The Rumour - Comments

Oh, no. Here we go again with Mr. Oliver. I'm going to go right ahead and call him a douche bag, because he rather deserves it at this point. :) Just saying. Reading about Owens makes me happy. I don't know why, either. Ha.

Aw. Why is Max being weird now? That's not very Max-y like! OH, GOOO, VIOLET! Tell him off! Haha. I love it. No, I really do. Violet got all vicious and I LURVED it! Oh, wow... That was really good! Very emotional and awesome. :D

GOOD WORKKKK!!!! <3 Hehe. I'm always your biggest fan. But this was really gooood. Especially how you tied in Adam's murder case in with everything.

I wonder why they have to question all the friends. 0.0 Hmm. Cannot wait to find out!!! :D

ooh, i like yerr story. :)
write more! ehehe. its really good !

WHERE IS YOUR BOY TONIGHT, I HOPE HE IS A GENTLEMAN. Yeah, I had to finish the lyrics to the song. Hehe. I love it. Maaaaaarch! That's when I was born, and also when my anniversary is. My favorite month.

Anyway, the flue fucking sucks. And why the hell won't Oliver talk to her?! I'm kind of dying over here. Hallucinations? She must he really freaking sick. Who knows, he's a guy. TRUE! That could be it, but I I'm highly doubting it.

TELL HER YOU MISS HER! Yeah, that part kind of made me mad. Yum hot cocoa, but damn Oliver. Seriously, this was a great and very saaaad chapter. :[ But, I loooved it.

I likes.
When you asked me if I'd read it, I thought I had... but I hadn't.
But Subscribed :)
See you tomorrow :)

Decode is an amazing song. :D So, I love it from the first part. Awesome, huh? So, the beginning is wonderful, trying to get Oliver's attention even though it's obviously not working. I'm very curious as to why he is ignoring her and what on earth is going on!!! The suspense is going to kill me.

MAX PICKS UP! ...I....Am...So...Jealous. I'm sick. (cough, cough) Come see me, Maxie! (cough, cough) :D Ronnie can come, too. Sure. All cute guys are welcome in my bedroom. Seriously, I think some porn videos start this way, Zoe. I love it, though!

IT WAS ABOUT ADAM!!! Oh, no, whats?! Oh, yeah, I remember that. Adam has been KILLED! DUN, DUN, DUNNNNNN.

Aw, Max usually eats milk and cookies at her house. That's freaking cute for some odd reason. Also, this has apparently been a very bad span of time for these friendlings. Ronnie's sister got raped, there's a murderer on the loose, as well as a rapist. Ooh, wouldn't it be fucked up if it was the same person?

MAX KNOWS!!! AND HE'S NOT TELLING HER! How dare the sexy man!!!

Well, that was cryptic and confusing to say the least. But very suspenseful. I LOVE IT!

Story/Review Game.
Chapter Five
The game was really slowing down, so I decided to pitch in for the first time in forever. :cute:

I really love the British spelling of words better than the American version, so kudos for that. I won't correct your grammar because it's always something you can revise later; I'll just look at the content. I haven't read any of your work before, so I'll jump jump on in.

An image of Kylie the drag queen (as he named himself last night after we’d dressed him up) flashed into my mind... :tehe: What an interesting thought. This alter ego of Kyle (Burns, correct?) is cute, especially the way he seems to allow it in public eye.

It's very hard to pick up on this chapter after missing the rest of it, but I can sort of pick up where you're going with this story. The huge amount of characters are really confusing, but it is really an all-star cast after all.

I can see a lot of tension building between some of the characters, which is played out well.

“…How can you be sure? I mean, it might be just a Rumour.” I heard Josh speak. I love it when people use the title of their stories in the actual work. It rewinds back through the story, reminding the readers the whole point of it, you know? I really like it, but is it capitalized for a reason, like a personification? If not, that could certainly be a way to add depth and soul to your work.

I'm guessing Adam was very close to the group, and it has taken a toll on them. I know how that is because I recently lost a good friend in a car wreck. It's a soft spot no one feels comfortable to talk about, but you do allow them to freely let pieces of their feelings without letting it all out.

If I had more time, I would go back and read the rest of it; alas, I have some deadlines of my own. I hope you think this review as thorough and not harsh at all.

Oliver must apologize! Just saying. I really want to know what's up! It's all suspenseful, and I am dying to know what's so different and WHY there's tension and all that wonderfully good stuff. Ahhh, I love Owen's.

KYLE! I squealed slightly when I read that. Kylie?? Oh, I love that. Freaking hilarious! :D Ooh, Oliver is in Owen's. What shall happen?! *shifty eyes* MAX!!!! (I'm sure you saw that one coming, haha.) Just once I want to look at a tree and see Max Green standing beneath it. Then my life would be complete.

I hope nothing bad is wrong with Oliver and Violet... The thought makes me sad. Haaaa, Kyle with his hands on his hips = amazing mental picture. What the hell is wrong with Oliver?! I mean, I know Max is hot and wonderful, but TALK TO YOUR GIRLFRIEND! She should have let Lindsay beat him... MAX ISN'T INVOLVED, IS HE?! Oh, noessss!

Awww. Violet should get with Ronnie! SO SWEET! MUAHAHA! I knew Adam didn't kill himself; but that could have been because I knew of the plotline... I'm not sure.

It's starting to get ineresting! Hell yeshhhh. I love it!

CrushCrushCrush is one of my favorite Paramore songs!! Yeah, that has nothing to do with the chapter, but, still. I had to freak out about that. :D

Oh, no, things don't feel right. That can't be good. ....Is Kyle okay? The behavior is rather strange. Who wouldn't miss Oliver?! I want to sit on Ronnie's lap for some reason. No clue why, but I'd feel safe in Ronnie's arms... as unstable as he is. But he seems okay in this story. Aw, and curling up against his chest. This is kind of cute!

Ah, and then he ruins the cuteness by being an impatient ass. A bow to Ronnie Radke for being a class A douchebag! Why does no one have their cell phones on? I don't like this! Is something wrong? Please don't let it involve Max.

Lindsay raiding Kyle's hair is a funny picture. And Oliver has arrived!... without a hello to his girlfriend. The hell is going on? What is with him?

I LOVE LINDSAY'S ROOM! This is wonderful; I would totally live there. I want to jump onto the water bed! Kyle's getting a make over... Strange. I like the punishment idea!

Love this chapter!!!! :DDD And I do likes it.

I still love the title. :D Ah, shopping. My favorite sport in the world, and I adore alternative clothes. I lurves it! I would actually like to go shopping in Grin, just saying. It sounds amazing... and I love high heels! Ooooh, Iron Fist! :]

I love how Lindsay is whining in the background. It's just funny. BLASPHEMY! Nothing can EVER be to brght and sparkly. Neverrr. Leapord print changing booths, that's just hot. I would let Oliver into my changing room anytime, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

As I turned to see the back, I heard everything go quiet outside the booth. Uh, oh. I smell trouble!... And I was right! I don't like this Madison chick at all, just saying. She seems like a royal bitch that should have her head beat into the nearest clothing rack. :] And she shouldn't have brought Adam into it! That's just mean!

Poor Sydney.

I looooved this chapter. So good and amazing!! :D Can't wait until the next one! WOOOSH!

mmm....kissing Oli XD

Summary:

The first thing I noticed in the summary was that there are a few grammatical/structure errors and it doesn't flow very well.

Places like here - I’m now 18 years old, but my story of a group of close friends, with a fatal secret to keep, starts on February 3rd, when my poor friend Adam Lazzara committed suicide at the age of 19. - for example. The sentence (which is really really long, by the way, and should probably be separated) seems to incorporate too many different ideas. I couldn't see the connection between her age and her friends 'secret' and the date. I just thought that would have worked much better if placed into separate sentences and then reorganized.

The second thing I noticed was that the summary doesn't really capture the mood of what has happened. A friend, a very young friend, has committed suicide and there seems to be no weight to the summary at all. I found that odd and off-putting. It made me feel like you, the author, and your main character, Violet, don't take suicide very seriously. It made it seem like she didn't really care much about this friends death. I mean, she said the words - I miss him like hell, but his death caused quite a stir within our friendship group. - but there doesn't seem to be any real emotion behind it. For me, it was just too lighthearted for the topic. Not saying that it needs to be all gloom-n-doom, gothic, but there needs to be some level of gravity.

The third, and final thing, is that there's too much going on your summary page. There's the banner, and then the song lyrics, and then some more pictures (which isn't allowed, by the way - you're only allowed one banner), and then the summary. When I first looked at the summary page, I didn't even think that the lyrics had any connection to the following paragraph because of the set of photos and then the dashes. I think if you took out the dashes and the second set of photos, your summary would be a lot more cohesive.

Chapter 1: Epilogue

At first I was a bit put off by the format of this, the constant introductions. I usually dislike that and a lot of the time when writers do the intro to characters thing, they end up forgetting to really develop their characters and the characters are flat. But here, I can see how it would work for this story. I’m not sure I ‘love it’, or even like it , but I can see how it would be beneficial to this kind of story. And I honestly think that your writing style definitely helps. The narration you use here is very fitting and it works well.

With that said, I do think that in the epilogue it becomes a bit of a overload, the character intros. It’s a lot to take in and by the time I got to the end, I didn’t really feel any more closer to any of the characters and I didn’t remember any real details about them either. I think that’s why many people prefer for character info to be worked into the story, rather than just being thrown at the reader.

Only all that was just a mask, hiding his constant depression leading to his death. He died by jumping off a cliff at the highest point of Long Beach.

I thought that the wording here wasn’t done very well. Not so much because it’s blunt, but it just doesn’t flow very well. Also, I do find the first part of this - Only all that was just a mask, hiding his constant depression leading to his death. - too…in your face, in a way. Like I said, character intros are tricky and if you’re not careful, it feels less like a story and more like a simple statement of facts.

Virgin airlines company

The word ‘airlines’ should be capitalized here because it’s the name of the company, Virgin Airlines.

And everything was completely convinced he was going to marry his long term girlfriend, Sydney Johnstone.

I think you mean ‘everyone’?

As I read on, I can say that I enjoy that the narrative is informal. Kind of like friends talking or a verbal telling of a story. A can imagine an actual person just sitting and talking or writing in a journal. I really like that. I think it adds a bit of something to the story.

Now Sydney, was something else.

When I read this line I thought the comma was misplaced. I thought the commas should have come after ‘now’ or no comma was needed at all. But maybe you were going for something else? But with the way the sentence is now, it has no subject.

The very first couple of sentences of the description of Sydney read too much like a character description, you know the annoying things some people put on their summary pages, usually right underneath a picture of the person: This is Martha. She has blonde hair and blue eyes. She’s nineteen. She’s totally into the ‘scene’ scene and her favorite color is yellow. Stuff like that kind of dissolves away the ‘story’ feel of the story and it kind of gets boring.

*I’m not sure how much of a ‘rule’ this is, but I was taught that you should write out number instead of using the numerals. I think it looks better, to be honest, and I know it’s a rule in journalism. Not sure if the same rule is applicable in stories, but I think it is. It just looks neater to write “the three musketeers” instead of “the 3 musketeers.”

*Deary me, he’s such a pretty boy.

Just for aesthetic value, I think it would be better to italicize here, instead of underlining. Underlining just seems kind of…unprofessional for a story. I mean, I know this isn’t a ‘professional’ website, but…that’s what we’re striving for, right?

To be perfectly honest, I just skimmed through the last few descriptions. By the time I finished reading about Max, Josh and Oliver, I was just so bored with the character intros. It was too much, and like I said, I doesn’t really show much of anything about the characters.

* I read the author’s note and you said that you knew it was boring but it “had to be done.” I really don’t think it is necessary. Of course, it’s your story and you get the final say, but I really think it would be better if you just kind of worked the character info into the story. As far as readers go, you could be losing a lot of readers because of the setup of the ‘epilogue.’ Also, it isn’t an epilogue. It’s closer to a character list or, if you must, a prologue or preface. An epilogue comes at the end of a story and a prologue comes at the start - just a technicality.

Chapter 2: 001; Funeral For a Friend:

But to be honest, who does like them.

Just thought a question mark should be here instead of a period.

This particular one was an open coffin funeral, which I think is pretty morbid.

Open casket. I think that’s the term used. It sounded a bit weird to see open coffin. It kind of made me think of vampires.

Seeing Adam lay there, his skin cold and pale, dressed in his best suit, holding a bunch of daisies to his chest, was the most sickening thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

I really liked this bit. I think it’s very realistic for people to feel this way at funerals, especially young people, and especially when the person who has passed it young as well. I think it’s something that makes everyone feel a bit uncomfortable and it pulls up a lot of emotions.

He even still had his nose ring pinned onto his nostril.

I liked this part too. When I read it, it made me think of the fact that so many things don’t change after death. I kind of thought this line was a really could testament to death and funerals, in general. You kind of notice all these really little things that don’t really matter but they kind of seem significant. The nose ring thing could be the one thing that really personifies the guy and just seeing it could bring up so much memories and feelings for his friends. Maybe I’m over thinking it, but I found that line very poignant. It was kind of like, despite everything, nothing really changed.

beaten California rocks.

“- beaten by California rocks”?

She didn’t believe it at first, until she saw the body they had uncovered from among the sea - beaten California rocks. His hair was messy, and his cuts were deep all over his face. His green shirt was blood - soaked and ripped. I threw up.

I think the hyphens are done incorrectly here. At first I didn’t even realize that the words were supposed to be one, I thought it was a dash and not a hyphen, like the way some people use dashes instead of commas.

“sea-beaten” and “blood-soaked” without the spaces, so that it won’t look like separate thoughts.

As I stared into his dark wooden coffin, I saw some small cuts on his face, and his elbow jutted out at an odd angle.

This was the first bit that I thought wasn’t very realistic. I’d imagine that the mortician would take care of that, covering up the cuts and definitely fixing the elbow thing. He (or she) probably wouldn’t leave it all…out of whack. Maybe I’m wrong, but that stuck out to me.

Her black veil hung over her face, as she stepped toward the coffin.

This part also stood out to me. I’ve been to a few funerals and nineteen year olds usually don’t wear black veils. I think that’s an outdated idea.

My own lover, Oliver, came up behind me, holding my waist and staring into the coffin.

Not to sound rude, but the use of the term ‘lover’ here, made me snicker. It’s just…not a word that fits in with the time period, the age of the characters, or the narrative. I think “my own boyfriend” would work much better. Here, ‘lover’ just seems silly.

*“You won’t ever do that to me, will you Oliver?”

“No, never honey. I’ll always be here,”

Sometimes where you used names/nicknames you forget to use a comma. When, in dialogue, the character is adressing a person, a comma is needed after the statement:

“You won’t ever do that to me, will you, Oliver?”

“No. Never, honey. I’ll always be here,”

“Here’s my ring that you bought me - I wanted you to have it back,” She sobbed…

Just noticed that you’re tagging dialogue incorrectly. When you end dialogue with a comma, the next word (unless it’s a proper noun) should start with a lowercase letter.

…a river of black tears pouring into his coffin.

I understand what you’re going for here, I really do, but the over exaggeration is distracting. It’s too much.

It was such a waste of handsomeness.

I’m not sure if ‘handsomeness’ is a word or not, but if it is, it isn’t a very good one. It’s one of those words that just sound silly.

“I want a memorial bench in Owen’s,”

In Owen’s name? I wasn’t sure what you meant here.

I found some of the descriptions kind of unfitting in the context of this chapter. I mean, it’s a funeral for a very close friend who committed sucide at a very young age. I’m not sure if descriptions like “smoothing her knee length figure hugging black dress” and “my hands going under his jacket and around his slim toned body”, doesn’t seem very appropriate to the mood. Especially since this is being told in first person, it makes her seem a bit cold. She’s supposed to be mourning over her dead friend but she’s kind of focused on tight dresses and her boyfriend or friend’s (sorry but there’s a lot of characters in this one piece and it’s a bit tough to keep track) toned body.

“Okay everyone, we have to close the curtains now, if you’d like to take a seat…” The vicar said, and then came a ghoulish scream.

I had no idea what you meant by ‘the curtains’. What curtains? I’ve been racking my brains trying to figure out where a curtain would play into at funeral and…I don’t know.

By the end of this chapter, I kind of had mixed feelings about it. There was some aspects of it that was very realistic, but I think that overall there wasn’t really much of a mood. I didn’t feel for the characters at all and it was just kind of cold. Usually, when I read a funeral scene or something like that in a story, I feel something, you know? I think that for a funeral piece like this, in order for it to be effective it has to really get the readers to feel. To feel empathetic or sympathetic…something. I think that at the end, I just kind of felt like “Oh, some kid died. Bummer.”

Chapter 3: 002; Sweet Talk 101

Oliver nudged Max’s hip with the tip of his black and blue skate shoe, whom was still clung onto me, his arms around my waist and his head nestled in my chest.

It should be who, not whom because in that sentence “my waist” is the object, making “who” the subject. The subject is always “who” and “whom” should only be used if it’s the object. Like if she was clinging onto him.

Also, the rest of that bit, is a little awkward to read. I think it should be “on” rather than “onto”.

…starting a wrestling match with mine.

Eek! I beg you, please please please do not use this phrase. It’s the biggest most clichéd kissing phrase ever and it just pulls your writing quality down. PLEASE?

In the middle of this chapter, there gets to be that really blatant description again. The kind of description that doesn’t melt into the story but stands out awkwardly on its own. Not only with the description of the park, but with the description of Madison York. It’s too unnatural and seems too purposeful and kind of…obvious, in a way. I don’t know. I just didn’t seem to be worked too well into the story.

Moments of bliss, such as this one we’re what kept me going.

“Were”, not “we’re”.

The last chapter was a but confusing. Once again, because there’s so many secondary characters that are like “best friends” with Violet, it does get confusing. Also, at this point in the story, there isn’t really anything personality-wise that differentiates the characters. It feels like, apart from physical descriptions and names, there’s nothing that makes each character stand out on their own. I think you need to a work a bit more on character development, and giving everyone a separate and distinct personality of their own. Right now, Max could be Josh and Josh could be Oliver and Oliver could be Max. I just really can’t tell them apart.

Okay...so that's it! I'm sorry if you thought there was too much, but I was really in a reviewing mood. I hope you don't take any offense to anything I've said. I was trying to be both honest and helpful and hopefully that's the way you see it and hopefully it is helpful. :D

That was quite a bit sad still! When Violet got upset and went to Max for help; I liked that a lot. :D I love this chapter so much, it was the best one yet and Oliver is so fucking sweet.

The friends are so cute, too. They lurve each other! It's soooo nice, and it makes me rather jealous, actually. Haha.

.....I wanna go to Walmart with Max! I'd flaunt him down every aisle!

They are song lyrics from a song called The Rumour by youmeatsix which was my inspiration :)

I haven't gotten into the first chapter just yet....I wanted to know if the words under each picture were cong lyrics or just a random poem....

That's your surprise, by the way! Sorry; it totally sucks. AND! Sorry I commented twice. D:

http://img190.imageshack.us/my.php?image=041.mp4

So far, I love absolutely everything about it! And, I will get right on the epic surprise as soon as I can, and I will send it through this story. :] But, I'm really busy. Argh.

I looove it, though! Can't wait for the next update. (I'll have your The Rumour surprise by tomorrow. :D)