Wow, Alexia thought disapprovingly to herself. Three detentions in one day. It turned out she had done all the homework due the next week and completely forgotten today's. Anyway, over-paranoid teachers wouldn’t buy that.
The day was gently creeping towards evening. A steady wind blew across the practically deserted parking lot.
The Misguided Father will freak, thought Alexia drearily as she began making her way down the street. On the main road several cars passed by her occasionally, far from rush hour traffic.
It was not long until darkness seemed to be attempting to overtake her. The distance from school to home was never meant to be taken on foot, she decided.
“I just know he’ll call the cops or something...” she murmured. She stopped and eyed an alleyway branching off the street. Her mother had told her never to use the alleys.
Mum’s not here, she mused. All you have is the Irresponsible Parent, who probably has a Guide to Parenting for Pathetic Losers book hidden under his pillow.
Alexia crossed the road.
OK. Walk straight. Don’t look to the sides, don’t look anyone in the eye. She knew that the alley probably cut the distance she had to walk by at least half. Breaking her own rule, she glanced to both sides as she entered the alley. Slime from some unknown source oozed down parts of the walls. There was a stench of rubbish and decay that hung heavy in the air. As she continued briskly walking through, the dark areas seemed to spread their bleak edges and give the impression of endlessness. Alexia began to doubt if this place was suitable for human presence - and considered doubling back.
Then she heard the voices. Cackling bounced along the walls so at first she couldn’t tell which way they were coming from. She panicked and quickened her pace sharply. But she knew it was too late. She saw a skinhead teenager appear out of the gloom with a grin like a Cheshire cat from hell. She stopped dead and backed away. More laughter began behind her making her swivel her head around. Three more delinquents approached her, all with evil mischief in their eyes. She backed into a cold, wet, slimy wall as they closed in on her.
The leader was bald, save a single strip of dark brown hair going down the middle of his skull. His gaze was piercing and invasive. He had several marks she assumed to be ‘battle scars’ on his unpretty face. In other words, not the kind of guy you bring to granny’s Christmas party.
He walked right up to her face and grinned, revealing horribly crooked and dirty teeth. “Hey sugar. What’s a pretty piece like you doin’ in the back streets? Ain’t it past your bedtime?” The comment was returned by sniggers from the other gang members.
Alexia stood straighter, brushed her hair aside and met his eyes, showing no fear. “Well I was just minding my own business and I found myself here. Maybe you should mind yours.” she said coldly.
The grin turned lopsided. "Well you see, I would... it's just that I've been feeling a little lonely these past few night. Cold, unwanted.." he put on a mock expression of hurt.
Alexia considered him, disgusted. He was the type who only did this for show - to impress his friends and look macho. To hide what was underneath. Weakness.
"That's funny. You look like a pretty big boy to me. I was thinking you could take care of yourself." Said Alexia.
He placed his hand on the wall next to her and leaned forward. "Well you know how it is" he moved close to her ear "it takes two to tango"
She cringed and began searching for a convenient vulnerable spot she could attack. She knew just the target she would aim for.
"So how 'bout it, toots?"
She tried not to breathe through her nose so not to take in his stench. No way was she going to have anything more to do with him! She only had to find a way to escape...
"Uh, Rex...Rex!" One of his goons spoke up. He sounded like a rat with its throat caught.
"What?" said Rex with an irritated tone to his voice.
"It's her. It's her!" His voice was reduced to a squeak. Rex's eyes widened and averted to the dark shadows of the alley. Alexia heard his sharp intake of breath. He stared into the gloom, his face horror-stricken, his breathing intense.
He lifted his hands off the wall next to Alexia and began backing away from her. "Ok, Ok! Look, I've left her! I didn't do anything!" He raised his palms as if to show that they were clean.
Still staring at the space as if someone there was talking to him, he nodded and turned to the rest of his gang. "Let's get outta here." The others gladly followed and soon Alexia heard the echo of their footsteps disappear into the murky tunnel.
Alexia quickly turned her head to the place that had been the centre of their attention such a short while ago. At first glance there was nothing but blackness. Then, as her eyes adjusted, she could make out a faint silhouette of a female body against the deeper black of the alley.
"Hello?" Alexia leaned closer. The silhouette was still. Alexia grasped her books close to her chest and took a deep breath. "Who - who are you?" She felt a distinct shiver of fear.
The shadow slowly moved towards her. Alexia saw an African American girl slightly shorter than herself, with very slim, somewhat withered features. It seemed like incredible beauty could be revealed of only she smiled... and she didn’t look like she made a habit of that. She wore dark pants and a dull t-shirt in a careless way. A shadow haunted her eyes.
"Get out of here." She said in a hoarse, if not, unfriendly voice.
Alexia was thrown off. "Um, hi. I - thank you so much. Whatever you did back there just saved my butt. I want to thank you."
The girl shook her head. "Get away, and don’t come back here. Ever. You might get - hurt."
Alexia frowned, then raised her eyes, concerned. Then, after a moment of thought, reached out her hand. "You look like you need help. I can help you - if you let me."
The girl quickly flinched back into the shadows, alarmed. "No! Leave! Leave now!" She backed away further, then turned and began running.
"Wait!" Alexia hurried after her, clutching her books tightly.
She suddenly came to a clearing at the end of the alley and stopped. Smoke and mist curled down. The street was silent and dark. The girl was nowhere in sight.
Alexia sighed and began to make her way to her own street.
End of chapter
Continue to next chapter The Psychic Circle: Chapter 4Points:
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139,345 Literary Works • 672,539 Reviews
Now on Chapter 3.
I like how the chapters are short and each full of action, that's great to keep readers going. Some reviews:
- Continuity. Every chapter is like a new stage but *what's the word* when I come from chapter two, my mind is still about her running to the school bus and then on chapter 3, starts during detention. The same thing from chapter 1 and 2. A sentence or two can help the reader connect from chapter to chapter.
- Capitalization. It is unnecessary to capitalize unless you are mentioning a characters name. Capitalization like e.g "The Misguided father" "Irresponsible Parent" doesn't help the story and is bad grammatically.
Good work.
Thanks for the feedback! These early chapters were written when I was a lot younger, you'll see improvements after a certain point. This was when I picked it up again about 10 years later, and those basic errors weren't so frequent. If you want, you can review the plot every few chapters, since the nitpicks have been covered by previous reviewers, and will be noted for the rewrite. Do you won't have to review every single chapter. Thanks for jumping on this!
Hello, tis me again!
Ok, someone brought up something I forgot to mention in the previous chapter. You DO use a lot of 'loose' description. I can't remember exactly but an example is when she was describing her room. Try to be a little more detailed.
Same here. Some kind of slime was coating the walls. What colour was it? Did it run down the dirty bricks? Or was it stuck there like a piece of abandoned bubble gum?
Also, careful with the speech tags. I know it was mentioned in a previous chapter but careful to notice the commas and periods:
"I'm going for a walk," she said, slipping her feet into her untied runners.
"I'm going for walk." She frowned when she looked out, noticing the storm clouds gathering. "I'd better bring an umbrella," she muttered.
When they do an action, following their speech, then it's a full stop period.
But when they 'say' their words, then it's a comma, followed by a speech tag.
Make sense?
OK, yeah, back for an edit.
Just wanted to remind you to keep your characters consistent. We all thought Alexia was pretty bad ass... Until she wasn't. I guess you then realise you who *truly* are when confronted to a situation such as this.
That being said, you need to let us know that you're not making your characters wishy-washy; that she is actually upset about what is happening. Have her bite her cheeks in fear, but also upset to realise she isn't the tough girl she thought herself to be. The one who would laugh in the face of danger.
Also... be careful with her Relationship with Ben. I love her thoughts and the nicknames she gives him. But I am a parent. And I'm upset when I read how 'rude' she is in her thoughts. Does she NOT like him at all? I thought their bantering was playful, from the previous chapter. Wasn't it? And how long has he been in their lives?
Because if it's recent, her 'attitude' is understandable. But if it IS recent, why does he insist she call him 'dad'? But if it isn't recent, then what's her issue with him? Is he 'that' bad?
Hope this helped!!
Tanya
Hi Tanya! Thanks again for the review, I'll keep your points in mind when rewriting. With Alexia's relationship with her step father, I wanted it to be misplaced anger. Alexia IS wrong in how she thinks of him and treats him, and only realises later that it's because she misses her Mum. I will definitely layer more hints of that in my next draft. Wishy washy will be the first aspect to go
Hi! Cricket here for a review!
XD Seems that Noelle and Laure got a lot of this, so let me just add some more thoughts and nitpicks to this as well!
Well like Traunt mentioned earlier, it seems that you developed Alexia some more (cool name btw) and I do like that. My only real concern was that I thought it was a bit too fast. There has only been, what? One chapter with her narrating so far, besides this one? At first, her narration seemed to play the part of what I remembered her being. A bit bratty, but still just a little bit scared of the world. Only a little though. I could still tell, that without whatever powers she does have, she might be able to pack a wallup just from her attitude.
But what I mean to say is that, in the second part of this chapter it almost seems like she contradicts herself a bit. When she was talking to the big old fat dude, I was wondering just what exactly was going on inside her head, to make her act in such a way. For one, she wasn't acting as tough as I thought she would. Rather she seemed to just come up with two or three bratty comments and then play it cool. Sure she thought a couple of things that made her SEEM tough, to herself. But I really didn't get the impression that she was acting tough. More like you just said she did this and she did that, and it just seemed a bit flat to me. Was really just letting the other guy have it his way, with his being sexy and all. And that description of that guy was quite visual. Thank you for that. I had him pictured just about perfectly in my head.
Here I'm just a bit confused. Doesn't rush hour happen on the MAIN road? And since she's walking home from school, it would be around three or four in the afternoon, so typically rush hour would be happening. I'm pretty sure I'm not being stupidly stupid about this, but it's up to you whether or not you want to change it. It just seemed rather contradicting to me is all.
I'm thinking "wouldn't" should be "didn't". "Wouldn't" makes it almost seem like it's going to be happening and it hasn't already.
Nope. Not going to work.
I think this is just a typo, but space after ellipsis. You don't seem to have a problem at all with ellipsis, so I really do think this is just an accidental typo.
Alright, so now I'm pretty curious about the African American girl. I don't think we've met her yet! What I'd like to know, is why they all of sudden got so scared and took off, when the leader heard that she there. I'd assume she's no more powerful than the rest, but still... causing a gang of rough tough men to run off, is no small thing! She must be able to pack a serious wallup or something. XD I can't wait to see her in action, and fully revved up! She seems to be a very interesting character, and I was a bit disappointed when you didn't go into her more for this chapter. *sigh* Guess I'll have to go read the next one then!
Keep writing and sorry that this is short! Just looks like everybody else got all the constructive comments.
~Cricket
Thanks for your review! I love how writers can go on for paragraphs then apologise for writing a short review! It's just fine hehe.
Ok, so the African American girl is Nikki from chapter 1... Perhaps I should make that more obvious in some way, because I have gotten mixed responses from reviewers. Some pick up that it might be her, and others aren't so sure.
Hehe, "unpretty" was chosen I believe because of the TLC song that was big at the time when I started writing the early chapters *blush*
OMG, I was reading her description, and her character, and was just... hmmm, is it her or not? XD I figured it wasn't as it just feel right, but yeah. Making it a bit more obvious might be nice.
Hi there! I'm here to start catching up on this story
First off, thoughts should be put in italics. This pops up in the very first sentence. Alexia thinks something, but it's just smooshed in there with the rest of the words. It honestly took me a while to figure out what was her thinking and what wasn't. The italics help us to distinguish between thoughts and the rest of the story.
I feel like there's one too many loose descriptions here. 'Seemed' and 'attempting' are both words that have a less than specific meaning. I think you should add come certainty into this sentence. You can always say, "It was not long until the darkness began to overtake her". That gives us a more definite description as to what is going on at that point and time.
You seem to have a lot of Alexia's thoughts mixed into the story here. This is a time when the italics, like I mentioned before, really come in handy. At this point, it seems like you are switching between first person POV and third person. Of course, that's not what you're doing and I have to keep reminding myself of that. Separating the thoughts from the rest of the story will help immensely in my understanding of the story
You're doing a great job with this novel so far. It's only the third chapter and I feel like I'm really getting to know your characters. However, like Laure said, it seems like Alexia isn't as tough as she was making herself out to be, what with the detentions and calling her father an irresponsible parent. It's an interesting change and it comes very suddenly. I'm torn between suggesting you show this vulnerable side of her earlier and praising you on such a change. I guess I'm just a bit indecisive today xD Needless to say, Alexia is quite an interesting character.
I really like that ending. I couldn't help but laugh when the boy backed off Alexia immediately when he heard that that other girl had come. It was hilarious because the boy was trying to act so macho and sexy, but had to give that up because he was scared. I loved that scene ^_^
Alright, I'm onto the next chapter!
Keep writing!
**Noelle**
Thanks Noelle! You have a good point about putting the thoughts into italics. I think you'll see that I wizened up to that in more recent chapters.
When I reread my work, I do notice that some of the sentences could be stronger. I think that speaks more to my confidence levels as a writer, and I need to work on that. I use those non specific words as a buffer, and I will chop those out first in my rewrite!
Hai! Laure back again! I apologize if I make any mistakes while typing this review. I'm on my tablet. I feel incredibly irresponsible for doing this but I'm going to have to skip past the technical details because it is impossible to quote them on a tablet. If I get the chance, I will come back for another review just on Yechnical parts if you like. Anyways, I'm going to start off with the characters this time.
This is third chapter right, and we've met Nikki and Alexia. Howevet, I'm still not getting enough depth on those two to feel a deep connection to them. I think this is partially due to the fact that you're narrating the chaarcter's feelings and actions to us instead of showing it to us. Take the example when Alexia was in the alleyway, you told us that she began to doubt herself and you told us she started to panic. Instead of telling us these things, you could have used quickened heartbeat, sweaty palms, or perhaps the shadows in the alleyway seemed darker and more hostile? Always consider how you can show it to us instead of showing.
Alexia, on the whole seems to be sort of kickass and carefree teenage punk you might encounter. Though after this chapter,I guess she isn't that kickass after all, not as much as Nikki. Though from what I've gather, she seems to be able to deal with sudden attacks and shocks pretty well. That Latin American girl whom saved Alexia, I assume she is Nikki. If she is, then Inge must have progressed from the last time we've seen her if her reputation has been feared so much. So I hope to see the next chapter in her POV.
This chapter, content wise was alright. I don't see much logic holes around here buy just remember to develop your characters. You've kept me interest so far, which is a pretty good job, so keep writing!
-Laure
Hey! IamTraunt here to review!
Chapter Three, here I come! So let's start off with some things you need to correct:
Corrections
This sentence doesn't quite make sense. You say he is bald and then say he has a piece of hair. Its like when my friends were coming to lunch and we asked them what types of soups they liked. They said all apart from tomato, chicken, mushroom and this and this and this... They contradicted themselves. This part contradicts.
Maybe if you put:
I think you meant 'if'.
Characters
Okay, so you've developed Alexia's character quite a lot in this chapter - from moody teenager to confident, young woman who can stick up for her self. What disappointed me was the fact that you developed Alexia's character, but didn't show the extent of her power.
Also, the African American woman seems like an interesting character. I wanted to keep on reading to find out who she was, which makes you a good writer, and keeps me interested. To be successful you need to leave the reader wanting more, and asking questions. My question is: who is this woman? Does she have powers? If you hadn't put in your summary that Nikki and Alexia meet, I would have been curious about her. (But let's pretend I don't know).
Storyline
Although you kept your plot interesting, you did use the same theme with the man trying to be hard and seduce the girl/female protagonist, it just seemed a bit repetitive. I did like how you made the minor male character afraid of the mystery woman though - it made me extremely curious and wanting more.
Well done! Keep up the good work!