Roses and Rejection

“I bought you a rose.”
She plucked it from his hands gingerly, quickly. He smiled chivalrously.
“Please, I don't-” her exasperated words were cut of in mid-stride.
“Can't you see what you're doing to me?” His gaze stayed looming in her eyes; hers fell to the floor. Slowly, she gathered her books and continued down the hallway, rose in hand. He stood motionless behind her, listening to the every echo of her breath.
“I'm sorry,” she said, her face contorting into a confused frown.
“Why?” he yelled.
“Huh?”
“Why do you always reject me?” the boy ran forward, speaking directly to her. “Why do you always... why not?”
She stared right back into his eyes.
“I don't know, Eric. I just...”
“But that's always been your answer. Why not just one date? I've been asking you since 7th grade!” his face bore into hers to give him some closure, at least.
Her heart pounded and she looked to the linoleum to give her answers.
“Is it because you're, you're... scared to open up? You don't want anyone to understand how beautiful you are? Tell me now, because it's killing me.” As he inhaled she could feel the longing in his voice.
“I don't know.”
“Right, because no one ever knows until they open up. No one ever knows until they've gone on a roller coaster, or been in a snow storm, that you may have just had the most amazing time of your life. So please, for the sake of yourself, will you go one one date with me?”
“Thank you for the rose,” she said.
She began to walk, slowly, faster. She soon stopped. She had never thought it out. “It scares me. That... that I would get attactched to someone. That I would become more preoccupied in just another boy that I would lose focus on what I am trying to do with my life, and-”
“You think too much.”
“And it scares me because I think that I might be starting to like you.” Her eyes darted from to floor, to him, and back again.
He stepped in, inching closer to her face. The tension pounded through his eardrums. “Why are you so scared?” he asked, hardly over a whisper.
Her breath, startled, faught to find the proper words. “You know, Johnny Reed is the only boy I've ever kissed.”
“Was,” he said. And he kissed her.

---
So I've had an idea for writing something like this for a while now. It ended up being mostly dialogue, which I usually don't do. I never write romance either... Is it weird to only use pronouns, should I just use their names instead? It's pretty short, but it just came out that way. ^^
edit: I made a couple changes with facial expression and stuff like that.

I personally like how you don't use their names. It's a nice little piece, but you jump quickly from emotion to emotion. You need to have build up between the two characters instead of just one second they're having a somewhat normal conversation, then they're declaring their attraction for each other (complete with yelling and crazy emotions). So, slow down the pacing a little bit, draw things out. Create build up, drama.

You should also show the facial expressions of the characters more. It would give the reader a greater understanding of the tension/indecision/fear, etc.

She plucked it from his hand gingerly, slowly, and with great care not to disrupt the life in his hands. He smiled chivalrously.

Gingerly, slowly, and with great care all pretty much mean the same thing. So, you only need one of these to describe how she took the rose from his hand. All three adjectives bog down the sentence.

“Was,” he said. And he kissed her.

Haha *claps* I so wish a guy would do that for me.

Alright, overall, this was pretty cute, but I think you could do better with amping up the drama and really making the reader feel the emotions. But, this is a good start.

Keep writing and let me know if you write any more romance.

Embee

KD is here to review!

Nitpicks:

finishedmakingsense wrote:She plucked it from his hands gingerly, slowly, and with great care not to disrupt the life in his hands. He smiled chivalrously.

For some reason, I don't feel that this part 'with great care not to disrupt the life in his hands' fits in very well.

finishedmakingsense wrote:Her heart pounded and she looked to the linoleum to give her answers. “Is it because you're, you're... scared to open up? You don't want anyone to understand how beautiful you are? Tell me now, because it's killing me.” As he inhaled she could feel the longing in his voice.

At first I thought that the girl was speaking here. Start a new paragraph before this dialog. I also do not understand this: 'As he inhaled she could feel the longing in his voice.' So...as he's breathing she could feel the longing in his voice?

Overall:

This was a nice, short & sweet piece. I think you did well with the dialog, and I'm glad you don't use names! In this piece, I picture the girl's face blank the whole time.
The biggest problem for me in this piece: As Embee said, give the characters some facial expressions, and some more body language besides the girl's eyes darting about.
Hope I helped! Keep up the good work-

KD

Oh wow I like this alot a little long but it made me honestly want to read more. You are a talented writer I must say. Keep it up. I look forwarsd to reading more of your work.

Hey hey! My apologies for the delay on this, you caught me during exam week but hopefully this will be worth the wait ^^

“I bought you a rose.”

[Sometimes starting with dialogue works really well because it's snappy and immediately involves the reader but I think here it might be better to introduce the scene a little. Describe where they're standing or how they look; give the reader something to visualise.]

“Please, I don't-” her exasperated words were cut off in mid-stride.

“But that's always been your answer. Why not just one date? I've been asking you since 7th seventh grade!” hHis face bore into hers to give him some closure, at least.

Dialogue

I'm not sure about your characters and dialogue. Your female isn't bad but the male seems too forced, he doesn't feel real enough. He makes these speeches that are too perfected and robotic, they don't feel as though they come from his heart. Even if he'd practiced them a hundred times in front of the mirror, in front of her he'd lose his concentration and hesitate and speak ordinary words, maybe not always make sense. What I'm trying to say is that you need to be more certain about his character. If he's confident and a smooth speaker then the body actions need to match the dialogue but if he's more ordinary, he needs to speak more simply and to fumble his words.

She began to walk, slowly, faster. She soon stopped. She had never thought it out. “It scares me. That... that I would get attactched attached to someone. That I would become more preoccupied in just another boy that I would lose focus on what I am trying to do with my life, and-”

Her breath, startled, faught fought to find the proper words. “You know, Johnny Reed is the only boy I've ever kissed.”

Cheese

We all love something that's sweet and cheesy but be careful: make sure your reader is smiling more than they are groaning! The action needs to be pumped up, you need to describe their movements, how they look, smell, their very breaths. The reader needs to care so much about these individuals that they want them together despite the cliche of a happy ending.

It helps if you try to remember that there are five scents, not one. There's something very intimate about the way a person smells, the perfume they wear and their natural scent and there's the sound of their voice in your ear, the warmth of their breath on your cheek or your closed eye lids.

Overall

In general, this is a good base to expand on but I think you need to work on your characterisation and think more about who these two individuals are.

Heather xx

Well, most people got what I was going to say. All and all, this was a good piece that I'm sure many people can relate with. Great job.

Hey Sense!

Okay, so maybe this is just me, but if a guy did this to me... OMG. It would be bad. Because she's all shy and stuff and then he starts yelling at her... that is TOTALLY not romantic. And what's worse, he's like, "Why don't you pick me?" His dialogue... his everything. It's all about me, me, me. And it's awful. I don't like your guy at all. I would be like, "Well, maybe I don't want to pick you because you're a self-absorbed prick who thinks of me that is an object that he deserves."

Your girl's not there... she doesn't really seem to do anything besides think, "OMG, WHY ME?" so I'm guessing she's not very happy of this entire situation. Mind you, I'm not blaming her that! Frankly, that guy is a prick, so it's perfectly understandable. But still.

And then... here's the kicker. He forces her to kiss him. OMG. So. I've had guys do this to me. Guys who I didn't actually want to kiss move my head and force their lips on mine. It is NOT romantic. Not even close. I think the first time that happened, I walked away as quickly as I could, completely in shock, and I kept wiping my lips, hoping that, maybe, if I rubbed them enough, they would just wipe off my face. It was the most awful thing ever. And I wished they turned dry because then I could just peel them off. It would hurt, but that's how desperate I was to get that kiss off. Hours afterward, I was still wiping off my lips. It was the most awful thing ever.

So basically? If this is supposed to be romantic, don't make it sound so much like an abuse case. Maybe this is just me and my bad experiences, but this sounds like an awful situation and I feel really really sorry for the girl for being emotionally abused like this.

I partly agree with Snoink, but I still liked it.

The only thing I have to add is that I would've liked it a lot if she had refused and walked away. It would've been much cooler.

But, that's not to say I don't like how it is now, I just think he should try persuading her in a different way, because, given their respective personalities, what he did do wouldn't have worked.

I also kinda would've liked it if she was a bit more haughty, but that's just me. They're your characters.

Lupis

Thanks everyone for the reviews. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with this piece, I might just leave it be and carry on, or continue editing it.
Snoink- I'm really sorry for your bad experience. The guy kept coming off as a jerk when I was writing, even though in my head he was supposed to be a sweet guy. A couple of lines I wrote sounded too stalkerish so I cut them out, but I still want to make him seem like more of a gent. I think I need to build it up more, show that he's nervous and that she's sort of just hiding in a shell but ready to be let out... if that would help at all.
In an earlier version of this (I had a couple different versions in my head, in one of which she just leaves at the point where she says "Thank you for the rose" and walks away. Would that be any better? Let me know if you can.

Hello there!

Okay, I agree with Snoink. This piece is short but cute, not romantically well written. There seemed to be no development of the characters in there and I especially don't like how you ended it. The guy all of a sudden kissed the girl without even saying anything.
I mean, that's just wrong. Show don't tell. You have to express more of the feelings between the characters, do not only describe their physical actions. There's no depth in the story. And why would the girl accept the rose if she didn't even like the guy? She accepts it then start to say that she didn't have the interest of liking him.

Overall, I find this piece good but just so you need to improve it more 'cause I can see the story has its potential.

Keep writing!

Peace out!

_yuri_

Hmm... well, to make it seem more romantic, make the girl come alive more! Right now, she's kind of quiet, but if she responded or fought back or be a jerk to the poor guy or something, then it would make us understand why he's so frustrated. Like, if she laughed at him or otherwise insulted him and then he kind of blew up at her, it would make sense! There has to be a reason for every action though, otherwise it just gets creeeeepy!

Play around with it and see what happens. And just remember! Even if she comes off as a jerk... well... that's life! But that won't make her a necessarily bad character.

Hey there, finishedmakingsense! =]

This is actually decent, a lot better than other romance stories I've read. For the most part you used good grammar and spelling and you seemed to actually be in the mind of the characters, instead of making them unbelievable. The dialogue that you mentioned isn't that bad, as long as (if you are writing more) the entire story doesn't stay all dialogue. If this is a stand alone piece, it might be better to add a little more description and such, though you did pretty good for the most part. =]

I think everyone else already did most of the corrections I had, so with that, I'm off! ^_^

~Heather