Young Writers Society

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:

Anyway let's get right to it,

"Go and get the groceries, Gia!" her brother shouted. "Calm down, Matthew!" her mother shouted. "I won't go, Mum!" Gia shouted. "Fine! You can buy something, whatever you want at the grocery store!" her father shouted. Gia closed her trap reluctantly as she made for her room, and angrily glared at Matthew, who was wearing a half-smile on his face. Almost ripping her casual clothes, she changed as she grabbed some money. Going outside the door, she stopped to take a note from her dad explaining what she had to buy. Running to CitySuper, she didn't look back.

She couldn't help it. Just one tiny reaction. She had gotten all the things (5 'healthy' foods, 2 packs of noodles, 3 types of fruit, a 20-rasher packet of bacon, and 3 pints of pancake mix, working to 12 things total. Then it came. She saw some chocolate on the high shelf, some Hershey's chocolate. Her favourite. But it was too high. She sighed in despair but suddenly noticed the long line of spare trolleys peeking around the corner. Taking a trolley, she tentatively pulled it towards and stepped up silently, wobbling a bit. She grabbed the bar as fast as she could, but this time fate seemed to come. One leg fell as she lost her balance, and went down onto the hard floor. Well, nearly. If a pair of soft hands hadn't caught her, she would have fractured her ankle.

"So much for not attracting attention..." the stranger behind her muttered furtively, as she slowly turned around. He was a handsome boy, with short but flowing blond hair, no glasses but brown eyes. He was smirking slightly. "Hey!" she snapped as she tore herself out of his grip, which wasn't easy. He had gripped her softly, so she felt it wasn't easy to put on a big show of being disgusted. "Stubborn, but at its best..." He still appeared to be talking to himself. "Who're you calling stubborn?" she half-shouted, but turned scarlet as he turned away saying "You cutie. Who else." His smirk was starting to be slightly annoying. "Whaddya mean cutie?!? No way, Hozay!" she almost shrieked, but he went so far as to override her, muttering "Why else - you ARE cute... and my name is Alex... not Hozay. Anyways, I can see you don't want me. Bye." His smirk looked dangerous now.

"Wait - " but she was cut off. The so-called Alex and possible truant lawbreaker was gone.

Hey there Ferruccio,
MJ here with some quick pointers on this short story. I'm a huge fan of shorter short stories because I think they really build confidence and help people focus on just one section, and that can be very beneficial to both the reviewer and the author. With that said, let's jump into my suggestions:
1) I would reccommend separate paragraphs for each new speaker introduced. That's the technically correct way to do it, IMO it looks neater, and it's less confusing if you would decide to use pronouns
2) Your use of 'trap' as slang for mouth doesn't seem very conventional. I think that mouth would be more fitting, and although this is personal opinion, you don't refer to your mouth as your trap very often. Again, just a nit-picky preference thing, feel free to ignore this
3) "She sighed in despair but suddenly noticed the long line of spare trolleys peeking around the corner. " Again, nitpicky grammar thing- there is a comma after 'despair'
4) I feel like the ending dialogue was rushed. I understand that this is just a short snippet, but you only spent a small paragraph on something that can reveal a lot about both the plot and the characters. If you were to revise this, I would make this a little bit longer and add in longer descriptions, then break it into a few small paragraphs. That's partially preference, though, so it's up to you.
5) "The so-called Alex and possible truant lawbreaker was gone." Just for grammar's sake, I would rewrite this sentence as "The so-called Alex, and possibly truant lawbreaker, was gone." No biggie, just a small grammar nitpick.

Hope this was helpful! These are all suggestions, so feel free to apply only the ones you think you need to. I'm still a beginning reviewer, so I won't take any offense if you don't choose to apply some of my suggestions. Best of luck on your writing!

Best wishes,
MJ

Heyo! So first kind of a late welcome to YWS but a welcome nonetheless!

I think this was a pretty good start to your story. Gia seems like an interesting character and I'm also excited to see how her relationship with Alex will develop!

One thing that kind of threw me off at the beginning was a formatting issue. In writing, you are supposed to make a new line (enter) when a new person is speaking. This is mostly for the reader's convenience, as it makes it a lot easier and clearer for the reader to read the story. It also breaks up very big paragraphs, which can also be hard for the reader to read.

I like Gia's character, as stated before, and though this was a short chapter (chapter, I'm guessing?), I wish we could see more of her! We, as readers, didn't get to learn much about her and I'm kind of wanting to know a bit more. The same goes for Alex. To me, he comes off a bit annoying and I'm not sure that's what you intended. It could be his weird "talking to himself" behavior. I just thought he wasn't as attractive of a character as I think you hoped for him to be.

I liked the ending! It's a bit cliche, but the whole leaving before the person can finish speaking is always a good one to pull off.

Also, I think instead of "Hozay" you meant Jose.

Great start! Let me know if you come out with more parts.

~EternalRain