Hello everyone! This is something I've just come up with. Just give me your feedback, if this story interests you enough that you want to read further. Your comments and crits would be appreciated. Peace~ Sudz.
Prologue
“Sandy!! I did it! I called him up!!”
“Aah” I shrieked and did a sort of impromptu jig in the balcony where I was standing.
“Wait, don’t tell me anything now, this is something I have to hear in person. You didn’t forget about the treat you promised us didn’t you?”
“Nope. I didn’t. I can’t believe you are not pestering me to recount everything in detail right now!” exclaimed Anupama, who I was talking to.
"I told you." I said "This is something I have to hear in person. Not on the phone. Especially my stupid network-less phone. Anyway, I'll let you get back to him now"
“Yeah. I did put him on hold as a matter of fact. Anyway see ya tomorrow!”
“Wait! What about the story? Can I start it now?" I interrupted before she hung up.
“Yeah dude, whatever!” she said, giving me permission.
Whew!I could finally start writing my big bestseller novel now.
Confused? Hold on..
Here's where it all started...
——————-
1st June,2008.
12:30 A.M.
“Over head the albatross, hangs motionless upon the air” my phone started ringing. I gave up my attempt to fall asleep and went over to my desk to answer the call. It was Anupama.
“Hey! You awake too?!” I asked her, surprised. It was the day before the day, when we would start our junior college at Little Flower Junior College, Hyderabad.It was a day we were both dreading and also tremendously excited about. After two and a half a months of arguing, pleading and throwing tantrums, we’d finally convinced our ‘rents to let us join LFJC, and mind you, they weren't too happy about it.
Anyway back, to the phone call.
“Yeah! obviously I’m awake, otherwise how can I call?” Anupama said.
“Haha! Very funny! How come someone who is asleep by 10.30 p.m. everyday is wide awake in the middle of the night. That’s what I’m asking.”
“Oh… Yeah.Well… You know I couldn’t fall asleep. I’m too wound up thinking about tomorrow” she said.
I heard a nervous edge creep in her voice.
"Yup. D-day is here! In about 8 hours we’ll start college! Imagine! L.F.J.C! Possibly the coolest college in the whole city. People from all kinds of schools. Cool kids”
“Stop! You moron! You’re creeping me out! I called you to take my mind off dwelling on that. And now you’ve made it worse!”
The nervous edge in her voice was now replaced by something else, hysteria and panic. I put my fist to my head and cursed my self silently. Why did I always have to do this to people?
“Anupama!! take a deep breath. Chill. it’s just college. I didn’t mean to freak you out.”
“Yeah. But still, what if….?” she was saying, when I interrupted her.
"Listen! We’ve discussed all this before.. fitting in and everything. We’re not wannabes remember? If people like us, fine. Otherwise we have each other in college and the amigos always! So.. take a deep breath, everything will be just fine”
“Hm. I hope so. Good night” she said glumly and hung up.
“Yeah, bye” I said to the dead phone and plonked down on my bed and took out my journal and wrote ‘All the best. To all of us’ and fell asleep thinking of the new worlds all of us, the amigos, were going to step in tomorrow. Anupama and I in Lfjc, Keerthi and Pooja in Fiitjee Guru, and Aparna in Fiitjee.
“Wake up Sadhana! You have to be on time today!” my Mum came and said loudly, jerking me out of my dream, in which I was drowning at deep sea. Wondering whether my dream was an indicator of the time ahead, I brushed my teeth, showered and hurriedly ate some breakfast. I wanted to everything right. At Least for today!
Checking my purple and green salwar kameez in the mirror for one last time, I started for college. In what seemed like no time at all, though it actually took 20 minutes, my Dad dropped me off in front of the gate, where I’d agreed to meet Anupama. She arrived after about a minute, wearing a white and blue salwar kameez. Yes, in case you were wondering, we had a dress code. Salwar kameez only for girls and Shirts only for guys.
We walked in at the gate. My eyes nearly popped out. After having attended a convent all my life (and I didn't participate in many inter-school events either) seeing so many people of my age at one place in so many colours… It felt like a carnival! My spirits couldn’t help but lift at the atmosphere inside the campus. I took a deep breath. Ready or not, L.F.J.C. here we come!
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,856 Reviews
Hey, alright story, except there were a ton of easily correctable errors, such as typos and grammar mistakes. Once you proofread them through, I'm sure that you'll catch them.
A few good suggestions for correcting typos:
-Proofread it a few times through before you post it!
-Read your story out loud! This is a big one. I've tried it myself, and It definitely works.
Thirdly, the title of your poll shouldn't be in all caps. It's against YWS rules, dear.
Lastly, I suggest you take a look at this
That's all! PM if you have questions =)
Hey Sudz! Evi here.
First of all, before I can continue-- you've seriously got to reread your stuff. Just in the prologue thingy, you have oodles of typos and punctuation mistakes. If you don't care enough about your writing to proofread it for this kind of stuff, no one else will either.
But typos and such are easily fixed, so that isn't a monumental issue! =D
Basically, in the prologue, proofread and clarify. Right now it's really confusing as to who is saying what, and what they're talking about, and just what the heck is going on. You might want to add more dialogue tags (she said, I exclaimed, I giggled at her words, etc.) to make this easier.
Also:
This kind of thing (addressing the readers directly, that is, and saying "let's start in the beginning") is generally frowned upon. Some writers pull it off, yes, and it's not completely unusable, but I would suggest taking out these two lines. You can surely come up with a better hook than, "Let's start in the beginning now!" can't you?
People very rarely say "haha" in conversations. To get across the same point, just say:
I giggled. "Very funny! How come someone who is asleep by 10:30 everyday is wide awake in the middle of the night? That's what I'm asking."
But this confuses me, about the 10:30 thing. Asleep by 10:30 a.m., or p.m.?
The rest was much better! Still, your big problem is typos-- forgotten spaces, misspelled words, incorrect punctuation. Poke around the Grammar section of the Knowledge Base, under Writing Resources, if you want! You can PM me too, for questions. I'd be happy to help.
Overall, I had mixed feelings about the piece. As far as hooks go this didn't exactly pull me in; it started a bit slow, with girly, somewhat-ditzy boy talk, which you can find a lot of. I'd suggest making sure you're describing the scene well, and following the character's movements through their dialogue The conversation was interesting, as it showed their worries about college. Delve deeper into that, maybe-- why exactly are they freaking out so much? It'll help with characterization and being able to relate with your characters.
PM me for anything, and good job!
~Evi
Hi Sudz! This is an interesting piece and I do look forward to reading more of your writing, but I do think there's room for improvement.
Okay, a few things here. Starting with dialogue can be okay if it's done well, but normally only around two or three sentences before writing what was going on to make sense of it. Also, for the first sentence you used too many explanation points. Here is an example of what would be a bit better...
"Sandy! I did it, I called him up!" The voice came on the other end. I gave a little shriek and attempted to do a jig in the balcony where I was standing. Maybe put something more here, explaining what is going on?
I think that would make it a lot easier to understand what is going on if you changed it to something a bit more like that and explained a little more without giving an info dump.
A couple things here.
1. Who is saying what? It's a bit confusing.
2. Once again, I think you need to explain a little more. Even if you do explain it later in the story, it makes it hard to keep the reader interested if they are confused and don't have any idea what is happening.
This needs to be edited for typos, otherwise it's really confusing and doesn't make much sense.
Two things here!
1. Is this actually part of the story, or an author's note? Make it easier to tell maybe?
2. Correct, the reader is confused. But even if confusion may somehow contribute to the story, you will lose the reader along the way from too much confusion or boredom.
The rest of it is actually a lot better. I only have a couple things left to point out.
Okay, the last few things. Try not to put both an explanation point and a question mark. Just placing the question mark and then saying you were surprised will normally give the same idea.
Besides those, I think you just have some typos. Overall I did like the idea of the story, but it would be a lot better if it was edited.
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I can't wait to see more of your writing, and I wish you good luck.
~Eris