Chapter 1 - I get caught

First chapter in the "I'm a teenage time-lord" book.It's kind of an intro to the main character Randy Burns.

Why was I chosen? I mean I didn’t do anything wrong in my lifetime .Sure, maybe I lied a few times to my parents, or blamed my sister for things she didn’t do, but doesn’t every 14 year old does that?

 Why was I given such an important task? I can ask myself this question as many times as I like and go back and look over my whole life to always return to that moment where everything changed. My name is Randy Burns, and at the age of 14 I became a time lord.

Sounds like a big title, right? Well it's not really. All I have to do is make sure that every living person's life goes according to their destiny, no matter how much I like or hate that person. I have to walk around the world like a ghost ,unseen and unheard, which I think is a good thing since I look sickly pale and dressed with a black cloak, not exactly something that your average kid would wear when walking the streets with friends just enjoying their care-free lives. Did I mention I don’t like this job?

Every time I try to come up with an answer to this question, and trust me I do it a lot since I'm a time lord. I always go back to one particular day. It seemed ordinary enough at the time, but at the end of that day my life changed and my world turned upside down.

 It was a typical Friday morning, right before the school finished and the weekend officially started,(funny how weird things always happen during the weekend).I was sitting in the classroom with the rest of my restless classmates, and the reason why I don’t call them my friends  is because they are not

I wasn’t paying much attention to what was going on around me; I had my hoodie on so I could listen to some music without getting caught. I had my head down low and my hoodie over my messy hair trying to hide the earplugs, keeping the sound as low as possible, again so the teacher wouldn’t catch me.

My teacher by the way is Ms. Darvis, a shroud math teacher whose sole purpose is to bore us to death with math equations and torture us with tests. She is a real eye sore that loving Ms. Darvis, with her thinning graying hair pulled in a bun and her skirts that look like my mom's kitchen drapes and business like jackets. And to make this package perfect is her face, which has this permanent scald and tiny eyes looking murderously through her glasses like death rays.

But I wasn’t looking at Ms. Darvis although I did hear her shuffle back and forth in front of the board mumbling something about another math equation that is going to be on this Monday's test,(though now I do really wish I did listen).All I could see where a few glimpses of  her heels on the aluminum floor. No, I was more focused on my sketch book, doodling around some stuff, which looked strangely like a certain math teacher being hung above the mouth of a volcano; don’t ask me where did that idea come from.

So I just kept listening to my music, looking up from my sketch book from time to time to see if Ms. Darvis hasn’t noticed what I was doing. Through the music I could still hear some talking behind me .Apparently I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t bothered with Monday's test and more about plans for the weekend.

"Oh my god I just can't wait to watch that movie, the lead actor is so hot!"(Yeah so hot it makes me gag).

"Dude I can't wait until the weekend starts, I'm goanna be at my dad's house and he got me a go-cart, its goanna be so awesome!"(I'm sure it will, I hope you crash into a tree!)

"Oh gosh I have to study for this test, I can't fail, my mom would ground me forever!"(Wow, well I guess someone is listening to Ms. Darvis).

Yeah yeah I know it's not nice to think this way about friends, but hey, they are not my friends!

So while I was eavesdropping on the talking that was going on around me I couldn't help but think about my own plans for the weekend, or lack of them.

"I've got nothing",

kind of frustrating, having two days off of school with nothing to do but look forward to the next week of school and seeing Ms. Darvis and her deadly ray eyes.

I got a little sidetracked, and put down my pencil and started wondering off to depressing thoughts of sitting in my room and playing video games, so much that I didn’t notice that my pencil was slowly rowing off to the edge of the table. Eventually it dropped on the floor.

of course I didn’t notice anything because I had my mind somewhere else, but when I put my hand where I placed the pen and saw that it wasn’t there I started looking around my desk. Finally I saw that it fell on the floor at the foot of my table, so I leaned down to grab it. When I got it I also got a close look at Ms. Darvis's shiny heels.

"Oh s**t", is all I could think of, as I sat back on my chair I realized my hoodie fell off. Instead of feeling the top of my jacket I touched my messy hair instead, and then I smiled awkwardly at Ms. Darvis, who was giving me the darkest most icy look.

"Can you hear anything through those headphones?"Asked Mrs. Davis, with an edge of anger in her voice while leaning close to my face, and I probably had the most scared expression on my mine as I pulled down my earplugs only to hear all the class giggling and sneering behind me.

"So, I see you have more important things to listen to then my explanations for this Mondays' test don’t you Mr. Burns".(I hate when people call me by my last name).

There wasn’t much I could do to get away from this annoying situation, although it was torture, with Ms. Dravis's eyes boring at me and the classmate's eyes boring at my back.

"Have anything to say for your defense, Mr. Burns?"

"I...I'm sorry Ms. Darvis, it won't happen again", I stuttered, cu's suddenly  I realized that her eyes where slowly looking at my desk, which had my sketch book wide open, so I slowly draped my hands on top of the paper, hoping she wouldn’t notice. But of course she did.

"And WHAT IS THIS?!" she said with a shriek, grabbing the paper from under my hands. Before I could snatch them back she was already looking at my "teacher over the volcano sketch", (too bad I didn’t get the chance to write down who it was about, not that it bothered Ms. Darvis.)

"Well Mr. Burns", she said with a puff of air, her scowl expression hardening, not that I thought it was humanly possible.

"I think that you will have plenty of things to talk about this with the principal and with your friends, during detention.

"But..But..Ms. DARVIS!"

"To the principals Mr. Burns" ,she pointed towards the class's door, not that I needed any directions, I took my backpack, slipped it on my shoulder and left the class, but not before Mr. Darvis took away my sketch book and Mp3 player

"And I will confiscate those; you will have them only after you return for the principal's office and a call to your parents."

All I could do it just looked at her, I probably had the darkest look on my face, but through the giggling of the students and this awards and unfair situation I managed to crack a smile and say with the least shaky voice I could mange:"Yes Mrs.Darvis".

 

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

Please be gentle about commenting about grammer and spelling.Focus more on the description and personlity of the characters and the humor in the story.

Reviews

[Atlanta Carter]

Yes, there are grammar and spelling/wrong word issues, but I think you have a more fundamental problem. This, I think, should be your prologue, not what you now call the introduction (which is completely unnecessary). You should finish this scene as your prologue, and then move on from chapter one. I haven't read ahead yet to see where ch 1 should begin.

The reason is that it isn't really part of your story. It isn't about Burns becoming a time lord, but what he does after he becomes one. Right? That's where chapter one begins. The first part of this "tells" rather than "shows." That works if you are telling it aloud, but read, it lacks action, and tries to explain too much (called by many an "infodump"). Explain through your action and you will avoid readers tuning out. You should also avoid unnecessary parenthetical remarks. If they belong in parentheses, they are incidental to your story and would be chopped by an editor. Make them more important and integral to your text, and your character will come alive.

Another thing is that I suggest you rewrite the whole thing in third person. It takes a lot of skill to write a whole novel in first person, and it limits what your character can do and know. As you are young and inexperienced, try to learn third person first and then go on to first person later.

[MR_BERG]

I like your writing style. I hope there is more to come about what a time lord does. Also you can get more mileage out of so much story and still keep it interesting (which it is!)

[Stephen Churchill]

such an interesting idea. it reminds me a lot of the upcoming film "the adjustment bureau" with matt damon. check out the trailer ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZJ0TP4nTaE ) and tell me what you think. that said, i'm impressed. the story is definitely intriguing.

[Greg Close]

1st Person - go get 'em! That's tricky stuff, but can be quite the payoff. I would suggest checking out Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber and Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, because those are great examples of how using that perspective can bring life and voice to a main character. You have to REALLY know your character and story, and how to tell/develop it all from that limited perspective to really pull it off. And, biggest 1st Person worry - if the main character is not engaging enough, then the whole story will fall flat. So, just be ready to tackle all that if 1st Person is how you want to go (or how the character is telling you to go).

A thought on Randy - if you aren't set on him being a boy, I'd consider a quick gender change. There are just so many young boy coming-of-age and into amazing power & responsibility stories, it would be great to have one from a female perspective. I always think of what a successful heroine Ripley was from the Alien movies. We need more Ripleys! Again, if the character is "speaking" to you as a boy, and that's where you feel it should go, then listen to yourself over me, that's just a little suggestion.

You haven't revealed too much story yet, just little hints as you take time to flesh out your lead character. I like that. But, you might lose interest with readers who don't feel sufficiently "hooked." To snag those readers, but still preserve this first chapter, add in a prologue or prelude or introduction that is pure bang. Although I'm switching mediums here, think of how Ratatouille started: a rat crashing through a window and the words "this is me." The audience immediately is intrigued and wants to know WHY is that rat crashing through the window? There are clues... he's clutching cheese... but we want to know more. A good trick is to throw in a high-action (or high drama) scene for your intro, leave it on a cliff-hanger, and then go right to Chapter 1 with something like you have here and a nice 1st Person statement like "But I guess I'm getting ahead of myself. Why was I chosen?"

Okay, okay.. enough from me, sorry. I tend to get carried away. I hope it's all constructive and at least a little helpful. :)

[Amelia Harris]

Good start. I think you have a great idea. A couple of spelling and grammatical problems, and I'm a little confused as to how relevant this chapter is to the whole story, but I think you're doing great! I like his character and Ms Darvis :P

[JuliePetunia]

I've gotten really lazy on commenting on stories, and I rather just put down my immediate thoughts. The beginning was a little blah, I couldn't really focus and forgot what happened in the beginning, but anywho, Mrs. Darvis sucks! And I noticed you switched between miss and mrs. Grammar and speeling could use a bit of help, but otherwise, an alright story.

[daftinklings]

You've written a good start. The way the character speaks and thinks is fitting for his age. So far so good for that aspect. The problem is, the first chapter isn't interesting enough to really pull in the reader to continue on to the next few chapters. Maybe you should spice things up a bit. Drop in a bit more foreshadowing, and fix the spelling and grammar while you're at it.

[Silver]

I liked it, but it gave me a headache to read with all the grammar mistakes. I wouldn't try to communicate with the reader as much, because that detracts from the overall story. This character is good, and I think the plot sounds good, except it didn't really pull me in. Overall, I think I would read this.

[Matthew Ian Herrawood W]

Its good a nice start and good charictors

[James Bonner]

I just began reading this. And, I enjoy it. I think there's plenty of room for character development which has always been more an interest of mine than the story. I'm glad I discovered it.

[James Watts]

I agree with carter that this should be a prologue and that the parentheses should be cut down. The opening does ramble a bit, but I don't see it as that much of an info dump

"And WHAT IS THIS?!" (avoid this. Either an exclamation or a question mark but never both.)

Over all this is not a bad concept and the story only needs minor tuning.