Re-vised the first 13. Any better? I have made Julia 13 rather than 10.

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I wiped the blood from my mouth as mother slammed the cellar door behind me. As I suspected my twin sat waiting for me on the dusty crate, silent. Since she never spoke I called her Jane. Jane and Julia, sisters and best friends forever.
“Did ya miss me?” I smirked, attempting to hide the fear and anger I felt. Jane rolled her eyes then drifted up to the small, grimy window and pointed out. I climbed up the crate in time to see mother drive off in her Mercedes.
“Let the party begin! Mommy dearest has left and we have the whole cellar to ourselves.” The depressive mood was hardly conducive to partying. I noticed Jane had disapparated only to re-appear, a swirling mist that slowly took on her form, at the base of the stairs. She was pointing to something on the
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Revision3____________________________________________________
I wiped the blood from my mouth as mother slammed the cellar door behind me. My twin was already there waiting silently on the dusty crate. She never spoke so I named her Jane. Jane and Julia, sisters and best friends forever.
“Did ya miss me?” I smirked, hiding the fear and anger I felt. Jane rolled her eyes and shrugged. Her attention was diverted and she drifted up to the small, grimy window and pointed out. I climbed up the crate in time to see mother drive off in her Mercedes.
“Let the party begin! Mommy dearest has left and we have the whole cellar to ourselves.” I clapped in mock excitement. Jane disapparated only to re-appear at the base of the stairs. She was pointing to something on the bottom step of the stairs. It was a key. "Did you...Can you move things now?"
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This most recent version maybe feels rushed? Trying to tighten it up but maybe things are happening too quickly?

[This message has been edited by Posie70 (edited March 18, 2010).]

[This message has been edited by Posie70 (edited March 25, 2010).]

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“Did you...? Can you move things now?"

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Maybe it was because there were no line breaks, but I did not catch who made that quote the first time through. I suspect it was Julia.

On that note...I wasn't entirely clear who made the “Let the party begin!" quote either; identifying that one is especially important because, since I believed it was Julia, I was left with the impression that Jane is a voiceless apparition, which affects the tone of the first 13 for me.

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Should I include a line to make it clearer that Jane doesn't speak (she's a ghost).

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Nah, that shouldn't be necessary. Her gestures towards the window and to the key told me that fact, but it was the squished lines that added the uncertainty.

Julia thinks the ghost is her twin (Jane looks just like her) but she is actually her real mother (won't find out till towards the end).

This is what I do when I am writing the scene, I try to picture it happening like I am watching it and I think about how the POV character is feeling and thinking.

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I wiped the blood from my mouth as mother slammed the cellar door behind me. Is Julia at the top of the stairs? Does she hear Sarah's footsteps moving away, and how do the footsteps sound? How does Julia feel at this point? Is she mad, hurt, scared? As I suspected my twin sat waiting for me on the dusty crate, silent. What does Jane look like? How does she look like Julia? How does she differ from Julia? Does Jane seem upset or indifferent to what is happening to Julia? I didn't know her name so I called her Jane. When did Jane first appear? How old was Julia? Jane and Julia, sisters and best friends forever.
“Did ya miss me?” I asked. She rolled her eyes then drifted (did she float in the air?) up to the small, grimy window and pointed. I got up in time to see Sarah drive off in her Mercedes. She is in a cellar, right? Does she have to climb up on an old desk or storage boxes to see out the window?
“Let the party begin! Mommy dearest has left and we have the whole cellar to ourselves.” The sarcasm obvious. The sarcasm is obvious, so we don't need to be told. I noticed Jane had disappeared (How did Jane disappear? Did Julia see her fade away or did she turn around and Jane was gone?) only to re-appear at the base of the stairs (Did Julia see Jane reappear? If so describe what it look like?) where she pointed at something on the bottom step. It was a key.
“Did you...? Can you move things now?" I would have hugged her if she had a body to hug. This newfound talent of hers could really come in handy. An understatement

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I am not telling you to address all of my bolded question; I just wanted to show you what I meant by rushing the scene. Details are needed to help ground the reader and involve us in the story. So I suggest slowing down and think about how the scene unfolds.

You can go too far the other way and weigh the reader down with too much details, so it really takes some time to find the balance. You need to sprinkle in enough compelling details that the story feels real and draws the reader in, but not too much that you lose the story to the description.

Also, don't give away your big twists. Some of us may want to read this someday.

Good luck with this.

[This message has been edited by MAP (edited March 19, 2010).]

I like this version a lot better than the first. I think it has a more consistent voice (and a decidedly YA voice, which is what I think you said you were going for). Also is very intriguing. I like the way you've introduced the ghost twin -- it's obvious what she is without you having used the word "ghost". My only suggestion is that if Sarah and mother are the same person, then to keep the appellation for them the same (pick one and go with it). I am guessing that Sarah is mother based on your previous post, but I think I might wonder who Sarah was it I hadn't read that. I would claim this advice as my own, but it was actually from one of OSC's writing books, and I've had to learn to apply it to my own writing as well. Good luck, I'm hoping to see a finished product one day because you've got a very promising start!

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I wiped the blood from my mouth as mother ["Mother", "Sarah", or "my mother" would be correct] slammed the cellar door behind me. As I suspected[,] my twin sat waiting for me on the dusty crate, silent. I didn't know her name [She doesn't know the name of her twin?!] so I called her Jane. Jane and Julia, sisters and best friends forever.
“Did ya miss me?” I asked. She rolled her eyes then drifted up to the small, grimy window and pointed. [So, Jane is a ghost or hallucination or something incorporeal. I would've preferred that the earlier line was something like "She couldn't tell me her name, so I called her Jane."]I got up in time to see Sarah drive off in her Mercedes.
“Let the party begin! Mommy dearest has left and we have the whole cellar to ourselves.” The sarcasm obvious. [The incomplete sentence and lack of a dialogue tag confused me at first. One suggestion for a replacement: "I said, forcing sarcasm into every word."] I noticed Jane had disappeared only to re-appear at the base of the stairs where she pointed at something on the bottom step. It was a key.
“Did you...? Can you move things now?" I would have hugged her if she had a body to hug. This newfound talent of hers could really come in handy.

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Overall, I like this opening. I want to read more. Until I read your spoiler, I wondered whether Jane is a creation of an abused girl's mind or the ghost of her deceased sister.

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Also, don't give away your big twists. Some of us may want to read this someday.

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*Edited to fix the coding.

"I wiped the blood from my mouth as mother slammed the cellar door behind me. As I suspected, (She) sat waiting for me on the dusty crate, silent. I didn't know her name so I called her Jane. Jane and Julia, sisters and best friends forever."

You don't need to call her twin because you mention she is your sister. And the idea of having a sister but not knowing her name sets up the hook in one sentence without redundancy.

“Did ya miss me?” I asked. (Is this really what a young girl would ask who was just hit (presumably?) if she was hit, wouldn't she be crying? Wouldn't the ghost be trying to calm her? How would she cheer up at seeing her twin compared to the horror and sadness she felt before? I think you may be moving too fast here, like MAP pointed out...)

"She rolled her eyes then drifted (good verb! Now we know she isn't normal!) up to the small, grimy window and pointed. I got up in time to see Sarah drive off in her Mercedes."

This is good. It sets a really an odd stage, we start getting a dark flavor to the story. But, if you call her mother in the first sentence, you shouldn't switch and call her Sarah now. The character would always refer to her by the same name. When talking to herself, she should always call her the same thing: Mother, Sarah, Her, whatever. But it shouldn't change because that is how she identifies her mom.

“Let the party begin! Mommy dearest has left and we have the whole cellar to ourselves.” The sarcasm obvious."

I don't think this fits. It seems different than a beaten child should react, and doesn't seem like a 10 or 13 year old either.

"I noticed Jane had disappeared only to re-appear at the base of the stairs where she pointed at something on the bottom step. It was a key."

Also good, though you already have us hooked by now, so it would be useful to add in more description and help set the scene. Like MAP pointed out, how did she disappear? How does the main character react?

“Did you...? Can you move things now?" I would have hugged her if she had a body to hug. This newfound talent of hers could really come in handy."

Also good, but not sure if it fits with the rest.

For clarification...I wasn't sure I should write her this way, but Julia has by now become so used to the abuse, that it no longer makes her sad, rather the anger is beginning to come out. She will soon do some confronting which will cause a violence not seen before...also causing her to gain the courage to leave the abusive atmosphere (she will run away). In my mind, her deliberate refusal to call her mother "mother" and instead call her Sarah, is a sort of rebelliousness she uses in her mind...which is the only rebellion she, so far, has the courage to take. She calls her "mother" to her face but not in her mind...kind of like distancing herself from a person who is not behaving as a mother to her child.

Also, Sarah is psychotic. Almost a split personality. She is beautiful, kind to strangers, very charming that no one suspects the abuse...therefore Julia is completely alone because no one would believe her if she told someone.

I will post some chapters on my blog in a few days if anyone is interested in helping out. I'll give out the blog addy when I'm ready.

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[This message has been edited by Posie70 (edited March 23, 2010).]

Just a few nits.

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wiped the blood from my mouth as mother slammed the cellar door behind me. As I suspected my twin sat waiting for me on the dusty crate, silent. Since she never spoke (comma here, and maybe you should add 'and was unable to tell me her name,' or something like that. Right now your readers think she is really her twin, so it would be nice to give them a heads up. How it reads now, it sounds like Jane is a nick name for someone who doesn't speak) I called her Jane. Jane and Julia, sisters and best friends forever.
“Did ya miss me?” I smirked, attempting to hide the fear and anger I felt. Jane rolled her eyes then drifted up to the small, grimy window and pointed out. I climbed up the crate in time to see mother drive off in her Mercedes.
“Let the party begin! Mommy dearest has left and we have the whole cellar to ourselves.” The depressive mood was hardly conducive to partying. I noticed (In first person you don't need to say I noticed since we know everything we see is from Julia's POV. Just start with Jane disapparated) Jane had disapparated only to re-appear, a swirling mist that slowly took on her form, at the base of the stairs. She was pointing to something on the

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quote:

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“Did ya miss me?” I asked. (Is this really what a young girl would ask who was just hit (presumably?) if she was hit, wouldn't she be crying? Wouldn't the ghost be trying to calm her? How would she cheer up at seeing her twin compared to the horror and sadness she felt before? I think you may be moving too fast here, like MAP pointed out...)

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Crying? No, because that would show them they got to you. False bravado? Yes, because you have to find power within yourself to deal with the abuse, even if it's not really there.

From 9 to 16 I dealt with getting hit by my stepfather and never did I let him see me cry. Being locked in a basement after would only have heightened her bravado, which makes this work. I remember at this age, after such fights with him going to my room and hitting the bottle of vodka that was hidden in my dresser. If my sister happened to be in our room, "Did ya miss me" wasn't exactly what was said, it was more along the lines of "I can't wait til that F----- is dead!" But I always knew he wasn't my father, so the scenario for this story is a bit different.