Christmas Boyfriend

All I want for Christmas… (A short story)

'What do you want for Christmas Loretta?' My best friend Sam asked me as we walked on the snow-covered gravel into town.
'I don't know, ummm... nothing really,' I replied
'Come on, you have to want something, anything.'
'I don't know! What do you want?' I asked
'Ummm... I don’t know.'
'Come on, you have to want something, anything,' I mimicked.
'Shut up, okay, it’s harder than I thought to think up presents you want! Never mind, I cant wait until Christmas!' He said with a big smile on his face. 'Hey, do you want to play a game?'
'Sure, what do you wanna play?'
'If you could have any present in the world, what would you get.'
I should have lied. I should have said 'A makeover' or 'to meet Beyoncé Knowles', but no, I answered truthfully without thinking, it just... slipped out.
'A boyfriend.'
You cant tell your best MALE friend that you want a boyfriend, and why? Because they laugh.
'Ha ha! Ha ha ha! No way! Ha ha!'
'Okay shut up Sam! What do you want for Christmas then, if you had the choice of anything in the world?'
'A girlfriend.'
I looked at him for a second, was he serious?
No, stupid me thinking he was! He burst out laughing right away, no he didn't want a girlfriend, or if he did, he's not stupid enough, like me, to go telling people. I walked faster to get away from him, my toes getting freezing from all the slush on the curb.
'Loretta, look I was just kidding, come on, I need to get my little sister a present.'
Now, for people who don’t know Sam's little sister, I’ll tell you something about her. She is the sweetest thing in the world! This morning, I went to call for Sam to head off to town and Megan, Sam's sister, opened the door, gave me a big hug, invited me inside and showed me a picture she had drawn of me the night before. The picture said: 'Loretta, my best friend.' How cute is that!
I knew I would have to get Megan a present, so as me and Sam were walking to the toy shop, I walked past a little shop I had never noticed before and saw the most beautiful thing I have ever seen!
I stopped in awe and looked in the shop window. Sam realised I had stopped and came to my side.
'Do you like that necklace?' he asked and pointed to the gorgeous necklace that had stopped me dead in my tracks. It was studded with blue and silver diamantes, twisted into a Celtic heart shape. It was beautiful.
'Yes' I answered. 'It's stunning.'
'Do you want to change your answer from boyfriend to pretty necklace?' Sam joked.
'No I don’t.' I replied. 'Because if I had a boyfriend, he would buy it for me,' and with that, I continued walking to the toyshop.

Before I knew it, time had crept up on me and it was Christmas Eve. Luckily, I had managed to finish my Christmas shopping; I had even managed to get Sam a present, a Liverpool shirt and a CD of his favourite band 'The Fourgotten'. I can’t wait to get my present off him! Sam and I always exchange gifts on Christmas Eve and today was no different.
I went over to Sam's house and Megan answered the door.
'LORETTA!' She squealed and enveloped me in a hug.
'Hey Megan, here's your present! Go put it under the tree okay?'
'Okay!' she said. 'Sam's upstairs you can go up and see him if you want.'
'Thanks Megan.' I walked upstairs and knocked on Sam's door. 'Sam? It's Loretta, can I come in?'
'Yeah sure.'
I walked in and saw him in his computer; he flicked off the monitor, went to his wardrobe and pulled out a present wrapped with silver wrapping paper and a blue ribbon. I handed his present over and we started a countdown as we always do.
'One... two... THREE!'
I undid the ribbon and tore off the wrapping paper to find a navy blue box. I pulled open the top and saw the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
I looked up at Sam's face. He smiled and whispered 'thanks for the gifts they're great! Is something wrong with yours?' I guess he probably asked because my jaw was scraping the carpet right now.
'I... umm,' I swallowed and looked down at the necklace I had in my hand. The necklace from the shop window. 'I was just expecting this gift from a boyfriend, I guess.'
He looked at me and smiled and said 'what am I not good enough for you? I got you everything you wanted didn't I?'
Now, I was so shocked that Sam had just spent £50 on my present for this necklace that I didn't quite intake what he said. 'What?' I asked.
'Loretta, would you be my girlfriend?'
'Yes, of course Sam.'
'Great, now let me put that necklace on you.' He lifted my hair and put on my necklace for me. I could feel his breath on my neck, I was so happy. I had gotten everything I wanted, the most beautiful necklace in the world, and the kindest, most loving boyfriend in the world! Put together, makes this the best Christmas in the world!

Awww... This was really sweet. I could kind of tell where it was going from the beginning (the storyline was a little predictable) but it was so cute.

'K, a couple of things:

Quotations should be flanked with the *drum roll* quotation marks. The two mark thingy. (" ta da!) The single mark (the apostrophe) should only be used when doing contractions (like don't and can't and the like) and with quotes within a quote.

(ex. Becky was sobbing.

"He told me to leave. 'Go away!' is what he said. He's never yelled at me before.")

See? (ignore the melodramatic setting of example...)

'What do you want for Christmas, Loretta?' My best friend Sam asked me...

A comma belongs between "Christmas" and "Loretta". Also, when using a dialogue tag, the period or other punctuation at the end of a sentence of dialogue becomes a comma and the first letter of the tag is lowercase.

(ex. "You're my best friend," Carly purred as she wrapped her arm around Kelly's waist.)

With a question, it becomes a little awkward, since the question mark is the thing that makes the reader recognize a question as such. I find that the best remedy for this is to either put the dialogue tag in front of the question:

(ex. Chris had started whining. "Why can't I stay out an hour longer?")

or (in a case similar to yours, when the tag is actually a long sentence) to just slightly tweak it so that it isn't a tag anymore. To rewrite yours:

"What do you want for Christmas, Loretta?" My best friend Sam and I were walking down the snow-covered gravel into town. I blinked at his question.

See? We still know it is a question, and we know that Sam is speaking. All without a defined dialogue tag. *whoot*

You can't tell your best MALE friend that you want a boyfriend, and why?

I'd get rid of the all-caps for "male" and instead make it italicized. You still get the emphasis on the word and italics look a bit more elegant than all-caps. It's emphasis rather than screaming.

Same thing here.

'One... two... THREE!'

Also, with this baby up above, you say that they are having a countdown, but then they count up. Their saying "three...two...one" would fit the more conventional notion of a countdown

'LORETTA!'

Here I realize that the little girl is screaming (see upper note about emphasis, not screaming), but the all-caps are still a bit inappropriate. In a casual e-mail, all-caps would be great for getting across excited or angry shouting, but in a "formal" setting (since others are going to read it) it is best to go with the lower-key notion and just have the exclamation point at the end. I know that it feels less frantic, but it looks a bit better.

my toes getting freezing from all the slush

I think "cold" would be a better choice of words than "freezing" in the way you have it written.

No I don’t.' I replied.

There's that comma thing again I was talking about. A rewrite would look like: "No, I don't," I replied.

He looked at me and smiled and said 'what am I not good enough for you? I got you everything you wanted didn't I?'

I think this is done correctly, but it feels a bit awkward. I'd play it safe punctuation-wise and make it read a bit better by cutting it up just a smidge.

He looked at me and smiled. "What? Am I not good enough for you? I got you everything you wanted, didn't I?"

Last one:

I had gotten everything I wanted, the most beautiful necklace in the world, and the kindest, most loving boyfriend in the world! Put together, makes this the best Christmas in the world!

This could be edited a teensy bit for punctuation and repetition:

I had gotten everything I wanted: (colon) the most beautiful necklace and the kindest, most loving boyfriend in the world! Put together, they made this the best Christmas ever!

You used "in the world" three times in the unedited version and it got a little repetitive. By smoothing it out, it reads a lot better and the emphasis is still there.

Very, very nice. It was short, simple and sweet. Maybe it could have had a little more description to flesh it out, but it read really well even without it.

*thumbs up* Great stuff.

Welcome to YWS!

~GryphonFledgling

Luvzi12 wrote:All I want for Christmas… (A short story)

I undid the ribbon and tore off the wrapping paper to find a navy blue box.

I think it should be untied the ribbon...It just sounds a little better.



I agree with Gryphon - it is really sweat! I think she got most of the errors. I just had to point that one out...

But I really liked it. Keep writing!

Lydia wrote: I think it should be untied the ribbon...It just sounds a little better.

Thanks! I knew that didn't sound right

Well, that was a nice story.

I enjoyed reading it up to the end.

Alright, it seems that the mistakes I spotted have been pointed out.
So, I've got no mistakes to point out. Which means, all I've got for you is...

Praise for your story. (I'm not kidding!)

Really, I mean it. It was really sweet.

PM me when you post another story. I'd love to read it.

-Max.

Okay first of all, you, like said above, need to include "quotation marks" for speech!

I like this story! It's... sweet... predictable but sweet! Now at the moment it feels like its missing something, and if you really wanted this to become so much better, you should add more 'meat to the bones' as my ancient history teacher always tells me. If you review each sentance and think 'what can they possibly be thinking or doing or maybe saying' and add it. throw down ideas, because this is a very heavily used idea for so many stories i've read!

You've got good characters. But readers like to know their characters, what they look like, that sort of thing. Describe his hair colour, her hair colour, eye colour, skin tones (maybe?), what they wear, if skinny/chunky/muscly/anorexic etc, if they have long or short hair, that sort of thing.

The scene is set well. There is minimul description but you nailed the scene, and i can imagine a snowy street with slush and the feeling of my feet slowly getting soggier and soggier.
Then again, for somebody who's never experienced that, your setting is going to be utterly worthless. Sorry to sound mean here, i don't want to be, but you should always think of your target audience. It's not rated R it's G so a younger audience on here (probably only 13/14 lowest maybe i am wrong) will see it. Many might not know what it feels like.

What happens is good but you're rushing to get to the point. When she gives Sam his present and they swap it's all over so soon. Don't worry i do that ALL the time if i have a good idea and trying to throw down some random stuff to fill in up to that point, you should draft it and review it when you're no longer thinking of the end result, and add in extras

Good effort. With a little more work this could be a great story! But it's a real 'awww' story now, which is perfectly fine. Good effort!

I see someone has already pointed out your grammatical errors so I won't worry with that. I absolutely loved the story! It was sooo sweet! When I saw the title I was worried it would be the same as the movie A Boyfriend for Christmas, but this was WAY better.

it was a really nice story, I really liked it, it just kept me on reading. You made a few mistakes tought
Quote:
You cant tell your best MALE friend that you want a boyfriend, and why?
I think you mean that's why you CAN'T ...hahahah but it's okay, it can happen to everyone
well, I have to say, as much as I liked the story, the ending was really disappointing, I mean, I really like the became BF/GF, but it was just so weird when she said she was expecting the gift from a boyfriend, also, you never mention that Loretta saw Sam as more than a friend, it would have been nice if you showed that Loretta like Sam
Well, just a few thoughts, but overall I really liked it

This is indeed a very nice and cute story! I'm a little late on the critique, since it seems everyone has caught the grammatical errors.

Personally, I thought it was nice to see something like this. Nothing too complex, but simple and innocent.

I agree with dianis97, and think the story could be improved by showing Loretta's emotions/feelings towards Sam. You don't want the reader to think she can just be bought.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable read. I really think this makes a wonderful short story.

Thanks for the comments everyone! They mean a lot, I love that everyone takes time out to comment and offer advice, thank you all so much!

Luvzi12-

Okay, so first off..You really need to work on SHOWING us your story..not TELLING. Expand, expand, expand. Your sentences read kind of like the spot books. See spot. See spot run. You get the point.

Second, the story was very predictable (readers dont always want to know EXACTLY whats going to happen at the end) and very very cliche. It also seems very unnatural and unreal. You need to explain the relationships between these two characters, because, in my opinion at least, it seems very silly that Loretta would just mention she wanted a boyfriend and then all of sudden Sam asks her. It just doesn't fit together very well.

I would keep working on this piece. Expand, Develop your story line a little bit better and add depth to your characters.