Young Writers Society

Ginny used to be normal; a petite girl with big dreams. She yearned to be a big time actress. Above all she just wanted to be perceived as a dazzling girl who everyone wanted to be friends with.

So, the question is : How did she end up dirty, abandoned and drained of life in an alleyway? It could of been the reach for her dreams that made her fall so low, or maybe Ginny was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It was 1960. The Cold War was raging on, and John F. Kennedy was in office. Ginny sat on her roof, still a mere child the age of 13, playing with her rag doll. Ignorant children ran around the street laughing. The wind swirled around her, causing her hair to fly up in the wind. She could vaguely hear the show, Bewitched, coming from her mother's room.

Ginny’s parents were shouting at each other. They had been fighting like this for years now, and she knew they never paid attention to her when they were fighting. She would always sneak on to the roof. The moon would smile down at her illuminating the night sky. It was her favorite thing about night.
Imagining the moon was her protector, Ginny could go anywhere at night with out becoming afraid. She would often sneak out to the bakery on Main Street that always had some one making delicious, warm bread.
Ginny skidded down the edge of the roof to where the gutter was and jumped off on to the dog house she had purposely move there.
“ Thats it! Im done. You perverse our child with your cussing, drinking, and smoking. Then you have the nerve to blame me. Was I the one who wasted all the money last Christmas too?” A door slammed.
The neighborhood kids scattered like bomb was going to hit. Ginny’s dad stormed out of the house, suitcase in hand. In a flash he was in his car and driving down the street.
Ginny ran after his small car screaming, “Dad!” her brown hair flying in the wind. He never looked back, and that was the last time she saw him turning the corner on to Louis Street.


“ Mom! Im home.” Ginny screamed. There was no answer. “Okay, its safe. She is probably drunk; passed out in her room.”
“ Man, thats awesome. You must get away with everything.” Lindsay whispered as they tip toed down stairs to Ginny’s room.
“ Right...” Ginny laughed. She knew all to well how untrue that was. It defiantly was not awesome. Most days she would come to her broken mother screaming about anything that made her a wretched, old sob. Ginny held back the tears that threatened to run over her eye lids.
They had reached her room, and intruded it. Ginny pulled out a bottle of only the “finest” vodka. Which in all reality meant the cheap stuff. Her mother would not even notice it was gone.
“ Dude you have your own TV in your room? So lucky. I wish I had your life.” Lindsay was Ginny’s blissfully dense friend. They met a month ago at school. The only day that Ginny decided to show up to school, and had not since.
“ Can you hand me a cig. They are in the draw. ” Ginny opened the bottle of vodka and took a sip. She was not fond of the drinking thing, but she thought it would make her look good in front of her only friend.
“ Sure.” Lindsay tossed Ginny the pack of cigarets and clicked the big power button on the TV, causing it to light up.
“ In recent news John F. Kennedy was assassinated today during the Presidential motorcade by a fatal shot. His killer remains at large.”
“ Depressing.” Ginny mumbled, lighting up her cigarette.
For an hour Lindsay and Ginny took turns taking swigs from the bottle of vodka. In a drunken stupor they lit cigarettes and dropped them on the floor after only a few takes.
“ Hey Gin.”
“ Yeah Lin?”
“You got some thing on your face.” Lindsay leaned over to wipe it off, lost her footing, and fell on top of Ginny. Her cigarette landed in the blankets on the bed. “Whoops.” Lindsay giggled.
Ginny laughed. Her mind was in a fog, everything seemed hilarious to her. Thats when Lindsay’s lips connected with hers and she found her self swept up in the moment. Everything was a haze and seemed to blend together, in Ginny’s mind.
Shortly after Ginny realized what was really happening. “ What are you doing?” She pushed Lindsay off her. “What the crap, Lindsay!” Ginny backed away from Lindsay.
“What? I was just joking around.”
“Well, it was not funny Lindsay!”
“ Ok! Sorry.” Lindsay looked ashamed. “Gin, do you smell smoke? I mean, a lot of smoke.”
On the bed a fire had become apparent and was reducing the sheets into ashes. It had already become to big for the girls to quench. They shrieked and ran into obstacles whilst trying to get out of the room.
Once out side Ginny realized she left her mother up stairs. She ran back towards the house which was already letting off enormous amounts of smoke into the now polluted air. Lindsay grabbed her, “What are you doing?”
“My moms in there!” Ginny cried.
Sirens screamed down the street.
“The firemen will get her Ginny! Don’t you dare go in there, you’ll die!”
“She is my mom!” However, by the time Ginny had gotten out of Lindsay’s grasp, the firemen had come and were holding her back.
Ginny watched in tears as the fire caused the roof she had loved to cave in. Firemen were busy all around her. One of them, a bulky young man, came out of Ginny’s house carrying a middle aged woman.
They lay the stiff, motionless body of the woman on a stretcher. Paramedics whispered to each other before coming over to Ginny.
“Your mother was already gone before the fire started.” The man had a dismayed look on his face and would not look her in the eyes. “ We did all we could, but its no use. We called social services and they will be here shortly to pick you up till you can be brought in for questioning.” Ginny noticed how the man was telling her all the bad stuff, like ripping off a bandaid, and after he told her the sting was plainly there. The man walked back over to consult the other men.
“ Gin,” A voice squeaked behind her, “ I know your in a lot of pain, but if we don’t get out of her now who knows what will happen to you.” It was Lindsay.
“ I know...” Ginny tremors , “lets go.”
Two bus tickets later Ginny and Lindsay were out of Hereford, Texas and on their way to Las Vegas, Nevada. The moon as their protector.


“ Ginny! This is amazing! Come look!” Lindsay stood by the hotel window gaping at all the bright lights of Las Vegas. Her blonde hair had gone past her shoulders now and she was in desperate need of a shower. Ginny and Lindsey had been off and on busses for days, and decided to save all their money so they could get a hotel room once reaching their destination.
“ I know, just let me count our money first. I don’t think we should have spent so much for one night.” Ginny had worry lines covering her face.
“ It was so worth it! Come look!”
Ginny trudged off the bed over to the window. She admired the moon before returning to her depression. “ Great. How long do you think 135 dollars will last us?”

“ Ginny, its ok! Marcus says he can maybe get you an audition for the Shakespearean play.”
“ Yeah, and what does that pay?”
“Depends what part you get.” Lindsay smiled at Ginny. She was always the positive one in the group.
“If I get one. I can not believe how quickly we ran out of money. We may have to get a job at that motel.” Ginny sat on the pavement in an dark ally the moon glowed down on her, leaving a shadow on the wall of the building.
“ But! They say the boss is a pervert!”
“ So! We will die if we can not eat, and we have already dine and dashed half of the restaurants out here! Im turning 17 next week so maybe I can get that job as waitress.” Ginny lightly banged her head again the brick wall she was leaning against. “ You know if you had not been drinking so much we would still have some money left.”
“ Hey! Thats not fair. You were drinking to!”
Ginny snorted, “ Not half as much as you.”
“Hey girls! I got it for you Ginny.” Marcus shouted. They met him at one of the bars that did not check IDs. “ You have the audition and the manager says he can not wait, he needs to fill parts now. So your it is in half an hour.”
“Your Kidding? I haven’t showered in days. I look like a hobo!” Ginny was thrilled and scared of the news.
“You are a hobo, but it does not matter. You better get over there. Now!” Marcus pushed her towards the entrance to the ally way.
“Alright!” She stumbled out into the street. She glanced back once only to see Marcus and Lindsay all over each other like pigs.
When she was almost down the street she heard Marcus call out, “ Rock it skinny, white girl! We are counting on you!”

Life is good. Ginny scribbled this down in her diary. Things have gotten so much better. Im on my way to becoming big! Oh, dairy remember last year when we could barely afford a cheap dirty motel. Now we are living with Marcus. We don’t even have to pay rent! I can’t wait for another audition. I have been in twelve plays so far! I haven’t made a lot of money, but i can afford food.
Oh, yeah. Marcus got a really good job. He won’t tell me what so I kind of just assume its better left alone. Ginny sat by the window writing in the moonlight.
Lindsay and I are closer then ever. She’s turning 18 soon, but I will be 19 in just three months! I got Lindsay the best present. A radio! Alright well Lindsay home!
“Ginny, are you writing in your girly diary again?” Lindsay yelled through Marcus’s 4th floor apartment.
“Ha, you know me so well.” Ginny smiled to her self.
Lindsay waltzed in the room and plumped down on the bed next to Ginny.
“ So, what does the Ginny Journal for today say?”
“ Nothing, just being happy about how much better life has been.”
“ Your so ridiculous. It was never that bad.”
“ Don’t you remember how we were when we met marcus? I was drunk and all over him, and you were depressed. Probably considering suicide.”
“I never considered suicide!” Lindsay seemed offended.
“Yes, you did! I remember you telling me about it.”
“ I think I would remember what I said, and you were all over Marcus when?”
“ When we met him, don’t you remember?”
“No... How dare you.”
“What? I din’t know you would like him!”
“Get out.” Lindsay glared at Ginny.
“What?”
“Leave. I can’t trust you with him.”
“It was a long time ago!”
“I don’t care!”
“ Fine!”

Ginny had just turned nineteen that very night. She lay in an ally, thinking of how badly she had screwed up with Lindsay. How life tricked her. It got so good, only to become so bad.
She lay on the dirty pavement of where she and Lindsay use to live. She had not been able to get any more auditions after breaking off communication with Lindsay and Marcus. Nobody wanted her, and there was no moon in the sky that night to watch over her. Her limbs were numb. She was slipping in and out of her own body, not able to keep consciousness.
The smell of the bakery she use to sneak off to came to her mind. If only she could be there again. The only things Ginny could smell was rotting food and dirt. She wondered could her body be rotting as well?

The moon betrayed me.

Wonderful story, i don't know about there other readers but i truly loved it.
apart minor spellings mistakes like cigarettes and buses and some apostrophes like I'm instead of im (which are details lol)
plus i personally think the ending was sudden and made much less point or maybe i just didn't understand

All in all the story was fantastic and i will be waiting for more from you as i'm one of you fans now

Hoped i helped gain some more motivation

Yours truly
- Stephene

Hey Boolovesyou. I think your new to YWS too, so welcome. This is my attempt at a review, so here I go.

I thought that this story was really interesting. Some of the time, I thought the story didn't really fit the time period, but that might have just been me. But other than that, and a couple gamma errors, I thought that the story was really good and creative. I would like to read more of your writing. Keep writing.

Thanks for the review. I just recently realized i posted the not corrected version of my story, so if I can find that corrected file i will have it up soon.

Hey Boo!

I'm sorry this is really late. School and stuff. But better late than never. ^^

So, I really liked this. I liked how it flowed and your plot.
My main complaint is that this short, has an uneven pace and you jump around time too quickly. It sort of hits you in the face the way you jump from one age to another. While I do like choppiness, I think this story would work a hell lot better if you maintained a good steady flow and good transitions. You could also split it into a few parts.
I like how you worked with the title and the instances in her life.
Plot: Pretty good. I like your portrayal.
Description: I did like your style. There were a couple of places where I think you can up it.
Character development: Now, since the MC goes through a string of ages, char developing should be worked to your advantage. You need to make the narrative grow along with the story. Right now, we get fragments of her, and I would love to see a whole picture of her. Show us more of this character. Show us her emotions, frustration, thoughts, gestures.All this will help develop the char.

Thanks for using my WRFF thread. ^^ Hope to have helped. PM me if you need anything else.

~Lava

Hey Boolovesyou, and welcome to YWS. My name is Heather, and I'll be your reviewer.

Ginny used to be normal; a little girl with big dreams. She wanted to be a big time actor. {This would be 'actress'. } Over all she just wanted to be known as a dazzling girl who everyone wanted to be friends with. {Couple things here. First off, 'overall' is one word. You also need a comma after 'Overall'. Also, she *just* wanted to be that? What I mean is, that sounds like a *big* dream, but you make it sound very minor. Maybe reword.}

So, the question is : {You don't need a space before the colon.} How did she end up dirty, forgotten and drained of life in an alleyway? It could of been the reach for her dreams that made her fall so low, or maybe Ginny was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

To be honest, this does so far sound like a little bit of a cliche story. The beginning is implying it may be a recycled plot-line, and doesn't really grab my attention. Perhaps start the story with something more interesting to try and hook the possible readers. Starting like this usually will lose a lot of your potential readers.

It was 1960. The Cold War was raging on, and John F. Kennedy was in office. Ginny sat on her roof, still a mere child the age of 13, {Perhaps change this to something along the lines of "still a mere child - at the age of 13". Better flow and grammar.} playing with her rag doll. Ignorant children ran around the street laughing. The wind swirled around her, causing her hair to fly up in the wind. She could faintly hear the show, Bewitched, {Bewitched didn't start until 1964.} coming from her mothers room.

Ginny’s parents were yelling at each other. They had been fighting like this for years now, and she knew they never payed attention to her when they were fighting. She would always sneak on to the roof. The moon would smile down at her illuminating the night sky. It was her favorite thing about night.

Imagining the moon was her protector, Ginny could go anywhere at night with out {Without is often one word.} becoming afraid. She would often sneak out to the bakery on Main Street that always had some one making delicious, warm bread.

Ginny skidded down the edge of the roof to where the gutter was and jumped off on to the dog house she had purposely move {Moved.} there.

At this point, the story is slightly more interesting. Though I still think it's easy to lose readers, since there isn't anything hookingly suspenseful or interesting going on. So far, all we've seen is a girl sitting on the roof and we've been told about her parents fighting and how she sneaks off to a bakery. It's somewhat like info-dumping. I'd rather you *show* this to us, instead of tell us all about it.

Ginny skidded down the edge of the roof to where the gutter was and jumped off on to the dog house she had purposely move there.

“ Thats it! Im done. You perverse our child with your cussing, drinking, and smoking. Then you have the nerve to blame me. Was I the one who wasted all the money last Christmas too?” A door slammed. {Wooah, there. Okay. First off, you don't need the space after the first quotation mark. Secondly, you need apostrophes in "That's" and "I'm". You also need a comma after the word "Christmas".}

The neighborhood kids scattered like bomb was going to hit. Ginny’s dad stormed out of the house, suitcase in hand. In a flash he was in his car and driving down the street.

Ginny ran after his small car screaming, “Dad!” her brown hair flying in the wind. He never looked back, and that was the last time she saw him turning the corner on to Louis Street. {In my opinion, I'm not sure a kid really would run after the car screaming. Some would, some wouldn't, I suppose. I don't think I would. Especially if I wasn't certain of the situation and if this was permanent.}

This is still somewhat uninteresting, though it does become at least slightly more interesting in the next piece. My question though, is there a time jump? It's hard to tell how far ahead this is. I also think you should have stretched this out a bit more. As in, show her run after the car and show her eventually stop in defeat. Don't just mention briefly it happened.

“ Mom! Im home.” Ginny screamed. There was no answer. “Okay, its safe. She is probably drunk; passed out in her room.” {Remove the space after the first quotation mark. Also, maybe try 'shouted' as opposed to 'screamed'. I doubt she would scream that. xD}
“ Man, thats awesome. You must get away with everything.” Lindsay whispered as they tip toed down stairs to Ginny’s room. {Once again, remove the space.}
“ Right...” Ginny laughed. She knew all to well how untrue that was. It defiantly was not awesome. {Remove the space. Also, it should be spelled "definitely", not defiantly. } Most days she would come to her broken mother screaming about anything that made her a wretched, old sob. Ginny held back the tears that threatened to run over her eye lids.
They had reached her room, and intruded it. Ginny pulled out a bottle of only the “finest” vodka. Which in all reality meant the cheap stuff. Her mother would not even notice it was gone.
“{The space.} Dude you have your own TV in your room? So lucky. I wish I had your life.” Lindsay was Ginny’s blissfully dense friend. They met a month ago at school. The only day that Ginny decided to show up to school, and had not since.
“ Can you hand me a cig. They are in the draw. ” {You can remove the extra spaces both the quotation marks have. Also, it's a kind of confusing sentence. I'd put 'drawer' if I were you.} Ginny opened the bottle of vodka and took a sip. She was not fond of the drinking thing, but she thought it would make her look good in front of her only friend.
“ Sure.” Lindsay tossed Ginny the pack of cigarets {Unneeded space after quotation. Also, Spelled: cigarettes.} and clicked the big power button on the TV, causing it to light up.  
“ In recent news John F. Kennedy was assassinated today during the Presidential motorcade by a fatal shot. His killer remains at large.”
“ Depressing.” Ginny mumbled, lighting up her cigarette.  
For an hour Lindsay and Ginny took turns taking swigs from the bottle of vodka. In a drunken stupor they lit cigarettes and dropped them on the floor after only a few takes.
“ Hey Gin.”  
“ Yeah Lin?”
“You got some thing on your face.” Lindsay leaned over to wipe it off, lost her footing, and fell on top of Ginny. Her cigarette landed in the blankets on the bed. “Whoops.” Lindsay giggled.
Ginny laughed. Her mind was in a fog, everything seemed hilarious to her. Thats {Should be "That's".} when Lindsay’s lips connected with hers and she found her self swept up in the moment. Everything was a haze and seemed to blend together, in Ginny’s mind.
Shortly after Ginny realized what was really happening. “ What are you doing?” She pushed Lindsay off her. “What the crap, Lindsay!” Ginny backed away from Lindsay. {Okay, Ginny's first dialogue line should be separated from the description before it. }
“What? I was just joking around.”  
“Well, it was not funny Lindsay!” 
“ Ok! Sorry.” Lindsay looked ashamed. “Gin, do you smell smoke? I mean, a lot of smoke.”  
On the bed a fire had become apparent and was reducing the sheets into ashes. It had already become to big for the girls to quench. They shrieked and ran into obstacles whilst trying to get out of the room. {I'd reword this entire piece to make it flow better.}

I really think you skip scenes too quickly. I'd suggest that between these two pieces, you actually write what goes on as they try to escape the burning house. You could talk about the smoke and how it felt for them to breathe it. You could talk about the fire spreading as they turned the door knob, etc. It makes it easier to follow along with the story, too.

Once out side {One word.} Ginny realized she left her mother up stairs. {Also one word.} She ran back towards the house which was already letting off enormous amounts of smoke into the now polluted air. Lindsay grabbed her, “What are you doing?”

“My moms in there!” Ginny cried.

Sirens screamed down the street. {I suggest perhaps having this attached to the prior line. There really isn't any need to place this on it's own line.}

“The firemen will get her Ginny! {Put a comma after 'her'.} Don’t you dare go in there, you’ll die!”

“She is my mom!” However, by the time Ginny had gotten out of Lindsay’s grasp, the firemen had come and were holding her back. {This was very quick. I suggest actually writing it out as it happens, instead of jumping to the firemen being there. Show us when she breaks away, just to get pulled back by the new arrivals.}

Ginny watched in tears as the fire caused the roof she had loved to cave in. Firemen were busy all around her. One of them, a bulky young man, came out of Ginny’s house carrying a middle aged woman.

They lay the stiff, motionless body of the woman on a stretcher. Paramedics whispered to each other before coming over to Ginny.

“Your mother was already gone before the fire started.” {I'm not sure they could certainly determine that that quickly and without the proper testing. Just a note.} The man had a dismayed look on his face and would not look her in the eyes. “ We did all we could, but its no use. We called social services and they will be here shortly to pick you up till you can be brought in for questioning.” Ginny noticed how the man was telling her all the bad stuff, like ripping off a bandaid, and after he told her the sting was plainly there. {All the bad stuff? What *good* stuff would there even be in this situation?} The man walked back over to consult the other men.

“ Gin,” A voice squeaked behind her, “ I know your in a lot of pain, but if we don’t get out of her now who knows what will happen to you.” It was Lindsay.

“ I know...” Ginny tremors , {You went from past-tense to present.} “lets go.”

Two bus tickets later Ginny and Lindsay were out of Hereford, Texas and on their way to Las Vegas, Nevada. The moon as their protector. {I know you mentioned earlier how the moon was special to Ginny for certain reasons earlier - but this comment still seems out of place.}

Really, from this point on, it's mostly just the same mistakes. Perhaps look at the things I corrected and apply them to the rest of the story yourself. ^^

Overall:

I think this story could use a lot of work. It isn't horrible, but it can certainly improve. One of the main things you should do is run it through a spelling and grammar checker, which, if you have a writing program like Open Office or Microsoft Word, there should be one built in. I also believe this story has a lot of plot-holes. For starters, why don't the officials go looking for Ginny? They could find her if they wanted, I'm sure. And what about Lindsay's parents? They would likely file a missing person report and she would be reported and found along with Ginny.

You also skipped through scenes much too quickly. You only briefly mentioned what happened most of the time, before going on again. It's boring and confusing. Let us see things as they happen! Towards the end, I think it was somewhat unrealistic the way Lindsay acted towards Ginny, kicking her our over that. Especially when they've been together as long as they had. Just go over this story for stuff like that, and keep writing!

Key Points to Improve Upon:

Grammar

Realistic Reactions

Showing the Story

Info-Dumping

Plot Holes


Good luck, feel free to ask me for any reviews or let me know if anything I said didn't make sense to you.

~Heather

Intriguing and provocative theme. It appears to me that you had a good idea what the story was about and how it'd start, climax, and end but you failed to take the time to lay the story out in an attractive fashion. The speed of the story goes from flowing smoothly to suddenly tripping and skipping, like a scratched CD. Take a lot more time to fill out the scenes and explore openly the feelings and emotions of Ginny.