A Single Black Rose (Chapter 1)

Hey there! As you only received one review from your Secret Santa during Christmas in July, I'm here to give you your second review.

So you've already got some really awesome reviews on this piece, so I'm not sure how much help I'll be. I'll try my best though, and hopefully manage to not just repeat what everyone else has said. As a whole, I do like the idea you have here, and I definitely think that it's interesting. This is the kind of story I personally like to read, and so I'm glad I have chosen to read this. Your grammar and punctuation is generally good as well, so that's always a massive bonus. You did have the occasional typo but your prose ran nice and smoothly overall.

With regards to critiques, I'll start with more of a nit-pick. You know the scene where Cree is in school and she calls her dad? The space between her leaving the school and arriving home is really jumpy and sudden. I had to reread a few paragraphs because I didn't realise she'd left the school. You don't actually mention her leaving the school building. You mention her running, but that's a bit vague for my liking. What I'd suggest is for you to make sure it's completely clear that Cree leaves the school, runs out of it, and then heads home. As it stands, its like one second she's at school and then the next, she's in her house.

Something else that bugs me a little in this is what Cree's father says before he dies. I know you want it to be sweet, loving, and what not, but anyone with a knife rammed through their chest is going to figure out that they're going to die. I'm not saying you should have him not reassure Cree, but I can't help feeling he should maybe say something about his killer. I mean, he's about to die so you'd think he would at least give some kind of a clue to what happened. Plus what if the killer is still int he house? Wouldn't her father panic at the sight of her and tell her to leave while she can? I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want you to maybe reconsider what Cree's father's dying words are, or at least add to them a little.

This Jeff guy bothered me a bit as well. I don't want him to be all sugary and rainbowy and lovey towards Cree, but I found his attitude and behaviour towards her a tad unrealistic. He may be a really horrible guy, but it would be very dumb of him to be so nasty to Cree the first time he meets her, especially in front of her mother. What if Cree's mother was disgusted at Jeff's behaviour, and dumped him there and then? Yes, her mother may not be that type of person, but Jeff doesn't know that. He's never seen her with her daughter, so he has no idea.

Plus a lot of men who are abusive, nasty, and violent don't make it obvious at first, whereas Jeff does make it obvious in this from the get go. These kind of men are often very manipulative, and at first, they'll treat their partners and partners' children nicely enough. Once these men have gained their trust though, their behaviour starts changing, and by then it's too late because the woman their with is in love with them/believes it when they say they'll never do it again e.t.c. As a result, I really do find Jeff's attitude towards Cree pretty unrealistic.

Something else I think you need to be careful of is what Stella brought up, and so I won't dwell on it too much. I hardly want to just repeat everything she's already said, that would be a pain in the butt for you and me! Anyway, I'm talking about info-dumping and telling rather than showing. You do a lot of this, and I think you do need to be careful of it. Don't just say how all of Cree's mum's ex's have been horrible, show us. Don't just say how amazing her dad was, show that to us too. Not only will that be more interesting, but it helps us readers empathise with your characters more.

Critiques aside, I honestly do think this chapter has a lot of potential. Your characters seem pretty interesting, and I think you could take this a lot of places. Like I said before, your grammar and punctuation is pretty great so that's awesome. But anyways, if you have any questions or comments regarding this review, please let me know.

Keep writing,

xoxo Skins

Hi, Sparkle here to review!

I'm just going to get this part out of the way before I get into the meat of this piece. The title, A Single Black Rose, is interesting. However, the 'single rose' thing is a bit overused and I have seen it many places before. If the single black rose will be an very important part of the piece later on, then by all means ignore this part of the review. If you are just going for symbolism, however, you might want to try something a bit more different or creative.

I agree with what the other reviewers said about grammar. If you want a story to be taken seriously, good grammar goes a long way.

What Stella said about infodumping and telling, not showing, are also very important. I also agree with what she said about a teenager at a parent's funeral.

Something that might help is having a bit more character development. All I can tell about Cree from this chapter is that she is a troubled, grieving teenage girl. I know nothing about her interests, hobbies, or appearance. If I am going to read a story, I want to be able to connect with the character a bit more.

This is a good start, and this story has good bones. I can't wait to see what you do with it!
I hope this helped!

<quote>I couldn't seem to come to grips with the fact that I, My life, would never be normal.</quote> I don't think the 'm' in my life should be capitalized
<quote>"Mrs. Foster, my dad keeps calling me. Can I please answer it because he never calls me unless it is an emergency." I asked as I started walking out of the room.</quote> It should end in a question mark since the main character is asking a question.

<quote>"I suppose so, but be back in this class room in five minutes" You could hear the sarcasm in her voice. </quote> There should be a comma after minutes.
<quote>I was her favorite and most trust worthy student and she knew that I would be back and not skip class like most people.</quote> maybe re-phrase it such as ‘Being that I was her most trustworthy student she knew I wouldn’t skip class as most kids would. The part about her being the favorite doesn’t affect the aspect of her skipping class or not, so maybe get rid of it?
<quote>"NO! PLEASE DON'T!" I heard yelling. </quote> maybe ‘I heard someone yell’
<quote>"Click" I heard on the other side of the line and I knew he hung up.</quote> It should be ‘Click.’ Because no one actually says ‘click’ I think?
<quote>There was paper and books all over the floor, a sticky substace on the floor that looked like blood and tab;es were turned over. WAIT, BLOOD?</quote> The last part is kinda awkward I think, maybe re-phrase it to be like ‘I had to do a few glances over to ensure it was actually blood’. Also, I think you meant tables not tab;es .
<quote>"dad" I cried.</quote> capitalize Dad and add a comma after it.
<quote>""It's going to be ok baby" he choked out. "Everything will be ok, I promise" I felt the weight of his body carry me to the floor. I knew I had to let go, but I couldn't. </quote>" Add a comma after baby and promise and maybe after ok?
<quote>"Hello Jeff" I said through clenched teeth. </quote> add a comma after Jeff.
<quote>"Cree. It's nice to finally meet you. Your mother has told me so much about you. It's like I know you already" He smiled a sickly smile and I could feel the vomit rise out of my throat.</quote> add a comma after already and maybe phrase it so it isn’t so meet-and-greet like. He’s meeting his girlfriends daughter at his girlfriends ex-husbands funeral, you get what I mean? Maybe have him feel sorrow for her, such as “I’m sorry to have to meet you like this, I’m sorry about what happened to your father.” It makes him sound more like a real person, no matter how much of a jerk he is, or will become, that makes the reader feel like he’s an actual person.
<quote. "Let's go home" Jeff had said to me while we walked towards his beat up old dodge Omni, my mother hanging on his hip like a toy. I just nodded my head and got in the car.</quote> add a comma after home.
<quote>"Would you like something to eat baby?" My mother, Jasmine as I like to call her asked me in a daze.</quote> add a comma after ‘her’.
<quote>It hasn't always been that way. Jasmine actually was a great mother until my father left us. She used to be the type of mom that would cry when I wernt off to school and actually interact with us when she got home from work. </quote> you spelled went wrong by accident 
<quote>"Speak when your spoken too Cree!" Jeff hollered.</quote> I don’t think this would happen. This girl just lost her dad, not to mention he just met her for the first time. He wouldn’t be so rude at the beginning.
<quote>I let tears roll down my cheeks as I slowly drifted off into a dreamless sleep, thinking about what would happen next eith Jeff.</quote> with not eith 
Overall:
I really think this story has good potential, yet there is so much going on in the first chapter it's hard to absorb. Also, the emotions are really straight forward, like StellaThomas said, try and show not tell! The fact that she knows Jeff will abuse her and that so many other boyfriends of her mother have abused her, yet she did run away to live with her father is strange. Only because if she did run away to seek shelter with her father, why not tell someone about the abuse? Also, when she ran away from school, I know my school at least would have had someone on my butt within seconds of leaving. It's little things like that which make the reader question the accuracy. Like I said, there is so much going on in the first chapter, maybe try and just slow it down. And leave certain things out of the first chapter to have some mystery. maybe don't tell the reader about the abusive relationships she's suffered and just have her have some unknowing hatred for Jeff, without the reader knowing until the future. That way the reader wants to read on to find out more. You know? I really do like this story, though!

Hi there! Stella here

Okay so the first thing I noticed was this: we have a teenage girl at a parent's funeral. Now that's fine but the issue is I've read a hundred stories that start that way, to the extent that it begins to lose all meaning. You need to prove to us that yours is a story worth reading, and that starts right from the word go. It starts with that funeral.

The whole chapter felt a bit like you were trying to get all of Cree's past out into the open before you dealt with her present. That's a really tempting thing to do! Sometimes when I'm beginning a first draft, that's what I do. Then I don't have to worry about working the past in in later drafts. But the thing is, you really have to do that as you go on. Doing it here does two things that YWSers will tell you off for: 1) infodumping and 2) telling, not showing

The two are separate but interlinked. Infodumping is basically where you tell us a million and one things at a time instead of spoonfeeding us. And it can be alleviated by showing, not telling.

For instance, when you talk about the ton of past boyfriends the mother has had, and the abuse she and Cree have suffered at their hands, why not show us that? Like, when Jeff comes up to them, play out the whole conversation. Show us the body language, show us that Cree is wary and that she knows guys like him, and doesn't trust him. You can tell us more information as the story goes on- we'll pick it up. The main thing is that we don't need to know it right now. Right now we need to hear the funeral, we need to see Cree's memories of her father, her grieving. Don't just tell us she was sad, tell us why. Tell us her favourite memories of him, what he did that made her happy, that "cheered her up" as you say.

This is an interesting start to the story, but I think you need to inject a little more life into it for it to really take off

Hope I helped, drop me a note if you need anything!

-Stella x

Hello, one thing I saw was
'she didn't want to lose her precious man who paid for her bills.'
'she didn't want to lose her precious man who paid her bills.'
don't really need the for

Oh and I agree with OliveDreams about pushing readers into reading the 2nd chapter. I mean when I seen that it was up for review I was gonna review it but I wanted to read the 1st chapter so I did. But now that I've read this one I'm kind of not sure if the 2nd would be better or worse, but Imma read it anyway because I like to read.

Other than that no mistakes. By the way, I like the feeling you have in this. It almost made me wanna cry. I believe in order for this to be 100% emotion than you need to push to that emotional state. I shouldn't have almost wanted to cry. I should have had tears falling down, but that's me. I really do like it for real.

On to the next chapter.

Hello

I really like the potential with where this story could go. I'm a fantasy/supernatural junkie so my minds already racing as to where you could take this.

I really like the grim background of your character and her Mother. This can be really useful when deciding what she is really capable of later on in your book.

Just a few typos that I picked up on:

"Every sound and ever shadow." - I think it's supposed to be every shadow.

"I felt another pair of hands go around me and I shuttered." - shuddered?

I also thought you could maybe add a little more action/mystery at the end of this chapter to push the reader to read onto chapter 2? I love the way it starts - it really grabbed my attention - but then you also want to have the same effect at the end to give the reader no choice but to carry on!

Hope this helped Good Luck & keep writing!!!