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Hey I've finished a YA book and have posted the first few pages on Wattpad. I'm in the editing stages and am posting as I edit. Would love your feedback!
I plan on self-publishing it later, but would love opinions as I'm rewriting.
The book is titled Silently Screaming and here's the link to it on wattpad:
http://www.wattpad.com/story/2028195-silently-screaming

Dawn,

I think your writing is fine, overall, and it's a good start. You've built your characters well and your dialogue is natural. I noticed a few small things that stood out, such as she scoops up a frog at the front door, then it says that frogs have been hard to find. When she counts to $18.52, that seems to be the total of her tips and then she counts a few dollars more. That also seems to be a really low amount to earn in an evening. "Nikki laid there" should be "Nikki LIE there." Diner should not be capitalized. But those are things that you would probably find in the final edits.

It sounds like you've got a good novel going and I encourage you to finish it.

Hope that helps,

JohnB

Dawn,
I read it and over all liked it. I would however suggest a few things. Believe it or not, you offered a lot of information quickly by telling the reader without slowing down and being more descriptive. For one, show me the room from the person's eyes telling me the story. Describe the bedroom to me, what is in there other than the the snake? Even possibly when the mother walks in to the room, "she walked past my crumbled shirts on the floor", give me more visuals. You are maybe doing an information dump too quickly slow down and lay the story brick by brick. I hope that helped. Another example, the guy who gave her the snake, what did he look like? Maybe describe the glass box the snake is in, are there sticks in there, water? "I peered into the snakes glass refuge. The green creature was living large inside his casing. He had all the comforts of home with his supply of water, a large lamp to keep him warm and plenty of branches and twigs to wrap himself.. idk.. something like that, it offers more of a visual for a reader to identify with the characters, even if a snake... minor characters do not know they are minor... keep that in mind.. even of they are minor make them big... make me see it in my mind.. dont tell me... describe it to me visually..
Mike

You write well, but here are a few humble thoughts concerning the first page.
1 Slow down
2 You can’t put commas in one place and not use them everywhere that they’re equally called for. Go without them *holding the reader to account for where to take breaks* or use them everywhere. That’s the rule. It's a crappy rule, but it's a rule.
3 Is a frog “rough” or is that a toad?
4 Just say her nails were dirty or did it specifically matter that the reader knew exactly where the dirt was? The reason I point this out isn’t to criticize, but suggest details are important, and word count...counts...so only detail things that matter or that interest you as the writer and expect the reader to pickup/fill in the rest. Consider this as you do any writing, detailing everything can quickly turn out pages of info, but in the end, what did you really say? What did you overlook that could, with very few choice words, flush out the family we're so quickly introduced to? Make each page count.
As an example: what's implied when you read "...tossing a to-go box from----into the look-warm refrigerator?" Or maybe it's missing a bulb? Or w/e?
Work on saying alot of things with very few words.
5 “an image unsurprising” should be “an unsurprising image” and if it’s unsurprising, it’s also expected, so you don’t need to repeat yourself.
7“Then she finally reached the kitchen, tossing a to-go box from (insert the dinner's name) into the refrigerator, then immediately tiptoed down the hall to her room” flows better and expresses the speed you implied she did it in; or write it as you did without the commas before From/Into; also, you don’t work AT a place, you work IN it (inside she might work AT being a good waitress) and you don’t need Straight, unless you think people might imagine her skipping—though I know you did this to again imply the directness of how she moved, but given how you earlier described her movement to be alone and get away from her family, it’s already assumed by the reader. Also, if you detail what she's wearing, say, her waitress uniform, or there's some hint of it on the refrigerator or something in her room, you don't need to make that sentence so detailed by also trying to cram in it the fact that the to-go box is from her dinner.
8 In the paragraph about where she’d lost some money, only That sentence is unique and important; the rest is step by step details about how she opened a door...what’s needed and what isn’t?


Again, only my humble opinions and there are a million ways to write/rewrite a single sentence. My opinions don't matter. It's yours. I hope I've been some help.
Good luck!

WOW! fantastic feedback.