Young Writers Society

Prologue
Name: Sarah Apperton
“Everything is all set for Mariah Mrs.Apperton.” Linda Springfield said on the phone.
“Thank You Linda. Lilia and Shawn are so excited that they are getting a new sister. Sam and I planned on having three children, but that was not able to happen before he went missing.” I replied.
“I understand. We are all so happy for Mariah that she is getting adopted. Not many people want to adopt eleven year olds these days.” Linda told me.
“ I know. I wanted the kids to be close in age. I think that they will have more in common that way.” I said.
“ I think that will definitely help them connect. I will see you sometime this week then?” Linda asked.
“ Yes. See you then.” I said.
“ Bye.” She replied.

Chapter one: The past and the future
Name: Shawn Apperton

“Shawn! Come Here!” Lilia yelled upstairs to me. I bounded down the stairs to see what my twin sister wanted.
“Look at the pictures I found lying on the table. They’re from when we were two. You were so cute. What happened?” Lilia joked.
“Ha ha. Very funny Lilia. These pictures have Billy in them!” I said, referring to our dark blue parakeet at the time.
“ Yeah, in the cheese doodles bag!” Lilia said, laughing. Billy would often go into any open cheese doodles bag that was lying on the table and eat one. By the time he came out, he would be covered in orange dust!
“ I can’t believe that I can still picture him walking out of the bag covered in orange dust! It was so long ago. Ten years.” I said.
“ Yeah. It’s been awhile since we’ve had a pet other than fish. That’s why I’m so surprised that Mom is letting you get a dog.” Lilia replied.
“It’s because of my grades. You know that.” I told Lilia.
“Yeah, but still. It’s been a long time, and a dog? I know that Mom had a dog when she was a kid but getting a dog after going so long without a pet is hard to believe.” Lilia said.
I thought about what Lilia said, and I realized that she was right. It was hard to believe that Mom was letting me get a dog, nonetheless, a beagle. I have always wanted a beagle. I have been looking at a certain one at the kennel that I help out at for a week. Mom finally said yes when she saw my report card. I’m honestly surprised.
“ What exactly are you going to name this beagle?” Lilia asked.
“Brownie. Mom said it was a good name.” I replied.
“What are you talking about? That is the worst name for a dog! A.) It’s lame. B.) How is the dog going to feel when you get to eat brownies and he can’t?” Lilia said argumentatively.
“ Like he will understand that’s where his name came from!” I said. Lilia stuck her tongue out at me, like any mature twelve year old would have.
“” That’s attractive.” I said, and walked away.
“ Fine! Be that way! But, when we go to pick up “Brownie”, we are also picking up our new sister, remember?” Lilia asked.
“Wow! I almost forgot. We’re picking up Mariah today!” I said.
“Yeah. You’d better get ready.” Lilia replied.
“ Kids! Let’s go! You want to pick up your sister today don’t you?” Mom said to us.
“ Coming!” We both replied, and raced out the door.

Hey! I really like it but I just want to point a few things out.

It might just be me, but it does sound a bit... I can't really put it into words. But it changes the subject sort of. I'm sorry, please just ignore me! I really liked it though, short but sweet!

I thought this was a good chapter. Though its kinda a little short however straight to the point. One thing that my teacher always tells me is to expand the moment. Why not describe more about the sister and about you give lots of details about a shorter amount of time. Other than that I think you will do really well with this novel and i can't wait to see more!
-bookcutie

I like it. I think that you should continue it, I love it. No lie, I am not just doing this to get points.

Hey there, Titan, and happy review day to you! I'm here to drop off a review on this fine day, so why don't we just get started? Off we go!

So, the first thing I noticed when reading this was that you don't really have much description, you're mostly just telling us what you want to say. As I say in almost all of my reviews, never forget the age old rule: Show don't Tell! Paint us the pictures of your settings, characters, character personalities, etc. Never just dump information on us, like you do here, otherwise your writing will not be near as interesting as it should be.

And another thing that this kind of writing does is it swallows up all the details that you can use to develop your characters later on in a few paragraphs, leaving you with no material that can be easily used throughout your story. You never want to just dump all the information about your characters on your reader in a few paragraphs at the beginning of a novel. Stretch it out, show us what your characters are like!

Nevertheless, I believe that you have a good start here, you just need to flesh it all out and add some more description. Your grammar/spelling/mechanics are pretty much perfect, so I have nothing really to nit-pick at, so good job there!

But I really think that you can make it a whole lot better if you take some of the advice I gave above, and just make it a lot more interesting.

However, there's just one more thing I'd like to mention. Take a look here for a minute:

He used to walk into the open bag of Cheetos and start eating them! We have a bunch of pictures of him in the bag!

So, you end both of these sentences with exclamation points, and that is something you really don't want to do unless you're using them in dialogue. If you overuse exclamation points, your writing can come off as amateurish and more than a tad annoying. Make sure that you don't seem like you're yelling at your readers when you're trying to describe something to them.

But that's about all I can find to mention for now, so I'll end the review here! I really hope this helps, and I think I'll go over to your next chapter right away. Great start, and I look forward to reading more! Keep writing!

This is good, but not really descriptions in it. I would really like to know more about the twins and the Mariah. I think that you should add more to this chapter. Other than that it was really good!!!!!

Hey again Titan! Sorry it's taken me so long but I'm finally here to drop off the requested review on your edited version! So let's just get started, then...

Nit-Picks

First, why don't I just go into a few nit-picks before going into the more general things.

“Everything is all set for Mariah Mrs.Apperton.”

There should be a comma after Mariah just to make the sentence sound and look better.

“Thank You Linda.

Watch your capitalization, you don't need to have "You" capitalized.

Sam and I planned on having three children, but that was not able to happen before he went missing.”

So, now, this is something that I really think you can and SHOULD do something more with in your story. You've just let us, the readers know that Lilia and Shawn's father, and Sarah's husband had gone missing. Now, what you need to let us know is when he went missing. And then, you need to adjust your characters to fit this. This will shape how they act, what their personalities are like, etc.

Now, just in case you don't know quite what that would be like, take a moment here. Close your eyes, and just think about the following situation for a minute.

So, you wake up one morning and suddenly, one or both of your parents are missing. Nobody knows what happened to them or where they are, they're just gone without a trace. Now, how do you feel? What are your thoughts? Your parent(s) are gone. They're not there anymore. Nothing.

And then, write down what you think you would do just on like a scrap piece of paper or something. List your thoughts, feelings etc., everything you can think of for 10 minutes about what your life would be like without your parent(s) and how it would change.

Now, you have something you can use. You have a whole list of feelings, thoughts etc. that you can apply to your character's lives. Use this in your story to make your characters more realistic and just flesh out the whole thing about the missing father. It'll be good, and it'll make your whole story ten million times better if you can do this instead of just dropping that bomb and then doing nothing with it.

That is the worst name for a dog! A.) It’s lame. B.) How is the dog going to feel when you get to eat brownies and he can’t?” Lilia said argumentatively.

Take out the periods and right brackets, and just have it go like this: "A, it's lame, and B, how..."

This will just clean it up a bit and make your writing look a whole lot more put together and professional.

“” That’s attractive.” I said, and walked away.

Watch out for the double quotation marks!

So, that's about all I can find for nit-picks!

Dialogue/Character Development

So, this is a lot better than your first version because you don't just dump all the info on us. However, because of the way you're writing your dialogue, your characters come off as a bit robotic and inhuman. They just don't feel right, and they don't really have their own personal voices yet.

Make sure you listen to how people around you talk, and model your dialogue after that. This is an age old tip that I think you might benefit from. Make sure your dialogue flows and is believable. We need to be able to imagine that these are real people saying these things.

And if you work on this, I think that your characters will be much stronger because of it. They will start to pop, to become more believable even just by having their dialogue be something that we can imagine is coming from a real person!

Overall

So, overall I think that this was an improvement, despite needing some work still. Just make sure you add some more description, work on your dialogue, keep on working on your characters, etc. and you're on your way to a great story! Good job, and thanks for letting me know about the edit! Make sure you contact me again if you edit more or add another chapter, and I'll go drop off a review ASAP! Hope this helps, and I'll see you around!