Published July 18, 2010
I woke up today feeling the same way I always do. I'm Holly Posner and I'm perfect. I have long blond hair, bright blue eyes and skin that anyone would be jealous of in the Summer. My entire family's exactly the same way. My father, Wayne's the owner of a huge movie production company and that's why we're rich and live in California. My mother, Carrie teaches dance at the local studio, she does it as a hobby because she was a dancer as a child. My brother Brad, my best friend, he's about to graduate from our high school, New Harvest High School. He'll be leaving us in August to go to New York University. Then there's me, I'm a sophomore and I don't have a boyfriend. I don't really do the whole boyfriend thing, there're too many guys to choose from...I'd rather have fun. Don't judge, I'm a virgin and I don't drink or do drugs. I also have perfect grades because my parents passed on some super smart genes. I plan on going to N.Y.U with Brad when I graduate.
Anyway, school's almost over and I'm seriously psyched for Summer. I turn 16 this Summer which means...my license! My birthday's the day after school ends so my present's just sitting in the garage, and my parents're totally acting like it's not a car...why else would it be in the garage?! So right now I'm getting ready for school which's like a total process...make up and everything. Brad drives us and this morning he's acting not like his usual happy self. We're both pretty happy people, so I'm really worried about him.
"Brad, you okay?"
After staring at the street for like 30 seconds he goes "Um, yeah." Not in a convincing, awesome way either. He sounds sick, almost.
"Do you feel sick or something? You look and sound awful."
"Actually yeah, I'll just drop you off and go back home to rest."
"Oh, okay, feel better. I'll bring you your homework and something to eat from the bakery after school."
"Okay, thanks Holly."
He literally just like pushed me out of his car, not okay with me. He's my best friend, I pretty much tell him everything. I wonder what he's not telling me.
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141,381 Literary Works • 674,386 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
Anyway let's get right to it,
Okayy...I feel like we're starting off with entirely too much detail here. For one the personality you're trying to introduce here seems a bit conflicting, on one hand it appears this is someone who's a little bit of egotistical but then there's elements of not being quite that way and it seems like there isn't a clear plan here. Also just referring to things as perfect is in general not the greatest of signs at the start of a story. In addition to that you also need to dilute this detail a lot more and show us some of these things rather than spelling it all out right here.
Okayy...well that second paragraph was a tiny bit better, the details there are just a little more subtle and really you've gotta try and do that for most parts here and this would be better. And finally we get to see something a bit out the ordinary happen and now things are a little interesting here.
Okayy...that was a very contrasting dialogue compared to the actions that happened there. The dialogue sounds just like two good friends, one being concerned for the other due to some unusual signs of sickness but the action of just shoving someone out is a bit extreme, you might want to think on this too, but at least I think this has now made this first chapter do its job well enough that we find ourselves wanting to find out what happens next.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
This chapter is very smushed. There isn't any room. You crammed every detail you could into four paragraphs. It's a bit of an overload. This story has potential, just draw it out a bit more.
I think Rush has potential. Maybe add more details, more ajd, and such, it seems a but bland. Maybe use this as a rough draft and do some revising. I mean the idea sounds like a good but just needs some extra love! Keep revising and editing until perfect. Writer's have a ton of rough drafts before they're satisfyed! Good luck. =)
I can't say this particularly caught my attention. The first paragraph is an info dump, and there's not much going on. Add to the fact that this is a very short chapter. Short chapters can work, but you have very little time to pull the reader and make them care. Also, this is just a personal pet peeve of mine, but the narrator sounds very... ditzy. Not a narration style I really enjoy.
I like how you set up the backstory right away; with some characters it works very nicely. Your first paragraph was pretty informative without getting boring, which is good.
However...after that, your writing seems to get choppier. You sort of began dropping words out of your sentences and making little mistakes in punctuation. Not a big deal, but noticeable.
You start to build up your plot (I think) towards the end of the piece, but to really grab the reader you need to make it a little more interesting. So what if her brother isn't telling her anything? Lots of brothers do that. His actions aren't so off from a typical grumpy older sibling day. But if you add that he's been acting weird lately, or maybe let him have a bit of dialogue where he subtly suggests something's wrong--then a reader will notice.
Maybe add "which was" or something after that comma--that'll make it flow a bit better.
Oh, and about your character being conceited--it can be fun to write from a big head every now and then. However, writing a conceited character can get difficult and irritating for both you and readers. A suggestion--perhaps teach her some humiliation throughout the story, have her fail at something? Now that would be good conflict. Keep writing, PM if you want help.
Hello there and welcome to YWS!
Hope you are enjoying yourself already.
I will have to be honest here, this does not really strike me as a chapter because every bit of information is crammed into one short scene. I really felt that you came up with a lot of ideas, but you did not take your time to develop them, and the characters. What you wrote is rushed, just like the title. This kind of introduction would work if this were a movie. But I think that if you take your time and revise this you can write something pretty good, you know, throw in a little suspense in the story and make the reader want more sentence after sentence; because your writing skills are not that bad, in fact, in terms of things like grammar and spelling errors, you did pretty good job.
Keep writing.
I'm looking forward to seeing more work from you and PM me for any questions
Ziggie