My life has gotten really unusual in the last couple of years.
It all started on September 3rd 2014; It was a Summmer, Auttumn day, the leaves were starting to turn yellow, but it was warm out side. It was windy but not to windy. I was wearing my blue long sleeve blouse to impress a certain someone. I had to take the old, Smelly bus with the old lady bus driver, because my mom had to go to work early.I don't like having to ride the bus, because every time I get on Ms. Mellodey always asks hows life, and she wears to much old lady perfum. We always get to school real late because she's old and can't drive real well anymore. Finally we arive at school, about half an hour late. The school is very new. They repainted it and added extra buildings, for the special students; the ones who always get in trouble. They don't like the bad kids to influence the ones of good ediquit.
I walked in with Katie. Katie has been my best friend since 1st grade. We have been through everything together. She is tall, about 5'9 and has strawberry blonde hair. Her hair is always curled and pined to the side. Her hair excentuates her blue eyes and her curvy waist line.
The principal was making the morning announcements, about the principles of being a respectful student. We always get the same lecture every morning from him. The class room is small, but spacious. It has the lab tables for the desks, and old broken stools for chairs. It smelles like B.O and chemicals mixed together.
Katie and I were about to sit on the right side of the room next to the great, iridescent windows, but the teacher wanted to lecture us about being late again. We took about another 15 minutes to explain to her that we had to ride the bus with Ms. Mellodey. In class we were learning about the animal, hart and how they lay down wood for a bed, and try to make it nice for females. The teacher gave us a homework assignment to write about the hart. It has to be around a thousand words or more, soon I would find out that I couldn't finish this writing assignment; after class we went to lunch.
The lunch room is always crowded and smell's like old, rotten food. It was colored green and blue, the school colors. It is loud, but manageable. There is windows all over. They are differant shapes and sizes. Katie and I sat at the same table every day, it was right next to the mural door, and where I can admire this boy who has blonde hair and hazel eyes that light up when he laughs. I smile and get butterflies when I think of him. His name is Keely which means beautiful or handsome, I know that because the day I first learned his name, I rushed home and goggled it, thinking it one of the most amazing and uncommon names I'd ever heard. I know that he admires me back, but it's difficult with the new girl named Mana, and him being one of my closest friends. Mana thinks she is all that. Mana has long blonde hair with white high lights, and she has green cat eyes. She is new her and she is trying to become queen bee. I don't think it's working out very well because she dosn't have very many friends. Anyhow, I went home after school, because mom had asked me to.
My mom asked me to come into the living room. The room was large and had lots of windows. It has a vanilla rose smell to it, because my mom just put a new air freshener in. This house is very familiar, considering we have lived here for 5 years. It has long open floor plan, and lots of storage. I think to much storage. My mom told me to sit down, because we need to discuss very important information, Before she told me there was a loud, obnoxious knock on the door. It was the police! They told me I was being arrested for having and selling illicit drugs. I asked my mom what they were talking about and where they were going to take me, she said she didn't know.
I fell asleep somehow, when I awoke, I was in an all white room. The room was as white as a hare's fur. It looked real small, but I couldn't really tell how big it is. It looked like an asilumn room, padded and no windows. It was warm and I felt the need to sleep, and I was the only one in it.
Just then the police appeared. They announced that they are the supernatural council. They told me that I was not getting in trouble for drugs, that they needed to tell me who I really was. I was really confused. I mean I know who I am, I least I thought I did.
"Kyrie" the first council member said, "you are 16 as of yesterday, is this correct?"
" Yes" I stuttered, shaking in fear.
"There is something very important about yourself that you need to know," Said the second council member.
"Kyrie, you are a witch... and we severely need your help."
I thought to myself, they must have the wrong girl, I couldn't be a witch, I'm human just like everyone else... wait, are they even human at all?
"We know the affect this might have on you," said the third council member, who was my mom.
"How could you not tell me?" I asked, starting to cry.
"We couldn't tell you until you were 16, because of supernatural rules," said the first council member.
"Super natural rules? You couldn't tell me the biggest thing about me?" My voice got real narrow.
"Sorry Kyrie, it’s the rules and you have to respect them."
I looked over at my mom. I have never felt so betrayed.
"Okay, well then what do you need from me?" I asked with a rude tone.
"A girl by the name of Mana is trying to take over the supernatural world", my mom said.
'"I know her! She was hankering over Keely all day." Oh, God, I thought, did I really just say that?"
"Ok" my mom said with a bit of laughter in her voice.
"Well we need you to stop her, but you need to know a few rules first."
"Ok mom what are they?"
"First you have to act like your human, you can't tell anyone, the supers will know you are not a human, but humans won't know."
"Okay, how will I be able to tell if there human or not?"
"Everyone at your school is a super so you don't have to worry."
"Okay."
"Second you cannot use your powers for illegal things, Like stealing, killing, power or anything else in that kind of category."
" I wouldn't do that anyways"
"Well these are the rules, so follow them." Said the first council member.
The council went on to tell me that I need to learn to respect my powers and I am not aloud to tell anyone. They went on to tell me how to beat Mana, which was going to be easy for me, or so I thought, since she is trying to get with my man. The council let me go back to my regular day to day routine. The effect on me was not that big of a deal, but figuring out your a witch it’s pretty hard to digest. The rules were simple enough to follow, a monkey could follow them.
Katie and I went back to science class and Tami, our teacher or Mrs. Jensen, asked me where my paper on the hart was and I told her she should know I just turned 16. I got away with not doing it, but I better have my next essay on supernaturals done by the end of the week. Then it was time to face Mana. Her name sounds like Mono the disease. Eww. Anyways I didn't have to confront her, she came up to me.
"Heard you just turned 16", she said, flipping her hair in a manner that made me kind of jealous.
"I did, why?" I asked, rolling my eyes trying to be a little bit sexier than her."
"Well you are going to need to write a paper on supers now right?"
"Shh, keep your voice down your not suppose to say anything."
"Oh relax everyone already knows there super, you were the last one."
"Ugh, fine yes I do need to write my paper, but why do you care, you’re to busy trying to steal Keely..."
"...Hey, guys, Mana." Keely said with a flirtatious smile.
"Hi Keely." I blushed, my cheeks flushed red hot, i looked away.
Keely smiled and did that sexy laugh that I always drool over.
"I wanted to know if you would like to hang out with me this Friday night, Kyrie."
"No she is too busy," Mana interrupted. "She has a paper to write, but I'm free."
"My paper is due Friday morning Mana." My eyes narrowed and gave her the look of back off. "Yes I would love to go with you Keely." I said.
"Great then I will pick you up at 7:00?"
"That would be great, see you then."
Mana gave me a dirty look and stomped off.
"O.M.G, you have a date with the hottest guy in school, plus hes ur best friend! "said Katie
"I know!" I squealed, and I couldn't stop smiling. Katie has known that I liked Keely, but she never said anything to him. I thank her for that.
I went home and got started on my paper, but I couldn't focus I was too excited for Friday night. My mom came into my room and asked me if I needed a new outfit for Friday.
"what are you going to wear on your date with Keely?"
"How did you know I had a da...I mean how did you know i was hanging out with Keely?" I asked curiously.
"Your friend Mana came over to see if you were home, but you where not home yet." She said.
"Didn't you say that I need to stop her?"
"Yes but you also need to befriend her, to ruin her."
"I can't befriend her! She is trying to steal Keely"
"You can win Keely over by defeating the demon"
"But mom what if she isn't really mean, she is new"
"Honey she is, and you need to defeat her."
"Okay ill try, besides that what am I going to wear on Friday night?" I started to smile again, just the thought of going out with him made me blush.
My mom and I went to the mall. I asked my mom what she thinks I should get, when we spotted Mana.
"Mom get down there is Mana." I said in a whisper.
"Wait, where?"
"She is right there, with the pink dress in her hand, she's with that man."
"Honey I think that's her dad."
"I'm going to go talk to her mom, you stay here."
I grabbed the first item I could see which was a smashing, red hot ruffled dress. I walked over to Mana and asked her opinion on the dress.
"Hey Mana, I was wondering what you thought of this dress, I was going to get it for Friday night." I said with a giant smile on my face.
"Oh hey Kyrie, umm... this is my dad, and that dress is smashing. It would look just ravishing on you especially with your blond hair." She said with a shy, innocent look.
"Umm thanks."
"So what's up?"
"Well I was wondering if you and your dad would like to come over for dinner sometime, maybe tonight?"
"Ok... Sure that would be great."
After Mana and my conversation, I went back over to my mom.
"What did you ask Mana, Kyrie?" My mom asked concerning.
"I asked her to dinner, her and her dad." I said
"Well what did they say?"
"They said yes, they will be over tonight."
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140,428 Literary Works • 673,184 Reviews
Wow sabrina when I actually sat down and read it, it was actually quite amazing. I really do like it. Keep going sis I think you are doing good and I think that you might actually be able to make this into a good book if your imagination will take you that far. One question did you make up the kid with the strawberry blond hair or did you take a kid from out school ??? add more I want to read what happens next
no he is made up and I am already half way done with the second chapter.
cool
Hey there! Welcome to YWS. I'm Lucrezia and I'm here to review.
So! You have an interesting piece here. It's been a while since I've read a story about a witch. It seems like vampires and werewolves get all the love, and witches get squat. Why is that? They're such interesting characters...
Gah, I'm babbling. Getting back to the point.
I think you've got a nice storyline going so far. It's not incredibly original, but you have some nice spins to it and a good flavor. Reminds me a bit of Sabrina the Teenaged Witch among other YA-oriented TV and movies, but I trust you'll do more to make it unique in future chapters, yes?
The main problem I have with this, getting down to the nitty-gritty, was the fact that you told us (the readers) what's happening rather than showed us. You went through the whole first chapter writing everything in such a way that it came off seeming listless, lifeless, flat. You get what I mean? Like the monotonous way one might describe a trip to the supermarket:
"First I picked up the milk, I had a rude encounter with some mom and her oversized stroller, then I went and grabbed Geri his favorite kind of ice cream and checked out. Thanks to coupons, I got everything for a steal."
Now compare that with this excerpt from your story:
"My parents told me that we had to move, because they are are immagrants from Canada (which was a lie). When they told me we had to move there was a knock on the door. It was the police,(except they where really supernatural council), they told me I was being arrested for having and selling illicit drugs. I asked my parents what they were talking about and where they were going to take me and they said they didn't know (another lie). I fell asleep some how, just then when I awoke, I was in an all white room."
See how similar they are? The difference is that a trip to the supermarket can be glossed over because, let's face it, it's rather dull. This story, however, has the potential to be very interesting... so long as you work on describing, painting a picture in the reader's mind, and not just skimming over the precious details and throwing away the most interesting bits. What you're doing is basically summarizing, when you have the power to do so much more.
Get what I mean?
Okay, now the nitpicks.
Should be "I'm" (with a capitalized I and an apostrophe). Beyond that, this is kind of a boring way to kick off such a (hopefully) exciting novel, no? It seems a little... stale. And cliché. I hate it when stories start off with a "my name is ___ and I am ___ years old." It's too forced. I want to discover the character's name and age organically, not robotically. If I were you, I'd delete that whole sentence.
I believe you meant "homework"?
"Eyes" is repetitive. I'd also connect "strawberry" and "blond" via a hyphen/dash, as well as "gray" and "blue."
How does she know that's what his name means? Here's a great chance for you to give us some kind of subtle peek into the MC's head, her personality. Like maybe:
"His name is Keely, which means beautiful or handsome. I know that because the day I first learned his name, I rushed home and Googled it, thinking it one of the most striking names I'd ever heard."
Okay, maybe that's a bit overly dramatic (or very overly dramatic), but you get the idea.
Furthermore, the comma following "handsome" should be a semicolon or a period.
"It's" should have an apostrophe.
The bolded word should be "her," I believe.
Okay, I have a few problems with this. First off, Mana's description. It's a little jarring. We're just being introduced to this character, after all, what do I care what she looks like? I'd delete that part and save it for later, in future chapters. And when you do describe her, do it naturally—tell us about the color of hair as she flips it over her shoulder or ties it back in a ponytail, tell us about her eyes when she narrows them in disgust or flutters her lashes flirtatiously, et cetera.
Secondly, this girl seems to know a lot about her even though she supposedly had just started at the school. Maybe write that she joined the school a couple of weeks prior. She'd still be the New Girl, but not so new that the MC's knowledge and opinion of her seems out of the ordinary.
Lastly, there should be a comma after "anyways," and the whole "my entire world changed" bit is a little cliché. Maybe you should try rewording it a bit?
Should be "immigrants," and there should be a space before the brackets, and you should remove the one inside them (right before "which").
Remove the comma following "police" and add a space there instead.
Should be "didn't."
"Somehow" is one word.
You can cut both "just" and "then."
Should be "appeared."
The first "I" should be capitalized, and this is also kind of long and not too smooth. Maybe change it to:
"They told me that I wasn't getting in trouble for anything involved drugs or crimes—instead, they needed to tell me who I really was."
Something like that.
"I mean" is repetitive. I'd change the second one to "at least."
Okay. So, lots of dialogue issues here. Every time you finish someone's dialogue, you NEED a paragraph break. That's really, really important. Having back-to-back dialogue like this is a big writing sin.
Also, there's some words that don't need to begin with a capitalized letter (like "said") and some missing punctuation. Here's how this should look (I also changed some of the dialogue to make it sound a bit more natural and realistic):
'"Kyrie," the first council member said, "you are sixteen as of yesterday, is this correct?"
"Yes," I answered tentatively, my voice quivering with fear.
"There's something very important you don't know about yourself," said the second council member. I could tell by his earnest expression he wanted to try and make me feel comfortable, relaxed—a goal he couldn't quite accomplish. [I just put this in to set the scene a bit, obviously you know what's supposed to be going on here better than I do, but this is an idea of something you could do to give the story a bit more depth.] "Kyrie, you are a witch—and we desperately need your help."'
It's spelled "couldn't"; "im" should be "I'm"; I'd change "is everyone else a human" to "are they even human at all" or something similar and put a comma after "wait"; change the comma following the first "everyone else" to maybe dot-dot-dots; there should be a comma after "nope"; "supernatural" is one word.
Whew. I think that's everything in that sentence...
...would she have really said this? I'll admit, I don't much about this MC, but that doesn't sound like a very normal thing to blurt out in this type of situation.
Maybe change it to:
'"I know her! She was lusting over Keely all day." Oh, God, I thought, did I really just say that?'
Should be "can't," with an apostrophe.
Um, I think you meant "allowed"?
Change that "is" to "was."
Okay. So, there are some problems with this that urgently need to be addressed if you plan on continuing this story. Namely, the show-don't-tell thing I mentioned above, which also has to do with this chapter's other big flaw: Pacing. The pacing in this was waaaayyyy too fast. It's only the first chapter (and a short first chapter, at that), yet so much has happened! You're going to give your readers whiplash with how quick this moves along.
Now, before you freak out, I should mention that this is very common. Pacing is hard for plenty of people (myself included). So is showing instead of telling. Don't feel bad that you haven't mastered these things yet.
Another problem with this chapter: Typos. Lots of them. There's plenty of missing apostrophes, misspelled words, lack of punctuation, run-on sentences, and not enough paragraph breaks. These are all, what I like to call, "technical problems." And that, believe it or not, is good—it's much easier to improve technical problems than storyline problems, trust me.
Speaking of the storyline... I think it's interesting, I do. I have a few concerns, and those mainly revolve around the fact that you're dangerously close to cliché territory with this. Make sure to put as many original and unique elements as you can, so it doesn't turn into a Sabrina the Teenaged Witch clone (and, coming from someone that saw every episode of that TV series when she was younger, I'll notice if that happens).
Also, having the "mean girl" be the story's antagonist (which seems to be where this is going) isn't entirely original. This won't be a problem, so long as your villain doesn't turn into some flat, underdeveloped high school cheerleader we've seen in every teen movie and YA book before this. If you make her unique, that won't be a problem. Otherwise...
Just some things to watch out for. As a whole, I like where you're headed with this. I think it could make for a really fun and entertaining novel.
Keep it up!
I have made corrections, thanks to you. I am going to add more depth and I am going to add to the first chapter,make it longer. Thanks for all the help.
Okay, I'm here to review your story! WillowPaw1! That's me!
I liked your story, but there were a few things that were running through my mind when I was reading it.
One thing, you may want to consider making your paragraphs shorter. It gets confusing sometimes with huge, chunky paragraphs.
Also, try to enter or something of that sort after someone speaks. That way, you know who is speaking instead of reading it ten times to figure out who is speaking.
Your punctuation could be fixed up a bit. You need to put your commas in between the last letter and last quotation mark.
Example:
"Mom, I don't want to go," she says.
See where all the punctuation is located?
There are also commas that just need to be placed in sentences.
If you edit your story, it can turn out a lot better! After all, editing is a big part of writing, is it not?
Sorry if I sounded a bit harsh. :3 Hope I helped, though!
~ WillowPaw1
Heyo! Welcome to YWS, Sabrina! (Just as a warning, I'm quite harsh as a reviewer.)
Anywho, grammar first:
Remember that whenever a new person speaks, their dialogue is given a new paragraph. There are several typos as well, mostly concerning the contractions. (wouldn't, won't, etc.)
For technique... since you're new and all, I guess I should go easy, hmm?
Let's cover 'show writing', shall we? Throughout this piece, you have loaded us with the 'is's of Kyrie's life. Rather than making her crush on Keely and rivalry with Mana into actions, they are simply a part of what is. Describe her swooning during lunch, with her best friend laughing at her, or give us a brief encounter between Kyrie and Keely, so we can watch her feel embarrassed. Rather than saying "Everyday, I admire this boy who has strawberry blonde hair and grey blue eyes," show through action verbs what she does as a result of this admiration. (Does she absentmindedly follow him with her eyes during class? Do her cheeks flush whenever they talk? Show them interacting. Let the hormones rage.)
And also, once you've conquered show writing, try adding more visual detail. Not just what the characters look like, but their surroundings. What does the classroom look like? Is it crowded or spacious? What about Kyrie's home?
As for storyline and plot, we'll just have to wait and see. I haven't decided which general storyline archetype this goes under (whether it's 'hero's journey', or 'conquering love unrequited', or something else), and aside from the possible upcoming drama between Kyrie and Mana, it's not too cliched either (A+).
I'll definitely be back, should you choose to continue this!
(And if I seemed too, I dunno, harsh, I'm really sorry. I tend to go all technical, and it's not exactly fun to read my technical jargon.)
Both are very help full and nether are very harsh. I love criticism, I am also a new writer so please comment away.