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View Full Version : New story, Can i get input?


Vaulter
February 14th, 2010, 06:33 PM
I used to write long, crappy stories (My longest is a 50 page story that was supposed to be over 200, but i realized how shitty it was so i stopped writing it.) Now im wondering if this one is worth continuing or if i put to much stupid things in it.
Heres the first few pages, sorry if the formatting gets f-ed up.

Nick!” A voice erupted through the blackness of my sleep, “You’re going to be late for school, get your but up!”
I rolled over and pulled a body pillow over my exposed ear. Today was the first day of my senior year of high school. Joy. All everyone ever said was that senior year was supposed to be my best year of high school, but seeing as how my first two went, I didn’t think senior year was going to have to work to hard to top it. My school district used a Junior High system, so I had gotten to skip the awkwardness of freshman year, but the seniors that year had made up for it doubly my first year of true high school. Sophomore year had been a year pushed around and hazed by upperclassmen. I had been especially susceptible to it due to my small size. Sophomore year I had topped out at around five foot four, one hundred and ten pounds soaking wet, and a voice that seemed to squeak with every other word.
Junior year had been a little better, with one less class above me to be picked on
by, but I was still small, so my self esteem was battered to a pulp by the seniors exploring their new found superiority. Finally, senior year was here, and I was Five foot Eleven, 125 pounds of skinny, and not feeling ready for what lay ahead of me, so when my mom started banging on the door the first day of school, it was all I could do to get out of bed and into the shower.
After getting clean under the steaming water I turned the knob to as cold as I could stand. The freezing water ran down my body, and I could almost feel the line of where the hot water was being pushed down by the cold. I kept it that way for about a minute before I turned of the shower and dried myself with a fluffy towel that seem to leave me wet even after a vigorous rubbing. I figured if started the day with a cold shower the day could only get better.

I drove to school in the car I had manage to scrape up enough money to buy with a summer job and the small amounts my parents had given me to do work around the house. My battered Nissan 240sx was a dump, but ran like a champion, and for the $1500 I had paid for it that’s all that really mattered. I arrived at the school and almost parked in my normal spot from the previous year when I realized that I was a senior, and could move to the coveted seniors parking lot, with quicker access to the gates for lunchtimes escapes. The closest parking spot was right next to an almost double parked white truck and a curb, but I took it anyway, squeezing my import car into the spot by romping the corner of cement and settling into it quickly. My mind ran through the various things I wanted to call the driver of the truck as I grabbed my binder and got out of my car, pausing to lock the door behind me. My schedule was full of not so fun classes this year, another thing that made me dubious of the superiority of senior year. It went something like:
A Hour: None
1st hour: Trigonometry
2nd hour: Spanish III
3rd hour: Study Hall
LUNCH
4th hour: Creative Writing
5th hour: AP Government
6th hour: Physical Education

I ran through the list several more times in my mind, thinking about how I might be able to convince my dad to let me drop a few classes that weren’t necessary for me to graduate. All the excuses I created in my mind seemed reasonable, but then I realized I was trying to reason with my parents, and that was nearly impossible when it came to things about education, namely my education. The bell rang for school to start, and my first day started.

My Trig teacher lectured me for being late, then lectured the class about what she expected from us, passed out some papers our parents were supposed to sign, then we were off to our next class. By the end of Spanish I had been able to turn off my brain and the rest of the day flew by, with boring classes blending together until I reached gym. I’ve never really liked PE classes. The idea of being around a bunch of jocks trying to display their athletic abilities during a game of tackle football made me a little bit insecure, even with this past year’s growth and me filling out a bit.
The school had called my house during the summer and let me know I was expected to bring gym clothes and dress out the first day of school, so after changing and receiving a locker assignment from a coach I went into the main gym of the school and slouched onto the bleachers that lined the walls. Groups of people slowly trickled into the gym, people gathering with friends or just people they knew until our coach joined us and had us all sit on the bleachers I was already sitting on. He began to speak about the sports we would be playing this year, and what he expected of us, but once again I toned out the world and stared blankly ahead. That is until the girls PE class joined us in the gym.
Gaggles of talking girls started funneling into the gym from the opposite side of the guys locker rooms, bouncing and laughing with each other. Heads turned towards them, some names were called to various friends on either side, and both the girls and boys coaches tried to quiet their respective groups. I paid no attention to the noises around me. My eyes were locked onto the most beautiful girl in the group.
I had had a crush on Alexandria Brown since the seventh grade, when we had shared an English class. I sat behind her the whole year in that class, staring at her light brown hair that, even when straightened seemed to have a slight wave to it. Those days had been filled me stuttering every time she turned around and looked at me with her light blue eyes, usually to ask if she could copy the homework from the previous night. I would splutter a “yes” and hand her my papers for her to copy before the teacher started class. She’d been in at least one of my classes since that one every year, and our relationship had stayed pretty much the same, with her borrowing my notes or copying my work, and I would do whatever she asked. This year I hadn’t noticed if she was in any of my other classes but this one, but I had put myself on auto pilot since second hour Spanish. I tried to think if I had seen her in any of my classrooms earlier that day, but my line of thought was cut through by a voice saying my name.
“Nick!” My head snapped up from the tip of the shoe I had been staring at. Toned legs reached up from the ground topped by a tight butt covered in short girls gym shorts. My eyes continued upward to a loose-ish white shirt that was covering what a knew to be a flat stomach and led up to a round chest. My eyes finally found the head of the five foot four pixie that stood in front of me. The coach had stopped talking to us and was discussing something with the girls head coach.

Vaulter
February 14th, 2010, 10:22 PM
More:
People were talking all around me, and Alex stood in front of me, her hands on her slim waist. I had always liked smaller girls, and Alex was the epitome of my fantasies.
“You didn’t say hi to me in government!” She said accusingly, pouting lightly. I sat there, all thoughts obliterated by the girl in front of me. She had never talked to me in any sort of friendly fashion, except when she needed something. A small portion of my brain wondered what she wanted, but the majority of it screamed at me to answer her.
“Oh, hey Alex.” I said lamely, trying to think of something witty or charming to say to the girl of my dreams.
“So first you don’t say hi to me, and now you can’t even get up to give me a hug?” Her accusing tone stayed the same, but her arms spread out as if to give someone a hug. That someone was me, I realized after a millisecond of thought. My legs scrambled beneath me as I hastened to get up as quickly as possible. No longer did any part of my brain question what she was trying to get out of me, all I could think about was the fact that Alexandria Brown was talking to me, and offering me a hug.
My arms wrapped around her small frame, and I pulled her closer to myself in as tight of a hug as I thought I could get away with without seeming creepy or scary. This was our first hug, and I wanted to make a good impression. She was soft. Her ponytail tickled my chin and the smell of citrus drifted to my nose. “This is nice” Is all my brain could think over and over again until she broke away from the hug. I didn’t want to let go, but I felt it would be a bit overbearing if I didn’t let go.
“So.. Uh..” I tried to put together a coherent thought, but nothing could form in my head. “How was your summer?” I asked finally, not wanting to stutter through any of the harder questions like asking her how she was, or what she wanted.
She smiled and bounced around some more. I tried not to drool. I was a sucker for ponytails, don’t know why, but I love watching them when girls move. “It was really good!” Was her enthusiastic answer. Alex was co-captain of the varsity Pom team, and everything she said seemed to have more excitement in it than a normal person could put into their words. “I went on a cruise to Hawaii for about month, then hung out with friends the rest of the time!” My envy meter went up a notch. Alex’s family was wealthy, and had the money to send her on a cruise to Hawaii. Not that my family was poor, but it wasn’t like we had money to burn. “How was yours?”
“Pretty good, I worked a bunch, and..” I trailed off with a vague wave of the hand. My summer had been what most people with standards would call “Lame”. I had worked almost every day, and on my off hours I would sit at home reading or playing video games. I didn’t actually like most of the people I had hung out with at school, they just gave me a group to sit with a lunch, I didn’t want to hang out with them outside of school if I didn’t have to. Alex seemed to thing my not speaking meant I had done something exciting, so she smiled brightly and began to say something that was cut off by the shrill of a whistle being blown. The coaches were yelling about class being almost over and how we should all change back into our school clothes. My mind was sad and relieved at the same time. My time with Alex was being cut short right when she had started to actually talk to me, but then again now I would be spared the chance of looking foolish before really thinking over what was happening.
“Awwhh.” Alex moaned, “ I guess I’ll see you later, Nick!” She then gave me a quick waved and jogged over to the mob forming around the doorway to the girl’s locker room.
I slowly walked back to the locker room and got back into my normal clothes, my mind still numb and racing from my encounter. I took my time getting out to my car, thinking waiting would give the white truck driver time to get away so I could pull out without ruining my suspension from hopping the curb again. The truck was still there when I reached the point where I could see my spot. I could see someone in the drivers seat of the truck, and I wondered why he wasn’t leaving until I saw someone walking towards the passenger side and getting ready to get in. I slowed down, hoping they would pull out. The passenger, a larger kid who I knew from some class a couple years ago waddled up to the side of the truck and pulled on the door, hard.
Too hard in fact. The door to the truck swung open in the blink of an eye and in slow motion I watched it slam into the side of my car, scraping paint off my door until it hit the side view mirror and smashed it off. The mirror clattered to the ground, and the thrower stared stupidly at it, probably wondering what had happened and who owned the car. My head exploded in rage. That was MY car, that I had paid for with hard earned cash. Nobody was allowed to break it but me, not some dumb kid who probably mixed in creatine with his breakfast.
“Get in!” I heard the driver of the white truck bark to the passenger, but before the door closed I started yelling at him.
“YO ASSHOLE! THAT’S MY CAR!” I shouted without thinking, this kid was huge, and I didn’t know who his friend was either. I didn’t care. I started sprinting at the truck, and the passenger opened his door to me, probably checking to see who it was. I saw his fat face grin when he saw me, and watched him get back out of the car as I slowed to a stop next to my car, looking in horror at the damaged mirror and side panels. “You broke my car!” I said loudly, still looking down.
“So what? Your car is a pile, dude. POS.”
His words hit me like a branding iron, and I started getting even madder. “Excuse me tubby? My car? Where’s yours? I see your riding with the idiot who can’t park, so that cant say much for you.”
His face turned hard and angry, small eyes sized me up and his hands balled into white knuckled fists. “You wanna go, shrimp?”
I turned my face towards his. I was about three inches taller, but he had a good fifty pounds on me. I didn’t really care at this point, he was already mad, so making it worse wasn’t going to matter. “Only if it’s somewhere with a good atmosphere,” I said back to him. His face turned red and suddenly a meaty palm pushed me back into an open parking spot.
“Kick his ass Caden!” The truck drivers voice called out in support of his friend. Caden just nodded his head and stalked forward at me.
“Ready to get beat down, dweeb?” Caden said to me, apparently trying to be intimidating.
“Is that something sexual?” Was the first thing that popped into my head and out of my mouth.
“Grahh!” My opponent shouted at me as he threw a wild roundhouse punch.
One thing most people don’t know about me is that I had been doing different martial arts since I was little, and had a black belt in both Kenpo and Brazilian Ju Jitsu. The punch came at my face, so I just bent my knees and dropped a few inches, letting it fly over my head. I pushed back up with my legs and drove my fist forward as hard as I could into the other man’s kidney. He shouted and buckled over in pain, grabbing the side I had punched. As he did I grabbed his hair and pulled his head down into my thrusting knee, slamming his forehead into it, more to cause intense pain then any lasting injury. Caden howled and clutched his forehead instead of his side. A sidekick to the knee sent him to the ground, and my anger continued to rise. Ground and Pound were the words that echoed through my head as I straddled him, getting ready to pummel the bigger guy into the cement.
Then suddenly I was flying sideways and skidded along the ground. The driver of the truck had come to back up his friend. He stood between us with a defensive look on his face.
“Two on one now?” I spat at him, “Why don’t you get a couple more buddies, then it might be a fair fight.” The kid got angry, but seemed to rein it in before anything happened. Slowly he turned and helped Caden up to his feet, watching me the whole time in case I made a move at him. They both walked to the white truck, Caden hobbling and trying to cradle everything I had hit at once. “You owe me a mirror and a paint job, I wont forget it.” I said to him.
“Shut it loser.” Caden shouted at me as he once again opened the passenger side door. I twitched forward aggressively in response, causing him to jump into the truck and shut the door as fast as he could.
The truck drove off, thankfully not hitting my car, but as it left I heard Caden say something to the driver.
“Way to back me up Chas, thanks a ton.” I could hear his snobbiness in the tone of his voice, but what really interested me was the name of his friend. I had recognized his face after he knocked me over, but I couldn’t connect it with a name. Now I remembered, Chas Soren was the captain of the varsity football team, and had been my woodshop partner sophomore year. He was 190 pounds and built like a freight train, but he was also one of the nicest guys I had ever met. It made me wonder what he was doing hanging out with that loser.
I hopped into my car and brought my car to life, the Japanese engine purring through the brand new exhaust I had installed. I pulled a CD out of the glove box and popped it into the stereo, then cranked the volume up before it started blasting from the aftermarket speaker system the guy I had bought it from had added. Blink-182 started pounding through the car, rattling several of the plastic components and vibrating my seat.
When I finally managed to get out of the crammed parking lot I rolled down the windows and let the air wash over me and my music wash out. My heart rate had skyrocketed during the fight causing me to sweat, and the hot August sun wasn’t making the situation any better. My shirt stuck to my body, and my short cut hair wasn’t catching any of the sweat that wanted to get into my eyes and make my contacts swim.
The ride home was uneventful as I lived pretty close to the school, a 3 minute drive, just long enough for “Easy Target” to be played through. I pulled into the rocky side yard my parents let me park in with my head banging to the final verses before I rolled up the windows and turned of the car. Moments later the door was unlocked and I was in my room with two cans of Coke and too much time on my hands.
The first thing I did after opening one of the cans of Coke was to turn on my computer, one of the other things I had bought with the money I had made over the summer. Three grand could go a long way when parents paid for car insurance. A closet full of solid colored v-necks that were the most comfortable shirts I had found, a newly-used car, a flat screen TV, and a blistering fast computer that would melt any inferior rig that came near it. The computer whirred quietly to life in less than thirty seconds and automatically opened up my internet browser. I keyed in my e-mail account’s password and checked my messages. Nothing but porn spam from websites I had never been to, and updates from Facebook about people I didn’t know but had added me anyway.
I navigated to my Facebook page to try and stop it from emailing me, but the maker seemed intent on annoying me, and I couldn’t find it. Then I typed Alex’s name at the search bar. Halfway through typing her name popped up and I selected it. She had added me as a friend some time ago, so I didn’t feel like as much of a stalker in looking at her page.
The picture in the top left was one of her in a long black dress, and I knew it was one from our Junior year’s Prom, but her date had been cut out of the picture. Last I had seen she was still dating the same guy that had been in the picture, so I scrolled down the page to do some investigating.
My heart stopped for a moment before speeding up rather quickly when I read a status update from two days ago. “Alexandria Brown is now Single” it read. Some people had commented on it, and several guys had clicked the “like” button, but my eyes kept refocusing on the word that should have been made of solid gold and shone like the sun. Alex was single. For the first time since I had known her she was single and had been for more than a day.
And she had talked to me. Our conversation during gym began running through my head, analyzing ever detail of it. Had she been flirting with me? Does she like me? Do I even have a chance?
All the things that were going through my head began to become confusing, so I started singing a song to myself to clear my mind. I reread the word “single” on the profile page several more times before I had made up my mind. I was going to ask out Alexandria Brown.
The rest of my night went into a blur with my mind focused on Alex, and how I would ask her out the next day. Sleep came and went, and with it went the confidence I had when I had first seen the word single on her profile.














Chapter Dos

I woke up early the next morning, around six thirty, and grabbed a bag I had prepared the night before. In it was a second set of gym clothes, clothes I would wear at school, some running shoes, shampoo, some body wash, and a bottle of cheap cologne that smelled great. My car had to be coaxed to life after sitting outside overnight to be clogged up by the cold but it was running faithfully after several seconds of holding the key turned in the ignition. I got to school around six fifty and went into the locker rooms that school sports programs used. I found a locker not being used and put my stuff in it. Changing quickly and putting on the running shoes I had brought I got ready to run. I slapped a lock on the locker that I had brought from home as well and I was off. The locker they had given me for PE was fine for that, but these lockers were closer to the track, and that’s what I was here for.
People tell me if I wanted to gain weight like I said I should just stop running every morning, but I always said I wanted to gain muscle, not fat, so I ran. Every morning I would run, either around a 4 mile loop near my house during the summer, or around the school track during the school year. Four to six miles a morning kept me in great shape, and let me show off the body I had worked hard for over the summer with days at the gym. I hadn’t gained a lot of weight, but I had gained a ripped set of abs and a chest that didn’t cave in anymore that had been that much easier to get because of the lack of fat.

Bluearmy
February 14th, 2010, 11:13 PM
Towards the beginning, I didn't like it. It just felt like somebody rambling. But as I kept reading, I began to enjoy it. The character seemed to be slowly becoming more and more human, rather than just a collection of words. I really like they way it is going, and there are many ways that the plot could develop. I recommend that you keep this one going. You should also clean it up, as I did detect my mistakes. Also, try not to but any emphasis on unimportant details.

Vaulter
February 15th, 2010, 12:46 AM
I worried about that actually, i think at the beginning, when i wrote up to about just after getting in the fight, i was thinking alot about my own life and putting it in the story too much, it was becoming more of a diary/get-it-off-my-chest book than an actual story. I think i will continue it, but definitely go back and really edit the beginning to a story, not just how i was feeling on that particular day. I will try to focus on the important parts, but i have wierd visions of where things can tie together, that they may or may not since i dont have a plot map, im just winging it, so ill go back and edit those parts down if i decide to take it in a different direction. Thanks for the boost of confidence, its what i needed to decide to keep going with this book.

Obscene Eyedeas
February 15th, 2010, 07:05 AM
Language is too for lack of better word childish. too much rambling and many mistakes. a lot of improvement needed but if you think your up for it then do it.

Brighter.Tomorrow
February 15th, 2010, 12:47 PM
It's okay. You need to cut alot out, anything like long conversations that don't tie in directly with the outcome or storyline are bad to have, it slows it down.
I don't in the beginning you rushed it to much.
IDK Where you live but here you can get a used car that run's great for around $600.

Hope that helped, and hope i didn't sound to bitchy. XD

Vaulter
February 15th, 2010, 01:00 PM
Na, not bitchy (and i know about the car thing, but at the time i had been in love with that car, so it came out in the story), and i started it when i was 15 (17 now) so i can see how it could be "childish" and it probably will continue to be childish till i finish it and revise it all. like how i used the word loose-ish =].

Obscene Eyedeas
February 15th, 2010, 01:05 PM
Today was the first day of my senior year of high school. Joy. All everyone ever said was that senior year was supposed to be my best year of high school, but seeing as how my first two went, I didn’t think senior year was going to have to work to hard to top it.

Joy has to go. amd that whole lot sums up the language used here. It needs to be revamped majorly but i think you could do it with time