To all YWS, This is chapter 2 of Melody's Secret! I am the co-author of this novel back 2-3 years ag, and we stop halfway. So, we decided to put this up without editing and will countinue edited starting chapter 3.
~Wendy
I was waiting for Magnus to finish up his breakfast since he is my ride to school everyday.
" Could you please hurry up!" I said holding my anger, while standing at the doorway waiting for his slow arse to get in the Jeep that dad bought for his sixteen birthday.
" I know why you want to go to school early , to see 'Mr Perfect'" He said while wigging his eyebrow at me.
"Do.not.start." I spoke with clenched teeth, but actually my face turn red as a hot cake, because that is my very reason for going to school early.
"Oh dear my, you became a cute little apple with that red on your face." He said that before he laugh loudly which do me no good as I feel like my face turning into larva.
" I'm not, I just..just..just hot" I attempt to make an excuse, but failing miserably.
"Yea, yea, whatever cute little birdie says." He said that as he past in me on the brown porch while smirking with his deep dimple showing. Which I envied anyway.
Don't be fooled by our looks or our last name, you think we're the same but we have our difference. I mean differences. You see I'm introvert because I like to keep to myself, but my brother he is a super-charged social butterfly. Everyone adores him for his talent in makeup and fashion, yes my brother takes fashion and cosmetic course in our school so you can see why people like him. Where else me, the quiet Mel takes piano classes. I usually perform for the school drama or the orchestra, my main goal is to perform in Vienna Opera house playing my music as a well-known pianist. That's my dream, we may have our difference but we have our similarities like how much we don't like sport since we aren't that fit to play any, or that we both loves chocolate, pizza and SUPERNATURAL. I mean come on who doesn't like 2 hot guys with an Angel who hunts and still as sexy?. And we both dislike green pea.
"Well are you coming?"He asked as he start the engine.
"Hold your horses!" I shouted and grabbing my phone and my music file before locking the door. Then jump into the passenger sit."Lets roll!" I said as Magnus shake his head in amusement
and reverse from the drive way.
**********
We arrived at school. Magnus can't stop teasing me the whole journey which really bugs me. We were driving around for 15 minutes to find any place to park just then a sliver Mercedes coming out of a parking space.
"FINALLY" Magnus said
When we parked, I grab my things and said my goodbyes to Magnus.
"See you at lunch, raven?" Magnus said calling one of his favourite nicknames
"Yea" I have a few friends who just talk to me but I like hanging out with my brother during lunch
I went to my locker, where I places my things before I went to the gym. I took a sit on the bleachers and was starring at a group of boys who were playing a friendly match of basketball, yes even if we are a school of arts doesn't mean we don't have sport. All of the players was striking but only one caught my eyes which is the team captain of the school team, Lucas Ashford. He is well build because he is a frequent gym-goer. Tall with amazing brown hair which always seem wet and make him look more attractive. I can just stare at him all day but I don't want to be a creepy stalker.
After his game I went down to greet him. I may seem relaxed or even comfortable. But the truth is, I always l know it goes.
"Hai Lucas" I said,
"Hi, erm... " he look at me as if he look confused.
"Its Mel" i said with a force smile when I already knew he didn't know my name,
"Oh Mel, how are you?" He said while getting a wet cloth from his bag to wipe his sweat from his neck to his forehead. Oh my eyes, He looks REALLY hot!. Ok focus Mel.
"Good, how about you? " I said while fiddling with my shirt, I do this when I'm nervous.
"Yea I'm good.... " he said when he was about to finish his sentence, but his friends called for him." Ok nice talking to you" he said with a smile then walked away to catch up with his friends.
"HEY YOU!" A blonde girl was standing with her arm cross. Oh no please God help me..
Meet Beatrice Mandy . I turned around to see her standing wearing a tight sequins skirts with a pink crop top that is short enough that you can see her belly button clearly, behind her stood two girls. One was playing with her phone, Phoebe Watson. Another was cheaking her nail, Georgina Parkson. Who was also wearing almost the same style of clothes.
"I saw how you look at Lucas, well don't ever talk to him anymore cause he is MINE"
"Good morning to you too, Beatrice." I said with all my force sincerity.
"You have been warned, beside who do you think you are?, what makes you think Lucas would talk to you. He doesn't even know you name"
Ouch! Ok that one hurts, who am I kidding? she right. Ughhhh I can't be here right now. I turn my heels and head the other way. "Don't forget we've warned you! ". I pretend to not listen but they were right, in your average high school they are your cheerleader but here they are ballerina, I hate it how much they control this school but you can't do anything about it. They will try to ruin your life if you get on their bad side which is why I like to avoid them.
I wanted to go somewhere. Somewhere other than here, So I went to the place where I can calm my mind other then playing music which is the library, yes other than playing the piano I love reading, it helps me calm my mind and music words just flows in. I entered and was greeted by the smell of woods, not tress, but books.
A slim woman in a pencil skirt with a blue blouse wearing glasses was standing behind the counter. Arranging the daily newspapers."Good morning Miss Burton" she said.
"Good morning Lidia" she is a very nice lady but if you get on her bad side you better run.
Instantly my feet brought me to my favourite section, fantasy section and I randomly pick a book called "Sweet Evil" because of cover photo. I admitted it, the dude is handsome too. I found a comfortable place where I always sat. It is near the huge widow that were facing the school garden. I always find peace everytime I sit here.
A guy was stacking book near the shelf, I think his name was Adam something, he was in my mathematics class. He volunteers here in the library occasionally. I was about to get comfortable but I saw him unstable on the stair that he was standing. I bookmark my book by using my hair pin then went up to him to help.
"Hey, can I help you?", I said looking up at him. He was shock at first, but trying to not make it show.
"Nope I'm fine" He said.
"Please, I insist" I said trying to help him.
"Fine, pass me the book on the trolley" He said pointing to the trolley beside me. I start passing him books then a book fell out of my hand, it's weird cause I had a strong grip. A torn paper fell out of the book and it look like a music sheet, I look at it and the title was 'The Secret Of The Melody'. Huh? Much coincidence. it's my name I thought.
"Hey, Can I borrow this book?' I asked looking at the book with no tittle and full of words which I can read because it was faded.
"Yea, sure. Thanks for helping me." Adam wasn't looking at me, continue to arrange the book
I went to the counter where Lidia was so that I can check out when should I come back to return it. I wave to Lidia to head for my next destination. Another solitude destination of mine.
Dedication to @DarkPandemonium @DemonGoddess @LukeStarkiller @darklady for the review on the first chapter.
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125,007 Literary Works • 672,815 Reviews
Hi, Wendy. Pan back to review your second chapter, even though the tag didn't work. Next time you tag someone, you should make a wall post and put the tags in that, because tags don't activate if you put them in published works.
Anyhow, you know the drill now. I'll get straight to the nitpicks and then close with some overall thoughts.
Nitpicks
1) The correct spelling is 'wiggling'
2) Be careful of putting stray spaces in. You don't need a space after the first speech marks, and while you do need a space after a comma, you don't need a space before one. To be honest, though, I think a dash would work better than a comma in this context.
3) Dialogue punctuation. If you've read the article I linked you to in my previous review, you'll know two things: one, that speech has to be closed with some kind of punctuation marker, usually a comma. Two, that the first letter of dialogue tags (such as 'he said', 'she said', 'the man said') should never be capitalised.
With all of these points in mind, the dialogue should look a little like:
"I know why you want to go to school early - to see 'Mr Perfect'," he said while wiggling his eyebrow at me.
1) When you're trying to convey emphatic pauses in dialogue, it's more grammatical to convey it with dashes than full stops, as in:
"Do - not - start."
However, if you do choose to do it with full stops (I think some writers do, and I think it can create a stronger effect), remember to capitalise each word, like this:
"Do. Not. Start."
2) Tenses. Which tense are you writing in? If it's present, 'spoke' needs to be 'speak'. If it's past, 'turn' needs to be 'turned' and 'is' needs to be 'was'. Until you establish which tense you're writing in, I can't effectively critique you.
3) 'Red as a hot cake' doesn't really work because...hot cakes aren't red? As far as I can see on google, they're just pancakes, which are browny-yellow. You might want to pick a better thing to compare her to.
4) I'd delete the bit I've struck out, because we can already tell from the fact that she's blushing that Magnus has rumbled her. It's to do with an area of writing often called 'Showing and Telling', which I probably won't have time to talk about in this review, but I'll definitely come back to at a future date.
The correct spelling here is 'lava'. Lava = hot, molten rock. Larva = immature form of an insect.
You're missing a comma here somewhere. This would be better expressed as:
You see, I'm an introvert because I like to keep to myself, but my brother is a super-charged social butterfly.
I think the word you're looking for here is 'whereas'.
There are a lot of grammar issues here, but I think this part could do with deleting entirely. It's what I'd call self-indulgent writing. When you have such a huge interest in a particular franchise or TV show, you make your characters adore it as well, just so you have an excuse to talk about it in the story. But writing like this doesn't serve the plot. Supernatural isn't so widely known that your readers are going to know about it, so mentioning it is at best irrelevant and at worst confusing.
As someone who gets unhealthily obsessed with TV shows and books (I'm a former Supernatural nut - been to conventions and everything), I've definitely fallen victim to this kind of writing in the past. However, you need to separate your characters from you. The moment your character becomes a mouthpiece for your own loves and obsessions, they stop feeling like a real person. Try not to project on them.
In literature, you should write numbers out as words, as in 'fifteen'.
'I took a seat' is what you meant here, I think.
This should be 'well-built'.
Should be 'seems'. Also, I'm kind of struggling to see how permanently wet-looking hair is attractive? It just makes me imagine it as really greasy!
1) This should be 'It's', because it's a contraction of 'it is'.
2) You need a comma after 'Mel'.
3) 'I' should always be capitalised.
This seems to be a habitual spelling mistake. The correct spelling is 'yeah', so look out for that in editing.
(You could do with a comma after 'yeah', as well: "Yeah, I'm good...")
There's a lot of small grammar errors in this bit. One thing you need to be wary of is not double punctuating - you shouldn't have a question mark and a comma next to each other, and I've seen you putting exclamation marks and full stops together as well.
With the minor errors fixed, the sentence would look like this:
"You have been warned. Besides, who do you think you are? What makes you think Lucas would talk to you? He doesn't even know your name!"
You forget plurals a lot. It should be 'books'.
1) 'Much coincidence' isn't a phrase you really see in English. 'What a coincidence' or 'That's a coincidence' are more common.
2) You need a capital 'I' in 'it's'.
Overall Thoughts
1) I like that this chapter gives us a bigger insight into Melody's life and personality. It also ends strongly, with the introduction of a hook and a mini-cliffhanger. I'm interested to see how the fantasy elements are going to be incorporated into the story.
2) Obviously the grammar is still the most pressing problem. I know you haven't edited chapters one and two, but it's a good habit to get into editing work before you publish it on YWS. Reviewers can't catch every single error. Even if they could, it's better to learn how to self-edit than to rely solely on other people to point out your mistakes. Run your work through a spelling and grammar checker before you publish it. There are lots of free ones online, and while they won't highlight every mistake, they will take you in the right direction.
3) One of the most commonplace mistakes I see you make is comma splices. This is where two independent clauses are connected by a comma without a suitable coordinator. Here is an example of a comma splice.
The dog barked at me, it was hungry.
The problem arises here because both clauses in the example can stand alone. Both 'the dog barked at me' and 'it was hungry' could function as their own sentences. Because of this, it isn't suitable to connect them with a comma. To fix the splice, you could have them as separate sentences:
The dog barked at me. It was hungry.
Or connect them with a semi-colon:
The dog barked at me; it was hungry.
Or connect them with a comma plus a coordinator:
The dog barked at me, for it was hungry.
Now, let's find some examples of comma splices in this chapter so you know what you're looking for.
Both halves of this quote could stand alone. To fix the comma splice, you could write it as:
Don't be fooled by our looks or our last name. You think we're the same, but we have our differences.
This is actually a triple shot comma splice - all three parts of this quote are independent clauses. To get rid of the comma splice, you could write it as:
A guy was stacking books near the shelf. I think his name was Adam something; he was in my mathematics class.
There are quite a lot of comma splices in this chapter, so have a go at finding and fixing them for yourself. Locating them relies on understanding what does and doesn't constitute an independent clause, which can be tricky, as often it involves intuition rather than logic. Nevertheless, have a read of this article for information on independent and dependent clauses and how to identify them. You should also check out this YWS article for help fixing comma splices.
4) Be wary that the story doesn't become clichéd, because it's treading into the danger zone for teen fiction. So far we have a self-proclaimed introvert protagonist who insists there's nothing special about her, but is clearly talented and physically attractive. We also have a sporty jock that she's pining for but who never notices her. We also have the jock's bitchy girlfriend, who wears skimpy pink clothing and boasts a pair of clone-like minions. Now, there isn't necessarily anything wrong with using popular tropes in your writing, but you need to put your own spin on them. There has to be more to your characters than the stereotypes, because otherwise they won't be interesting. Give Beatrice more personality than 'nasty feminine girl who doesn't want me near her man'. Give Lucas more personality than just 'hawt jock who doesn't notice me'. They need to be people, complete with flaws and virtues.
5) Mel claims to be an introvert, but I don't really see any evidence of it anywhere. She happily goes up and talks to two people she barely knows within the space of this chapter alone, and as an introvert myself, I found that very strange. She says she keeps herself to herself, but she's doing precisely the opposite of that.
6) My biggest advice to you at the moment is to read as much literature as you can get your hands on, both in the fantasy and teen fiction genres and outside of it. It's the best way to get to grips with grammar and expression, and it will familiarise you with clichés that are best avoided. Finding out the unexploited areas of particular genres can provide a lot of inspiration, as well.
I'll call the review there. I am intrigued by the story and I do want to keep reviewing this, but I hope future chapters are a bit tidier when it comes to grammar. I'll follow you so I can keep up to date with when you post.
Keep writing!
~Pan
I enjoyed this chapter very much. It's interesting how much the novel has progressed from being heavily focused on music in the first chapter to having a high-school drama subplot in this chapter, and I think you made those transitions pretty well.
Some critiques . . .
You said you posted the first two chapters without looking back or editing them. I think both would do very well with a quick pass to fix grammar mistakes.
"Don't be fooled by our looks or our last name, you think we're the same but we have our difference. I mean differences. You see I'm introvert because I like to keep to myself, but my brother he is a super-charged social butterfly." I like that last part very much, but I think everything before it is unnecessary. You don't really need to tell the reader that the two siblings have their differences since you show them just that a couple of sentences later. I think it's much better to have the descriptions speak for themselves and take out everything from the beginning of the paragraph to "keep to myself, but." You are already talking about the brother, so you can just go straight into "My brother is a super-charged social butterfly" and continue the paragraph that way.
"'Good, how about you?' I said while fiddling with my shirt, I do this when I'm nervous." Again, you already showed that she was nervous by saying she is fiddling with her shirt. No need to tell the reader that she is doing this because she is nervous. This is a pattern throughout the piece. You have some good description but don't seem to have faith in it, so you tell the reader exactly what to think.
"'Good morning Lidia' she is a very nice lady but if you get on her bad side you better run." I would take this description of her "bad side" out because if this is a minor character, it simply isn't needed, while if she comes up later on, it's much better to SEE someone getting on the librarian's bad side sometime in the story. If we're just told that she has a bad side without knowing much about the character, it doesn't really matter to us.
"I turned around to see her standing wearing a tight sequins skirts with a pink crop top that is short enough that you can see her belly button clearly, behind her stood two girls. One was playing with her phone, Phoebe Watson. Another was cheaking her nail, Georgina Parkson. Who was also wearing almost the same style of clothes." Okay, I like this description, but I don't think it's necessary to mention the names of Pheobe and Georgina just yet. If they come up again, by all means mention their names and identify them as Beatrice's henchmen (henchwomen?). At this point in the story, though, I think it's much more effective to mention them as simply two girls standing behind Beatrice, one checking her phone and the other checking her nails. Also, both girls have names that end with -son. This draws attention to itself, so unless it is for comedic effect, I would change one.
Hope this helped! Not bad overall, and I look forward to future chapters.
Hello wendylau98
First of all, I like the way you compared the two siblings. The surprise that Magnus was into cosmetics was nice. However, you have a lot of grammar errors which make me think that English may not be your first language, which is fine. This is how we learn.
I think the story would be better if it were a little bit more descriptive...if the interactions between the characters had a little bit more depth...I feel like you are throwing in characters simply out of convenience. "Adam something" clearly shows that he isn't important. Why mention him at all? she could have found the book on her own, while you give us a glimpse of her mind...
Just a thought.
Hello Lorraine
Truth be told, English is my first language. However, it is not my country's main language. So, we are heavily influenced by the street language spoken here and people brush away all the grammatical errors and tenses mistakes. I have been self studying on using proper English, hope my you'll read my next chapter to see the improvement %uD83D%uDE00
~Wendy