Young Writers Society

"Josh, do you think that I'm ugly?" my sister Lia asked me .

I stopped doing my homework and dropped my pencil. I looked down at the math problems, trying to get an answer out of them. I chuckled a little assuming that she was just joking but when I looked at her, she had a straight face on.

Lia, even though she's my sister, has got to be the most gorgeous girl in the world. I have never seen such a beautiful girl in my life and here she was asking me if she was the complete opposite of what she was. It was like an angel asking if they had any imperfections.

Lia has long and wavy auburn hair and brownish hazel eyes along with a gentle smile. She is also on the tall side but she's not a stick.

"Lia, are you crazy?" I said, laughing. "This is a joke right?"

She remained quiet for a while and then went to sit down on my bed.

She's my twin so I guess and as I look at her, I see the female version of myself. Yeah, that's kind of weird to look at but I had my own share of insecurities. I wasn't the big and hunky guy that all girls wanted and I wasn't so loud and out there. I play guitar and write love songs to girls I never met and do homework for fun. Lia is kind of the same but she fits in perfectly. This was a weird situation, seeing her like this.

"What happened?"

She started playing with her hair and then she looked up.

"Have you been online recently?"

My heart sunk. What did she do? Did she upload a picture to her douche bag of a boyfriend and did his douchemones push him to uploading it on the internet? Did they get recorded doing the nasty? Was she being bullied?

I opened my laptop and opened all my accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr.

"First, click that link over there."

My best friend Brian shared a link on my profile wall on Facebook saying Ummm....Dude you need to check this out

I opened the link and there popped Lia but the pictures of her were obviously photo shopped. They all had titles calling her a whore, anorexic, the crap that you see people call each other every day. What made it worse was that there was a group about her on Facebook and people actually tweeted about her. I saw as the number of members rose but most joined in to try to defend her.

"Why are they doing this?" I asked.

"Go to-"

"I'm on it."

I never liked her boyfriend Jeff. Even the sound of his name pissed me off. I started reading his statuses.

Don't believe Lia Macer's nice girl act. She has herpes This got 100 comments and 99 likes

Lia Macer is a anorexic bitch. She has no confidence whatsoever Hmm...that's a new step. Whatsoever. Such a big word for his small brain. This got 120 comments and 70 likes

Lia Macer. Who does she think she is? I bet if her butt was as big as her ego, she would have to have some sort of liposuction. LMFAO This got 90 comments but 180 likes

Lia Macer, if you're reading this, I don't want our baby anymore

What? Baby?

"Lia..."

"Josh, just-"

"Lia...what did you get yourself into?"

She tried to say something but started crying instead. "I...don't know."

"You know perfectly."

"I...I...just..." Then she started crying again.

I went over to her and hugged her. Her body kept shaking and her tears started to stain my shirt. I really didn't know how to handle this.

"Come on, we're going out, "I said, breaking out of our hug. " We'll go shopping if you want."

She started to smile but then frowned again. "What about your homework?"

"That's due in a week."

She snorted and then punched me in the arm. "You're such a geek."

"You just snorted. If that's not geeky, than I don't know what is."

She started laughing and then I felt like my job was done but I had to give her this night. We went figure skating and then we actually went shopping. We went to go to Friendlys but Jeff just happened to be there.

"I don't want to go in there."

"Come on," I urged."Plus...I got some revenge on my sleeve."

She rolled her eyes and got out of the car. I took some pins and needles and a rubber band out of my little sunglasses cabinet and walked with her into the restaurant. Jeff saw us and I could tell he wasn't going to make an effort ignoring us.

"Lia, how have you been dealing with your problem?" he asked, loud enough for the whole world to hear.

Lia ignored him but Jeff didn't want it. He got up on a table.

"Well Lia, looks like you found the right time to shut up"

I remembered on the ride here that Lia told me this was happening because Lia broke up with Jeff. Jeff, the most popular guy in school. This was childish.

He started laughing in our faces and then went out to his car.

"Ding dong, the douche is here." I sung and the whole room laughed with me.

I urged for Lia and some other people to follow me outside. I did archery during the summer and tonight I was going to show my skills. I set my aim at Jeff's tires and fired.

Pop! There goes the first tire

Pop! There goes the second

And for the big finale, the sound of glass breaking made and the sound of Jeff's cry over the destruction of his car made my night.

My audience clapped with me and the night played a huge effect on my sister. By the time we got home, I was exhausted.

Lia came in my room and gave me a kiss on the cheek. "Thank you."

The next day, I was prepared to help Lia through school. I had walked her to class and quickly made it to Calculus on time. When I opened my binder, I found a rose and a note attached to it.

Thanks for the brotherly love

I smiled and put it on the edge of my desk.

"Okay class," said the teacher, Mr. Aniston. "Take out your homework."

I found my homework and then I realized that I never got to it.

Oh no Lia. Thank you.

This is amazing. For one, I don't tend to see too many stories on romance-y topics from a guy's point of view. Second, the whole idea, of a brother being there, and siblings sticking up for each other is nice. So often in pop culture, it's taken for granted that all brothers and sisters secretly want the other to fail. (Which we don't!)

There's a few gramatical nit-picks to be dealt with, like commas, and a couple easy mixup-y and typeo-y things, but I'm sure you, or your spell-check can spot them. (Some more recent versions of spellcheck can actually point out sentence fragments and the like.)

A slight structural problem occured for me when you switched from them being at the store to their being in school; I had to reread that a little and figure out how the transition took place, where they were located when the epic tire-arrow encounter happened. Which, by the way, is awesme. Archery practice on tires is much more satisfyingly vengeful than the trite knife-the-tires deal. So work on your transitions, and make them a little smoother.

The last line, also, took rereading for me. I see now that it is meant as sarcasm--thanks for making me miss my homework! Work on making the sarcasm lines a little more apparent, with some combo of italics or the like.


Overall, despite those few little things, It was truly great.

Interesting. However, I think you used too much swearing and plain words when you could have used more descriptive words. An ironic ending, considering the character, but I liked it. Also, it was a bit unfocused. What did he shoot the car with? A bow and arrow? I sincerely doubt that the restaurant would allow such things. And then you jumped to the school. It was interesting where you actually describe the views, likes, and titles on the Internet. Also, it didn't really Flow well. Keeping that in mind, and fixing it, you could have a really good story. Bravo on brotherly love! Keep on writing!
Dragon Rider

Hey there, AngelKnight.

I suppose I only have a few major things I wanted to point out that didn't sit as well with me on this piece.

For one, the sibling relationship seemed a bit too perfect and ideal in many places. If not most places. The reason I'm not so fond of this is because it just doesn't seem to do anything for your story. It doesn't show that you truly understand the relationship that a brother and a sister might truly have in this actual type of situation. Seeing as that was a majority of the point of this story, I found it disappointing.

Another thing I found wrong with the relationship between these two siblings, is that they seem less like brother and sister and more like old flings. I have a brother myself who I'm very close in age with, and though we love and care about each other, we act nothing like this. We aren't overly affectionate, and I know for a fact he doesn't think I'm one of the "most gorgeous girls in the world". That'd be just weird. xD Even if we were twins. I don't bring this up to criticize what you do or don't know about what it means to have a brother, but speaking realistically, the relationship in this story didn't come off as a very sibling relateable one. I'd probably just tone it down a notch or two. Show that they're close, but not nauseatingly close. =P

Another thing I wanted to make a point to bringing up was Jeff's character. Regarding his actions and the brave way he speaks, I'd say he seems a bit too superficial to seem realistic. A guy doesn't have to be blunt and all out there to be a major jerk. It might be good if you could tone down the extremity of his character a bit. The attention he seems to get on his Facebook seems a bit outrageous as well. 100 comments and 99 likes? I wouldn't think that many people would support internet bashing, as it is obviously crude and juvenile. You fed his ego a little much than I would have liked to've seen, I think. Another minor thing I noticed was that he seemed to act quite brave when he saw Lia walk into the restaurant with her brother. People who tend to talk of big game over the internet aren't normally so brave off of it. They're a bit more subtle and put together with their jerkiness. Like I said though, might be best to just tone his character down.

One quick thing I thought might be good to make a point of nitpicking:

She started laughing and then I felt like my job was done but I had to give her this night. We went figure skating and then we actually went shopping. We went to go to Friendlys but Jeff just happened to be there.

Here the scene jumps so quickly and rushed, one might see it as a bit too eager or hastily done in order to end the scene. I would hope for a much smoother transition. You explain in literally one sentence what they did, and in the next, Jeff is suddenly merged into their plans. I might looking at ways to smooth that out some. Even if it does happen to lengthen your story a bit, it shouldn't be by much. You just want to avoid rushing these scenes.

I did like the ending line, though perhaps not so much the matter of how the story all ended. As I've said, the relationship is far too affectionate to seem brotherly/sisterly. A rose attached to a note seems more like something... I don't know, romantic? A scribbled note of something plain like just 'Thanks' on a piece of binder paper made out with Sharpie sounds like more of an appropriate thank you thank a rose in this case.

Overall, I think you could have something really decent if you'd just tone down every heightened aspect of the characters/settings/situations to a more believable and subtle level.

Hope this helps, and hope I didn't come off harsh in any way or anything!

-Smylin'