♥ Art Boy

The one way to guarantee I (and, I assume, many others) don't want to read something is to put something cutesy in the title. Like a heart. Especially in Romantic Fiction. Just thought I'd let you know :wink:

And, sorry to harp on formatting things, but it's really better if you just post in normal text. The bolded words go kinda hard on the eyes sometimes.

He has brown hair. Not dark brown, not light brown, something-in-the-middle brown. It’s not very long, but it’s not short either. It’s just long enough to be considered shaggy, or floppy even. It doesn’t have a particular style. It just kinda sits there, on top of his head, sometimes hanging in front of his eyes.

At the beginning of this I wanted to groan and say "just define his hair and move on already!" But then it ended with it just sitting on his head, and I thought that was cute, so I guess I'll leave off it. I will, however, say that the continuing description of every single facial feature this boy possesses is rather trying on one's patience and without it being interspersed with something tangible, like character development relating to personality or action, it reads exactly like an info dump. A well worded infodump, but an infodump all the same. I see you've ended it with "I suppose I should be embarrassed..." and that is nice in that it gives a reason for all that description, but I think it would be more effective were the description to be integrated into the story. Say there's a scene where she's watching him in the lunch line. That gives a reason for her to be noticing all these things because he's right in front of her. Anyone might have noticed him. But! she'd be the one who notices him the longest, who memorizes his every detail. And that would give description and character development while layering over story. At the beginning here, there's just the description, nothing to hang it on, you know? So I begin with the "why do I need to know this?" thought instead of the "man, that girl's obsessive" thought I think you were going for. Also, just his face is described? I don't know whether he's now tall or short or thin or stocky; if the narrator noticed all these things about his face, it would seem she'd notice other characteristics about him as well.

For a whole year now we’ve been going to the same school; taking the same classes; even catching the same bus, and not once has he talked to me. It doesn’t bother me much, I’ve never made the effort to talk to him either.

This is a summary paragraph. As such, it does nothing to advance the action or the story. I vote you scrap it and integrate the feelings and ideas of it into the paragraph that follows it, where she's watching him on the bus. Actually, while she watches him on the bus might be a good time to introduce all that description about his physical features.

It obviously can’t be that far away from me, but then again, [s]I never see him out and about.[/s] I never bump into him on the way to the grocery store, or see him hanging around with friends when I’m out hanging around with friends.

Be careful about being redundant! The struck out phrase above just reiterates what the text around it shows. And it's always better to show rather than to tell!

In the part where she's sitting on the bus and he catches her looking at him, the pacing is perfect ^^

Everything was suddenly made clear when he caught my gaze, smirked once more, and started moving up the aisle, towards me.

You might want to take another look at this sentence. It has passive voice in the "was suddenly made clear" phrase. I'd take the "made" out of that phrase as it's unnecessary and plodding. You might also want to break this into two sentences, the break coming between "caught my gaze" and "smirked once more" to increase the tension.

This section also includes a nice blend of dialogue and description/dialogue tags. I only wonder why no one else on the bus is watching this exchange? In my experience, when something like this happens, everyone wants to chime in. On characterization, the boy seems a little too prince-charming. Ex:

“I’m not being an ass, I just wanted to know why you were staring at me,” he said lightly, not taking offense at all to me calling him an ass.

(take out "at all" because it's cluttering the strength of the sentence) He speaks lightly and is unoffended. Both those things are fine, but the impression given is that he just brushed them off, like he's too perfect to care about either of those things. It makes him seem haughty, and like he isn't a real person. Personally, I'd use a different word than "lightly" and I'd show how he didn't take offense. Maybe he rolled his eyes because he thought she was too juvenile for it to matter, maybe he shifted his posture to show that that was more important to him than replying to those statements. Both those things are 'tangible' visual ways that the reader can see he didn't take offense.

“Um...ok,” I said a little hesitantly. What was with the sudden change? One minute he’s teasing me and acting all arrogant, the next he’s acting all nervous and letting me look at his art. Maybe he’s bipolar.

Lose the rhitorical question of "What was with the sudden change?" and "one minute.. the next" part. They're both cliches and as such, the narrator's voice becomes lost. The reader is taken out of the story.

He handed me his sketch book, and if I’d have been paying more attention, I probably would have noticed that he was being a little reluctant about it, but I didn’t.

If she didn't notice, how can she later know he was reluctant?

And how did she know they were her eyes? I don't think I'd recognize my eyes. A whole face, yeah, or if there was some scar or birthmark on her eye, but just an eye? I don't know 'bout that one...

How was the boy taken aback? How does she know this?

"It's ok," he said, for the first time giving me a warm friendly smile. "I stare at you too. I just try and be discreet about it."

End his phrase with "I stare at you too". The rest takes away from the impact. Don't overexplain the simplest things!

I scowled at him, before the meaning of his words actually hit me. He stares at me. He stares at me, while I stare at him, because I like him, and he...he likes me?

Take out "the meaning of". It's overexplination of something that's understood.

How does he know she's asking "do you like me?" just by looking in her eyes? Maybe he had a pimple on his forehead or something

The ending was too rushed. Here, before, there was all of this lovely description and such, and then it's like "okay, plot resolved, let's make out!" It's too rushed. I think an ambiguous ending might be better, actually, something like "... because I like him, and he... he likes me?/ Today I didn't get off the bus at my regular stop because he wanted to walk me home, the guy with the brown hair..." because the point is that they've realized they like each other, and you now want to finally resolve the conflict.

Yes, it's fluff, but it's actually pretty well written fluff, much better than I've read elsewhere! ^^

Young Writers Society

Sponsors

About / Info

Forums & RPG

Literary

Resources