Just High School

So, the area of I live in has an annual writing competition, in which people of certain ages can compete. Last year, I won a prize (!) but this year I couldn't think of anything interesting. I managed to spit out this piece of crap, which ultimately, I never actually entered.

Say what you want about it, critiquing is always good. Make comments on the characters (the itty bitty little glimpses you get), the content, all that sort of stuff. Like I said, I consider it to be poo, but you may think otherwise.

Just High School
To her, he had always been more then just a friend. Josh had always been there for her when she needed a shoulder to cry on, he had always supported everything that she did, and she had fallen for him so easily. At first it had just been a stupid little kid crush, but as they reached the teenage years emotion had grown into so much more. She didn’t want to say she loved him, because she was just a kid. She firmly believed that it was JUST HIGH SCHOOL, a concept that nobody else seemed to be able to get. When another one of her friends and her flavor-of-the-week would break up, she’d tell the girl that he was just a boy, there were four billion other boys out there, and high school was six years out of eighty. Sometimes Claire liked to believe that her JUST HIGH SCHOOL speeches were the only thing that kept some people alive.

But on January 16, she found herself battling inside herself over the one thing she had believed in for so long. She was sitting in the gym, watching her school team lose horrifically once again. Like everyone else in the crowd she found herself getting more and more anxious, every time the basketball would reach their opponents end of the court she would rise very slightly out of her seat in anticipation and then they’d shoot—and the ball would hit the back board and bounce halfway down the court.

At the end of the first quarter, Josh came up and sat next to her. She quickly glanced over, smiled and said hello, then turned back without a second thought. She loved to look at him, the geeky six year old that had moved onto the property next to her had grown into a tall, handsome skateboarding tough guy, or at least, that was what he showed the world. Claire knew what he had inside, his soft side, the nice guy that he really was. She could see it in his eyes, his eyes that really couldn’t be described as anything but steel. They were dark and hard, but anything he felt could usually be seen written across them as plain as words on paper.

“So, how’s the game going?” He asked casually, but Claire detected a slight crack in his voice. She glanced over at him and looked him over slightly. His eyes came across dead, like he had exhausted all of his efforts on everything. “Badly, I’m assuming.”

“Yeah…is something wrong, Josh?” She asked; peeking around to see if anybody in the crowd was looking at them. He shook his head, but avoided her eyes. “You’re lying.” She grabbed his hand and led him from the gym, almost knocking out the janitor who was busy sweeping in the lobby.

“No, really, Claire, I’m fine,” His voice cracked again. She sat down at one of the tables in the school lobby, and he followed. “I just have some stuff on my mind.”

“Like what?”

He was silent for a few minutes, then took a deep breath and looked at her long and hard. He was doing everything he could to hold back any and all emotion; the pain seemed to bleed from his eyes and voice. “I think I might—” He stopped and looked down at his hands. “Be gay.”

For half a second she thought he had actually slapped her across the face. The words echoed through her head and mind, taking her heart and ripping it out through her chest. It almost seemed like he had been mocking her as he said it. JUST HIGH SCHOOL. Her heart was breaking inside of her, everything hurt so badly. JUST HIGH SCHOOL. She wanted to die right there on the floor, melt away and never have to come back to this world.

She couldn’t show any of this to him. “R-really?” She asked, fighting her own battle against emotion. “I don’t know what to say…”

“I’m sorry,” He muttered, and she took a deep breath to keep herself from crying. Very casually she took his hand, and kissed him on the cheek. It was moist. “What was that for?”

“I’ll be fine.” She whispered, mentally telling herself the speech inside her head. She wouldn’t be telling it ever again.

Wow, I like it! It seems like an interesting thing to write about, and I certainly don't think its crap or poo.
I didn't notice any grammatical or spelling errors, but I have a quick question:
Is this it? Or is there more?

Thanks, and good luck,
Sela

Whoa, of course it's not poo or crap or any other form of bad at all!
In my own opinion, I adore it!

Is there more? If not, are you going to make more, out of imagination? I'd love to know=].

It was great. It has me wanting to know more.

-begs for more with eyes but doesn't say anything-

Hello, Jinxeh! It looks like you're new, so welcome to YWS! You'll become so addicted you'll never be able to leave - it's awesome. (Oh, and congrats on winning the contest last year! That's awesome.)

I'm not a mod, but there is a rule that you need to critique two pieces before you submit one of your own. You may want to go read something before people come after you with pitchforks.

Anyways, on to the review. The first part is your story, with highlighted parts. (I also corrected spelling/grammar here.) The numbers next to the highlighted parts correspond with the numbers 'highlighted comments' below. Even further down is my overall comment.




Highlighted Comments:

1. You’re trying to prolong telling us his name, but I’m not sure how well it works here. Maybe write ‘To her, Josh had always…’ and then ‘He had always been there…’
2. Third ‘always’ in just the third line. Can you change the wording?
3. This does show how she views the world. But maybe expand on this thought? A lot of people don’t view it this way, and you need to show us why she does.
4. This shouldn’t be capitalized; it makes it look rather childish. If you really want the effect, italicize it, but I don’t think it’s needed.
5. Heehee. Maybe just write ‘flavor-of-the-week boyfriend,’ to be a little more clear? *Shrug* I’m not entirely sure.
6. Really? Here it’s four.
7. Hm…is this taking place around now? Because we tend to live older than this. Especially girls, and she’s talking to a girl. Maybe just say 100, because, even if it’s not true, we normally think that we have 100 years?
8. Again with the capitalization.
9. You don’t need the specific date; it’s not important. It actually makes it look like a younger person wrote this; beginner writers are always obsessed with giving exacts.
10. ‘Herself battling inside herself?’ That’s a whole lot of ‘herself.’
11. You’re telling us she’s anticipating what will happen, so make us do so, too. I’d break it up here: ‘…in anticipation. They’d shoot – and the ball would…’ Plus, this was becoming run-on.
12. Run-on. Can you please split it up?
13. This really bothers me. It’s hard to get away with telling names later in on the story. I have her in my head now, and ‘Claire’ doesn’t fit. I’d suggest telling us this earlier, so while she’s forming in our mind she has a name tag. Or never tell us her name – that’s always fun. ;P
14. At first I thought she was talking, and I was going to lecture you about switching paragraphs. ;P But the fact that he’s still talking isn’t the most obvious in the world.
15. Woah! I love it! ;P
16. Hm…This could be much better. One, ditch the capitalization. Also, is her mind screaming this as she thinks, or does she feel like he’s mocking her with it? I’d make that more clear. Also, I think this should be italicized.
17. Same.
18. I’d make this a new paragraph, and show that he looked at her, surprised. Also, maybe show that she’s never been that close before. (After all, a lot of friends do this all the time, so he could consider it normal.)
19. Why would she say it out loud?
20. Kind of contradicts with the previous sentence…You need to flesh this part out a bit. Maybe pick one way?

Overall Comments

Honestly? You were right; this wasn’t the best. The thing is, you only messed up on one part. You just did it the whole time.

The dreaded ‘show don’t tell.’

The entire time you were lecturing to me about their history. We do need to know some, but cut out whatever isn’t needed.

The trick here is to keep us interested, because it was hard to finish reading this. The story itself is great. What you need to do is jump right into the action. Show us her sitting in the gym. What’s it like around her? There’s so much noise it’s insane – show us this. And then we can see him enter the room, a great entrance for a great character. She can take a moment to stare at him, and her heart can stop – SHOW us how much she cares for him.

He can come and sit beside her, and it gets a little easier. Show us their relationship through their dialogue. I’m not going to go and start in the middle of a conversation to someone I don’t know, right? Right. So how will they talk? Will they finish each other’s sentences? Do they have little jokes between them? Do they tease the other?

That’s also a great time to flesh out his character. You can show us how he normally acts, but make him a little distant. After a while, you can have her notice – showing how close they really are. Then he can bring her somewhere to tell her. Give him action, though. Is he trying to hold his manliness by punching things? Does he refuse to look her in the eye? Does she play with her shoelaces in the silence?

Right now, this is all telling. I don’t really care about their past, but I need to know it. If you show us this through their actions, it could be amazing. It’s hard to follow what they’re doing as is, but if you focus more on how they interact, you could slip in their history AND keep us hooked.

Overall, it’s a great little story, with one big flaw that messed up the whole piece. I love your characters, you twist, your plot. If you just fix this bit up, it’ll be great.

PM me with any questions. Also, if you’d like me to review anything else, just ask! (I’m trying to get another star.) Good luck, and happy editing!

~JFW1415

damn. thats irony for you. this story is great matierial. i disagree with whoever is is that comments above me, they are too picky...(nothing personal) there were a few cosmetic errors, but not much. great job.

No, there isn't more, well, sort of...the characters and the event are taken from something else bigger I've been writing, in which there's a love pentagon involving Claire and Josh in there too...

As for JFW, all of those things you said are why exactly I didn't enter it. When I was posting it and like putting spaces and all that stuff, I noticed all the repetitive-ness, but was too lazy to fix it.

Thank you everyone for your loving and critical comments! <3