Published January 28, 2017
Chapter 2
Late again
“Hey, Willow, what are you writing?” said Leah, my best friend. She stood in the doorway, looking at my room in disgust. “Your mum let us in, by the way.”
I looked up from what I was writing in my diary and tried to rub away the dreaminess in my eyes. I’d been asleep, absentmindedly staring at my diary as my mind drifted to other places. Looking across my room, I noticed Uri stood next to a pile of dirty clothing and a gargantuan stack of cups.
Leah was by the door looking flustered, glancing constantly at the time on her watch. I took that as a hint and started to get myself ready for school.
“Bye mum, bye dad,” I said with a mouthful of toast, rushing out the door to catch up with Uri and Leah. They were standing in the corridor waiting for me.
“Come on, we are going to be late!” exclaimed Leah.
Leah and Uri were my only friends, I thought as I hurried down the stairs with them. Some would say I was socially awkward but I was picky about the people I choose as friends. I choose time spent in my father art studio than socialising with people I had nothing in common with. Creating new art, listening to calming music and cracking terrible jokes with dad were the highlights of my day. My heart seemed to sing at those peaceful moments.
As we left my apartment building, I sighed and retreated into my head. However, I was sorely awoken by the sound of a very high-pitch, very annoying voice.
“So I was like OMG you are totally not wearing that!” Oh great. Emma was here. The one girl that I have an almost uncontrollable desired to punch in the face. I didn’t like violence, apart from when it came to Emma. Sometimes I dreamed about throwing a football in her face.
“And then he was like I can dress up like a lobster if I want. I have the weirdest boyfriend ever. I’m thinking of dumping him. Do you think I should do, Will? Hey, Will, are you listening?”
I continued to stare at the ground.
“Hey, W-i-l-l-o-w, Earth to W-i-l-l-o-w.” A hand waved back and forth in front of my eyes.
Just then I noticed something strange. Uri wasn't with us. No matter how rude or obnoxious Emma was, he always stayed to keep me company. As my thoughts turned to my absent friend, Emma exclaimed dramatically, “Uh, she so rude! How do you even cope with her? But then again she’s not as bad as that guy you hang around with. What’s his name, Rory?”
“Uri,” both me and Leah corrected.
“Yeah, whatever. He should start living in the real world, he’s such a freak. No wonder he’s adopted.” She said it just as we reached the school gate. It was lucky; I would probably have tackled her to the ground and started pulling out her precious hair.
I let out a sigh of relief. Uri was leaning against the main school building. I tried to catch his eye, trying to understand why he ditched me, but he seemed too concerned about his surrounding to even notice me.
Gazing around, I noticed how people were gawking at him, muttering to each other. Most likely about the way he looked. He had ruby coloured hair that had a cute flick that covered one of his eyes.
Eyes that were ablaze with flames.
They thought that he was wearing contacts and dyed his hair red. What many people didn’t know was he had been that way his whole life. In pictures of him as a baby, he had always had those impressive ruby eyes with a little tuft of red sprouting from his head.
One of the in-the-know people was parading in Uri's direction. My pace speed up. A meeting between these two never ended well. Hell, it never started well!
The guy's voice rung across the street.
"Oi, freakface, how's Satan?" The guy yelled, still a distance away but closing further in.
Uri's head swept up as his eyes focused on the approaching male. His eyes narrowed and his fists clenched. "Ask him yourself, you'll be joining him soon." He hissed.
"Oh, so scared! Is the big bad orphan boy going to punch me?”
"Get lost, Markus," I said, glaring at him as I finally reached Uri's side.
Markus gave me a look of pure disgust before traipsing away, his little gang trailing behind him.
"Remind me again," Leah said, joining us, thankfully Emma free, "how you two are twins?"
"Urgh, don't remind me. It's bad enough living in the same home as him, let alone remembering we shared a womb together." I groaned.
As me and Uri settled ourselves into form, I noticed something seemed off. At first, I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Form rolled into lessons, maths and history, and lesson slowly became break. It was then that I realized what was different. Me and Leah slumped down onto the benches, grateful for the break in lessons. Uri, on the other hand, stayed where he was. He seemed different today, remote and tense. His back was facing us, his arms held tightly to his sides as his fists slowly turned white. I looked over at Leah to find her staring at Uri as well, frown lines creasing her forehead.
I leant forward and whispered, "Do you think he's okay?"
"I don't know," she whispered back, sneaking another look at him. "It looks like he worried about something. Really worried."
I straightened back up and, with the most casual voice I could muster, said, "Uri, why don't you come sit down?"
His head snapped around. He looked down at me with wide eyes before taking a deep breath and dropping down onto the bench. He sat with his back against the table, glaring at the people who walked by.
His mood proceeded into lunch two hours later. We relaxed in the cafeteria, me and Leah wolfing down a microscopic mound of spaghetti Bolognese. Uri, however, wasn't eating any of his. He kept staring out the cafeteria’s grimy windows, moving his fork absentmindedly around the plate.
"Are you gunna eat that?" I said with a mouthful of food.
Uri didn't move this time, in fact, he didn't seem to have heard me. Finishing off the last mouthfuls of food, I swapped our plates and dug in. Waste not, want not. In between eating, I peered up at him, hoping to see something of the friend I knew in this distant person. I continued to stare at him until a ringing filled the room. Lunch was over and the final hour of school had begun.
30 minutes later and my pencil still hovered over my sketch paper. I hadn't made a single mark on its textured surface, my mind too preoccupied to contemplate anything worth drawing. All I could think about was Uri. It didn’t that I had Leah’s words running amok in my mind.
"It looks like he worried about something. Really worried."
But what could he be worried about? He normally confided in me with everything. For him not to say anything meant that whatever it was, it was really serious...
I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about it so I decided to take action. It was the end of the school day and Uri was stood outside of the main gates. Even from this distance, I could tell his mood hadn't changed. I shuffled hesitantly over to him. Tapping him gently on the shoulder, I waited for him to turn around.
“Uri, are you okay?” I reached my hand out to touch him.
He shrugged away, “I’m fine,” he said in a harsh voice that made me choke on my voice. Several seconds went by before I found the courage to speak.
“Uri, what is up with you today?” I said my voice raising a few octaves higher.
“You don’t have screech, okay. I’m fine, now leave me alone, Willow. It’s none of your business.”
"Well, it is! Because you’re my best friend and we tell each other everything."
"Well, you clearly don't know me very well then, do you? You think I tell you everything? Please, you only know what I want you to know." He said in a cold voice.
“Fine... be a douche!” I sobbed as I stormed off towards a dark, overcast alley.
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137,793 Literary Works • 672,067 Reviews
Hello! I'm back to review the second chapter.
I. I wouldn't call Leah 'my best friend' as a title. I suggest saying something along the lines of "We'd been friends since my favorite lizard ate her mother's car."
II. "...glancing constantly at the time on her watch." All you really need to say here is '...glancing at her watch.'
III. Was chapter 1 sort of like a prologue? Will Adonai be narrating later? Because if Adonai is narrating later, I would either use first or third person for both of your narrators. Best to be consistent. If he doesn't narrate again, then chapter one should probably be the prologue.
IV. "...I said with a mouthful of toast, rushing out the door to catch up with Uri and Leah. They were standing in the corridor waiting for me." I would reformat this to something like this: "...I said through a mouthful of toast. I rushed out the door to catch up with Uri and Leah, who were standing..."
V. "Leah and Uri were my only friends, I thought." I don't know about you, but I think in present tense.
VI. "I choose time spent in my father art studio than socialising with people..." This needs reformatting.
VII. "However, I was sorely awoken by the sound of a very high-pitch, very annoying voice." You can remove the 'sorely.' It seems out of place to me.
VIII. "'Hey, W-i-l-l-o-w, Earth to W-i-l-l-o-w.'” It looks here like Emma is spelling Willow's name out. I don't really know how to portray the name being stretched out, but Emma seems (to me) like she'd be attention-demanding enough not to say things slowly. I'm pretty sure earth doesn't have to be capitalized, but I'm not positive.
IX. "...both me and Leah corrected." Leah and I.
X. "My pace speed up." Just one 'e' in 'sped.'
XI. "Uri's head swept up as his eyes focused on the approaching male." I'd use 'boy' instead of 'male.' Male is much more formal, which isn't good when you're speaking in first person.
XII. "...Leah said, joining us, thankfully Emma free," This should end in a period. I'd cut the 'joining us.' It takes some of the flow away.
XIII. "'Urgh, don't remind me. It's bad enough living in the same home as him, let alone remembering we shared a womb together.' I groaned." Comma at the end of the sentence where Willow's talking.
XIV. I'd try to make it more clear that Markus is Willow's brother. I was confused at first.
XV. "30 minutes later and my pencil still hovered over my sketch paper." You don't need the 'and,' just use a comma. And you should spell out your numbers.
XVI. "He normally confided in me with everything." This needs reformatting.
XVII. "'Are you gunna eat that?'" I would use 'going to,' or at least 'gonna.'
XVIII. "...in a harsh voice that made me choke on my voice." Don't use voice twice in one sentence.
XIX. "He shrugged away," I think you mean 'He shrugged me off." Period.
XX. The second to last sentence should end in a period.
This chapter was very well done. The characters were definitely relatable, and Emma annoyed me almost as much as Lockhart. There's not a lot I'd change, aside from a few grammar errors and some rewording.
Keep writing!
Feltrix
Thank you for your review! The thing with changing from third person to first is purely to show a change from the main character's perspective. There are a few other chapters like that throughout the book so it seemed like a less confusing idea.
Hi @occymay, I'm dropping by for a review of your second chapter!
The first thing I noticed was that the chapter was in 1st-person POV. Now that isn't too much of a problem, but it doesn't really align with the 3rd-person POV in chapter one. It is interesting--but I'm not exactly fond of that.
Beep beep. Infodump alert. This is a large chunk of backstory that isn't so necessary to be clumped up in one spot.
I agree with Evangeline that there's a lot of telling here. I do like her suggestion that you can show how horrible Emma is. I also feel as if she's underdeveloped, like she's cut out of cardboard, and I wish I could see something more about her other than the school-brat that I see so frequently.
This chapter was rather slow in my opinion. Uri became possessed by Satan? Or maybe Lucifer from the previous chapter? Honestly though, I felt as if Willow was saying, Oh, it's weird. I didn't really feel her fear, her concern, her emotions. Maybe you should ratchet up the tension here.
The dialogue at the end was...rather...flat in my opinion. You used "in a harsh voice" and "in a cold voice". I think it's perfectly okay to use them, but I don't see the tension between the twins. They're just speaking, like "hovering heads". I want to see more action there. How does Uri behave to his sister? Does he push her away? And when Willow started crying, I felt as though it was quite abrupt. I prefer to have something more gradual here, starting from "tears pricking" or something like that so the reader wouldn't be surprised by it.
I also agree with Evangeline that the dialogue heightened--fast. My suggestion is to have Willow try to talk to Uri before and then he keeps shunning her; so when Willow tries to talk to Uri one last time, the two are already near their wit's ends that time. Or to slow the speed of the tension in the dialogue.
I never knew about the alley, and it was a bit surprising here, as if I'm supposed to already know about it. I would have had an Aha! moment here if it was woven into the earlier scenes. Or maybe you can cut just phrase off. Since Willow's going there, I would know later, anyway.
Other than that, I noticed you used "me and". I'm not sure if that's simply Willow's voice, but it feels rather off here.
Overall, I'm going to be honest with you and I hope you won't be offended: I think this chapter needs some major rewriting before you start querying agents. But your theme is really interesting and even if Willow needs some work here, she is relatable. Hopefully my review wasn't too harsh and have a great day!
Thank you for your review! Um... Willow and Uri aren't twins, Willow is twins with Markus, the one Uri has a conflict with. The majority of the book is in first person but there are points of thrid person to add extra information, it's just my style.
Oops xD Twin mixup
I Like the story,write more . You use good descriptive words. you can write, maybe Uri has trouble at home or something.
Thank you! ^_^
Hey there, occymay! I'll review by typing down my thoughts as I read through this. Hopefully I'll be able to help in some way.
“Hey, Willow, what are you writing?” said Leah, my best friend. She stood in the doorway, looking at my room in disgust. “Your mum let us in, by the way.”
I had a quick look a chapter 1 and saw that you've already mentioned Leah. I suggest you introduce her as the 'best friend' in the first chapter, when we first meet her, and not here in chapter two. It's okay to swap names and call her 'best friend' every now and then, but in this sentence, it's as if you're introducing her. This is unnecessary as she has already been introduced in the story.
“Come on, we are going to be late!” exclaimed Leah in a frantic voice.
I don't think you need to say 'in a frantic voice'. I can tell she's frantic just by reading her speech.
All I thought the first time I met her was wow, this girl is crazy! I guess that’s what drew me to her.
It's great that you've directly included your characters thoughts, but put them in italics so I can differentiate between the narrative and actual thoughts.
Some would say I was socially awkward but I was picky about the people I choose as friends. I choose time spent in my father art studio than socialising with people I had nothing in common with.
I love the backstory of your character. It's fledged out and unique. The little details you've added for your characters, such as Uri's eyes and Leah's preference for art are nice touches.
“You don’t have screech, okay. I’m fine, now leave me alone, Willow. It’s none of your business.”
This is your story's conflict at the moment. Willow and Uri's damaged relationship. As a reader, I'm now curious to know why he's acting like this.
That's all from me. Keep writing!
Thank you for your review! To answer your problem, this section was originally part of chapter 1 but split them apart. That was probably where you saw Leah mentioned.
Hello, EvangelineFire here on behalf of Team Pencils and Swords!
I should warn you that I haven't read any of the chapters before this, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.
To end, I just wanted to mention that this had a cool anime feel to it. I don't know if that was your intention, but for me it made the story that much more interesting. I'm curious as to what's wrong with Uri, as well as why he has red hair. This seems like a really cool concept.
To begin I wanted to mention there's a tad bit of info-dump in this chapter. For reference, the paragraph that begins like this "Leah and Uri were my only friends" I think is completely unnecessary. You're giving all this information about your character, how she loved art, listening to music, and making bad jokes with her dad, but wouldn't it be much more interesting to learn this about your character throughout the story? All you did here was put a stop on your story to tell us something that you can easily just show us later as it becomes relevant.
The thing with Emma felt weird to me. You told us how annoying Willow thought Emma was, but didn't give any justification. Emma said just one line that could possibly justify it, but we need more that that. Don't skip over the ride to school. Show us how much of a brat Emma is. Show us why Willow doesn't like her. Or maybe there's another situation where you can show it, but you can't just tell us to not like someone without proving why.
I feel like this chapter suffered from a lot of show not tell. You've probably heard this a million times, and probably don't need to hear it again, so I'm just going to give you the area that I think needs to be changed: The whole thing with Uri. You told us how he was acting different today, but it didn't have any time at all to sink in before you were already trying to solve it. There was absolutely no tension built up and no mystery. You just mentioned that he was different today, then straight away had Willow confront it, even though an entire school day had passed. Maybe show him in the lunchroom picking at his food, or standing idly in the hallways. Flesh it out. Show us his discomfort in many different ways in many different situations. Make it a big deal, not something just tossed into your story.
I think the way Willow reacted to Uri was unrealistic. The exchange felt way too short and rushed. Some of the problem is definitely because there was no prior build up, but that's not all of it. It escalated too quickly. Just with what was said, I don't think Willow would have ran off crying like that, and I don't think Uri was acting like a "douche". Yeah, he was pretty rude, but I feel like you made it into something that it wasn't. But if you really need Willow to run off like that, just make what Uri said worse, because I really don't think what he said should have made her cry. But, then again, I don't know Willow very well so maybe it would have.
One minor correction/nitpick.
"I shook my head" I can't tell you how many writer's make this mistake, so don't feel bad. No one--I repeat--no one shakes their head to clear it. I completely understand why you would want to use this. First of all, it just makes sense, and secondly, it just feels so convenient and easy to have your character do it. But it just doesn't happen in real life. You can, however, say your character gave themselves a mental shake. This is totally legitimate and still retains the writing convince.
All right then.
I hope this helped you. If you have any questions or need clarification about anything I've said above, please ask, I'd love to discuss it with you. Happy writing!
- Evie <3
Thank you for your review! When looking through my work I can see what you mean about a lot all of the things, I'll try to improve them accordingly.