Her journal (Start of a short story)

This is the start of a little story I'm writing


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‘ LEAVE ME ALONE!’ she screams in tears. But they don’t stop…. they carry on.
‘ STOP IT’ she screams again.
She hears laughing. She is in what feels like endless pain, her mind is all over the place.
‘ Ha ha what a fuck up’ One says
This hurts her more than the kicking, punching or stepping.

Soon she looses consciousness.

She wakes up in hospital
A month later
With broken bones; her confidence dead


I know all this because I found Her journal In her Bag -back Just after the girls who led her to her unconscious state had left.

Her name is Jamie Ann. She seems a quiet girl who seems to mind her own business. She has a deep passion for writing. She doesn’t have many friends. Her life isn't the best, but she's holding on.

Here is one of her journal entries I found:

- First day of school, oh the nerves; How they build and build. My stomach doesn’t feel very steady. I’m not ready to face it again. I get out of bed with a long sigh, and get dressed for school. My daily encounters with my parents are very fast and painless. I choose not to talk to them. Though I know they love me, they expect to much from me; so I stay away from them just to not feel like a such a loser.

Walking out of the house is a new experience every day for me. I smell the crisp clear air of a November morning, and for the first time that morning I smile.

I get of the bus and walk into school with out saying a word to anyone. I get to form and put on that fake smile. I say Hello to my ‘friends’. I know they don’t like me really, but I wont tell them this, because I might just be hated by everybody that sees me. There’s nothing worse than that believe me, One time there was this horrible rumor going round that I was a lesbian and no one would talk to me, all the girls thought I would have a crush on them, the guys were jerks about it. Now I’m going to try and make a fresh start. But I know that isn’t going to happen, I say it every year and every year I end up embarrassing myself. This I know isn’t going to be any different I’m a loser and always will be. This is going to be a lot worse than all the other years; this is high school. I have to make new friends and I’m not very good at that so I will probably fail , like I always do.

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Eeep i know this isnt the best lol. its just a draft please be as harsh as you want i could use the criticism.

Hi,
Welcome to YWS! I see your new here, but for every piece of work you post, you need to reviews, preferably done before. Also, this needs to be rated R or at least pg-13. All my editing will be in bold.

So, on to the good stuff. Your story was interesting. Not like a lot of diaries I read. At the beginning you are one person but then you jump into another. Its a lot thrown on the readers. Maybe explain more at the beginning.

‘ LEAVE ME ALONE!’ she screams in tears. But they don’t stop…. they carry on. I watch on the side, not brave enough to go over.
‘ STOP IT’ she screams again, making my heart swell for her, but still not enough to make me move.
She hears laughing. She is in what feels like endless pain, her mind is all over the place.- How do you know this?
‘ Ha ha what a fuck up’ One says
This hurts her more than the kicking, punching or stepping.

Soon she looses consciousness.

She wakes up in hospital
A month later
With broken bones; her confidence dead


I know all this because I found Her journal In her Bag -backWhat is a bag-back Just after the girls who led her to her unconscious state had left.

Her name is Jamie Ann. She seems a quiet girl who seems to mind her own business. She has a deep passion for writing. She doesn’t have many friends. Her life isn't the best, but she's holding on...

So, you have a good beginning here At the end of this you could just let it trail off. Then you can start your journal entry by date. It would flow better, then saying: This is an entry I found. Also, think about switching to past tense, not present.

- First day of school, September 6th

Oh the nerves; how they built and built. My stomach didn’t feel very steady. I’m wasn't ready to face it again. I got out of bed with a long sigh, and got dressed for school. My daily encounters with my parents were very fast and painless. I choose not to talk to them. Though I knew they loved me, they expected too much from me; so I stayed away from them just to not feel like a such a loser.

Walking out of the house was a new experience, like every day, for me. I smelled the crisp clear air of a November morning, and for the first time that morning I smiled.

I got of the bus and walked into school with out saying a word to anyone. I get to form - people may not know what this is and put on that fake smile. I said Hello to my ‘friends’. I knew they didn’t like me really, but I don't tell them that, because I might just have been hated by everybody that sees me.

There’s nothing worse than that believe me. One time there was this horrible rumor going around that I was a lesbian. No one would talk to me. All the girls thought that I had a crush on them, the guys were jerks about it.

Now I’m going to try and make a fresh start; but I know that isn’t going to happen. I say it every single year and every year I end up embarrassing myself. This year I know isn’t going to be any different. I’m a loser and always will be. This is going to be a lot worse than all the other years; this is high school. I have to make new friends and I’m not very good at that so I will probably fail, like I always do.

You really have to watch your tenses! I use to have so much trouble with them You don't have to use exactly what I've fixed, but if you want to, go for it.

I think this story has a lot of potential!

Good luck with it! I'll be looking for more.

PM me if you need anything!

Love,
N

This is a really interesting piece. It wasn't what I thought it was going to be, and I like that. It was a bit confuisng where it was the girl, and then it went to someone else. But that can easily be fixed with a bit more deatail explaining what is going on. I really don't have to much to correct you on because I am new as well, so I am not to good at reviewing. But still good piece, and I hope to see it added to.

Hey. Just to let you know, that you need two reviews for every post. With that out of the way, on to the critique!

1) Checks - grammar, spelling, etc.

LEAVE ME ALONE!’ she screams in tears. But they don’t stop…. they carry on.
‘ STOP IT’ she screams again.
She hears laughing. She is in what feels like endless pain, her mind is all over the place.
‘ Ha ha what a fuck up’ One says
This hurts her more than the kicking, punching or stepping.

Soon she looses consciousness.

She wakes up in hospital
A month later
With broken bones; her confidence dead


I know all this because I found Her journal In her Bag -back Just after the girls who led her to her unconscious state had left.

Okay. This is confusing. The 'leave me alone' line is italicized and the 'I know all of this...' part is underlined. - why? My focus went from your story to wondering why you did that. Was it on purpose? If it is, get rid of it.

Her name is Jamie Ann. She seems a quiet girl who seems to mind her own business. She has a deep passion for writing. She doesn’t have many friends. Her life isn't the best, but she's holding on.

This is a little awkward.

Here is one of her journal entries I found:

Why is this underlined?

2) Countdown - ideas and thoughts
Um, this would be a great story, but you might want to try to write a different opening. I'm just suggesting.

3) Blastoff! - overall
Sounds like its going to be a good story. Keep writing.

If you need any help or something, just PM me.

~jumper

Hey there! I'm Sarah and I'm your reviewer for today. I tend to be a fairly harsh critiquer, but you shouldn't be offended by anything I say: for I only do it to help you improve your writing and reach the full potential of this story.

There's a little rule on this site - before you post anything, you need to do two reviews. That way, it's all fair and more people will get their stuff read. K? I see you've got one review, so Kudos to you. Just write one more and it will be vaild. I know this site can be confuzzling at first, so PM me if you're a bit bewildered. ^_^ Right, on with this review.


‘ LEAVE ME ALONE!’ she screams in tears. But they don’t stop…. they carry on. ‘ STOP IT’ she screams again. She hears laughing. She is in what feels like endless pain, her mind is all over the place. ‘ Ha ha what a fuck up’ One saysThis hurts her more than the kicking, punching or stepping.
Soon she looses consciousness.She wakes up in hospital A month later With broken bones; her confidence dead

Whoah whoah whoah. Easy there. This, as a starting paragraph, is extremely jumpy and confusing; not to mention the bewildering formatting. I'm all for dramatic openings, but we need to describe a bit, keep the reader on the same pace. Before we get down to more serious issues, I'll start on the grammar and spelling side of this story.

'LEAVE ME ALONE!' > A good writer shouldn't use Caps Lock. You should be able to convey anger/shock/fright through other ways; adverbs, adjectives, actions. Using Caps Locks stops people from taking your work seriously and makes it seem immature.

But they don't stop...they carry on.

I disagree with the use of an elipses (...) over here. For it to be more effective, you should rephrase it as, "But they don't stop. They carry on."

'STOP IT' she screams again.

The punctuation is wrong here, and again, you should remove Caps Locks. Hence, it would read as, "Stop it!," she screams again.

[b]Soon she looses consciousness.

'Loses' is spelt with only one 'o'.

I know all this because I found Her journal In her Bag -back Just after the girls who led her to her unconscious state had left.

Why is all this underlined? Furthermore, I don't know why a few words mid-sentence begin in Caps Lock? Few grammatical problems as well.

The edit: "I know all this because I found her journal in her bag - just after the girls who led her to her unconscious state had left."

Her name is Jamie Ann. She seems a quiet girl who seems to mind her own business. She has a deep passion for writing. She doesn’t have many friends. Her life isn't the best, but she's holding on.

She 'seems' a quiet girl who 'seems' to mind her own business? The dreaded repetition here. Rephrase as, "She is a quiet girl who seems to mind her own business."


And here is where we get down to more serious issues.

You seem to be jumping around from event to event - and not in a good, dramatic way. It really confuses the reader. For a good introduction, this is what you need:

Introduce the problem properly. You can be abstract, which I often am in prologues - but you still have to describe, describe, describe. What does your character want...or not want? What is in her way? What troubles her? Where are they bullying here, what do the bullies look like, how are they saying the taunts, what are the surroundings like, describe senses. It's alright start out with something that brings the reader 'into' the book: something that makes the reader read further, but you still need to elaborate.

CharactersThink long and hard about your characters (who they are, what they're like, what they want, what they're afraid of), setting (time period, location), and conflict (person versus person, person versus society, person versus fate). They make the story interesting.

Edit, edit, edit. Check punctuation, spelling, grammar, and sentence sense, of course--but don't ignore the big questions. Are your character's actions and responses plausible? Have you taken a short cut on the plot, making it mundane or superficial?
Look to improve your wording. Find the exact word you're looking for: is the character upset or agitated? Research and think about the connotations of words.

The Diary Entry - This is better than the prologue. We're sensing some character developement, details, emotions. But you're telling the reader a lot instead of showing them. Show, don't tell.

How to Show and not Tell

1. Use dialogue

Dialogue allows the reader to experience a scene as if they were there. Instead of telling the reader your mom was angry, they can hear it for themselves: Dialogue can give your reader a great deal about character, emotion and mood.

2. Use sensory language

In order for readers to fully experience what you’re writing about, they need to be able to see, hear, taste, smell and touch the world around them. Try to use language that incorporates several senses, not just sight.

3. Be descriptive

Being descriptive is more than just inserting a string of descriptive words. It’s carefully choosing the right words and using them sparingly to convey your meaning.

4. Be specific, not vague

Instead of writing, “Her life wasn't the best,” and "she seemed quiet,' take the time to try and describe what that feeling was, and then decide how best to convey that feeling to the reader. Your readers will thank you for it.



Good luck, and I hope you didn't take too badly to my harsh critique. You have some good ideas, you just need to add a formation now.

Sarah
xxx

oooh the feel good story of the year! i love these things... i think you could have the girl then have an imaginary friend, like an eliphant cross dresser or something.. you know, cause she really sounds like she could break down mentally anytime... good characterization there!

It seems you need a serious critique.

One says

Don't capitalize. Only if it's a name or the first word of a sentence.

She wakes a month later
In a hospital

This has the feel of a poem. Was it a mistake?

I say Hello to my 'friends.'

Again, you don't need the capital.

I think that's it for grammar. Overall, this could use some help. Setting, characters and background are a good place to start.