Published February 21, 2013
So again, I'm bored in Chemistry and I decided to start a new story. I really hope you enjoy it.! Let me know what you think.
I looked out across the bay towards the two identical towers. Each reflecting off eachother in the morning sunlight, It was 8 o'clock in the morning and tourists have already flooded the statue, taking pictures and climbing the stairs to watch the city through her crown. I've been here since midnight working the night shift. Needless to say, I was ready to leave.
"Hey, Bob," I shouted
"I''m clocking out."
"Alright, thanks, Lizzie." he echoed.
I walked out towards the dock to get to the mainland of NYC. It was a perfect day outside and I thought I'd go for a walk around the city. When the boat docked I leaped onto the sand and started towards the glistening city.
As I walked down whitehall I turned toward wall street. glancing at the business men and women carryig dark expensive briefcases and chatting on their phones with stone hard expressions. An unusual breeze crept passed me creating goosebumps on my exposed skin. Starting towards park place and chambers I was in the midst of the two grandest buildings in all of New York. People coming in and out, walking with a quickened pace at each step, as if they'd never reach their destination on time.
The time now was about 8:40, getting a little hungry, I stopped at a street vendor for something to eat. I grabbed a muffin and some coffee and sat down at one of the benches. As I was eating a deafening roar erupted in my ears, and when I glanced up a plane had hit the north tower.
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140,530 Literary Works • 673,402 Reviews
Heya! I'm here to review. I'll type the original sentence and then any corrections under it.
Each reflecting off eachother in the morning sunlight, It was 8 o'clock in the morning and tourists have already flooded the statue, taking pictures and climbing the stairs to watch the city through her crown.
Each reflecting off each other. The tourists had.
"I''m clocking out."
"Alright, thanks, Lizzie." he echoed.
I'm. Alright, thanks Lizzie.
glancing at the business men and women carryig dark expensive briefcases and chatting on their phones with stone hard expressions.
Glancing at the business men and women carrying.
That's a clever way to end the chapter! I hope you keep writing.
Howdy!
I'm going to review this for you!
Each other is two words not one.
There needs to be a full stop after 'shouted'. Although you could probably used a more imaginative word. Shouted is quite simple.
It's better to write out 'New York City' when writing a novel. Especially when it's your first time writing it out.
Whitehall and Wall both need capital letters.
This is not a sentence.
Other than that, this is pretty good! Keep going!
It looks like you have a good premise here. Please allow me to point out some small errors.
We have a bit of a sentence-flow problem here. Try reading this section aloud; no doubt you'll see what I mean.
This sentence is in the present tense while the rest of the piece is in past. It's easily fixed by changing "I've" to "I'd".
While this dialog is just fine, it could stand a little personal touch. Are Bob and Lizzie friends, friendly rivals, or even in a relationship? Too, in the last sentence you can replace the first period with a comma.
Please, don't make us take Lizzie's word for it! Describe the day- the temperature, the sky, whether she can smell food from street vendors' stalls. Maybe even have her engage passerby in conversation.
Don't forget to capitalize proper nouns- in this case, Whitehall and Wall Street.
Again, tell us what they're like! Maybe Lizzie sees the World Trade Center everyday, but to folks like me it's only familiar from photographs and TV news.
Once more we have a sentence-flow problem, in this case a run-on sentence. Just go ahead and replace that first comma with a full stop or a semi-colon.
Again, you have a solid premise here. Expand on it a little and you'll have a solid first chapter.
Stori
This was a very short first chapter.
The writing itself was quite good on a technical level. As far as I can see, you have a firm grasp on the rules of grammar and you don't seem to fall for confusing homophones, which is always good. The best thing a writer can do is to know how to write technically.
However, the style I find to be a bit... Lacking.
I'm sorry if that sounds harsh. I don't mean for it to. It's just that I read 19/20 lines of a story without any emotional response whatsoever. I just didn't care. I even started skimming the passages as I got towards the end.
That's not to say that you have a bad piece of writing here. You don't. It's just that you've fallen into leaving the drama, or the actually interesting part of the story, until the last second.
Granted, this is part of a longer story, assuming you post the other chapters, so it may strike you that including intensity in the first chapter might seem counter productive. We're taught that drama comes in the middle, aren't we? The beginning is for a slow warm up introduction, right? Not necessarily. Writing stories is an industry, and the way you write is a commodity. It may sound vulgar to discuss a passion of yours that way, but it's true.
We're told not to judge a book by its cover, and that's a given. Instead, we're advised (or at least my grade in primary school was) to read the blurb and the first page. That's what you judge a book by. When we do so, we're not necessarily focusing on the quality of the writing. We're anticipating an emotional response. You need to make the reader care about your characters right off the bat. At a mere 20 lines (one of which, the line "I'm clocking out" would read better were it on the same line as the rest of what that character is saying so it follows a logical order), this is your first page. And it doesn't shimmer and shine.
Think back to your favourite books. Perhaps pull one down from the shelf. How many of them capture you on the first page? Many of them use tactical first sentences. I'm a huge advocate for a perfect first sentence. You want something that makes this sort of stuff, the everyday stuff, worth reading to get to the climax.
I think this whole piece could be made so much better if you start off with a point of interest. A line as simple as "I was there when the Twin Towers fell" could be enough to redeem it. Think about it. While you've employed a tact of building up to a cliffhanger at the end, it doesn't really work. You don't really build. You take the reader by surprise, but not in a good way. You make the trudge through things that don't really matter, just to get to one line (actually, half a sentence) that does.
You've wasted 19 (what should be 18) lines. You've given yourself no guarantee that the reader will even make it that far.
There's definitely room for improvement, but I have faith that you'll be able to make this story sing. Your obvious flair for description puts you at an advantage.
All the best.