Please rate the beginning of my story so far. What do you think of it?

Question

I'm making a fanfiction of the book Twilight, and I just started. I would appreciate advice and tips.

Please rate the beginning (so far) on a scale of one to ten :)

Comments/Criticism appreciated!

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“Really, Charlie,” I struggled to hide my impatience, “OK, Dad. I honestly think I can handle picking up a few things at a small town grocery store.”

This was getting annoying; only would Charlie, the chief officer in this undersized water Hell hole, worry about his daughter in a grocery store that somehow managed to profit enough money out of the tiny population to stay open.

“Dad, its Forks, for God’s sakes. I walked… Yes… No… Okay, Char- I mean Dad. I’ll be home by six.” I snapped the phone shut, cutting off his new string of lectures.

My watch struck 4:23.

So I have to admit, I was being a little too harsh on Charlie. It was only my first (full) day in Forks and he was trying so hard to get me settled in and comfortable. As if that wasn’t enough stress -

- on him, I had to pile up more pressure by making him wait for me at home staring out the window helplessly wondering what I could possibly be doing at a grocery store for two hours.

I peeked at the store clerk, a sixty year old something with over-gelled white hair matted around his scalp. He was absentmindedly fiddling around with the cash register, probably wondering where the years went by.

Well, at least Charlie didn’t have to worry about me doing anything special with the store clerks around here anytime soon.

So why was he worked up?

I browsed a shelf of expired cooking supplies. A two year old milk, some stale noodles, and a mashed up box of Do-It-Yourself cheese paste.

How Charlie managed to thrive with his liver intact for seventeen years was beyond me. Maybe the noodles weren’t so bad, a little stale, but some hot water should do it.

I dropped it with the grocery cart, and after careful thought and brief health precaution examination, the cheese-

paste box toppled along with it.

A fit of coughs came from behind me; a little too dramatic to be the natural series of fits you get from you every day old person.

I looked around in time to see the clerk slide a few ten dollar bills into his pocket. I felt his eyes on me as I turned back toward the shelf.

Was it me, or did he actually wink at me?

I decided it was time to grab what I needed and go. I strolled deeper into the aisle, away from the staring eyes of the clerk, toward the cleaning supplies section. Though you could hardly call it that, a few boxes with toilet paper and half-empty Mr. Clean bottles stacked messily on top one another.

I grabbed the few toilet paper rolls I could manage to find still intact and unstained (or close to it) and dropped them into the cart.

I heard the tingle of the door-bells as I wheeled the squeaking cart into another aisle. A real surprise, in a place like this I would have guessed the maximum capacity in a store this-

- size and quality would have been limited to one customer per toilet paper roll.

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That's it so far.

Please rate it :)

THANKS!

Answer 1

It's not bad at setting the scene, and you establish a voice that sounds like Bella. But you have a real weakness in the basic command of the written language - things like using the appropriate punctuation, getting words in the right order so the sentences flow smoothly, using the right word . For instance, the second paragraph, as written, makes little sense. It should read something like,

This was getting annoying. Only Charlie, the police chief in this undersized watery Hell hole, would worry about his daughter in a grocery store that somehow managed to squeeze enough profit out of the tiny population to stay open.

A little after that, you say the watch 'struck' 4:23. The definition of 'strike' which applies here is, "to make known the time by sounding" - it refers to chimes or other sounds that certain clocks make at the hour. Watches don't do that at 4:23, so the verb should be 'showed'.

There are quite a few other small mistakes like this. Cumulatively, they make it too awkward to read to be really successful, even as a fanfic.

Answer 2

Junior is right, don't post any more of this on the Internet. Long, long ago, when I was in high school, I wrote a short story and handed it in to my teacher. This was in the late 1960s. My teacher loved the story. She had my only copy and I never saw it again. At least not until I saw a movie called "Starman" with Jeff Bridges in the lead role. Except for a few twists, it was an awful lot like my short story. So be very careful. Keep writing, but don't share it with anyone but a publisher. Good luck!

Answer 3

really nice. definitely a future writer. keep going with this and tell when you have the rest i would love to read the rest when you are done. I give you a 10 because of the descriptive way you painted a picture in my head. i could totally see what you wrote in my minds eye. plus it goes along great with what meyer wrote.

Answer 4

It is okay for FanFic.