Young Writers Society

Hello. Here as requested. I know you requested this on a deadline, but reviews can still help improvement. I would like to mention, before I begin, that a "tomorrow" deadline for reviews wouldn't give you enough time to incorporate feedback you had received if it was in-depth.

This is an attempt at a really poignant story, and I'd personally like to see it expanded upon in a longer format because there's a lot of room for a nice progression here. But the wordcount limit makes it this amount of information should've been presented in a much more tailored format, focused on a single moment. Instead, there's a time span of three months, sacrificing exploring the internal life for cramming in as many external events as possible.

This piece suffers from the advice "show, don't tell." Sometimes, we do need to be told things— especially in a short piece. Telling a lot of the background events, like the therapy and the accident, would've freed up wordcount for exploring the hospital visit/offer to move in, which feels like the crux of this whole thing.

Showing multiple plot events, especially in a flash piece, is a detriment instead of an asset. For short scenes to work, each one needs to be long enough to show the internal aspect for the characters. When I wrote a similar type of story, the wordcount was 1,626. And I needed that length to really get into the meat.

I would examine how to apply "show, don't tell." For short pieces, the showing really needs to be about the emotions involved, and the telling can be about the events. The importance for writing is to create a connection to the character, and right now the focus is so heavily on things that are happening that there isn't much of a connection there.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

~Rosey

Hey! Shino here!

I like what you have here! My tips in this review are going to be about clarity and organization.

Clarity: The reader needs to know what action is happening, and what character is taking action. I had trouble discerning who the main character in the story was. I recommend picking one character and sticking to narrating their experiences. There are a lot of characters with not so much personality. I recommend fleshing out the most important ones, and cutting everyone else.

Organization: Organization is deciding what happens when. Every event and action should ne tied together. The story needs a sense of cause and effect. I felt like I was reading about a stream of events that characters barely acted on.

That being said, this is a good first draft, and you have a good idea here! I hope you keep working on it.

So, you have to bring it down to 1000, right? Welcome to flash fiction.

Hey LilyRose, it's me outvaders. I came here upon your request to review this work. I'm really tired right now, so let's get straight to it. Apologies if I'm very terse in this one, 'cause you know, searing migraines.

I hear that your story's word limit is about one thousand and you want this story's word count to fit that so that you can enter a competition. A story that is a thousand words and below is considered flash fiction. Based on that, I'll review your story as a flash fiction specifically. I'll give you two tips to help you make story that is shorter, yet way more immersive.

Let's move on to the first tip. The problem I have with your first paragraph is that it stops the flow of the plot to describe a setting that is indeed insignificant to the story. That's not good, especially in flash fiction, because it stops the plot which should be moving. That means you're spending more words than you should. You can establish the setting and still move the plot by describing the setting as the characters interact with it. Let's look at the paragraph where you describe the GP's room.

There you describe that there was a "wooden desk, with a printer, computer, and landline, coated in papers and placed in the corner." Instead of outright stating the existence of these aspects of a setting, you can show that they exist by having the characters interact with them.

Actually, you've already done that in the next paragraph:

"The GP looks up from her keyboard, they do introductions."

Through the interaction of the GP with her keyboard, we are clued in that the setting has a computer set. There's no more need to state the existence of that computer in the previous paragraph. Do this with the other aspects of a setting, and you can pretty much describe everything while still moving the plot forward.

Obviously, you can't describe everything about the setting with this method. But if you slip in a little more information, you'll be able to establish a fair image of the setting. Let's take a text my friend wrote as an example:

"Closing the door behind her she made her way down the normal route, gravel roads flanked with fields that would soon give off that lovely citrus aroma her humble town was known for."

In an efficient thirty-three words you've already got a fair idea of what the setting of this scene is, while still moving the plot. I can't exactly explain how you can achieve this effect right now 'cause I'm tired. However, this is what you can achieve by describing the setting through character interactions.

Now for the last and second tip. Let's look at the eighth paragraph, where we see Jo taking Alice's hand from her zipper. It explicitly states that she's been crying and doesn't want to go to the doctor. Now, stating these facts out is counterproductive to the appeal of flash fiction, which is its immersive experience. In this one, you don't want to tell your audience that Alice has been crying and doesn't want to go to the doctor, you want to make them feel that instead. So my next tip is to hide it all in details.

There are many ways to do this. You already did that in saying that she was fidgeting and that her eyes were red. Maybe you can make Alice go like "I DON'T WANNA GO TO THE DOCTOR WAAAAAAAAH." Or maybe Jo literally has to pull her butt to the doctor. You can also set a really tense mood to do that. All these details can point to the fact that she doesn't want to go to the doctor. Once you put all these details together in the story, the reader truly feels that she doesn't want to go to the doctor. You don't even have to tell them about it anymore.

I know these are like, really small tips, and that I took them from small snippets of your work. If you keep applying these tips, however, the positive effects will add up and you're gonna have a very rich flash fiction. Anyways, that's it for today. I hope you learned something new in this review. I'll see you around next time.

-outvaders

Hello there--I'm here with the promised review!

I definitely like the sisters! The interaction between the sisters are lovable, and I can feel a strong bond between them. But I would have liked to see more depth in them, so that they feel more *real* so that I can immediately attach myself to them like a burr! Same thing for the others, like Bella and the councillor. For example, I wasn't feeling too sad when the mother died. I think it would be better if you showed the sisters' grief and the torn feeling about not knowing if the mother will recover or not.

The theme wasn't executed too badly, but I felt as though the arc and plot of the story wasn't so strong. I also spotted some confusing spots, so I'll be pointing them out:

1) First of all, I'm confused as to why Brendan is their father? Was he their father in the first place or what? Some clarification would be great! Did he adopt them for the time being? I'd like to know.

2) And why does Bella dislike him a lot? For a moment, I felt like she was a sugary-sweet lady with a mean inside. I don't really see why Brendan is disliked. Is it because he just grabbed custody of the girls?

3) So what happened to the mother? Is she still in the coma? I love open endings, but this time I'd like to know--is she alive? dead? comatose?

But the ending was great! I'm glad for the girls; they can live with their beloved grandma. The only quibble here is that I wish I saw her earlier in the story. You know, she just popped up in the end and I wasn't a huge fan of that.

I also noticed some comma splices here. I'll show you an example to help you proofread:

Bella bends over and tickles Alice’s tummy, she giggles.

Bella bends over and tickles Alice’s tummy and she giggles.

Okay, here we go. This could be interpreted as my personal opinion, but here's my review. Sorry it's long-ish.
So first, for the story as a whole, there is a lot of work to do. I would say you could through a few more drafts to fix it up. But feel free to ignore me.
Well right off the bat, starting a story with dialogue is kind of a no-no. Start with an image.
In the second line from the top you could have put a comma between “Tight” and “pulling”.
Passed instead of “past”?
“Jo goes to take Alice’s hand from her zip, she can see her eyes are red from crying earlier, she didn’t want to come to the doctors. Alice stands up slowly and they walk towards the doctors room.” – This could be better. Sentence structure, word choice. My opinion, but really your decision. Of course “doctors” needs an apostrophe.
About the story, I actually don’t find it to be all that interesting. Like for one, you didn’t establish a connection between the readers and characters. I would have liked more context to make me actually care for the characters before you damn near killed the mother. The characters have personality though, however vague.
Locked instead of “looked”?
“have PTSD”” – Did you forget the period?
“were allocated, “ - Did you mean a period?
” if Cathy wakes up” – I think a comma would have fit in there somewhere nicely, you know, for a dramatic pause.
” soon pumpkin” – Comma.
““Where’s your father?” Asks Bella, looking at me, a tone of forced innocence in her voice.
“You mean Brendan?” Bella smirks a bit, but tries to hide it, “He went to the cafe downstairs.”
“ – This confuses me so much I don’t know where to start. But who’s “me”?
” She had drifted away from her friends at school.” – How does this sentence relevant to the paragraph?
“then she felt” – Than instead of “then”. I feel like “ever’ could have been used in there.
Keep writing, really, you could have something here.
- MNSTR