Young Writers Society

Hi! I'm Mira, and I'm here to review your work.
I also checked your profile, and it says that you are from South Africa. American English is slightly different from South African English, so if I mention things that you know are correct in South African English, I apologize.

I'll go a few sentences at a time.

There was once a man , who had nothing . He lived on the streets because he had no place to stay . This man was named Ben, Ben would wake up in the cold morning just to beg at the robots .

It was the first day of school for Ntando and Thando who were twins , they were now proceeding to matric . They were very excited that they were finally the seniors of the school . Their mother was a doctor so she was not usually there all the time . The twins lived with their maid but they didn't treat her as a maid but as a friend .

Hey ^_^ Zoom here for a review.

I’ll be brief and point out what needs improvement first, then end with some positives.

Improvement points:

1) Please avoid publishing bold text. It’s normally standard to bold an author’s note, but not the entire story. It doesn’t look good and hinders the reading experience.

2) There’s a bit of a punctuation problem, most notably the way you put a space before all punctuation marks. You don’t need a space before commas, periods, question marks etc. If you’re ever in doubt you can always open a book and use it to reference how punctuation works. Nobody expects you to be an expert but just following the basic rules would make a massive improvement.

3) So most people have heard of the “show don’t tell” rule. If you haven’t or would like to brush up on it, there’s a few good YouTube videos available (Shaelin Writes is one of the best sources on YT). But the point is, you’re “telling” almost exclusively the entire way through. People like to experience stories rather than have everything told outright to them. Imagine the difference between watching a movie for yourself compared to having your friend simply summarise the plot to you in two minutes.

4) Building on point 3), think about the best place to start a story. Instead of slamming the reader with heaps of backstory and then transitioning into “a regular day at school”, start a little closer to when things start spicing up. Most people give up reading a story on the first page, sometimes the first paragraph. So what is more likely to hook a reader? Ben’s gambling problem, or this intense car accident and the plot twist where the driver knows the victim?

Positive points:

1) While I said hold back on the backstory, it’s great that you’ve given the characters’ lives this much thought and made everything relevant and connect to the plot. You’ve set up a diverse range of characters, each with their own goal. I’m particularly intrigued that the mother is so adamant not to let her children know their dad that she would prevent them from saving his life. That’s rough. So I’m glad you’re not afraid to create tricky conflicts, it will make the story interesting.

2) You’ve touched on robots twice. I wish there was more detail but I’m glad you’re thinking about world building and reminding us that this world is different by turning every day events (waiting at traffic lights) to something more sci-fi themed.

3) You’ve done something important for first chapters which is raise questions that readers will want answered. So for example, I want to see more about these robots, I want to know why the mother hates Ben so much that she would put her children in this terrible situation, and I want to see if the twins can figure this all out.

That’s it for today. Hope you continue writing.

-Zoom

This is... strangely written, to say the least. The premise is there, but needs developing. Characters need to be people readers can invest themselves in, not just pawns to move the plot forward. But that's the type of skill that you'll get a better hang of the more stories you tell. Considering this is one of your first, I suppose it's not that bad.

You should look up the fundamentals of "show, don't tell." It may seem a little too advanced or daunting, but if you can get the hang of it early, it would be amazing.
You could also flesh out scenes in general - don't just tell us what the characters are doing, tell us where they are, what the place looks like, what you can hear, what you can smell, etc. Take a close look at the books you like to read and see how they do this. Reading carefully is a great way to improve writing.

I assume the "twist" here here is that the twins' mother is Ben's old wife? While it's a little predictable from the structure, I do like the idea! Plan it out - maybe take it slower and get to the the reveal a little later? This would depend on how far you're planning to take the plot, I suppose.

I like the contrast between the twins' lives and Ben's life at the beginning.

For the record, I find it hard to believe that a doctor would refuse to accept a blood donation that could save a life for her own personal reasons. It's just not acceptable behaviour.

For a beginner's first story, this is good! It just needs some work - but everyone needs work!
Looking up punctuation rules could help