Young Writers Society

"I will never thank my parents for giving me such a 'good' childhood"-Authors Oath.

Scene 1

The sky was so perfect, blue, clear, and beautiful, and here I was, sitting in my chair, staring out the window to my left. My attention span was so short in class, but I still managed to rank the top student in all of my courses.

I was a sophomore, a tenth grader, at Pelents High School. I'd look around my class and a few kids would smile and wave at me, none of them were my friends. I had practically no one in my life, I was a foster child and a loner with my few three or four friends. Oh well, I'd rather not be popular or even known for that fact. I don't want all of the drama of having friends.

Anyways, so I was daydreaming, again, about some wondrous make believe land that you could only find in movies or stories. There were lush forests, huge water waterfalls dwelling upward into the blood red moon-filled night sky, and the most beautiful tropical beaches. Small huts sat on the sandy shore and vines and tree-houses stretched up to the canopies of the emergent trees of the forest. I was laying in the sand staring into the ocean. I heard a faint voice and then saw something floating in the water; it looked almost like a human! A black-haired, green-eyed man swam through a distant and body-surfed another to the shore.

"Princess TaleaBeth!" He panted. God, did I hate it? I hated my whole name and preferred to be called either Lea or Beth, and I never believed myself to be princess- like. This was one of the weirdest daydreams I've had in a while.

The man repeated my name over and over as if I wasn't listening until I came back into reality to a classroom filled with students staring at me and an angry looking Mr. Hawkwik.

"Ms. TaleaBeth!" He screamed. I looked startled at him with a glare deep in my eyes. I didn't want to deal with this anymore; I picked up my bag and walked out the door. Mr. Hawkiwk was following shortly behind me, "Ms. TaleaBeth! What do you think you're doing?!"

"Leaving what does it look like?" I said a little too calmly.

"You know I'll be calling your parents if you leave." He said and I snapped.

I whipped around to face him,"And which parents would those be?! I don't have parents if you've forgotten!" He looked slightly startled, "My parents are dead! I would never count those fool fosters as my parents.No, never!"

He seemed startled at my reaction and said nothing. I turned back around headed to the entrance. "If this what you want, Beth, then it's fine with me. Just be careful, please."

I walked out, not thinking of what Mr. Hawkwik had said, bit instead thinking of that man in my dream. I now remember seeing him in many of my other dreams. That daydream was the first time he'd ever said anything to me though. Now why did he call me princess? How did he know my name? Who is he?

You have a good introduction but the thing that strikes me right away is that you're using first person narration. This is great but as I gather your protagonist is going to be one of those superior (as in actually better rather than thinking their better) ones (judging by the being better than everyone at school thing), you have to be careful not to make TaleaBeth appear arrogant accidentally.

Moving on to something more tangible:

"or even known for that fact"

this makes it sound like Taleabeth would not like to be known for being popular, whereas I assume you mean she wouldn't like to be known at all. If so "or even known for that matter" might be more apt.

"Anyways, so I was daydreaming, again,"

This is actuallya little grating. Up until here the narration is very passive and enjoyable, but by having your protagonist steer the narration, the atmosphere becomes a little compromised. However that's just my opinion and others might disagree. Irrespective of that point you really should lose the 's' in anyways.

"blood red moon-filled night sky"

A great image, but could be reformatted as "night sky filled with a blood-red moon", which seems to flow better. Although it requires more words, it simply flows better.

"swam through a distant and body-surfed another to the shore."

insert "wave" after "distant" I think

"Leaving what does it look like?"

Either a comma or full stop after Leaving makes more sense grammatically.

Two things leapt out of me in terms of characterisation. Mr Hawkwik gives up on Taleabeth very quickly, usually a teacher wouldn't let their student leave like that, even if they sympathise. However this could be an intentional reflection on Hawkwik by you. If so, ignore this.

Secondly, TaleaBeth seems to make the jump to believing the dreams are real very quickly. For a girl who doesn't want to make friends, and seemingly has few problems with isolation, this is odd. You may onsider throwing an extra scene of "Oh my goodness, these dreams are real!" if you intend to make this a larger piece. Failing that you could drop the immediete acceptance.

If you want any mor help, please pm me, I really think your piece shows a lot of promise, and would love to contribute to it.

I have never been a fan of first-person narrative, for the simple reason that it seems far too similar to someone giving an idea for a tale, rather than the tale itself. However, your first two paragraphs avoid this beautifully.

I must agree with Rubric; the third paragraph begins to jar a little. Why not replace "Anyways, so I was daydreaming, again" with simply "I was daydreaming again"? The starkness of the line reinforces the fact that the character is daydreaming AGAIN. Plus, not every line needs to be complex. Don't forget to vary your sentence length; you have very few short sentences.

The teachers reaction is too variable, too sudden. Try and insert a few descriptions of his expressions, perhaps throw in a good old fashioned staring-contest between him and the character before he gives in.

Personally the character comes off as quite arrogant, but that isn't necessarily a problem.

Finally, I like it. It serves as a good opening, and with a bit of polish it could really sparkle.

I really want to know what going to happen next! Ah! I like this story a lot and can really relate to the main character. I even know a bit about the foster system. My brother is adopted and we have house a fair few foster children. Its heartbreaking the whole system. Anyway now that I have managed to talk about myself. I like the whole first person angle you took I almost always write in first person. Ah there I go again. Must stop talking about myself. But in all good start! Write more so I can read it!

Rubric pretty much pointed out all of the grammatical errors that I noticed.

The second sentence seems almost unnecessary. You could delete it and the story would feel no ill effects and it might even be stronger for it. This is just my opinion, but I just don't like the sentence. It does, as Rubric points out with other examples, makes the character seem kind of arrogant.

The teacher seems to soften really quickly. It would work if maybe he didn't get so angry at first, or if he took a little longer to get soft. But as it is, he seems to back down really quickly, whereas if I had a kid snapping at me that way, I would probably quiet down, but I wouldn't be advocating them walking out.