Chapter 1
"She doesn't belong here."
"Who is she?"
"She's that weird girl in our class. I heard her mom has issues."
"Really? I heard she sits alone cause she's the one with issues..." I clenched my fists tighter. Listening to the voice of the two classmates of mine replaying the conversation in my head was just as hurtful as the first. They didn't even know me. None of them did. That day I came late to school and all sorts of latecomers were there spreading their gossips about everything. It wasn't my fault I was lonely. I Always wanted friends and siblings or a relative anything. When ever I tried making friends they shrugged me off on the basis of some rumor. I asked my mom if I had some siblings living elsewhere or relatives but that was a dark topic around her because it led to the question,
"Who's my dad?" Just as you guessed it, all I have is her.
"I'm going to school now mom!" I yelled out as headed towards the closet to take out my pair of shoes, but with the slice of toast in my mouth it came out slurred. Mom came down with her eyebrows furrowed and had bags under her eyes. She looked even paler than usual.
"Zakiya, I don't understand why you're going to school so early again." She looked at the slice of buttered toast in my mouth then looked at me. I knew she wanted to scold me about skipping breakfast like I normally do, but this time she had nothing to say. Knowing mom, she would find something.
"At least have something to drink," she said, her voice shook a bit. Typical. She then gestured for me to take a seat at the kitchen table, and brought me a glass of juice.
"Mom?" I said as she sat across from me with her head in her hands. I couldn't tell if she was tired or depressed. Looking up and meeting my worried stare, she smiled.
"I'm fine, just a bit worried." I raised an eyebrow.
"It's the news, you heard right?" She added on. I nodded.
"Disappearances around the world." I said.
"And the news about the blood banks having crisis of their own." I nodded again wondering why this bothered her. She sighed,
"Be careful on your way to school the latest disappearance happened last night nearby." Her voice wavered. I got up to put on my shoes in front of the door, and then faced her,
"Alright…You should call in sick. Your boss has to allow it. Plus the doctor told you not to overwork yourself." I said before heading out.
The winter wind gave me chills almost the second I stepped out. I dug my hands into my pockets. The scarf covered my mouth and the hat went a bit over my eyes. The pearl white snow on the sidewalks was blinding.
Stores were just opening up. Only a few cars paced every now and then. This wasn't a busy street most of the day. I could see the traffic light flicker to red and a car just went ahead like it was green. That's how things worked here. There were no cops in the area to stop people. There really was no problem since they only ignored the traffic lights when the streets were empty.
" Why? Why did it happen? " A voice suddenly came to my head. The person was talking amid sobs.
" He promised..." the voice continued. I didn't find it strange to have voices in my head. They were all just memories from different times that my brain kept on rewinding every now and then. I had a really good memory. Normally I could tell when and where I heard it, but this time I couldn't.
I stopped in front of a dead end alley that was between a bakery and convenience store. There was a building behind the two that had its back towards the shops forming a huge wall in the alley. My eyes struggled to see in the dark. Was he there? I walked in a bit.
Jim used to live there. Jim was a crazy old drunkard. He had unkempt hair that had different shades of white and grey. He had a couple of missing teeth and wore an eye patch on his right eye. He always smelt strongly of alcohol and his facial hair looked scratchy…or so that's what some people say about him. It was mostly true except the part about him being crazy. He had thick layers of cardboard around the wall that was layered underneath a swimming pool cover that was nailed into the wall, creating insulation. He put a swimming pool cover that was cut in half, above as a roof. It was angled to allow water to run off. Basically he formed his own house in the back of the alley. He was homeless and yet not homeless.
Although he has that pungent smell of alcohol around him, I never saw him drink. Ever. All those times they say he was drunk looked like he was just fooling around. I wouldn't know, I used to visit him once in a while ever since that time.
It was bare. Nothing was there now; everything he put up was long gone. No Jim. I felt a pang of disappointment. It's been a year now and still no signs of him.
I turned to leave, but a piece of dirty paper rustled, catching my attention. It was pinned on to the dark corners on the wall near the ground. It felt damp as I took it in my bare hands. I couldn't risk ripping it up in case it was Jim's so I held it carefully. Its content wasn't clear. From what I could see it looked like a page ripped out of an advanced biology book. There was a smudge on top of what looked like the DNA model. Weird, I thought as I backed out of the alley. I would hold onto it for him.
The streets were really quiet save for the rough wind whistling. Only a posh black car parked on the other side. My hands shivered as I held onto the paper. It was only a few minutes away from school.
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140,084 Literary Works • 672,994 Reviews
Zozo! Sorry for the late review! Forgive me, please! And don't take the rest of my body off, I still need them
!
! It can still work.
It's a good first chapter, all-in-all. I like the first paragraph when it told much about the first character's background. I think it could be a great first chapter because it launches the reader within the character's story without telling all of it and thus leaving enough intrigue for readers to continue reading. The only prob, I think, is that I was a bit hanged by the story. You told the background, and then showed a little scene, and it stops midscene. In a chapter, you need to form one big idea from different scenes. My advice is that you should continue this chapter until it reaches a complete idea or time stop. If you really want to stop midscene, make a cliffhanger; you can write the second chapter in a different time and come back where you stopped after some scenes. This is only my suggestions as a reader, so be wary when you make changes.
There are some things inclusive to the grammar area which I think is important for you to know. First is the opening lines. I believe that the quotation marks are unnecessary since they were already italicized. In my experience of reading books, thoughts and murmurs by insignificant people needn't be quoted, and only italicized. But it's your choice
What matters more here is the format of your dialogue. Remember that each transition from the speaker to another needs a new paragraph. This should be very evident in paragraph number three; that paragraph is focused almost only in a conversation, so it should be in correct format. Now, let's go on the format of the piece. Using a BIG space is a stop between sections, but it seems that you used these spaces in between each paragraph. Be wary in using them since they mean different from normal spaces. Only use them in long transitions. A reader, though, doesn't like going from one scene to another farther, so try to expand the ideas in each paragraph.
Also, I noticed a weird transition from paragraph to paragraph. From the murmurs, then to a house, then immediately outside. It's bothering me by just a little bit. Remember that you should be organized in a piece, and all lines/scenes/chapters must fall in place. It doesn't need to be chronological, but you need to give a proper order to let the readers imagine the piece better.
That's all I can say for this chapter, Zo! Be sure to make wonders as soon as you revise it! Good luck
Your pal,
Al
Thank youuuuu
Your welcome!
Hey there, Zohali!
So I'm back to offer my thoughts on this edited chapter of yours. This review might be a tad long so just bare with me.
Firstly, I can see that you altered your introduction. Granted, it's a little better now but it still starts off with groundless dialogue and I think you can still push for something better. If you need help bouncing ideas, feel free to give me a PM and I can see what I can do to help you get that hook for your beginning. Additionally, the beginning is a bit cliche with the misunderstood teenager who's an outcast in her school with no friends. It's something that has been done countless times for many YA novel protagonists so you'll have to try to spin it around a little so Zakiya (Yay, you put in her name!) doesn't seem like just another one of those cliches and has a character of her own.
The transition from the first paragraph to the second is also a little weird because at that time, she was in school and then in the next paragraph, she's going back to school so it's little odd there since we don't have a clear transition from this day to that day, if you know what I mean.
Character-wise, you added a bit more meat onto Zakiya but she's still a dull painting that needs some more color. Don't fret about the length of the chapter and try to make it longer if you can so you can fully show what type of person Zakiya is. Right now, all I know is that she cares about her mom and has an outcast label at her school and is friends with a homeless person. She's interesting but I still don't feel that reader's connection to her. Also, her little memory thingy in here was kind of interesting and did tease me a bit. Good work. ^__^
As for the setting, I'm still unsure where this is all taking place and the grammar/punctuation still needs some work. There are a bunch of websites online that a little googling will help you with so you can brush up on what needs capitalization and what doesn't.
For example:
The she here doesn't need capitalization because the question mark here acts like a comma.
1. Make sure you add another break/line between your dialogues.
2. You have a bit of a 'telly' voice where you tell us what happens instead of really showing us.
I hope you don't mind but I'm going to actually just rewrite this upper passage to give you a glance of how you can change things around to help your writing. I'm not going to change it around too much but just enough so you can see the difference in telling vs. showing.
I'm not sure if that will help you see some of the differences but hopefully it can kick start something. ^^ Again, let me know if you need help.
Overall, your chapter is shaping up and I can see more of your character's characteristics in this version than I did in the last. You changed a couple things but you can still change or actually, add more to this to make it even better. Keep writing and let me know if you have any questions.
Hope this helps,
-Pink
Tahk you sooooooo much!
Going to edit this soon. Possibly in morning. Sorry people about things I overlooked.
Finished!
Hi there, Zohali!
I'm going to do a review for this. I usually review as a read so bare with me on a few things and I'll be starting with a few nitpicks:
1. Opening a story with a dialogue can be tricky and starting off a line as cliche as "I'm going to school" isn't exactly the best step.
2. The first few paragraphs of a story are very important. You want to make sure that you grab your reader's attention as quick as you can and starting off with a usual day, going to school, isn't exactly the kind of opening that's going to get you that attention. Try to mix it up, start with something crazy or even some tension that the reader will question or feel something for. Usually this can be something with suggestive intrigue for a character or even some irony or contradiction can prove to be quiet effective. Some examples of openings:
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife". - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
or you can even do something really, really simple:
"Mother died today." - Albert Camus, The Stranger
Overall, you just need to find that 'right' thing that's going to catch their attention. It's not easy but it shouldn't be too hard either.
You don't need to capitalize 'she' in this dialogue line if you're using a comma to connect the dialogue tag to the speech. You can use a period and then capitalize though. If you have trouble with dialogue tags and how to punctuate them correctly, have no fear because Demeter has a wonderful guide on Punctuation within Dialogue that you can look at.
BAM. This would make a beautiful opening sentence.
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Overall
So the first thing I want to say before anything is about the formatting of this piece. YWS can be a little tricky to get the formatting right. What you need to do in order to make your submitted work look cleaner is to basically add extra lines (breaks) in-between your paragraphs.This will help keep it in shape, less cluttered together and will often attract more readers because visibly, it looks neater and easier to read.
Now, for a first chapter you didn't accomplish very much, sadly. I feel like you have an interesting idea so I hope that this review will help you add to your story to make it better. So, first chapters, what do they need? Well, they need a setting, a character, a conflict and a good opener. At least that much. I've already talked about a good opener so we can look at characters...
You gave us a homeless man who is possibly actually more interesting than your protagonist and that's not a very good way to start off. You want to give your protagonist the most attention so you need to work on her. Note, I don't think you even gave us the protagonist's name in this chapter. :c
As for the mother, she's...bland and the only thing that makes her distinctive is that she's sick. You protagonist actually might be the least interesting person in this chapter. You need to give her some time in the sun and let her bake.
Also, as for the setting, I'm not sure what time period or universe they're living in. You mentioned something about disappearances and blood banks and this makes me think of futuristic vampires. Hmmm... I hope not, vampires are so yesterday. However, you did introduce a 'type' of a conflict here with this mention of disappearances so you're not totally at a loss and this is good. I did feel a bit of mystery and intrigue creeping into my bones when this was brought up.
In the end, this chapter looks at most, 'okay' but still needs some work. Brush up on the grammar and punctuation rules, look over the main ingredients that you'll need to make this first chapter work to add some meat onto this bad boy. Again, I keep thinking you have the seed of a great idea in here but it needs to be watered. Keep writing and let me know if you have any questions!
All the best,
-Pink
Thank you sooo much! Don't worry it has absolutely nothing to do with vampires.