Young Writers Society

Please don't necromance a story I wrote four years ago, for all our sakes.

This was good! I like the characters, and how things went.
I can't really find any error that was not previously mentioned. I wish I could help !
Maybe a sequel? I can't wait to read more!

I actually really liked that. However, I must exercise my evil teacher-ness by saying that you need to control yourself a bit in the writing area.
For instance:

Not like a soaking, flooding kind of wet, but the type that you get when heavy dew forms, and it’s dark, and your trainers don’t look like they’re wet but your socks and hence your feet get freezing cold and it’s piss annoying.


Now, I know he's supposed to be a guy, and this is his point of view, but you need to write it a bit more like...argh, I'm having a lot of trouble explaining. What I mean is, instead of "but the type that you get..." you should switch it around so it might be more like this:
"It wasn't a soaking, flooding wetness. It was the kind..."
Well, you know what, maybe I'm just making it worse. I'm no help at all. It would be easier if I could grab a red pen and do all my evil exes.
By the way, I'm not a teacher. When I said "exercise my evil teacher-ness" I just...well, don't ask me what I meant. I'm really not good at articulating what I feel.
Maybe that's why I write depressing things.
I'll try to lighten up.
It was good, otherwise. And I'm not criticizing this for the swear words, I don't mind them at all. Just had to clear that up.

Hey,

I've been meaning to read this for the longest time. So, yay, one thing to check off my five page to-do list.

To be honest, the plot has been done before. Cynic-loner arrives at some blazing party with liquor and a girl in mind. Throw around some profanities, build it up for the letdown, atta boy Jack. But wait -- what is this?

I liked it anyway.

Your stories, this one included, always possess this positively refreshing -- something. You could be talking about urine, pocket lint, cracks in the windshield, anything, and it would still be so damn eloquent. It could be the oldest story in the book and you'd make it a good read for me. I'm not sure why it is. The note in your narrator's voice, the way you paint it all so painfully real, I think is something I can identify with.

I don't have anything constructive to say. You should write more in first person, you'll improve gradually the way you did with your poetry.

As for this story, if you plan on keeping it around, editing, putting it in your portfolio, I would recommend you condense. Your narrator is no Holden Caulfield -- rambling on about "wanting to get fucking drunk" gets old after awhile. Salinger was trying to prove a point socially with his rambles; what's yours? I understand it's part of the character, whatever. Are you illustrating a lost and lonely boy, glorifying drinking, talking about the turmoils of young love? Whatever your point is, building the story around it, condensing, and adding some original and creative images into your already well-written piece would give this power.

If you don't plan on doing anything with it, though, I wouldn't really bother.

Alright, that's enough from me.
Nice job, Jack.

Lyndsey

No problem. I'm really behind on my critiquing. *glances sheepishly at Snoink*

How's your NaNo progressing? I mean, besides your astronomical wordcount.

Thanks so much Ari! Your comments were really nice and great.

I'm really tempted to do NaNo in first person (I keep reading books in first person and I like the way you can do things with it) but I'm gonna refrain from it for now because I have two seperate storylines at the beginning.

I've been promising you I'd comment for what, more than two weeks now? Well here I am, finally getting around to it. Sorry I'm such a lazy dork face. XD

The grass is wet. Not like a soaking, flooding kind of wet, but the type that you get when heavy dew forms, and it’s dark, and your trainers don’t look like they’re wet but your socks and hence your feet get freezing cold and it’s piss annoying.

The air is cold to, and if it wasn’t for my warm hoody I’d probably be inside like the rest of them.

But for some reason I get hyped up for a party beforehand, thinking of the people I could see; then I get there, and I realise all those people suck, and all I really want it to drink some crappy wine, sit outside and watch the stars twinkle in the dark sky, and then get really lonely, probably quite drunk, and just about manage to walk home and collapse on my bed. For some reason I do this every time there’s a party, and I still come back every time.

“Yeah,” I answer, and turn round, noticing the guy has ginger hair. I can’t remember knowing anybody with ginger hair. “How the hell do you know that?”

“We went to Primary School together, man! We were like best friends for five years or so.”

It went quiet. Not a nice quiet. Not one of those nice silences where everybody is smiling and there’s this joint knowledge of satisfaction. It wasn’t one of those times. Instead I just felt strange; I didn’t feel like I’d changed. I still felt like the confused ten-year old kid who thought girls were weird.

I lied before. There was another reason I came to these parties. You could spell it with five letters. Two Es, an L, and an A. Otherwise known as Elena.

As I was walking down to the wood, I could hear some laughter. It was a girl’s. Probably someone talking on a mobile phone. They always came out here to do that, and I hated it, because I wanted the wood to myself so I could get drunk and not have any people get in the way of my plans. I hated interruptions, or obstacles.

I stopped in my tracks when I realised the girl was Elena, wearing a patterned green dress, with some jeans underneath.

I didn’t really have any idea what she was talking about, but it sounded clever. That’s why I loved Elena, anything she said, even if she was talking about your name, it never sounded wrong.

“She wants me back by midnight. I think she forgot it was the 1990s, and thinks we’re back to the 1850s or something,” she replied, frowning.

“You wish.” I was trying to sound cool, but it came out weird.

“What a wonderful and exciting life you lead, Mister Holland. If only I could share it with you.”

I couldn’t think of what to say. “Uh … you wish.”

“You’re like the opposite of every boy that I know. You’re overly cynical, you crave to be alone, your lack confidence, even if you try to pretend you have it. It’s sort of … attractive. Not in the kind of oh-Mister-William-Holland I have just met the guy of my dreams, you will make me so happy, let’s plan our future right now, scary girly way. But the kind of meeting each other in the middle of a wood on a Saturday night way.”

Wow, thanks Claudette! I totally forgot about this story. Don't worry about being nitpicky -- it was probably full of mistakes because I didn't check over it at all. It was just a quick freewrite.

Ari >> Don't worry 'bout it. But thanks for the bump!

Cass >> Thank you! Yeah, I get you on the James bit. I probably should have related it more. If I was to edit it, that part would probably be taken out in favour of something better.

Vamp >> Thanks for reading. I'll definitely think about stretching the conversation out further. I'm sure I could do more with it.

The air is cold to, and if it wasn’t for my warm hoody I’d probably be inside like the rest of them.

and all I really want it to drink some crappy wine

It takes like crap.

I know how the charm a girl anyway

flipped her mobile shut and slid it into jean pocket.

El did sound crap.

It anything, I’d probably be glad, because at least she’d stop being clandestine and release her true passion to the world at last, so everybody could fucking see it.

and I’d say we’d could do this again but it’s doubtful you’ll ever find me in a wood

Sorry I still haven't done this. I stink, I know.

Just wanted to give this a bump up so hopefully someone else will be reading it and commenting while I'm getting my comments together.

Yay! Jack did contemporary fiction!

I have to say that I am most definitely intrigued, and very excited that you posted this. I did notice a few things I thought could be tweaked here and there to make it better, but I really enjoyed my first read-through of it. Forgive the brevity of this post; I have to get to bed.

But I promise I'll come back this weekend and give you a proper critique.

You make me want to give your main character a big hug and tell him it will all get better eventually. And I want to punch Elena in the face. But in a good way!

Read through and you'll catch a couple of grammar mistakes. There weren't too many, but I'm not going to point them all out. According to your Squills post, that's not the point of a critique, is it?

The whole James thing felt really out of place...like, I expected it to be important later on, but it wasn't. And it doesn't really add on to the whole Elena/Will thing going on, so that's the one spot where it sort of lacks relevance.

But I did enjoy the rest. An interesting and compelling main character; one that made me want to keep reading this straight through to the end.

And the ending. Unexpected and brilliant.

Nice work for just a quick bit of flash fiction, Jack.

I like it. Reminds me of a cast party and my sometimes dearly pathetic boyfriend.

However there are a few things that need tidying. Sometime it's overly descriptive.

I would comment on the overuse of "and" but I happen to think first-person pieces don't have to be perfect when it comes to vocabulary. You could however stretch the meeting between William and Elena a bit more.

Still (even with flaws) I am still quite fond of it.