please help with my story, kinda grade it?
Prof. Remus Anthony didn’t expect his friend, Chandler’s housewarming part to be anything but Italian cuisine and drab conversation. For the most part, he was right. So about 2 hours and 800 calories later, he decides to head home early. As he was heading towards the door he spots a young lady, standing in the corner, looking positively terrified and drinking champagne.
“Who’s that?” he asked Chandler, nudging in her general direction, though trying not to point.
“Who? O! That’s Leela Brongs. Must be the most anti-social person in Connecticut, but she did my mural, so I felt obliged to invite her,” Chandler responded.
Feeling sorry for her, Remus decides to strike up a conversation.
“Hi,” Remus said, “you’re smelling fabulous this evening.” There was a few moments of awkward silence. “‘smelling fabulous’ ” Remus repeated in his head, “what was I thinking?!”
“Hi,” Leela said back, not making eye contact, not taking any interest.
“So what brings you to the life of the party?” he asked sarcastically.
“I did some painting for Chandler,” she replied in an almost robotic tone, still not making eye contact.
“Aaaaah” he said, as if he didn’t already know.
A few more moments of awkward silence passed between them. Remus decided to give conversation one last try:
“Are you an artist or something?”
“Yes, I’ve been painting since I was 5. It’s a passion for me, really. I’m actually touring Europe this summer.”
Talking about art seemed to open her up.
“Well that’s exciting!” Remus couldn’t take his eyes off her now. “Do you want to get some coffee or something?”
She finally looked him in the eyes.
“…Sure”
So they exchanged numbers and went their separate ways, both going to bed thinking about each other, wondering if the other was thinking about them too.
Two days later they arranged to get lunch at a local café and, unlike the party, the conversation never seemed to end. They talked about everything from Prada to CSI to Lewis Carroll. By the end of the evening, it was love. After a 2 hour walk to her house, “just around the block”, Remus was standing by her at her doorstep, neither willing to be the first to say Good-bye.
“So uhm…” Remus said.
“Well…” She responded.
“Good-bye!” They said at the same time. Nobody moved. Silence.
“We should do this again… sometime.” And he leaned in for a kiss. Fireworks went through both their heads.
“*Ahem*” she said as she unlocked the door. “Good-night” she said as she closed it.
Four months seemed to pass quickly, and the new couple was the talk of the town. Remus went to Leela’s house to pick her up and meet some her friends.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” She was yelling from the bathroom. “I got home late from and interview, I’ll be out in 5 minutes!”
To be continued
Favorite Answer
Your punctuation and grammar need quite a bit of help, but that can always be fixed later. Getting the story written first is more important.
Adding details would make your story come alive, rather than just having the conversations and explanations of what’s going on. Imagine yourself being there. What are some things you might see or something you might smell or hear? Add those kinds of things into your story, so that the reader can become more involved and feel like he’s there with the characters. I’d love to know what the characters look like 🙂
Pick up a published novel with dialogue and read a bit. Almost always, the characters will be doing things or thinking about things in between the spoken words. Remus could take a sip of his drink, glance at her dress, or notice how pretty her eyes look while he’s talking to her. Little things like that add life to the conversation. You started out doing that fairly well, but then stopped.
The overall story is a good start. I look forward to reading your next installment 🙂
~Kyanna
