Young Writers Society

Hello! I shall review as I read

'There was once a girl who's lost on her own' - the tenses are wrong her. 'There was once a girl' is past tense, 'who's lost on her own' is present tense.

Just reading on the next few lines and you seem to have this issue throughout the story. Figure out if this is set in the past or present and then stick to that tense.

'Muttering under her breath words that only her mind mean' - what?

Okay, there's a lot of sentences that need work so I'm not going to pick them all apart because that will take forever.

Overall, it seems the tone you are going for is sort of a fairy tale like story, so the 'There was once a girl' opening line makes sense, but still needs reworking.

Usually fairy tales are usually written in past tense because they read like stories someone would tell someone like 'Once upon a time there was a princess who lived in a tower...'

This tale is definitely unique. I'm a little confused as to what the message is. Usually a fairy tale has a hidden meaning and with so much going on in this (the lost girl, the big heart, the shadow breaking it, the little boy without a smile, the thread) I didn't really know what the point of it all was.

If you rework this, perhaps tighten it up. Remove the things that aren't necessary so you have a clean, consistent theme.

Hope this helps

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

First Impression: This was a very interesting piece here. I don't believe I've managed to run into something quite like this before. They were some pretty interesting moments going down with the whole heart situation that started it all, and that ending there was quite something.

Anyway let's get right to it,

There was once a girl who's lost on her own. Despite having no destination on where to go, she's always moving forward.

Unbeknownst to her, a dark mist is shadowing behind her. Its silhouette is always hiding in the darkness.

Days passed and the girl's heart became bigger and bigger to the point where she couldn't carry it anymore.

The girl was devastated. She still needs to keep going for her heart, although too big is still searching for something even she can't fathom.

The girl weeps and cries. Muttering under her breath words that only her mind mean, "if only I don't have a big heart. Everything would be easier."

And that's when the shadow approached her. Like an old friend who already knows her ticks it said, "I could help you."

The shadow morphs into a silhouette of a little boy and asked for her heart. The girl oblige without considering what the consequences would be.

Slowly, she took out her heaviest organ and gave it to the awaiting hand of the cloaked mist. The girl felt cold and thought, "I feel empty without it."

But the shadow only shook its head and said, "don't worry, I'll give it back. I just need to do one thing." The former started squeezing it. And with every squeeze to her heart is a tug of pain on her part until it broke into two.

"There," it says. Giving her back the two broken pieces of who she used to be. "Now it won't feel heavy anymore," it smiles and disappear.

The lost girl stares at her broken heart.

She weights it in her palm and noticed how light it feels, it used to be so alive and beating, so warm and heavy but now, it just resembled an empty can of soda, dead and cold, although it's beating, it didn't feel alive.

Nevertheless, she still keeps moving forward. Unaware of the shadow that attaches behind her. With every help she hands, the shadow would grow bigger and bigger.

Then the day came where she can't take it anymore. The shadow that grew bigger than the size of her old heart finally consumes her until all she could see is darkness.

The girl, lost but not afraid. She sits and pulled out her heart to inspect it. Like her vision, her heart turned the color of a raven.

The girl clutches her broken pieces closed to her chest and closed her eyes. Ready to surrender to the abyss of loneliness.

Until a tap on her shoulder startled her. Slowly her vision came back and upon her is a young boy with a distorted smile, a smile that glitches and makes the girl wary.

The boy with a distorted smile gave her a hand and they both face the melancholic vicinity that surrounds them.

They both venture at the unfamiliar and bizarre road, afraid but at least they are together.

One night, the boy saw the condition of the girl's heart and with his broken smile, he tried to communicate with her.

He pointed to himself and made a gesture with his hand as if he's saluting but it's on top of his eyebrows and pretend to look around. Then he tried pointing at his distorted mouth and made a letter U shape using both his thumb and index finger.

The girl was fascinated and she asked, "You're looking for your mouth?" The boy laughed but it sounded sad and kind of empty and it reminds her of her heart. He shook his head and stand in front of her. The boy puts both his thumb at each side of the girl's mouth and lifted it as if to make her smile.

"You're looking for your smile?," She tried again. The boy nod its head and the girl smiled and said, "I'll help you."

The boy who's looking for his smile goes hand in hand with the girl who has a broken heart. Days passed and the two grew closer and closer and form a bond that seems unbreakable.

At some point they noticed that the darkness turned into night and the stars finally showed themselves. So the two broken adventurers decided to take a break to star gaze.

The girl's heart was beating rapidly until it turned warm. However, with every beat of it causes an unfathomable pain. So the boy decided to sew the two parts of her heart back together. He uses a thread from his distorted mouth to hold the pieces of her heart and the pain was forgotten.

The sky cleared a little and the girl tries to hold the boy's hand but she couldn't touch him. When she looks into his face, she was dumbstruck when she sees him wearing a bag over his head, hiding his face from her.

"Why can't I touch you?" The girl asked with a lingering panic in her voice. The boy shook his head and pointed at the direction of her heart.

The distorted thread was the only thing that is keeping the boy's mouth. Now that he gave it to the girl, he has no face to show now.

The girl cried in anguish and tried to break her heart once more. Cutting the thread the boy sew for her. It was painful, not just for her but also for the boy.

Finally, after breaking the sewed pieces of her beating heart. Although in pain, she tried to reach her hand and gave back the distorted thread he gave to her.

It's already too late though. The boy with a lost smile has disappeared and in his place remains the paper bag he used to hide his face.

The girl reached for it and touches it. She puts back the broken pieces of her heart back to her chest, hiding it from everyone, protecting it.

She tried sewing the distorted thread to the paper bag and made a smiling face on it. Embroidering what he left for her and making it part of herself. She punches two holes for her eyes and wears the bag with pride, showing off the distorted smile he gave to the girl in order to fix her.

Hey! Forever here with a review!

I will get to the problems first. First of all, tense inconsistency. You frequently shifted from present tonpast tense and vice versa when there was no need to do that. I think you can maybe write the whole story in the past tense because majority of the story is in the past tense. Anyway, now into the matter of the story.

Hm... The story in itself was quite interesting. I liked how you kind of referred to the organs as some fragile things that can be easily broken and stitched back too. Well, though that is indeed a bit out of order, the concept is quite interesting and innovative. The characters were quite intriguing. I wonder about who the shadow actually was. I didn't really see any explicit indication of paranormal things. So, it still remains to me an unsolved puzzle- the true identity of the shadow. At first, when I started reading I thought that the shadow was maybe a ghost or spirit of some sort who wanted to hurt the girl for some reason. But as I continued, that perception changed. For some or the other reason, I began to think that this shadow might not be a ghost of some kind.

Now jumping to the girl with a broken heart. Well, I wonder what the actual thing is or let's say what the past is. Like a heart can't get bigger and bigger. I don't know if that is the correct word you used. If the heart of a person gets bigger, I think it means that the person is becoming kinder and kinder. The word 'heavier' which you already used will serve the purpose greatly. Next, the reason behind her heart growing heavier, i.e., she becoming depressed. Was there any particular reason behind it, like some past incidents, loneliness, etc.? Or maybe the shadow behind her was influencing her by some means. Like, the shadow can read her mind ,so maybe it can influence her too. Not impossible.

And now finally the boy. I think he is a good person, but again a bit depressed. I liked how he didn't think about himself but gave his thread to the girl and sewed her broken heart. That shows his selfless nature. The ending was very depressing where the girl kind of longed for the boy but seems like the boy never returned and the girl lived with the memory of the boy- the paper bag. It's sad how she re-broke her heart getting pretty much nothing.

So, that was with the plot and nature of the characters and everything in general. But now I will try to interpret the story in itself. Like what exactly the story is. Crazy things happened there, without any doubt but did they really happen? That's the question of utmost importance to me. Even after reading the whole story, I do have a feeling that none of these things really happened but were products of the imagination of the girl. There can be reasons behind it like depression and loneliness, as I mentioned earlier. That is not impossible. Overall, it was a good read here, I would like clarification of those few things.

Keep Writing!!

Hey, I don't review very often anymore so please do excuse my rusty nature. I'll be going from beginning to end, reviewing bit by bit until I give my final thoughts at the end.

That said, let us begin!

There was once a girl who's lost on her own. Despite having no destination on where to go, she's always moving forward.

The girl was devastated. She still needs to keep going for her heart, although too big is still searching for something even she can't fathom.