Love Beyond Compare

Shawn...
She lies there. Screaming. Crying. Fighting. I watch her through the hospital glass. My hands fixed into fists as I try to stay in control. I feel like breaking down as I try to hold back the tears. I should be with her. I should be holding her hand. Telling her she's doing well. Stroking her hair. However, that wouldn't be fair. One can't be in there when another isn't. She is fighting for her life, while also fighting for two others. Only a certain number of people are allowed in that room. Only one person can be with her. The father. The father of my love's children. Question is, who is that? I begin to shake as I hear her scream louder. The pain is getting worse for her. I can't bare it. Then I glance at my best friend who stands next to me. He's crying. He's shaking. He looks like he's going to colapse. If he does I wont help him though. I wont help him up. I wont comfort him. I wont tell him everything will be all right, just for his benefit. Thats a fact. Its his fault I can't be with her at her time in need. This is because he's the other possible father. It isn't fair. I should be there to watch her give birth in that room, instead of behind a wall. Not being able to touch her. Hold her hand as she pushes. Kissing her forehead when she is done. I turn back to see the first child appear and a tear escapes my right eye. I see her go limp as I hear the nurse say the child is a girl. Then with a sigh of relief I watch her move again. The battle is only partly over.

Dennis...
I recall the past few months as I stare at the love of my life in pain. Screaming. Crying. Fighting. She's the love of mine. He was the love of hers. Then I was the love of hers. Now he is the love of hers again.This is because of something that happened eight months back. That's the last time I visited a hospital. Once again for her, but for a different reason. She'd been mugged. While being mugged she was hit over the head. She suffered memory loss. I was there only as a comfort for him, as he was terrorfied for her. Well, that and I had a crush on her. Ofcourse I'd have never have admitted it to her or him though. That was till she kissed me. Her memory loss had revolved around the last three months of her life before the mugging. She'd forgotten her own boyfriend. She'd forgotten me. She didn't recognise herself. She couldn't remember three months of her life. However, with that happening her attention turned to me. We didn't mean it to happen. But after two weeks of not being able to remember she'd broken down in my arms. She'd cried and cried. I comforted her and hugged her. She said I was the only one not trying to force her into remembering. Then things just seemed to happen. Our love affair lasted two weeks untill he found out. He'd exploded. Blamed me. Said I'd forced myself upon her. He was going to hit me when she stood in his way. Luckily he stopped himself and then ran off. Then she'd gone after him to calm him down. While this happened he cried to her. Begged. Then he'd kissed her. That triggored it. Her memory from that point onwards slowly returned. After another two weeks she'd started feeling ill. Then she took a test. It was posative. The problem of the father then begun. The date of conception was unknown and there could of been a two week difference. I loved her more in those two weeks we had together then he ever could. However, she didn't love me like that. He resented me. I tried my best to be there for her, while trying to build up a friendship with him. Though with everything I did, he still hated me a little inside. Then, last night he snapped. Told her to run away with him away from me. He didn't care who was the father. I walked in though as he asked her. I got it wrong. I thought she'd said yes so I started arguing with him and her. She began to cry then ran out of the house we all shared. It was pouring with rain. We found her a hour later in a park near the house and phoned the hospital. She'd gone into labour. My attention returns to the present as I watch the second child being welcomed to the world. A boy I see the nurse smile. Now its her life on the line. My heart starts to break as I watch her go limp for the second time and this time she doesn't move straight away like she did before.

Amelia...
I take one last look at the only two men I have ever loved and I know what will happen. I am dying. All my screaming and crying and fighting. Its over. I see them staring at the children. One lovingly. One resentful. They both love me. One is so madly in love he can't imagine life without me, he'd rather the children dead and me alive. He makes it clear as he fights with the other, who loves my essence. He believes I may be dead, but atleast I gave two gifts to the world who will live my life for me. My little girl is to be named Jennifer Amelia, while my little boy Jacob Alexander. Both beautiful names. Both beautiful lives. However, my resentful lover will not see it that way. He is going to leave the other with the children. I am glad to say the other will stay with my children though. He will not check paternity. He will raise them as his own. Love them beyond compare. Then when they are older tell them about me. Sad to say the other will turn to drink. Ruin his life. Cry himself to sleep. Die in his own filth. This is devasting to me, but I will see him again. One day. My life was short but I made a big impression. One good, one bad. However, I will never stop loving them. Then with one final breath. I die.

Again, a wonderful story. Not as intense as I'm Not A Monster After All but still loaded with a strong emotion. I felt so sorry for Amelia. . .
I loved:
The fact that you wrote from the point of view of three characters. This gave the story a rounded shape. I mean, it completes any gap that you might have while reading.
I also liked the conflict. The love triangle. It simply reflects so much what happens everyday everywhere in the world.
I loved the style it was written in, again. It doesn't matter anymore if you over-use it. I don't know how, but you make it flow perfectly without using long sentences.
There was a problem, too. You see, I didn't know who loved who and who was the father, and who was with her in the room and who was outside. The structure makes me think it's three characters that are taking part in the story; Shawn, Amelia and Dennis. But then you said there was a "best friend" next to Shawn and that confused me. And was it Dennis - the two week man - inside? Yeah, it was a little confusing, but that didn't stop me from liking it. You're wonderful. I hope this helps you - I mean make sure things are clear to readers.

P.S I know from my own experience that when somebody tells me things are not clear, that's not right, this isn't right, I get a little mad, and I don't want you to be the same. Anything I say is just to help you. If I wouldn't, that would mean I ignore a chance to improve a tremendous writer. Please, don't hate me.
~Nadia

This was a very passionate piece, I have to say that for sure. It was certainly tragic, and I am unsure really what to think of it.

You have great potential. Many writers when they right miss out on the actual human emotion of the scene and the whole effect gets lost. Or sometimes they over do it in some cases, making it almost repetitive and much to melodramatic. You kind of found a good basis inbetween, so good job with that. (:

There is a few things I want to point out though, if you don't mind.

One thing was the stucture of how you broke your story into. You had the three perspectives and that usually bugs me when I read a story, but it kind of grew on me. But each person had a different paragraph, so essentially your story was only three paragraphs. Your story, with how much information was in each paragraph needs to be broken up more into smaller paragraphs, if you follow me. It makes it easier for the reader to read and also organizes the thoughts easilier and doesnt make it seem like it is jumping around everywhere. Remember when breaking up paragraphs, that the closely related details are their own paragraph, and when you start on a new idea, it is another new paragraph.

Below Im going to show you an example of how you should break up that meaty second paragraph:

Spoiler

I recall the past few months as I stare at the love of my life in pain. Screaming. Crying. Fighting. She's the love of mine. He was the love of hers. Then I was the love of hers. Now he is the love of hers again.This is because of something that happened eight months back. That's the last time I visited a hospital. Once again for her, but for a different reason.

She'd been mugged. While being mugged she was hit over the head. She suffered memory loss. I was there only as a comfort for him, as he was terrorfied for her. Well, that and I had a crush on her. Ofcourse I'd have never have admitted it to her or him though. That was till she kissed me. Her memory loss had revolved around the last three months of her life before the mugging. She'd forgotten her own boyfriend. She'd forgotten me. She didn't recognise herself. She couldn't remember three months of her life.

However, with that happening her attention turned to me. We didn't mean it to happen. But after two weeks of not being able to remember she'd broken down in my arms. She'd cried and cried. I comforted her and hugged her. She said I was the only one not trying to force her into remembering. Then things just seemed to happen. Our love affair lasted two weeks untill he found out. He'd exploded. Blamed me. Said I'd forced myself upon her. He was going to hit me when she stood in his way. Luckily he stopped himself and then ran off. Then she'd gone after him to calm him down.

While this happened he cried to her. Begged. Then he'd kissed her. That triggored it. Her memory from that point onwards slowly returned. After another two weeks she'd started feeling ill. Then she took a test. It was posative. The problem of the father then begun.

The date of conception was unknown and there could of been a two week difference. I loved her more in those two weeks we had together then he ever could. However, she didn't love me like that. He resented me. I tried my best to be there for her, while trying to build up a friendship with him. Though with everything I did, he still hated me a little inside.

Then, last night he snapped. Told her to run away with him away from me. He didn't care who was the father. I walked in though as he asked her. I got it wrong. I thought she'd said yes so I started arguing with him and her. She began to cry then ran out of the house we all shared. It was pouring with rain. We found her a hour later in a park near the house and phoned the hospital. She'd gone into labour.

My attention returns to the present as I watch the second child being welcomed to the world. A boy I see the nurse smile. Now its her life on the line. My heart starts to break as I watch her go limp for the second time and this time she doesn't move straight away like she did before.

The second thing I want to point out is this, which you did a couple times through out the piece:

She lies there. Screaming. Crying. Fighting. I watch her through the hospital glass.

and:

Only one person can be with her. The father. The father of my love's children.

and:

He'd exploded. Blamed me. Said I'd forced myself upon her.

But that isnt all of them. You did it constantly through out the story, almost all of it was written this way. Basically, what I pointed out was that you make too short of sentences and use periods for dramatic pauses. It gets that stop and go feeling of desperation, but you did it constantly and it really wears down on the reader. What I recommend is combining some sentences together, replacing some periods with commas, and just making it flow a bit better. Yes that might take away a bit of the actual effect of it, but currently, the effect is being drowned out by the constant interruptions of the pauses.

I myself, am guilty of this same thing when writing passionate stories, so it isnt just you either. Just try to work on that a bit and organize your thoughts better.

And that leads me into another part that glitterbox kind of touched on. You have to organize your story and make sure that everything is clear. I understood that it was both of them on the other side of the glass, that they used to be best friends but this horrible love triangle succumbed them all. But explanation of the story I believe could have been better. It was very infodumpish, and that is never really good. He was just stating what happened, and it kind of made it confusing in a sense. For the confusion, I believe the paragraphs might help a tad bit, and the short sentence reductions will also help, but make sure you know the story before you write it down, make sure you know the details you need to emphasize and which are not very important.

For the second part of that comment, about the infodumping, you should show and not tell. Bet you have heard that one before. We all have. You should figure out a way to describe the scene without blandly telling what happened. Maybe have a little bit of dialogue bickering between the two as Amelia screams louder or something. Maybe highlight moments, fragments of the scenes and discribe them. You could also use this method in keeping the emotion that might be taken away by the blending of sentences.

The second last thing I want to mention is the last paragraph. That one for me, took the whole effect of the story away. She was dying, and you need to dwell on that a bit more, but thats not very important to what Im going to say. The last paragaph is very confusing. I can kind of see that she is trying to imagine the future, of what will happen and stuff, but it is really hard for me to tell which one will act as the father and which one will become the alcoholic. There isnt enough characterization in the above paragraphs to reveal which one is which. I also didnt really like the fact of the divination thing. It kind of made it a bit cheesy for me. Im not sure. You dont have to change it if you dont want to.

Last thing I want to mention is your spelling mistakes and typos. Everyone makes 'em. Its all good. My post is bound to have a bunch. The only solution I have for that is spell check, and sometimes that doesnt even work, so read through it nice and slowly one more time and you will find them. There was a couple here and there that I noticed. If you want me to pick 'em out for you, just let me know.

Otherwise, this was a very good piece and I hope to see more of your work. Good job. (:
~Incognito

another amazing story Lily.
you can definatly can write so that the passion is evident to the reader in every sentence. As previously stated by the above, the multi-angle narritive view points definatly bring a fullness to the piece which means that you are telling as much of the story as possible but without the tedium of none-necessary information. I'm glad to see that each time I return to your work that I am further impressed by your imagination and vast improvements.