Young Writers Society

Riya sat on a rock about ten feet away from the sea. She tried to push back tears as she looked at the waves, the moonlight playing on them and the sand crabs she was petrified of until two months ago. She had sat with the others under the marquee for as long as she could. When she just couldn’t bear watching Ansh and Akansha talking to each other, smiling at each other any longer, she got up, made some excuse about wanting to look at the sea at night and found a place where she could sit alone with herself for sometime. It was obvious by the way Ansh and Akansha talked to each other during the basketball match and during the party that both of them liked each other and one of them was on the brink of proposing to the other; that is if they hadn’t done so already. However, more than the fact that the guy she liked was going to be or already was the boyfriend of one of her best friends, the thing that gnawed at Riya’s insides was the remorse she felt at how badly she was taking it. It’s just a guy. It’s just a crush. Why the hell am I being such a drama queen?? So the boy I like doesn’t like me back. Big deal!!
And yet she couldn’t help feel sorry for herself. She took out her ipod from her pocket. She couldn’t remember why she had brought it along but she was thankful now that she had. Maybe this would keep my mind off things. She put the earphones in her ears and shook the ipod. The songs shuffled and a certain song by Taylor Swift played.

‘Teardrops On My Guitar’ by Taylor Swift

She better hold him tight
Give him all the love
Look in those beautiful eyes
And know she’s lucky cause
He’s the reason for the teardrops on my guitar
The only thing that keeps me wishing on the wishing star
He’s the song in the car I keep-

Great!! Just what I needed. Riya was about to change the song when she saw a shadow approaching from behind her. She turned her head to see who it was. It was Ansh, obviously.

“There you are! I’ve been looking for you all over.”

Riya wondered if she could still talk to him without seeming pathetically sad. He sat on the rock on her left, nodded towards her earphones and mouthed the words “So what are you listening to?” Riya looked at her ipod resting in her lap, picked it up and stared at the screen for a second. It was paused at ‘Teardrops On My Guitar’. She kept changing the song, until she found something non-depressing. Taking an earphone out of her right ear, she handed it to Ansh. He put it in his right ear. They sat listening to the song for a few seconds. That was when Riya noticed that she wasn’t the only one looking melancholy. She could see that something was bugging Ansh too. He was looking down at the sand below. A few times he lifted his head and started to say something but words didn’t seem to come out of his mouth. Riya picked up her ipod and went through the list of songs until she found the one she was looking for-
‘Chiquitita’ by Abba

Chiquitita, tell me what’s wrong
You’re enchained by your own sorrow
In your eyes there is no hope for tomorrow
How I hate to see you like this
There is no way you can deny it
I can see that you’re oh so sad, so quiet

Chiquitita, tell me the truth
I’m a shoulder you can cry on
Your best friend, I’m the one you must rely on
You were always sure of yourself
Now I see you’ve broken a feather
I hope we can patch it up together

Pause

He looked at her and smiled. Half because she had just addressed him as ‘Chiquitita’ and half because they had always shared a love for Abba. He almost said something but then seemed to change his mind. Reaching down in his jeans’ pocket he pulled out his ipod and gave her one of the earphones. She put it in her right ear. He put the other one in his left ear and selected a song-

‘She Will Be Loved’ by Maroon 5

Beauty queen of only eighteen
She had some trouble with herself
He was always there to help her
She always belonged to someone else

Riya grabbed Ansh’s ipod hastily and paused the song. So now he wants to talk about Akansha? Seriously? I’m not ready for this. Uncertain about what she was going to do next, Riya picked up her ipod and kept going up and down the songs’ list. She came across ‘Girlfriend’ by Avril Lavigne and thought about selecting it. The lyrics described how she felt perfectly –

Hey! Hey! You! You!
I don’t like your girlfriend!
No way! No way!
I think you need a new one
Hey! Hey! You! You!
I could be your girlfriend

Hey! Hey! You! You!
I know that you like me
No way! No way!
I know it's not a secret
Hey! Hey! You! You!
I want to be your girlfriend

Well, except for the part where the guy actually likes the girl. Anyway, she changed her mind before playing the song. After staring at the screen for about five minutes, when she couldn’t find a song that said “I don’t want to talk about how you’re in love with my best friend so shut up!!” Riya gave up and put the ipod down. Well, I brought this onto myself. I’ll have to just face it now.
“Well… I have noticed that… I know that you and Akansha like each other… I’m happy for you guys… umm… have you asked her to be your girlfriend yet?” she started to say.

The expression on Ansh’s face was morphing into one emotion after another. It changed from ‘vague’ to ‘confused’ to ‘amused’ to ‘a little smug’ to ‘apprehensive’. He opened his mouth to say something then thought better of it. He picked up his ipod again. He sifted through many songs and seemed to change his mind several times until he found just the song. Riya hadn’t heard this one before. It was one of Ansh’s ‘All-time Absolute Favourites’.

‘Everything I do’ by Bryan Adams

Look into my eyes - you will see
What you mean to me
Search your heart - search your soul
And when you find me there you'll search no more

Don't tell me it's not worth tryin' for
You can't tell me it's not worth dyin' for
You know it's true
Everything I do - I do it for you

Riya could feel the cold wind whir past her ears all of a sudden. Her hands and feet felt like ice, numb and cold. She was too overwhelmed to say anything. He likes me? HE likes me? He LIKES me? He likes ME?

Look into your heart - you will find
There's nothin' there to hide
Take me as I am - take my life
I would give it all - I would sacrifice

Don't tell me it's not worth fightin' for
I can't help it - there's nothin' I want more
Ya know it's true
Everything I do - I do it for you

She looked up at Ansh’s face. His eyes answered all the questions that were in hers. And yet, there was nervousness and trepidation in them.

There's no love - like your love
And no other - could give more love
There's nowhere - unless you're there
All the time - all the way

Oh - you can't tell me it's not worth tryin' for
I can't help it - there's nothin' I want more
I would fight for you - I'd lie for you
Walk the wire for you - ya I'd die for you

Ya know it's true
Everything I do - I do it for you

For the six and a half minutes that the song played, they sat there without saying a word, just gazing into each others eyes. Pure incredulity in hers, pure anticipation in his. After the song had ended, both of them waited for the other to speak. Both of them knew the other couldn’t speak. After a minute of silence marked only by the sound of waves, Riya picked up her ipod again. With shaky hands she searched for a song that could say all that she wanted to, all that she wasn’t able to find words for. Just then she, tremulous that she was, dropped the ipod. It fell on the sand below. The songs shuffled.

The song that played was only the chorus of the original song. It had been one of those infuriating versions which you are complacently convinced is the complete song and which you spend twenty minutes downloading. Nevertheless, it was just perfect.

‘Kiss Me’ by Avril Lavigne

Kiss me beneath the milky twilight
Lead me out on the moonlit floor
Lift your open hand
Strike up the band and make the fireflies dance
Silver moon’s sparkling, so kiss me

And he did. Even though they weren’t at prom and there weren’t any fireflies around, there was the moon, the milky twilight, black waves with silver crests and of course, sand crabs.


“So does this mean… that umm… we’re…umm…..” said Riya, still unable to bring herself to believe that all that was happening was really happening.

“I think it does” replied Ansh with an awkward grin.

And then they didn’t know what to say or do. However it wasn’t long before they reverted back to being the pals they were. They sat on the rock for a few minutes more and let the new information sink in.

“I think we should get back to everyone now.” said Riya even though she didn’t want to.

They got up and walked back to the marquee. Even though they were walking two feet apart everyone knew the instant they looked at them.

“Hey! Look who’s back.” said Garima.

Everyone turned around to look at them.

“Took you guys long enough.” Said Akansha with a saucy grin.

Hey there! I really like this. The whole time I was reading this I was humming the songs (which were excellently picked by the way). And grammar wise I didn't see any mistakes but I thought that you could maybe explain the characters a bit more. When I was reading this I was kind of confused but other than that this was amazing. Great work!
-Hope

Hey There! I just read your story and I think it was great. I like how you choice to pick songs that express your character feelings. I think its the first time I saw a story like that. Nice job with the whole setting. You pick a prefect place for a prefect romantic scene. Well done!
Giselle97 ;D

Hi there! I see you're Indian; that's awesome. ;D I loved the names you picked for the characters in this story. One of my closest friends in India - her name is Riya.

ANYWAYS. You don't want my life story, you want a review.

I really liked the style in which you wrote this, with the song lyrics being most of the dialogue instead of the usual cliched speech that usually goes with stories like this. Your song choice was just perfect! It was a different style and a nice change, especially because dialogue/themes tend to repeat themselves within the romance genre.

I don't have much to critisise, except there is one thing I want to say. While this story was very romantic and very touching, I didn't enjoy it as much because I didn't feel as attached to the characters. Now, I know it's hard to develop a full character within a short story - especially yours, since much of it is lyrics - but this could probably be longer without any damage done. I just think you should put a bit more detail about the characters; maybe what Ansh looked like, that they were wearing. Does Riya have any habits of her own, like pulling at a loose thread on her collar, or biting her nails? When you put small details like this, the characters seem more real, and the reader gets more attached.

Additionally, I just want to make a comment on the grammar around the dialogue.
One example:

“Hey! Look who’s back.” said Garima.

When you're using dialogue tags (he said, said Garima, etc), there is a comma at the end of the spoken sentence, regardless of whether it's a full sentence or not. So:

"Hey! Look who's back," said Garima.

Yeah, it's not a big deal, but I just thought I'd point it out.

Overall, really well done! I enjoyed reading it, it was unique, refreshing, and fun. (: I hope my review helped, and a slightly late welcome to YWS.

Hello! I read you're stpry and I feel completly in love with it. It's beautifully written, and the detail to the lyrics helped Ha-ha. This is amazing, original, and just sweet.

Keep Writing!

Nike

nice job and as said by the others i loved the incorporation of the songs which are coincidently my favorite........ so keep up the good work !!!!

"Cute!!! Loved it that's all I gotta say

Hey there, Priyansha! I like the title of the story, it's one of the cutest films I have ever seen. So I am here to review you and I hope to be of some help to you. Since you're of my age, I would love to review you.

She tried to push back the tears as she looked at the waves, the moonlight playing on them and the sand crabs she was petrified of until two months ago.

Your sentence structure was such I didn't get to know what sand crabs were doing? Were they also playing on the waves, which I doubt, but what were they doing exactly?

However, more than the fact that the guy she liked was going to be or already was the boyfriend of one of her best friends, the thing that gnawed at Riya’s insides was the remorse she felt at how badly she was taking it.

I liked this description in red part. Keep it up!

She took out her ipod from her pocket.

I think ipod is written like 'iPod'. I am pretty sure about it. ^_^

“I think we should get back to everyone now,” said Riya even though she didn’t want to.

Let me first congratulate you for posting something that comes with an Indian setting, characters with Indian names, because that's not much that we see this probability. Mostly, I write with characters who are from US or some other country. I have never really taken a shot at writing with Indian characters, because most of the stories I have can't be based here. It's like I'd have to change quite a few things, and I like to write with people based there. Anyways, enough of me, but I think that putting the lyrics of the song's here which were relevant to the story was quite a good idea, and it did its best to reach us. I really liked the innovation up here, and it was nice to read it.

Like many have already said and remarked, I really think the songs were perfect and carefully chosen. In a way, it was so sweet and cute to have a relationship build up in this way. It was a nice, short sweet story but there are couple of things that I would like you to work on. Firstly, there's a problem with your dialog tags. You need to revise on where to put a full-stop or where to put a comma after a dialog ends. Here's a link which helped me perfect this. Here you go--Dialogue Grammar I think once you go through this, there won't be any problem but if you still have something for a doubt, let me know.

As the story started, it felt boring to be honest. I could not really picture anything and I really wanted to picture something of a romantic story on a beach. It really didn't reach me. I wanted to know everything about how she 'felt', how the things were looking around her. To be honest, your writing lacked descriptions. They were so less that I couldn't actually picture what you wanted to show me, but what I had created on my own, which is not quite the right way about going over this. Why were they here? What had they come for? How did the place look? How far were the others? How does Ansh look? All these questions kept on circling in my mind, so you would have to maybe consider them.

Other thing that I would like to say is that she loves Ansh, but still you haven't talked anything about how he looks. It might have been a bit acceptable if the story was from the third person, but since it's first person and very much her thoughts, I think there should be something of how he looks. She must have loved him for his looks, or certain personality trait for in this age people mostly don't fall for other things. So, you should really bring that topic up.

Other than that, even though it was nice and sweet, I'd like you to maybe add in bit more things. There's a huge scope of improvement and since your grammar was fine, I think you would pass. You have to work a bit with your descriptions and dialogue tags and then you'll be set. It's not bad for a first story on YWS(is it?) You have a long way to go and hopefully you'll develop into an awesome writer with the help of some awesome people out here. Have a nice day and I hope my review helped.

~Shrubs

I LOVE THIS!!! Especially the songs, i was singing them myself and everything. HAHA. Keep Writing!!!