Aria kept her head down as she drifted through her school corridors and let her thick and waist long black hair swings into her eyes. She wasn't comfortable around people, and she never was considering the fact both school kids and she did not belong today. Arias mind was way ahead of theirs, easily understand and instantly memorizing anything she saw, while they were idiots who didn't compare to her smarts. She loved mechanics, and knew how to figure things out better then anyone else, especially those damned valedictorians. She raced her fingers through her thick hair and then lurched forward,slamming into the floor. She blinked, looking up as the horde of jocks started laughing at her.She turned her face away, snarling nasty things under her breath as she raced to her next class. She didn't write notes, so void of the backpack she was even more of an outcast. Yet still,people didn't dare mess with her directly. One look in her different colored eyes and they shot off running.
Yes, her eyes were not only different colors each, but there was a range in her iris. Her left was the oddest almost reddish yellow, with spots of green,blue, and even black in there. Yet, her right eyes was a whole mass of brown,purple, and white-blue colors all mixed in rings over one another. People were terrified, calling her a mutated freak who knew nothing about being normal. She really didnt but did she want to? Then she'd be like them, stupid and mistreating those who didn't deserve it. She just wanted school to be over already, as in she was already only 14 and practically a senior but really what did it matter? She was smart, but she was also easily angered and frustrated.
The teachers would never call on her because she didn't even look up when her answer slipped through the air. The teenage students would answer after her with a rude comment and a snicker. Most of the time, Aria would just look up with those eyes and smile a feline smirk that exposed the very slightly sharper teeth that were almost like canine teeth. Though, when someone actually asked an honest question, not one made to mock her despite the answer, she was completely unprepared for the question. The answer would be snapped,fast and like the person who had asked was an imbecile for not seeing it in the first place.
Yet there was still a period in the day that Aria never really understood. Literature .She was not in the advanced class, and though she write essays fine they were all summaries. Aria could not persuade people to read onto the book, and could only summarize the entire thing .Her teachers could not fathom why exactly there was no life in such an imaginative girl. Well, people expected her to be imaginative but Aria depended on numbers, and didn't get lost in books like other teenagers did. Everything else was easy for her except Literature and no one could understand why.
Aria worked her way through the day, forever bored because it was all just stupid review from like 5th grade. She normally just drew on her arm with her sharpie, making intricate and sci-fi designs on her arm, wrist and hand. They were normal, and she felt like they should be permanently etched into her skin. She didn't belong in this stupid place...
Of course, walking home was no picnic, considering the fact she was barely 50 feet from the school. Teenagers,children in her opinion, enjoyed driving. Which meant she was almost being run over on her way home,everyday.Nope, not a single day off from trying to be murdered. She didn't come out of her room, and it was killing her mother which she didn't care a single bit about.
Her mother and her clashed often, mostly for the fact Aria did not care what she did to her mother's gentle emotions.They were not her own and thus she had no care for how weak her mother was, how the woman did nothing to help her and didn't understand her on a number of level. They didn't even look alike! Her mother was a soft featured, curvy bodied woman with plain brown eyes and thin mousy hair. She was short and completely annoying for the fact she cried often and didn't stay strong. It annoyed Aria immensly and she would very much rather stay in her room then go out and try to converse with the teenager who grew up too fast.
Aria most often went into her room and worked on her wall to wall chalkboards, on problems that would make her mothers head explode in pain while Alice just stared at them. She wrote everything down just for the fact to keep track. She mostly just stared at the blank green board and worked out the problems in her head. she blinked up at a knock on the door and drifted over to it with her weird and almost inhuman grace. She opened it a crack and stared in shock at her 'mother' standing in front of her."Go away"Aria simply said, going to slam the door in her face. However, that woman dare step right into her room! She looked at Aria and shivered at the sight of her eyes."Why? Why won't you talk to me? What did I ever do to you?Her mother had simply cried out, tears immediately streaming down her pale cheeks.
Aria bared her teeth and went to shove her out,but the woman made a shrill sound that was a scream. Aria blinked,falling down and clutching her head. This time she was begging her to stop, and slowly the woman calmed down. Aria lurched back from her touch,scrambling up and racing past her. She bolted into the woods, breathing hard as she shook and walked through the clean smelling nature. She was almost comfortable here, where she could be all alone and just let her mind wander. There was a pull towards these places, though she didn't really know what it meant. Aria normally just ignored the feeling and let it drift away. It wasn't always there ,only at sporadic times that she didn't bother to write down.
Instead, as the sun set in front of her eyes, she waited for the moon to come up. She would even sleep out here on some nights, rainy or clear. Yet, tonight she was lucky and had gotton a clear night that was warm and beautiful. The rock that lay beneath her back was basically flat and not at all uncomfortable. Aria smiled at the sky, relaxing into the pull in the middle of her chest.
It was easy to see every constellation there was. Aria, on the other hand, had never been into astronomy. Yet, somehow she could feel the constellation connections and see them in her mind. She smiled,watching it and enjoying the way the afterlight of her eyes connected with the stars .It wasn't natural but it was beautiful...lulling her into a state of euphoria that felt insane and somehow relaxing.
Then she screamed
Aria scrambled away from the huge...thing resting on the ground on a raised platform, breathing hard as she lurched toward the woods. Yet, another part of her yelled at her to stay, to see the thing that felt like it should be natural there! STAY PUT!
Shackles, on the other hand,slammed out of the platform and locked around her ankles. The chain attached to the metal encircling her ankles,getting tighter the more she struggled, started to drag her towards the dim lit craft in the center of the field she had been just a few feet from before. She wasn't short ,and was almost 6 feet tall with long limbs and slim,sleek features that was somehow unscathed as she struggled and bit her lip against the heat in her bones. Aria shrieked, turning and sitting up as she was dragged along the dirt. People stepped out from the dim light on the craft, looking at her with...
eyes like her own. Only, much more exotic colors. There was sleek red , pure white, grey, blue, green, orange, yellow, brown...oh god, such beautiful colors! She smiled,leaning up and staring at them with a stupid grin on her face.
Do you think she is one of us, Barren?
Of course not Karma, she has to be an imposter. not one of the first
Barren must have said it, and must have been the one in the middle who lifted a gun to her head.The model though...it wasnt crude like a human-model, and it wasn't going to shoot bullets.That she could tell immediately but when he went to pull the trigger she threw up her hands.
However, the beam didnt penetrate her body like clearly meant to.The...pulsating energy hit the outside of a swirling and colored shield that surrounded her by a circumfrence of about 5 feet. The beauty of it was like her eyes, all the same colors as her left and right iris. She blinekd in surprise, breathing hard as she stared up at the siloutted figures.
Oh! She is a shield holder! I haven't seen one of them in ages! Do you think she is special?
I would guess so, she blocked the new models...and look at the colors...very...deep. She must have ancient blood
Oh, I have not seen one in a millenia!
Let us take her! No one shall realize!
Oh, she is a young one, but also old
She has no tattoos...at least not permanently
She needs them...shall we take her?
Barren?
Aria was overwhelmed by the quiet yet amplified voices, and she clutched her head and whined quietly. The one,barren who was probably the leader, shushed them.
Dear one, those who can shield us all with the colors and powers in your eyes...what is your name?
Aria stumbled over pronouncing her name,breathing hard as the shield slowly faded away.
ah..the name of a very powerful Ancient. Welcome, the Dawn Makers...as you would put it...
There was laughter in the air as Barren walked towards her.
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Canary word: Present
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,857 Reviews
Hiya ka67! Here to review
Keep writing!
So firstly, nitpicks in the spoiler:
Spoiler
Try something like: pure white, grey, blue, green, orange, yellow, and brown.
Now, onto the review, so the plot at times didn't really make much sense. Like when Aria was talking to her mother then all of a sudden vanishes into the woods? Won't her mother try and go after her or what? I think that bit needs to be explained in more detail because it's kind of confusing. I think other than that, your plot is very intriguing and raises a lot of questions which, as a reader, makes me want to read on.
So far, you've got one character who has been properly explained (which is fine) and you have described her really well. However I have a couple of concerns with her, so firstly, the whole 'weird, isolated girl' thing is kind of cliched. I totally get that people can be like this in real life but I have seen lots of these sorts of characters in various different stories be them books of films and I think you just need to put your own twist on it so she isn't too similar to the others. Secondly, I think it needs to be cleared up why she runs to the forest; is there so sort of force guiding her to it? Does she go there a lot? Why didn't her mother say anything about this? I just think it needs to be cleared up a bit to make it easier to understand.
Lastly, try no show and not tell. A lot of the sentences seem to consist of 'Aria was this' and 'Aria did that.' Try and show that she is an outsider rather than just saying it. This could be shown through dialogue or more specific descriptions than just stating the facts of this. I also noticed a lot of your sentences are quite long and involve a lot of commas. Try using different punctuation or perhaps a connective to link things together rather than just breaking different parts of a sentence by commas.
I hope this review helped, please PM me with Part 2
-Arc
Thanks for the review! I wouldn't mind another after I revise this one, and thanks for the quotes! It helps a lot with editing stuff and I'll be sure to revise as many sentences as I can. I even thought of an idea to make her seem a little less...well, not necessarily smart but maybe a little more of an outcast...well, if you really wanna see read it again. haha, well, thanks for the help!
Okay, so, let's do this.
First of all, I understand that you want to paint the character as an outsider, and this is obviously a necessary part of the kind of story you want to tell (social outcast finds she is immensely powerful) but you could probably draw out the beginning more, to develop the kind of outcast she is. I think I suffer from the same problem as you, where you want to get straight into the cool stuff (aliens for you, giant lizard for me) so you kind of rush the beginning. That's cool in a draft, but now you need to go back and really develop the character - take your time with it. The more work you put in at first will make that moment when the Dawn Makers much more of a payoff for the reader. What exactly should you do? Maybe try writing a bit more about the relationship with the mother, instead of just saying she came in screaming. Also maybe give the character a bit more weakness than you do. She's obviously very smart, but maybe give her something (other than social interaction) that she finds difficult. Basically it's just all about making her relatable to people who aren't super geniuses.
I like how you allude to things, particularly through the dialogue between the Dawn Makers, without explaining them fully. This is good, and shows that you're willing to take your time rather than just throwing things at the reader as fast as you can. Take this approach in character development too.
Couple of spelling mistakes but nothing that a quick edit won't fix. Also you (mistakenly, I assume) refer to the main character as Alice at one point? Maybe you had it like that at first but forgot to go through and change all of them. I don't know.
Overall this is quite promising. It's a familiar tale - young awkward teenager finds that she really does belong somewhere else - but there's so many different directions you could take it in to make it fresh and exciting. I'd be keen to see what happens next.
So yeah, keep writing and good luck.
Oh did I rush! Hehe,the idea just popped into my head and I didn't want to forget anything so I kind of rushed then got to tired to revise it. Thanks for that, and I'll be sure to edit in some ways that Aria is relatable.
Alice is the main character I use in most of roleplays I do in other sights, so...I probably got to comfortable at some point and just lost myself.
Thanks ;D I think I might start describe life in the next part,maybe make it into chapters!
Thanks for the review!!