Young Writers Society

Wow. This was an incredibly captivating story. I connected so strongly with the character but moreover I loved the way you wrote it the second person - unique but very well used. I have very little critique over this story - the language is well chosen and the paragraphing is perfect. Well done.

I do have a few minor comments. The line "Because speaking words- the thing you found joy in at such a young age until now -was used as a weapon here, and those who didn't learn how to aim and shoot quick enough were the targets." did not seem to flow very much to me. Perhaps you could remove the words between the dashes and change "was" to "were". Sorry to focus on such a small thing, just trying to help is all

Other than that, this story was AMAZING. Very well written.

Keep writing.

Innocence. Happiness. Carelessness. Creativity. But then... Insecurities. Depression. Suicide. Anxiety. Peer pressure. Feeling like you're worthless, not needed, horrible, and numb. Self harm.

That's what I thought and saw throughout this.

I'm gonna follow you, if you're okay with that? I kind of apply to everything above, except suicide hasn't happened yet.

Please be strong. Please...if this applies to your life, if any of this (the bad parts) you can relate to, don't give up. Don't give in to people who hurt you. You are strong.

Hey, Pomeroy
I read your series and decided to leave a short review of your lovely work.

From what i read, it is a cycle of life kind of story.
But at some point, i thought instead of a short story, this is a poem. But then, it is still categorized as a short story.
The flow was good. It went from good to bad with a steady flow and easy to understand. You ended it well and tragic. (It's beautiful)
In my opinion, you can use this for some kind of depression awareness or anti-bully campaign writing contest, it's brilliant.

I will look forward to your next work!

Hi Pomeroy,

MJ here for a quick review. This is a super short piece and it's well written, so this might be a really quick review. I have just a few things to commend you on and a couple of suggestions.

Commendations:
1) I thought this was a great way to spread awareness for teen suicide and depression. It was well-written and conveyed through metaphors and illustrations how teens feel when they are going through suicidal thoughts. I feel like some people don't fully understand that process, so I think it's great that you can provide insight into that.
2) You started this story well with an intriguing hook and wrapped it up nicely, telling the short and sad story of a depressed teenager. I did like how you started and ended the story with the same lines. That was a nice touch that helped to clearly indicate the end of the story.
3) You had a lot of great metaphors that helped readers who may have never experienced this get a picture of what it might be like. That goes for your ilustrations as well: you painted a picture, a messy and dark and deep one for sure, but nonetheless a masterpiece, that conveyed the image you were sending across in words.
4) The message of this story, as I mentioned above, is really deep and dark. Even though I have never experienced this, it still struck a chord that I felt familiarity with, from hearing others' stories and the mindset that I imagine someone thinking these thoughts woud have.

Suggestions:
1) You have a lot of short and choppy sentences, which do make a nice point, but sometimes it would flow better but still convey the same point if you used a longer sentence just once, or maybe twice.
2) You don't mention the parents during the time when the MC was in school, and that could be important. We don't know if the MC was facing pressure from his/her parents or what his/her parents were doing, and how that was affecting his/her actions
3) You have a lot of uses of the same words (mostly bloody, pressure, waterfall, flowing), so I would recommend adding in some synonyms for variety.
4) You seem to switch back and forth from instructions that the world is giving you and the thought process of the MC. That can get confusing because there's little signal when you switch, so I would change the tone of some of the writing a little so it was crystal clear. This message is so powerful I think it's important for every little word and sentence to show exactly what you mean, without any chance of ambiguity or uncertainty.

Overall, this was an amazing and very powerful story. It is really deep, however, so I would rate this 18+ instead of 16+, because it is a very strong and deep story. It's up to you, however, as some people rate intensity levels differently. The illustrations and metaphors you used were very clear and helped to paint a picture, just like the MC tried to do. Keep writing!

Best wishes and great job,
MJ

It is a great piece of work. Such lucid writing! It is commendable how you associated the words of the protagonist with flow of water. The flow of the story-line was also good. However, I feel a little more elaboration on the parts where she got disturbed would be nice. I wanted to read more of it.

I loved the way you started and ended it! lovely! I think it's a great way to spread suicide awareness.

I loved the way you started and ended it! lovely! I think it's a great way to spread suicide awareness. the words you used to describe different things really hit a chord within me. it's a bit deep but it's so good.