Reflections

I stare at the mirror, an ugly face glares back. Her eyes are red from crying, her tears leaving streaks down her cheeks. Her arms are crossed over her chest as if she's holding herself together. I can see the angry red cuts dappling her arms, I feel the scars that can't be seen. Her tears fall heavily down her face and she rubs at them harshly. After glancing up at the mirror and seeing her reddening face she grips her her hair by the roots trying to pull it out of her scalp. Choking sobs escape her mouth and echo off the walls. Falling to the floor she collapses in fetal position and sobs. Three quick raps on the door cause her to snap her mouth shut.
"Honey, are you okay?"
More tears leak from her eyes.
"Yeah, Mommy. I'm fine."
I stand up looking back at the mirror. "This is me, this is who I am." I sniffed and dried my eyes. "I'm okay," I murmer to myself. "Ill be okay."

I know this is really short. But it's one of my journal entries I like reading over and over again, so I wanted to know what others think about it. Be brutally honest!

Hi there! Welcome to YWS! I hope you enjoy your stay, and I hope it's going to be a long one because we can always use more writers on the site.

Goodness this is fierce. When I read it, I think poem. There's something about this that screams poetry to me, which is awesome because that means your writing is 'poetic,' which is something I've always wanted to be able to write like. I would actually like to see more of this. I think you could add a little more of the mothers reaction or what she can/can't see. Can she see the scars and bruises, that her daughter is shattered, or is there something blinding her from that wretched truth?

I like the contrast of the two characters, the girl she sees in the mirror and the girl looking out. The girl looking into the mirror seems confident of a happy ending, while the girl in the mirror is torn apart, and is so low that there doesn't seem like she can return. I think you've added a bunch of symbolism in here without even knowing it. Almost as if people change when they see themselves in the mirror, they wonder about what they look like. The girl outside of the mirror stands up and convinces herself it'll all be ok, while the one inside fails miserably.

I think you've done a great job with this little flash-fiction of yours. The comment you made on your own literary work could be added into the work, if you click 'edit' on the top right corner as you look at your story, you can even put it into a spoiler so people don't see it when looking at the story! That way your story will stay in the 'works with no review' section if 'discover works,' giving you more of a chance to get reviews! But on YWS, nothing will get you more reviews and experience than reviewing yourself. So go read someone's fine story and learn some stuff!

Keep writing, can't wait to read more of your stuff!

Classy

Hey Erynn! Nice to meet you I see you're new to YWS. Why not drop in at the Welcome Mat to introduce yourself and meet some of our members? One of the best ways to increase your chances of getting reviews here is by getting to know people. So feel free to go crazy, we're all mad here.

So, this was really rather a horrifically fascinating piece of work. I love the imagery you give in the first paragraph, how the character sees this as happening to somebody else - it's a very interesting technique, and it gives the reader a whole new outlook on the whole depression/self-harm thing. As Classy said, it seems a very poetic sort of technique, and it works beautifully with your theme.

If there are a couple of things I might criticise, there are a couple of spelling mistakes, which you can pick up on an online spellchecker such as this one if your word processor doesn't have one, although I'd always recommend reading through it very carefully yourself, or finding a beta-reader, as spellcheckers won't always pick up your typos. You also changed your tense in the last line, which is something you need to be very careful of.

The other thing is that it seems very broken in the first paragraph, which makes it a little difficult to read. I know that managing the "flow" of something is much easier said than done, but if you just play around with the placement of punctuation and little things like that, this will be much easier for the reader and make a huge difference in how it comes across.

I'd love to see this as a little longer, too! The point you're making about depression is great, but with the length of this the reader doesn't quite have a chance to connect with the character, to really care what happens to her. I'd really love to see more of a chance for this, it seems such a pro-active piece if only it was easier to attach to the character and form a stronger idea of depression. A short story is no more or less significant based on its length, but you've got a real opportunity with this and lengthening it would make a huge difference.

Overall, though, you have the makings of a great story here. Your use of the mirror as a literary tool was very sophisticated and well-executed, and I really... "enjoyed" isn't the right word for something like this, but you had my attention 100% throughout and I loved it. You've done a great job with this, and I hope we'll be seeing more from you soon.

Well, I hope I helped! Please let me know if there's anything I haven't made clear, or anything more I can do to help. I'd be glad to lend a hand in whatever way I can.

~ Ruth

Hey there!

Welcome to YWS! I hope you have an awesome time here

Now, onto the review.

I don't have much to say that hasn't already been said. I agree with Classy and Ruth in that you have a beautiful writing style and the piece was nice to read, even if it was short.

You've picked a tough subject to write about and it has been done in the past, but the way you write it seems to make yours all the more original. I'd love to see more description as Ruth said - we get to see how the girl looks but we don't get a whole load of description on how she feels. I want to know why she self harms. Also, it would be good if you could write her mum into it a little more. You don't have to make her have a huge conversation with her daughter or anything, but I'd like to see a little more into their relationship.

I spotted a few simple mistakes too, one of them being the change of tense in the last paragraph -

I sniffed and dried my eyes.

To keep with the tense of this piece, this needs to be in present tense and not past.

' I sniffle and dry my eyes.'

Apart from that, because I won't bore you by pointing out the spelling mistakes as they can be caught by re-reading the piece, I think this has great potential. With a little more background and description, this could be great!

I hope this helps!

xDudettex