Published January 27, 2008
Chapter One: Zac.
Last day of school at last! Finally this school year can come to an end and summer time can come and over take my teenage mind! I thought while pulling my jean shorts over my tense legs. I would finally be able to let myself go without school work in the back of my mind. I look forward to friends, guys, bikinis, and the Jersey Shore for this summer.
“Carrie lets go already!” My mom yelled from the bottom of the dark wooden stairs.
“Calm yourself, will ya?” I shot back with a slight grin that she would have killed me for if she had seen it.
“I don’t like that tone. You better leave that attitude in that room of yours!” she growled.
I silently giggled to myself while grabbing my cellphone and blue iPod Video off my white dresser that had many nail polish stains. Sneaking through the hallway, down the stairs, and eventually reaching the kitchen where my mother stood cleaning the dishes, not knowing I was in the room.
“Boo!” I screeched.
My mom jumped, flinging the wet, soapy sponge onto the kitchen table.
“Carrie!” shouted my mom as I ran out the door and hopped into the passengers’ seat of my mom’s Honda Pilot.
She shortly followed with an upset facial expression that I knew I was going to have to deal with. Along with her long ass lectures she always gave about growing up blah blah blah! She opened the door and gave me a death stare. She always made her stares burn my skin so that it was impossible not to look at her. So of course I always end up asking her what she wants.
“Carrie, you’re going to have to grow up sometime. You can’t be a kid forever. You’re going to have to get over the fact that guys can be more than just friends and it’s time to grow up. You can’t think that boys still have cooties. Do you think that? If you do, hunny tell me and I can help you through your boy problems and boy advice. I was quite an attractive girl when I was younger. I had many boyfriends, which I was somewhat known for, you know? Age caught up with me I guess,” she chuckled to herself.
“Right nice one mom. Well before you go on and on should I get a pen to right this all down or can I ignore you like I usually do?” I said smartly while she dug through her purse searching for her keys.
“Carrie…” she warned
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry but why do you want me to have a boyfriend? Most mom’s would rather their daughters not date,” I stated.
“It’s part of being a teenager! If you don’t have a boyfriend you won’t know how it feels or be able to relate to others when they talk about their boyfriends or boy troubles. Plus, you never know, you could end up dating your future husband,” she sighed as we drove down Main Street.
“And who would you be referring to?” I stared blankly at my mother as we were now pulling up to the front of my high school.
“What about…. Zac. You know Carrie he is so cute! How could you not like him after all you have been through together?” she said reaching over to touch my hand.
Zac is my best friend and has been since we were born. We even have those sappy baby pictures together that everyone says ‘aw’ over. Our moms’ are best friends, from high school. I love Zac, but only as a best friend, nothing more.
“Then you date him!” I stormed out of the car slamming the door behind me.
I never really cared for having a boyfriend. I have heard about the heartbreaks, the pain, and the pressure. It all leaves you with a broken heart. I haven’t had a boyfriend since… what was it… sixth grade? Yeah… around then. He was one of the hottest guys in school. Anyways, skipping over all the mushy-gushy stuff that girls like to think is sweet, he ended up cheating on me because I wasn’t ready to kiss him. After all the tears and pain I went through trying to get over him, I realized in seventh grade boys aren’t worth the heartbreak.
I arrived at my locker two minutes before the bell would ring for first period. No one was in the halls and I had missed homeroom. Whatever. With no books in hand I walked casually into my American History class.
I sat through American History, Math, Spanish, Latin, Chemistry, Photography, and English. During that time I made small talk with the other students’ about plans for the summer. Everyone had vacations or beach houses’. I felt a little left out but hey, not everyone has that type of money. I received a text message from Zac towards the end of 8th period telling me to meet him outside after the bell rang.
I watched the big hand make its way slowly to the six. Thirty more seconds.
Ring! Ring! The bells rang and the halls became filled with shouting students running out the front doors
I walked out the front doors seeing Laney and Zac waiting by the flag pole. Laney was talking to him but I could tell he was looking for me instead of listening to her. A smile spread across his face when our eyes met. I could already tell that it would be a crazy summer from his mysterious smile.
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141,270 Literary Works • 674,332 Reviews
Hello!
RandomTalks here with a short review!
First Impressions:
This was a very good start to the story! I liked how perfectly it set up the groundwork for a bigger narrative, with the ending hinting at a greater adventure that is awaiting our narrator. The themes of the story are rather vague at the moment and the good thing about that is that it can go anywhere in the future and take us completely by surprise!
I think if there is one thing you have clearly established in this piece is our narrator's aversion to growing up. I think that is something a lot of people can connect to and I am very interested in seeing how it comes to be resolved throughout the story. The conversation between the narrator and her mother suggested that this aversion of hers is also coloring her interactions with other boys (mainly, boys) as she is not taking them seriously. It does make me wonder about her friendship with Zac whom she considers her best friend as he is also a boy and the ending was rather suggestive of there being something more in their friendship, especially from his side.
Also, you have a bit of a tense situation in the story where you sometimes switch from the past to the present, like in the quoted paragraph. Make sure to stick with one tense as frequent changes disrupt the flow of the narration and end up confusing the readers.
Constructive Criticism:
While your protagonist is rather relatable in her brazen ways and no-nonsense attitude, I was not able to connect with her as well as I think I could have, mostly because of the narration The narrator comes off as someone who is quite content with being who she is and living as she wants to. She does not want to get tangled in unnecessary complications and the scene where she startles her mother gives her character this childish innocence which would work wonderfully well in the context of your story. However, her innocent behaviors and actions face a distinct contradiction in her narration and her thought process and ways of speaking. She may at childishly but her ways of thinking and speaking are typical of a teenager's and even a little snobbish at times.
I think if you had included more interactions, perhaps with Zac, it would have helped us to better understand her character. Most of what we know about the narrator is through the conversation with her mother and it becomes a little difficult to take both of their words to heart because we really aren't that familiar with the characters.
Positive Encouragement:
I thought that the story ended a little abruptly which made me wonder if the entire point of this was to hook the readers onto the story and the characters. If so, it worked really well because I am already excited to find out what happens next and if the adventure hinted at the end of the chapter really lives up to its promise.
Overall, this story has a lot of potential If you clean up the narration a little and decide on the voice you want to portray your character with, this would turn into a really exciting novel!
That's all!
Keep writing and have a great day!
You're off to a good start. I picked out a few errors though.
The structure is a little choppy. Might I suggest: I look forward to friends, guys, bikinis, and the Jersey Shore for this summer.
This should really be one sentence.
Run on sentence. Place some commas in and maybe even break it up into two sentences.
Earlier on, you wrote that Carrie couldn't wait for boys over the summer. Why does she not want a boyfriend here?
"High school" does not need to be capitalized unless it is a specific high school, like Jefferson High School.
That sounds awkward, it should be telling me.
The first sentence has the wrong word at the beginning, should 'I' be changed to 'A?' Also, a quick question pertaining to the second sentence: How can Carrie tell that it's going to be a crazy summer from just a smile. Was it a scary smile or a crazy one that made her think like that?
Other than those few mistakes, it's a really good story so far. The title seems a little strange though. I personally feel that "My Best Friend Zac" wouldn't depict the story well enough. Maybe try something more creative? Can't wait for the next one!