Prologue: A Diary

This is an entry for Lavender Blue's Prologue Contest. I'm not quite sure if I want to turn this into a novel, but I definitely wanted to experiment and bring up issues about size and weight in this piece. So I hope you like it! Thanks for reading!


November 24,
1 Year Previous:

The three most horrible words I’ve ever heard in my entire life.

“Climb the rope.”

I know Ms. Schwartz was being nice about it, but my feet just couldn’t move when I looked at the rope. The rope was twenty-five feet tall, and it was hanging from the ceiling of the gym.

I also happen to weigh one hundred and eighty-six pounds. It’s humiliating for an obese girl, with hay colored hair, embarrassing freckles and acne, and oh yeah, fat, to climb a rope in front of her classmates. Especially in the skimpy gym uniform the school makes everyone wear.

I gripped onto the rope, but my fingers were too sweaty, and I felt so much anxiety. I wondered what Ms. Schwartz would’ve done if I said no. Would I have gotten a zero?

But no, this morning in gym, I convinced myself I would have to at least make an attempt at the rope. I could probably get up past eight feet before tiring out. I had a sudden burst of confidence.

I put my feet on the bottom of the rope near the knot, and just jumped. In front of all those popular girls, geeks, nerds, jocks. All those kids who were mean and rude, but still are in a higher class of the school social ladder than I am. They all watched as I fell flat on my face. I stumbled off the rope, my feet six inches from the ground, and fell on the hardwood floor. And boy, did I ball my eyes out. I don’t think my tear ducts will let me cry for awhile.

They all laughed at me. Those kids who were watching me, those people I thought would be so surprised if I did make it to the top. They’d think it was Armageddon or something. But they all made the humiliation worse. Their laughter was almost as worse as the sight of a zombie with a hatchet.

Ms. Schwartz took me to the nurse’s office, and as I was laying on one of the cots, I was so frustrated that I came up with a resolution.

It might be difficult, but today I realized I would rather be admired, not embarrassed.

In a year, I’m going to be thin. Thin Candie is going to impress everyone with her wit, charm, and great physique. I’m going to have boyfriends and refuse to try out for cheerleading, no matter how much those cheerleaders beg me too.

Overall, Thin Candie will make it up to the top of the rope, and everyone will cheer.

I’m going to say goodbye to chocolate bars and start eating nothing.

Next year, people are going to love me.

Woah, just woah =0
...in a good way.

You really captured the raw emotions from something "so simple" as a Gym activity. I think everyone can relate to that experience on some level.

I really liked this part:

In a year, I’m going to be thin. Thin Candie is going to impress everyone with her wit, charm, and great physique. I’m going to have boyfriends and refuse to try out for cheerleading, no matter how much those cheerleaders beg me too.

Overall, Thin Candie will make it up to the top of the rope, and everyone will cheer.

Because it's also something that everybody thinks: if I can just fix that one thing that's wrong with me, everything else will get better too.

Overall, great job. I couldn't find any glaring problems (other than that it was a bit short, but that's ok-it doesn't really need to be much longer).

Hai!

This was good; it was well written and even in such a short piece of writing, there was a nice feel of character voice. *likes*

However, I didn't like this part:

I also happen to weigh one hundred and eighty-six pounds. It’s humiliating for an obese girl, with hay colored hair, embarrassing freckles and acne, and oh yeah, fat, to climb a rope in front of her classmates. Especially in the skimpy gym uniform the school makes everyone wear.

It was too much of a pity-party. "Oh man, I'm fat and I'm hideous and I have these awful, awful freckles and my hair is terribly ugly and I'm fat and I have a million spots and oh by the way, did I mention that I'm fat?" It didn't give me any sympathy for the character at all because it came across as whiny and self-pitying.

That aside, this was very good. Very American, though, with the cliques and stereotypes. But the best thing about this was that you didn't have an evil, fire-breathing, acid-pooping gymn teacher. So often in stories like this, the gymn teacher exists solely to abuse and humiliate the M/C, and having a nice teacher who's still trying to do her job was very, very refreshing.

Keep writing!

I like this I think you let your voice as a writer come through.I think almost everyone can relate to a feeling of inadequacy in gym class or in sports obese or not.

I also happen to weigh one hundred and eighty-six pounds. It’s humiliating for an obese girl, with hay colored hair, embarrassing freckles and acne, and oh yeah, fat, to climb a rope in front of her classmates. Especially in the skimpy gym uniform the school makes everyone wear.

I don't like this paragraph because you are telling instead of showing the reader. Because you are telling the reader it seems like a self pity rant.

I resolved to be thin. In a year thin Candie is going to impress everyone with her wit, charm, and great physique. I’m going to have boyfriends and refuse to try out for cheerleading, no matter how much those cheerleaders beg me too.

I think that this is a good story. Hopefully my review helps you. Fiction

Heya Jane

I'm here to review as requested. I'm not sure if I've ever reviewed anything of yours before, but yeah. Just to let you know, I'll start off with the nit-picks, if I can find any, that is.

It’s humiliating for an obese girl, with hay colored hair, embarrassing freckles and acne, and oh yeah, fat, to climb a rope in front of her classmates.

I wasn't very keen on the flow of this sentence, it seemed a bit awkward to me. Part of the reason, I think, was because it was rather long. Maybe you could try splitting it into more than one sentence.

But no, this morning in gym, I convinced myself I would have to at least make an attempt at the rope. I could probably get up past eight feet before tiring out. I had a sudden burst of confidence.

This is beginning to feel a bit bland to me. It seems as though you're saying 'I did this, I did that, this happened, then this happened.' It's just that, so far, you don't seem to be expressing your character's emotions as well as you could.

I put my feet on the bottom of the rope near the knot, and just jumped.

Just jumped here sounds kind of awkward. I think that you should cut it out. Also, you don't really need the comma I highlighted in red.

In front of all those popular girls, geeks, nerds, jocks. All those kids who were mean and rude, but still are in a higher class of the school social ladder than I am.

You're telling and not showing here. Don't tell us that these people are mean and rude; show it. Tell us how they were stood watching your MC, laughing and sniggering to themselves. Say things like that instead of simply saying that these people were mean e.t.c.

I don’t think my tear ducts will let me cry for awhile.

I'm not sure whether this is an American phrase or something, but I didn't understand what you were saying here.

They’d think it was Armageddon or something.

Do you mean 'They'd think I was Armageddon or something.'?

It might be difficult, but today, I realized I would rather be admired, not embarrassed.

Next year, people are going to love me.

Nice ending.


Overall

This was pretty good. As a whole, I liked the idea of this story. Although the idea itself was simple, I really did rather like it and I like the way it was written. Like the other reviewers have said; this prologue is easy to relate to. Everyone has been in a situation similar to this, one where we have the guts to do something but then fail epically. I have anyway! When it comes to your main character, I quite liked her. She wasn't annoying to read about and I thought that she was pretty interesting. As for your grammar, it was very good! I only found the odd grammatical error in this piece. One thing that I did find though was that, at times, the flow of this could sound a bit awkward because of the way you phrased some things. It sounded slightly awkward to me anyway. It might because you've written this in an American kind of style and I'm not American, so that might have something to do with it. When ti comes to your spelling, I didn't find any errors, typos, or any misspelled words. Well done for that!

My main critique for this is the fact that, to me, you can sometimes tell and not show. The whole showing and telling thing can be pretty confusing, especially for some people. There was one area especially that I noticed you telling instead of showing. I pointed that out in the nit-picks, by the way. You were telling us readers about how mean and nasty the popular kids and jocks were, but you weren't showing us this. Later on, you did mention that they were all laughing at her; that was better. I still think that you could have done more to show the cruelness of these kids. Tell us about how they were whispering to each other and sniggering. You could even mention how they were shouting out names at your MC. That could have worked if you wanted to do something a bit less subtle. The main reason that showing, and not telling, is important is because it simply makes your story and your descriptions more interesting. After a while, telling your readers that people were happy, sad, excited, annoyed e.t.c, it gets rather boring. When you write these details but in a more creative way, your readers will be a lot happier when reading.

I don't really have much else to say about this. Anything else that I would have said has already been said by previous reviewers. All that you need to do is to take into consideration what us reviewers have said. Once you've done that, you should consider editing this a bit. If you do that, you will definitely have a really nice piece of writing here!

Keep writing,

xoxo Rhian