I Think I'm In Love #2

Hey guys! You know on my last post, #1, where I had the scene with the abusive father? Forget about it. I cut out that whole scene and I'm going to do this whole short story in a diary.

So, if you don't like to read diary stories, sorry. But if you do, please read it! I really like it so far!

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2-14-08

I know that I just finished my entry for today, but I just wanted to add that Dad came home this afternoon completely drunk. I don’t know how he can stand living with himself! Ok, he usually just goes out with his friend, Timmy, for a quick drink at the pub, but this morning he and Timmy were on a race, it seemed. They must’ve chugged for hours…

I don’t think that he’ll ever be sober again.

Forever,

Emily

2-16-08

It would seem to me that this ‘Jesse Brandon’ had mysteriously vanished the day that he showed up. I mean, I went to school yesterday and asked everyone – even the freaking teachers! No one knew who he was. I even thought about venturing into the office to ask a secretary or someone if this kid even existed.

Oh, my gosh! That’s it! He doesn’t exist! Jesse Brandon must be a made up name! How come I’ve never noticed this before? The real person is hiding his real name! I have to tell Brittany about it.

I just flipped through my pages of this diary and I’ve noticed that I’ve never talked about Brittany… I guess I owe you an explanation.

I’ve known Brittany Allred for about… six years now. We met in third grade and we’ve been best friends up until ninth, which I’m in right now.

Well, getting back to Jesse… he’s a fake! A fraud! He could be anyone in the whole entire freaking school! What if he’s David Jones…? Do you think a jock like him would like me?

Forever,

Emily

2-17-08

Jesse, Jesse, Jesse. He’s all I can think about now! I mean, I still don’t know who he is… I wish someone would tell me. Even if the boy were as gross and smelly as Randy Kowski, I would still totally fall in love with him. No one has ever fallen in love with me… I wonder what it would be like to have a boyfriend…

We would go off on little dates. Yeah. That would be so cute. We could go down to the lake, even, and have a little picnic. That would be fantastic! What if he even kissed me? Oh, gosh. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way about a boy before. Kissing sounds like a dream. I’ve got to try it someday.

I just need someone to kiss!

Forever,

Emily

2-19-08

Dad hurt me this morning. He hurt me so bad that I had to stay home from school. I’m sure… well, pretty sure that he didn’t mean to. He came home, drunk again, and he hurt me. For the first time ever, he actually hit me. I don’t know what to make of it. Dad isn’t an abusive guy! I’m sure it was all a mistake… it just… it’s sad to see alcohol do something like that. Why does he drink it? He says it dulls his pain. What pain? Probably the pain of my bloody mother. He always calls her bloody. I don’t know why.

I think I wrote about this a while back, but I can’t find it right now. My mom walked out on us a few years back. I don’t like talking about it…

I still don’t know who Jesse is. Or was. Maybe I never will. Maybe no one even likes me… it was probably just a big joke. I bet some idiot just sent me that rose to get my hopes up.

What a jerk. And I’m so gullible…

Forever,

Emily

2-20-08

Today was unbelievable! I swear! Okay, second period today (gym) I heard someone mention Jesse Brandon. I was so freaking shocked. I didn’t know what to do. I stared at the girl who said it and asked her if she knew who he was.

She told me it was a guy from a book. Tender Mercy by Renée Paulding.

And you know what the best part is? The book is a romance.

Forever,

Emily

2-22-08

I went to the local library today and checked out Tender Mercy. You know, just to see what is was like. And you know what?

I’m freaking in love with the book. I mean, I’ve never grown that attached to a book in my whole life. Okay, to make a long story short, Tender Mercy is about a girl in the nineteen hundreds who lived on a farm. She goes into town one day and sees a man named Jesse Brandon. The man is utterly adorable, and I can’t believe how well Renée pulled the story off.

I stopped reading just barely. I’m at the part where Tamera, the farm girl, is preparing a nice dinner for Jesse.

So, I’m guessing that the guy at school that likes me has to like Tender Mercy. I mean, who would name themselves after a fictional hottie and not like the book? That’s my first lead. Jesse must like the book.
How many guys can like a chick flick, though?

Forever,

Emily

2-30-08

It’s totally not my fault that I haven’t written in you for eight days. You can kill me, I don’t care.

My dad’s being a total piss off. I hate his guts! I just wish that he would freaking leave me alone for once in my life! He read this diary and he locked it up in his room. What kind of a parent would do that?

I was trying to get it back, but he locked his door and I could never get in. He was reading it aloud, and I just couldn’t help it. I was utterly embarrassed! He was reading my life…

After he had read the last entry, he tore all of my pages of scribblings out and turned them into shreds. I watched him, crying the whole time.
But I have you now. I’m not going to let my idiot dad take you again, okay?

And I still haven’t found out who Jess is… I don’t think any of the boys in my whole school like the book Tender Mercy. I finished it, by the way. It was a really sweet book. I love the ending. Tamera and Michael, Tamera’s father, were fighting over whether she should marry Clint Blackwater or Jesse Brandon. Tamera ends up running away with Jesse and they get married.

What a happy book. But I think it should be put under the ‘fairytale’ section. There are no such thing as a happy ending, is there?

Forever,

Emily

2-31-08

I feel like I’ve done the impossible. Hehe. I’ve done a mission: impossible. I went to the school library this morning and asked if anyone had checked out Tender Mercy.

The librarian must’ve been deaf or something because I had to tell her the title of the stupid book four times before she understood that it was “Tender” and not “Fender”. Stupid librarian. Get some hearing aids!
Anyway, after the “Fender” problem was solved, she said that both copies of the romance book were checked out.

When she told me that, I had butterflies in my stomach. They were squirming, trying to get out. I asked the librarian, “Do you know who they are checked out to?”

She said that she couldn’t tell me, but she could tell me when they were due. I groaned and shook my head. I’d have to wait for Mrs. Minson, the regular librarian, to help me. This freaking sub librarian wasn’t worth my spit.

Mrs. Minson is a kind old lady who fell and broke her hip. Ouch. I made her a get-well card, and she’s in the hospital. I don’t know when she’s coming back.

Crap… I think I hear Dad’s car pulling up. I bet you a million bucks he’s as drunk as ever.

Forever,
Emily

*

Any comments are appriecated!

Ahhhh!!! That's it?? I need more! You've got me hooked now. Sorry I don't have much more critique than that. I was to involved in the plot and her feelings and thoughts to pay any attention to any mistakes. I'll leave that to the other sticklers out there. Keep going! I think this is awesome!

~Yoyo

PS- Happy Valentine's Day!!

YES! Twas great, you've acctually managed to pull it off sounding very realistic. Surprisingly it acctually sounds like a girl wrote them. Mostly because she has completely started daydreaming about this guy and planning into the future. But anyhow, I really liked it, you could've tried to show a little more emtion, especially when she found out he might be a fraud and when her dad took the diary. But other then that I think it is really, really, really good. So good job, and keep going or you'll never hear the end of it and you'll hate me.



*~TN~*

yoha_ahoy wrote:Ahhhh!!! That's it?? I need more! You've got me hooked now. Sorry I don't have much more critique than that. I was to involved in the plot and her feelings and thoughts to pay any attention to any mistakes. I'll leave that to the other sticklers out there. Keep going! I think this is awesome!

~Yoyo

PS- Happy Valentine's Day!!

I totally agree!!! Now I want to know what happens, and you just END IT!!! I don't believe this...

lol!

It's really cool... no edits that I noticed, and since it's a diary you don't have to worry about grammar as much.

Really awesome.

If you don't mind...

Can you PM me when part three comes out?? I know that it's kind of a weird story for me, of all people, to like... but hey, you're writing it and you're a guy! Lol! Anyways, yeah, PM me!!

Keep writing (cause you're an awesome writer)!!

Teh Wozzinator

wow I loved this!!! This is better, I mean I really really want to read more. Emily's dad is such a jerk...well anyways keep writing you're doing great. You portrayed a lonely girl with a messed up life very well bravo. Just keep writing...don't stop!!! You rock BBB

P.S. I especially liked how you told us that there was another person who checked out Tender Mercy but then you had Emily elaborate on the whole ordeal keep doing that...that makes me feel like this is a movie.

I read both parts of your story and I think they're really good, especially since a guy is writing them. Of course, this is coming from the person who could read romance all day and never get tired of it . Anyway, no critiques on my side, but there's just this undercurrent of something that just doesn't seem realistic. It could be the fact that I just don't feel a lot of depth from her, but then again you do have some girls that don't have depth either. *sigh* I can't put what I'm feeling into words, but I guess it could also be that the way you described her in part one made it seem like she was a geek and I have the inclination to believe that "geeky" girls have more to them than meets the eye, but it's all basically one whole big opinion fight. Anyway, really liked it and can't wait for the rest .

Wow, I really liked this one, she doesn't sound so horribly girly-girl, still girly, but loads loads better and now I want to read more...

Wow, you're doing an awesome job of writing a girl. She really sounds like a girl. She's writing about the stuff that a girl would write about and she's getting the story told. Rock on, BBB!

I am hooked. I am not usually a romance person, but this caught me. It is just written in a very appealing style. Not to mention you leave us with a friggin' cliff-hanger! Why!? I hate cliff-hangers.

Anyway, nice work. PM when you update next, will you?

*thumbs up*

~GryphonFledgling

Hi! Haven't seen you cool monkey swing the smooth branch in along time!
O.k, now to the review... I liked the way you put the story into a diary and all that, not super original, but I can accept it. I have a few things that I want to check with you, O.k?

I know that I just finished my entry for today

What do you mean you "just finished your entry"? I doesn't make sense to me.

Forever, Emily

Why do you always end her entry with this? You should change it so it seems like this girl has a personality and likes change you know? It just kind of bugs me the way that she doesn't change it. You know?



[quote]We would go off on little dates. Yeah. That would be so cute. We could go down to the lake, even, and have a little picnic. That would be fantastic! What if he even kissed me? Oh, gosh. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way about a boy before. Kissing sounds like a dream. I’ve got to try it someday.

Do you think of kissing a girl one day? Does this story express how you feel about a special someone? (you don't have to answer if it's personal, k?)

I think that's just about it for now, O.k with you?
If you feel the need to e-mail me, It's bumblebug_shanan@hotmail.com
see ya, J-monkey!

Ah...very good. Overall, great job writing as a girl. However, can I beg you to change Brittany's name? Oh God...that name makes me gag. No offense to anyone with that name. Still, girls nowadays have more interesting names than that. Pick up a naming dictionary.

That's basically my only complaint. Just this: Emily sounds fake and superficial when she's imagining going on dates with Jesse. I certainly don't think like that about boys. Maybe some people do, but I still think that chapter needs revising. Heck, you can even PM me to get some first-hand experience. How I think about boys, I mean.

Other than that, bravo! This was very riveting. You have good ideas; all those little details help tie a story together. Quick question though. If her dad ripped up her diary, how come she was still writing in it?

Okay, I'm off to read part three.

I know that I just finished my entry for today, but I just wanted to add that Dad came home this afternoon completely drunk. I don’t know how he can stand living with himself! Ok, he usually just goes out with his friend, Timmy, for a quick drink at the pub, but this morning he and Timmy were on a race, it seemed. They must’ve chugged for hours…

I guess this is all right for an entry. It's opinionated just enough to get character development from Emily as well as her dad and Timmy.

I just flipped through my pages of this diary and I’ve noticed that I’ve never talked about Brittany… I guess I owe you an explanation.

I’ve known Brittany Allred for about… six years now. We met in third grade and we’ve been best friends up until ninth, which I’m in right now.

This is really obvious that you're just trying to give us background on Brittany. Please find another way to give us this info because it's really bad right now. I'm not kidding.

Dad hurt me this morning. He hurt me so bad that I had to stay home from school. I’m sure… well, pretty sure that he didn’t mean to. He came home, drunk again, and he hurt me. For the first time ever, he actually hit me. I don’t know what to make of it. Dad isn’t an abusive guy! I’m sure it was all a mistake… it just… it’s sad to see alcohol do something like that. Why does he drink it? He says it dulls his pain. What pain? Probably the pain of my bloody mother. He always calls her bloody. I don’t know why.

Okay, here is where you need to keep the demonizing down. I think it would add so much more to the story if it was only hinted that her dad hit her. And in fact, Emily was justifying his behavior. Just a suggestion, but I think that would be more powerful.

Okay, to make a long story short, Tender Mercy is about a girl in the nineteen hundreds who lived on a farm. She goes into town one day and sees a man named Jesse Brandon. The man is utterly adorable, and I can’t believe how well Renée pulled the story off.

Tedious. Find another way to phrase it. But I like the fact that she went to the library and read the book.

My dad’s being a total piss off. I hate his guts! I just wish that he would freaking leave me alone for once in my life! He read this diary and he locked it up in his room. What kind of a parent would do that?

I was trying to get it back, but he locked his door and I could never get in. He was reading it aloud, and I just couldn’t help it. I was utterly embarrassed! He was reading my life…

After he had read the last entry, he tore all of my pages of scribblings out and turned them into shreds. I watched him, crying the whole time.

I'm not sure what I think about this. It just seems to convenient. Again, I think maybe being subtle would help here. And maybe her defending her father would be a good idea here too. I'm just not sure.


As a final note, I would make the entries longer even though diaries are meant to be shorter entries. I just think that if you're going to have this as a work of fiction, it doesn't really matter if they're long entries. Merge some of the above entries together. Expand upon some of the ideas of others. Give specifics! I think with this type of format, it's really important that you tell specific stories rather than give vague ideas of what's going on. And finally, I would use short entries as a way to kind of creep the reader out. Short entries in diaries tend to be more powerful if they're one or two sentences and don't give explanations. Example--you have just the simple entry: "Dad's drunk again." and then you have nothing else. How creepy is that? Experiment. I think that's what you'll need to do since this is a different kind of format than normal.

Best of luck.

Wow, I want more!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nice diary entries, its a good idea. Not too clieche either, its barely done. I'd like to see more please! Oh wait, there is another one!

'I know that I just finished my entry for today, but I just wanted to add that Dad came home this afternoon completely drunk. I don’t know how he can stand living with himself! Ok, he usually just goes out with his friend, Timmy, for a quick drink at the pub, but this morning he and Timmy were on a race, it seemed. They must’ve chugged for hours… '

Oh the irony! lol, this is great, just cracked me up a bit. If you've finished then entry, then how can you be adding that?! lol, that's just me

This is a great story here!

Keep Writing!

~D'Aedomir~

>> Critique three of three >>

Hey Jared!

Sorry it's taken me so long to crit this, but I've been swamped.

First entry:
This entry is good, but I don't feel like I can relate to Emily very much. Make me feel sympathetic for her because her father drinks -- include more of her emotions on this and whatnot. My father has never been drunk (that I know of, lol) and so I have no memories to go back to as I read this. And so it's your job, as the writer, to make me feel bad for your narrator. Describe the experience more.

Second entry:
This entry is quite good, I think. It is very credible -- a lot of girly-girls think that way in my school, and I know that even though I'm not a girly-girl, I would probably accuse Jessie of being a fake if I couldn't find him.

Third entry:
No! Ew, girls don't think like that at all. You really should PM Fangala for her experiences. XD

Fourth entry:
This is where you need the most crunch. How did he hurt her? More importantly, why should I, as a reader, care? I know it's a horrible thing that her father did, but you need to make me feel sorry for her.

Fifth and sixth entries:
These are good. I personally am not interested in the book (Tender Mercy), but you did a good job of portraying the girly-girl theme when summarizing it.

Seventh entry:
Another entry that needs more crunch. Yeah, what her dad did was totally stupid, but I still don't really feel sympathetic for her. Also, how did she get it back if he took it?

Eighth entry:
Ha, this entry is really good. You get her personality down well and it's exactly the thing a girl would do to find out if they had a secret admirer or not.

------------------

Overall, this is good. =)

I like Emily, and I'm really curious as to what happens next. But there are some things about the diary-entry format that bother me:

Is the whole book going to be written this way? Because if it is, well... here are the problems with that:
• The reader would never know what Emily, her dad, her house (etc) look like. I mean, you could tell us in the diary, but that would be kind of tell-y (rather than show-y) and info-dumpish.
• We would never know other people's opinions on Emily.

But anyways, the only other issue was that Emily sounded SO fake when she was talking about kissing. No one thinks like that...

Yeah. I'll crit #3 as soon as possible, but for now:

Cheers,
Camille

Hmm...I liked it overall, but I still find certain parts of it a bit hard to believe or imagine...

I'm not sure some of the names are entirely believable, 'Timmy' and 'David Jones' being the main culprits, for some reason they seem almost /too/ normal...I'm not entirely sure what makes me think this, or why it has an affect on me, so you might want to check if anyone else has similar opinions.

Most of the entries were believable though, I think the third entry might be a bit too melodramatic... unfortunately I seem to be failing at suggesting ways of improving it today, but I think someone might have brushed on it in earlier comments.

Entry 4...seems a little strange. I figure that if she'd been hit, she would either be less dramatic about it if she was going to justify her father's actions, maybe even edge around it...

And finally, Entry 7...I'm not sure s parent would do that for no reason...There was no trigger in the diary to suggest why he might have felt the urge to rip all the pages out of her diary, or mock her by reading it out loud to her...It sounds more like an annoying younger brother's behaviour than a father's.

Other than that, I still found it readable! And I guess I will try and offer a better critique on the next one if I see it around.