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The Big Brother Story For Which I Apologize In Advance

by Nate in Other Fiction


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This thread was created on July 25, 2008

You and I

Topic ID: 33556

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Tadatori53
Junior Writer

Gender:

Age: 16
Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 42
Reviews: 24
Country: USA
300 Points

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 11:28 pm Post subject: You and I

A/N: This is my third short story I've ever written. I don't really know how good it is but it's a really random idea of mine. I hope you enjoy it! --- I walk up and down the halls, class to class, during the eight hours of school. You do the same. There are those six minutes between those classes that I see you, but never talk to you. I don’t even know if you see me. I talk to my friends, secretly looking in the corner of my eye to see if you’re looking my way. Will you ever look back? I told one of my friends my secret about you. They laughed. Then they left. You stay the same: A mystery to me. I hope you will be able to reveal yourself to me sometime. I question myself. It is so weird to look to you as I do. It isn’t normal. Yet I can’t stop glancing over my shoulder to you when you pass me in the hallway or when you laugh in the classroom over a joke. The smile that always comes to my face when you cheer with all the other students could not be controlled. The sparkles in your eyes when emotion shows brightly through them makes no one want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you. I keep hidden. Then one day you come up to me. You smile at me, your eyes showing the emotion they always did. I could never pinpoint what exact emotions that were dancing in those spheres. You wrap your arms around me, whispering in my ear words of encouragement. You tell me to not be afraid to express myself. I am confused. You do not know me. I am a complete stranger to you and yet you whisper these words in my ear. I question you. You explain to me that you’ve seen me throughout the day. You glance at me, wondering if I would glance back. You saw a lack of confidence in me. You saw struggle and shame. You always wanted to comfort me, but never had your own courage. You talked to others and they laughed at you. You made a decision. You said something told you to do what you feel you needed to. So you came up to me and comforted me, which in turn let you feel pressure taken off your shoulders. I struggle with myself, feeling tightness in my chest. I whisper words of thanks over and over again, feeling silent tears slid down my face. I felt embarrassed but it was okay. We meet each other. We enter the other’s life. Our relationship grew and is given no name. We are just You and I.
_________________ "I write for the same reason I breath - because if I didn't, I would die." -Isaac Asimov "We read frequently if unknowingly, in quest of a mind more original than our own." -Harold Bloom

Tadatori53
Junior Writer

Gender:

Age: 16
Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 42
Reviews: 24
Country: USA
300 Points

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 11:31 pm Post subject:

Please see that either character could be either gender and their relationship could be anything, really. So please tell me what you thought the each were and what their relationship was! Just really for my entertainment. thanks
_________________ "I write for the same reason I breath - because if I didn't, I would die." -Isaac Asimov "We read frequently if unknowingly, in quest of a mind more original than our own." -Harold Bloom

Suzanne
won NaNoWriMo!
Writer of Legend

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Age: 18
Joined: 21 Sep 2006
Posts: 7088
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Country: Riverbluff, MO
1160 Points

Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 12:56 am Post subject:

Hello there! This is interesting because there's a lot of emotion in it, and a lot of curious things. The way you execute it, though, makes it uncomfortable. First of all, you use the second person "you". This makes me, your reader, feel weird, because you're speaking directly to me but I don't do or want to do any of these things! Do you get what I am saying? Most writing is kept in third person (He walked away) or first person (I walked away) and the second person can be used, but I advise against it (You don't want to write in the second person). The only book I've read that has done an amazing job of it is Italo Calvino's If on a Winter Night a Traveler. It's an amazing book, and if you're going to play with the second person more, I suggest you get it! The other thing was with your tenses. You keep shifting tenses. Sometimes you're in the present (the beginning and end for example) and then you're in the past ("They laughed"). This makes the story line hard to follow, and rather strange. ~~Then, like Tadatori said, you're too vague.~~ Wow, I just realized you are Tadatori! Sorry about that. In any case, the fact that the characters could be any gender and can be of any relationship is a huge problem. We don't know anything about these characters, and it's too vague. I don't know any of their names. I don't know anything about them, or what they're doing, or why, or what the desire. Characters are silly things! Especially when you're writing incredebly short stories. You need to give me, your reader, a reason to care about these people. You need to bring them to life. Can you tell us anything more? Can you use actual dialogue? Create settings, too. Give life to the school. Also, as a moderators note, please don't post after yourself! If you want to add something to your post then click the "edit" button. Otherwise it's called bumping, and we don't like that! It's a great first draft, I would say, but I think if you truly want to pursue this idea, you should fix your point of view and your tenses, and figure out exactly what you're writing about. You have a little conflict between the two characters, You and I, but I think you should delve more into it. Why does the speak not have any confidence? Why does the speaker like this person, and let them in so easily? From face value, it looks like a cliché romance, but perhaps you can pull it out of that rut? Spend some time thinking. And since you say it is your 3rd short story, I'm wondering if you're new to story writing in general. If you are, my #1 suggestion is: read! Reading is an amazing way to learn more about writing. Good luck! If you have any questions about something I said, feel free to message me.
_________________ I demand you put my heart back in my hand, and wipe it clean from the mess you made of me.

JabberHut
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Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 3:44 am Post subject:

Hello, Tadatori! Very Happy

I noticed your story here, and I thought I'd take a quick look here. ^^

Grammar and First Impressions

Because it's so short, you'll get a good line-by-line out of me. ^^

Quote:

I walk up and down the halls~~, class to class,~~ during the eight hours of school.

This didn't grab me. The first sentence has to grab the reader and pull them into the story. This just tells me it's another day of school, but I, as a student, get sick of school pretty quickly. Plus, the MC's just walking. What's so interesting about walking? This sentence covers an entire school day too. So... what's the point of it anyway?

Quote:

You do the same.

It's kind of a given if "I" am a student as well.

Quote:

There are those six minutes between those classes that I see you, [no comma] but never talk to you.

I'm seeing no point so far, not to be mean or anything. ^^

Quote:

I talk to my friends, secretly looking in the corner of my eye to see if you’re looking my way.

Secretly? Doubt it. If you're talking to your friends, I hope you're making eye contact? Your friends will know if you're glancing somewhere else for that split second.

Quote:

I told one of my friends my secret about you.

They laughed.

Then they left.

This is a change in tense. You've been present tense 'til now. Fix that up! ^^

Quote:

You stay the same: A a mystery to me.

It should be capitalized if it's an entire sentence after the colon.

Quote:

Yet I can’t stop glancing over my shoulder to you when you pass me in the hallway or when you laugh in the classroom ~~over a joke~~.

Quote:

The sparkles in your eyes when emotion shows brightly through them makes no one want to hurt you.

This sentence is very awkward and should be rewritten.

The sparkles in your eyes discourages rude and hurtful behavior.

Something different, anyway. You can take that sentence and shorten it to something simple and still make sense.

Quote:

I don’t want to hurt you.

Why would the MC think they would?

Quote:

You smile at me, your eyes showing the emotion they always did.

Describe the emotion.

Quote:

I could never pinpoint what exact emotions that were dancing in those spheres.

There must be something though to make you think that there is emotion in them. Tell us. We can't see it.

Quote:

You wrap your arms around me, whispering words of encouragement in my ear ~~words of encouragement~~.

Encouragement? Why does she need encouragement? Would some person just randomly walk up to you and hug you like this? That's only a little awkward to me.

Quote:

I am a complete stranger to you, and yet you whisper these words in my ear.

Quote:

You explain to me that you’ve seen me throughout the day. You have ~~glance~~ glanced at me, wondering if I would glance back. You ~~saw~~ have seen a lack of confidence in me. You ~~saw~~ have seen struggle and shame. You have always wanted to comfort me, [no comma] but have never had your own courage. You have talked to others, ~~and~~ but they have laughed at you.

You have made a decision. You've said something told you to do what you feel you needed to. So you came up to me and comforted me, which in turn let you feel pressure taken off your shoulders.

At this point, the tense is all over the place. You can use contractions with your you have. ^^

Quote:

I whisper words of thanks over and over again, feeling silent tears ~~slid~~ slide down my face.

Quote:

I felt embarrassed, but it was okay.

Quote:

Our relationship ~~grew~~ grows and is given no name.

Tense change again? And given no name? What does that mean?

Quote:

We are just You and I.

This sentence makes no sense to me, even with the capitalization. I know you're trying to tie back to the title, but I don't think this is the way to do it.

Overall

I think this would work well with a first person point of view, or even a third person, but I have yet to find a good use of the second.

You say this is a random idea? I can see it. There's hardly anything going on at all. You can shorten this into a poem and get away with it. I'm not seeing any particular reason for this blip. It's just kind of there, but it is good practice for a second PoV, so I won't pound you too much. Wink

Your tense is all over the place, but I pointed that out already.

Your sentences are too simple for me. Lots of people have trouble with this when it comes to first person, present tense. I am young, but I am thirteen. I can babysit, but I can't because my mother doesn't trust me. I know I can. I have taken classes, and I have studied. See my repetition? Each sentence/clause starts with I [verb] (except for my mother). It gets rather annoying. Same with you in your story. Use variety in your sentences.

The description is lacking. There is no character development. Your characters are just... there. I can't classify the type of people they are. Maybe the You is a cliche romantic, but that's all I got. MC might be shy. But really. I got nothing. Vague is not always good, as Suz has pointed out before me.

You want me to tell you the characters' genders? For your entertainment?

...Nah.

You tell me. Razz

That's the main things I found (or built upon). This could definitely be fleshed out more. Description. Your grammar wasn't too bad, but your description was lacking severely. Put some meat on your bones! ^^

Hope I wasn't too harsh, haha.

Keep writing!

Jabber, the One and Only!

_________________
"I want to puke happiness all over you people..." –Suz on finishing Death Machine
"WWJD: What Would Jabber Do?" -- Jabber
"I solemnly swear that I can right no gooder than u." -- Jabber

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lhighton
Senior Writer

Gender:

Age: 15
Joined: 27 Apr 2008
Posts: 228
Reviews: 88
Country: England
572 Points

Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 7:21 am Post subject:

Hi. I really, really liked this, Tadatori. I think that might be because I, like many others, have been in similar situations (not with the happy ending, however). It could have strayed into the terribly-cliche romantic-YA genre that I think it is unbelievably tired now, thanks to Meg Cabot and her carew of simpering fellow-writers. It didn't, though, because it was written in a unique, very cutting way. I like the present tense here because it's in the now - the feelings are fresher, not mellowed down. To be honest, I didn't have a problem with the the 'yous'. I think that this technique of writing could not have been any longer, however. Any more and it would have dragged. Bear that in mind. Much luck in your writing! L

Tadatori53
Junior Writer

Gender:

Age: 16
Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 42
Reviews: 24
Country: USA
300 Points

Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 6:20 pm Post subject:

thank you for the reviews! The change of tense in the middle is for the reason of a kind of flashback! I looked in my grammar book and it said that's how you write a flashback... so... I dunno. I probably made some other tense errors though. It's in present tense until the very short flashback. Though I do have to work some lines. Neh... It's vague for a reason, though as some hae said in a PM maybe too vague but I kinda like that... but i'm the writer, what do I know? I just want the complete openness... I'm really glad SOMEONE liked the second person You are my best friend, lhighton! (I don't mean to use this as a bumping! /o.o\ I just want the public to see this easier... I'll edit the A/N next time instead!)
_________________ "I write for the same reason I breath - because if I didn't, I would die." -Isaac Asimov "We read frequently if unknowingly, in quest of a mind more original than our own." -Harold Bloom

lxtmidnight
Writer

Gender:

Age: 15
Joined: 13 Dec 2007
Posts: 51
Reviews: 9
Country: United States!
273 Points

Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 11:02 pm Post subject:

(Almost an entire month late, but here we go!) I don't have anything to say about the grammar, because I'm sure it's all been picked up on. BUT Add the Second-Person count to 2, because I also like the style and flow. That combined with the fact that the characters can be of any gender really makes the story "personal" and very, very relatable. This flows very nicely and realistically

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This thread was created on July 25, 2008

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