He beats me

"I promise, I'll tell my parents."
“How do I know I can trust you this time?”
“I promise, I will. And if I don’t…well, I’ll tell you. I won’t lie to you Amanda, I wouldn’t do that.”
“You better tell someone by the end of this week.”
“I will.”

The line went dead. I closed my cell phone and looked out my window. The sun was shining and tulips were poking out of the soil of our garden. It had been five months since my boyfriend had begun beating me, and I still hadn’t told anyone. I hadn’t told anyone about his stealing, his drinking, or his weed addiction. I hadn’t had the strength.

“You better tell someone by the end of this week.”

My best friend Amanda’s words echoed in my mind as I remembered the bitter promise. I don’t know why I never told anyone, perhaps I was too scared, or perhaps I loved him too much.
I wish I would have known what was to come before Friday. But I didn’t, I was just a stupid girl, a stupid girl who couldn’t keep promises, who couldn’t fight, who couldn’t even protect myself.
A knock on my door lifted my heart into my throat. I knew it was him, I could have thrown him out right then and there, but I didn’t. My parents didn’t know what was in store for me, and they couldn’t do anything. All because I wouldn’t tell.
“Hey babe,” he said as I greeted him at the door, his arms snaking around my waist. I loved the feeling of him holding me, the feeling of his gentle sweet kisses, and I guess, sometimes, I longed for the feeling of his iron fist.
“Let’s go to the park,” he whispered in my ear.
“I…I can’t, my parents aren’t home. But they will be home soon, and they’ll wonder where I am-”
“Leave a note,” he murmured into my ear, nibbling where my silver stud was held.
I slowly nodded, in a dreamy daze. I walked over to our family whiteboard, leaving a note telling them where I would be, and the estimated time I would be back. Now I wish I hadn’t left, I wish I could take back what happened that day, but I can’t. I can’t ever take it back.
As we walked to the park, our normal conversation started up, and as we arrived, we were once again shouting at each other. “Stop bossing me around you slut!” he yelled at me, slapping me across my face.
“I’ll tell Jake! I will!”
“You wouldn’t dare Carissa, I know you wouldn’t have the strength. You love me too damn much!”
“I…” I couldn’t think of a response. He had hit my weak point, I could never tell…I did love him…didn’t I?
“Ha, I knew it. You wouldn’t ever have the strength to tell on me,” Jake smiled at me, his glare threatening. He turned his back to me, quickly lighting a roll of weed he had probably smuggled from a drug dealer.
“You love me too damn much to even defend yourself,” he snickered.
That was when I lost control, and that was when I should have run and told, but I didn’t. I stayed and fought. I jumped onto his back, shrieking and ripping at his shaggy hair I had once adored.
“I don’t love you! I can’t love you!” I screamed as he fell to the ground, but he quickly turned me over, lying on top of me and wrapping his fingers around my neck. The lighted weed fell onto my neck, leaving a slight burn and filling my nose with the aroma he had fallen in love with.
“You love me, you do. I know it, say it,” he hissed, squeezing my neck tighter.
“I don’t love you, I never did.” Tears came to my eyes and my vision was going blurry. I placed my hands on top of his, but he was too strong, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe.
“Say you love me,” he said. “Say you love me.”
“I- I don’t love you,” I panted. “I don’t love you.”

A black cold stone stood on the green grass, my name carved into it. Carissa Lilly John, born April 15th 1992, died March 31st 2009. Beloved daughter. I hadn’t told, and look where it got me. I hadn’t told, and no one could hear my cries after I was gone. He hadn’t payed for his crimes, and look where it got me. I could have just said three simple words, and I would have been saved. Three simple words, “he beats me.”

Hi Forest,

I thought the writing here was clear, but the overall story feels heavy-handed to me. One party is 100% evil, a generic bad guy with drug issues thrown in to make him even worse, the other is 100% good. In addition, I'm a little uncomfortable with the victim-blaming - the message that the protagonist wouldn't have been murdered if she'd said something. Why is it her fault that she got murdered, when her family somehow overlooked signs of abuse (for five months!) and her alleged friend did nothing? Perhaps they should have used their own "three simple words": "he beats her".

You might also want to think about punching up the writing. You tend to use weak verbs like "was" and "were" when you could be using action verbs to make the story more immediate. The description is pretty bland as well.

Hope this helps, Forest.

Cheers,
Karsten

Good evening.

I think Karsten nailed most of the issues with the story itself, so I'm gonna toss out some suggestions I think can help you strengthen the prose in this work as well as future writings.

First off, first person narratives are "voice-driven" narratives therefore the style of writing is essential. The narrator in this story has a voice that's a bit too generic which would be okay if it were just the usual omniscient voice that you see in 3rd person writings like in Neil Gaiman's "Graveyard Book" but when the narrator is an actual character in the story, the reader needs a sense of voice if they are going to sympathize with the character at all.

It's hard for me as a reader to care about the protagonist in this story because I don't know enough about this individual's personality. Put your self in Carissa John's shoes, get inside her head. How does she talk in normal situations? What kind of speech patterns does she use? Does she use any kind of slang when she's talking to her friends? Most people don't talk the way we write in a formal context (I know I sure don't at least).

Another thing that needs work is the dialogue which is closely related to the narration I mentioned in the previous paragraph. For one most of the dialogue is in "talking heads" that's a term which basically means dialogue with no description tag. And the tags we do see with the dialogue are very basic.

-“Let’s go to the park,” he whispered in my ear.

When people are talking to each other they are also doing other things as well. The actions, gestures, body language, facial expressions etc. should be included in the dialogue tags to give us an idea of the character's behavior while he/she is speaking.

Here's an example: She never said anything but I imagined her slapping me in the face and screaming, “The hell’s the matter with you?! Your son’s hurt and you’re sitting here judging him? Get off yer sorry ass and help him!"

Another thing I would suggest as far as dialogue goes, put your description tags before the quotation marks, not after. Putting your tags after the quotes is reminiscent of the old stories and nursery rhymes our parents used to read to us when we were little kids and as such its often looked upon as a telltale sign of an amateur writer among more skilled readers. It's not as important as having descriptive tags, but it would definitely help.

Now I know I said that Karsten had already addressed the story issues that I wanted to mention, but I think a little clarity could help out when you revise. Specifically with the generic drug addicted abusive boyfriend. First of all, if you are going to have him addicted to some type of drug, I'd suggest you pick out something a bit "heavier" than marijuana. I'm not advocating the use of marijuana, but as far as illicit substances go its pretty tame. That as well as the fact that as anyone who has ever used marijuana products will tell you, its not an addictive substance. And the minority of people who do have some sort of disorder linked to it are most likely using it along with more potent drugs like cocaine and heroine.
I would find this story more believable if the boy friend was an alcoholic, addicted to prescription meds or perhaps most likely of all using some sort of steroid or hgh. All of these would strike me as more realistic for a character with such an abusive personality. But I still urge you to consider the cliche of writing about a drug-addict boyfriend.

Sorry for all the verbiage and if it seems like I'm being harsh in anyway. All this I do in hopes that you can better yourself as a writer which I believe is the very purpose of this site.

Good luck,
Black Thought (aka The Bad Narrator)

Um, to be honest I don't like how it's so short and so to the point. It seems like it would be a better story if you elaborated more on the relationship by adding fluff chapters and then ending it the way you did. It just seems so...abrupt. Like she tells us about her boyfriend, and then they go to a park and then he kills her.

It also seems negative, like everything is placed on the narracter when it comes to fault.

I don't know, this is just my opinion. Try and rewrite it a little and be more elaborative

Alright, I just skimmed this, but parts of it just don't seem realistic to me.

A girl in an abusive relationship doesn't threaten to "tell" on the boy. Its just not realistic. At all. Usually the girl is just in denial about the whole thing.

And the boy just seems to evil. Why would she even love him? its weird.


Hope I helped


EDIT: Oh, and like the other people said, you can't be addicted to weed. I smoke the ganja, as do most of my friends. None of us are addicted. We all quit for like 3 months of the year for school sports. Do a cocaine addiction... Its the most common and easiest to get ahold of, of all the bad drugs. Don't base the entire thing on alcohol either, cause I drink and its not all that bad. Like everyone I know drinks, and it doesn't make you a bad person.

Wonderfully carved story, however, with one massive dent to fix. Your writing is straightforward and and "to the point" when the plot calls for it. I was curious about what this story could offer when you began with a phone call conversation between two friends. It sets an ominous and foreboding tone and with the title being "He beats me" we can already suggest what the plot can consist of. Now if the narrator is speaking in a flashback suggesting that she eventually gets away, we don't know. But, as soon as you write the second act were we first meet her boyfriend, we have no choice but to go along with this "novel-like" feel that you've set for us in the beginning. Readers are expecting a fantastic plot that will explain how they got that way, how the family is reacting to this problem and where her friend, who seems as if she is a key player since she's speaking in the first few lines, plays the integral role that may or may not help our narrator. On top of that there is little to help us as readers. We immediately go from introduction to a final conflict? What did it take to get there? We want to know more about their relationship (maybe a deterioration process) and why the narrator wants to stick around. Is the boyfriend brilliant enough that he hides his tactics from friends and family? We need more substance. With that aside, it was a good read and I enjoyed the final conclusion as it reminded me of "The Lovely Bones". Needless to say, spend some more time mapping out a rough direction of where you want your story to go. Then, throw in your characters that will most impact that story and watch them grow...or ruin. Your choice. Good job though, as I'm actually curious as to what else you can do with this story. It has a lot of potential with a future as novel maybe? Keep up the good work!

Hi,
This was a nicely written story.I hope you continue it.