Hi russelljadams ! You requested a review from me, so here I am! I see this is a Chapter One, so I am eager to see where it leads

You do well painting a picture of high school right off the bat and I like that your main character is a writer! I was immersed in your world very quickly, but I did think the main character was a boy for the first several paragraphs until her mom called and gave her a name. The reason I thought your character was a boy was solely based on this sentence: "She wasn’t the thinnest or the prettiest girl." Girls would not say think that way about each other , so I assumed the main character was a good guy friend. Maybe altering the phrasing of that sentence or establishing earlier the gender of your main character would help clear up any confusion.

Overall, your grammar is very clean! Good work on that. I did notice three specific things you do fairly regularly though:

          The first thing is disrupting speech with a period before the description of who said it. Usually, when dialog is spoken, you place a comma rather than a period before the description of who said it. I won't point out every instance, but one example is this: “I promise.” She said running a red light. I would edit this to read: “I promise,” she said, running a red light. Basically, if the sentence immediately following a bit of dialog is incomplete when read alone (without the dialog), then it needs to be connected to the dialog with a comma or an un-capitalized letter. If you have any questions on this, do let me know.

          The second thing is that you tend to create run-on sentences by adding commas where another form of punctuation would work better. I like your style of connecting thoughts, but cleaning up those transitions would help a lot. Here are some examples. Your words are below in red, and my edits follow after:

She watched Craig play basketball, I wrote, that was our daily after-school routine
         She watched Craig play basketball while I wrote; it was our daily after-school routine.

I admired that about him, he was intelligent,
         I admired that about him. He was intelligent, ...

I dated James last year, he seemed nice but it didn’t last long, such a terrible kisser, he also wasn’t blessed if you know what I mean.
         I dated James last year; he seemed nice, but it didn't last long since he was such a terrible kisser and wasn't exactly blessed, if you know what I mean.

She was right, that stoplight really was pointless, no one ever crossed there, well, almost never.
         She was right about the stoplight being pointless - no one ever crossed there. Well, almost never.

We passed the church, we went every Sunday, Dad always drove
          We passed the church where we went every Sunday. Dad always drove.

it made my parents happy that I went, it also made them more lenient with me.
         ..it made my parents happy that I went, and it also made them more lenient with me.

We passed the rock quarry road, there’s a pond up behind the gate heading up to the rock quarry, I don’t think a lot of people know about it, but Dad would take us fishing back there when I was a little girl.
         We passed the rock quarry road where there was a pond behind the gate heading up to the rock quarry. I don’t think a lot of people know about it, but Dad would take us fishing back there when I was a little girl.

Up past the pond, there hid a trash-dump, I had a lot of fun in that dump when I was little, lots of little treasures people had thrown out.
         Past the pond, there hid a trash-dump where I had had a lot of fun when I was little finding all the little treasures people had thrown out.

I’m sure our closest neighbor two miles down the road heard her, Mr. Whiskers definitely did
         I’m sure our closest neighbor two miles down the road heard her. Mr. Whiskers definitely did...

The cat’s outside, the front door left open, and Mom screaming, the news couldn’t be good.
         With the cat outside, the front door left open, and Mom screaming, the news couldn't be good.

          The third thing is related to the thoughts of your MC. Usually those are written in italics to differentiate them from the rest of the narration. The ones I picked out were these:

Why hadn’t I thought about it before?
Oh, I don’t know, you’re a slob maybe?
Calm down? Why did I say that? I’m so stupid.
Oh, a lecture, why couldn’t she have just slapped me and got this over with? I can’t believe I told her to calm down. It just slipped out. Sometimes it’s like I have no control over my actions. Pull it together Sara.
Of all things she could be worried about, she’s worried about me getting pregnant? Pregnant, really? Maybe I’m not the one who needs to pull it together, maybe it’s her.

I do have some suggestions as well on how to make your chapter more appealing visually to readers that come across it. I know the words should really speak for themselves, but visual appeal is really important as well and so often overlooked. Right now, your piece is clean and readable, but there are a few ways you can make it even more eye-catching. First, I would highly recommend changing the brief description. Currently, it says "Chapter 1..." which ... well ... is boring and doesn't tell me anything about what I'm getting into. A brief description should pull the reader in and entice them to click on your story to read. If you can, I would also recommend adding a cover image - if you think about it, with hundreds of thousands of writings on this site, and only a fraction of those use a cover image, making sure you have one will greatly increase the chances of your story being clicked on and read. This may be a personal preference, but I would also recommend you increase the font size of your item using the {size:3.5} words here {/size} ML code. Finally, so you don't lose the fact that this is a Chapter One, maybe you could format the title within the item itself to look something like below (this is just my suggestion):



The raw Witing ML for that is below, if you wanted to copy it into your item:

{center}{size:5}{b}In Plain Sight{/b}{/size}
{size:4}Chapter One{/size}

{i}- May 11th, 2009 -{/i}{/center}

Last, slightly disconnected thoughts: Oh my gosh, hearing that song on the radio ... Dang ... Very well-placed. Maybe think about making it stand out even more by centering it or changing the font? Just a thought. Also, did you mean to add a specific place in this sentence?: "I’m a Detective with the --somewhere--." And finally, this chapter seemed to end really suddenly. One second Sara was fighting with her mom, then she was waiting for her friends, and then she was at the party and Frank was puking. That happened SO fast! Maybe better to end this chapter with: "I walked outside to wait for Craig and Tabby."

Whew! What a whirlwind! The characters you created feel very real. Sara is independent and a bit standoffish and badass while her best friend Tabby is a klutz and extremely caring. You've done a good job pulling me into the story!

Thanks you for sharing! And let me know if you have any grammar questions. I know I threw a lot at you, but I think you can handle it

Take care,
Emily

You responded to this review 01/21/2019 @ 11:14am EST

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