Young Writers Society

So...
Short chapter - I guess this is more of a prologue, since C2 shall be set one month later.
Yes, the title is the name of an All Time Low song.

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“Stella, you’re perfectly sure you have everything?” Lucian said as I fumbled for my passport.

“Yes, remember, you forced me to make a list, double check my suitcase, count my money, and double check my hand luggage, now go and ask Marcie that question” I replied, still searching through my hand luggage for the passport, my hands grasped it and brought it out of the bag.

Lucian had actually decided to leave me be and go and repeatedly ask Marcie the same questions.

“Have you had something to eat?”

“Have you had something to drink?”

“Have you got something to read?”

“So, you’re sure you have everything?”

I rolled my eyes over hearing Marcie giving even snappier answers than I had, Lucian walked back over to me, obviously after being sent away by his other best friend.

“Stella, are you sure about this?” He asked, looking me deep in the eyes, I stared back and smiled slightly.

“Luce, relax...It’s New York, of course I’m sure, I have somewhere to stay, I have the money, I have plans, and I have...Marcie” I said her name quietly, we both simutainsly sighed and looked over to her, ever since Marcie had suggested going to New York for a few months she had started to change, at first I thought she was doing it for me, I’ve wanted to go since I was little, before I had even met her, and even though both our families had the money for it, we had decided to go after college, just the two of us.

But she was starting to change, I always thought she was like me, I thought she wanted to go see the landmarks, work in a cafe, and go shopping once in a while, but it seemed like she didn’t anymore, she didn’t even have a plan.
Lucian pulled me into a hug; I was going to miss him, my super stereotypical gay best friend.

“Please don’t let me see her on an episode of Jersey Shore” He said pulling away, I laughed and replied with –

“New York Lucian, not New Jersey” I shook his head, still smiling but close to tears, I realised I was the same.
I pulled him into another hug, and we stood there for a few minutes totally silent in each other’s arms, crying thinking about how much we was going to miss each other.

“Oh, and Stella” He whispered, I could barely hear him with all the people fussing round us.

“Yeah?” I whispered back.

“Try and find someone” He said simply, I rolled my eyes and pulled away.

“I can’t promise anything” I replied smiling, he frowned.

“Please, I wanna double date” He said sadly, I burst out laughing and it made me remember, that Julian, his boyfriend was stood behind him texting somebody.

“Oi, Julie” I yelled, he barely had time to look up before I jumped onto him and hugged him, and he hugged back after recovering from the surprise.

“I’m going to miss you Stella” He said, I smiled, still slightly crying.

“Imma miss you to baby” I cried, ruffling his brown hair.


“Stelz, hurry up!” Marcie shouted from Lucian’s side, I took a deep break and walked towards her.

“You ready?” She asked, I nodded, and took one last look at Lucian, and then at Julian who had joined Lucian at his side.
We turned to walk into the airport; I looked back to the couple and waved.



“Flight 565 now boarding!” Said the speaker, Marcie and I stood up suddenly and flung our bag packs over our shoulders and started to run.

“I told you we should have just gone to the terminal!” I said as we ran to the other side of the airport, Marcie was slightly behind me and we was getting strange looks from everyone.

“I didn’t think it boarded for another half an hour!” She replied as we finally reached the terminal I stopped for breath and then walked along side Marcie to the queue of people boarding the same plane to John F Kennedy airport.
The guy took our tickets and did whatever he had to do to them to make them valid and handed them back to us, Marcie and I walked forward and onto the plane.

Twenty minutes later we were sat down, and I had my earphones in while Marcie was reading a book beside me, when all of a sudden there was a jerk, I looked out of the window and smiled as I saw we were finally moving.

“We did it Stella” Marcie said happily.

Goodbye England, hello New York I thought to myself, feeling as if I was in some kind of movie.

Hey yo! GryphonFledgling here, reporting for reviewing duty!

First off, I just wanna say that I love your title. I don't really know why. It just rolls off the tongue for some reason and me likies mucho.

A'ight, onto the story.

Lucian had actually decided to leave me be and go and repeatedly ask Marcie the same questions.

“Have you had something to eat?”

“Have you had something to drink?”

“Have you got something to read?”

“So, you’re sure you have everything?”

Okay, I'm gonna admit that this was a little grating and repetitive and I think the reason was that at this point, I don't know who Lucian is. What is his relationship to Stella? We get indications in a few lines, but because they are separating at this point, we don't get much time to get to know them. We see that they are affectionate towards one another, that everyone in this chapter knows one another and are apparently friends, but we don't get to see too much of them. Lucian is affectionate, but that's all we get from him. We hear that he's gay, but is that all that important? Are we going to see any of these characters being left behind here ever again?

Obviously, this is just the beginning of the story, so these guys might very well play a bit part in the story to come, but it feels like this is just sort of filler before things actually start. And using it as a prologue doesn't really cut it either. Why are we seeing this pre-action? Is it to set up that Stella is leaving friends behind? That she will miss them? Why not show her already having left and be missing them? We'd get that she had friends and that they are no longer with her. And, most importantly, we'd be that much closer to actual plot, as opposed to just introducing us to a bunch of names with no faces behind them that we likely aren't going to run into again for at least a little while.

But she was starting to change, I always thought she was like me, I thought she wanted to go see the landmarks, work in a cafe, and go shopping once in a while, but it seemed like she didn’t anymore, she didn’t even have a plan.

Mmkay, I'm assuming that this is going to be important, seeing as how Marcie's the one that Stella is going to New York with. If they are drifting apart, is that going to have an impact on this trip?

Here's my problem with that though: we haven't seen them interacting before this, so we have nothing to base Marcie's behavior on. Anything you tell us about their previous relationship will be just that: showing. I wanna be able to see how they were before they were starting to grow apart.

This doesn't mean that you have to back the story up and show us it from the beginning of their friendship or anything. But you can't just drop a telling bomb on us in the first page of the story and expect us to just roll with it. Let us see them together, interacting, and after we have established things, then you can go back and let us know that it used to be different.

Mmm, a lot of this chapter just felt this way to me. We see some interaction, we really do. But just due to the fact that she's leaving them behind makes me sort of ignore them. We won't be seeing them here, so why bother? Now, if she were to start out already in New York or something and get a frantically worried call from Lucian wondering if she'd made it okay, then the story would already be chugging along. We'd get that she had friends who were talkative and maybe a little nosy but that loved her. Plus, they would be established if they were ever to come up again, but they would also be out of the way in case not.

It pretty much comes down to trimming what doesn't need to be there. These are suggestions only; obviously I don't know how you plan to proceed with this puppy. It all comes down to what you want to do.

I am curious about this whole trip though. Why are they going? How is this apparent situation with Marcie going to affect things? I want to know why we are starting here, instead of just jumping ahead to the "one month later" you promise?

I love the showing that you do here though. I really do. Even if we don't get to see much of them, we do get to see the friends interacting as friends, rather than just 'we were best friends. the end.' You showed stuff and that made me a million times happy. I just wanted to be shown more. I want to see where the story starts and see how the main players behave, rather than just meeting background actors first.

Make sense? If you have any questions or comments, feel free to PM me or leave a message on my wall. I love to talk about other people's work.

Peace out, m'dear.

~Gryph

Hey there,
Living in Amsterdam, every time I hear Coffee shop, I immediately think of drugs! but when I saw it was romantic, I forced myself to click and found myself thinking, Not everyone associates coffee shops with drugs! So I was pleasantly surprised. Just a few simple grammatical errors and some slight confusion at the end, but apart from that, it was good. Just work slightly more on character depth.
Love,
Evenslilyxx