heather, unlike the power she has showed us before, has another one in store. It could possibly be the best one she could possess. Heather would you mind showing them?”
Heather nervously nodded before closing her eyes. Her light blonde hair turned red, her pale face was soon a perfect tan, her light freckles soon turned darker while her face rounded out, and her shirt changed from a navy blue to a floral red. The class gasped, some leaning forward wondering if this was a trick for their eyes. When she opened her eyes, she was now Cambi Denison.
“Good job Heather… er… Cambi.”
A hand raised in the back of the class.
“Yes, Hannah?”
“How did you figure this one out?’
“That is a quite a simple one since it had happened this morning. Since Heather
was being late, I would suppose that her ‘power’ could come in handy for
everything.”
“Even the greater evil?”
“Yes, that is what I had said before. But this isn’t for any evil such as the one Heather had did before but it could be used for-“
“Mr. Young, please.”
“Cambi, shush. They need to know this.”
“No they don’t.”
Mr. Young pulled Heather down into a huddle.
“Mr. Denison, I must tell them because who else will tell them?”
“You just want to use me a pet, do you?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? Because my powers are, to you, used for evil. Which they can be, when used on the right people,” Heather stated with a smirk.
Mr. Young groaned. “This is part my job, Heather. You may never understand as you are a teenager.”
“Oh I can understand. You made me lose my friends, everything I had loved because of what you had told everyone.”
Mr. Young poked her chest. “You are the one who asked to fix the light. None of this could have happened. This conversation could have never happened.”
Heather groaned, ripping out of Mr. Young’s huddle.
“You are blaming me? Seriously?” She fiercely asked, her small hands turning into fists.
“No, I’m not.”
“This man is a monster, I am not. He is going to use my powers against me.”
“And who might stop you?” Mr. Young snarly asked.
Heather looked at Mr. Young, a glimmer in her eye before she simply replied. “Who else but myself.”
End of chapter
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137,701 Literary Works • 672,063 Reviews
Hello again!
Yeah, still don't understand why he did that. Also, you don't need to tell us that he showed the whole class her power - we know that because it happened in the last chapter. You could say something like "after her powers were revealed, none of her friends wanted to talk to her" or "after Mr. Young showed off her powers no one - including her friends - wanted to talk to her."
You have some tense problems here.
Would try --> tried
Has listened/has even/had seemed/has heard/has figured --> listened, even, seemed, heard, figured
(Underlined parts are awkwardly phrased).
The last sentence is pretty long and is phrased weird. Also, how did her mom find out?
Not needed. I got the impression from the first chapter that she was fairly shy and withdrawn.
How did she not know she had this power? Did the teacher (still think he's creepy) see her abilities and tell her? I got the impression that she knew what she was doing when she repaired that lightbulb in the the gym and when the teacher started to show her off in class.
The underlined part is really confusing to me and awkwardly worded.
A little awkwardly worded. I think these could be combined into two new sentences:
"She stood up and walked past her (description) mirror. She saw her reflection and did a double-take because her reflection showed a girl with long red hair and green eyes."
Something like that.
We don't need quite this much detail
This all moves fairly quickly. Slow down a little and develop this. Give me more descriptions of this house. Read this whole part out loud because there are a lot of places where I think it's worded funny. What kind of emotions does she have when she sees the time? What does she look like? What kind of facial expression does she have? She races down the stairs - what stairs? Stairs to go outside? Is her kitchen on the second floor? I'm confused about how this house is set up? Did she have to grab her bag or purse? Is she dressed? Did she brush her teeth? She just leaves. What is she feeling in this moment? Panic? Stress? Anxiety? What does her car look like?
Now that she's in her car she seems really peaceful. How did she calm down? You sort of explain the scenery around her as she drives, but I want more. I don't feel like I'm there with her and I can see everything she sees. Does she listen to the radio? Is she hungry because she didn't eat a proper breakfast? How long does it take for her to get to school?
Then she closes her eyes - she does that while she's driving? Isn't that horribly unsafe? Then she sees her reflection in her rearview mirror. I can only see my reflection in that mirror if I really try. Why does she look in the mirror? Does she remember that cold feeling from before and wants to see if a similar thing happened?
Her only reaction to seeing that face is a sigh - that seems pretty tame. In her bedroom she seemed pretty freaked out that her reflection was someone that clearly wasn't her. What is she thinking and feeling in this moment? Then she gets to school, gets out and everyone is smiling and nodding at her. I thought everyone was scared of her and wasn't talking to her. What does she make of this experience? What is she thinking and feeling?
You obviously don't have to answer all of those questions, but those are things to think about as you write to slow down, and get your reader to be in the moment with your characters.
Why wouldn't he know it's her? Does she think that maybe he sees the red-haired girl she keeps seeing in her reflection?
She sure sighs a lot...
And you have too many commas in that last sentence. An easy way to tell is read the sentence out loud, and where you naturally take a breath is usually where you need a comma.
Why fear and enjoyment? What's going through her mind right now? I thought this was freaking her out?
"to find herself there" - what do you mean, her usual self, not the red-haired self?
Heather has never rolled her eyes before. "of course" makes it seem like this is something that happens with Heather a lot. And why would she roll her eyes? She doesn't know what's going on any better than this Janni person does.
Okay. What kind of teacher is this guy? And what is with his obsession with Heather? I think he's super creepy.
Confused on several fronts:
1. Why does the teacher feel the need to show this to the class?
2. How does the teacher know so much about her powers?
3. Why does Heather agree when things didn't turn out so well last time she showed her powers (people stopped talking to her) and she said she doesn't like being the guinea pig?
4. I thought when she looked in the mirror in her room, the reflection scared her and she didn't know what was going on. I also thought this wasn't something she could control, it happened when the cold feeling came over her. So why can she control it so well now?
5. She didn't know what the Janni person was saying when she was talking about Cambi. So why does she now know that she turns into this Cambi person?
Awkwardly phrased. I'm not even sure what he's trying to say here.
And yet she just showed everyone more of her powers.....
Okay, I still think this is a really interesting idea and premise, but I'm just so confused. I think you need to slow all of this waaaaaay down. When I mentioned that one paragraph that I think you can slow down, and everything I said along with that? I think you can apply that to this whole work. Overall, I want a lot more description and character development. Right now this feels very clinical and very this happened and then this happened and then this happened. You have the basis of the plot, now flesh it all out and stretch it out. Make me feel like I'm there with your characters. I want to feel emotions right along with Heather. Think emotions. Think senses. Paint me a picture.
This takes practice, and I think the best way to learn is to just read a lot. Think about what you like and dislike about books as you read them. The things you like - why do you like them? What about the author's writing made that work for you? Try to implement similar strategies in your own writing. The things you don't like - why don't you like them? What about the author's writing made that not work for you? Make sure you're not doing similar things in your own writing. And don't forget to read out loud
I'm still curious to see where you're going to go with this! I think I was right. This weird, creepy teacher seems like bad news...
Let me know if you have any questions or if anything I said was confusing!
Happy Review Day! Disclaimer: I have not read chapter one.
So, for the most part, I enjoyed reading this. Heather isn't the most terrible name to have drilled into your mind, and it seems like you're apt to repeat such a motif. Your skill of description, coupled with some light repetitive effect, made this an excellent read.
Since this is a review, I have a couple of suggestions. You might want to put some emphasis on Heather changing back, I almost missed it. Literally, it was just "she was herself again."
I believe this is one piece that I can excuse for having "floating heads" as I call them, since the dialogue hooks the reader into the next word with marvelous flow. Of course, this has two exceptions. The first is "you are getting farther and farther away from me." If there's anything that enduring humanity has taught me, it's that the young usually use conjunctions. (However, this does not apply to Mr. Young, as he is not technically young. Not to call him old, but he isn't young; well he is Young, but, ah, forget it.)
Speaking of Mr. Young, one line of his dialogue really felt off to me. "You may never understand because you are a teenager." First, that's worded wrong. As it stands, it sounds like Young doesn't believe that Heather will understand at any point in her adult life, just because she's a teenager at the present moment. Second, it just felt a bit stereotypical. I mean, it really seems to sum up Mr. Young in the wrong way. Condescending towards younger people. It's been seen before, and I had hoped for a bit more originality.
Overall, this is a great piece with only some minor issues (that you still should fix). I wonder what Heather (or is it Cambi now?) will do next. Cheers.
-Chaser
Heya, Chrissy the great and most awesome reporting for the review she promised!
Yes, I know, I'm conceited. But, at least I can write halfway decent reviews. Right?
Did you put it on a Tuesday on purpose, Tuesday?
This seemed a little awkward to me. You messed up with the tense once at the end with the
"has", and I got lost near the middle. I think you just put it down wrong. When I read it, I understood what you meant, but a few words ended up in the wrong place.
And after that, I thought maybe you could put something about how long it had been. Like, "and she had been sitting there for over blah blah minutes." Just a little thing to help us get a time frame in our heads.
Also, one more thing about this part. She gets up and goes to school in a few minutes, but when I started I thought it was the same day as the last one, but in the afternoon after she got home from school. Maybe you should say something about her having been stuck in her room for all of yesterday, and now she wasn't being let out today.
Okay, just a couple little things. Heather falling backwards, and shaking her head need to be in different sentences. They are completely different thoughts, and don't belong together. And take the word bedroom off the end, you don't really need it. We already know she's sentence to the solitary confinement.
How did I do that need to be in italics. Or at least, you can if you want too. Most people use italics to show the character's thoughts, but that is really up to you. I'd say do it, though.
and my word is law.I really starting to like Heather, she keeps getting cooler and cooler. This new talent is awesome.
Comma not a period after Mrs. Denison. Because you have a dialogue tag. One thing, she's one of the kids from the school right? At least, I though she was. Wouldn't it be Miss?
"And in his eyes, Heather could tell that he knew it was her, but..." I thought this would work better, but this is more a matter of option here. You can use my suggestion, or trash it. Your choice.
Comma between "Oh", and "I can".
Right here, she's addressing the class, at least it sounds like she is. You need to have her turn around and do so.
Last nitpick, when she's turns into the Cambi Denison, maybe she should turn back when she starts getting mad? Just a thought...
Okay, well, I think that does it with the reviewing! Heather is developing into a extremely incredible character, Mr. Young just keeps getting better and better. It seems to building, slowly but surely. And it's only on the second chapter! How do you manage that!
Don't forget to tell me when you come out with the next one!
Keep writing!