Hey!
It was the first day of my sophomore year. I had just turned fifteen, and I was scared as I could be.
"You're going to do great, Cameron!" yells my mom from the car. "Don't be nervous!"
Oh yeah, mom. That's really going to help, I think to myself.
When I get through with all of the welcoming things and stuff, I begin walking to my first class. English.
"This week, you will be paired up," says my teacher, Mr. Young. "You and your partner will be reading a book together. This book will be 'Emma' by Jane Austen. You'll evaluate the book, and discuss it. Now, most other schools don't do this sort of thing, but I like having open discussions about literature. Any questions?"
"Do we get to pick our partner?" asks one of the students.
"No," he replies. "I will assign them for you. As a matter of fact, I'll tell you exactly who you're paired with right now. Brent Ingle and Jordan White. Vera Linzer and Justin Brooks. Cameron Trenton and Zoey Brooks. And Damien Grate with Philip Parks. You have twenty seconds to find your partner and your time starts...NOW!"
"Zoey? Zoey Brooks?" I call out, and out walks a girl. She's about my height and has black hair and heavy makeup. "Are you Zoey?"
"Yeah."
"I'm Cameron," I say, smiling.
"Hey!" she says. "It's great to have a partner that doesn't look brainless. Are you smart?"
"I don't know." I shrug.
"Don't be modest. You look smart enough," she says. "What are your grades?"
"Well, I got all As and one B last year," I answer.
"Good," she says. "Because English is extraordinarily easy for me, and getting paired with some dim-wit just makes it harder."
"Oh."
"Twenty seconds is UP!" shouts Mr. Young. "Is everyone acquainted with their partners?"
"Yeah," answers the class.
"Okay, good," he says. "Now today, we're discussing..."
My mind begins to wrap itself around things about Jane Austen and her works. Before I know it, class is over.
"Easy or what?" asks Zoey.
"It's pretty easy." I nod. "Is Justin Brooks your brother? I noticed that you two had the same last name..."
"Yeah. It's complicated, though," she says. "What's your next class?"
"History," I reply.
"Mine, too. I'll walk you there."
We walk to history, the teacher introduces himself, and then he begins the lesson. After several similar classes, it's finally time to go home.
I walk outside of the school building, to find my mom sitting in the truck. "Hey, honey! How was your first day of school?"
"Fine."
"What classes do you have?"
I hand her my schedule and get into the car. "Just those."
"Well, that's a pretty good schedule, wouldn't you say?" she asks hopefully.
"Yeah. I guess," I say. "I met a girl named Zoey. She's my partner for Englsih. She's really cool."
"Oh, that's great!"
"Yeah, I guess so," I say.
School is school. There's nothing really great about it. We get home quickly and I do my homework.
My phone rings. "Hello?"
"Hey, Cameron? This is Zoey." We exchanged phone numbers at school.
"Hey," I say. "What's up?"
"I just have one question," she says.
"Yeah, sure. What is it?"
"Have you ever had sex?" she asks, out of the blue.
"What are you talking about?"
"Have you ever had sex with a guy?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I'm a Christian. We're not really supposed to have sex before we're married," I explain. "Why would you ask me that, though?"
"I don't know. I sorta ask everyone I know."
I pause for a minute. "Okay. THat's sorta weird."
"Yeah," she says. "Hey, I gotta go. Have sex soon!"
She hangs up the phone, and I sit on my bed, puzzled. What in the world was she talking about? Has she had sex? Probably.
I sigh. "Okay, then."
Today was the first day of school. And the first time I ever got asked if I'd had sex. But either way, neither of them were that bad.
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125,020 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
hey theresnoheroes15,
i really liked this chapter. i kind of thought the beginning was a little slow for me. and i was wondering why you had it so that there were only about 8 people in camerons english class? the dialogue with Cameron and Zoey was funny. i loved Zoey's last line. Even though it was quite a bit out there, it did very well as a cliffhanger. It makes me want to find out about Zoey's purpose with her question about sex.
-plennsterr
It's great, short and funny.
Can't wait for the next chap!
Hey!
Alright, so some of the stuff in this is, like, superweird. You'd never ask some girl that you just met if she's had sex. That's so weird. Also, when the teacher announces the partners, would there only be 8 kids in the class? Because that's all he called out. I dunno bout your school but, at mine, we have like 35+ kids in a standard class. And the teacher wouldn't have called out the names, usually they put the names on the Activbord or whatever board the school has.
It feels really rushed and very amateur-ish.
But its well-written all the same. Keep writing.
Cheers,
Lena
You can definitely call me noheroes, EmmaJane. Can I call you Em? Theres No Heroes is actually a hardcore band with a fifteen-year-old singer named Fleming. Hence the '15' in my user-name.
)
And I know that it's more telling than showing in this chapter, because there wasn't much to show. (I'm not trying to be defensive, just so you know.
Anyway, the random question from Zoey was supposed to show her spontaneity and her spunk. I guess maybe it just came across a little weird.
Anyway, I hope that cleared up those dilemmas with my story. And yeah, I am waiting for the better parts of the story.
Some of your dialogue is a little awkward. Especially with authority figures. It's easy to make a protagonist's dialogue natural because their voice is in your head, but when you can't identify with the speaker it can be harder. Especially watch with over-doing the dialogue. "You and your partner will be reading a book together. This book will be 'Emma' by Jane Austen." is never something my teachers in high school would've said. They would've said, "You and your partner will be reading 'Emma' by Jane Austen."
Also some of the story is a little...abrupt, I suppose. It felt like you were in a hurry to get to the "good parts" and I know how horrible the dull parts are! I am writing a book and sometimes a chapter takes months to write because it's a boring part and I want it to be done, but I won't let myself usher through it. So I sit there and stare at the screen and hate what I'm writing. But the point is that you need to flesh the story out a little, add more sensory detail and whatnot.
It was a cute little story, though. Zoey reminds me of my best friend in high school. The characters seemed fairly well developed, but you could've gone a little further with all of it. It has potential, though. Sorry if I rambled; I'm an English major. We do that.
Where's the next Chapter?
I love this format! The chapters aren't indefinitly long, but just right! keep it up!
Hey noheroes! Can I call you that for short? Welcome to YWS! This is a wonderful site, filled with people always eager to help and develop your writing skills. I'm sure you'll love it here. C:
Ah, but on to the review.
I'm assuming Cameron is a girl from the phone conversation, but it would have been nicer if you could have cleared that up sooner. So that I can picture your MC sooner, rather than later.
And my next issue... Showing vs telling! You may here this a lot around this site. Basically, don't tell things to us. It's far more interesting and distinctive if you could show it to us.
Telling: It was snowing.
Showing: Fluffy flakes of snow drifted to the ground like a cloud of feathers after an exuberant pillow fight.
Bad example. ): I can't think of good ones off the top of my head at the moment. But you get the idea, yes? Try and paint the scene now and then, rather than giving us a vague idea of what's happening.
I LOVE this so much. It totally made me laugh.
I did enjoy reading this, and I want to know more. I mean, what was with the random question about sex? Does Zoey have some sort of agenda? (: Please, PM me when you post more?
Keep on writing!
~EmmaJane~