Hey =] Thank you to everyone who read chapter one. I'm totally unsure about this chapter and it's annoying me. Please give your opinions on it as I feel that it really needs to be improved. If I get positive feedback then I'll hopefully post chapter two part two later this week. Hope you like it!
Sunday the 8th of July.
After yesterdays goings-on, I was totally up for having a good day, but sadly that wasn’t to be.
“I hate you Lily!”
“I hate you too Pansy, but will you please just put your shoes on.”
“Why should I listen to you?” Pansy yelled from the top of the stairs, where she had been standing for the last quarter of an hour.
“Because I’m eight years older than you, that’s why.” I just couldn’t be bothered with this. She was acting more like she was a toddler than a seven year old and I was fed up with it. Why did she always have to take her anger out on me?
“So,” Pansy said, stomping down the stairs. “I don’t want to!”
I clenched my teeth together in frustration. “But you’ve said that you’d go, so you’re going and that’s that.”
“No!” Pansy shouted, stamping her foot as she reached the bottom step. Definitely a toddler.
“You have to,” I sighed, holding her shoes out to her.
“I don’t want to!”
“Why?” I pleaded, feeling close to giving up.
Sitting down on the stair that she had been standing on, pansy replied, looking genuinely upset. “Because Harriet’s going to be there and she’s really bossy,”
“Oh poor you,” I said, in mock sympathy.
“I know,” Pansy replied, not picking up on the fact that I didn’t care in the slightest. “I’ve got to spend the whole afternoon with her telling me what to do.”
I stifled a laugh as Pansy looked up at me. “What a hard life.” Honestly, it was hard not to laugh when Pansy was trying to be sincere.
“It’s so not fair. I have to spend all day at school with her too.”
“Try living with a bossy boots,” I muttered under my breath.
“What?” Pansy asked, raising her ruby eyebrows slightly.
“Nothing,” I replied quickly. I didn’t want to start another argument when I was finally getting Pansy around to the idea of putting her shoes on. “It’s just that we’ve only got two more weeks at school until we break up for the summer holidays. You‘ll have a whole six weeks off from her then.”
“Yeah,” Pansy replied, a small smile breaking out onto her freckled face.
“So are you going?” I asked, hoping for a yes.
“Well, I suppose I did say that I’d go,” Pansy replied, still sounding reluctant as she placed her hands out for her shoes. Victory!
Within five minutes, we were out of the house and making our way down to the high street. The sun was shining brightly and the sea breeze was light. I reached Margo’s house first. Pansy, still grumbling about how unfair it was that she had to go, was a few steps behind me.
“Please don’t be mean to Harriet,” I sighed, raising my eyebrows at Pansy meaningfully.
She shrugged, a scowl creasing her pale forehead.
“Since when am I ever mean?” she pouted, digging her sandal clad feet into the grass of Margo’s front garden.
Like all the time. I bit my lip to stop myself from snapping back, just as the front door opened.
“Hello Pansy,” a heavy west country accent chimed and I looked up to see Margo’s mum. Her mousy brown hair was pulled back into a messy bun on top of her head and she was wearing a flowery summer dress.
“Come in. Come in.”
I sent Pansy a stern look as she passed me slowly, her bottom lip still sticking out.
“Mum’ll pick you up,” I said, as Margo’s mum moved aside to allow Pansy inside of their brightly wallpapered hallway.
“Whatever,” Pansy mumbled, disappearing into the house.
Margo’s mum raised her eyebrows at Pansy’s tone and I rolled my eyes back.
“Bye Mrs. Stanley,” I smiled, turning on my heel to vacate through the white picket gate.
“Bye Lily,” she sang cheerfully, before I heard the clunk of the wooden door as it closed behind me.
Thank God that was over. At least Pansy had only been slightly brat-ish today. I so couldn’t have put up with one of her mega moods.
“Did she go without a fuss?” Mum asked, as she bustled around the shop, finding flowers to put in a bouquet that she had been preparing when I‘d entered.
“Nope,” I said, collecting the unwanted stems that lay all over the counter top. “Since when does Pansy do anything without a fuss?”
Mum laughed, placing the newly collected yellow coronations amongst the flowers that she had already chosen. “I see what you mean.”
I had decided to go and help my Mum and Step Dad out at their florists in the high street. It wasn’t the way that I liked to spend my Sunday afternoons, but as Roxy wasn’t returning my calls there was no point in going over to hers.
“Where’s Paul?” I asked, once I had looked around the shop to find him absent.
“He went out for a smoke,” she replied, sounding annoyed as she swept her fringe out of her eyes with the inside of her right wrist. “He left twenty minutes ago. Honestly, I don’t know what takes him so long to have a cigarette.”
At that exact moment, the shop bell rang and in came Paul, breathing heavily.
I decided that now would be the time for one of my extremely brilliant comments.
“Wow, smoking really is starting to affect your lungs,” I said, as Paul took off his coat.
The only problem was, he didn’t react in the way that I had intended. Instead of laughing so uncontrollably that he got a stitch, he just glared at me - his blue eyes dark. I took this as a sign for me to leave. Be that way then.
When I had just gotten to the foot of the hill that lead to my house, I saw Mr. Peter’s and Ralph standing on the corner by the gift shop, both looking out of breath. Mr. Peter’s looked rather red in the face too. Weird. And even worse, when they saw me looking at them, they both gave me Paul like glares. How nice!
It wasn’t until that evening though, that things got even worse.
Thanks for reading!
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,020 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hiya Dudette! Sorry for taking so long!
You're missing some commas here. One after "Maggie" and one before "Paul."
I would break this up into two sentences. It would make it easier to understand, and we'd be less likely to skip over important info. I skipped right over that she was expecting somebody.
Try to cut down on the number of "-ing" words you use. These lines could be rewritten as:
Since all the verbs now have tense, we're not working so hard to read the lines.
~ This line made me think lightning had actually struck the threshold. Since we don't have a description, a name, or anything else, I saw a wall of smoke between her and the voice.
~ Since your MC knows this person, put the name the first time he's mentioned. Some background wouldn't hurt, either.
Now, why would that be? It's a pretty strait-forward question. Tell us why it took a moment. ^_^
Remember what I tell you about breaking up sentences?
You didn't mention that she went back into the kitchen...
~ Put some more description on that hug. Mostly, so we know why your MC would say "alright" like she'd had enough.
~ I think this would be better if the tag was in front of the dialogue or all of Roxy's stuff was in another sentence. It would make it a bit clearer.
I think this would be more effective if you put the bit about what Roxy's doing before the dialogue. Then, we'd be laughing along with your MC.
I don't really see any indication that they were "hurriedly" prepared. From the earlier prose, I thought they were simply prepared.
You're flirting with present tense here. I'd take a look at these sentences to make 100% sure they're past tense.
You can delete this comma.
Hmm, now, why wouldn't she have said anything before hand? Is Roxy that predictable, in that she always goes to the T.V. first and doesn't just wait for her friend to say something? Or had they made plans to watch T.V. during lunch? Or does your MC just not want to hear about it?
Please give us some history on this meeting/friendship, so we understand why your MC didn't ask for news as soon as Roxy walked in the door. ^_^
(Random comment- I see you're spelling "program" the French way. ^_^ Just had to say that.)
Hmm, I would play around with putting the tags in front of the dialogue. To me, if somebody's smile is getting wider, then it shows in their voice. By the conversation above, we know that Roxy's the type to just say things plainly.
Try out the tag in front of the dialogue so we have a better idea of the tone. One thing I don't like in fiction is having to re-read dialogue because of the tag. If the reaction is one where the reaction is intuitive (for the case above, we have no reason to see why she's not happy that her friend is getting back together with her ex), then it's fine to have your tag after the dialogue. But when the reaction is different or counter-intuitive, then it's best to have the tag before the dialogue so we know the proper tone and don't have to re-read things. ^_^
Present tense here. If you want her "thinking" this, then make it in italics. If you just want it as a line, then make it past tense.
Remember, you need to be consistent with your tenses. If your work is in past tense, only use other tenses during dialogue and thoughts.
~ Instead of telling us she's disappointed, why not show us with her body language? ^_^
~ The two bits of Roxy's dialogue here seem a bit odd. I would think "so" would be said in a more non-pulsed tone, while "what are you getting at" would have been said sharply. It would help things out if you used action tags more. That way, we could get a better handle on their personality, instead of having to guess because we're always told what they sound like.
Present tense here again.
This could be cut down to: Roxy had stormed out the front door and was stomping her way down the road.
Now, we don't have to re-imagine what she's doing, since it's right in the description of her walking. ^_^
~ If you want to leave this as-is, put a comma after "and."
~ Since this is one sentence, I would suggest breaking it up. Then, we don't have to slug through "ing" words and "and"s.
A very nice cliffhanger! I just had to point out something in this that was very, very well done.
~~
Style: You're a bit inconsistent with your style here. It starts off with your MC speaking to the audience, in present tense, but then goes to past tense interspersed with present tense and finally back to present tense. That seems to be part of the style you're getting at with this piece, but I can't really tell.
Emotion: You've got some counter-intuitive bits of emotion here that aren't properly explained. Characters are about 90% emotion, you know, and those emotions don't often make sense to people watching. ^_^ Take the time to explain every reason behind shifts in emotion, and emotional reactions. To take the example of Roxy's boyfriend, since we don't know that he's been in and out of her life three times this month, we don't understand why your MC is a bit upset that Roxy is getting back together with him. When we actually find that out, we almost want to re-read the whole thing just so we understand it. And, since not many readers are willing to do that, it ends up being a strike against you, the author.
Telling: It doesn't really show that much, but this is almost all telling. We don't get shown any physical reactions; you just focus on the voice of the character. That's fine in some cases, but most of the time, it's best to let physical reactions and facial changes dictate a character's tone of voice. Then we're shown what a character is feeling, and we get more characterization and personalty on your characters. ^_^ See? It's a win-win situation.
Explanation: You tend to only explain things when your MC adds everything up in her head, but by then it's too late. The reader thinks that the MC doesn't know the person past a voice or a one-time relationship, and when we find out they know all sorts of stuff about this person, it throws us. We then begin to wonder how reliable the MC is as a narrator, and if she's hiding anything else from us. Since you don't want to chase away readers by having them question the narrator, I would put some more explanation earlier on. ^_^
Overall: Hmm, I didn't find this bit as good as the first chapter. We just don't know enough about these very established relationships to be able to get what's going on. Have you every explained what your and your friends do together to somebody else? Takes awhile, doesn't it? Thanks to all those inside jokes, you need to explain all of those before some event makes sense. That's really what's happening here. You're showing us the product of years of friendship, but not explaining the inside jokes that make up that product.
Questions? PM me.
~Rosey
Heey!
Hey!
Great job
PM me with next part/any other things you need reviewied/any questions!
xxmimixx
Hi
I like this part! I do think you should continue, you've got a good story going here and it would be shame to leave it. I think its good you have introduced another character as well, it allows the reader to see how the MC is whilst not around her parents 
I think its good how you introduce this part with questions but 'How do you remember you say?' doesn't sound completely right to me- perhaps you could rephrase it to something like 'How do I remember?'.
I don't think you need 'which is' here, the sentence might flow better without it.
I like the conversation Lily has with the guy on the doorstep but you use 'just' quite a few times here, and I think a couple more later on in the story. I'd get rid of some or replace them.
asked needs to have a capital a
Instead of a comma I'd have a question mark as she is asking something and as you say the visitor smiled I'd use a different description to how she talks here- maybe she could ask politely?
I think 'creasing' might work better here than 'appearing on'.
Instead of 'thinking about how rude he had been' I think you could say something better- perhaps something about being a little shocked by his abruptness.
I'm not completely sure but I think you need a comma after back.
I'd leave out whilst.
I'd change one or two of the saids here as they are used quite close to one another, for instance the '"So," she said through a mouthful of sandwich.' could be she spoke through a mouthful of sandwich.
I'd say 'an invitation' instead of 'the invitation'.
I'd put again in the speech into italics to show its emphasised.
I'm not sure about 'an air of concern', maybe a tinge of concern? Perhaps you could rephrase it a little to- 'I said, a concerned tinge to my voice.'
Its a bit weird here as you were before talking about you're past but now you are saying it like it had just happened, maybe you could show Lily sinking onto the floor or into a seat, putting her head in her hands or something then have this in italics to show it as her thoughts at that time? You could then separate the part after this to show that its coming from the present
Overall: I'm still finding this story very interesting, you've drifted a bit away from the whole step-dad thing but I think its good in a way as it has allowed you to build more on the MC's personality.
I think you should add more description to Roxy, maybe not all in one go but adding it in little pieces so that we get an idea of what she looks like. You also skip over the time they spend watching T.V.- Perhaps you could add in a bit more about them laughing together at silly jokes on the screen and things as otherwise its all kind of quick. You've done really well in showing the argument between Roxy and Lily- I have pointed out where said has been used a bit too frequently though so I would change that where you can. I'd also maybe add more expression when they are talking so that there is a good image in how they look.
Please stick with this- your doing well so far! Hope I've helped