Young Writers Society

Hey there Starlleene! I'm going to give you a quick review. I'll start with some technical stuff. Then I'll talk about idea and voice. Anyway, time to get on with it!

In one line you use radios instead of radio's or radio is.

We don’t know what’s coming, but I do.

While I understand what you're saying with this line, I feel it was more awkward than it was effective. It's a great idea, she's watching the wreck from outside of her body, after the fact. I like the idea, but I didn't like how it was expressed in this sentence.

I also enjoyed your vivid descriptions, but don't forget some of the other senses. You mostly focus on sight and sound. But what do they smell and feel? Can she smell blood lingering in the air? Can she smell the sour, burning stench of wire? I think the story could use more more sensory detail.

Okay, that pretty much covers the technical stuff!

On to the idea!

Like Shear said, the 'other me' theme seemed to bog the story down a bit. With how little it was explored in the story, it just seemed unnecessary. Now if you fleshed that theme out, strengthened it some, it would definitely be an interesting theme. Just with how little it's mentioned, it feels a little unnecessary.

I like how you wrote this in first person. It feels very personal, which really deepens the emotions in the story. One thing that seemed off to me, she was worried more about her boyfriend than she was about her child. It seems to me she would be more concerned with the welfare of her baby.

An interesting route you might want to explore, what if she's telling the story to her baby? That's be a killer twist, and you could throw in a ton of emotion that way.

Anyway, nice job Star! I loved your story, you do an excellent job packing in the emotions. Your sensory descriptions are great, but you may want to explore some more senses. The olfactory sense, smell and taste, have the strongest imprint on our memory, I think. I heard this from my bro, so it could be wrong, but it does make sense. Anyway, keep up the awesome work Star!

Hi Star,

This is a really sad and beautiful story. I love the miracle born of tragedy side of this and I think you did a pretty wonderful job at getting the emotions of this piece. I, for one, could feel it.

There are, however, a few things you could still do to make this better. Firstly though, I want to say that the ‘two me’s’ thing in here seemed like extra work and baggage for the story and didn't exactly add anything extra. It was confusing in the beginning and I was suddenly thinking there was an extra twin in the car or something. If you want to keep the two past and present me’s in the story then you should try to clarify it a little more for the readers and if not, just keep her to one me.

Also, I noticed you had some slips when it came to tenses. You had past tenses and present tenses and there was some mixes between now and then and it was a little hard to follow because you had the actual car accident in present tense but the aftermath in past tense – if you follow. With that said, I think those two should be changed around, switched. It would make more sense if you think about it.

Your writing is nice, I liked your imagery and description but I think you had some redundant short clippy sentences that I think you could have easily molded into something a little more fluid. And I mentioned how I liked your sense of emotion and being able to instill that in your readers and if I am going to say anything more in respect to that, I would say to add more…reason? For lack of better word. For example, I want to know more about why her mother kept it a secret about her husband dying in the car accident, yes mend the blow, but why make up the story? I think that’s even worse for her, having that image of him being all heroic and then suddenly it was actually just lies and he’s dead. Sad.

Overall, this is a good short story though I think it could still use some more juice. Keep it up and let me know if you have any questions!

-S

It’s my Starleene! I’m here for you.

Okay, right away I want to say that the ending of this story is what sealed the deal of me liking it. I will explain my reaction, and hopefully it will be helpful to you as a review.

I love the point in time and space you use: a person not quite then, not quite now, able to know all points while still being in their personality, so it’s not like an omnipresent narrator, but still the character from the story. That said, I think this trips you up a little in the beginning. Your verb tenses are all over the place because maybe you couldn’t quite clearly envision the point in time you were coming from at first? Clear it up in your mind, and then clean it up on the page.

Next, be aware of the predictability of your story and use it to your advantage. We can pretty much tell that they are going to get in a car crash, and it’s very easy to explain that he turned the car to save her first. I think that you got into her voice a lot when describing these things, which is good, but it takes too long to get through these events that we already know are happening. The good stuff happens after the predictable portions: we find out she was pregnant, that he wasn’t just a boyfriend. We also find out this is a nightmare, so it fits into the realm of actual reality and not some weird fantasy out of body experience.

The very BEST of this piece happens at the very end. The speaker says she doesn’t mind the nightmares because she knows he’ll come again. This is what makes me interested in this piece. And I don’t know why it’s the end. This is genuine character development. We see the cause, and we meet the naming of the effect, but then we don’t get to see how this character acts in life without him. Does she sleep a lot to try to get the nightmares? Does she realize it’s not healthy to want to wake up screaming? Does her mother want to get her any counseling? If so, that would be an interesting place to see this character in. How does she speak about the event? The reason I said the beginning was predictable, then, is because you can cut it down and give us more time with really exploring this character and how her loss and her love effects her in waking life. It seems like we’ve spent so much time with her, but we’ve spent the time with a sprite of her. I want to get to know the real person when she’s awake, you know?

Also, I’d recommend researching a little bit about how people die in car crashes and the efforts taken by doctors to save them so the portion where she finds out how he died doesn’t seem quite so shallow and assumed. Oh, and there are totally ditches on the sides of the road, so even if a car was in the other lane, couldn’t they go off the road in an effort to avoid the deer? There are trees there, too, so I’d believe more that they avoided the deer and found the trees.

PM me or leave me a wall post if you want to talk more about this or have any questions.

Good luck and always keep writing. ( :

"Its eyes reflect our headlights that are quickly approaching."
This was the only really awkwardly worded part. I was being pulled along by your story and then I had hit a deer that interrupted the flow. That was a horrible analogy. I'm sorry. It's early. In any case, if you fix this I think the whole thing will be wonderful. You could say something like "Its eyes reflect our rapidly approaching headlights "
Also my absolute favorite line was "Shards of glass are floating around us, suspended like little iridescent crystals." It was so vivid.
I especially liked how throughout the entire piece you used such beautiful words to describe such a horrible event.
Anyways, the whole thing was splendid and sad. I loved it.

Wow, this was really intense. I was able to visualize every scene with impeccable detail, thanks to your descriptions.

I don't believe there's anything to criticize here. The technique, the simple-yet-ambiguous grammar, the use of 1st person, the coordinated flow of events and the culmination; all these are present in your piece and have molded a synchronized plot.

Please, write more