I watched the teacher through half closed eyes. She was leaning over her desk, reviewing the homework we had turned in. She looked up from the papers with a smile playing on her lips. Her light brown eyes roamed the room until she found mine and motioned for me to come to her desk. I put down my pencil with an exaggerated sigh. There was no doubt in my mind why she was calling me up. Math had never been my strong point and I was rusty. More than rusty, I was frozen. I stood up, hunched my back and thrust my hands in my pockets, allowing my face to turn sullen. I made my way slowly to the desk, as I had witnessed many of my classmates do. She motioned to the chair that was by her desk for me to sit down.

For those who are wanting to know, the guy is actually 28, a special kind of werefox and is there pretending to be a high schooler in order to see if this teacher is capable of assisting his clan.

Peter was sent to meet Angela, who has been studying the supernatural (which do not exist) through books of fiction and also of nonfiction in the discussion of why these creatures were created in people's minds. She somehow started ending testing days with a conversation about what she's discovered. (Again, not sure how that started.) Peter calls on Angela and she is invited to meet multiple shapeshifters and a vampire and his "human servant". She is loaned a rose necklace to wear (have to figure out why) and after the dinner, and something happens with it to where it changes into a real rose. She gets Peter and when they get back, the rose is growing covering the walls and then both Peter and Angela are marked with a tattoo/brand/mark.

Why are you writing in first person? It seems to me that based on your plot outline that you may need to be places that Peter wouldn't be. If you write in first person you only get to show what Peter does, sees or knows.

It seems to me that the tone you are setting in the first 13 may be making it difficult to write the rest. There is no hook. Right now he's just another high school student doing badly in class. But he's really NOT. I do need to know he's a werefox or at least not human within the first 13.

Also, Peter is focusing on things that aren't natural for him to think about.

As an example:

"I put down my pencil with an exaggerated sigh."

I never think of my sighs as exaggerated.

"I stood up, hunched my back and thrust my hands in my pockets, allowing my face to turn sullen."

How do you allow your face to turn sullen? The "hunched up my back" also causes me a problem. Don't you slouch? Why is he trying to portray this image? Is he a good foot taller than her and doesn't want to intimidate her? Is it his attempt at fitting in? Why would he do this?

Try focusing on why he's there and what he's thinking about the task. Isn't he looking forward to the time with her to assess her? Does he think she can help the pack? Why? Why does the pack need help? He's going to be focused on THAT issue not whether or not his math skills are up to par.

If Peter is your MC, you need to look at his motivations. How do they color his world?

What does the rose necklace symbolize to Peter? To the pack? Is there a myth? Does it make her an honorary member or a human under the pack's protection? If you know why the necklace is significant, why she'd be given it and why it changes once she wears it becomes much easier to answer.

Right now it sounds like you are forcing the plot to go down a set line that it may not want to. If you develop the characters as three-dimensional people, the plot will drive itself. If what you have written sounds "fake" it is probably because you haven't moved past cardboard cut outs for characters. Don't worry about it too much because it happens a lot in a first draft and is often why the story peters out.

I didn't read your synopsis, cause really that doesn't matter. You have to make me care with the words in the story. It's all you'll have when the intern/slush reader picks up your ms on his day off to read cause all the editors are back logged.

Here's my advice. Give me something to latch on to in the first line or two. A classroom setting is kind of boring. Give me something to make it interesting.

BTW: the whole "smile playing on her lips" gives it a sort of lurid feeling--not sure that's waht you were going for.

quote:

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I do need to know he's a werefox or at least not human within the first 13.

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I second everything kings_falcon said. Some good points in there.

I am trying to have things go in a particular direction because I have quite a bit written thus far. I've let the story go anyway it wants to... Which has really been bad to do, but as I said, I didn't expect to be trying to write a story for others... I was only expecting to do this drastic of a change in the beginning, not throughout with him as the only viewpoint.

I know that I have a lot to do to both of my books before I would like anyone outside of a VERY select few read them. And truthfully, English was always my least fav. subject in school. Nothing ever made sense when the teachers were explaining it... It took to my 3rd college english class to finally understand what in the world a thesis statement was. Anyway... I always faked it, still making "A's" but being totally clueless. I guess I really need to do a in depth study of writing in general before I pick up with this story again. I'm in the midst of reading a book by Gothom's Writing Workshop (somethign like that). It is helping, but even they go too deep for me at times.

(BTW I was paying attention to his actions because he is acting as a teenager. I was simply writing how I always perceived my classmates.)

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"I watched the teacher through half closed eyes." - great opening sentence, sets scene and a bit of a mood and mentions two important characters (though without much detail), and all in eight words. nicely done.

"She was leaning over her desk, reviewing the homework we had turned in." -- i was going to suggest "leaned" to replace "was leaning" but i'm not sure it matters here. thing with this sentence though, is of course she's reviewing homework they turned in. what other homework would she be reviewing. i think it is safe to assume the reader understands the concept of "homework" and those last four words could be removed.

"She looked up from the papers with a smile playing on her lips." - i like it, though depending on what kind of flow you want, you could change it from "papers with a" to "papers, a"

"Her light brown eyes roamed the room until she found mine and motioned for me to come to her desk." - if her eye color isn't important, it probably shouldn't be here. if the student has a thing for the teacher and obsesses from time to time about her eyes, then not only the color should be here but something a little... more. otherwise, nice.

"I put down my pencil with an exaggerated sigh. There was no doubt in my mind why she was calling me up. Math had never been my strong point and I was rusty. More than rusty, I was frozen." - some great wording here. i love the "exaggerated sigh" and the "rusty" to "frozen" transition.

"I stood up, hunched my back and thrust my hands in my pockets, allowing my face to turn sullen." - ok, "allowing"... as you say after these opening lines, this "kid" is actually some sort of werewolf or something, so is the "allowing" a way of saying he isn't necessarily used to such displays, like the facial tics are foreign to him. if so, maybe a more explicit verb should be used, like he "made" his face turn sullen. the "allowing" makes it almost not in his control. is he sullen or is he just acting sullen?

"I made my way slowly to the desk, as I had witnessed many of my classmates do." - and, here, i'm sure he was just acting sullen, and is just acting a student (though that last bit i may only be getting from the knowledge of what's to come... i wonder if there couldn't be some way of letting the reader know even by this point that this is really just an "act" to make them even more interested in what's coming' that is to say, already interested, but could be more so).