Young Writers Society

I wrote most of this in my AP Environmental Science class the other day because that class is exceedingly boring.
I'm planning on continuing this, please let me know what you think

The poster is in the wrong place.
It is crooked and leans slightly to the right. It’s closer to the whiteboard than the ceiling and its closer to the door and too far away from the sign next to it.
I need to fix it.
I have been staring at it for the last twenty minutes trying to move it with my mind. I don’t know what the teacher is saying.
The poster is in the wrong place.
If only it was just straight up and even with what was around it. If only it lined up properly. Oh how I want to get up and fix it. I clench my arm.
The teacher erases something on the whiteboard. There is half a loop, red, towards the top, un-erased. The teacher leaves it. My mind reels.
One sweep. One little flick of the wrist and it’s gone. Why is it not gone? Make it be gone. My eyes go back and forth.
The poster. The line. The poster. The line. The poster. The line. The poster. The line.
Ring.
End of class.
My hand touches the doorknob as I make my break and I have to suppress a scream. It’s ten-o-clock. Three hours have passed since the start of the day. Three classes filled with people with poor sanitation and they touched this doorknob. All of those germs are now touching me. All of those germs are now on me. I swallow the bile coming up my throat and reach for the hand-sanitizer in my jacket pocket, being careful to touch as little of my jacket as possible.
Sanitizer on. Germs dead. All is well.
My next class is worse. A book is out of place. Someone sneezes beside me and someone by the door has a cough. I spend the hour calculating the germs I’ve probably just contracted. I feel sick.
Classes don’t sit in alphabetical order. Desks are not aligned properly. Books lay strewn in no particular order. Things are not arranged by size. Nothing is sanitized. It’s a cesspool of germs.
This world was just not made for people like me.
_______________________________________
My doctors say I’m obsessive compulsive.
My friends say I’m a freak.
My parents say I’m a germaphobe.
I don’t know what I am.
_______________________________________
My therapist has me sit on the couch across from her desk. That is not going to happen. My parents have told me that she is one of the best in the area. That means that tons of people come in here. Tons of people have sat on that couch. Tons of people have infested that couch with their germs.
I’m not sitting on it.
I stand in front of her desk while she sits behind it. She seems confused as to why I’m still standing.
She motions to the diseased couch. “You can sit down, you don’t have to stand.”
“I don’t mind standing.”
The fewer things I touch, the fewer germs I will come in contact with.
I have already counted the books on her shelf. There are fifty-seven. An odd number. I search the room with my eyes trying to find one more book so it can be even. There are no more books. She has an odd number of books. I count again, verifying the information. Odd. Search. Count again. Odd. Search.
She touches my arm and I flinch. The spot feels contaminated from where she touched me.
“What are you doing?” She asks in a kind voice.
“You have an odd number of books.” I say plainly.
She gives me a funny look, like this wasn’t what she expected me to say.
Count. Odd. Search. “Don’t you have another book somewhere?”
“I don’t think so, why?”
“You have fifty-seven books. That’s an odd number and odd numbers are bad.”
She scribbled something in a notebook before looking back at me. “Why are odd numbers bad?”
“I don’t know, they just are. Are you sure you don’t have another book?”
The lovely woman reached into her desk and pulled out a book. Count. Even. Good. She set it on her desk carefully. I had to fix it for her. It wasn’t lined up properly.
She gave me another look. “Why won’t you sit on the couch? It’s got to be more comfortable than standing.”
“Other people have sat on that couch, right?”
She nodded.
“Do you clean the couch?”
“Why would I clean my couch? It’s perfectly clean.”
I felt my eyes widen.
My therapist continued to talk to me for another half hour. I didn’t really see the point of the transaction but she seemed satisfied by the end of it.
She was even nice enough to hold the door open for me so I wouldn’t have to touch the doorknob on the way out.

I liked the lines 'my mind reels' and 'my eyes widen'. They were amusing.
Short lines definitely help convey your character's emotion, but too many make it a little hard to read after awhile. Maybe you could trim down on them if you plan on adding to this? I think 3rd person would be easier on the reader.

Either way though, it was good. Insightful. Descriptive. Held my attention. It has good voice and a little undertone of funny. It's cool, I enjoyed it.

-A

I also love your sig. Btw.
=D Thought i'd let you know.

This was neat! When I first saw the length, I thought, "Aw, man, this is going to be so long". Fortunatly, it was only long length wise, not word wise

Aside from what Ares said, I have a few nit-picks.

Ring.

I had to re-read it to understand that this was a school-bell.

I don’t know what I am.


My therapist has me sit on the couch across from her desk.

I think you could have put a little more... what's the word... pause, maybe? What I mean is, I didn't get that our protagonist was at therapy until later.


Otherwise, this was really interesting! I think you would need a little more plot to continue, but if you do, please PM me!

-Tex

Thanks Ares for the complement and thanks to Texan too for the review
Haha! It rhymes

Hey! Good job writing this piece. The words were well placed and easy to read. I liked the description of the line on the chalkboard being red. Just a good descriptive thing I guess, I don't know. Anyway, good work!

Vet

Hey there fellow Greeter!
I haven't found any mistakes thus far

Anyway, that was captivating. I was clinging on to every word of the story.
It was certainly interesting to look through the eyes of someone with OCD.
Though, I thought she was autistic at the very start. Ooops.
I loved how your sentences were short and choppy,
But in the way you'd expect from someone 'mentally unsound'.
You also picked really cool situations to describe incidents of her OCD coming into place.
Brilliant! Keep up the good work!
I look forward to reading your next piece

~Have a nice day!
Meep(:

Hiya fellow blue!

Theme: Interesting theme here. You've definitely shown it well with the choppy sentences and constant reminder of things that are wrong. It's not overdone, which I like, but I think you could go deeper into such arias such as this:

I felt my eyes widen.

Why do his eyes widen?

Character: I'm enjoying this now, but I've worried that, unless you stir up some redeeming qualities to this MC or fix the prose so we're understanding his rather strange viewpoint, this will get really old, really fast.

Something that's just bugging me now is that we don't have a name or gender for your MC.

Relationship: It looks like the relationship between the therapist and your MC is going to be very important here. Add some more to that therapy session so we get a better understanding of their relationship.

And, perhaps you should introduce a few more people into this. Like how your MC interacts with his/her parents. Do the drag him/her to therapy? Does your MC freak out because they do some stuff he/she hates? How about his friends? Giving us some more characters and his/her thoughts about them will make your MC more relate-able.

Questions? PM me.

~Rosey

Thanks so much everyone!

I'll keep those things in mind rosey

So I have to say right from the start that I

This was very good - gold star.

One thing I'd like to see more of is the tension. We hear it and we know she feels it, but we don't feel it on the level we could. Yes, I'm feeling slightly OCD after reading this, but make me feel it ten-fold. Explain what happens to her body. Do her muscles feel tight? Does she clentch and unclentch her fists? I know when I get anxiety, I feel like I have to squeeze my muscles. Something about the adrenaline running through me - my muscles want to be worked. I don't have OCD, but talk to someone who does - maybe they go through something similar.

Also, this paragraph was very good:

My hand touches the doorknob as I make my break and I have to suppress a scream. It’s ten-o-clock. Three hours have passed since the start of the day. Three classes filled with people with poor sanitation and they touched this doorknob. All of those germs are now touching me. All of those germs are now on me. I swallow the bile coming up my throat and reach for the hand-sanitizer in my jacket pocket, being careful to touch as little of my jacket as possible.

Because it split things up well. It gave us a break from the constant short, quick, choppy things going on. Use this more. Short paragraphs/sentences are very effective, but make it even more effective. Allow her to ramble a few times. Let her talk freely. She may feel constrained, but maybe her mind is running because of that.

I really enjoyed this. =] Add a little more distinction to the characters - give us a feel of their gender, age, etc. - and it'll be amazing. =]

~JFW1415

Hi tnme! Here as requested! Sorry it took me so long, but I've been really busy for the past few weeks.
I've actually read this before, but couldn't find anything wrong with it. Let's hope this time around, I can actually give you a solid review, eh?

The poster is in the wrong place.

Not exactly a great hook, but it makes the reader curious and want to continue, and for that reason it works. ^^

My friends say I’m a freak.

Some friends, huh? Consider changing that to classmates.

“What are you doing?” She asks in a kind voice.

She should be lowercase.

“You have an odd number of books.” I say plainly.

The period after books needs to be a comma.


Oh dear, are those all the nit picks that I could find? You're obviously good.

However! Good can be great, and great can be better. I feel like I don't know anything about your character other than the OCD. Gender? Age? Who are they? How do they feel about all of this, besides confused and irritated?
Give her/him more emotion. As JFW said, what happens to her body? Where's the tension? Where's the tightness in her muscles, where's the tugging on her nerves?

And then there's the relationship between her/him and the therapist. Who is the therapist? What is your MC's first impression of her? What does she look like? Are there any diplomas hanging from her wall? Does she have a one-sided dimple that drives your MC crazy (it drives me mad xD)?

Overall, I think you have talent, you just need to define your characters and their interactions a little bit more. You know, flesh it out, make it clearer? That said, I have to give you a gold star now.

Okay. Brace for impact- I'm about to give a mini-lecture on OCD.
First off: do you really experience any such urges in your own reality?
If you do, I'm sorry you go through that. I've got a bit of a different sort of OCD than your MC..whose name, just realized, isn't specified, nor their gender or any sort of details about their lives other than that a-symetrical objects and odd numbers drive him/her batty.
Lol... so if you don't know much about OCD...even if you've read something about it or seen a show like, say, Monk (but don't have OCD yourself) you probably don't understand what it's like.
so, here goes my lecture... Sorry, I guess that's part of my own OCD...need to have the facts and share facts compulsively because for some reason, facts are the basic unit of my thought process.
OCD is an anxiety disorder. People with it don't always exhibit cleaning/straightening compulsions. Geesh, in fact, I have no cleaning compulsions whatsoever. my mom jokes she wishes I did. Because I am inherently disorganized, lol, that's my ADHD coming into play.
So. OCD is an anxiety disorder. Its basis isn't the compulsions, actually, but the thought process behind the compulsions. It's sort of a cause-effect relationship.
Person has a bad thought (the cause of anxiety) and performs a ritual (such as straightening) to (temporarily) relieve the anxiety. Except the anxiety keeps coming back and to lessen the discomfort, the person is forced to perform the ritual again. And again. And again...
In my experience with OCD, (which has been h-e you know what) the anxiety is the real problem, not the compulsions. I don't actually have a lot of compulsions, but that's not to say that other people with OCD are the same. Your MC demonstrates the most well-known presentation of the disorder, which is pretty much the constant straightening and discomfort about things in the environment that are 'off' in a way that causes emotional discomfort (sometimes more like pain.)
What I'd like to see in this story is the anxiety. Not just the constant urge to straighten. But the actual worry. An example would be 'if I don't kill the germs on my hands RiGhT NoW, I will become sick and die and oh no, I do not want to die! Please, I don't want to die...gotta get the hand santizer, but what if that is contaminated as well...I don't want to die, don't want to die..."
Show the fear and the anxiety. Not so much the repetitive behavior. The emotion is the real experience people with the disorder have. Not so much the rituals.
A suggestion for why she straightens: she thinks something bad will happen (it will fall and hit her on the head, it will cause a car wreck or hurt someone she loves, etc) if the odd number isn't fixed to a 'good' even number.
Summary: focus on the worry, not the behavior. Or at least focus equally on both. The emotional pain is what drives people with OCD to seek treatment. Plus: don't make her psychologist clueless. Mental health professionals are well accustomed to the straightening compulsions and contamination fears that are the trademark (at least in popular culture portrayal) of OCD. But it's actually much more than that.
It's a disorder that terrorizes the patient from the inside-out and leaves them feeling trapped and desperate. From my experience, it can literally take over your life. make you feel sick and alone, unsure and helpless. Those are the real problems that cause the outwards behaviors. Focus on that, and I'll have to say, you're done a good job portraying the ReAlItY of OCD.
PS: go to my portfolio or my 'favorites/featured pieces' and click on 'Autism, OCD, Tourette's A misunderstood truth' article that has a section (factual) on OCD. And maybe look at the 'support group' that's listed under groups here at YWS to read about OCD and other anxiety disorders from the real people who live with them every day of their lives.
My point is, get the facts. And write using facts to give your story depth and meaning to a group of people who actually have the disorder your MC does.

Hah! I loved this. OCD to the max. I have a friend like that and it's hilarious to mess with her. Great job.

I really enjoyed this. For some reason, it reminds me of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, even though that was about a boy with autism. You really got into his head and the short sentences were very effective, particularly "Count. Odd. Search." and "Count. Even. Good."

I just have one quick suggestion:

She gives me a funny look, like this wasn’t what she expected me to say.

If she is one of the best therapists in the area, she should be very experienced in dealing with all kinds of disorders, including OCD. So she really shouldn't be surprised by anything he does or says.

That's all I have to say. I hope you continue with this story. I look forward to reading more.