Hey, Jacqueline!
This is a good first chapter you have here. You've successfully introduced each character and given them their own voice and set of personality traits that they all don't sound the same, which is good. c: You've also left enough room for us to wonder who the heck those people are at the end of the chapter and why they're following Gabriella in the first place. To be honest, while reading that part, I started seeing them as the three witches from Hocus Pocus.
But there are some errors in this chapter that need to be addressed. First up is the same as the reviewer below me already mentioned: your dialogue. You've always got to give each character their own line to speak. The only time it's okay to have two or more dialogue in a paragraph is if the same person is speaking, but in your case you fused two or three different characters into one paragraph, which makes it highly confusing for the reader. Also, be careful with all those dialogue tags you're using (dialogue tags are things like she said, he spat, etc.) If you've already indicated that a character is speaking, then there's no need to add a second tag. Here's an example:
"Let her go already," Liam, my mom's boyfriend barked. "She's going to be late if you don't quit with your mushiness." He spat.
See, you already indicated that Liam was talking in the first line of dialogue, so there's no need to use 'he spat' again since we already know he's mad. I'm using this as an example but you've got so many more throughout the story. Don't forget that readers can still infer things without you having to say it. If you keep repeating things, they might become annoyed.
Also, be wary of the type of dialogue tags you use. For example, can humans bark? How does one bark something? I'm assuming you mean he yelled or said it harshly, but why don't you use those words instead?
The last thing I'll say about this is to actually tag your dialogue tags to the dialogue. In the example above, you did a perfect job doing that (ending the dialogue with the comma). But I saw that throughout the rest of the chapter, you failed to do so. Always remember that if you're using tags like 'said' 'mumbled' etc., you'll have to tag those to the dialogue in order for it to be a complete sentence.
Here's a example:
"I like cheese." Bob said.
This is incorrect because 'Bob said' isn't a complete sentence, and therefore can't stand alone. But you still need it there, so what you'd do is change that period to a comma so that 'Bob said' is tagged to it, making it:
"I like cheese," Bob said.
I hope that makes sense. If you need more clarification, let me know.
Another thing I'll mention is the fact you've got four different scenes that could've been fleshed out instead of being so short. For example, that train ride. It literally took them seconds to get to Jamesville. If you intended for the train ride to be longer, either add more action or actually tell us a few hours have passed. Right now, it just seems like she got in and got out in mere minutes.
Here are some other nitpicks:
then Liam gave a hinting cough, and mom got the hint
Here, the repeated word 'hint' is off-putting. You don't really need 'hinting' since readers can already infer that.
" Rebeccah!!”
The space between the quotes and Rebeccah might be a formatting issue, so I won't hound you on that. However, you only need one exclamation point to show that he's yelling (not to mention you even said 'he yelled' soon after). Two exclamation point won't add any special effects, so one does its job just fine.
Other than that, I think you've got a good thing going here. It just needs to be fleshed out a little more and the things I mentioned above can greatly help the readability of this chapter. If you've got any questions or would like me to clarify anything, please let me know. Have a good day/night, and happy writing!
Points: 2775
Reviews: 41
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