Young Writers Society


Drowning. After the break up.

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Ashlee Donovan caught Andre by his sleeve, she was huffing and puffing like she had just finished running a race. “Oh Andre!” she gasped trying to catch her breath. “I'm so glad I found you!” she smiled, her sapphire blue eyes sparkled. They were her trademark, her deep blue eyes were the idea behind her fathers company logo.
“I know you don't want to talk to me, since after everything that happened with Starling.” he flinched at the sound of her name. “But she needs you right now.” Ashlee begged.
Andre scowled, wrenching his arm out of her grasp. “Have her best friend Alex help her out.” he growled walking away.
Alex was Andre's older brother, he had sided with Starling, which was a complete shock to everyone. Alex had been by Starling's side since the awful break up, but he had to go back to college, and ever since he left things with Starling got a whole lot worse.
“Andre Adam Bennington!” Ashlee scolded, wagging her finger at him. “You know that Alex is gone, she only listened to him. I can't help her, I can't stop her, she's drowning Andre!” Ashlee shouted.
Andre stopped in mid-stride, his muscles tensed up. 'Drowning?' he wandered at the thought. 'Hm. . .she's drowning while I'm sinking.'
“Please, Andre.” Ashlee begged her bottom lip jutting out as tears weld up in her sapphire eyes.
She loved both of them, and hated picking sides, but Starling needed her more then Andre would ever need her.
Andre spun around to face Ashlee his dark brown eyes were clouded over with rage. “Drowning, drowning!” he barked coming face to face with the young woman. “If she's drowning, then I'm dead, I'm at the bottom of the Mariana Trench decaying as we speak.” Andre shouted. “And why does helping her, mean more then anything else?”
Ashlee folded her arms. “You mean more then helping you?” she asked. He looked away, telling her that she was right. “Because she is the only one that can help you.” Ashlee emphasized the last word.
Andre gave her a look as if she might have been right, but he would never admit it, he didn't need anyone to fix him. Not even her.
Ashlee gently touched his arm, he didn't pull away. “You do need Starling, Andre. She helped you through your last break up, and she can help you through this one. Even though this one was her fault.”
“So your saying that it was her fault?” he asked, his interest in the conversation picked up.
Ashlee frowned, “No! It was both of your fault's that this happened. Yours because you paid to much attention to your work and not Starling, and it was her fault for going to Freddie and not talking it out with you.” Ashlee corrected.
Andre ignored her and was about to walk away. “So are you going to go and save her?” Ashlee asked before he could get away.
He turned his back once again and began walking away. “She doesn't need me to save her. Starling has never needed anyone to save her especially me.”
“Your wrong Andre.” Ashlee called after him. “She needs you, just as much as you need her.”
He kept walking, trying to ignore all of the words around him. But it was hard when he knew what everyone was talking about, they were talking about his ex-girlfriend.
Wondering what had caused the love-birds to break up so suddenly and so harshly.
What went wrong? Everyone had asked, whose fault was it? Will they ever get back together?
Pink ribbons for Starling, blue ribbons for Andre, pick a side, pick a side!
Why don't people let dead dogs lye.
'What could be so wrong with her, that she needs everyone's help including mine?' he asked himself, walking around outside. Tuning out the whispers and pink and blue ribbons on everyone's shirts.
'Why does she get all the attention and I get shit, even my own god damn brother is on her flipping side! What is wrong with the world today, hell probably Donald Trump is on her side, but who is on my side? No one! That's who! What could she be doing to get that much attention from everyone else? What is she doing jumping from buildings.
God forbid! Maybe I should go and check on her, secretly, just to make sure she's alright and not jumping from buildings because of the way I yelled at her.' he stopped in mid-stride and all but turned around and ran back to her apartment, when he got a hold of his senses and smacked himself on the forehead.
'What are you thinking, dumb ass! Going back would mean that you forgive her, and you don't forgive her, hell no you don't! Did you forgive Keyli the week after you two broke up? Hell no, and your not going to do it with Starling, it doesn't make sense, I mean sure, I did have a more mental, emotional, and physical connection to Starling, and I loved her a lot more then I have ever loved someone in my entire life, but that doesn't mean shit now, she ruined all that I had for her because she had to go off and and play footsies with that damn bastard Swift! Damn him and his pants for ever going near my girl, ex-girl remember that! Ex-girl, no more Starling, just like that quit her cold turkey.
I can do it, she was just a drug, nothing more, it was nothing, her and I just had fun.' he found an isolated area and sat down on the grass running his hands through his thick hair, his head buried in his hands, and him with nothing to throw. 'I can do this, I will make her wish she was never born, she will hate me just like I hate her now, she'll know what she did and try to ask my forgiveness and I'll just laugh and say
"Stupid bitch, should have thought about that when you were screwing around with Swift."
Yea, that simple, that easy. Hurt her like she hurt me.'
Andre looked towards the setting sun, his arms wrapped around his knees, fighting back the tears that threatened to come. He had held them back for so long now, it was hard to hold them back any longer, he wasn't strong enough, never was.
“Dammit Starling why!” he whispered, wiping at a tear with the back of his hand. “This is so much worse then Keyli, this must be how it feels to really cry, stupid bitch.” he murmured sitting in silence for the remainder of the sunset.
The heart wants, the body needs, and the mind suffers. - me




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Hey Addawen19! Here's a review for your story.

First off, the errors. There's a number of punctuation and capitalization errors, but I don't believe that's a biggie, but still, I advise you to fix these errors.

“I'm so glad I found you!” she smiled, her sapphire blue eyes sparkled.


"Sparkled" should be "sparkling", or add in an adverb for "sparkling" to complete it.

Now, unless the proceeding action of a dialogue is not actually the verb portraying the way a character talks, then you should capitalize the first letter of the first bolded part. This is the same when vice versa, as seen here:

“Have her best friend Alex help her out.” he growled walking away.


Where the period after the word "out" should be a comma instead.

On a side note, I believe adding in a comma after the word "growled" is more appropriate. ;)

'Hm. . .she's drowning while I'm sinking.'


Don't add spaces between periods when using ellipses, as your word processor will automatically correct it into an ellipse. Otherwise, leave it be but don't forget to remove the spaces.

Ashlee gently touched his arm, he didn't pull away.


I believe a semi-colon should be used here instead of a comma. Or, you could use a period instead.

Why don't people let dead dogs lye.


Should be "lie"!

'What could be so wrong with her, that she needs everyone's help including mine?' he asked himself, walking around outside. Tuning out the whispers and pink and blue ribbons on everyone's shirts.


This is a sentence fragment. It's either you meant to add something onto the sentence, or, you were supposed to connect this sentence with the previous one.

Well, there are lots more, but you should get the idea. Try proofreading your work. I'm sure you'll be able to spot all the errors and get yourself a nicely made story. :)

Now as for the story, I think there was a slight overboard on thoughts by the end. I suggest you lessen it or something, or maybe apply those thoughts into scenarios instead so it'll fascinate your readers a bit more. Overall, the story is quite lovely and I hope I'll get to see more. :smt003




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Hey Addawen19!
I'm a little short on time, so I won't go into specifics.
Okay, for descriptions, things like "her sapphire blue eyes sparkled",
It is generally understood that sapphire, is blue, so remove the redundancy.

Around the fourth paragraph, you described a whole lot of confusing background details, which looked rather out of place. Sort of like talking about going for a relaxing walk in the park, then inserting some random history of the park in it. Or, it tried to cram too much info in too little a space, which makes it seem very rushed and hollow.

This story (I'm assuming you're going to complete this because it sounds unfinished), was basically a raging, heart-broken person being bothered by a girl trying to convince him to help his ex. I'm hoping that this plot will develop into something more unique, otherwise it wouldn't stand out from many other stories.

Also, what's with the colourful names? Not to question your taste or anything, but names like "Keyli/Starling" and surnames like "Bennington" are so unique/elaborate and posh sounding that it chipped away the realism of the story when I read it.

Like Levan has mentioned, there are grammatical and punctuation errors that should be corrected.

(This is an opinion based on my taste and may not reflect others' views): Another thing, the pink and blue ribbon thing came across as very... silly and unrealistic. If you're writing a piece of fiction that readers can relate to, realism is important. Things like being able to fly, aren't exactly relatable, and I don't think the ribbon thing is. It sounds as if that couple were two popular people and even so, the idea was a little overboard for me. Just voicing a thought.

Overall, like every other story, this has the potential to develop into something spectacular. Don't be discouraged and persevere with your writing.

PM me if you've got any questions :)

Have a good day!
~Meep(:
~Liverpool F.C Supporter~
"You'll never walk alone"




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I liked this story - I could relate to your characters well, and I really felt sorry for Andre. I agree with most of the above points; though I do have a bit of a thing for weird names, yours are a bit fanciful for a 'real world' story. The pink and blue ribbons, also, are probably not a very good idea to actually have, but you could use them as a metaphor in Andre's thoughts - have him wondering if they're going to start handing out ribbons, talking about the nonexistent ribbons he can see people wearing because he knows who they're supporting. There were also quite a few grammatical errors, mainly misusing/not using commas, so you need to look into using some dashes and semicolons. You have a lovely writing style, though, and I enjoyed the story.
"What if, doctor, we need these knots and these tangles because they're the only things holding our souls down - and if we untied the knots and untangled the tangles and stretched them out ... would our souls just float away?"
~Luke Kennard, A Practical Course in Entry Level Expressionism




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personally I really like your story, it wasn't what I expected thats for sure. I gotta I say like your writing, and your analogies a quite good. All you need is history, I know your characters are hurt, but what ws their love like too. That way a reader really connects to a character. Find some perfect moment the two lovers share and incorperate it, like how the first met for example. That will probably spark some more interest and emotion from the reader. And please tone down the hatred the way you spued it out at the end took away fromt the sadness aspect. Also if you want readers to really hate this girl, were going to need a little depth. Anyway that's just my opinion.




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Hello, Katie here. :) Good job! Levan caught most of the grammatical errors. So, I won't bother being repetitive. I felt bad for Andre, but his anger threw off the emotion of the story. And as balckhike said, we need some history! Who is Ashlee? Also, this is no biggie, but the jump from his being with Ashlee to not being with her was a bit confusing. Overall, this was very good. Just work on the grammar and spruce up the clarity of the story. I can't wait to see what happens between Starling and Andre! Keep writing!
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?"

-Thomas Jefferson




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Hi.
I'm now going to have to write a massive comment, but only because I have to get my work ratios up to write again!
I think your story was good. very sweet and clear what the characters thought. There were a few spelling errors (Lye should be lie!) and a few tense errors (Sparkled instead of sparkling) but, overall it was good.
What was the inspiration for the names by the way? there highly unusual and I love them! It is a subtle way of saying "Look, my story stands out from your's!" So subtle in fact, I don't think they'd notice!
I've only read the first chapter and will be sure to read the rest soon!
All the best.
If you start with a bang, you won't end with a whimper.
- T.S. Eliot




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Thanks guys so much! I never gotten this much positive feedback from a story of mine ever! Thank you for pointing out my errors, I know my grammar sucks badly, I'll try to improve it.
The characters names are so weird because I couldn't find a normal name that seemed to fit them to a T. I've thought about changing the guys name from Andre to something else, but I've written about him for so long that he's forever going to be named Andre, I don't think I could change his name to like Bob or something like that.
I will post another short passage about their romance soon after I get my reviews done.
Thanks again!
The heart wants, the body needs, and the mind suffers. - me



If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.
— Woodrow Wilson