ONE
We throw our bikes down onto the uneven ground below and run to the trees; the sound of waves echoes the landscape we were admiring. Hanging and swinging from the beautiful trees with the sun beaming through every gap shone a pattern on his face and I can’t help starring, until his eyes meet mine, I adjust my eyes to look at the branch above me. Cautiously clambering up the tree until we find a spot in which we sit, as we drop our weight we immediately move together almost as if a magnetic force is between us. Shouting carelessly whilst laughing, our legs dangled from the tree as if they weren’t connected to the rest of our bodies; freedom has never felt so good. I make every excuse to look at him; whether it’s just to move a ‘leaf’ from his hair or just to simply dust his cheek from ‘dirt’.
Immediately I suddenly get the urge to jump down from the tree and I do so. He follows as we grab our bikes and sprint to the path which lead us home. I look deeply into his eyes as we talk and hobble across the pebbles and stones beneath us, trying desperately hard not to fall so I could continue to talk for the rest of the journey, he made me feel a sense of comfort nobody else can. The reflection of the sun glittered in his eyes almost as beautifully as the dark blue ombre-like eyes which he has gazing into my own. I get the feeling again; the butterflies, I immediately turn to face the path layered with bark and wood chips, trying to ignore this feeling as we continue to walk whilst pulling our bikes beside us.
I try to steadily steer my bike onto the pavement whilst looking at his navy-blue t-shirt blowing in the wind; along with his mesmerising blonde hair. He is stood up on his pedals and carelessly riding his bike in front, I wish I could be next to him right now. I try to distract my mind by looking at the sky, I do this a lot. It has a pure blue colour with puffy white clouds dotted everywhere, the sun shining brightly and the luscious green grass on the ground beneath contrasting it greatly. The scent of freshly cut leaves filled my nostrils as we passed Mr Jason’s house, one of the very few houses near my street. It’s deserted here, and I guess that’s why I love it so much.
I shout “Bye!” and feel a pang of sorrow, the day is over and I won’t be able to see him until tomorrow. I carefully steer my bike down my road and focus on my pedalling, and suddenly realise there is more than one squeak. I quickly look behind me and see him sat on his bike, grasping the handlebars tightly and smiling. His smile is so seductive but slightly cheesy at the same time, and somehow I am deeply attracted to this. “You thought I’d leave you?” He says jokingly whilst speeding up. “Come on!”.
I feel a whoosh of wind pass me as he speeds up dramatically, I try so hard to keep up but my legs begin to ache by the second, “Wait!” I shout, giggling to myself. I close my eyes and embrace the cold air brushing my hair back, a smile forms in the corner of my lips and I take a deep breath.
Opening my eyes again, I look to the right and see him sat on the bench sat opposite my front door, yawning jokingly, as if he had been waiting for centuries. Dropping my bike quickly I run towards him and laugh, “Thank you,” I say gratefully, “I love spending time with you-“ I immediately stop my sentence and freeze, what am I saying? Was that weird? What if he doesn’t think the same? These thoughts race around my head rapidly, almost as quick as he replies, “I love spending time with you more!” giggling and grabbing my hand. We look at each other for a few seconds before beginning our famous handshake which we made years ago. I look at him again as he looks down to grab his bike and he starts to walk away with it.
I sprint up the very few stairs which lead to my front door, running into my house and up the stairs to my balcony. I feel the rush of energy flow through my bones and I press my weight against the glass. Squinting and searching for my best friend, my heart flutters as I see him already starring right at me, his body facing the opposite way. We hold this eye contact until he gets onto his bike and rides down the road towards his house.
I slowly turn around sighing and suddenly jump to see my dad standing right before me. “Hey, Son!” He announces, “Did I scare you?” I giggle and run into his arms, he grasps my tightly.
“Hey, Dad.” I look up to his face and smile. “I had the best day with Ethan today, we climbed the trees by the sea, we rode our bikes around the neighbourhood and even-“
“Woah, wait Connor...” My heart begins to pound and I feel my cheeks burn as boiling blood rushes through them.
“I thought your bike was broken?” I feel a huge sigh of relief and release my tension discretely in my next outbreath.
“Oh, Ethan fixed it!” I explain, “His dad taught him how to fix bike chains.”
“I haven’t seen his father in years,” Dad exclaims. I become confused quickly and wonder why. “We should meet again, have a catch up y’know?” I nod without a doubt and smile like an idiot, the more they see each other, the more me and Ethan will, and Ethan has always been my bestest friend.
I love romance, so I just had to review this, haha. First off, welcome to YWS! I hope you enjoy your time here enough to stay and share more of your writing, because this little chapter is quite nice.
You've used the first person present tense perspective very well here, and I commend you on that because it's quite difficult to do that without some kind of weirdness getting in the way.
The way you conveyed the bright, fun, carefree atmosphere of the first few paragraphs is just A+; your imagery is quite sound. Connor's feelings for Ethan also get across to the reader very well.
The one thing that stands out to me, that could use improvement, is the grammar. The main problem is the many run-on sentences, where commas have been used in place of periods. If you could brush up on your grammar, I'd say you're pretty good to go. Your imagery is quite well done, so it's a shame that it's hindered by grammar mistakes.
If you can, I suggest reading more novels and paying attention to how their sentences are structured. Try to get the hang of the grammar they use, and the flow of it. Reading through your writing, I can see that the images in your head are quite vivid, because the ideas behind the sentences and imagery are just jumping out at me - and that is something, I think, many writers should strive for. However right now, the sentences just aren't quite coherent enough, and readers might get lost trying to figure out what you're trying to say.
Other than reading more novels, I also suggest reading your work aloud. Pay attention to the pauses between your sentences and words, and the flow of your reading. If you'd like someone to proofread or edit for you, I'm open for it! Just shoot me a PM or post on my wall. I'd be happy to point out any errors. As it stands, there are just too many to list here in a normal review, unfortunately. But of course, grammar and spelling is easy to fix.
As far as plot goes, I'm quite invested in it already, haha. It's great that the conflict is subtly alluded to in the end; I assume Connor is worried that his father might not like that he has a crush on another male. Perhaps that isn't the conflict at all and it's a red herring, but either way the ending of this chapter keeps me wanting to read more. It doesn't shove the conflict in my face, which I appreciate.
That's it from me. If anything I said confused you, just tell me and I'll try to explain more. Good luck, and thanks for the great read!
Thank you very much for your review, romance is one of my favourites too!
I understand about the overuse and improperly way I have used commas.I wasn't completely aware of them when I read it to myself multiple times.I'm so grateful you have told me my areas to improve
I'm so glad to hear that you are invested in the plot, there is a lot more which I can't wait to share. I'd love you to read the next chapters and see if I have improved, if you may!
I also wanted to mention I am thrilled that you are assuming different things about why Connor is nervous etc. This is what I wanted the reader to be left with.
In my next chapters I will try really hard to take your advice, thank you!
Thank you so much and I hope you continue to enjoy my writing.
I found this chapter to be pretty enticing. It provides enough mystery to make readers keep reading to find the answers, such as, who are these characters, what is their relationship and so on. Its interesting to see how Connor interacts with his father and his friend and see the parallels. It has its own unique voice, which is impressive to say the least, and makes a good connection to the reader. I feel like this is a relatable story, which draws readers in. I like how you never learn the identities of the characters till the end, which allows readers to imagine themselves in the role. Just be careful to not allow the rest of the book to be quite as vague. You've got the makings of a great book here, keep going! Good job.
I found this chapter to be pretty enticing. It provides enough mystery to make readers keep reading to find the answers, such as, who are these characters, what is their relationship and so on. Its interesting to see how Connor interacts with his father and his friend and see the parallels. It has its own unique voice, which is impressive to say the least, and makes a good connection to the reader. I feel like this is a relatable story, which draws readers in. I like how you never learn the identities of the characters till the end, which allows readers to imagine themselves in the role. Just be careful to not allow the rest of the book to be quite as vague. You've got the makings of a great book here, keep going! Good job.
Thank you for your comments, I really appreciate it! I'm so glad about all of these positive points, and the way you have interpreted it is the way in which I wanted the reader to think
I have a lot more of the plot planned and I can't wait to share it, I will keep in mind to not make it appear vague.
Thank you so much I am very grateful for you to take the time to review my writing
I thought it was good. Confusing at times, but good. I really enjoyed this one, despite romantic stories being not my piece of cake. It felt a bit confusing at times, but it was kinda okay (for me at least). Liked the fact that some of the pieces were written as some-kind of consciousness stream - however, another person might just see it as an excuse for lazy writing. You actually conveyed the emotions felt by the main character really well and I could see this Ethan guy appearing before me. He looks kinda bland right now, the typical generic John Green main guy, too perfect for this world, but that might get fixed in later chapters. Or it might not. Depends on the audience you are aiming for, actually. If you want to get tween girls as your main demographic, make him as bland and beautiful and angsty and sad-eyed as possible, won't hear any complaints from me.
As you can see, there are some minor complaints (as the person below has pointed out) but it was a pretty good beginning of a book. Not my kind of book, mind you, but a book. If you work it out and make something out of the main characters that is actually interesting, then you could have a damn good chick-lit (or tween-lit. Is that even a word) on your hands.
Yes I totally understand what you mean by confusing! Although I've read through it many times I still didn't notice now much, until I saw these amazing reviews. I wanted to make it seem like a consciousness stream but maybe I should reduce this in my next chapter.
I appreciate that you have told me how Ethan appears to you, I am going to improve his description in the next few chapters as I was planning to
There is a lot more of the plot which I can't wait to share!
I'm so grateful that you have spent your time to review my writing, especially because it isn't your piece of cake! Thank you so much, and I hope you enjoy my writing.
Hello,
This is a really sweet little chapter you've got here! You capture Connor's feelings for Ethan amazingly well, so excellent work with the emotion. His nervousness in Ethan's presence and giggly excitement feel so real. At first, I must admit I was assuming Connor to be a girl, since, unfortunately, most stories like this (first love/romance, coming-of-age, etc) are pretty heteronormative. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that was not the case, and I love the way you addressed it: by waiting until the very end and then—quite subtly, quite casually—making it clear they were both boys. Very, very clever.
That also makes this story more original, and thus, more interesting. Representation's so hard to find, it's always refreshing/encouraging to see something with an LGBTQIA lead—and not just a perfunctory LGBTQIA sidekick or background character, if that.
I'm really interested to see what you do with this story; you've set up some curious possibilities. The way Connor is acting jumpy around his dad could mean that he's either A.) shy about having a crush on someone (regardless of the crush's gender), or B.) nervous his dad won't be accepting that his crush is on a boy. The fact that I don't know yet makes me want to read more. In fact, I have a lot of questions I want answered—has Connor come out yet? will Ethan return his feelings? does Ethan even like boys? how will his dad react?—and, if you believe in the "always leave them wanting more" philosophy, that's a good thing.
As for what could use improvement:
Your biggest weakness is probably your overuse—and incorrect usage—of commas. Don't despair, though: This is a common problem. (Common problem. Comma problem. Ha.) It's easily fixable and therefore not the end of the world, and it doesn't make your story bad. But (there's always a but, isn't there?) it does make your story a bit harder to read, and it can annoy, or even confuse, the reader. To show you what I mean, here are a few instances where you improperly use a comma:
These aren't the only instances, though. There's so many that if I tried to point all of them out to you in this one review, I think we'd both go crazy. Hopefully someone else—a better person than me—will have the patience to do so, though, because this story would be a lot more pleasant to read without the constant comma splices. (Though again: it's not a horrible flaw or the end of the world. It's annoying, certainly, but at least it's a very fixable problem.)
Another error I noticed you made a few times is capitalizing the first letter of a pronoun after a line of dialogue. For example:
See how the letter H in "he" is capitalized? It shouldn't be. You never have to capitalize the first letter of a pronoun after dialogue (unless that pronoun is "I").
Here's some other technical mistakes and nitpicks and such (very boring, I know, but they're worth pointing out):
Pick "immediately" or "suddenly"—don't use both.
I reread this eight times and I still have no idea what you're saying.
You switch tenses here. You're writing this in present-tense, but you switch to past with the two bolded words. Be careful with that; present-tense is notoriously hard to write in because it's frustratingly easy to switch to past.
The S in "son" should be lowercase.
"My"?
All right, so besides all that, I think you're off to a nice start here. I'm interested in knowing more about Connor and Ethan, and I want to see where you take their relationship. This story's set up to be a good one. One thing I would suggest is to reread your work and edit, edit, edit—not just once, but several times. That way, a lot of things I mentioned here—tense switches, comma splices, typos—could be cleared up in future installments.
Nice work!
Thank you so much for taking the time to review my writing, it honestly means so much to me! You mentioned in your first paragraph that you expected Connor to be a girl, I am so happy that you assumed this because this is what I wanted the reader to think! I took a lot of thinking about how to tell the reader subtly that Connor was a boy and I'm glad that you thought it was clever
(time well spent- haha)
I really wanted to write this story because I had very strong emotions about people being homophobic and not accepting people for who they truly are, I wanted to raise awareness. I'm very happy to hear you like this idea of the main character being homosexual instead of a commonly
used sidekick or background character.
I defiantly wanted to leave the chapter with the "leaving them wanting more" philosophy! I'm so happy that you had these questions, as I am planning to answer them in the next chapters.
I completely understand when you wrote about the eruse%u2014and incorrect usage%u2014of commas, I have always noticed my sentences to come across this way but I haven't really been told how to improve them. May I just ask, when you included the errors from my piece should the commas instead be full stops or not existent?
I definitely understand the flaws which you have picked up- believe it or not I have re-read this over 10 times and still didn't notice!
I'd thought I'd also mention I have had a problem with tenses before, I always forget for some reason which I tried to avoid during this piece but as you pointed out there were some errors.
I really hope that in my next chapter I can improve all of these fixable flaws, and I will try extremely hard to take your advice.
Thank you so much, I am truly grateful for your time!
You're welcome! It was my pleasure.
I'm so happy you've decided to write this story. It's an important one, I feel, considering the utter lack of representation for LGBTQ people. As I said in my review, you really never see this type of story for gay people, so I think it's great you've taken this on. And yes, the time was very well spent when it came to being subtle about Connor's gender. That reveal was flawless and surprising, and the subtly was perfect.
Anyway, as for the commas, in some instances they should be full stops, some instances nonexistent, and in others, a different punctuation altogether. Of the three examples of incorrect comma usage I gave in my review, the first one should have a semicolon after the word dramatically, and a period after the word second; for the second example, there should be a period after the word back; and in the last example, there should be a period after the word laugh, and a colon after the word freeze. In general, an easy rule to remember when and how to use commas is to imagine how the sentence would be read aloud and look for when the speaker would have to take a pause or catch their breath. You can't include too little commas, or else it won't allow for any pauses or breath catches, but if you include too many and have the sentence be a run-on, that will sound abnormal too.
At its core, a comma's purpose really is just to connect incomplete sentences into full ones, not to replace periods or other punctuation. Don't be afraid to break up a sentence that seems too long, because it's usually a good and necessary thing to do. And also, while I happen to like long sentences, as you can probably tell, sometimes a line is better left to its own sentence for dramatic purposes. Connecting it to another sentence might make the reader speed through it or gloss over it, so when it comes to a particularly telling or important line, don't be afraid to separate it from the rest of a sentence and leave it on its own. It has more impact that way.
If you're confused by any of this, and I wouldn't blame you if you are, don't hesitate to PM me with questions. You can also send me any sentences that are stumping you and you don't know how to punctuate. I'd be happy to help. Honestly, punctuation is sort of my thing. XD
Oh, and also feel free to PM me or post to my wall when the next chapter is posted! I'd love to review it
Thank you so much! I have re-read the sentences that you mentioned and I understand why the commas should be changed. I've began to write my second chapter and I'm trying really hard to improve the comma problem; I'll let you know when I've posted it!
Thank you very much!
Thank you very much for explaining to me when to use commas. Nobody has told me before, not even my English teacher! I hope this will improve my work