Wet Sand (PG-15)

Before this first chapter is posted, I would like to thank everyone who has persuaded me to put out a fanfic. I wrote this fanfic about one and a half months ago under another name with a longer first chapter. After a lot of editing to the characters and adding the rest of the chapter over to other chapters, I've finished. Please enjoy this fan-fic.

PG-15 rating for minor swearing and probably other stuff I'll add in the future.

Future chapters will be longer than this one, and please be aware that this is my first professional fanfic.

Interesting, I'm actually wondering to what the plot is about. Though, I suggest adding more description like...Does the main character have brown hair? Is he tall? How does he feel about having a stranger in his room after his call ended?

I'm trying to get the next chapter to be about double as long as this one. So, I'm hoping it will be done by this Sunday or Monday at the latest.

Eeveemaster9; I will try to find a way to add a discription of him in, but no names of the boy or girl are going to be added. I want to readers to think of them.

Ωmega: I was guessing this was going to happen. I'll fix it now and keep it like that for the future.

Thank you guys for the constructive critisism. I hope to make the next chapter better than this one.

You say that this is your "first professional fanfic." Aside from the fact that it's not "professional" unless you're doing it as a job/career, I can't tell what fandom this is a fic for (it's obviously not Pokemon). A fanfic isn't just a non-published piece of writing, it has to be tied to an existing media creation. If it's just your own story and not a fanfic, that's fine too, but I'd like some clarification.

Also, you still haven't fixed the centering of the text. It's seriously harder to read that way. And you shouldn't really use non-default fonts, either, as they can be harder to read on different forum skins. There's a button in the top-left corner of the edit window that removes text formatting.

That aside, there are a significant number of grammatical mistakes in your story, to the point where it's frequently distracting for me to read.

"I'm coming home soon, Maureen." He said to his mother when he called her from his cell phone.

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There should be a comma there, not a period, because the words that follow are really part of the same sentence.

in 3 and a half hours

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In general, you should write out smaller numbers. This page has the exact rules on it.

"By the way, were watching the neighbor's kid for the week.

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Missing apostrophe for the contraction. I'm sure that's a typo.

"For Gods' Sake!"
...
Joe still hasn't completely gotten over your Grandmas' death.

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When using an apostrophe to indicate possession and there is only one of the subject the apostrophe goes before the 's.' So, unless he's referring to more than one god and more than one grandma, it should be "God's" and "grandma's." Also, both sentences have a capitalization problem. Improper nouns don't get capitalized, like "sake." "Grandma" is a little more complicated:

Correct: hasn't gotten over Grandma's death.

Correct: hasn't gotten over your grandma's death.

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If you're using "Grandma" as a person's name, it's capitalized, but if you're referring to the person as "a/your grandma," it's not.

There are plenty of other mistakes in there, and I think it'd be better if you tried to find them yourself.

As for the story itself, it seems interesting enough, and I'm wondering what the details of the tragedy involving his dad could be. One thing seemed strange to me, though, and that's that the girl was never allowed (not "aloud," check your spelling) out of her house, possibly just for being pretty. If this is actually the case, I find it a little incredulous and very disturbing. If that's what you're going for, then alright, but otherwise...*shiver*.

To be honest, my enjoyment of the story was limited by all the issues in readability, as well as a general lack of clarity in the writing. For example, when it seems like the main character's mother is asking him what the girl's name is, I was confused because the only girl who had been mentioned so far in the conversation was the one staying at their house, whose name the main character doesn't know. I couldn't tell if his mother was talking about some other girl or if you had made a new paragraph by mistake. And later, I first got the impression that he was driving home from the station with his mother, but then it turned out they were driving separately. I'm still not sure what was going on there.

Before you post your next chapter, I think you should spend some time revising this one.

Bonjour, Monsieur kidpunk.

Since anon's so kindly provided you with a grammatical review, I guess that I'll be the one to go into the stuff about plot and characterization that most people, particularly reviewers, seem so keen on touching when analysing a piece of fiction, in this case yours. That was a long-winded way of saying, "Hey, let's review your fic!"

First off, let's talk plot. At a glance, it seems like your standard-fair romance piece interspersed with domestic and or familial dispute for good measure. Otherwise, it's just a Christmas-themed rom-com. I'm fine with either, but you're not making it too easy for the reader to figure it out are you. Throughout, you've managed to refrain from revealing the girl's (the love interest) name in quite a clichéd, though I won't deny effective, fashion, which I find to be a bit stifling to the plot and, at the same time, quite generic for a rom-com and or standard romance. Why do I find it stifling? That's because by explicitly refusing to reveal the name of the love interest, you're basically leading yourself into a situation wherein the protagonist and the LI have a (semi)dramatic reveal which adds to their relationship and overall romantic feel of the piece. This isn't inherently bad, and I admit that a fair few romantic pieces have used this quite successfully, but in this case, it's just a bit overused since, as I've mentioned, a lot of pieces have used it before. You're not really trying hard to separate yourself from the flock are you? If, however, this isn't your intention and you really just don't want to reveal her name, and am just going to reveal it in a casual manner somewhere in the next few chapters, it'll be seen as wasting a perfectly good opportunity since you've got the setup for the situation all completed. So yeah, while it's not technically a bad thing, I just find it a bit jarring.

"Hello, son." The mother said to her son. Grandpa did the same thing.

"Hello Mom and Grandpa." He gave both of them a quick and emotionless hug, as he was in a rush to know about her.

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Next, we've got this segment here. The first part which bothers me to no end is the part when the protagonist's mother says, "Hello, son," Not only is that grammatically incorrect, (seeing as the following sentence is a dialogue tag and you've neglected to add a comma following the end of the quote) it's also semantically awkward. What mother refers to her child simply as 'son' or 'daughter'? Quite frankly, that's a very unemotional mode of address, and you'd be better suited to actually naming the child, rather than leaving it vague. The next sentence follows on in the same vein. "Hello Mom and Grandpa," sounds exceedingly mechanical, specifically with the inclusion of 'and' in the extract. Here, the usage of 'and', though grammatically correct this time, is, again, semantically awkward seeing as the use of lists in writing is a double-edged sword. To explain, when you list out something in writing, you give inadvertently give it a particular effect (the (in)famous rule of three in comedy is an example). Listing can either emphasize specific list elements, drawing the reader's attention and thus making the narrative slightly more dramatic, or it can serve as a method of grouping together a group of objects. In the case of the extract, by adding that extra 'and' in the middle, you're basically drawing the reader's attention towards the two characters instead of the off-handed effect you were trying to achieve prior. I'd suggest changing it to, "Hello, Mom, Grandpa," or "Hello, Mom. Grandpa," so that you get the effect of him saying Hello Mother and also acknowledging his Grandfather, instead of Hello Mother and Hello Grandfather individually. Remember, he's in a hurry to get to the girl and he's dismissing them in an off-hand manner. Why is he being so formal?

Well, anyway, I think I've written a bit much, and I may have veered on a tangent somewhere in there, but overall, at the moment, there's not much I can say about your fic aside from that it's a tad clichéd in places. What I'm saying is, there are no, as if yet, defining characteristics that I notice which set it apart from any other romantic fiction piece.

I have to agree with Magic Legume's point that this was difficult to read. It's hard to follow because of the lack of information given to the reader. I know that you don't want to provide names, but that makes it hard for the reader to tell who's who. Personally, it's also hard for me to want to read more about these characters because I don't even know their name. And in a romantic story, you kind of want to have readers know your characters so that they can cheer them on as they try to get together. It also makes the story awkward to read because it seems as if you're forcing the characters to act oddly just to not reveal this information. I can tell that the story isn't flowing as it could because of this.

The story was also confusing because of the lack of information as to what's going on. There seemed to be a rush to get from point A to point B that things got left behind. Like how the characters feel, or even how they got to the next scene. (The mother drove the car up, and the son drove it home? But he complained about his mother's driving like she was driving?) Slow down the narration in general, especially since you seem to be aiming for longer chapters. Taking the time to tell the story will help there.

Also, why does the main character start off calling his mother by her real name and then called her "mother" later on? Same with the mother and grandfather. I can understand that this family might have some issues to deal with and wouldn't be too friendly with one another. But you should have them be consistent in what they do. Don't have one character call another character something and then never have them use it again. It's just confusing.

Some edits really need to be done to this first chapter before posting the next one. You don't want to lose readers early on from simple confusion. Work on the first chapter a bit using the reviews given to improve it and future chapters.