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From Landoo
I got it! You lIkE DyLAN
Kenna glanced down at the message, ever since he had pressured her into telling him that she liked someone he'd been spamming her phone with guy's names. She sighed down at the message, a part of her wanted him to understand that she liked him, the other part, of course, wanted to just protect their relationship and just continue being his sidekick.
To Landoo
nOPE
From Landoo
Lies.
WHO iS IT thEN?
To Landoo
Someone in our grade. ;)
From Landoo
I got that already. ;-;
jUST tELL mE sO I cAN hURT tHEM iF thEY EVER HURT mY BeSTFREEEND.
"Best friend" That word hurt Kenna to unbelievable measures. Why couldn't she just be more like what Landan wanted? Ombre hair with green eyes. Instead, she was stuck with mangly blonde hair and freakish orangeish eyes. Nothing the wonderful Landon Carter would want. No, Landon wanted perfect -- and that came easily to other girls. To him, she probably looked like an albino, demented cat with her eyes.
She stared down at the message again, faintly feeling the pain in her stomach she had become accustomed to. Rejection. Something she was used to with Landon. Yes, she'd never tried anything, but he would have. Nothing ever happened. They'd shared simple friendly kisses, and sometimes Kenna liked to imagine those kisses as romantic ones, like the ones she'd never had.
To Landoo
yEAH nO
What are you doing tonight, wanna hang out?
From Landoo
bLAH
I'm going out with Elina, I told you yesterday, remember?
To Landoo
Right, I forgot.
Elina Jackson. Her and Landon had been on and off for a few years, in between their breakups he would date other willing girls.
Not that it mattered, though, even if he was single, he would want her. Kenna thought bitterly.
Kenna knew she shouldn't have been so self-centered, usually, Kenna put up with Landon's Girls all the time. She just didn't like Elina. It was nothing cliche, and it was nothing abusive -- she simply didn't like Kenna, and Kenna didn't like her. Of course, Elina may have waved her fake nails, and batted her fake eyelashes in Kenna's face and threatened to make sure that if Kenna ruined Elina and Landon, their eleven-year friendship would be ruined. It was nothing big, and it had only happened about six times in the whole year, it wasn't that bad. Kenna rathered to stay away from Elina.
Landon didn't know about these few incidents, no way. If he ever found out there was no telling how it would go. He could either believe his measly friend, or his perfect girlfriend. Kenna figured he would choose the latter.
Glancing down at the light her phone illuminated, Kenna sighed. She liked him so much, to the point where she may love him. Why couldn't he see? He hadn't texted back, probably with Elina.
Elina was appealing to the eye, sure, but she was ugly on the inside. Landon didn't seem to understand. Though, with her, when they were talking about Elina, he would always chat about how when he showed her his dog, or his photos, or his chest of old trinkets, how her face lit up like a bulb. He talked about how he adored her, and how they couldn't understand why they broke up the last time. Of course, that was always right before they broke up, and he was spotted making out with another girl in a public place.
"Kenna, honey! Dinner's done!" Kenna's mother's, Barbra, voice rang throughout the house.
Placing her phone back in her back pocket, she left her bed and yelled back down, hoping her mother could hear her from down the stairs, "Coming!"
Kenna hopped down the smoothed wooden stairs, to be greeted by the warm air and the wonderful smell. Glancing at the table, she saw her father reading the news, and her brother, Kennedy, doing something on his phone. Kenna rolled her eyes and plopped down.
"Kennedy! Off the phone! I'm going to take it!" Kenna's mother scolded, while bringing the forks to the table. Sitting down herself, "Kenna it's your turn to say the prayers." Her mother nodded in her direction.
Kenna glanced around the table and smiled weakly. Kenna wasn't a Christian, but nobody knew. She didn't dare say anything about it. It wasn't a ig deal, she just didn't like to start an uproar.
Grabbing hands with her mother, and Kennedy, she pursed her lips and started. "God, thank you for this food and day, amen"
A chorus of Amen's also followed, but soon to be drowned out by the sound of family chatter and plates clanking around. It was Kenna's and Kennedy's job to take the clear the table today, and they did so, with an add of their usual bickering.
Skipping up the stairs with her normal cheerfulness, she plopped down in her dark room's bed. Bringing out her phone, she froze when she saw many messages from him.
From Landoo
Ken
From Landoo
Ken
From Landoo
Ken
From Landoo
Ken
From Lando
KeN
From Landoo
KEN
From Landoo
KenNA
From Landoo
BaBE
Kenna rolled her eyes and typed across the screen,
To Landoo
SuP?
Glancing to his other message she looked at her social media. Nothing interesting had happened and she let her arms fall to the other sides of the bed as she looked up remembering the fun times she'd had with Landon.
Feeling her body pressed up to someone she been cuddling with she turned over and smiled. "Landon." She smiled, saying groggily and poked his nose, still in his grasp.
"Morning Babe," He replied, rubbing a hand over his face. His morning voice sounded better than hers.
She simply watched him. His hands never left her waist, tough his head left it spot. His head now laid on her breasts, simply enjoying the feeling of the warmth. They did this often, cuddle together, and often they even laid in bed the whole day, jut talking and sharing a few kisses.
She'd missed that, but now, Elina wasn't having it. Awaken from her flashback, she glanced down at her phone that had just beeped she read the message.
From Landoo
Elina's mad at me, I can't go home. I told my parents I was leaving the house to go to Elina's and she's making me leave. Please let me come over.
To Landoo
Of course, babe.
From Landoo
Love you.
Kenna could have sworn her heart stopped this moment, she couldn't breathe. They said love you all the time, and everytime this happened.
To Landoo
Love you too ;)
And with that the door rang to her house. Knowing her family knew it was Landon they let him in, and he ventured his way up to Kenna's room.
Kenna turned to him and smiled at his presence. "Hey," She said to him and looked up.
"Hey to you," He smiled and leaned down to kiss her soft lips as he hugged her.
Kenna almost jumped with joy, it took everything in her to control her blush.
They soon began to lay after he had changed, and Kenna found herself wishing that maybe things would change.
Points:
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,856 Reviews
Hi there!
Thanks for giving me something to review! Seriously. I mean, how else am I going to spend my time stuck in my house because of 4+ feet of snow?? Also, welcome to the site!! Alright, Noelle enough pleasantries. Get to the review.
So there's quite a bit of a text conversation here. The way it's formatted is a bit chunky and takes up more space than it has to. An easy way to format a text conversation, or any kind of chat conversation on technology, is to treat it like dialogue. I'm not talking about quotation marks or anything, just the way you'd let us know who's talking in dialogue. Let's take this part of the conversation for example:
First off, the 'to' and 'from' is also in italics so it looks like it could be part of the conversation. Be careful with things like that.
So, a different way this conversation could be written is like this:
Now not only is there a clear idea of who's saying what, but there's also room for Kenna to react and share her thoughts/feelings with us. The text conversation suffenly becomes much more intimate than just words.
Play around with the formatting. I haven't seen very many texting conversations in books I've read (probably because I very rarely read books that aren't fantasy...) but this is one of the formats that has stuck with me. Sometimes the texts are even put in bold instead of italics. It's all up to you as the author. These are just my suggestions.
So at the beginning here, Kenna is texting Landon. However, the name that she has for him in her phone is Landoo. Nicknames are awesome and I really like the intimacy, as friends of course, they have in their relationship. When I saw the 'he' here though, I assumed that guys name was actually Landoo. Wrong, Noelle. If there's going to be a nickname for a character it's important to have their real name used in all other places. Using Landon's name here at the beginning instead of 'he' would definitely clear things up later when he's referred to as Landon. Otherwise we might get confused.
Another thing I want to mention about the text conversation, something I kind of touched on when I was talking about the format. I really liked seeing Keena's reaction to the text she first received from Landon. It added an extra layer to the conversation. That might be something worth trying for the rest of the conversation. There wouldn't be a reaction to every single message of course, but if there's some feeling that Kenna would feel based on what her best friend says it would be nice to see. That's a sure fine way to start up your character development. Plus we'll get to learn more about these two friends.
Whoa. Friendly kisses? Girl, this story needs to be told! xD But seriously, I feel like that's a bit too general. Exactly what/where were these friendly kisses? Maybe think about expanding on that thought of hers?
Just a quick grammar fix there.
Another quick grammar fix. Girls doesn't need to be capitalized because it's not a proper noun. Sure, Kenna is using it to describe the girls Landon goes out with, but that doesn't make it an official title.
So, I have to admit I'm a bit confused about Kenna and Landon's relationship. Maybe it'll clear itself up in later chapters, but I want to focus on it for a second. Throughout the chapter, Kenna made it sound like she'd been crushing on her best friend for the longest time and he wasn't giving her anything back. Then that memory pops up where they were cuddling together. It seemed more romantic than friendly to me. Then he comes over and kisses her on the lips? All the signs are pointing to him having romantic feelings toward her. If that's true though, she wouldn't be hurting so bad because he wasn't loving her back. There's a lot of bouncing around and it's hard to follow.
This is a good introduction to our character. Nothing really happened in this chapter, but that's fine. Sometimes you just need to spend time focusing on and developing characters. We know a lot about Kenna and Landon just from these little conversations they have. It'll be interesting to see their relationship build over the course of the novel.
Let me know when you post the next chapter! I'll be happy to read more
Keep writing!
**Noelle**
It's a complicated relationship that you described, but you did it well. I would have liked to see more of an exposition, such as how they know each other, or maybe even how old they are, to help set the scene. But, with it being such a short piece, I'm not sure how you could effectively incorporate this.
I understand why you might have butchered the capitalization in the texts, but I, personally, don't believe it's worth adding to the story. There are better ways to imitate young people's text talk.
But, I like what you've got and would want to know how this ends!
This was excellent and I was hooked from the first text conversation. The relationship between Landon and Kenna was enviable and something that I think a lot of people crave. They are close and he is not afraid to show his affection towards her and vice versa. Kenna feels very natural feelings of jealousy and wishing fore more that I also think a lot of people can relate to.
There were very nice introductions to a few parts of Kenna's life. Her family, her slight insecurity, her hiding the fact that she is not Christian, Landon's girlfriend, etc. I thought those were very well introduced.
I believe that you could expand on your imagery and scenery. Maybe describe her bedroom, the stairs, Landon's eyes as he looks down at her, his arms as they wrapped around her, etc. Expanding on these small things will make your writing even more creative than it already is.
Amazing beginning, I hope to see more! Keep writing!