Young Writers Society

Hey there, friend! Once again, I am back to leave a quick review on one of your lovely works, this time with your short story! Let's get into my review for Chapter 1!

Emily slouched in her seat in the back of the almost empty classroom. The weight of her earlier decisions sitting heavily on her shoulders. The clock ticked on seemingly louder and slower than usual. "Why did I do this?" Emily thought. "Now I'm stuck here until 4:30 on a Friday afternoon." She heard her classmates laughing with each other in the hallway, about to leave school for the weekend. Emily sighed.

I love how you mental the physical aspects of how Emily responds to emotional trials. This is a great way to begin your novel and chapter. Right from the start, we are introduced to Emily and begin to get to know a bit more about what is going on in. her head. We are introduced to this school setting. I wonder what she is regretting doing... and why is she stuck until 4:30? Maybe she got detention for something or is working on a project? I assume this is in a high school.

From the next section, yes, we see that Emily is in fact here at school for detention. It seems like this is perhaps a religious school because she is given a bible. Ah, okay. So Emily skipped class and is not being made to write the same bible verse over and over as a punishment. It is even worse because when she got caught she acted in a disrespectful way. I wonder why Emily skipped class? Was she just alone (hence being the only one in detention) or was someone else there with her too?

Wow, the teacher isn't too nice back to her when he sees how little she wrote and now she must write a paper. It ends with her walking home, finally able to relax. This was a very short chapter, but I think it was a great beginning to the story.

Overall, lovely work! I will re reading part two right after this

Your friend,
Ellie

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

First Impression: Well this is a rather simple start here. Certainly your standard untimely detention scenario but we've get enough little intriguing details to keep us hooked and that last paragraph definitely leaves you with quite a lot to think about.

Anyway let's get right to it,

Emily slouched in her seat in the back of the almost empty classroom. The weight of her earlier decisions sitting heavily on her shoulders. The clock ticked on seemingly louder and slower than usual. "Why did I do this?" Emily thought. "Now I'm stuck here until 4:30 on a Friday afternoon." She heard her classmates laughing with each other in the hallway, about to leave school for the weekend. Emily sighed.

Mr. Henderson, Emily's strict math teacher walked slowly into the gloomy detention room. "I see you're the only one in detention today," he stated. Emily groaned and rolled her eyes. "Yep. Obviously," her voice laced with sarcasm. Mr. Henderson ignored her remark and handed Emily a sheet of paper, a pencil, and a Bible.

Hmm well this is quite the little start here. Immediately establishes exactly what it is that's causing the main bit of pain point for our character and showcases exactly how powerful of a feeling it happens to be. Quite nicely done I think there. It definitely comes together really quite well here as we get through this person's emotions and the way the teacher is dealing with this. Now we really must see what she did in the first place to get here.

"You are here for an hour and a half. Use this time to think about the gravity of your actions. As Mr. Henderson handed Emily the sheet of paper, a pencil, and a Bible, he pointed to a specific passage and instructed, "You will copy this passage from the Book of Proverbs until your detention is over."

Emily glanced down at the open Bible and read the passage Mr. Henderson had indicated:

Proverbs 3:11-12 - "My child, don’t reject the Lord’s discipline, and don’t be upset when he corrects you. For the Lord corrects those he loves, just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights."

Hmm seems like an innocent enough punishment at the very least. It seems we are just going through the motions on a normal detention, just one that happens to be timed in a way that poor Emily has to miss out on the start of a weekend by quite a bit of time.

Emily rolled her eyes again, sighed, and nodded. She began the task of copying the verse word for word. The only sounds in the detention room were the scratching of her pencil and the occasional sigh. Emily began to get lost in her thoughts. She reflected on her earlier actions. "Why did I skip class?" Emily thought. "And then to make matters worse, I was disrespectful when I got caught."

By the time the bell rang, signaling the end of detention, Emily had only copied the passage 20 times. Mr. Henderson was expecting more. "This is all you have?" Mr. Henderson said. "Yep. sorry," Emily said, avoiding eye-contact. "This is unacceptable. Clearly you wasted time," said Mr. Henderson. "I expect you to write the passage again over the weekend. 100 times. No mistakes. Bring it on Monday or there will be consequences."

Emily walked out of the detention room without saying a word. She thought to herself "Mr. Henderson stinks. I worked hard on those lines. There's no way I'm writing it over this weekend and he can't make me!"

She walked home, the autumn sun beginning to set. Emily breathed in and out thinking "Finally I can relax.

Hmm well this definitely is a little bit of an ominous ending. It looks like Emily did try as much as she could there even if maybe she got a little bit reflective in the middle of it. Which, well you'd think that's what you want in a detention, to reflect on those mistakes. Definitely a bit of a harsh punishment there towards the end and I feel like her plan there to ignore it over the weekend here is about to certainly lead to some strong consequences.

Aaaaand that's it for this one.

Overall: Overall, its a solid little piece. As far as a chapter one goes, I think it achieves what it sets out to achieve and achieves it rather admirably as well. Emily is already quite an interesting character that naturally we want to know more about and root for and the teacher also certainly seems an important figure. The little cliffhanger at the end is nicely done too. Its a pretty complete package.

As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.

Stay Safe
Kate