In a relatively small room, there lay a figure crouched on a bed. From above, all the features were hidden behind shock of brilliant red hair, except for a pair of delicate feminine hands that occasionally appeared and disappeared into the curtain mass of hair, busy in skilful work.
The room itself was very homely, filled with colourful, innovative objects that either hung from above, lay on tables or were scattered on the floor. There were unusual but pleasant smells that hung in the room’s atmosphere, adding to the sense of untamed territory. On the visible parts of the floor, hints of soft, fuzzy carpet could be seen. The wardrobe was filled with outgoing, yet trendy items.
“Alexia!” A male voice called from the other end of the house.
The girl jerked her head up quickly when she heard her name. She had smooth distinctive features that made her seem highly aware of her surroundings. She stood swiftly, still holding an unfinished beaded bracelet between her slender fingers.
“Yeah Ben?” she bit her lip and looked around scrutinizing the room for anything amiss.
“Shouldn’t you be in school?”
Alexia let out a breath and rolled her eyes. Footsteps sounded in the hall, approaching her room. “And I continuously ask – no beg you to call me Dad!” A middle aged man with dark brown hair and rigid features appeared at the door. He wore a suit that looked terribly shabby, regardless of what effort was made to smarten up.
Alexia shrugged. “Its not like I have any of your genes.” Thank goodness for that, she added in her head.
“No, no, no, now don’t you start with me young lady. When I married your mother – “
“I know, I know – I wasn’t in the wedding vows.” She said monotonously.
“I wasn’t gonna say that.” He said with a sigh.
She shrugged again. “Something close anyway.”
Ben opened his mouth, raising his hand in an attempt-to-be-authoritative manner. He gave up and dropped his arm to his side. “Look I’d love to argue with you all day long, but I’ve got a job.”
Alexia slapped her forehead dramatically. “I almost forgot! The ‘interior decorating’ thing. Did I mention, you might want to exterior decorate on yourself first?”
“Oh ha ha.” Nonetheless Ben looked down and examining himself. Alexia hopped off her bed and slipped into her favourite clogs. “Do you really think I look that bad?”
She leaned her head back. “Well you probably look, like, much better if you didn’t have your shirt on inside out.”
“It’s inside out? Maybe I shouldn’t wear it at all...” he tugged at his shirt and only succeeded in creating a messier effect.
“My, my, look at the time!” she exclaimed sarcastically.
Ben glanced at his watch. “Oh crap! I mean... drat. I mean, I gotta get out of here! The, um, school bus should be outside....or....something.”
She let out a sigh. “Ben, I’m seventeen. Does that mean anything to you?” He had swivelled around and walked out the door. Oh well. It wasn’t his fault that mum had to go on a month-long business trip. Now he was trying to be fatherly. Yuk. He had enough trouble taking care of himself. Stepdads should be illegal, mused Alexia.
She looked at her watch again then grabbed her book bag. She jogged through the corridor, grabbing a corner and using it to make a brilliant manoeuvre out the door.
“Alexia! Your lunch!”
“Made it!” She began to appreciate her ability to think ahead. She doubted she would touch any food he attempted to prepare.
End of chapter
Continue to next chapter The Psychic Circle: Chapter 3Points:
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139,345 Literary Works • 672,539 Reviews
Oooooooooook. Chapter 2. Really need to get to bed. But really want to read on.
Yeah. So.
Am I the only one who read 'amiss' properly or am I mistaken? Amiss would mean 'out of place', or something to that effect? What I have to Wonder is why she cared at all. She doesn't seem to care what Ben thinks, why bother checking is something was 'amiss'. Unless it pertains to her character? That nothing must ever be 'amiss'? If that is the case, there should be more clues.
Also, ability. Did you mean that as a power? Or just maybe you chose the wrong word? I think I myself have that 'ability'. I like to plan in advance. I'm not sure what to say, actually. Maybe you meant for that chapter to end ambiguously. Maybe you didn't.
Moving on.
Other reviewers have said it before me: this chapter was dull compared to the first. BUT we get to know this character a little better than the previous one, which is great. I liked discovering this Relationship thanks to the (playful?) bantering. Nicely done.
Once again, I don't know if any of this is useful, but I'll keep reading and commenting because I am enjoying this story, so far.
Tanya
Thanks once again! And it's very useful! Hehe, ability wasn't meant to sound like a special power hehe.
I will definitely change the structure of this chapter the next time around. I initially was adding chapter breaks at the points when scenes change, but I realised that it wasn't going to work, and a chapter needs more structure than that. I hope that reflects in my more recent chapters.
Hi! Cricket here for a review!
So I had seen this novel around for a while, and finally decided that I should take it slow and go and review it. XD Since their are three extremely fab reviews on this work already, this might be pretty short. Note: I read the first chapter, so I think I know what's going on so far.
Well for starters, I'm not really sure how I feel about your narration. By comparing the two, I can tell that they're different. But not really enough, for my taste. I'd suggest trying to swap them up a bit, and try to think really hard, on how unique you can make two totally separate characters sound. Just my thought on it.
One way of doing it is having them talk different when their narrating. Such as, more complicated words, or more casual wording (which I noticed you did a lot in this chapter. I liked that). Different characters might narrate in a way, to were your descriptions might sound almost prose-ish while others might have more practical descriptions. Just an idea! XD
Dialogue versus each other, for the two chapters though, speak of two totally different characters and I like that. One thing I've always struggled with is that, so well done!
The one character that I actually found myself liking the most for this chapter, was the dad, admit tingly. Like you specified earlier with some of her thought, I believe (try to show that to the reader, rather than tell in the future) he really is seeming like he wants to be a good father and a friend to her! I'm guessing that, what happened, was that her mother either got divorced and remarried, or her father died and her mother remarried. Either one works out, but some specification will come later I'm sure, as I go forward with this. XD
Just one small dialogue nitpick. For one, when doing a dialogue tag, their is always a comma after the dialogue, not a period. ALWAYS. And that means, that the beginning of the dialogue tag wouldn't be capitalized.
Also, for this line I was a bit confused. What does she mean? Not in the wedding vows? Sorry, if I sound dumb or something, but say what again? XD Either I'm being dumb, or I think this requires a little rephrasing.
OK, and sorry that this is a shorter review, but looks like your other reviewers got it covered! Overall, a well done chapter, and I can't wait to read the next one!
Keep writing!
~Cricket
Thank you for your review! I appreciate every bit of feedback, and go ahead and take your time! I understand that it can get overwhelming looking at a whole list of chapters and wondering where to start hehe.
Hope you enjoy the rest of the story when you get time.
Thank you for pointing out the narrating voices, I will work on how they can evolve to fit my characters. At some point I will need to work on the character development for all of them, and discover each of their distinct voices as I do.
So you like the Dad? That's awesome, I will develop him a lot more than I initially planned and see where it goes. But you are right about him, he has the best of intentions with her, and as you read on, you'll see how this doesn't always get appreciated hehe.
About dialogue tags, I have always had this odd itchy feeling where I was uncertain about full stop or comma, and when and where they are placed. Like I knew something must be wrong but didn't know how to fix it. Thanks to you I now know the rule! I will have to actually go through the entire work and correct this, as incorrect dialogue tags have been a habit of mine for the longest time. Don't know why I didn't research it earlier hehe.
Ok well, the line "Not in the wedding vows" is up for the chop lol. That was part of the chapters I wrote over 10 years ago... I think what I had in mind was that she is feeling like a third wheel in her mother's relationship with her step father. I will definitely try and find a more succinct way to express that.
Thank you Therese! No review is too short or too long
Hai, Laure here again for a review! I'm going to start off with the general impression first. So I assume this is probably another psychic in this setting? So, in comparison with the last chapter. I suppose, this was not so interesting however it still seems pretty interesting. I'm going to mix content and technical together and then another summary.
Technical & content:
'there lay a figure crouched on a bed' -> You have conflicting language here. Lay implies that she was lying there, and crouched means she's crouching. So, she's lay-crouching? ._. I have no idea what that is.
'behind shock of brilliant red hair' shock of brilliant red hair isn't exactly accurate here? Shock? What do you mean by that? Is the hair a shocking brilliant red or what is it? Try and be as accurate with your descriptions as possible. Also, try and show us what her hair looks like the same with the action above, tell us what position she's in and I believe you can probably describe the clothing while you're at it as well.
Just a question, why would there be something missing in her room?
The wording is a bit off here, footsteps sounded in the hall? I know you mean that Alexia can her Ben's footstep coming down the hall. Perhaps try, 'footsteps echoed down the hall' or something similar?
Alright, that's most of the technical things so now I've like to move onto discussing this chapter in a bit more depth. So in the last chapter, we have a glimpse into Nikki's life and you displayed a power that was foreign to what we have in modern society. But what I'm curious in here is, except for the ending. It was basically what we would expect from a teenage girl, so the character was a bit cliche. Also, one question I want to raise is her relationship with her dad. It seems to have once again, two conflicting elements.
In here, it seems like both Alexia and her dad is really tired of each other and they don't like each other at all.
Yet several sentences down, this almost seems like a humorous if not sarcastic conversation between a daughter and a father who's in the relationship of a friend-enemy. Sometimes nice, sometimes not so nice to each other. And judging from Alexia's dad's reaction, if he listens to his daughter then he must value her opinions to some degree. I just found this really conflicting with your earlier dialogue because it portrays two different relationships.
Well, overall. I did enjoy this chapter so please keep writing, I'd love to see where this story progresses. Just remember to develop your characters, show don't tell and all those things.
-Laure
Hi there!
I read the first chapter of this, but I didn't post a review because there were already enough quality reviews. I didn't want to end up repeating what everyone else said. And now I'm back to read the next chapter!
Okay, so this seems to have absolutely nothing to do with the first chapter. That's actually a good thing, in my eyes at least. You're stepping back from one character in order to introduce us to another character. I like it when novels do this because it's like I get to see two sides of the same story. And I think it's a great way to introduce characters. We really get to see a lot of them this way then just seeing a bit of them when they, say, randomly run into another character or something like that.
So, we've got Alexia here. I have to say, compared to Nikki, Alexia is rather dull. But only because she doesn't have those cool powers (or at least none that we know of yet). In her own sense though, she's a good character. We learn a lot about her home life and her relationship with her father just from a small banter between the two. I always think it's amazing how you can learn so much from a character just by putting them through a situation; any situation. The way people react to certain things reveals a lot about their character.
I find this image to be a bit...weird? When I read this I imagine a large clump of red hair with two hands poking out. A very interesting image to say the least xD I'm not sure if that's what you were going for so I figured I'd let you know how that comes across.
I'm going to refrain from mentioning anything about the plot and really getting into character development until the next chapter. Or maybe the chapter after that. There really isn't much that I can say about this since it's only the second chapter. And I don't want to comment on any of that stuff until I get a bigger picture.
Let me know when you post the next chapter! I'll be happy to read it
Keep writing!
**Noelle**
Hey! IamTraunt here to review!
Sorry if this review is not of the best standard - I'm feel so great.
Corrections
Depending on where you live in the world, this may be correct or incorrect. If your American, then this is incorrect. I would recommend using "skillful", but that's my opinion.
It should be "Yuck", but "Yuk" seems okay to use also.
Characters
Okay, so here in this chapter a new character is introduced. Alexia, who is a stereotypical teenage girl. Her actions that are expressed is typically what a teenager would do. The way her bedroom is messy and things are flung about her room makes me automatically think of a teenager. So, well done for that! Now, Ben seems like a pretty decent guy. He's trying his best, but as many readers know, having someone replace your father is a hard thing to deal with. Alexia obviously feels resentful over her mother's new founded affections for Ben. You put that across well.
Storyline
So, you set the scene that Alexia is lazing about on her bed, not in a rush to get to school, *Typical Teenager*. Ben, being Alexia's stepfather, is trying to do the right thing and thinking about Alexia's education. You make the story seem so lifelike and then BAM! You say at the end:
You change Alexia from typical teen to superpowered girl! Wow
Well done! Keep up the good work!