Maradonia Spork: Chapter One
Well I haven’t posted in a while… Kinda got busy/lazy, as I’ve had the chapter one snark done for weeks now, I just haven’t formatted it for tumblr. Hm, anyway…
Okay, chapter one, here I come. It’s called “The New School,” and it has a really crappy picture at the top of it, but I think I’ll leave the pictures at the beginning of the chapters for their own snark.
“Get up! It’s your first day of school. Maya and Joey, you don’t want to be late.” Their mom called from the kitchen.
Maya was very excited to go to the new school and she was hoping to make some new friends.
She was starting tenth grade and her brother Joey was going into ninth.
Shitty intro is shitty. Cliché with no flow and bad grammar.
The family had moved during their summer vacation to Oceanside.
Not a very good sentence, but at least it’s not a whole paragraph trying to explain the whole thing.
Joey knew that the new school would be challenging but he also knew that he could make friends easier than anyone else.
Maya was different. She was tall and a very beautiful girl and although she stood out of the crowd, she was extremely shy and did not make new friends easily.
Maya and Joey got along just fine but in many ways they were opposites.
Maya was always hesitant and she was mostly thinking before she started doing anything. Joey was spontaneously acting before he started to think about a situation. Often they disagreed on private matters and it took them a while to agree on something.
Again with the weird “on its own line but not its own paragraph” type of thing. It’s rather strange. Also, info drop. I get it’s information we’ll probably need to know, but there’s far more eloquent ways to give it to us. Then again, this is Tesch I’m talking about, and I doubt she can be eloquent if she can’t even grasp simple grammar rules.
After Maya and Joey had finished breakfast, they walked to the bus stop and waited for the bright yellow bus to arrive.
Starting school at ‘Oceanside High’ was more difficult then Maya thought.
Why do we need the description “bright yellow bus” in there? Granted, not all school buses are yellow, but MOST of them are. Hell, I would say people automatically ASSUME they’re yellow in stories, unless otherwise stated.
And ah, of course, a cliché line again. “X was more difficult than Y thought.” Always used. Always.
Apostrophes: so far one time this chapter.
Joey made friends instantly. He was always popular.
But of course he is! There ALWAYS has to be the “popular” one and the “outcast” one when it comes to siblings! There’s NEVER any variation!
At his old school, Joey was once part of a nationwide painting poster-contest and he won this contest.
Oh fuck, HERE we go. A very long, very annoying “paragraph” about something amazing done by Joey. Also, painting poster-contest (hyphen not making any damn sense)? Gotta choose one or the other, Tesch. I’ve heard of painting contests, I’ve heard of poster contests, but never painting poster contests.
He received many letters from several congressmen in Washington, from the governor and from the superintendent of all the schools of the state.
…What? Unless his stupid poster-painted benefited someone in some way, I hella doubt governors would write letters to some stupid kid that won a crappy contest. Of his own state? Maybe. Also a huge hell no to the “all superintendents” thing, as well. Why the fuck would the superintendents even give a shit? I mean, really? And again, superintendent of his school district, maybe.
He kept these letters in his treasure box in his room and he is still very proud to have them.
While his getting them in the first place isn’t at all realistic, at least his reaction to getting them is.
During the banquet in honor of Joey in his old school,
Hold up, a frickin’ banquet? Hell no. Assembly, I’m sure. We’ve had people when contests before at my school, and we’ve had assemblies for them.
It seems Tesch likes to blow things way out of realistic proportion.
a real senator from Washington was greeting Joey in the name of the President and was praising Joey’s ability by saying, “Joey, you have great potential. When I look at your poster I can see your ability as a bridge builder, who can create in his fantasy bridges into different dimensions.”
…/facepalm Not only is this incredibly unrealistic, what the senator said doesn’t make in fucking sense. JOEY CAN MAKE THINGS INTO DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS, GAISE.
Many reporters from various newspapers took pictures of Joey and the school received a new section for their library.
Okay, you’re getting a bit more realistic here. Maybe a FEW newspapers, like state-level and/or local-level, but probably not something huge. And a new section for the school’s library? Could easily be part of the prize, so I can buy that.
When Maya saw her brother running in the school park or walking in the hallways during recess she always saw a bunch of teenagers who gathered around Joey.
High-schoolers do not have recess. Nor would teens gather around anyone unless there was actually something interesting going on. I should know, I’m a fucking teenager myself.
When Maya said “Hello” to anyone of the students and tried to be friendly, no one really responded. Most of them just looked at her and treated her as a stranger in the new school. They felt that Maya was somehow different than the other students but they did not exactly know what it was.
Sad and pathetic. Writing, that is. No reasoning except “SHE’S DIFFERENT” for why she’s not talked to. What a cop-out. And yes, Maya, you are a stranger in the school. You’re NEW.
It took Maya several months to make a couple of new friends but she made also some enemies.
For the friends thing = much better. More realistic. Enemies thing, on the other hand…how, exactly, did she make enemies?
One of them was ‘Alana Terence’! She was a member of the ‘Gothic Movement’ and she had a very rebellious spirit.
Please excuse me while I laugh at this ‘Gothic Movement’ bullshit. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Alright, I’m done. That’s seriously retarded.
Apostrophes: +2, three times now.
She was one of the ‘bullies’ in the school and she was mean to everyone, especially to Maya, because she sensed a different spirit in her.
Weird sentence is weird. And again, cliché I’m-different-therefore-I’m-bullied-because-of-it. Yes, this does happen IRL, but that doesn’t mean you can’t add more oomph to it in a story. Stories should stay away from stereotypes and make things interesting.
Apostrophes: +1, four times
Being fifteen and starting in a new school was not easy. Joey was the one with all the friends while Maya felt still like a stranger in the new school.
We’re not stupid, Tesch, you don’t have to repeat yourself after only a couple pages.
Although Maya had several problems, she was a highly unusual girl in many ways.
Here comes the info dump, I can feel it.
She was a very spiritual and a very serious person. Soon after Maya was born, her grandmother was holding her in her arms and said, “This is indeed a very serious child!”
I’m sorry, but I can’t help but laugh at how ridiculous that dialogue is. Just…pfff.
When Maya was four years old she started painting huge oil paintings and worked with water colors. With eight years, she had her first exhibition in form of an article in the ‘National Journal of Art’ with an interview and six of her best pictures.
Looks like Joey isn’t the only one who does artsy stuff. Boring and unrealistic.
Apostrophes: +1, five times
Maya wrote stories and poems and was building statues from clay. She was a very optimistic girl about everything in life but she was absolutely unhappy in the new school and she could not really figure out ‘why’ she was so unhappy.
Still boring and incredibly unnecessary information. To my knowledge, nothing about her writing, drawing, or making things with clay ever comes up ever again.
Apostrophes: +1, six times At least this chapter isn’t as bad when it comes to this as the Prologue was.
Maya had the peculiar feeling that everybody hated her for just being there.
Tesch, you’ve pretty much already said this. Why do you have to say it again?
This chapter was definitely better than the prologue, but let me tell you, it definitely gets worse. A total of six uses of apostrophe-emphasis for this chapter, and twenty-six for the book so far.
Onward to Chapter 2!
