Young Writers Society

This is a contest entry for Capture That Emotion. My emotion was jealousy and had to have a bit of a twist to it all. Please feel free to correct any grammatical errors that you find. Thanks =] Also! The song that goes with this is called Everything I'm Not, by the Veronicas. check it out, its awesome =]

Dear sister,
By the time you read this, well, I guess you won’t be able to read this. I think I’m just writing this to tell you why I’m about to do what I’m about to do.
You were always the one people wanted. You were the one that people would say ‘she’s going to do some great things when she’s older’ and ‘isn’t she the prettiest little thing you’ve ever seen?’ Even Steven Gloucester loved you more.
Steven told me all about that night. He told me that your skin was slick and your mouth tasted like salt. He said that he pulled out your hair and you bit him. In between sobs he told me that he had hurt you. In between his sobs he attempted to squeeze his eyes shut and hold his breath. The blood trickled from his nose as I walked out of his garage and down the street to meet mom and dad for dinner.
After he had hurt you, I didn’t know what to do. I was so angry at you that my blood boiled in my veins and every little thing irritated me. I could be sitting in my room flipping through a magazine, and every time the page would catch, I’d scream and hurl something across the room. I constantly kept my jaw clenched and every word that left my mouth was bitter.
Steven Gloucester was supposed to love me. He was supposed to love my body and want to taste my lips. But you got in the way, sister. You shattered all of my dreams of bedding the town trouble maker.
Why couldn’t you just stay away from him? You’d gone over to his house looking for me, he said before he died. But instead you had to go and let him touch you. You had to let him hurt you.
Sister, this letter is almost done. The revolver is on the side table and as I’m writing this I’m flipping through a Cosmo magazine, trying to find something to order out of the catalogue. Should I get the cute red sandals or the bright yellow tank top with crisp yellow stripes?
Mom and dad are downstairs on the couch talking to you about what had happened with you and Steven. I can hear them telling you that it’s not your fault. Bullshit…
Oh! I almost forgot! I didn’t load the gun yet. Just a second.
Ah, that’s better. I love the way that the bullets feel in my palm. It’s like a reassuring weight telling me that everything is going to be better soon.
You’re sobbing downstairs now, I feel like I should throw up. You’re so worthless. You’re worthless for having so many other men wanting to follow you around but instead you take away the one man that I loved. He was mine. So now, dear sister, I’m going to end this letter. We’re going to go out for a walk to clear your mind. And then, this blessed gift from God himself, is going to let me deliver you to him.
XOXO, Your loving sister

Ty, you've gone and done it again.

I like that your experimenting with different forms (or at least, I haven't read anything you've written that was an epistolary!), and I think with this piece it works very well to embody the emotion you were working for with this piece.

Your choice of language, as usual, handles the brutality of human emotion with a great finesse. I admit that I really should have seen the twist coming, but you had me going for just long enough that it was a suicide that the last paragraph made me go "Ah-ha!"

The only thing the troubles me with this piece is that the letter is directed to the sister, but of course she's not going to read it (unless of course she is shown it on the walk before she is killed?). But I guess to make the reader think it's a suicide note it has to be like that. Or it could simply be an exercise in catharsis? Or an explaination of her actions for anyone after? I don't know, people can be irrational.

But, as per, I liked your work. I'm interested in the darker sides of people, and I enjoy religious imagery (despite not having any religious convictions myself) as it hold so much weight and connotation.

I happily await more works from you!

You did a very good job at potraying the dark side of main character's emotions. I could pick up on her rage and jealousy very easily. The whole peice felt very angsty and had a kind of dark feeling lingering over it. (Sorry if that sounded emo)
You also did a wonderful job at portraying her insanity. I think the fact that she's writing this letter to her sister even though she knows she won't get a chance to read it makes her seem that much more insain.
I liked the part you wrote about her loading the gun and holding the bullets in her hand. That made it feel very realistic.
I would love to see another peice like this from you! You did an awesome job! I didn't catch any grammatical or spelling errors, so good job with that also. Keep it up!

Hey there Ty!

I admire how quickly you produced a piece for this contest. I got my emotion three days ago and I'm still having trouble finding a song

As you had the emotion 'jealousy,' I think you did a good job of expressing it in the piece. It was clear from the start that the MC was completely jealous of her sister. The whole thing with her sister sleeping with her boyfriend isn't exactly original but the whole twist you had with the sister choosing to kill her sister rather than the boyfriend, made the whole thing brilliant!

The emotion you described in the piece was great and I could really feel the anger and envy the MC was feeling. The only thing this piece is missing is conflict. I found this with a piece that I posted on here last week. It was only 600 words so it was short like the piece you have here, and it was a monologue whereas you have a letter here, but I still think you have the same problem as I had with there being not much conflict. There's no doubt from the MC that's she's going to do what she's going to do. I mean, she's angry and jealous, yes, but she can't be completely heartless. I don't think any human is all bad - although you could probably argue that with a few people in this world. All I'm trying to say is that I think this piece would benefit if you had the MC waver a tiny bit on what she's about to do. Maybe have her think of a moment in the past when her and her sister got on really well and she can't believe that it's not like that anymore. Maybe say how the MC never thought her sister would be capable of doing anything so horrible to her. Then have her say that her sister's changed for the bad so she deserves what she's about to get. Nothing to give away the twist at the end of course, but just something to flesh it out a bit.

It's good for a short piece, but maybe slow the pace down a tiny bit with the suggestions I've pointed out above.

Apart from that, I really do think this is great!

Good luck in the contest and I hope this helps

xDudettex

Hey tydecker!

I know it's been a while since the Capture That Emotion contest, but since the winners have been announced, we're reviewing all of the entries. Hopefully, anything I say may prove to be helpful for future contests you enter!

All right. Let's start.

I think you did a great job portraying the emotion you were given -- jealousy isn't the easiest to write about, and you were able to keep it on track and make the story revolve around her emotion, instead of said emotion being fitted into a story about her. So, kudos on nailing the emotion!

Now, the premise is a bit confusing. I found myself asking a lot of questions and not really getting many answers to them as the story progressed and ended. For instance, I wasn't too sure about the situation concerning the sister and Steven. He hurt the sister, and told the MC about it? I'm not quite clear on the details regarding that whole "hurt" situation, and I'm not sure what you're exactly referring to.

In between his sobs he attempted to squeeze his eyes shut and hold his breath. The blood trickled from his nose as I walked out of his garage and down the street to meet mom and dad for dinner.

This also had me wondering for a while. Did the MC smack his face in anger and give him a bloody nose, or is it just bleeding arbitrarily? It doesn't really seem to connect, mentioning his nose and then relating how she left for dinner. Did she kill him? She says later on that "he said before he died", which leads me to think that there's some foul play going on, and that it could relate to his bloody nose -- in which case, it'd be nice to have a little more clarity regarding what she does to him.

Now the ending of the letter was good; I expected the MC to commit suicide, but planning on murdering her sister instead was a good twist that took me by surprise. It kind of takes away from the letter, though, since it seems rather pointless, seeing as her sister won't actually ever get a chance to read it. Otherwise, I think the format you wrote it in was great and the perfect way to portray your story.

All right! So those are my thoughts. Thank you very much for entering the contest, and thanks for your patience in waiting for the results and such. =)

Cheers!
~Hawk