Young Writers Society

Steven Knightly wasn’t the most popular kid around but, he was the most selfless amongst them. Steven was different from the rest; he’s what today’s society considers ‘Emo’. He was a typical description of an Emo, with the dark clothes and splashes of reds, blues, and yellows, even on his hair! Being an ‘Emo’ or ‘Scene’ aren’t the most highly respected trends; they are regarded as cheap and low –mostly for the unpopular kids.

Steven didn’t come from a very posh or sophisticated background. He was raised by a single mother who worked two part time jobs. Pocket money was beyond Steven’s mind's eye. He worked in a pizza parlor and washed car for contribution to family’s income.

Another usual day began and Steven was up to face some challenge. Tiding up his room wasn’t his customary forte but, to keep mom from having a heart attack, he would try to put things in place. The norm was to wake his younger sibling, Maria, up and get ready for school. His mother always goes to work early in the morning, leaving Steven in charge. He walked nine-year-old, Maria, to her school and then walked to his.

As he stepped in through the main gate of Saint Joseph High, the scene of people of different stature, ego, and status welcomed him. Even though school wasn’t his desired place to attend, he’d go there for a decent education. Normally, before a class Steven would come face-to-face with the school-wrestling champion, Darren Smith. That kid loved bullying Steven even though Steven was half his size! Luckily, Steven didn’t catch a glimpse of him today. So, he got on with the day just fine.

After his shift at the pizza parlor, Steven was on his way home, waiting to eat mom’s delicious lamb casserole. He was so famished that he could almost taste it! Steven was only a few blocks from his home when, suddenly, a man pushed past him, running fretfully across the zebra crossing, screaming, “Call the Fire Brigade! Fire! Fire!”
That stimulated a little light of concern in Steven and he began following that man. Steven followed him, through an alley and when the man turned a corner, Steven was aware of the situation. The monstrosity that lay in front froze Steven. All lit up in flames…A building!

A massive crowd already gathered up in front of it. Steven was full of ambivalence as he was staring at the rumbling monster. A frenzy cry of a woman caught everyone’s attention.

“No! My son! My baby is still in there!” cried a plump-figured woman. At once Steven recognized who it was. Darren’s mother, Mrs. Smith. Which means…

Darren was still in there!

“The fire brigade is on the way!” a man shouted.

“No! My baby! Somebody please save him!” she cried out. Meanwhile, flames had almost roofed the building. A few men volunteered and went in to rescue anyone they could but…no sign of Darren.

For a moment, Steven stood there looking at the round, tear-stained face of the woman and he thought of his mothers’ teary eyes. ‘Could he ever stand his own mothers tears?’, ‘Should he be enjoying the slow death of a kid who bullied him his whole life?’ For a moment, he was consumed in those questions. Finally, he came up with his ultimate –even though not the best –decision.

He didn’t know why, but he ran. He pushed past the crowd with all his strength and entered the blistering building. He heard a lot of “Hey kid, what are ya doin’?” from behind him, but he just ran. Something happened to Steven for a second there and he didn’t understand why, but he felt like it was his responsibility to rescue Darren.

Even though the heat seemed to pierce his skin, he kept dodging the flames and running up the scorching stairs. His conscience took turn for a moment, ‘What am I doing? I’m gonna die in here!’ but, that thought would have to take the backseat for now. As he climbed higher and higher, the intoxicated air was suffocating him and made him cough. He was finally on the third floor. He coughed so hard, his heart felt like exploding! He was about to give up hope when, he heard a frail scream of somebody from the door on his right.

He heaved the door open with all his strength. As he did, silence fell around him, he couldn’t see anything other than black smoke and red flames swimming in mid-air. Now, his eyes were about to give away too! All his efforts were about to become futile when, out of the dark, something white and fleshy came into contrast. It was Darren! He was stuck under a huge chunk of concrete. The heat seemed even more powerful as he entered the room and his body was on the verge to surrender to the heat.

That moment, the devil started whispering to him. ‘Go back! Run for your dear life! Who is he so special you’re risking you precious life for? What has he ever done for you other than torture you for gaining mere contentment? Go! No one will ever know about it. Taste the sweet vengeance. Go!’

He saw Darren moan and try to move but, the devil was right in a way. But he can’t just leave Darren to burn to death! His conscience spoke again, ‘I’d rather live with a permanent burn than lie and live with the guilt of not saving a life when I had the chance!’

Whether they both were going to burn to death or survive, he didn’t care. Steven wasn’t going to allow himself to become a disciple of the devil! To his shock, he suddenly had the strength to haul and twist the big heavy human from underneath the obstacle. He put Darren’s arm around his shoulder and made his way out of the room. He managed to tackle his way down a few fiery steps, with the humongous person leaning on him. However, to his misfortune, a flare caught his thigh and began chewing it away. He let out a scream of pain and lost his balance. The last thing he heard were a few voices screaming, ‘They are here! We found’em!” and sprinkles of water. The fire brigade had arrived…

Steven woke up in a hospital, the next day, all burnt, and wrapped in bandages. The first thing he asked when he gained consciousness was, “Darren? Where’s Darren?”

Steven made Darren sound like someone so close to him, like a best friend…

About a year later, Steven was up on his feet again. He graduated from high school with a scholarship he’d always dreamed of. Steven made a few friends from that day, but he gained something not all can earn overnight. It was the respect of people who barely acknowledged his existence. His main aim wasn’t to show everyone how heroic and fearless he was that night. It was to prove that regardless of our personality traits and our choice of fashion trends; our efforts and the shape of our hearts is what truly matter...

Hey TAZmania,

To be honestly this story wasn't that much of a shock to me. Instead of putting detail and feeling into the story, you just told me a quick summery. I pretty sure you can do better. You basically didn't tell me any of the emotions at all. I knew exactly what was going to happen as soon as you said that the mother's son was still inside, and you had no suspense. Barely any dialogue which can really help a story.

My big problem with this though was HOW you told the story. I want to know how he felt, and I don't want you to get TELL me how he felt. SHOW IT. Through actions, and dialogue. It felt like a child's story when you got to the end and just laid out the moral of the story. So far this is a skeleton of story. ADD MORE! I'm not trying to get in you're face about this, but so far your story has potential, but you need to add meat to it.

PM me or post on my wall if you have any questions!

-Boo

I agree with Boo, it needs more passion, instead of giving us the story and feeding it to us, let us sit down and feast to our hearts content. I believe this can be a very good story, with more of a storyline & some more attention to detail.

A great story. Your character had displayed a brave and kind act. I loved how he saved his enemies life and gained respect in the end. The only problem with this story is that you should of put it in story form. It seemed like you had layed out all the information to us. Other than that it was heart warming!

Hey Taz, Hawk here for a review!

All right, so this is a neat concept. I like the message you're getting across, and even the one that you didn't quite mention, that love can conquer all petty differences (that's what I got out of it, anyway).

Now, while this story had a great moral, the way you told it could use some tweaking. I think you could really turn this into a great piece of writing that compels the reader to keep reading and sticks with them as something really profound and powerful, something that they'll remember and look back on.

So, to begin with, you need to show some stuff instead of tell it. For example, the very first paragraph -- you're telling us all about Emo kids and what it means in society and how it affects Steven's school life and such. This is fine if you're writing a biography, but this is a story, which means that it needs more umph and something to grab the reader's attention and keep it. Instead of just telling us, "Hey, this is an emo kid. Emo kids are unpopular. Hence, Steven is mopey and unpopular," try showing it to us in the description of his home, his clothes, his mannerisms. Odds are, half the readers already know what Emo status is, and are simply going, "Mmhmm, yes, I see, I know, when does the story start?" while the other half are going, "Oh really? Is this a cultural introduction type of book? I'm not seeing a story here." Spice it up and make it more relatable, make it something that kids will enjoy reading.

Same goes for the part where you talk about Darren. To us readers, it's just a name. Darren. Bob. Joe. It's meaningless, because we don't have anything to associate with Darren. What does he look like? How does he act? Show us the way he bullies Steven. That way, when Steven makes the decision to go into a burning building to save Darren's life, we'll have more feeling and stronger emotions, wondering what's making Steven risk his life for the kid who did such-and-such to him. It's always more involving when the reader has direct contact with the enemy character, so they have a firsthand idea of how that character can be. So show us more of the relationship between Steven and Darren, since that'll make Steven's risk so much more intense.

The last thing I want to mention is a small grammatical nitpick: You change tenses throughout the story. When you switch from past tense (he did this) to present tense (he is doing this), it really throws the reader off and makes the story confusing, not to mention harder to read. Keep an eye out for those present tense verbs that are in your story, and fix them up appropriately.

All right, that's all I've got to say. Please let me know if you've got any questions or whatnot. Keep up the good work!

God bless,
~Hawk

Hey there

this was a great idea for a story, but it was predictable. when we are first told, in the first paragraph, that steven knightly was selfless, we know it's going to be a hero story. It was also a little bland at parts. You could add more diologe, or show instead of tell us that Darren bullies Steven. Throughout the story, the only traits we learn about Steven is thatSteven is Emo, selfless, brave, christian, ( I'm assuming because of the devil reference) and doesn't like to clean his room. Try giving him faults, or fears, or something to make him more real. as for Darren, we only know he is a bully on the wrestling team. Does he have a reason to bully? Yes, but the readers don't know. This is a great fisrt draft, but add bit more to give it depth.

Aloha. ^.^

I pretty much second RangerHawk. xD The message (kindness) was freaking awesome, but the writing itself needs a lot of work. Not to be rude, but it sounds like one of those things you read out to a child, those preachy stories. With just a few lines of dialogue, and a few actions, you can show Steven's entire character without telling us anything. What I suggest is, you start the story with a scene showing Darren being super mean to Steven at school, and then continue the story from there. Leave out Steven's history.
And, please, please please don't use exclamation marks in a story (you can use them in dialogue though). It's really amateurish and it distracts the reader. Also, ellipses. Don't use ellipses in a story, ever.

You never told us what happened to Darren after the fire. Did he survive? Did Steven manage to save him? How did their relationship change after what happened?

Hope I wasn't too harsh, but this has great potential, that potential just needs to be unearthed PM me if you have any questions!

EDIT - I forgot to mention, when the character is thinking something directly, don't put it in speech marks. Put it in italics.