Young Writers Society

A/N: This story has been rated for mention of female reproductive organs. If you lived through human anatomy class, you should be able to come through this story unscathed. Just a little warning. I rated it WAAY on the safe side. Enjoy!

Miss Wendy Oppel. Even her name sounds organized and proper. She leaves at exactly 6:30 every morning for the gym. At eight o’clock she leaves the gym (still looking like she just stepped off the red carpet) for the bookstore. On Tuesdays, she stays until noon because there is usually a reading of sorts. Otherwise, she leaves at 11 o’clock with a few books. If it is under five, then they are chick lit. and I am free. But if there are more than five, then she is researching a new project and I would do well to do some research myself. Did you know that when you blush, the lining of your stomach flushes red too? Not every person you meet knows that, now do they?

“Driver? Are you prepared to leave?” Wendy asks. I reply,

“Yes, Miss Wendy. Do you wish to depart immediately?”

“Of course, if it is most convenient.” That’s Wendy-code for ‘Yes. Now.’

“Right away miss.” That is the extent of our conversation. When we are stuck in gridlock, I fantasize about striking up a conversation with her. We would start with something mundane, and it would progress to us passionately arguing a point. She would enquire about my life, and I would tell her about my dying mother and my brother overseas. She would feel pity for me, and attempt to comfort me. I would accept it and hold back my tears. She would see me as a many-layered person, and come to want me as more than a driver. We would be friends for a time, and I would then nudge it along to something less in the vein of friends and more in the vein of lovers. We would come to care for each other deeply, and be married within the year.

But alas, this all is but a fantasy. I know that the universe has cast us together for a purpose. How to make Wendy see that, however, is the great challenge. Wow! All that poetic stuff must be rubbing off on me. Interesting…

“Driver…” I hear from the back seat. This is a new development in our daily routine. We are at a red light, so I turn to Wendy. She is gazing out the window again. I say,

“Yes Miss Wendy?” She says nothing. I am once again stunned by her exceptional beauty. Either it is the gym or the dermatologist, but she looks as stunning as ever. I reply again,

“Did you say something Miss Wendy?” She turns back to me and says,

“Yes, I did. I was wondering, what is your name?” This is it, our first real conversation! I clear my throat and say,

“Stephen Hall, Miss Wendy.” She nodded and returned to staring out her window. Without another look at me she says,

“You fancy me, don’t you Stephen?” I swallow my cowardice and say,

“Yes, Miss Wendy.” She turns to face the back of the front passenger’s seat and continues,

“I feel that before you get your hopes up, I must tell you that I have no interest in you. None whatsoever.” We pull up at another red light and I am glad for it. I think that if we had continued driving I wouldn’t have been able to see where we would have been going through the moisture that now gathers in my eyes. I turn around and before I can think better of it I say,

“Not even the littlest bit?” Her beautiful blue eyes turn to me and for the first time I can clearly see the mocking sparkle of humor in them as she says,

“No. I feel more romantic toward this car than I do toward you.” I chuckle nervously and say,

“You must really like this car Miss Wendy.” She leans forward until she is less than a foot from my face and I can smell her peppermint breath. She whispers to me,

“Stephen, I’m a lesbian. You could be the most attractive and thoughtful man Earth and you wouldn’t turn my head one bit.” I can feel my eyes widen and I blink in surprise. I stutter out,

“H-honestly, Miss Wendy?” She laughs and says,

“I prefer the vagina, thanks very much Stephen. So unless you have a dirty little secret you would like to share, you and I can never be.” Wendy leans back against her seat. I don’t move. She waves her hand and says, “The light is green, Stephen. Drive on.” I turn and do so. Even such a shock as this can’t shake my automatic response to any command from Wendy. A question pops into my head and before my brain gets a chance to put two and two together and realize this is not a good question to ask, I say,

“So is there anyone you fancy?” Wendy grins and says,

“Well, that secretary of mine certainly is a hot young thing.” I smile, agree, and drive on.



A/N: I am not a lesbian. I like men. I have no problem with people who are gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Love is love and that's that. Thanks for reading! If anyone can suggest a list of different ways to say 'says/said', I would really appreciate it. Have a good day!

Interesting.

I say it because you deal with an interesting theme. No one likes to be rejected, but yet it happens. It's even more sad when you know the person who you love will never love you back under any circumstances. I want to really like this story and I want it to stick with me, but yet it doesn't.

Since this is more a vignette then a traditional story, your focus needs to be on the characters and what they're going through. The need to be developed and fleshed out so we can see them as real people and understand what they're going through. But you don't exactly do that.

First off, I don't like Wendy. She seems kind of like a snot for the way she talks to Stephen, and how she says things that no one really says any more. I'm sure that this was not your intent to make her character like this, so I would try to develop her a little more. Show us why Stephen likes her besides the fact that she is beautiful. Since you're showing us about her through his eyes, it can be as skewed as you wish.

Regarding Stephen - he is your main character in the story, and you want us to sympathize with him at the end. Develop the background of his character. How long has he been driving Wendy places? Why does he do it? I'd also think that if he's been her driver for quite some time, she would know his name. When you tell us about her at the beginning, it seems creepy that someone would know all this about her. If you establish his relationship to her, it would make things more clear. I would also establish some more of his internal reaction to this fact. He obviously has to seem sweet and nice to her, but what is he feeling on the inside? He must be upset knowing that she'll never love him. I also don't like the ending line. What is it supposed to imply?

Just a quick note before I finish - Whenever you have dialogue, it should always be on the same line as the tag, but only one person should be speaking in a given paragraph.

I hope this helps you with your revisions! This was a strong piece that I think could benefit from a little polishing. Feel free to PM me with questions or concerns you may have regarding this review.

~ Elinor

Hey Angela!

First of all, a couple of nitpicky things.

At eight o’clock she leaves the gym (still looking like she just stepped off the red carpet) for the bookstore.

You don't actually describe what she looks like before, so it's weird that you describe her this way. Also, does she typically look like this when she dresses?



Because that's what red carpet look means. So I might just get rid of that aside. It doesn't really make sense.

If it is under five, then they are chick lit. and I am free. But if there are more than five, then she is researching a new project and I would do well to do some research myself. Did you know that when you blush, the lining of your stomach flushes red too? Not every person you meet knows that, now do they?

Read this again. It doesn't make sense and you don't capitalize a start of your sentence. Though, I do appreciate the random fact! Though, why exactly does he need to research too?

Wow! All that poetic stuff must be rubbing off on me. Interesting…

What poetic stuff? You haven't even mentioned poetry. And, trust me, chick lit is not poetry.

Driver…” I hear from the back seat. This is a new development in our daily routine. We are at a red light, so I turn to Wendy. She is gazing out the window again. I say,

“Yes Miss Wendy?” She says nothing. I am once again stunned by her exceptional beauty. Either it is the gym or the dermatologist, but she looks as stunning as ever. I reply again,

“Did you say something Miss Wendy?” She turns back to me and says,

“Yes, I did. I was wondering, what is your name?” This is it, our first real conversation! I clear my throat and say,

“Stephen Hall, Miss Wendy.” She nodded and returned to staring out her window. Without another look at me she says,

“You fancy me, don’t you Stephen?” I swallow my cowardice and say,

“Yes, Miss Wendy.” She turns to face the back of the front passenger’s seat and continues,

“I feel that before you get your hopes up, I must tell you that I have no interest in you. None whatsoever.” We pull up at another red light and I am glad for it. I think that if we had continued driving I wouldn’t have been able to see where we would have been going through the moisture that now gathers in my eyes. I turn around and before I can think better of it I say,

“Not even the littlest bit?” Her beautiful blue eyes turn to me and for the first time I can clearly see the mocking sparkle of humor in them as she says,

“No. I feel more romantic toward this car than I do toward you.” I chuckle nervously and say,

“You must really like this car Miss Wendy.” She leans forward until she is less than a foot from my face and I can smell her peppermint breath. She whispers to me,

“Stephen, I’m a lesbian. You could be the most attractive and thoughtful man Earth and you wouldn’t turn my head one bit.” I can feel my eyes widen and I blink in surprise. I stutter out,

“H-honestly, Miss Wendy?” She laughs and says,

“I prefer the vagina, thanks very much Stephen. So unless you have a dirty little secret you would like to share, you and I can never be.” Wendy leans back against her seat. I don’t move. She waves her hand and says, “The light is green, Stephen. Drive on.” I turn and do so. Even such a shock as this can’t shake my automatic response to any command from Wendy. A question pops into my head and before my brain gets a chance to put two and two together and realize this is not a good question to ask, I say,

“So is there anyone you fancy?” Wendy grins and says,

“Well, that secretary of mine certainly is a hot young thing.” I smile, agree, and drive on.

The formatting of this is terrible. You shouldn't break it up like this unless you are a bestselling author who can get away with awful grammar such as this. If you are a bestselling author, more power to you, but this is just not acceptable. Paragraphs should have complete sentences.

You need to describe Stephen and Wendy more. Because this is a story about attraction, you need to describe what attracts Stephen to Wendy, and that includes physical description. Also, you need to describe what Wendy researches and why Stephen should care to research those things as well. In relationships, you really don't have to know the details of the other person's life.

Anyway! So you neeeeeed to fix the grammar and a lot more description would be nice, but otherwise this was a fairly cute read. I can imagine Wendy, as strict as she is, being so obvious about that -- she seems rather fearless. I think Stephen might ask her how she could guess, but that's my only comment as far as this. It's a cute story though! Clean it up and it will be soooo much better!

Hi, Angela! I'm Pink and I'll be reviewing this for you today.

Alright, it seems like Ellie already did a pretty good job of reviewing your characters and the larger points of the story and I agree with most of what she said. However, there are still a few things that I'd like to mention about this that could help you out if you plan on revising this later.

Now, to begin with your introduction was quite wordy and hard to get into. You described a very 'machine' like character and those aren't very fun to read about because it seems like their life is rule-based and set so therefore it's hard for us normal people to connect to them. Try spicing up the introduction with something that will catch our attention a little more.

“Driver? Are you prepared to leave?” Wendy asks. I reply,

“Yes, Miss Wendy. Do you wish to depart immediately?”

“Of course, if it is most convenient.” That’s Wendy-code for ‘Yes. Now.’

“Right away miss.” That is the extent of our conversation.

Now here we have a dialogue problem.
Dialogues should be like this:
"Driver? Are you prepared to leave?" Wendy asks.
I reply, "Yes, Miss Wendy. Do you wish to depart immediately?"
*On the side note I think 'depart' is the wrong word to use in this situation. She's not riding a plane is she?

So, watch out for that. Check out this Topic we have on YWS that can help you out with the basics of dialogue. It's not to hard once you get the gist of it so don't worry about never understanding it or something. It's really easy. ^_^

Also the fact that she is Lesbian, I mean, would she say that to her driver in the first place? The driver should know that he doesn't have a chance if she's a rich girl and he's her chauffeur, no? Also, for two people who are of different social levels, I feel weird that they would react the way that they were considering it was the first conversation between the two. Look over these little details and try to make the story a bit more believable by asking yourself, "If I was him/her what would I do?" Try not to make it too complicated but think a little bit about the setting and situation and what your characters would do normally --> this will give your piece a bit more realism.

Overall, it was still good but there were only a few things that you should work on/ improve. If you have any questions, just post on my wall and I'll be more than happy to help you out. ^^

All the best,
-Shear

HAHA!! This was interesting. I laughed through the whole thing. The only think i did have a problem with was, the driver. I wanted to know more about him. Like how did he first meet Ms. Wendy? When did he start? And what does he look like ? Things like that. He needs to be more developed, as a character I mean. hehee...anyway this was a really funny story and I did enjoy reading this. Keep Writing!!