Warning: This work has been rated 18+ for language.
CHAPTER 1
It fucking hurt. Looking at her hurt. But for some reason in my reckless mind I kept doing it anyway. Because me, being me thought staring more would make the pain less well…urm painful. But believe me. It didn’t.
Of course, then she gave me that sympathetic smile girls always give guys who are totally out of there league and sometimes species.
The bell rings, as it always does at the end of another tiring school day. Mr Dawson carried on uttering while everyone hurried out of the classroom door. And sometimes, I felt sorry for that poor man. Minimal wage and no respect.
I grabbed up my books, shoved them in my rucksack and blend in with the crowd. As I always did. Because compared to everyone else in this reincarnation of hell, I was no one.
It then started to rain. Heavily actually. But, as my lazy excuse of a father was at work and my mother isn’t stable enough to drive, I have to wait for the bus.
Me and Pickles, nicknamed Pickles because he had a resemblance to the Rugrats character Tommy Pickles with hardly any hair and if any, it was very blonde almost invisible and he had a slight overbite. His real name is Anders, but no one calls him that anymore.
The bus is as crowded as usual, people everywhere.I just sit down and plug my headphones in while Pickles goes on about how high and wasted he’s going to get tonight, when he’s really going to be in his mother’s basement listening to old 80s records and reading Snappers magazine.
My stop comes round very slowly, it feels like hours and I then start walking to the shithole that is my house.
My Dad is probably in bed, with yet another cup of cold tea next to his almost lifeless body under the linen covers.
I open our oak front door, walk up the stairs and surprise surprise. I am completely right. He’s there, once again. Moping around.
And then there’s my sister. My older sister whos little Miss perfect. Perfect levels and perfect attitude. He trashy music is playing out of her room.
I knock on her door and she opens it.
“Can you turn your shitty top 50 music off please?” I say.
She groans, like a typical 17 year old girl. She’s such a whore.
This is another reason why women and the female gender screw with my mind.
And this is now the point where I lock myself into my room for the remainder of the night, apart from to get food.
My favourite band blasted from the vintage record player I bought from the charity shop round the corner.
The New flares, the single greatest band in the world. Who actually know the pain of love, without actually being in love. They originate from the 2000 era and have called it quits now but every time I hear a song, I feel alive.
It also happens to be Bonnie’s favourite band, according to her Facebook page anyway. Unlike me, she is the opposite of invisible. Everyone who’s anyone knew her, so that included every living cell in school. Even the ones under the toilet seats in the nauseating school lavatories.
My cruddy room with piles of dirty clothes in each corner was the only place I ever felt myself. Even though according to my councillor I was still “finding myself” whatever that’s supposed to mean.
After all I was only 16, I completely understand that I might not know my whole future but at least I know what I want do.
(which is a bass player if I haven’t said). Playing Bass makes me feel alive. I can feel by heart beat every time I play and it just makes me feel fulfilled.
Its about 6:30 when I get a knock on my bedroom door. Its my sister Madeline,(Maddi for short). Asking if I want some pasta for dinner. I declined, without any hesitation. Anything she tries to cook me is most probably poisonous. I don’t know how she’s going to handle America on her own.
I grab my phone and keys and decide to get out of this house before I start going insane. I go to see my mother, to see how she’s doing today.
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125,011 Literary Works • 672,841 Reviews
Hi, findingme. Welcome to YWS! I'm Pan, and I'll be boiling up a review for you today.
I'll make it quick, because I have a tendency to write reams and reams, and summarise my commentary into three points.
1) This is a pretty good start. Your writing style doesn't feel convoluted or rambling - you're great at injecting personality into the narrator, showing us what kind of character he is. My only hope is that it was a stylistic choice to make the protagonist unpleasant, because he seems an entitled arse to me. He struck me as very pretentious when he slammed his sister's music taste like that, and him calling her a whore was just horrible. If you want the reader to warm to your protag, you're going to need to make some changes, but if you want us to dislike him, great job.
2) As LordZeus said, watch out for overly lengthy sentences and missing commas - read your work out loud if you already don't, as that should help you weed out some problems with rhythm and such-like.
3) Watch out for tenses. You jump about between present and past tense a bit in this chapter, mainly starting with the latter and then shifting to the former. For instance, you say that 'the bell rings' then, a line later, that 'Mr Dawson carried on uttering' - this doesn't match up. Make a decision as to which one you want to use or you'll just confuse your reader.
Hope I helped! This is a fairly solid start, it just needs a bit of extra work to really bring out the quality. I didn't feel bored reading it, in any case, and that is the most you can ask from an opening chapter, so be proud.
Keep writing!
~Pan
Hi it's Zeus here to review! I have to say, this is a nice story. I can totally relate to at least the first part (about the girl) except I get more of a sneer instead of a sympathetic smile... Anyway, there were a few errors here and there, you missed out a lot of commas, and you made a few grammar mistakes. Make that quite a few grammar mistakes.Oh and some of your sentences are quite long, which makes them harder to read. For example, 'The bus is as crowded as usual, people everywhere and I just sit down and plug my headphones in while Pickles goes on about how high and wasted he’s going to get tonight, when he’s really going to be in his mother’s basement listening to old 80s records and reading Snappers magazine.' Is way too long a sentence and would be better read as 'The bus is as crowded as usual,with people everywhere. I just sit down and plug my headphones in while Pickles goes on about how high and wasted he’s going to get tonight, when I know he’s really going to be in his mother’s basement listening to old 80s records and reading Snappers magazine.' I added a couple other edits in the sentence to make it read better, but you get the gist. There were other sentences that could've done with being divided too. Oh and I didn't get the part about his sister. First he tells her to turn her shifty top 50 music off, then he politely declined her offer to make dinner for him. He was rude to her, then polite? I don't get it. Perhaps the fact that his sister offered to make him dinner at all is more weird. Anyway, cool story. Keep writing!
Thank you for all the advice and help! Just what I joined this palce for. I shall take you up on this advice.