What About Angels?

I stared mouth slightly ajar at the girl standing in front of the class. Even from this distance, I could tell she was beautiful. Not just beautiful. I squinted my eyes, cursing myself internally for forgetting my glasses at home. She looked from the distance a simplistic look, with her short wild, thick cotton ball of dark afro hair, which made her light brown skin shine under the rays of sun escaping through the holes in the blinds. She had an air of confidence around her as she introduced herself to the class. She didn't sound nervous instead she seemed almost too relaxed to be new. When she was done speaking, my homeroom teacher, barely looking up from her newest 'billionaire falls involve with poor girl novella', barked at her with her whiny, raspy voice to choose a seat. The girl stood at the front of the class for a moment, scanning the rows, clearly in no hurry to stop being the center of the classes attention. I snapped myself out of my gaze realizing how creepy I most of looked just staring at her.I turned my attention back to my novel. I expected that she'd choose a seat at the front or middle of the class. No one ever wanted to sit at the back, well with that being said I enjoyed, it meant I didn't have to interact with anyone and I could just focus. I jumped in my seat startled as the chair beside me scrapped loudly on the old wooden floorboards. The girl sat down, pulling out a novel from her satchel.If this was a cliche chick lit novel the whole class would have been staring shocked, wondering why she was sitting beside the 'Weirdo'. But this, this was reality and in reality, no one gave a crap about where the new girl sat. She caught me staring, a large smile stretching across her thick red painted lips, revealing a row of pearly white teeth. I was right there was something weird about her, she was far too relaxed. I gave a small smile back hoping that it came off as polite and not psychopathic, I once again tried to focus on the words on the pages in front of me. From the corner of my eye, I could see hew lean over the desk to peer at the cover of my novel.

"Deeper than blue. Never heard of it before. Is it a good read?" even though I could tell she was whispering her voice still echoed through the nearly silent room. It must have been an American thing, I was always told they had loud voices.

"Erm-" I coughed sitting up in my seat slightly nervous at this direct approach. "It is one of my favorite novels, so I guess for me it's a good read." I took note of the page I was on closing the novel and sliding it over to her, so she could read the blurb. But she didn't seem to take any notice of my gesture.

"What's it about?" I slid my book back. I guess she was trying to make conversation with me.

"It's about a thirteen-year-old girl who was a swimming champion. On a shopping trip with a best friend, they get hit by a truck. Her best friend dies and she losses a leg. In short its a journey about how she went back to swimming competitively again." She nodded clearly interested in the story.

"I think I'll check it out sounds really interesting. Also not sure if you heard me up there when I was introducing myself but my names Stephanie." she held out her hand for me to shake.

"Teddy but most people call me Ted." I took her hand in mine surprised by how smooth it was. I gave it a soft squeeze before quickly letting go.

Stephanie smiled, turning her attention to her book. The last six minutes of homeroom went by without a hitch or more abnormalities. At ten on the dot, the loud chimes of the bell could be heard echoing through the school intercom system. I stretched wincing as my shoulder clicked loudly. I stood up stretching my legs, we had a two mine window before our teacher was supposed to arrive.

Miss Burnhill was our English teacher and the strictest teacher in the school. I guess she had to be seeing that she was so young, she was only twenty-three, she had to make up for her lack of experience with perfection I guess. If she was, in short, attending school with us as a student, she would have been the cliche pretty geek girl. She had straight blonde hair that, she liked to tie into a messy bun. Her clothing wasn't tight but softly cradled her hourglass figure. She had an oval face and sharp blue eyes. she always wore a pair of large black oval glasses and depending on her mood she had different multicolored oversized cardigans that she loved to throw off in dramatic fashion when she entered a room and today was no different. Her four-inch deadly thin heels signaled her rival along with the slam of the classroom door.

"Morning class." We all mumbled a greeting back. She paused for a moment scanning the room her gaze lingered in my direction for a fraction of a second longer than the rest. "Glad to see we're all still awake. Sorry for my slightly late arrival, I had to stop by the facilities office to pick up a textbook for the new girl." She strutted over towards us. She dropped the textbook loudly on the desk causing Stephanie and I to jump. Placing her hand on the desk she leaned into Stephanie who had unconsciously sat up straighter. "I'm sure you're not going to cause any problems for me, but I will explain the rules of my class. Don't speak unless spoken to, do all work on time and do not, distract any other students. Have I made myself clear Stephanie?" Stephanie nodded. Miss Burnhiil gave a cold smile, before pushing off the desk and strutting back to the front of the class."Good, now with that sorted, class turn to page 125. Liam you can start reading the second paragraph."

Class ended in five minutes. Usually Miss Burnhills class flew by. Though she was a strict teacher she wasn't boring and had tailored the class in a way that kept it interesting, but today for some unknown reason it seemed to drag on. Maybe it was because it was a Monday morning, or it could be that I was just extremely hungry or maybe it was the fact that Stephanie was clearly a genius when it came to analyzing World War One poetry and was quick to raise her hand to wander or ask questions. I wouldn't have minded if it wasn't for the fact that she was sitting beside me, which meant everyone kept turning in my direction. I glanced back up at the clock situated at the front of the class, feeling my heart leap with joy, two miners left. Miss burn hill looked up as well as if she could notice my attention was no longer on the suffering of war.

"Alright, class lets call it a day here. Well done I know having a three-hour block lesson of English first thing in the morning is no one's idea of fun but I'm glad you took it so well. I will post up what the homework for Thursday will be on the share page. So make sure you check." The chimes of the bell had never sounded so wonderful to me before. Most of my peers jumped up sitting on tables they talked amongst themselves. Some came over to talk to Stephanie who had her large toothy smile on her face. I unlike them packed up my books and slid out of my seat leaving the room. I didn't run but walked at a slightly faster than average speed to the much hall. I was delighted to see that I was one of the first to arrive. I paid handed over my food stamp which allowed me to get me to get the basic school meal and headed to my usual eating spot the benches near the state of the art gym.

I ate my food quickly and opened my class link to see what the English homework was. 'A short essay on my thoughts on one of the poems explored in class.' It was simple enough. I got my workbook out and started to get to work. This was my usual routine. The chimes of the bells once again echoed through the school intercom system. I had exactly five mins to arrive back to class. Everything was exactly the same as usual except for Stephanie sitting in the seat beside me, a large smile on her face. As I got closer to my seat. I forced myself to smile back as I sat down.

"Hey, Teddy, what happened? you disappeared so quickly didn't get a chance to talk to you." I leaned back in my seat.

"Sorry about that didn't think you'd want to." She shrugged her smile still firmly on her face. I slammed my backpack on the desk dragging out my math book.

"By the way Teddy, are you on the school swim team?" I paused for a moment before looking at her.

"No, why do you ask?" She turned pulling out her notebook.

"No reason just that you smell thickly of chlorine so assumed you spent a lot of time in the water." I nodded my head releasing a sigh of relief.

"Oh, I have a part-time job cleaning the local pool." I could tell she wanted to say something else but was cut off by our math teacher entering the room. I kept glancing at her confused. Not many people had ever mentioned how I smelt before, and even if they did they could never pinpoint what it was. I shrugged I was obviously reading to into it.

For more check out my Wattpad page Story link

Comments

Points: 73
Reviews: 25

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Mon Jan 01, 2018 1:24 am

LJF wrote a review...

There were some grammar errors I'll admit, but I won't go into them- I'll leave that to the seasoned veterans, thank you very much.
The first thing I have to say is that as I was reading this, I was also listening to the song "Not About Angels" by Birdy. I wasn't sure if there was a connection, but I decided to anyways.
I like this! The author clearly has a goal and wrote straight towards those objectives.
Even though I didn't learn much about the characters, I found out just enough to make me curious to learn more about them.
The author uses a lot of detail, which I love.
I can't wait to read more!

Points: 1590
Reviews: 44

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Sun Dec 17, 2017 3:25 am

writervid wrote a review...

Hi! My name is Anna, and I'll be giving some grammar tips on your first paragraph! <3 I copy and pasted the chapter here, and so for anything that I think you should add or internal thoughts, I'll put <whatever it is>. For anything I think you should take out/that I think is unnecessary (like an extra word) I'll either delete it entirely or give an explanation at the end of the paragraph. For anything that I think you should reword, I'll order it in the sentence.

I stared<,> mouth slightly ajar<,> at the girl standing in front of the class. Even from this distance <you might want to indicate here that he's lost his glasses>, I could tell she was beautiful. Not just beautiful. I squinted, cursing myself for forgetting my glasses at home. She looked simplistic, with her short<,> wild, thick cotton ball of dark afro hair, which made her light brown skin shine under the rays of sun escaping through the holes in the blinds. She had an air of confidence around her as she introduced herself to the class. She didn't sound nervous<-->instead she seemed almost too relaxed to be new. When she was done speaking, my homeroom teacher, barely looking up from her newest 'billionaire falls involve with poor girl novella', barked at her with her whiny, raspy voice to choose a seat. The girl stood at the front of the class for a moment, scanning the rows, clearly in no hurry to stop being the center of the class<'>s attention. I snapped myself out of it<,> realizing how creepy I must have looked. I turned my attention back to my novel<,> expecting that she'd choose a seat at the front or middle of the class. No one ever wanted to sit at the back <except me>. I enjoyed it<;> it meant I didn't have to interact with anyone and could just focus. I jumped in my seat<,> startled<,> as the chair beside me scraped loudly on the old wooden floorboards <floorboards in a school??>. The girl sat down, pulling out a novel from her satchel. If this was a cliche chick lit novel the whole class would have been staring shocked, wondering why she was sitting beside the 'Weirdo'. But this, this was reality and in reality, no one gave a crap about where the new girl sat. <that's a weird fourth wall break. don't try to justify your choices to the reader like that. do it through story, not through saying it like that. prove to me that this isn't some cliche chick lit book. show, don't tell.>She caught me staring, a large smile stretching across her thick red lips, revealing a row of pearly white teeth. I was right<:> there was something weird about her. She was far too relaxed. I gave a small smile back<,> hoping that it came off as polite and not psychopathic, I once again tried to focus on the words on the pages in front of me. From the corner of my eye, I could see her lean over the desk to peer at the cover.

Anna's Notes: I feel like "mouth slightly ajar" isn't the best word choice, but it could just be me. I tend to associate the word "ajar" with doors and doorways, and I feel like no average teen notices their mouth that much/would use that wording (but I might be just one of a few who doesn't). Also in "short wild, thick" three adjectives is a bit excessive. I suggest taking out thick, because he can't see. "shine under the" I also feel isn't quite the right wording, because if the light is escaping from the blinds, then she's not beneath it, is she? I don't like the wording of "rays of sunlight", either, but I'm not sure what to substitute it with, either.

"Deeper <T>han blue. Never heard of it before. Is it a good read?" <E>ven though I could tell she was whispering<;> her voice still echoed through the nearly silent room. It must have been an American thing. I was always told they had loud voices.

"Erm-" I coughed<,> sitting up in my seat slightly nervous at this direct approach <use the body actions to tell it, don't just come out and say it. I would take that last bit out.>. "It is one of my favorite novels, so I guess for me it's a good read." I took note of the page I was on <as I> closed the novel and slid it over to her so she could read the blurb. But she didn't seem to take any notice of my gesture.

"What's it about?" I slid <this is a word echo. try to use a different word instead of slid here, like took> my book back. I guess she was trying to make conversation with me. <don't sound so enthusiastic, you were just ogling her!>

So: some overall notes. WATCH YOUR COMMAS! That was the biggest thing I noticed grammar wise. I highly suggest looking up comma rules for some help on that. Also, make it interesting and relevant! Is WWI poetry and how Mrs. Burnhill looks relevant to the story? Does it add interest? If the answer is no, take it out. I know I don't want to read about another character doing their English homework because I get enough English homework in real life. Another big thing I noticed is tonal differences. How can Teddy go from talking about how stunning Stephanie is to being all 'meh' about her in five seconds flat without a catalyst? Just try to keep a similar tone throughout the chapter. Watch out for using fancy language, too. Generally, when I'm thinking (I'm fifteen) I don't use words like "ajar" and that sort of thing. Try to keep an authentic teenage voice. And then everything in my notes. I pretty much exactly agree with the previous reviewer. Sorry if I was too harsh!

Points: 46598
Reviews: 641

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Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:07 am

Panikos wrote a review...

Hi, VictoriaAnderson1230! I'm here to review as promised. Sorry for the wait!

I'm going to go through nitpicks first and then close with some overall thoughts, same as I do in most of my reviews. Grammar and expression changes will be shown in blue. Let's-a go.

Nitpicks

I stared, mouth slightly ajar, at the girl standing in front of the class.

That clause just needs separating from the rest of the main clause.

She looked from the distance a simplistic look, with her short wild, thick cotton ball of dark afro hair, which made her light brown skin shine under the rays of sun escaping through the holes in the blinds.

The expression is a bit convoluted here. Perhaps have something like:

From a distance, she seemed to have a simple look, her afro dark and wild, her light brown skin shining under the sun filtering through the blinds.

She had an air of confidence ~~around her~~ as she introduced herself to the class.

To be honest, I would actually prefer that you show her confidence rather than just telling us she's confident. Actually show us how she introduces herself. Give us dialogue; let us see what she says. We'll believe in her characterisation much more that way.

clearly in no hurry to stop being the center of the class's attention.

I snapped myself out of my daze, realizing how creepy I must have looked just staring at her.

No one ever wanted to sit at the back, well with that being said I enjoyed, it meant I didn't have to interact with anyone and I could just focus.

Just watch out for comma splices. Comma splices are when you connect independent clauses with commas rather than an appropriate full stop, coordinator or semi-colon. There are several ways you could make the above quote grammatical. Either have full stops instead of commas, like this:

No one ever wanted to sit at the back. Well, with that being said, I enjoyed it. It meant I didn't have to interact with anyone and I could just focus.

Or you could have a semi-colon in it, like this:

No one ever wanted to sit at the back. Well, with that being said, I enjoyed it; it meant I didn't have to interact with anyone and I could just focus.

Or you could have some coordinators in there, like this:

No one ever wanted to sit at the back. Well, with that being said, I enjoyed it, as it meant I didn't have to interact with anyone and I could just focus.

Comma splices are troublesome little errors, but they're easily fixed. Check out this YWS topic for a quick guide. You can also do this quick
test after you've read the previous topic to check you've got to grips with recognising them. Then see if you can fix the ones in this piece.

"Deeper Than Blue. Never heard of it before. Is it a good read?"

Titles of works should have capital letters. It's also typical that you stick them in italics when people refer to them, though you could also put them in quotation marks.

"Erm-" I coughed sitting up in my seat ~~slightly nervous at this direct approach~~.

Try to show emotions rather than just reporting their existence, and avoid stating the obvious. The reader is smarter that you think. If you just had something like this:

"Erm-" I coughed, struggling to meet her eyes. "It is one of my favourite novels,
so I guess for me it's a good read."

If the reader just had this, we would still be able to work out that the narrator was nervous. There's no need to say that he's nervous due to her direct approach - we can glean that from the dialogue itself. Where you can, try to avoid explaining why characters behave the way they do. Just show them behaving that way and let us figure out the reasons ourselves.

She nodded clearly interested in the story.

"I think I'll check it out; it sounds really interesting

This is the same sort of thing. Your prone to what I'd call 'hand-holding writing', where you try to coax the reader along too attentively and underestimate how much we can work out for ourselves. You don't need to tell us that she's 'clearly interested' because the following line of dialogue makes that obvious.

the loud chimes of the bell echoed through the school intercom system

If you can express something in fewer words without losing impact, you always should. Less is more in writing.

I stretched wincing as my shoulder clicked loudly.

You seem to struggle with punctuation in regards to non-finite clauses (a clause that doesn't show tense; read more here). Clauses beginning with 'ing' verbs should be separated from the independent clause with a comma. Examples:

I moved closer, watching Lindsey creep down the alley.

He sat on the wall, whistling to himself.

Kicking and writhing, he threw off the man's grip.

And thus, the sentence from the piece should be written as:

I stretched, wincing as my shoulder clicked loudly.

Like comma splices, this is an easy thing to fix, but it's worth brushing up on grammar rules regarding clauses, as it isn't like every 'ing' word needs a comma before it. It's worth paying close attention to the punctuation in published books and replicating the rules you see - that's how I learned.

She had straight blonde hair that, she liked to tie into a messy bun.

No need for this comma.

"Glad to see we're all still awake. Sorry for my slightly late arrival; I had to stop by the facilities office to pick up a textbook for the new girl."

I feel like it's rude of her to refer to Stephanie as just 'the new girl' even though she's literally in the same room as her. Just saying 'I had to stop to pick up a textbook' would be much more polite. I suppose this depends on whether the teacher is a rude sort of person or not, but it still stuck out as odd to me.

Class ended in five minutes [...] today for some unknown reason it seemed to drag on.

I'm really confused by this bit. I assumed you were being hyperbolic about how quickly the class passed by, yet you contradict this by saying it dragged on. You need to clarify what you mean.

"Hey, Teddy, what happened? you disappeared so quickly didn't get a chance to talk to you." I leaned back in my seat.

"Sorry about that didn't think you'd want to." She shrugged her smile still firmly on her face. I slammed my backpack on the desk dragging out my math book.

"By the way Teddy, are you on the school swim team?" I paused for a moment before looking at her.

"No, why do you ask?" She turned pulling out her notebook.

"No reason just that you smell thickly of chlorine so assumed you spent a lot of time in the water." I nodded my head releasing a sigh of relief.

"Oh, I have a part-time job cleaning the local pool."

1) I'm surprised Teddy isn't more perplexed by her telling him he smells of chlorine. It's pretty creepy (and a bit rude) to mention how someone smells. If I were him, I'd be more uneasy about it.

2) You have a disconcerting habit of putting the actions of one character directly after the dialogue of another character, which can make it hard to track who is speaking. I'd structure it more like:

"Hey, Teddy, what happened? You disappeared so quickly that I didn't get a chance to talk to you."

I leaned back in my seat. "Sorry about that. Didn't think you'd want to."

She shrugged. I slammed my backpack on the desk, dragging out my math book.

"By the way, Teddy, are you on the school swim team?"

I looked at her. "No, why do you ask?"

She pulled out her notebook. "No reason. You just smell quite thickly of chlorine, so I assumed you spent a lot of time in the water."

I nodded my head. "Oh, I have a part-time job cleaning the local pool."

This makes it clearer, though I actually think that you don't need a lot of these descriptors. You could strip the dialogue back even more and have something like:

"Hey, Teddy, what happened? You disappeared so quickly that I didn't get a chance to talk to you."

"Oh, sorry. I didn't think you'd want to," I said.

She shrugged, but her smile didn't fade. I slammed my backpack on the desk and started dragging my math book out.

"By the way, Teddy, are you on the school swim team?"

I turned to her. "No. Why do you ask?"

"No reason. You just smell quite thickly of chlorine so assumed you spent a lot of time in the water."

"Oh, well, I- I have a part-time job cleaning the local pool, actually."

This is obviously just a suggestion, but you can see how much scope there is to peel back on unnecessary words and make passages more succinct. I always feel like it's best to do away with as many words as possible during dialogue passages, as it makes the interaction feel much more real if you aren't constantly disrupting it with prose.

Overall Thoughts

1) Your writing style is generally fine, but I feel like it's let down by lack of proofreading. As I progressed further through the piece, the writing seemed less polished, like you hadn't combed through it quite as thoroughly. Definitely make sure you proofread all of your work before you post it (I'd say at least three times). Read it aloud, as that might help you spot expression errors, and change the font that it's written in (if you can) so that typos and such will be more noticeable. Proofreading makes my job as a reviewer much easier. At the minute, it's quite difficult to tell which grammar errors actually need bringing up and which ones are just there due to lack of proofreading. Editing more thoroughly will help me with that.

2) I think you do a good job of managing intrigue around Stephanie. I get the sense there must be more to her - some supernatural undertones, perhaps - but you don't make it obvious. I feel like her sense of smell must be significant.

3) My most pressing suggestion for you would be to work on filtering out information that isn't really necessary in the story. I feel like you include a lot of aimless talk and information even though though it isn't relevant. Take this part:

"Alright, class lets call it a day here. Well done I know having a three-hour block lesson of English first thing in the morning is no one's idea of fun but I'm glad you took it so well. I will post up what the homework for Thursday will be on the share page. So make sure you check."

Why do we really need all this dialogue? She's not saying anything particularly interesting, and the reader hardly needs to know that the homework has been posted and that it's for Thursday and that it's on the share page. The same thing happens here:

I ate my food quickly and opened my class link to see what the English homework was. 'A short essay on my thoughts on one of the poems explored in class.' It was simple enough. I got my workbook out and started to get to work. This was my usual routine. The chimes of the bells once again echoed through the school intercom system. I had exactly five mins to arrive back to class.

Why do we need to know that he's checking his homework and getting to work? How does this information serve the story? You should be able to justify the inclusion of every paragraph in your writing. If you can't, it probably doesn't need to be there.

Obviously, writers will mention mundane information in passing to create the right sense of setting, but it seems to me that you focus too much on things that aren't that interesting. This piece is basically just all about Teddy's daily routine at school, and routine isn't going to grab the reader - not unless it differs greatly from our expectations. When you're writing about a realistic setting and a character with a very normal life, you need to start the story as close as you can to the point at which their life becomes disrupted. In a fantasy or sci-fi setting, the concept can hold the reader's attention for a little while longer, but with teen fiction stories you need to disrupt the status quo sooner rather than later.

Stephanie's does interrupt Teddy's usual routine, but you don't exploit that enough. At the moment, she appears, they talk a bit, then Teddy goes about his usual business. Consider this: what if Stephanie arrived at the school and Teddy was immediately suspicious about her? What if he was so suspicious that he found himself following her around, trying to figure out what it was about her that made him uneasy? Now things are disrupted. Things are interesting. There's conflict.

You could take a different approach. Stephanie arrives at the school, takes a shine to Teddy and won't stop tagging after him. He's awkward and wants to be left alone so he can get back to his usual routine, but she just won't let up. Once again, things are now disrupted. Teddy cannot go about his life like normal.

I'm not saying you have to use either of these suggestions. This is your story and you know better than I do where it's heading. I'm just trying to illustrate how you could make the opening more interesting. We need to get a sense that Teddy's routine is different from normal, and you need to focus more heavily on Stephanie's appearance and why that changes things. Only then will you really rope me in.

I'll call the review here. I hope this was as clear and informative as you were hoping for, and I apologise if I came across as too harsh. Let me know if you post more of this on YWS.

Keep writing!

~Pan

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What About Angels?

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