The whole world had stopped turning once those words had come out of his mouth. Going back about 46 seconds, she replayed it in her mind. Then again in slow motion. Did she really hear what she thought she just heard? Then he repeated it and she had to go through the whole process again.
Okay, let’s travel back in time to the beginning of the day. Evey was randomly jumping around her apartment, on the third floor of her apartment building, when the phone rang. Singing along with Miami by Taking Back Sunday, the brunette walked over to where it lay on the wooden coffee table sitting in front of her fluorescent orange couch. Still dancing, she answered in a sing song voice, “Hello?”
“Hey, Evey.” A pause, like he was trying to figure something out. “Were you trying on your old Halloween costumes and dancing again?”
“Nooooooo. I’m too old for that.”
“Apparently you weren’t too old for it two weeks ago when I walked in on you dancing in that cat costume of yours.” Without even seeing him Evey knew that his signature smirk was in place. Just as a blush crept up her neck, she said, “Like I said, I’m too old for that now.” He just agreed, knowing he had already proven his point. “Anyways….do you want to have lunch with me today?”
“Is Laura going to be there?” Evey’s hazel eyes glared at the phone suspiciously. It didn’t matter that no one was actually, physically on the receiving end of it. “No, she’s not going to be there. Just you and me.” Evey immediately perked up. “Okay then. Where am I meeting you?” She heard a sigh emitted from the person on the end of the phone line, knowing he was about to ask the question that he did every time she subconsciously pointed out that she didn’t like his fiancé. “Evey, will you please tell me why you don’t like her? We’ve been avoiding this subject since I first asked Laura out.” The young woman acted like she hadn’t heard and just continued to ramble on.
“So, I was thinking maybe we could go to that new restaurant that just opened down the street. It seems like it would be a really nice place to eat. Everyone says the food is good. What do you think?”
On the other end, Tristan forced himself to smile and put up a cheery front. “Sure, that sounds good.”
“Meet at the usual time?” Evey knew that something was bothering him, but couldn’t bring herself to ask about it. It would just bring up unwanted arguments and things that she did not want to reveal. “Yeah, that sounds good.” That’s all the two said before they hung up.
Tristan sat down, trying to figure out a question that had been on his mind for quite some time now. For the life of him, Tristan couldn’t figure out why Evey didn’t like Laura. Everyone else had fallen in love with Laura the first moment that they met her. Why couldn’t Evey?
After hanging up, Evey sat down on her brightly colored sofa. Laura. As soon as that name popped into her head, jealousy took over. Laura this, Laura that. That’s all Tristan ever talked about. Well, now that she thought about it, they were engaged. But still. Tristan was her best friend. And unfortunately, she had fallen into the cliché category and fallen in love with her best friend. With that last thought, she laid back non too gracefully onto the couch, waiting a few minutes before going to get ready.
About an hour and 35 minutes later, Evey was ready to walk out her door and down to the restaurant. What she wasn’t ready for was the confrontation with Tristan. She knew he would try and bring up her dislike for Laura at least once, maybe more in the conversation. Yet she still walked out the door, only to find a certain someone leaning against the wall opposite her door. A smile quickly broke free of her pent up emotions at the sight of Tristan.
At 6’3, he was about average height, but a bit more than average build. He spent pretty much every waking moment that he was not at work at the gym. But somehow, he still managed to find time for her and for, well, she wasn’t going to take her thoughts there. His shaggy black hair fell right about his eyes, cut in a modern style. It was cut a little shorter on the sides, accentuating his more prominent jaw line. His eyes, charcoal in color, were easily emphasized by the gray t-shirt he wore. It was highlighted so much that Evey could barely make out the gold flecks scattered throughout them. Evelyn almost drooled at the sight of him, but caught herself when the smirk appeared on his face followed by a snide comment.
“Evey, how many times have I told you not to gawk at my body? I mean, you would have thought that after six years, you would have learned by now.” Easily concealing the blush making its way to her cheeks, she started walking down her hallway. “And after all these years, you should know that I have to gawk at.”
Tristan reeled back dramatically, placing a hand over his heart, exaggerating her comment. “Evey, my dear, you wound me.” She smiled. “Actually, Tristan, I wound your ego.”
“Fine then.” He repeated the whole charade over again, this time saying, “Evey, my dear, you wound my ego.” Evey just rolled her eyes, the laughter showing in them. “Okay Drama Queen, let’s go.” They had made it to the elevator that would take them down to the first floor. Once they had stepped in, Evey moved to one side and Tristan to the other. He looked over her, observing the now familiar features.
Standing a little more than a foot shorter than him, Evey was around 5’2. Her medium length brunette hair fell to about mid shoulder, straight at the roots before turning wavy and then starting to curl at the ends. Her natural blonde highlights, caused by the sun, were contrasted against her dark hair. He moved down to her eyes. Hazel. Her long eyelashes framed the green inside of the black outlining, followed by the burnt orange expanding from the pupil in a disoriented ring. Light freckles were randomly scattered along her cheeks, her lips a light pink color. She had a bit of an athletic build, but not one that showed she worked out as often as he did.
Evey had noticed the minute his eyes started to travel, observing her. A blush immediately decided to surface, but was gone almost as soon as it came, leaving her skin pale just as before. “Like what you see?”
Tristan’s head snapped up at her comment, a light blush covering his own cheeks. Evey was surprised. In all of the six years she had known him, she had never seen him blush. She hid the laughter that was bubbling up inside of her. He didn’t get a chance to answer as the door to the elevator opened and they were on their way again.
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,857 Reviews
Man, I've done this a billion times, but here we go again. Sela is moi, and I'm not going to be heaping compliments on your head or apologizing for my opinion. If that's not cool, just don't read my review.
The people above have caught all the nitpicks, and even scratched at the surface of my one big peeve.
It's a really - really - really - really cliche story.
Most of the other critiquers think that you're clever for putting this in:
I don't.
Wow. Didn't see that one coming. Sorry, Miz Groundhog, but these days, even pointing out that it's cliche isn't gonna cut it. The best-friend-in-love thing is even more cliche than the girl-vampire-falls-for-human-boy thing these days, and it doesn't even begin to interest me. I know, I'm not the only one that counts, but really, this bugs the blueberries out of me. It's so boring! It's so expected! And the worst part is - for me, anyway - that I know you can do a lot better than another one of these 'boy and girl best friend' stories. So why not? Why can't you write about some weird supernatural being that likes to stow away in airplanes and stalk people with bad luck? Why can't you imagine up a world where everyone walks on their heads, or where the favorite thing for dinner is pig liver? I've seen people who like these stories, and I've no clue why, because the problem with them is, they're all the same! Either the guy breaks up with his girlfriend/fiance and the finally admits to the MC that he loves her, too, or like, one of them dies a violent death and it ends with the still-alive one crying and committing vague suicide in a dark attic somewhere.
To reiterate? Boring!
Maybe you have a friend who's a guy, and since you're afraid to tell him you like him, you write about it. Or maybe it just seems like a really fun idea, to do exactly what everyone else is doing, to write the same story over and over and over again. But to me, it's more scary than anything else. Okay, okay, we've seen this! We've read this a billion times over! Get imaginations, get some creativity into those guy-obsessed brains all you teenage girls seem to have! And not just because I like reading stories a lot more when there are talking teddy bears and magic blankets in them, but because I think you guys'd enjoy writing those fantastic ones better. What's the fun to typing up the exact same characters, the exact same, boring, senseless dialogue as all those other stories have? I don't see it, and I can't imagine how you manage to.
There's me, then. My rant on boring stories, resurrected. Or something. I hope I made some sense, and I also hope I stumble upon something a bit more original of yours in the near future. Like I said, you can do so much better.
Peace.
-SELA
wow, this is really good.
I would say that it has the danger of turning into a very obvious romcom and if that is what you're going for than you've hit it but you might want to add a bit more of a quirky nature, just something to make it less reliable in it's field. As they do in all of the films they have a really straight forward love with a twist that one's married of dead, a way to avoid this by giving an urban feeling to the writing, coffee shops, clubs, less average friends etc... something to give it a down to earth feeling, i liked how you added her dancing and by adding a specific song (I like taking back sunday) it just gives it this feeling that you can relate with the characters flaws, it makes them human and not celebrity.
You also need to add in a little more description into their relationship, yes she likes him but is it a crush or proper love? Was that the first time he'd looked at her and really noticed that she was attractive or not? Do they joke around a lot or do they have a deeper relationship, if she was upset would she call him to talk it through and vise versa? You just need to describe a little more while keeping the story flowing smoothly but you can add that into the next chapter.
Speaking about the next chapter please pm me because i want to read more of this.
I'm not sure anyone else covered this:
When you have dialogue, each time someone speaks, it gets it's own line,
i.e.,
It makes it much easier to read and understand when dialogue is placed like that.
But on another note, I liked the relationship between Tristan and Evey. They're funny, and very relateable.
I liked this. I think most of the things I wanted to point out have already been mentioned. It would be interesting to read more of this. It is very cliched so it would be interesting to read more and see if you keep it cliched or add something to it to change it. Also, what did he say to her?! Suspense is great, but what would have been better would be to have him say this thing, then end it there, leaving us wondering what would happen next. This suspense is rather annoying though
Still, very good
-Roo
Hello!
Is this a first part to a longer continuing story, or is this it? It would help me as a reviewer if I knew this.
First off, 46 should be forty-six.
Secondly, through out the story I was expecting to find out what exactly he had said that had shocked her, but I never found that out. So you can of ended the story, keeping your reader dangling in uncomfortable fashion. It's ok to hook the reader, but not in way that is annoying. We must get our answers, sometime or the other!
That sounds a little psycho. how about you say she was dancing. 'Randomly jumping around' reminds me of my two year old brother. It's perfectly normal to be dancing. Sure, I do that when I'm alone. however I wouldn't say it's normal to be randomly jumping around. Unless Evey really is a little loopy, which I gather she isn't.
Aaah! Generally, description is good. Very good. But too much of it is annoying. Personally, I think you should tone down the descriptive details here a bit. show it to us more gradually, than dump the info on us.
yup.
'Not', perhaps?
thirty-five.
Oh and might I add here, I love that you didn't jump into describing her getting ready. I find a lot of people ramble on about their heroine applying mascara and the type. So, yea, kudos for that!
I don't understand this at all.
Perhaps take the 'at' out. Or maybe add a 'you' at the and. I don't know what Evey's trying to say here.
Maybe it's just me, but I didn't like that last bit. Tristan isn't behaving much like man who thinks he's in love with another woman. I don't know, I just think it seem very unnatural that he would blush.
Maybe this is the situation where he does actually really like Evey, but doesn't know; even then, he wouldn't blush, because he doesn't know he likes her, and wouldn't be feeling embarrassed or the like. and if he does know he likes her, then why is he engaged to Laura?
On the whole a lovely story! You're characters are gripping. You're dialogue is wonderful! Writing style, you could work on. On the whole, I enjoyed reading this.
Keep writing!
-Zehra
Hello GroundHog!!!
Don't worry you don't have to review to make a post there.
Welcome to YWS!!!
Some things:
-For every post you must do two reviews. That's YWS 2:1 ratio.
-Make a post in the Welcome Forum to be explained all the other rules.
Okay, onto your story:
Nitpicks!!!
Every time a new person speaks start a new paragraph. So you would start the new paragraph with the "Without even seeing him..." part. I won't go over all of the parts so just reread the story to catch those. ^_^
Take out physically or actually. You don't need both.
Right after this you are changing the point of view so skip a line and do those three stars. Like this:
***
Do that star thing here too.
Nice one! You made it different even though it was cliche. Good job! ^_^
A confusing part. Perhaps add 'you" at the end of the sentence?
I'm not sure who is saying this. Starting a new paragraph every time someone new talks will help.
That's all the nitpicks!!!
Now for:
- Hmm, you have good descriptions, yet you info dump most of it.
- You mostly tell not show. An ex: Her hair was long and brown. (Telling) Showing would be: Her long, luxurious brown hair swayed from side to side.
- When you explain how Evey and Tristan look you info-dump it on us. You just write a paragraph describing how they look, and it's boring.
- Try to incorporate that in the story.
- Try to add more imagery to Evey. She is not quite there yet. Add more emotion. Make her a real person!
- We got a good look at Tristan's personality,, but you could flesh it out more.
- Evey, we don't quite know her personality yet. Please explain it, without info dumps.
- I thought it was quite interesting, mistakes aside.
- The idea is cliched and I like how you mentioned it in the story. But how are you going to make it un-cliched? Sorry, that probably isn't even a word. ^_^
- Just fix it up (the grammer, paragraphs, etc.) and it will be grand!
Hope this helps! Feel free to PM me if you have any questions regarding YWS or my review. ^_^
~Storm