z

Young Writers Society


E - Everyone

The Broken Girl - Chapter 1

by passionpeace21


CHAPTER 1

I was actually here. In the deep meadows, near a beautiful lake, with moon and stars enlightening my face. I had forgotten how much this place used to make me feel alive. I had so many happy memories here which had the potential to make me bounce on my feet but the darkness inside me was much powerful to defend this small ray of light to come inside me.



The wind blew around me making me feel dizzy. I knew that it was not a good idea to come here. This place reminded me of so many cheerful memories but sadly, it did not matter anymore. I had accepted the darkness which surrounded me. This darkness was like a veil which separated me from all the joyful things of my life. I grabbed my cell which was kept on a big rock and dialed my mom's number and told her to pick me up. I stood up and started walking away determined not to look back or come here again to this place which made me remind of my old self. I had accepted long back that I didn't deserve a normal life. I was bound to get surrounded by pain and despair because this was my destiny.



I walked among the deep woods inhaling the fresh air. It has been such a long time since I last breathe peacefully. I wanted to stay here forever among these trees where I could live in a small house built near the lake. I could grow my favorite flowers near my small house. This was one of my small dreams which got separated from me. A tear escaped from eyes knowing how much it hurts to come back here. I wanted to get out, so I started running as fast as I could. No matter what came ahead of me, I just ran. I got tripped, my ankle got bent but all I could think of was to get out from this place which was full of hope, which reminded me of my true self but I knew that I couldn't give up this darkness. I reminded myself that I was a hopeless person and no one cared about me.



I reminded myself that because of me someone had died, so many people suffered yet I was still alive. I had no right to feel alive again, to become my old self. She was broken three months ago and the pieces she left behind were bound to stay there. No one had the right to mend her.



I finally came out of that dreadful place and saw my mother's car parked. I walked towards my mother and sat in the backseat. She glanced at me. She seems to be very happy when I told her that I wanted to go to the lake. Her eyes were beaming with hope but all I could see now was the pain. She knew something was wrong with me, again. I hated myself. Just because of me, she suffered so much. She did not deserve this. She deserves so much better. She deserves a happy life with a happy family. She doesn't deserve someone broken like me.



She looked in front and started the car and drove. We reached home in twenty minutes. I got down and ran straight away to my room. After reaching my room, I switched off all the lights and sat at the corner with tear-brimming from my eyes. I looked at my dark surrounding and tried to find peace but broke down again. I cried my heart out until sleep found me.

I woke up next morning to find myself in the bed. I got up and made my way towards the bathroom. I brushed my teeth and took a long shower. I came out and put on a black skinny jean with a white top from Adidas layering it with a denim jacket which had a hood with it. I took my school bag and put all my necessary items. I went downstairs to the kitchen to see my mother already left for her office. I took my lunch which she had prepared before leaving and filled my bottle. I wore my sneakers and put on the hood of my jacket. I took the house keys and locked the house and started walking towards my school.



It was my third year in high school and today was my second day. I loved going to high school before that incident happen. I was very productive in my freshman and sophomore year but after that accident, all just got changed in a snap. I hated walking. It seems very difficult to walk in this sunlight. It reminded me of hope when I was all filled with darkness.



I reached my school in ten minutes. Five more minutes were left for the bell to ring but unlike other children of my age, I had no friends. All of them made a distance from me or maybe I did, after that incident. I was in a trauma to see them. I was full of guilt and I had no idea what I was going to do with it. I guess, just let it flow through my veins for my whole life and let myself suffer because this is what I deserve.



I straight away went to my class considering I had no one to talk to before my class or at any time other than my mom. I took out my notebook and started scribbling until the bell rang. As soon as the bell range students started rushing into their class, the teacher came and wrote today's topic on the board. I took out my maths notebook and started copying the notes from the board and paid attention in the lecture while all others around me were either texting, passing notes or sleeping. The bell rang and I gathered all my stuff and shoved it into my bag and went to my second lecture, history.



I got up and made my way towards my second lecture. History used to be my favorite subject. I was very good with dates. But I despise it now; I hated to think about the past whether it was mine or anyones. It always brings pain to know who died in which year and reason always would be a war. Just to own someone's land, you kill them. I reached my class and was soon greeted by my history teacher.

"Ms. Brook, it's good to see you after such a long time," He said as he saw me entering the class. He got up from his place and walked towards me. He was dressed formally as always. No one could say he is a teacher after all; all he wears to school is a suit. Today, he was dressed in a black pant and white shirt paired with black tie and a blazer. His black hairs were styled upward in a perfect manner. I used to be one of his favorite students as I always used to top his history class. He often admired how I could remember everything.

"Good morning, Mr. Peterson," I stuttered and quickly grabbed my place on the last bench. He had a puzzled look on his face seeing me like this. But he quickly got out of his senses and started his class.

"Good morning students, I hope you all had wonderful vacations and all of you are ready now for this productive year. I would like to pick up the same topic and continue on it which is the American Revolution. Now to check your knowledge, I would like you to tell me from which year the revolution conflict started?"



Mr. Peterson looked around to see if anyone's hand was raised but to his demise, no one had raised their hand.



1775, A voice spoke inside me and somehow indicating me to answer. It felt like a trigger to the new hope in my life. My heart started racing, faster and faster.Someone, please answer, I pleaded in my mind. This trigger was eating me. One part of me wanted to get up and give the answer but the other part was scared that it will raise a new hope inside me to become my old self again.

"It seems like the best of students can also not answer," He said as he looked at me from one side of his eyes. "Well, to make to you remember, it started in the year 1775."

After that whole lecture seems to be a blur to me. Mr. Peterson was watching me the whole feel, the corner of his eyes. He somehow figured out that something was wrong with me. He continued his lecture and even asked some answers. I jotted down my homework written on the board as the bell rang. I quickly got up from my place hearing the sound and rushed outside the class. 



It was now the third period which means my free period and I was just so thankful for it. I needed it badly. I went to the store room of my school and sat in one of the corners. This was the one place where no one came but it seemed to be very good for me. I got a place where I can hide behind my darkness and have a minute of my own time of suffering.



I took out my leather bounded book and started scribbling with my black color sharpie. All the pages of this book were covered by black ink. Scribbling like this gave me pleasure. I continued to scribble until the bell rang.



I got up and went to the cafeteria to grab a sandwich and came back to the store room. I had not sat in that cafeteria for months. I tried my best to sit yesterday in one of the corners but the whispering of the people talking about me and accident forced me to walk away. I can't stand being in a crowd. I hate to be the talk. Nowadays, everyone seems to talk about me and what horrible things I did months ago. I killed someone with my own bare hands. My hands were covered with someone's blood. I screamed loudly as the image of blood on my hand came in my mind. I hated this mental torture. After accepting all the darkness and, maintaining the distance from all the good things I had in my life, I was still getting tormented by my own heart and mind.

[This is just the first draft. so, please don't mind some grammatical errors...]


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53 Reviews


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Tue Jun 06, 2017 5:22 pm
jamgalloway says...



Alright, here's a more in-depth review.

Disclaimer: I make no promises.


Believability/Clarity: It is plenty clear as to what is going on, but it doesn't feel quite believable right now. But, I think when you get further into the story to explain the details of who/how/why she killed, it will. As long as it's done correctly. And like I mentioned before, something to make this chapter itself to feel more believable would be to change the dialogue from the teacher, add some dialogue between her and her mother, and to add some of the other kids talking about her or something.

Characters: Well, the only character I can really comment on is the narrator at this point. I've already said how I feel about the teacher, and with her mother, nothing has been said yet for me to really comment on. So, I think your narrator has a lot of potential to be great when she's fleshed out more. Right now, her only character trait is her guilt. Which, is fine, it's good that she feels guilty, I suppose, but I'd add some other kind of information about her to make her more interesting before getting to the other chapters. Another trait of some sort, like maybe she has has a sense of humor, is really loyal, or religious, or just whatever your goal is for her to be. I just think that she needs a little bit more pizzazz to keep readers interested for the time being.

Description: I think you did a pretty good job with description. It could be better, but it's definitely not bad right now. Something to work on is not using so many I's when describing things, or describing what's going on. Like, sometimes just describe the surroundings and clothes and stuff without relating it back to her or using I. It's okay to do that some, of course, just not every time.

Dialogue: Well, I think you already know what I think about the dialogue, but I'll write it again anyway. There should really be a bit more of it in this chapter. Whether it's the narrator, other kids, her mother, or someone else, I suggest adding some. Seems kind of unbalanced right now between the descriptions, actions, dialogue, and the narrator's thoughts. Also, I thought the teacher's dialogue was a bit unnatural, but they may just be me.

Engagement: To be honest, I had a hard time focusing on the story when reading it. But, I think that'll change as your writing improves because you do have a very interesting premise here that should engage people. There's a lot of lines you have written here that make it interesting enough to want to keep reading, but with some of the flaws of other parts of your writing, it gets lost in there. If that makes sense. But yeah, this has the potential to be very engaging when improved upon.

Grammar: You already know this, but there's quite a few grammar and spelling mistakes. I won't point them out since there's so many, and since this is a first draft, but yeah, this could definitely use a good proofreading.

Pacing: I think pacing is probably your weakest point right now personally. Not enough dialogue, and the action is all kind of "I did this, and then I did this, and now I'm doing this." It would feel more natural is there was some kind of dialogue or something to make it feel more like we're in current time. Right now, the character's doing plenty of stuff, but the way it's written makes it feel like I'm waiting for something to happen, when it should feel like stuff is already happening. I hope I'm making sense, lol.

Plot: I think you have a very interesting premise here and once the other parts of the writing improve, it'll be more clear. I have no idea what's going to happen in the future of the book, though I'm hoping the person she killed wasn't on accident. That sounds bad, lol, but what I mean is that is a cliche for a lot of "good" characters. It'll be built up that they did some horrific thing and you get all excited for it, and then it turns out that they killed the person on accident and it wasn't really their fault. Basically, I hope your narrator doesn't turn out to be a Mary Sue(the cliche good guy protagonist).

I'm gonna try to wrap this up since I've gotta go(it was gonna be a bit longer but I gotta get to work), but your biggest problem is the telling instead of showing. Like, instead of writing, "She seemed to be very happy when I told her that I wanted to go to the lake," write the dialogue of this, and how her mother smiled and her eyes lit up with hope when the narrator said that. There's a lot of instances of this throughout this chapter, so I'd try to work on that.

Anyway, hope I helped, if I was unclear on something or if you have any more questions just let me know. Also, if you ever want me to go through and do line-by-line edits to show you what I mean, just let me know because I love doing that.

-Lee :)




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Sun Jun 04, 2017 3:09 pm
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jamgalloway wrote a review...



I have to agree with the other user, you did a lot of telling instead of showing in this chapter. There should be an equal mix of showing and telling--sometimes it's better to tell, sometimes it's better to show. In this case, you needed to do more showing. I also think you may have mentioned her past just a couple too many times; it was getting repetitive. Something I think that would improve this would be to have more actions of other people, such as dialogue between her and her mom, or maybe she hears someone whisper about her in the hallway on the way to class, stuff like that--then at the end reveal why your narrator is acting so strangely(because she killed someone). Another problem that you had was using "I" a lot, especially at the start of sentences. Yes, this is first person so there will be a lot of I's, but there's too many in this chapter. It doesn't flow together well that way. There should be your narrator's thoughts, description of the surroundings and people, and actions and dialogue. Too much of any of those makes it unbalanced, like what happened here. Also, there were quite a few grammar mistakes, but you already know that so...

The dialogue from her teacher feels kind of unnatural to be honest. I can't imagine any of my teachers speaking that way. And if this is supposed to be the first day of school after a summer break, I would think that he wouldn't just jump into asking questions as quickly as he did, but that's just my opinion on it.

One more thing I suggest is starting your story of differently. Describing the setting/weather is a very cliched thing that many authors start their stories out with, so I suggest changing it.

There's other things I could point out, but I'm trying to make this short so if you want me to go deeper into this, just let me know. I'm not harping on you when I say these things, I just want to help you improve, you know? This has a lot of potential. There's also a lot of things that need to be reworded/rewritten.

But yeah, I hope this helped in some way, and good luck! If you need help or anything just let me know. :)



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Thank you so much for your suggestions! I will definitely look into it as soon as I can and as you said that you can point out my other mistakes, I will be glad if you do that as I really need to know the criteria I can improve on.

I would even like to ask a question If you don't mind answering, will it make any difference if I write this story in the third point of view or will it be better if I try to make improvement in the first point of view?



jamgalloway says...


Honestly, I write in first person myself, but there are benefits to writing in third person too. In third person you can have contrasting viewpoints in the same chapter, you have a broader scope of setting and characters, and sometimes it can be easier to write certain things. But at the same time, with first person you can create a really distinctive internal voice and you only have to deal with one person's mind. That means you can also create an unreliable narrator if you wanted to. But, in first person, you are limited to what your narrator can see and hear, you can't go into the minds of other character's, and the narrator has to always be present(unless you switch from POV's like I do and have multiple narrators).

So really, I'd say just do whichever feels more natural to you, because they both have good and bad things about them. I personally like the first person you have right now and would try improving that, but if you want to try third person I say go for it.

And I'll write a more in-depth review to point out other mistakes since you asked. Is there anything specific you want me to focus on, or should I just go over the stuff I think of as I read?


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Thank you so much for your opinions on the type of point of views! I think I will give a try to the third point of view because in the further story more new and important characters are going to be introduced. So, I'll give it a try. Please just go over the stuff you think need improvement. It'll really help and again, thank you so much for your help!



jamgalloway says...


You're welcome, I'm glad I'm actually of use, lol. And I'm gonna write the new review later on today, probably in a few hours when I'm home. Good luck on writing in third person, if you need any help just let me know and I'll see what I can do. :)


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oh, You helped a lot and thank for that and will be waiting for your review!!



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Sun Jun 04, 2017 2:08 pm
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PrincessInk wrote a review...



Hello, and welcome to YWS!

I'll be leaving a review on this first chapter of the first draft. I normally don't focus on grammatical errors unless there's a persistent problem, so don't worry :D So this is a very fascinating story. A girl who is trying to come to grips with her life after she kills somebody. It leaves a lot of questions. How could she kill somebody? Why would she?

This chapter tells a lot. Have you heard of the adage, "Show, don't tell"? I think it applies here. Even if it's narrated in 1st person, scenes can become more vivid if you show instead of tell because I--or the reader--can be more rooted in the scene. Showing can also develop setting because through actions, the characters are interacting with the "set" for the scene. Here is a useful guide to showing and telling, and you probably can find quite a few sources online if you Google. But showing isn't the solution for every case or the scenes--both filler and important--will stretch on forever and be boring.

I also think that the school's setting can be developed further. Perhaps the characters, like I said above, are interacting with the setting. For example, the MC slams shut her gray locker amidst the swarm of kids opening and closing their lockers. And maybe the history classroom has all sorts of posters and the teacher is moving around and pointing at them with a pointer. I like description, if not overly used, because it can describe what the world looks like.

One thing that bothered me was when I read that she killed somebody. It feels weird to me that she can go around school and even be favored by the history teacher. If she really did that, wouldn't she have any murder charges against her? Would others be scared to see her? The details on the killing are rather fuzzy (and I don't mean that's bad) so I'm not sure.

I hope this helped. Thanks for posting this and keep writing!

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Thank you so much for your help! I will definitely try to improve my writing on the points you mentioned above.

As you said that it really bothered that you killed somebody, there is a reason which will be revealed in the further chapters and as for the murder charges, her actions were taken as an act of self-defense. I will try to work on that history teacher thing and some other pointers also.

Thank you so much reviewing my chapter!!




Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.
— H. Jackson Brown