Monday [i]

x

Hannah wrote:SOMETIMES, STAYING IN ONE PLACE for too long is the only way you can ever feel anything. Like the day I fell in love with Cal for the second time –

Great and to the point kind of opening. It flows together well but when it's confusing! When you said place I went on to read the rest of the piece thinking place as in: home, country, city, planet, not position.


I didn't even realize it until I went to get up and felt all the muscles release, the blood flow back in.

Too abrupt. Maybe: I didn't even realize it until I went to get up and felt the muscles release and the blood flowing back in/ or blood flow returning. The comma doesn't work there, try a conjunction.

I'd been crying too,

I think it would sound better if you just said, I'd been crying. The too is unnecessary because I don't really understand what it is adding on to.


my cheeks feel all sticky and tense.

It sounds too abrupt.

You never really feel how loose and relaxed and wonderful they (what is they? This is confusing) are until you go back to normal after crying.

Are you talking about her legs or her cheeks? Maybe you should separate the descriptions into two paragraphs.

Then they feel kind of empty and you wonder when the tear residue will go away. I could still feel hints of it in my pores hours after I'd stopped crying.

I am so confused. Cheeks feel empty? Peoples cheeks deflate?


I just couldn't understand why I'd even let the possibility re-enter my mind. Cal was gay and he'd always been gay –

Hey this is the second story about gays I am reading today! How odd, they're like following me around or something. This statement is so clean, nice transition.

It was probably inevitable.
Now that's a contradicting statement.

. In fact, once the usual awkwardness of sexuality was erased from the scene, I was able to trust him <comma>even better than my girlfriends.





So we became best friends <comma> naturally.

He'd ask me to go with him to The Mean Bean after school pretty often, and small talk poured out with the cups of espresso.

When i first saw "The Mean Beans", I tried to guess what type of store it would be and what it would sell before I scrolled down to find out the answer. I never guessed coffee, I guessed school utensils before coffee. <not a correction, just saying I'm an nin:P>

He asked me to the spring semi-formal too. As friends, of course. It had all been great and wonderful because I'd just blocked the possibility of loving him out of my mind. But that was like trying to stop my feelings behind a wooden dam – sooner or later, they were bound to come out. That day just happened to be the day when the wrong combination of his charm and my weakness opened the floodgates again.[/quote]

Is that the end? Is this only the beginning? More! More!

Overall: Your plot seems like it will be a good one. But I feel that this piece, even as a chapter, is to incomplete and doesn't really reveal much to your characters. This piece is confusing, you should toy round with the wording a bit.

Hi, Hannah! Music here to review.

Grammar:

SOMETIMES, STAYING IN ONE PLACE Caps! They burn! for too long is the only way you can ever feel anything.

I was sitting at the desk with my toes crunched up under my feet, [s]like I[/s]as if I was a sitting ballet dancer. You used "like" in the beginning of this sentence.

I didn't even realize it until I went to get up and felt all the muscles release[s],[/s] and the blood flow back in. I'd been crying, too, my cheeks... Then, they feel kind of empty, and you wonder when the tear residue will go away.

Cal was gay, and he'd always been... best of my knowledge, like a normal, straight guy.

Friendship with a guy was a lot easier once you knew he wasn't trying to get in your pants. I love this line. Just being honest.

So, we became best friends naturally.... He asked me to the spring semi-formal, too. As friends, of course. It had all been great and wonderful, because I'd just blocked the possibility of loving him out of my mind. But that was like trying to stop my feelings behind a wooden dam – sooner or later, they were bound to come out. That day just happened to be the day when the wrong combination of his charm and my weakness opened the floodgates again. Wonderful last line.

Why, hello there! This piece was pretty good!

Concept: An interesting concept, your MC falling for her best guy friend who's gay. Hmm.

Characters: In this story, it was more of a "tell" than "show", so you really didn't meet the characters and get to know them, not even your MC.

Language: The language was pretty well-used. You had some good figurative and descriptive language in there. Sometimes, you were a bit repetitive in using the same phrase or pairing of words twice in a sentence. Watch for that.

Emotion: As I said, this is more of a "tell" story. Therefore, although she was crying, I wasn't able to get or feel any emotion from the story.

Overall: Overall, it was a fairly nice piece. It worked pretty well with the "tell" style. Question: is this for the "Gay Contest"?

Love,
Music.

This is really good. A lot of good descriptions!

"I'd been crying too, my cheeks all sticky and tense." You need one more comma before "too".

Be careful of your longer sentences! Some of them may turn into run-ons.

Oh, dude. That sucks. Falling in love with a gay guy? Shouldn't there be, like, a gene or something that prevents that from happening? lol.

"He honestly acted, to the best of my knowledge, like a normal straight guy." Normal... is a very vague word, so if you could omit it or find a different description, it would sound better. IN MY OPINION, lol.

what does wearing pink or wearing ties have to do with being gay???

And i do believe that it is "expresso"

A very nice short story, though the ending was a bit abrupt. I loved the emotions inside it.

Keep writing!!

Hey guys! ^_^ Thank you for taking a look at this piece. I'll definitely be taking some of your suggestions to heart, but I just want to say that this is kind of like a prologue to the actual story, so I felt obliged to post it before the rest that I have written.

I guess, on that note, I need some advice. I don't like this part all that much except the beginning. The rest, as Music said, is more TELL than SHOW and it feels empty to me, but it's kind of like 'oh, I have to explain this before I go any further'. I'll be posting some of the next parts soon, so maybe, if you're reading this, you could help me decide if I need this part at all or if I could work it in somewhere else? ^_^

Thanks again~

Hannah wrote:SOMETIMES, STAYING IN ONE PLACE for too long is the only way you can ever feel anything. Like the day I fell in love with Cal for the second time –

Great and to the point kind of opening. It flows together well but when it's confusing! When you said place I went on to read the rest of the piece thinking place as in: home, country, city, planet, not position.

Hannah wrote:I didn't even realize it until I went to get up and felt all the muscles release, the blood flow back in.

Too abrupt. Maybe: I didn't even realize it until I went to get up and felt the muscles release and the blood flowing back in/ or blood flow returning. The comma doesn't work there, try a conjunction.

Hannah wrote:I'd been crying too,

I think it would sound better if you just said, I'd been crying. The too is unnecessary because I don't really understand what it is adding on to.

Hannah wrote:my cheeks feel all sticky and tense.

It sounds too abrupt.

Hannah wrote:You never really feel how loose and relaxed and wonderful they (what is they? This is confusing) are until you go back to normal after crying.

Are you talking about her legs or her cheeks? Maybe you should separate the descriptions into two paragraphs.

Hannah wrote: Then they feel kind of empty and you wonder when the tear residue will go away. I could still feel hints of it in my pores hours after I'd stopped crying.

I am so confused. Cheeks feel empty? Peoples cheeks deflate?

Hannah wrote:I just couldn't understand why I'd even let the possibility re-enter my mind. Cal was gay and he'd always been gay –

Hey this is the second story about gays I am reading today! How odd, they're like following me around or something. This statement is so clean, nice transition.

Hannah wrote:It was probably inevitable.

Now that's a contradicting statement.

Hannah wrote:In fact, once the usual awkwardness of sexuality was erased from the scene, I was able to trust him <comma>even better than my girlfriends.

Hannah wrote:So we became best friends <comma> naturally.

Hannah wrote:He'd ask me to go with him to The Mean Bean after school pretty often, and small talk poured out with the cups of espresso.

When i first saw "The Mean Beans", I tried to guess what type of store it would be and what it would sell before I scrolled down to find out the answer. I never guessed coffee, I guessed school utensils before coffee. <not a correction, just saying I'm an nin:P>

Hannah wrote:That day just happened to be the day when the wrong combination of his charm and my weakness opened the floodgates again.

Is that the end? Is this only the beginning? More! More!

Overall: Your plot seems like it will be a good one. But I feel that this piece, even as a chapter, is to incomplete and doesn't really reveal much to your characters. This piece is confusing, you should toy round with the wording a bit.

This seems like a interesting story in the making. Really loving it.

There was only a few things that I picked up on but as I read the other reviews, they have already be pointed out.

Really enjoyed it and love your writing, keep it up!

twenty-two
Hi Hannah, I'm here to do the first of the two critiques you requested (: I rather liked this piece but I do have some suggestions and ideas on how to improve it. I like to use philosophy when reviewing things and sometimes this seems like rambling. xD

Anyway, I think I'm going to do a line-by-line and then a small critique at the end, because your piece is quite small and I find that lbls are easier for me to comment upon individual parts, as I tend to have quite a lot of comments.

First of all, I like to go over the title before and after reading. That way I can see if my title had any sort of idea of what the piece is about, so that I can re-evaluate my opinions and see if they were correct, so to speak.

Monday Well, first of all there's the meaning that's rather evident, that being the week day, this could also imply the start of something new, ie a new week, so something is being started over again &c. &c.

Monday, being a day of the week could be used to imply that everything happens more than once: Mondays happen every week.
Mondays are considered bad days, so it could be about sad/ unhappy circumstances, or it could be simply set on a Monday.
Hm... the title doesn't let many philosophical ponderings slip through the cracks by being so short and... not quite concrete but verging on it, that doesn't make sense but...

Shall we start?

SOMETIMES, STAYING IN ONE PLACE

What reason have you for capitalizing this? I merely ask in case it's a technique, or if it's just out of habit, or if it's a mistake although I don't see how you could accidentally do that. xD

for too long is the only way you can ever feel anything.

As much as I like this it sounds a little too like the opening of a film. The narrative sounds a little cliched or perhaps unsure of their self, so to speak. Then I question the truth of this line, Staying in the same place for too long is the only way you can ever feel anything', therefore you are connecting places with feeling, and seeing as people are different this is subjective. We don't all feel effected by the places that we live, unless we live in complete poverty &c. so this is not exactly true. Rather, it's the type of beginning that would immediately take your readers away from the piece, we can't really relate with this because for most people this is not the case.

Like the day I fell in love with Cal for the second time

I rather enjoyed this line, it was normal and somewhat boring in the first part, then suddenly you hit us with the latter part, which is in its own right creative and original. Yes, I did like it.

– I was sitting at the desk with my toes crunched up

Crunched is not exactly the right word for this. You later to go on to describe yourself as a ballet dancer, something considered feminine and elegant, the word crunched is quite contrary to that, crunched is rather masculine and inelegant, so to speak. Maybe try tucked, as it is more feminine and indicates a form of dancing.

under my feet, like I was a sitting ballet dancer.

Yes, I think it reads much better with the edits I made previously.

I didn't even realize it until I went to get up

Went to get up could be described in a much simpler way as I stood up, or I got up.

and felt all the muscles release, the blood flow back in.

In? Into what? The legs? Blood flows around as opposed to in, you should perhaps change it accordingly.

I'd been crying too, my cheeks all sticky and tense.

Can cheeks really be tense? Really you mean you were tense and your cheeks were sticky, yes? Also, the and implies that you are going to connect two ideas, yet these two do not really have anything to do with each other, rather they have nothing to do with each other. I'd change this.

You never really feel how loose and relaxed and wonderful they are until you go back to normal after crying.

I find this sentence rather confusing, what does she find wonderful? Her legs or her cheeks, both of which are still very confusing. I would nix this entire bit, or expand upon it to to create that which you are trying to, so to speak.

Then they feel kind of empty and you wonder when the tear residue will go away.

I like the use of 'tear residue', but the last sentence is still rather confusing.

I could still feel hints of it in my pores hours after I'd stopped crying.

I just couldn't understand why I'd even let the possibility re-enter my mind. Cal was gay and he'd always been gay – he'd told me so the day after the first time I'd fallen in love with him.

I simply adored this line for some odd reason, lol.

Anyway, I don't really have much more to say on the rest, and instead of posting pointless comments I shall get straight onto the review.

I did like this, I just think that perhaps you could expand upon it in some parts.

So the basic plot here was that someone (a girl), falls in love with a boy who is gay, yes? So he doesn't return her feelings and...

I think the way to pursue this piece is through imagery.

Sorry this was rather short;
Kirsten

Hey Hannah!

I really enjoyed reading this

Everyone else seems to have already pointed out all of the nit-piks so I'll just give you one of those less helpful reviews

I felt that it flowed really well, but I would have liked to find out a bit more about how your MC was feeling. She seemed kind of emotionless so she didn't appear as realistic as if she had described her feelings.

I like the concept of this story! This actually happened to a friend of mine so I was able to relate to the story with ease.

I absolutely loved the last line and it definitely made me want to read the next part

Great job!

xDudettex

Hannah! I'm so dreadfully sorry. I was a bad CBF. I completely forgot about this! Can you ever possibly forgive me?

Alright, so. This was rather short, yes? I found nothing to nit-pick about, so I'm going to just give you an over-all impression.

All of this telling

It doesn't bother me, really. Shocking, I know, since normally telling really does bother me a great amount, but the combination of the way you told it (in that cute, quirky way, almost like the narrator is pondering something quite deep) and how this was the very first part of the story made all of this telling seem natural. I think this would be a prologue, just those couple of paragraphs in the front of the book where readers get a taste of what they're in for.

I'm not sure if that's what you were aiming for, but whatever. It worked. You're just that good.

Umm...characters?

Not sure quite what to say here, but I always feel obligated to comment on characters in all of my crtis. And I want to get 50 points for this. Cal sounds interesting, and your MC does too.

So, yeah. We'll obviously need to get to know them, like SOON, but you don't need to add anything else about them here, methinks.

Oh! Just to keep in mind, I wanted to remind you that while this may be a gay/straight-romance type of story, your characters don't need to be consumed by those labels. They're still people, despite their sexuality or whatever. So, no matter 'what' they are, they still have favorite colors and favorite artists and some might like Coke while others prefer Sprite, and not all of it depends on whether they're gay or not.

I know that you're a way too fantabulous writer to forget this stuff, but I just thought I'd remind you for the future.

Plot

Don't go cliched on me, love. You're about to tread on dangerous territory, where there's a fine line between interesting and over-done. I have full faith that you shall captivate us and everything good like that, but cliches are easy traps to fall for. Keep these people different. Make sure that the obvios issue --girl in love with gay guy-- isn't the absolute only conflict you have in the story. The world with all of its pain and terror and havoc will still go on around MC and Cal's non-relationship, so make sure not to forget about all the other troubles.

Off to part two! (Does that sound familiar? XD)

~Evi

EDIT: Oh, and I forgot-- I agree with Lost about the toes being crunched up or whatever. It doesn't seem graceful enough for a ballerina, and I keep envisioning this girl's toes being run over by a steamroller and cruching. I also agreed with a lot of Lost's nit-picky points, so you might want to pay attention to some of them.