Young Writers Society

A/N: So, this is a contest entry hopefully, for the contest, The Beginning of the End, so it's supposed to be 250 words, with the same beginning and ending word. I could use some help with it. I know it's really lame, and i super suck at writing short stories, so I wrote this as a challenge. Also because of the 250 word limit, it's even worse. Anyway, any advice would be great

Oh, and sorry about the formatting, there were indents and things where there are supposed to be, but when I posted it, it looked like how it is now. I don't know how to fix it.




“Breathe. Just breathe. Everything’ll be okay.” Tiffany didn’t understand the irony of what she was saying. I heaved out the most convincing breath of air I could muster and tried to remember what it was supposed to be like. I glanced over at her to see if she was buying my fake release of breath.

Tiffany had been my best friend since kindergarten, but ever since three years ago she’d seemed to become so naïve. I knew that was only from my perspective, though. Because of my Change.

I looked down at the paper in my hands. She seemed to think it was so important. To me, it was just a piece of paper. College had once been important to me, too, but it had become like a joke now.

“I’m gonna go get some air.” I gave a half-smile and got to my feet. She mistook my reason for wanting to get away and touched my arm understandingly. I let the paper fall to the table and she resumed my act of staring at it.

Stepping out the front door, I let the cool air brush over me. The sound of laughter caught my attention and I noticed a couple going seemingly nowhere but to enjoy each others company. They were happy. Happiness still existed in the world. Real, pure happiness. If they could have it, I could somehow find it, too, right?

The thought gave me hope and, for a minute, it felt almost like I could breathe.

It's not lame, and you're a fantastic writer.
I like how you gave all the description of what she was going through, and let the suspense hang by not telling us the reason why she couldn't breathe until halfway through.
The only thing i'm going to say that's not positive, is you don't elaborate on what 'the Change' is. It seems pretty important since it's capitolised, though.......
All in all, good story. Hope you win.

Hello TaylaChase,

I know it's really lame, and i super suck at writing short stories, so I wrote this as a challenge. Also because of the 250 word limit, it's even worse.

You doubt yourself way to much, this was honestly an awesome story and far from lame. It is especially good since you have the word limit and in truth I am actually jealous of this piece of writing and aspire to write something as good as this! Okay now on with the review, I can only hope that it matches the incredibly high quality of this short story! Please don't take any of the constructive criticism personally or offensively I honestly thought this was an amazing bit of work!

First of all I think you need to simplify some of this. There are so many things started in this but the reader doesn't get many answers and it is quite frustrating to read a story and then not find out how all of the problems end up either being resolved or forgotten. A lot of it wasn't easy to understand because with this limited space you need to leave out all of the complicated plots and just focus on one particular event or an emotion or a general description. Otherwise stories that have a word limit often end up confusing.

There are also a few grammar problems but I won't go over those. I think you can go over yourself and fix all of those small errors. I assure you they are very small but still unmistakeably there. I think you just going over and looking for things that don't make sense or could be more clear then try and rephrase it so that it does then it would look more professional.

My favorite lines would definitely have to be

She mistook my reason for wanting to get away and touched my arm understandingly. I let the paper fall to the table and she resumed my act of staring at it.

It was interesting how you told a million tings about the main character and their friend with that line and

Happiness still existed in the world. Real, pure happiness. If they could have it, I could somehow find it, too, right?

I liked how you asked a question rather than stating a fact.

Overall this was a really neat poem and I don't have any other criticism it was a very good story and I recommend you writing more of these 250 word stories. I bet you will get better and better as you go along and it is good practice for story writing skills! If you have any questions about this review or you would like a review on another work then please PM me and I will get back to you as soon as possible! Keep up the excellent writing and I will have my eye out for your name!

From DreamingForever

Good start, but for a short story this really leaves to much out. I know you only have 250 words, but...
I was way confused. Your main character talks about a 'change' when this really is not explained at all. Basically, it would have been best if you didn't have this at all and just make it about a girl going to college. Or, of course, you could leave the change part in and just go more into depth.
Overall, good idea, and i really hope you continue it!

I really liked this, but like the previous comments, I believe you should have elaborate on "The Change". Overall, I thought that it was nice, since you didn't start off with anything huge or dramatic, it was subtle, yet suspenseful. Don't doubt yourself and deliver your stories proudly! You are a good writer, just have faith and give more details. Well, that's about it, hope this helps!

There is an art to shorter stories like these, just as there is in poetry and novels. Their goal is not as complex as, say, developing a character, or some long winded plot, both of which are exclusive to longer prose. In fact, I think they're more like poetry than anything else - not because of the way they're written, obviously, but rather because of the messages they should endeavor to convey. Here are some guidelines I had made for myself when I was interested in writing shorter stories:

1. As a three hundred-or-less-word story is much too short to be able to secondary plot or conflict aside from the main one, the storyline should be very straightforward; that is, there should be no "forks in the road" aside from incidental ones. You will find that there simply is not enough space to develop the story in any direction but forward.

2. There should be no characters save the main one, and it is in some cases wise to remove even them. People in short stories should generally be nothing but tools that are being utilized to convey a message. When personality begins to frame a character, the message becomes muddled with irrelevant information. If you wish to create a character, create one. That'll be enough.

3. There has to be a general atmosphere attached to the story. Simply stated, there is too little room for a drastic change in tempo. There must be a subtle one, or else any moral, if you will, would be nonexistent; however, profound ones are far too distracting.

With these rules in mind, let's analyze your story.

Previous reviewers have brought up the issue of Narrator's "Change." What is this "Change," and why should we care about it? You never mention it again, which naturally causes a slight irritation as the reader exits the story. It is, in truth, a neglected mystery. This in mind, it is clear that it should be discarded. You also say something about a paper; this raises the same problem, which should be solved likewise.

Alright. Frankly, I don't care about Tiffany. I don't care whether you went to Kindergarten with her or if she's suddenly become really naïve because both have nothing to do with the actual story, as far as I can see. You must drop the novel mentality when dealing with characters here! If you keep everything relevant, you'll find that two hundred fifty words is quite enough space to orchestrate your story.

Another thing I noticed was that the message of the story was quite tenuous. The moral has to do with finding happiness, right? You're going to need much more justification. At the end you suggest the Narrator had been shrouded in depression, but I didn't see enough of that. Use the space you'll be left with after removing

Tiffany had been my best friend since kindergarten, but ever since three years ago she’d seemed to become so naïve. I knew that was only from my perspective, though. Because of my Change.

I looked down at the paper in my hands. She seemed to think it was so important. To me, it was just a piece of paper. College had once been important to me, too, but it had become like a joke now.

to develop and back up this sadness a bit more.

And that'll be it. Hope this helped!

-Kafka

First off, don't put yourself down! My writing teacher used to yell at me every week for saying I was bad at something. Everyone has different writing abilities, but when someone tries something they've never tried before, that's never bad!

Okay, on to the review. I don't know if the contest has already ended, but here's my advice:

When you work on re-writing your story, forget the word limit for now. You are hindered from thinking creatively if you're worried about a word count. You can go back and slim down the story after you've figured out exactly what you want to say.

The first "paragraph" is good!
The next lines need some work though.

"Tiffany had been my best friend since kindergarten, but ever since three years ago she’d seemed to become so naïve. I knew that was only from my perspective, though. Because of my Change."

"but every since three years ago she'd seemed to become so naïve." This is unnecessarily wordy. You might want to try something like "but three years ago, she'd started to be so naive."

"I knew that was only from my perspective, (really, there shouldn't be a comma here)though. Because of my Change." This is a good "hook" to get readers interested, but because it's a short story, you need to give readers a glimpse of what's happening. You don't have to explain outright, but a hint would be nice.

"College had once been important to me too, but it had become like a joke now" Again more words than you need.
Try " College had once been important to me too, but now it was a joke"

Everything after that seems good, no problems I notice.
Just a note for the future; try to avoid using "seemed" when talking about personal opinion. You know your opinion, therefore it IS, it doesn't SEEM.

Great piece of work, I've seen better and I've seen worse, so don't feel like you are bad at writing short stories.

Sage

Like the other reviewers, I don't know why you'd think of your writing as lame. It's pretty good and this particular piece of writing is thought inspiring but vague, which I love!
Perhaps the two-hundred-and-fifty word count limited you in a way, but I like the result because of the thoughts I imagine are behind the words.

"Breathe. Just breathe. Everything’ll be okay.” - An exciting start, my immediate reaction was an image of CPR.

"Tiffany had been my best friend since kindergarten, but ever since three years ago she’d seemed to become so naïve. I knew that was only from my perspective, though." - Bit of background information is always good.

"I looked down at the paper in my hands. She seemed to think it was so important. To me, it was just a piece of paper. College had once been important to me, too, but it had become like a joke now." - Love how you don't confirm what the paper is exactly, leaving the reader in curiosity.

"Happiness still existed in the world. Real, pure happiness. If they could have it, I could somehow find it, too, right?" - Really didn't like this part actually, it was a little cliche and borderline cheesy. But that's just me.

"It felt almost like I could breathe." - You reimbursed my enjoyment here, as I like how you don't say "I could breathe," therefore your character doesn't reach full reform from his lack of breath in the little words you were allowed.

This was good, thanks. One thing I will say is, that I say to most, is to try not to go down the cliche path. Although it might be slightly hypocritical of me to say, as everyone does it a little, but I really dislike unoriginality. The happiness thing was only a minor flaw, and I guess it was necessary. So overall, I like this!