Young Writers Society

Hi VioletFantasy,

Mailice here with a short review!

That was an unexpected, very funny story. You're not supposed to laugh at other people's bad luck, but you did a great job of making it humorous without overdoing it in a funny story. I smiled more than I should have. But that's a good thing.

Since the text is very short, I linger a bit longer on some things, be it from the structure or the construction.

Jared is a horribly unlucky kid. Everyone calls him a waking disaster. For this reason, he doesn't have any friends- at least not any who are alive, anyway. He isn't allowed to hang out with anyone since the car accident happened with his old friends. Let's just say, they survived the car crash, but not the hospital. Jared went to visit them and accidentally set the hospital on fire.

That was a very good opening paragraph. I liked how you got straight to the point and also gave some examples. I would, however, make the very first sentence a single paragraph so that the reader sees more of the meaning before it goes further into the explanations.
One question that remains for me here is who was in this car accident. Later it is mentioned that Jared is 12, by this I assume his friends are the same age. If one of them was driving, I could well imagine why there was an accident, but if you inserted that it was an adult who was driving, it would give more information to the reader.
The conclusion of this section is well done. You get to the point and leave the reader with a laugh before moving on.

However, at the age of 12, Jared is finally happy for the first time since that day. His parents surprised him with a pet dog! He has been wishing for one, but his parents always say no due to the fact that he would probably kill it. When he comes home from The School For Unfortunate Children, he finds a beautiful poodle sitting on his bed. He names it Clover, in the hope that she will bring him good luck. Unfortunately, she does just the opposite.

It's nice how you start here with Jared finally being happy. The insertion of the feelings of the rather neutral narrator are well done here and also give the whole plot a relaxed mood. Without that, the story would read like a tragedy. Here again is a question that remains with me (probably only stayed here because of the humour), is this school. Doesn't teacher after teacher die because of Jared when they enter his class? Or is he alone there?
Again, I love the contrast, how you describe something good and then it ends in potential disaster.

Jared becomes sick. It started with a runny nose, but he soon developed a fever. His parents then realised that Jared is allergic to Clover! Doing the only thing a parent could do, they throw Jared out of the house. Clover continues to live with Jared's parents while Jared lives on the streets, doing various side jobs and continuing to live a very unlucky life.

Jared getting sick seems to be the best thing that could have happened to him. Here I don't know why you suddenly focused on "a parent" instead of "his parents". In the end, you put in a good punchline with the last paragraph, where one can think that the whole text is a joke.

It was a refreshing and very funny story. I'm sorry for Jared of course, but for the few laughs, I'm not sorry anymore.

Have fun writing!

Mailice

Hi VioletFantasy! Belated welcome to YWS - if you have any questions about the site or this review, feel free to ask

I think it's impressive how much plot you've managed to fit into three paragraphs! You even added a plot twist to the end, which I really liked. I also love when writing takes something that should be horror/tragic, and makes it comedic - so this is my cup of tea.

I understand you don't want to make this much longer, so I won't comment too much on things to add, but there are just a few things I think could be expanded on slightly.

Let’s just say, they survived the car crash, but not the hospital. Jared went to visit them and accidentally set the hospital on fire.

This is a really humorous concept, and I would love to hear how Jared set the hospital on fire. It would give us a chance to see maybe a bit more of Jared's personality, and would also give you a chance to add even more comedy to the story!

When he comes home from The School For Unfortunate Children,

If you aren't aiming for this story to be too realistic - which I don't think you are - you could maybe elaborate on what sort of classes he takes at that school. How to find an unlucky horseshoe or something like that (that's a bad example, I know, but hopefully you get the gist).

Jared lives on the streets, doing various side jobs and continuing to live a very unlucky life.

Perhaps you could finish the story off with one more paragraph describing Jared's unlucky life on the streets?

Those are all optional things you could add, so no pressure to if you don't want to! Other than that, there are a couple very small grammar/typo nitpicks I'd like to point out.

For this reason, he doesn’t have any friends, who are alive anyway.

This reads a bit awkwardly, and while I understand what you're saying, I think something like this would feel more natural:
For this reason, he doesn't have any friends - at least not any who are alive, anyway.

they throw Jared out of the house.Clover continues to live with Jared’s parents while Jared lives on the streets

This is really just teeny - you're missing a space between "house.Clover".

Overall, I think this is well-written for something of its length. I would like to see more of what Jared feels and thinks, and some more of him as a character, but that would require a longer piece of writing, so that's just up to where you want to take this. I really enjoyed your plot - it feels well thought and connected. I hope this review is helpful, and again, if you have any questions, please ask!

Keep writing!

whatchamacallit

Hello, VioletFantasy! My first thought reading this was how short this was, which makes the punchlines funnier. I really like how short this is. It's refreshing to read something three paragraphs long and still get the point across. Writing such a short story is also really challenging, so kudos to you! It reminds me of the Sideways Stories From Wayside School, one of my favorite childhood books.

There's nothing I can really say that hasn't been said already, but the story is darkly humorous. I love dark humor, and this didn't disappoint.

The plot is entertaining, and it made me laugh out loud, but the premise has been done. I would love to see something more creative and out of the box. Play with tropes, make the reader do double-takes when the story goes a way they thought would go another way. It's challenging, but every writer has their own style.

Great job,
Athena

Hello, VioletFanatasy, and I have to say this is one crazy story. All of these events that are tied to the kid named Jared are sad and depressing, but how the story tells it makes it funny. Hopefully that doesn't mean I'm a horrible person(I hope not). But without further ado, I'll get started with the review. Poor Jared.
Anyways, I'll start with saying the plot is very basic, but still entertaining. I'm not saying you didn't work hard on it (don't get mad at me), I'm saying the whole idea of an unlucky kid destroying things is pretty down-to-earth. And that's fine, not everything has to have 100 chapters with 10,000 words in each one. Of course, this was made an year ago for school, so I won't poke at it too harshly.
The good thing I found is that I didn't detect any grammar mistakes, so good job! Normally with shorts like these there isn't that many errors because it is so short and it doesn't leave room for errors. I think that's one of the reasons I like shorts.

For this reason, he doesn’t have any friends, who are alive anyway.

I actually don't know what to say. This made me laugh so hard, but thankfully no one heard. I mean, the sentence is very basic, but the emphasizing here is enough to be funny. At least to me(I may be a bad person). Basically, what makes this funny is the last part.

Let’s just say, they survived the car crash, but not the hospital. Jared went to visit them and accidentally set the hospital on fire.

Again, humorous. I can see that's what ya'll were going for. Should've said that in the beginning.

When he comes home from The School For Unfortunate Children, he finds a beautiful poodle sitting on his bed.

I don't think that school exists... ok, it doesn't. But very interesting choice of deciding to writ it in the story, it adds more to Jared and how his parents think of him. And adds humor.

Doing the only thing a parent could do, they throw Jared out of the house.

Haha, that's exactly what any parent would do. I guess they had enough of him.
Overall, this is a great short story. From the beginning to the end, I was immersed in it. I hope ya'll got the praise you deserve for this. And thank you for posting it here.
Hopefully you can write even better than this!
With caution,

WaterSpout

Hello there,

The length of this doesn't help your story shine. There's little to no detail and backstory when those things help out, so I recommend going through and adding little bits of detail and maybe some more paragraphs in between for a longer and fuller story. What you have now isn't very unique as it's just a few blocks of words, so putting more effort in characters, story background, and everything else can bring life to this story.

You don't tell us a lot about Jared, and we don't even know what he looks like, so there is a place to expand on; You could mention something about his hair or what he dresses in. The amount of detail present now is like a preschooler wrote it, so I suggest bringing more into your development with action and setting.

Clover continues to live with Jared’s parents while Jared lives on the streets, doing various side jobs and continuing to live a very unlucky life.

Okay, but you didn't really explain here. This is one of the places where you could add a lot more onto, and that could potentially help this a lot.

I've also seen some errors in this, so those will be next.

Everyone calls him a waking disaster.

That phrasing seems off, so you could either change it up and keep your adjectives, or use another similar word like 'walking', which can also work in the context as there's a lot of room to expand on.

However, at the age of 12, Jared is finally happy for the first time since that day.

I'd suggest that you put the word version of the number instead; Using numbers in short stories usually only works for children, so to make it seem more organized and professional, change that up if that's what you want to go for.

Also, in that phrase and others, there are many weak adjectives, which do exactly what i said above. A look in a thesauruses can give a lot of good ideas. If you want something fancy, use buoyant, and if you want something on the side of normal, content and pleased are also options. I got all those from a quick search, so it isn't hard.

More uses of adjectives like that:



That's all,
Haley.