Young Writers Society

chapters 6-7 of my revolution book, enjoy btw you find out who the friend from the 7th chapter is in the first line of the 8th chapter, so don't worry that won't be a mystery for long.

Chapter Six

Roughly three hours later my phone buzzes in my pocket making me jump as it always does. Ignoring it I turn back over onto Alejandro’s stomach. I fiddle with the silver chain around his neck for a minute; then get up, desperately in need of stretching. I feel my back crack noisily.

Out of habit I go to check myself in his bathroom mirror. My wavy hair isn’t too messed up, although the humidity has done a number on it. I brush off some tan strands from my black cotton tank-top - uncertain whether they were his light brown hair or my dark blonde hair - and stuff my hands inside my pockets. The phone number is still there. I leave the bathroom, shrugging off the worries that come with the number, to join him on his bed.

He pulls me down and I land on top of him. My buzzing phone shocks me out of the moment. This time I answer. My heart goes into overdrive as I hear my father’s agitated voice in the receiver. “I don’t care where you are or what you’re doing, but get your tail home this instant.” All excuses abandon me. His tone has chased them halfway to Kentucky by now. “Yes sir…I mean yes, Dad…I mean ok” and with that stuttering over with I hang up.

There are a few things not many people understand about my father. First of all, most people assume he’s super strict because he’s a lawyer. He’s not, but when his daughter suddenly turns up missing… well that is a problem. Secondly, he has a tough guy front so no one suspects how torn up he’s been ever since my mom became seriously ill about three years ago.

Health has been an issue for her ever since childhood. A bad case of pneumonia weakened her immune system in her early teen hood and ever since she’s struggled with different antibiotics and remedies that simply don’t do the job. Even my pregnancy was precarious for her; the doctors swore they were going to lose us both.

Miraculously my birth was an extremely routine one. She went in on the due date, and roughly fifteen hours of deep breathing and jaw clenching later, she was a mother. My birth did affect one thing drastically: her immune system. The already fragile structure that kept her healthy was slowly chipping apart. The great collapse came three years ago. She went in for a flu shot, and ended up being admitted as a patient when they spotted a troubling case of MRSA. Two months later she slipped into a coma.

Dad checks in regularly; I visit twice a month. Doctors say that she hasn’t made much progress either way, and it’s merely a matter of time until the inevitable happens. With that in mind my dad and I have tried to get things back to normal, just the two of us. However his maternal skills have much to be desired, especially when it comes to me and boys.

With panic controlling my limbs I gathered myself up and go right for my car. I allow just enough of a pause to give Alejandro a goodbye peck and then I’m halfway down the stairwell. I know this panic is completely unnecessary, my father isn’t going to do anything drastic; my life is not in danger. Yet as I sprint towards my car, I can’t help feel as if my life is in more danger than I realize.

Chapter Seven

A tiny florescent green man beacons pedestrians to cross the busy intersection. A business woman struts across in a dignified manor. “Stupid jaywalkers,” she mutters under her breath, while watching several people cut across traffic 100 feet from her, “couldn’t they be smart enough to cross where they aren’t going to get hit? Well if they want to become road kill that’s no skin off my back.” No sooner after the woman reaches the sidewalk a light yellow Volkswagen Bug swerves off the road and into a telephone pole a slim 20 feet away. The business woman screams and frantically calls 911.

I’m plowing 60 mph down Remoh Blvd. Technically the speed limit is 40, but no one pays attention to such nuances. Scanning for cops I see a few in the distance, and reluctantly slow down. Soon I catch up to a major traffic jam. “Great,” I mutter, “some idiot got himself into an accident and now I’m going to be in even more trouble.” Patience is not a virtue my father comprehends. Peering around the line of honking cars I see the cause of the clog: a small yellow Bug practically wrapped around a telephone pole. The car looks surprisingly familiar.

It is obvious traffic isn’t moving any time soon, and I have to get a better look at that car. Something within tells me I know the victim. A swarm of police buzz around the car. A lone ambulance sits uneventfully to the side, so the injury count looks to be low. Which is odd because the mere sight of the mangled car makes me wretch; I can’t imagine anyone escaping in anything less than critical condition.

I notice a policeman is on the far side of the sidewalk away from the excitement of the accident. He’s reprimanding a girl noticeably shorter than him with waist long chestnut hair. First he waves a pen in front of her face, then the walks towards him in a zigzag fashion. Shaking his head he motions for her to try again. This time her path resembles more of a straight line, with swaying during intervals. I watch my dark haired friend receive some form of ticket and some harsh words from the officer.

When I finally reach her she’s completely disoriented. I wrap my arm around her waist and place her arm over my shoulder. After I’m convinced that I can support her weight we slowly trek back to my waiting car.

Hey, this is interesting! Good job.

I'm all puzzled over who the tipsy friend from chapter 7 is. The mystery is on! Fortunately, it won't be long to find out just who it is. As usual, it was intriguing and I feel compelled to read more, so that's good. It's not as polished as the last installment, but that's what critiques are for, right?

The only real thing to gripe about in this chapter is that it's "telling" instead of "showing". For a basic explanation of how to avoid "telling" and make it more "showing", I have slightly altered quote from a critique I did on another person's story.

A good way to avoid "telling" is is to put your information into conversations. You can get all the information across, by having one person tell another person and having that other person ask good questions.

Having the characters do characterizing things while something benign is good. For example, if I said that someone wheezed and plodded through the meadow and their friend was laughing and skipping, you can tell they're either worn out or fat. If I said someone pulled at their whiskers you could tell they're either hairy or an animal-person. If she freaks out when her phone rings and their boyfriend tells her that she shouldn't have let her father know she was visiting him, then you know that the girl is nervous and her boyfriend doesn't respect authority much.

Something you can do to help you with this is to practice describing yourself without specifically saying the things. In other words, allow your reader to infer, instead of just outright telling them. A lot of what we learn comes from what we observe about people. For example, I could describe myself as a tall, combative person by putting a short exchange this way.


"What're you looking at?" the guy asked, craning his neck back to squint at me.

I bent down until I was eye to eye with him. "Your ugly face."

The punk's demeanor deflated and scampered off into the crowd.

I looked back at Katrina with a wry grin. She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "God, you moron. Just because you're my boyfriend doesn't mean you're my bodyguard. Why do you have to freak out like that every time somebody steps out of line?"

With a sniff, I rested my arm on her shoulder. "Take it or leave it."


See what I mean? It would have been just as easy for me to get the same information across like this:
I'm tall, cocky, and combative. Sometimes I pop off at people when they don't really deserve it. Katrina, my girlfriend, doesn't like it when I do that.

The second example isn't nearly as good as the first one. The first is a very short story. The second is a profile. Fiction is interesting when it's a story. If people want to read profiles, they go to dating sites.

Now not all telling is bad, some of it is admissible. But taking up several paragraphs just telling people what other people are like is more like an essay than a story.

So anyway, that's by take on how to avoid telling. Try it, it's hard at first, but it gets to be a lot of fun once you get the hang of it.


Anyway, back to stuff that you wrote.

With panic controlling my limbs I gathered myself up and go right for my car. I allow just enough of a pause to give Alejandro a goodbye peck and then I’m halfway down the stairwell. I know this panic is completely unnecessary, my father isn’t going to do anything drastic; my life is not in danger. Yet as I sprint towards my car, I can’t help feel as if my life is in more danger than I realize.

Intriguing! I like this.

A tiny florescent green man beacons pedestrians to cross the busy intersection.

I think you meant beckon, instead of "beacon". A beacon is a lighthouse or a brightly painted sign.

I watch my dark haired friend receive some form of ticket and some harsh words from the officer.

This is the first time I've heard that this girl is her friend. It's distracting for this information to be at the end of the paragraph. The first thing someone would notice about someone getting a "are you drunk?" exam is if they were one of your friends. You could put a short sentence at the beginning of the paragraph to identify the girl as her friend.

This was good, all things considered, just work on "showing" instead of "telling" and PM me if you have any questions about it or if I didn't make it clear enough.

*Looking forward to chapter 8*.

this is really good, and getting interesting, not much to critique on, scotty pretty much touched on it all. so got the pleasure of just reading.
this is great.

kim