I was sitting at my desk in homeroom, eating a swiss roll as part of my lunch. I look up to see Takina-san and Izumi-chan heading towards me, pulling in desks next to mine. They always come in to my homeroom to each lunch with me.
“Hi, Kiyo-chan! What do you have for lunch?” Izumi-chan always sounded so upbeat and happy when she speaks.
“Swiss roll and egg omelet.”
“You don’t put ketchup on top of your omelet?” Takina-san. I’m not as close to her as I am with Izumi-chan. I guess the only reason I talk to her is because they are both sisters.
“Ketchup takes away the flavor in the omelet, so no. What about you guys?”
“I love putting ketchup on my omelets. I like making cute pictures on it.” Izumi smiled brightly as she explained how she used the ketchup on her omelets.
“I just squirt it on top.”
“Geez, Takina-san. No one wouldn’t want to be your friend if you’re that plain.”
“S-Shut up, idiot Kiyo!”
I grinned at Takina-san. Even though I am not close to her, she is fun to mess with.
“Like you’d ever get a boyfriend. No one would want a weird otaku like you.” Takina-san huffed as she took a bit of her rice ball.
“Ah. That’s where you’re wrong.”
“What do you mean, Kiyo-chan.” Izumi-chan took a bite of one of the octopus weiners sitting in her bento. I stood up from my seat, feeling confidence inside of me.
“Men love girls who game and watch anime!” I pointed to Takina-san. “Bookworms are boring to men. They want someone exciting. Y’know, relate to them as men!”
“... But you’re a girl.”
“I am a tomboy. Get it right, Takina-san ~”
Izumi-chan giggled, looking up at us. “You guys fight like a married couple. It’s cute.”
“Don’t be weird like Kiyo-san, sis!”
“Married couple? No no no… If I was a man, I would never be interested in Takina-san.” I shoved the rest of the swiss roll in my mouth. Takina-san glared at me, crushing her wooden chopsticks in her hand.
“Afternoon.” We all looked up, seeing the kind and gentle Aiwa-san.
“Ah, Aiwa-san!” We all yelled out her name, greeting her to our little group where we eat our lunches.
Aiwa-san sat down next to Izumi-chan, placing her bento, which was covered under a pink cloth, onto the desk.
“Haven’t you guys heard. That band is going to perform at the theatre today.” Aiwa smiled as she spoke of the news.
“Band?” I was confused. I never heard of a musical group coming into town.
“Yes. That band with the four handsome boys.”
“Seems like most bands consist of boys.” I spoke out, taking a piece of Izumi’s octopus weiners.
“It’s popular nowadays, Kiyo-chan.” Aiwa-san opened up her bento, which contained an omelet with ketchup on top in the shape of a heart and salad next to it.
“Why though? That sounds silly.” Takina-san took out another pair of wooden chopsticks and opened her bento, which had rib cutlets and rice.
“I think it’s for a girl fanbase. Most girls love seeing handsome boys.” I spoke out, taking another octo-wiener.
“Still sounds silly to me.” Takina-san took a bite of her rb cutlet as she looked towards Aiwa-san. “Are you saying that we should go?”
“It would be fun.” Aiwa smiled brightly.
“What’s the band called?” Izumi-san slapped my hand away from her lunch as she spoke out to Aiwa-san.
“Hmm… The 4-Spirits.”
I laid my head on my desk. “Laaaaame.”
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,798 Reviews
I liked reading this, you should carry it on!
I've read from some of your replies to other people's reviews that you didn't do this as a serious thing which I appreciate, but just a bit of advice, this is more like a script in my opinion than a story. There seems to be a lot more dialogue than anything else- this may have been your plan though. I couldn't quite figure it out.
Keep up the good work
Hi, Kanome! Pan dropping in to polish off the last of my five promised reviews. I hope they've been helpful so far.
As this is a pretty short piece, I'm just going to read through it and comment as I go. As with my other reviews, small grammar fixes will be shown in blue. Let's get to it!
Hang on, a Swiss roll? An entire Swiss roll, as in the jam and sponge kind? Isn't that a bit much to eat alone? Unless you mean a piece of Swiss roll or a mini Swiss roll, in which case you should probably make that clearer.
Though to be honest I bet I could eat an entire Swiss roll by myself given the opportunityYour tenses are inconsistent. In all honestly, there's not much advice I can give you to solve this issue other than to sit down, comb through the whole story and check the tense on every verb. Decide whether you want to write in present or past and stick to it.
1) I'd clarify who is saying what here. In a three-way conversation, particularly among characters that the reader doesn't know that well yet, you have to be clear about who is speaking.
2) What's the purpose of this conversation? It seems a bit aimless. Chatter about ketchup and omelettes doesn't really draw me in as a reader.
3) Your characters overuse each other's names, in my opinion. I'm guessing it's a homage how anime characters speak, but in real life, people don't use each other's names nearly as much as we think they do. We only really use them to get each other's attention.
I'd argue there's very little difference in being obsessed with anime and being obsessed with books - they're both fairly passive hobbies - but if her logic is supposed to be flawed, that's fair enough.
Remember that questions need to be marked with question marks.
Okay, that's it for my specific comments. Overall, I'm not sure how well this holds together as a short story. The ending drops of rather abruptly, so it feels more like part of a longer scene rather than something standalone. We don't really get any resolution. You introduce the concept of the band, which seems like it's going to be the focal point of the story, but we never actually meet them. Unless you plan to continue this?
I also don't feel like that much happens in the story. It's just lots of young anime-esque girls bickering with each other about boys and food - there's nothing here that really holds my interest and makes me want to find out more. Then again, that may be because I'm not your ideal audience. I do like quite a lot of anime, but I tend to go in for the fantasy and action stuff more than the slice-of-life high-school genres. It isn't really to my taste, so that will skew my opinion somewhat.
Still, I do appreciate that you have a mix of characters who don't necessarily get on. It's good to have conflict within a group. All of the characters seem to have their own flaws, as well, which means they have real potential to be interesting. I just wish there was more of a discernible hook. If you exploited the boyband idea and made it disrupt the status quo somehow, then you'd have more of a story to explore. I don't know. It depends on where you want to go with this.
Sorry if this was too harsh! I think this piece has its merits, but it's not my usual bag and, personally, the plot just seemed a bit too aimless. Nevertheless, you definitely have the scope to take these characters and place them into a more dynamic narrative - I feel like you'd be able to develop them even more if you did that!
Keep writing!
~Pan
hi
you know what i'm here for
--
OK. Let's jump right in. Each element I will review will be in chronological order going with the story. With the "-san" and "-chan" elements right away in the first paragraph, we can tell that your story is set in Japan
or some anime idk.Next paragraph!
You have two tenses in one here - "Sounded" and "speaks". I'm sure this was just a careless error and you forgot to go back and check.
Somebody already pointed this out, but you forgot a "said" before "Takina-san".
I just like how you get very specific about the whole ketchup-and-omelets thing. It reminds me a lot of slice-of-life anime, which may be what you were going for here. And the disagreement between Takina-san and Izumi-chan (wait was it them) is kind of cute in my opinion. And then it escalates into boys liking a weeb/otaku girl.
Okay, it's just me once again, but was the tilde necessary? Because I just got some strange fanfiction vibes from it that don't usually appear in your writing. e.e
You can just feel the collectedness radiating off of Aiwa-san as she enters, and that gives a first impression on the reader as well. If this weren't so short, you could've given more context on who she was.
The story just ends on another drifting piece of dialogue between your characters when you've just got us interested on the boy-band. I didn't really see too much of a conflict other than the girls bickering around on what's plain or exciting and what boys might like. But this was probably just a "relaxation piece" or something like that, so I wont' get in on how to make it better.
Feel free to disregard any unhelpful comments
or clarify to me what was really going on in the story.-Manilla out
Hey Kanome, hope you're getting plenty of good sleep. While you're resting, I'm just going to review this--truth be told I've been following the progression of it on the 100 Words Daily Club, so I'm a little familiar with this. I have a couple of thoughts on it, and I'm glad you're posting it, because now I can share some of those thoughts with you.
Missed a 'said' or a dialogue tag there.
I think you should reword this into "I guess the only reason I talk to her is because she's Takina's sister."
You don't really need that bolded part, since we're already reading what she's saying. We know that she's explaining how she uses ketchup on the omelets, stating it a second time is redundant.
Right, no mistake here, but I'd personally remove the name and just stick with "Shut up, idiot!" Also, I read it as 'baka' in my head, even though I'm not into manga or anime.
Again, I suggest removing this part, since it's already explaining the obvious.
I think you meant to say 'bite,' but also it can still be 'bit.' Personally I think 'bite' makes more sense. What's a bit of a rice ball? Does she pick out each individual seed?
Question mark?
I would either change the bolded line into something more dynamic ("feeling pride beam inside of me" or something) or something simple ("I stood up from my seat, confident").
Relatable to them as men? I think that's what you were going for. It sounds nicer, anyway.
Question mark.
Misspelling of 'rib.'
Onto the main story bit:
I sort of like it? In a relaxing way. Mind you, I prefer my stories with a little more punch, but I'm a little familiar with this style of story from watching too many anime critics (not even anime, just the critics, I'm weird that way), and I've found that generally the genre is very appealing to some for good reasons. It's escapist and rather pleasant to watch, even more pleasant to read given the right prose and characters.
However, if you're looking to improve, I'd point to the character development. I don't know if there's going to be much in the way of conflict or story, but even if there was a long and winding story arc, I think developing the characters would still be very important. You already have Takina, who's a little over-eager and easily agitated, and the main character, Kiyo, who's more playful than usual. I think Izumei is meant to be more light-hearted and fun, while Aiwa is elegant and composed. If you're planning on continuing this you should consider putting these character archtypes in situations where they'd be forced to branch out, because right now they're rather one-note. How would Takina react to being pranked and pinning it on Kiyo, only to realize it was her sister all along? How would Izumei react to being told bad news? Think of the most interesting things you could throw at the character, and see how they grow and develop considering all of that.
Anyway, you told me to rip this apart, but I didn't really have the heart for it. It's nice and fun, and I don't think all literature has to be sad and gloomy and conflicted all the time. It's good to have happy and cute things, actually.
Cheers.
--Elliot.
I am awake now. And I don't know if I want improve anything with this story xD It was simply a random thing I came up with.
Buuuuut, I guess if people like it, I might continue it as a novel.
lol, yeah, it was a suggestion. I sort of read it as more a relaxing exercise for you than anything you were seriously working on, but like use the advice for any other work you want to seriously think about, characters are pretty important regardless of genre.
Thanks for the advice!