The start of a story I'm writing, just let me know if you like it or not. It's not my best but I try….
Sophia Queens, or as her friends called her, Saffi, was never one for big adventures. If you wanted to find her she would most likely be in her treehouse reading about romance or fantasy. But one day, that all changed. She felt different. . . she was changing.
It started out as small nagging feeling in the back of her mind like she was meant to be someone different. And it soon turned into something she could not stop thinking about. It made her sick, her head hurt all the time and she kept having dreams . . . of someone. But she swore she had never seen him before in her life.
Until she was walking home from school and saw him sitting on a bus stop bench. He had auburn hair with bright baby blue eyes, just like she did. He looked around her age, 14 or 15, and as soon as she walked past him his eyes shot right to her face. He studied her, not looking away for a full minute.
Saffi didn’t know what to do, but she didn’t want to leave and risk not seeing him again so she smiled slightly and nodded at him.
“S-Sophie . . .?”, he stuttered.
Only her mother had ever called her Sophie before, and it startled her. Her smile faded and she looked at him with a strong curiosity.
“Uh yeah . . . that’s me. You look familiar, and I’m sorry to say this, but I don’t know who you are,” she responded. She usually had a strong sense of confidence in her voice, but it was all gone. She stared at him trying to remember where she had seen him, other than her dreams of course, but couldn’t figure it out.
He patted the seat next to him, motioning for her to sit. “It’s me Sophie, Jenson . . . your brother,” he looked her straight in the eyes, and as soon as he said that her mind started buzzing.
She was remembering things. He was her brother. She saw flashbacks of them walking through the woods together, playing together when they were children.
All of these memories coming back at this quick of a rate made her feel like she might collapse, or even pass out. She grabbed on to the back of the bench closing her eyes tightly. “I . . . I remember,” she whispered weakly.
Hey man I already read it but it is SICK
Ya you mentioned. You're mini pep talk thingy kinda made me want to do this soooo…. here it is.
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Are you looking for critiques/feedback? Or do you just want people to read this?
Both I guess, I guess I'm just looking for suggestions on how I can make it better. And like I said it's only the start.
Whoa I’m trying to think of any critiques but it’s hard because I really wanna know more about what happens. I can sense that something magical is probably brewing. Ok, the secret twin thing is a little bit of a cliche, but if you add your own little details and such, it can definitely work.
That’s a good story so far. Might want to lengthen it though, adding some more detail.
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Yah , that's only the first page
Ok here's a few little critiques.
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This is kind of a minor thing, but if you want people to read your stuff don't call it horrible. No one is going to want to read it if you're already calling it horrible, so don't sell yourself short.
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Second bit of advice I would give you is show, don't tell. Like instead of telling us everything about your character, show us what she's like through stuff that she says and does. Showing paints a picture in someone's mind (not to sound cliched) whereas telling just sort of a statement that tells you what's going on.
So for example: "The cat was scared." vs "When we opened up the door to his carrier, the cat pressed himself up agains the very back of it, refusing to come out. He stared at us with wide yellow eyes, and pressed his ears flat against his skull." Both of those sentences say the same thing, but the second one tells us more (the cat is in a carrier, he has yellow eyes, etc.) and sort of paints an image, whereas the first one only tells us that he's scared.
Your first paragraph is pretty much all telling. I don't really want to be the jerk that says to just do without it, but a lot of the stuff could be inserted into a different part of the story in more of a showy way.
For example, you have "But one day, that all changed. She felt different. . . she was changing." but then following that you go on to describe a nagging feeling at the back of her mind, which is basically saying that things were changing for her, just in a more descriptive and showy way.
- Last thing is, you don't need to tell us everything about your character all at once, as soon as their introduced. Personally, I feel like it's fine to describe a few notable features but you don't need to tell us everything. It kinda goes back to showing vs. telling. Like instead of telling us right away that Saffi spends a lot of time in her treehouse you can show it at a later point in the story, preferably when she's actually in the treehouse.
That's really about it. I'll leave you this link because it goes into more detail about show vs. telling and I found it pretty helpful. https://jerryjenkins.com/show-dont-tell/
