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I'm Writing a Story- Updated!

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_Theatre_ Bracelet King	3 years, 7 months ago by _Theatre_ Hey yall! I would like some feedback and/or constructive criticism on the first chapter of the story I'm writing. Some of you may remember that I originally posted this a month or two ago, but I've finally finished the first chapter 😄 I know it's not very good, just please stay kind in your responses. Thank you! Also, it's super long so be prepared lol Please don't plagarize! I do have a way to check the net for anyone that has posted anything similar anywhere online, so don't risk it please ❤️ Trigger warnings- Vomit, foreshadowed death, sedatives, pain Chapter One I stare at the man with the curly hair through the nearly black glass of the limousine window. He had stood there every day for the past four years. He arrived at the corner of Brackerbaler and Wilbury at 7 am and went home only at 9 pm. The man always did the same thing: he wore a tin-foil headband around his curly red hair and held the same cardboard sign. The end is near. That’s what it always read. He held the sign and waved it around in the air like a maniac. Sometimes he would yell, sometimes throw bread at me like I was a bird, sometimes flap his arms and scream. I saw him today for the last time, and for only a few seconds, but the words on his sign were unmistakable. He stands there now, still as a rock and stone-faced. ‘The end has passed’ reads his sign. I feel an oddly sickening feeling in my stomach. The limo speeds along the oddly clear streets fast enough to make me carsick. I’m not used to cars. Of course I see them speeding by my little alley every day, but it’s been nearly five years since I’ve rode one. I try to think back to the Good Times but I cannot. I have no memories. I was very small when the Good Times ended- maybe five or six. I was able to avoid Carley Sweeps for only a small amount of time before she got me. How can I be thinking things like this on what is surely my last day of life? I look at the photo of Carley that had been scanned onto the crystal champagne glasses in the car and I want to vomit. I hate to say it, but Carley Sweeps is beautiful, which is the part about her that is ugly. The crystal warps and distorts her inhumanly perfect face and gives it an odd look. Carley has plasticy blonde hair that never seems to move, a face that’s more makeup than flesh, and fat red lips that look like a fish. At least, I think they do. I’ve never seen a real fish before. I suddenly realize that I am probably squeezing the cup too tightly as I hear a crack and watch it break down the middle in my hands. The crack travels along the cup slowly, eventually making it down to the base where the spindly lines join and a large portion chipped off. I examine it: Smooth on one side, crystalized and bumpy on the other, it featured one of Carley Sweeps’ eyes and a bit of her hair. Her green eye seemed almost red in the odd lighting of the car, and now that I was looking at it separate from the rest of her body, it gives me creeps. I pocket it, but then realize that it would surely be confiscated and decide to just throw it in my backpack instead. It’s the kind of thing I would normally keep to cut open bandage packs or locks. Well, no use in keeping it now, I tell myself. There’s almost no chance I’ll ever need to steal again. I feel a lurch in my stomach. That’s because I’m never going home again. They’re not going to let me. I try to shake the feeling that I wanted to hurt somebody, do something, but I could not and sooner or later I am slamming the crystal glasses on the ground. It brings me a wrong kind of satisfaction to see Carley Sweeps’ face shatter in a million pieces on the floor of the limo. I look through the small window at the front to the driver, who stares at me in a little mirror hanging from the roof of the car. Who cares? I think. It’s not like he’s going to do anything. He probably just thinks I’m crazy. Everyone probably does. And a criminal. Criminal. The word sends shivers down my spine. Sure, I had stolen a thing or two from trash bins before, maybe swindled some gullible pedestrians, but I never did anything criminal. Never. But, when they found me with that folder with the red tab in my little shack, I panicked. And when us RCs panic, we attack. I’ve never attacked anyone before. It was probably the last time I will ever attack, too. I’m being convicted for stealing confidential government files, tyranny, assault, being a Running Convict, and truancy. Truancy of all things. I attacked a government official, accidentally stole confidential files, and they were convicting me for skipping school. It makes me laugh how far what used to be America the United has come; now baiting 13 year old girls to steal files just to have a reason to demolish them. I do laugh, and the man glares at me harder through the mirror. My laugh always sounds like I’m plotting something evil, so I tend not to laugh when I can help. Well, no point in holding back, I think. So I laugh like a hyena (which I think is one of those dogs) until there is no air left in my thin and raspy little lungs and I’m at the jagged bones on my stomach. I laugh until I cry, but deep inside I know that it’s not the laughing that’s making me cry. I ready myself and looked out the window. I brush off my knees, which hurt a lot after kneeling on the limo floor in broken glass. Whatever. Pain doesn’t affect me anymore. I watch the rows of buildings planted in the seas of gravel dash by, dulled to a grayscale by the window, although they wouldn’t be much different if the windows were completely transparent. All colors left with the Good Times. I refocus my eyes and look at my own reflection in the glass. My eyes are a striking blue color, contrasting with my skin the color of the red setting sun. My black hair looks oily, matted, and disgusting, just like it usually does. My once-smooth skin was like a mountain range, jutting up with scars and down with gashes. This may be the last time I ever see myself, I think, and absorb it grimly. I hate the look of my own face. I look like a maniac. Yet, something about it is comforting. Normally my face is unsettling to me, reminds me how ugly, demented, and inumane I am, but I feel good inside. I look away from my face to see a looming golden building coming up to me. I feel a jolt in my stomach and allow the past few days’ food to leave me, spilling all over the floor of the car. The car speeds toward the building at shocking speeds and before I am ready I am being led through a gate and into a parking lot. No, I think. No, no, no. I start to scrape my arms and watch the blood trickle from the scars. I cannot make this happen. I will not let this happen. This cannot happen… A woman rushes in and jams a sedative pill in my mouth before I can leave the car. I feel the car gently humming and moving below me, and I can see the black of the car roof and the light swimming around my vision like frogs, lazily hopping from one leaf to the next. Everything is a gentle blur; everything will be alright. A voice in my head is screaming, kicking, biting, clawing, trying desperately to escape this subdued state of drugs, but I silence the voice happily. The furry brown sky turns to the cloudy white of a ceiling, which turns to the glittering navy of another ceiling. Suddenly, my bag is stripped from my back and thrown to the floor, and my shoes from my feet, and the pinch of an injection and the slam of a door signals the end of my dreamlike state. It takes me a second to come to. I’m in a square blue room with a ceiling of maybe 15 feet above my head. An uncomfortable looking bench wraps half of the room, and on the ceiling there’s a flickering light; the only light source. A glance at a solitary clock high above my head and just make out that it’s 10:48 in the morning, meaning that I was subdued for a whopping 20 minutes. Funny how that happens. “Ridley Ripley, calling Ridley Ripley, can you hear me?” says the silky voice of a man. “No!” I screech like a monkey. “Ridley Ripley, you are being kept under surveillance. Do not attempt escape. You have fifteen minutes to get changed into the provided attire, and upon the buzzer your complimentary stylist will come in to tidy you up for your hearing, Ripley and Barioslopez versus The American Federal Bureau of Investigation. You will receive more direction when the time comes. Thank you.” Despite the man’s warnings, I charge up at the bench and try to grab a handhold on one of the navy blue wall tiles, but they were slick as the hair of a wet rat, and about as hard to grab as a wet rat, too. I resign from the climbing attempt (best not to get in extra trouble) and look around for the “provided attire”, whatever that was. A crisp white dress and black leggings lay neatly folded on the bench, and two shiny black shoes sit on the tiled ground to match. I pull my black sweatshirt over my head, then the once-pink t-shirt that’s now a grimy shade of blackish purple, then the long-sleeved pajama shirt, then the mostly clean tank top, then the dirty, bloody tank top. I like wearing layers; it keeps the bugs and dogs away and makes me look older than I am. I pull off various layers of grimy shorts and muddy pants, and then a pair of long johns until I am left shivering in my underpants and some bloody bandages wrapped around my torso. I think fleetingly of removing them, but think better of it and wrestle my way into the dress. I stretch the large pants over my skinny legs and decide to leave the shoes off. Nothing happens. I wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Without warning, the door flies open. I stare for a few seconds, using all of my willpower to stay controlled, but nobody walks in. The door closes again. “Ridley Ripley, please remain calm or we will sedate you. Your assistant, Miss Amine Verona will be with you shortly. She asks that you please sit down on the table with your backpack on the ground. Also… put your shoes on, please.” The door opens a second time and a woman with a pink crop cut and a metal cart walks in. “Are you Amine?” I ask her. She nods and begins speaking very fast. “I am Amine, your assistant. This, of course, means your stylist, publicist, friend, secret-keeper, and, of course, lawyer.” I don’t know about all of this friend and secret stuff, but if this crazy humanoid fashionista thing was going to represent me, I wanted to be sure she was good before letting much on. Just so I know she’s trustworthy. “Please lie down on the table so I can examine what work needs to be done.” I’m not stupid. So many people have treated me like I was stupid today. I decide that I’ll look over this woman very quickly. In an instant I am shocked. I notice that she is only a few years older than me, maybe 16 or 17. Her hair has an evenness to it that makes it seem as though it had just been cut, and the sides of her head were buzzed awkwardly so only a strip of hair remained on the top of her head. Her young face stares me up and down sterly, layered with so much makeup that she looks ten years older than she probably is. Her yellowish amber eyes glare like oceans of stone. She clicks her tongue. “Dear, dear. What will we do with those dressings? I’m surprised you’re not infected yet. Or maybe you are.” I look down at myself, surprised she could tell I was wearing bandages. My dress is a lumpy mess and a large strip of rather muddy bandage is hanging off my shoulder. My forearm is still bleeding. She unbuttons the back of the dress and starts cutting away at bandages with some scissors from her metal cart. Immediately, a stinging pain is sent to the wounds, the kind that would send most adults into insanity, but like I said, I don’t really do pain. Amine takes no nonsense, handing me a glass of water and discarding the bandages in a small box on the cart. I sip the water really long and feel good all of a sudden. “What’s in this? More drugs?” I ask. “Medicine, more like,” she says curtly. Amine looks through her cart for a few moments before retracting a small plastic bottle with a purple liquid inside. She presses down on the top with her pointer finger and sprays my torso with it. All of my wounds along with the scrapes on my arms that I initiated in the car seal themselves up with a shudder. I gasp. Almost seven years of scars, wounds, cuts, burns, and other injuries vanish before my eyes. “How did you do that?” I ask breathlessly. “More medicine. And you don’t look exactly… healthy” She clicks her tongue again. “Shame we don’t have time to feed you up the normal way.” She extracts a pair of thin, overlarge gloves from the cart along with a small, square purple box bearing a green lid. Amine lifts a circular disc from it very gingerly. It too has one purple side and one green side. She holds it on the very rim, where it is white, very carefully. “Hold on to your lunch,” she says, and presses the green side against my stomach. Immediately, the places she touched swell up, making my stomach feel disgustingly full. A very select amount of people in America these days are a healthy weight, and it seems as though I’ve just become one of them. I poke my stomach gently. It’s all real. “You’ll feel sick for a while, but you’ll fill up at the banquet, so no worries.” said Amine tersely. After a combination of gels, dyes, creams, powders, medicines, and scary-looking tools pressed against my face that made it smell like burning flesh, Amine hands me a mirror. If I had not known how mirrors worked (which I just figured out a short while ago) I would have thought I was looking at a photo of a supermodel. I look maybe 17 or 18 rather than 13. My previously scarred and burned face is now smooth and sculpted, my eyebrows now thick and shaped, my lips full and red, and my hair silky and raven. “What do you think?” the woman asks nervously, “I can redo it if you don’t like it.” Apparently the man over the speakers thinks that it is good enough, because he speaks once more. “Ridley Ripley, please put your shoes on and gather your belongings. Miss Amine Verona will escort you to our dining hall for the pre-trial banquet.” A small click signals the end of the announcement. Amine places my pouch on my lap. “Are you okay?” she asks tentatively. A sticky green syrup erupts from my brand new stomach and out of my mouth, coating Amine, the floor, and the table.
d_knotz Professional	3 years, 7 months ago by d_knotz I like it! Good job keep writing!
crafter83 Bracelet King	3 years, 7 months ago by crafter83 You might want to list self-harm as a trigger too
Firecorn Bracelet King	3 years, 7 months ago by Firecorn Super good!

Iggy_ Bracelet King	3 years, 7 months ago by Iggy_ Great!! Keep us updated!
_Theatre_ Bracelet King	3 years, 7 months ago by _Theatre_ @crafter83 @Firecorn @Iggy_ thanks so much! @crafter83 sorry about that... i made the triggers well after i wrote it so i forgot. i'm really sorry if I triggered you or anything
crafter83 Bracelet King	3 years, 7 months ago by crafter83 Oh no, I’m good. I rarely get triggered. I just thought since you did a list it should be on there, otherwise I wouldn’t have said anything. Good job on the story
Addibug Bracelet King	3 years, 7 months ago by Addibug I really like this tag me when you finish chapter 2!
spacebella Bracelet King	3 years, 7 months ago by spacebella PLEASSEEEEEEEEEEE WRITE CHAPTER TWOOO!!! im invested in this story now i rllyyy like it! great job! ❤️
Maialynn Bracelet King	3 years, 7 months ago by Maialynn Ahhh I love it! The dialogue feels so natural and not stiff which I know from experience is a lot more difficult than it seems! Also great storyline and description of characters!
GenMalucci Bracelet King	3 years, 7 months ago by GenMalucci I love this! I think I saw the prompt with the sign, and I tried to write it, but never succeeded. I love how you did this! I also love the creative names used. It really shows that your writing has life and character. I like how the story flows, but it still keeps its heavy and interesting tone.

Hedgehog23 Bracelet King	3 years, 7 months ago by Hedgehog23 Really good! Keep writing! Please tag me when you have finished chapter 2 ❤️ 🔥
viviknots Bracelet King	3 years, 7 months ago by viviknots hey! Sorry if this advice is harsh and useless I love the premise and the story idea! Your writing style is fantastic but here are some minor pieces of advice to elevate your story even more(from my perspective of course) First: repetitiveness- .In the first paragraph you say curly haired man twice. Just a piece of advice: when in doubt assume the reader is smart. You don't have to repeat the same pieces of information. Wordiness:-Areas are a bit wordy, that could be "boiled" down for conciseness. You use show don't tell excellently, however when describing be careful of overdoing it as that is a mistake every writer makes. Unnecessary word- Check out Abbie Emmons videos on editing, they're great. For sentences like this "I suddenly realize that I am probably squeezing the cup too tightly as I hear a crack and watch it break down the middle in my hands." Maybe alter it to say, I realize that I'm probably squeezing the cup too tightly when I hear a crack, watching it break in my hands. Once again this is more for conciseness. This doesn't matter in the 1st draft stage but when you edit, some of these words you should cut. Punctuation-You do have some run on sentences where you separate with commas, but should be periods. Once again this is a very minor error, but be sure if publishing whether indie or traditional you catch those errors. Also places without commas that need them. Abbreviations?- With words like cannot and I am, please use I'm and can't, it's harder to read when you spell out the words instead of shortening it. Maybe just me... obviously you don't have to take any of my advice. More specific advice: "Well, no use in keeping it now, I tell myself."- use italics for this, to represents thoughts. Or if this is meant to be dialogue, use quotation marks. "I feel a lurch in my stomach. That’s because I’m never going home again"- Idk, these sentences sound a little inauthentic to the rest of the tone of the book. Hope you find this helpful! I love this!
viviknots Bracelet King	3 years, 7 months ago by viviknots *oops for the one sentence I edited " I realize that I'm probably squeezing the cup too tightly when I hear a crack, watching it break in my hands." you don't have to use the word that. Corrected sentence: I realize I'm probably squeezing the cup too tightly when I hear a crack, watching it crumble in my hands.
_Theatre_ Bracelet King	3 years, 7 months ago by _Theatre_ @viviknots thanks so much for all of your advice! i changed it up a bit and also, a lot of the text originally was in italics but when i copied it from google docs to braceletbook that was lost 😄
viviknots Bracelet King	3 years, 7 months ago by viviknots @_Theater_ lol! It's a great story! You really have a gift.
_Theatre_ Bracelet King	3 years, 7 months ago by _Theatre_ @viviknots thanks so much, that means a lot 🙂

_Theatre_ Bracelet King	3 years, 7 months ago by _Theatre_ @Hedgehog23 @GenMalucci @Maialynn @spacebella @Addibug thank you all for your kind words and support ❤️ @AJsHere @Brooke12 you read the first page of it way back when i originally posted, so i just thought i would tag you here if you were interested in reading the first chapter now that ive decided to post it 🙂
_Theatre_ Bracelet King	3 years, 7 months ago by _Theatre_ @Brooke_12 ^ (ignore this if I tagged the wrong person again, which i might have)
AwesomeGrl Bracelet King	3 years, 6 months ago by AwesomeGrl its really good so far! just a thought tho, maybe add a prologue before the first chapter to help the reader understand whats going on, even if it's just a little bit. obviously dont do something that reveals the story plot, but maybe something to explain the background, or how their story began.

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