   mergirl007
2008-10-29 . chapter 1Your story has a lot of potential, and you obviously don't fail English classes, which is amazing. Thank you for taking the time to check your fic for misspellings and grammatical mistakes.
I really liked the beginning, besides a few minor problems that I'll get to in a minute. But I think you should try harder to exaggerate Whitney's feelings of shock and disbelief later in this story. Kids with wings are hardly commonplace; birdkids are practically a nonexistent species. And even if the whole ohmygod-X-Men-Came-to-Life thoughts don't really overwhelm her because she's exhausted (and if she is, can you try to make her seem really out of it earlier in the story?), guys with guns in a school should be downright terrifying. And hit men aren't exactly normal in Chicago either; perhaps you could change Whitney's "Hah, this is nothing, you should see Chicago" line to something more realistic like "WTF, this doesn't even happen in Chicago, why is it happening in Podunk High?" Basically, try to remember that these events are completely out of the norm for normal teens, and write Whitney accordingly. Or you could make her so exhausted and incoherent that she just blankly accepts them and only realizes what's going on later. I'd really like that; sleep-deprived OCs are worth a few giggles, especially when they think things like "oh look at the pretty lights and the shiny guns and the fluffy wings... huh lookee the explosions... yawn..."
So... what's with the author's notes that take up half the chapter? That's rather annoying, you know. You could always incorporate your friends' conversations into the story if you want to. A little more background given to your human OCs would be awesome. (And btw, I like Jake's little comment to Whitney.)
Whitney does have parents, right? I hope she does, anyway; Orphan Whitney is just way too convenient.
Right, time for the smaller details!
Why does Whitney say Mr. Birdlen is /implying/ something? It seemed to me like he was saying it straight out.
ANs are for the beginning/end of the chapter. No exceptions. Now, it's actually better to explain something within the story, so if you could just add a sentence into that paragraph explaining the scheduling system, that would be very cool. Try it.
Jeez, does Mr. Birdlen often call his students freaks? I'd think he would be unemployed by now if he did that. There are other ways to start a fight between the teacher and Whitney: for example, a lame joke that Whitney would ordinarily let slide but takes offense to this time.
The head of a school is called the princiPAL. A principle is "a comprehensive and fundamental law, doctrine, or assumption," according to Merriam Webster. You're consistent in your mistake (which proves that it is a genuine mistake, not an example of laziness), so you'll have to go through the entire chapter correcting this word.
Haha, Whitney is a popular rebel? Nice. A lot of people have their original characters as loners.
"Right a complex sentence on the board" should be "/write/ a complex sentence on the board." By the way, I really like that line. Moving on...
/"Whitney brought in another load," she gave me a dirty look/ should be /"Whitney brought in another load." She gave me a dirty look./
Heh heh, /funny/ principal. *is feeling warm fuzzies toward you because you didn't make another headhunter*
Wait... Birdlen didn't tell the class that Jeff was blind? Wtf?
You can solve this by having Whitney notice this and say something about how Birdlen is really bird brained sometimes. It would be a nice little reinforcement to the comment Whitney said earlier about her math teacher.
/I kept walking, him still gripping my arm./ should be /I kept walking, Jeff still gripping my arm./
Whitney's the old hand here, you know. She's supposed to be in charge of Jeff during his first day. Why doesn't she take off running for a safe room with Jeff in tow? Then she could be dragged along when Jeff is tugged into a closet by Max and Fang, or something else along those lines. (By the way, where's Krystal? I know where Jake has gone, but Max's guide?)
Why does Whitney give her real name when the men ask her for it, but say "Nick Jones" for Iggy? As far as she knows, the men aren't there for Jeff...
"Although they looked hot, they could not be trusted. The good looking ones were the kind you needed to look out for, especially when they were holding guns." No offense, but... where did this come from? Jake's cute, right? Whitney's friends with him. And Whitney distinctly said earlier that Jeff was cute too. But this sentence makes Whitney sound like one of those abused girls who have no depth to them.
/He aimed the gun at me and clicked it./ I'm getting an image of the guy pulling the trigger and nothing but a click happening. Does Whitney know anything about guns? If not, just have her say "clicked something" or something more dramatic, because I can't imagine Whitney not being freaked out by the knowledge that there's a loaded gun pointed at her.
Who kicked the Eraser in the gut? Is Peeves wandering around playing pranks on people again? ;)
I'm guessing there's some reason that Iggy/Jeff can hide his wings but Max and Fang can't. Will this be explained later?
And lastly, please elaborate more on Whitney's feelings of loss when she realizes her friends have died. You could go into much more detail on this subject.
Overall, the Whitney-and-school-friends part was written well; the rest could use a lot of improvement. None of the flock have shown any character yet; I'm hoping this will be rectified. There are a lot of emotional parts you could expand on to make this story truly vivid. I really do think you could get much better, and the basic plot of the story is all right. Trust me; if I didn't think you had potential, I wouldn't have spent an hour and a half on this story and this review.
I'm brain dead now, so there are probably some parts around the end that I missed, but I think I hit the high points and most of the lesser points. Now for a nap before my next class.
~)Mer(~ |
 Anzaraneth
2008-10-28 . chapter 1Heh. You were right: it doesn't bite so hard. Jazz, you so do not suck, and whoever told you that is a damn liar. I don't care who they are--it could be Stephanie Meyer, or James Patterson, or whoever wrote the Titanic(yes, I remember you love that movie, because you love the actual thing or something, I don't know; it's only a SLIGHT memory problem... what am I doing?...)--I don't care WHO it is, whoever told you that is going to get a beating from me. And if it's a guy, then I'm going to make sure that his family will NOT continue through thim. If it's a girl, I'm going to make them pretty dang ugly(Heh. There's that oxy-moron we were supposed to come up with for English). Jazz, this story is amazing. There is no way that it could be aweful, or anything else besides AWESOME! to the core. Yeah, I know you probably think I'm prejudiced because you're my friend, but this story is hilarious. I'm sorry to say this if it was meant to be a serious thing, but there were times when I thought I was going to fall out of my chair becuase I was laughing so hard. Like, when they all went down to the Principle's Office, for example.
Yeah, I know you still probably think that I'm just prejudiced--still--but this is amazing, Jazz, and I just wanted to warn you beforeI confront you tomorrow over this. Heh. I guess I'll talk to you later, then.
-Zara |
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