A/N: Really rough idea I had. Tips very much appreciated <3 It's going to need a hell of a lot of editing and revising.
***
Kyle’s fingers clutched a sheet of paper to his chest. The rain was pounding on his head and the page was soggy despite his best efforts keeping it dry in his jacket. He lifted a shaky fist and knocked twice, softly, as though he didn’t want anyone to hear him. A raindrop slid off his hood and landed on his nose, and he crossed his eyes trying to look at it. Then the door creaked open. No one had answered it, it had just let him in all on it’s own. He stepped into the room cautiously and peered around the corner to see a group of people gathered around a table, looking at him curiously.
Kyle looked away from the people, surveying the room. There was a cat in the corner.
“Can we help you?” Came a voice. Kyle looked up, remembering his paper with a sigh.
“I have this for you.” he said, getting up and walking over to the fellow who had spoke. The man wore red-rimmed glasses and a stern expression.
“What’s this?” The man said, taking the paper from Kyle.
“It’s my documentation.” Kyle said.
The man squinted at the page.
“Autism Spectrum,” the man said, and then laughed. “You can keep this.” he said, handing the paper back to Kyle who in turn felt smaller than a pinprick on a cement floor.
“B-but don’t you need it? I was told to give it to you!” Kyle said.
The members laughed and then sighed, realizing something in unison.
“Look, kid, don’t you get it?” said a lady who hadn’t spoken previously.
Kyle just stared at her. What was he supposed to get?
“This is not a circus, we are not side shows, there’s no ‘applying’ to get into our special club. It isn’t even a club.”
Kyle still didn’t know what she was trying to say and his eyebrows were knit together as he tried to make sense of her words.
“Thank you for coming here, Kyle.” she said, “But we don’t need your diagnoses.”
Kyle looked down at his shoes. They were going to send him away, after everything. “Does this mean you don’t want me?” It was always in his mind, wondering just how wrong he was, wondering just how strange he looked to everyone else- things he couldn’t quite see unless his eyes were closed and he was lying in bed alone.
“No that’s not it!” the man said, rubbing his temple. “Of course you’re welcome here. If we can help, by all means, stay!”
“What we’re saying,” the lady broke in, “is… you don’t have to worry about it - the diagnoses, I mean.”
There was nodding and mumbles of agreement around the table.
“Here we’re all just souls, Kyle. You might have difficulties, but you’re still a soul- the same way I’m a soul.” More nodding followed this comment.
“But,” Kyle said, “We’re different than normal people… aren’t we? If we’re not different why do we need the diagnoses?”
They contemplated for a moment and then the man spoke again. “It’s for you, Kyle, not us. Did you know Iris over here has Down Syndrome?” he gestured to the lady who’d been helping explain things. Kyle blinked at him. She seemed perfectly fine. He hadn’t even realized that these people had mental illnesses as well- he’d just thought they dealt with the new people and paperwork.
“Most people don’t when they come.” Iris said.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,798 Reviews
Hello, Holy!
Long story short, I took 20 points for finding the Review tip and my heart bleeds for being a fraud and so I'm here to review this rough draft. How gentlewomanly of me, don't ya think?
Alright, on with the review, I really want you to take this out of your dusty "folders" and elaborate the story because I see potential in it. This can be anything but a rough draft. The title was interesting thus I clicked on it. The story has a very good flow. But the ending was really abrupt and I quite couldn't understand the moral of this story until I read it twice and placed the pieces together, though, now I'm wondering if it was really my inability to grip on the story in the first read. The story is, correct me if I'm wrong, how humans and not souls who are disabled which is a quite powerful lesson to teach people if you ask me. And I think you should make the end more powerful. It's always the end that gives the readers the suggestive emotions, it should balance out the entire story. You cannot have a cool story line and have a mediocre end. I mean, what's the point in it, if you know what I mean.
Since it's a very rough draft, I think it'd be silly of me to nitpick. BUT, this is not a nitpick, I think.
I'm pretty sure there were other people around the table who hadn't spoken previously. And by specifying the generality of the room you are very much canceling the specification. (I'm a genius!) Well, what I'm trying to say is that, when you say "who hadn't spoken previously" when there are people around who has not as well, it doesn't do the purpose of "standing out" as you intend it to. Unless otherwise, Kyle has already met the group and the lady hasn't really said anything to him, even then it'd only make sense if the readers are aware of such meeting and of the woman who didn't speak!
Hope this was helpful!
Keep writing!
Cheers!
Thanks Dreamy! I've been meaning to fix it up but this one work won't let me edit it on YWS for some reason. So I kinda got discouraged... but maybe I'll rewrite it and repost it sometime! Thanks again! C:
Hey, I'm here to review.
Yeah, this stands out to me. I think you can place the second sentence of the first paragraph at the starting of the second paragraph. This is due to it being an action from Kyle, which is suited for the second one, since the second one focuses on Kyle. Also, we can remove the 'came a voice' part, since it's grammatically incorrect and is not actually necessary. This is what it would look like:
There are more instances around dialogue that you can fix. I can point them out if you want, but I know you're capable of doing just that, so I think it's better if you search for them by yourself. It isn't that hard.
Alright, so the story is pretty original. It doesn't exaggerate anything, which I like, and doesn't suffocate the readers with elaborated descriptions, which I also like. However, in this case, I think the description is just a bit lacking, and therefore, you can elaborate more and use it to show more of Kyle.
I think more focus on Kyle's mental illness is needed so that we can feel more for Kyle, since we are only shown an inkling of what it is by this statement:
Elaborate more what the illness is, how Kyle feels about it, and how the society treats him. All these things would help your story being more emotionally powerful, if you're aiming it to be poignant.
Alright, so I think the dialogue is placed too late into the moving of things. I've lost already as to what being asked when Kyle's been thinking about how these people seem normal and yet some of them have mental illnesses. In fact, I think it's a pretty interesting thing to find out, that if you look past their mental illnesses, they're all regular people, and so, should be treated as equals. I think that would be the appropriate ending to the story instead of the dialogue. You can remove the dialogue or place it sooner.
And that is all! Overall, I think this is quite a nice message you have here, something that should be spread around because it's important to realize that just because someone has mental illness, you can't judge him on that aspect alone. Nice effort, keep up the good job!
Thanks, Light! I really like your idea for the ending especially! I had no idea where to end XP