What do you think about this beginning?

Here's the beginning from the novel I'm working on. I just want some opinions. Be honest!



Forget everything you ever knew about fact and fiction. Believe me, more than half of it all are just lies and nonsense. But I guess I should explain a little. First of all, my name is Alexander Baal Capwell. I was born in Lexington Park, Maryland, and I am sixteen years old. Second, I have abilities. Not your run of the mill, I-can-lick-my-elbow type of abilities. I’m talking about moving stuff with my mind, reading peoples thoughts, even setting things on fire. Crazy right? Wrong. Which brings me to the third explanation. I’m hunted. By whom you might ask? Just old Uncle Sam or the United States of America. I’m sure you think I’m crazy. Hell, I even think I’m crazy sometimes. But it’s all very much true. It all started about three weeks ago.

“Dude. She totally likes you! You need to ask her out on a date!” my friend Tucker yelped at me while I entered my locker combination. Tucker was always on my case about Alice. It’s not that I didn’t like Alice. Actually, it was quite the contrary. I liked Alice. I liked her a lot. Probably too much. But I hated how Tucker always butted in. Best friend or no, it was still none of his business.

“I’m not asking her on a date Tucker. I don’t even know whether she likes me or not.” My locker came open with a clang and I pulled my book bag off of my back. I started to load up my bag with next period’s books. Biochemistry. Lovely.

“She does! I heard her and Rachel in the hallway last period. They were talking about you! Rachel was trying to convince Alice you like her.”

“No one knows I like her Tuck,” I spat back. This obsession Rachel and Tucker had with hooking Alice and me up was getting old fast.

“Well it’s not like the whole school doesn’t know,” Tucker muttered under his breath.

I grumbled unintelligibly as I zipped up my bag. I turned to face Tucker and slung the bag over my shoulder. “Why do you care so much anyways? You’ve always wanted me to ask her out. What’s the big deal?”

“I just want to see you happy man,” came the response. But it didn’t quite ring true.

“So let me get this straight. You’ve nagged me about Alice ever since the ninth grade, just to see me ‘happy”? Come on dude. What’s the real reason?”

Tucker’s dark brown skin reddened a little in embarrassment. He smiled at me sheepishly, and looked down at the ground.

I was right. My personal well-being had little, if anything to do with Tucker trying to hook Alice and I up. What a jerk. I made my face blank as I waited for him to answer.

“Okay. You finally caught me Alex,” Tucker said, his eyes still on the floor. “So maybe Rachel and I made a deal not to date until we hooked you and Alice up.”

Ah. Well that made since. Tuck couldn’t get any until I got some. I barked a laugh. That was just like Tucker. He had jumped when I had blurted out the laugh, but now that he saw that I wasn’t furious beyond all reason, he stood straighter and raised his eyes to meet mine.

Then we both burst into laughs and I grinned at him. But suddenly a thought struck me.

“Hey Tuck, when did you make that deal with Rachel? You know I’ve liked Alice since the ninth grade.”

Tucker, seeing where I was directing the conversation, grinned himself.

“Don’t worry bro, we made the deal about a week ago. Believe me, I would not wait for sex for three years. Even for you. I have certain needs.” To emphasize his point, he made a hole with his finger and thumb, and stuck another finger in the hole. Classy.

“Well Tucker for your sake I’ll see what I can do, alright?”

Tucker shook his head.

“Alright man. But you need to hurry up. I’m ready for some action!”

“Sure you are. Lets head to biochemistry! Hurray!”

At the word biochemistry, Tucker’s smile was wiped right off of his face. I couldn’t help but laugh. Tucker hated biochemistry with a fiery passion. I was actually pretty sure Satan hated God less than Tucker hated Biochemistry, lord of everything biological and chemical.

“Cheer up Tuck. Only four more weeks of school and then we’re home free,” I said.

“Well yeah, but four weeks is a long time bro. A really, really, long time.”

I barked out another laugh.

We turned down the hall and began the dread-filled walk to biochemistry. I stared blankly at the poster-covered walls. Pieces of paper stapled to the white brick promoting prom, graduation, and other important school events. There was even a poster with vowels on it. I hated this school. We were sixteen, nearly adults, but the school just continued to treat us like we were four. God in heaven, I wanted to burn this place to the ground.

The school was the average size of a high school, large enough to hold all of the students trapped in side, but small enough not to induce a feeling of space and room. In fact, I constantly felt crowded and claustrophobic when I was stuck in the belly of this educational beast.

We turned the corner at a run in order tWhat do you think about this beginning?
1. First-person teenage 'superpower' stories have been overdone to death, then zombified, then re-overdone to death. You're writing for a very competitive genre, mon frere, so you had better be writing this different and better then the thousands of other people out there.

2.Tucker's 'needs'? Uh, ew. It's not even artistic. That's just gross for no reason. Get it together.

3. There really isn't much to this story right now. Like, for serious. It's mildly interesting, but the dialogue is weak at best, and the detail is juvenile. Kick this up a notch - throw some major plot twists in quickly, otherwise you won't keep your readers past the second page.What do you think about this beginning?
it is a good base. i like the mystery and question you have set in the readers mind. It should be a good story! the only thing ii found weak was when tucker replied ';okay. you finally caught me alex';. you may want to put more of a hesitation or something there to make it sound more real but feel free to ignore me
i think it's pretty good. It kept me interested the whole time. I like books-wait like isn't the right word, more like love books with people with special powers. Keep going, please. I'll be looking forward to it being on the bookshelf at my local library in a year or two. So finish, don't keep future fans waiting!



~K.T.
Not bad.

Not bad at all.

I really like it.

I like the way you've introduced it, you know with the forget everything you've been told.

But the ';My name is Alex..'; Bit doesn't really seem to flow to me.

I dunno..

I also really like the metaphors you're using.

Like ';Satan hated God less than Tucker hated biochemistry..';

Its really good.

But there are some places where I think you're trying to put a little too much description in.

but keep up the good work.

and good luck.

(Y)

:) :)