"Physhh" went the whistle of the pressure cooker in the Kapoor household. The estate was spread over an area of ten acres. They had olive gardens, avocado orchards and pepper plantations on five acres. And a magnificent mansion on the other five.
Anshuman Kapoor, the owner was a business tycoon who owned a chain of themed restaurants. He grew up in a middle-class family where his parents instilled strong moral values in him and his little sister, Tara. He graduated first class from The Hotel Management Institute, Mumbai and started his journey as a chef in leading 5-star hotels. Though his job description(JD) mentioned a lot of fancy skills, major parts of his working hours were spent doing odd jobs in the kitchen; like cleaning stations, loading dishwashers. Frustrated by the monotony of his work life, he decided to do something new. He started a hotel called "The Kapoors" with the help of a major investor Sheela Ranawat, who was a prosperous businesswoman. Sheela was brought up in a fairly rich foster family. She completed her schooling in India and went abroad for graduation and masters. As the years passed by, Anshuman and Sheela fell in love and 3 years post their wedding,they had a beautiful girl, Kyra.
15 years from then, Kyra was all grown up. She had striking looks from her mother; dusky glowing complexion, dreamy brown eyes, a sharp nose and relatively small lips, though they suited her. And her love for the culinary world from her father. She was a brilliant girl with multiple talents and grounded values. She also had a keen interest in banking, accountancy, real estate investments and the law. She went to Darby International School in New Delhi.
Kyra awoke to the sound of the whistle of the pressure cooker. She was all excited. It was after all her first day of grade 10. She had heard a lot from her cousins about how this year would leave a memorable mark on her life and how it would also help mould her into the person she wanted to be. She was all set to experience the pain and joy of such an important school year. She had her uniform ready the previous night, just like her school bag which consisted of neatly wrapped school books. Kyra lived in a humongous house. She never had a scarcity for people to do her work. Inspite of this, she explicitly insisted that all work, academic or co-curricular relating to her schooling and education would be done only by her. From wrapping her books and labelling them, to going to the art store to get her supplies.
At exactly 8am, the driver pulled up a shining black Mercedes for Kyra. Ramu Kaka as she fondly called him, saw her stuffing her face with Paranthas and gulping down her favourite orange juice just like she did when she was little. This was his cue to load the car with her baggage, which comprised of her school bag and her gymnastics kit which had a mat, ribbons and hoops.
Kyra was an advanced level gymnast and had represented the state in two competitions so far.
She hurried out, said a rushed "Good morning" to Ramu Kaka and jumped into the car. She waved to her parents who were on the porch, smiling and proud of their baby girl. In the car, she was so eager and excited to reach school that she kept telling Ramu Kaka to jump all signals and drive at 120kmph!
Ramu Kaka worked in the Kapoor household from the time Kyra was born. He knew the little girl inside out. So he just smiled and said, "It's okay little one. Just breathe and everything will be alright". She didn't speak a word for the rest of the journey. As they neared her school, Kyra felt guilty for not talking to Kaka the whole time. Kaka and her always had the most interesting of conversations on their way to school."Sorry Kaka. I'm just too excited for school. I don't seem to be controlling my emotions right now. I shall make up on our way back. Thank you for dropping me" she said, while stepping out of the car. "No worries. I hope you have a great day" he said, helping her with the baggage. He then waved goodbye and drove away.
Kyra looked at the sky, then at the sun's rays reflecting on the glass surfaces of the school and smiled. She felt so happy and blessed to be able to live such a wonderful life. The happiness flushed into her face turning her cheeks rosy. Still looking at the sky, she stepped forward and stumbled upon a rock and dropped her gymnastics kit.
A girl nearby ran to help her. She looked at the girl. The girl had a fair complexion, freckles on her nose and cheeks and afro curly hair.
She smiled at her warmly and said, "Thank you. I'm Kyra. And you are?" "Riya" she said. "Are you looking for the grade 10 class too?" she asked Kyra. "Yeah I am" she replied. Just then, a teacher signalled all 10th graders to follow her. Both of them obeyed sincerely. The teacher led them upstairs to a well lit room. It had huge casement windows and opened to a beautiful garden created and maintained by the hardworking and ambitious juniors. Both Kyra and Riya went inside and found two empty seats in the second row. They decided to set themselves there. Just as she sat down, Kyra's mind had a gush of thoughts.
Would this year be just as she pictured it? Would she achieve all her goals that she set? Would she be the prefect of her school like she wanted to from the day she was 9? Would she find what she wants to do in life? Would she ever have a boy best friend like her mother did? Or did destiny have other plans for her? All these thoughts filled her mind with a little nervousness and uncertainty. All she could do was notice the students in her class and smile to herself.
Stay tuned to find out!
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,798 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi!!! I was looking for things to review and ran into this one. Anyway let's get on with it.
First Impression: Quite a lot of backstory mentioned there. Reads a bit like a few character sketches were thrown right into the story. Maybe a little too much on that front. Also a pretty ordinary start here. The excitement of the tenth grade is the only thing that drives the story forward and that isn't the greatest hook for a reader.
I think you should put those two descriptions in two separate paragraphs. They are describing two different people after all.
Here I think you have to change the world wrapping. It sounds like your wrapping the books up as a gift or something and I'm pretty sure what you mean is that Kyra is putting a covers on the books.
120kmph in Delhi traffic. You wish.
Wait so is Riya a new girl? Or is this school just that big?
That is indeed a lot of questions to find out the answers to. I shall definitely be staying tuned.
And that's it for this one.
Overall: It's a pretty good opening. The character descriptions while lengthy are really good and give us a good picture of the characters. Our main character is pretty likable so far and her personality seems to come through pretty well. Overall pretty good start.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Sure! Thanks for reviewing this!
Your Welcome!!
Hi rishitasidenur, I'm Lee! A belated welcome to the site.
I'm here to review your story.
It seems rather interesting. The descriptions are well done, the character seems fun to read about, and the story has just the right start and potential to get really good. However, as a determined reviewer, I'm afraid I am going to nitpick a bit. I don't mean to offend you or cause you any offence, and keep in mind that my intentions are only to help you out as best as I can!
One recurring mistake you make is the lack of a space after a comma. There should always be a space after you use a comma (at least if there's a word after it), so remember that!
The first line was only vaguely related to what followed. I think you ought to have described the kitchen and house in a couple of lines before moving on to the entire estate. Also, the last part? That sounds as though the mansion covers five whole acres. Is that what you meant?
Like EternalRain mentioned, the second paragraph dumped way too much information on the reader. It was also extremely rushed, especially when you began talking about Sheela. That should have had a separate paragraph. But again, don't overload background information in the first chapter.
*had grown
It's obvious that she's a teenager at fifteen. You could omit the second part of that sentence entirely.
I don't think "consisted" is the word you're looking for here. It means "made of". So the school bag is made of neatly wrapped books? Clearly not. Just say "which was filled with".
The first line could be rewritten as, "she had readied her uniform the night before". It sounds better.
"Inspite"is not one word. It should be "In spite".
"Labeling" is spelled "labelling", with two "L"s.
Her kindness should be shown, don't write it straight off like that. In fact, the way she behaves with her driver alone would convey the message. That's something you can try doing. Add little incidents where subtle hints of her personality can be seen.
*had worked
In writing, more than one exclamation mark is not a frequent occurrence. Additionally, unless it is in speech, try to avoid using exclamation marks altogether.
EternalRain already mentioned you keep speeches separate from normal paragraphs.
The "S" in "Sun" shouldn't be capitalized.
There shouldn't be an apostrophe in "rays".
If you say "stumbled upon" it sounds like "came across". Just go with "stumbled on".
This may be rewritten as such: "A girl passing nearby ran over to help her. Kyra looked at her. She had a fair complexion, freckles on her nose, and curly hair grown in an afro."
Of course, this is your story, so you don't have to do that.
Hasn't Kyra been studying in the same school as Riya all this while? How come they don't know each other at all?
There needs to be a hyphen in "hard-working".
This is told from Kyra's perspective, so she should not know it's maintained by the juniors.
Every "Will" ought to be "Would".
*did destiny
*would she find what she wanted to do in life
You've used the word "pondered" incorrectly. One can ponder on something, or you could say "she pondered on her thoughts". You can't say her thoughts pondered. Pondered almost always is followed by "on", in any case.
So, like I said, a good start to a novel. Here are the recurring mistakes:
1. There are no spaces after commas,
2. There are a few instances where you've used a word without understanding how to exactly (so avoid using words you don't know.),
3. Tenses keep changing, and
4. The speeches are clumped into paragraphs.
Work on these, and you'll find a lot of improvement.
Once more, if I offended you, I apologise.
Keep writing; good luck!
- Lee
Hello LittleLee!
Thank you for the constructive feedback. And no you haven't offended me in any way. I will incorporate the changes suggested.
To clarify your question,
The school that Kyra goes to is a big one. She hasn't met every student in her grade. So, yeah. Riya and Kyra have seen each other but have never bothered to talk.
Okay. I did suspect that, but wanted to make sure.
Glad I could help!
Hey there!
I'm happy to have caught this in the green room right at the first chapter! I think you've set up a really interesting start, and I'm already really invested in Kyra's life. There's a lot of room for what direction the story could go, and I'm excited to see where we will be taken!
I like how we're given bits and pieces of Kyra's personality in this chapter. For example,
From this, we can infer Kyra is not only responsible but perhaps does not want to burden other people with her work. I'm looking forward to seeing how Kyra's personality affects the story (and looking forward to learning more about Kyra).
I think the second paragraph, where its talking about Kyra's father, felt a bit info-dumpy to me. I don't think we, as readers, needed that much information in the second paragraph of the first chapter of a new story! For example, Tara is pretty irrelevant for this entire chapter. There were other bits that I think could be added into the story in a sneakier, smoother way, without overwhelming the reader. Right now, it's kinda a load of information! If you're looking to change it, you don't have to delete all that information -- in fact, I think some of it is necessary -- but instead, work it into the chapter in other ways. Maybe Kyra goes to give her mother a goodbye hug, and she is introduced then? I just would recommend spreading out the information in some way.
One other thing I would like to note- don't forget to create a new line/paragraph when someone new speaks! It just makes the writing clearer and easier to read. This is especially applicable in the last chapter, when Kyra is having a conversation with Riya.
I'm super curious how this story is going to turn out! I see you've marked it as "mystery/suspense" (I LOVE mysteries!!) so I'm wondering what kind of mystery it could possibly be?? :0 I have a lot of questions, which is great--I'm totally intrigued. I also love this restaurant-chain plotline. I think it adds a bit of a unique feature to this story.
I hope to read more! Let me know when chapter 2 is up? I'd love to read it!
Peace,
~ EternalRain
Hello there!
Thank you so much for the feedback. I will surely try and incorporate the changes suggested.
Chapter 2 will be up in 3 days!!