((Hi guys I hope all is well and I also hope I improved a bit. I let my English teacher read it over before I post it here so yeah. Enjoy!))
“Well, he says that the ‘richer get richer and the poorer get poorer’” Natalie cited, and her teacher nodded in approval.The plain girl’s cheeks were red.She hated answering questions in class.
Natalie looked over to the comely girl next to her.The girl had brown hair that was cut very short.She looked over to Natalie and gave her the thumbs up.Natalie blushed even more.Then Natalie turned back to her textbook.The attractive girl smiled,but didn’t realize the covert secret Natalie possessed.
Kids were screeching at each other.Some were throwing papers.The teacher condoned this horrible behavior.Then this one really rude kid started picking on Natalie-- again.
Natalie isn’t the prettiest girl in her class.She was chubby and had unruly hair.And wore glasses that were too big for her face.
“Hey loser,” the kid teased.Natalie took a deep breath and ignored him.Then he frowned and began to crumble paper balls. And throw them at her.
That’s when the girl (the attractive one), stood up and shouted,”Shut up Nathan!”
“Jeez, chill,” Nathan says, holding his hands up in defense,”Chill Alexandra”
“Talk crap, and I will go after you there will be no mercy Nathaniel.No clemency at all jerkwad!”she threatened. Then she sat back down and turned to Natalie.
“I wish I can delete their comments. Are you okay?” Alexandra says.
“Thanks,” Natalie said nervously, her hands were shaking.
Then the girls went to lunch as soon as the bell rang.The girls sat next to each other at a small table.Alexandra was putting ketchup on her burger.She was rambling to Natalie about how tired she has been lately.
“But the cogent way of solving this, well Alexandra it’s to take a nap,”Natalie suggests.
“Sleep is weak!” Alexandra exclaimed, while finishing her homework cursorily.Natalie stared at her, then thought about what her brother said. What if Alexandra is cynical and just wants to pick on Natalie.
Natalie’s smile dropped, as tears welled up in her eyes,”Excuse me.”
She rushed off to the bathroom and locked herself in the nearest stall. Natalie began to cry.Sure, she had credence in the girl.But her anxiety and mental issues made her unsure.
“Natalie?” a voice asked. Natalie stayed quiet.
“Aye it’s me,” the voice starts,”Alexandra.”
Natalie tried her best to stay quiet, but a weak cry came out.Then she opened the stall door, and hugged Alexandra.Natalie sobbed.
“What’s wrong?” Alexandra asks.
“You! You being my friend! It’s a complete mess Alexandra!” Natalie cried, “My God!People hate me! They love you! You’re perfect!You probably hate me too!”
Alexandra smoothed down Natalie’s hair, then pulled away.Looking at Natalie, Alexandra was blushing as her friend was still crying.
“This is gonna be disgustingly cliche and I apologize now. But it’s true,but well,” Alexandra starts,”But like- well I love you Natalie. I’ve always loved you. You’re different and perfect to me.”
“But-” Natalie starts. In a mere thirty seconds,maybe less, Alexandra leaned over and kissed Natalie.
Natalie sat there stunned. Alexandra carefully dried Natalie’s tears with her thumbs.
“Well then I guess they’re gonna hate us both aha,” Alexandra smiles. Then the lights coruscated, but then went back to normal.
Natalia shyly grabbed Alexandra’s hand,and together they walked out of the bathroom.
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140,836 Literary Works • 673,694 Reviews
Hey there! Glad to hear that you shared this with your English teacher; it's good to get feedback. I have some constructive criticism as well, I hope you find it to be helpful!
The biggest issue I found in this was switching verb tenses. Some verbs are in present tense while others are in past tense. This can be extremely confusing to the reader and isn't a good writing habit to develop. Here's a few examples from your story so you know what I'm talking about:
"'What’s wrong?' Alexandra asks."
"'It’s a complete mess Alexandra' Natalie cried"
See what I mean? You have to choose one or the other; past or present. Some of these examples are easy fixes. "Alexandra asks" could easily just become "Alexandra asked". I'm sure you can get the hang of it!
Moving on: word choice. At some points you used great word choice, but at others, you just reused words. If you're going to use more higher thinking words, the rest of your writing should match. I would probably just omit these words.
The final thing I have to comment on is plot. I get that it's a short story, but it moves incredibly fast. Yes, Alexandra admits that what she's saying is cliché, but that's exactly what this story is. At the beginning of the day, these girls didn't even know each other and then at lunch they're talking like they've known each other their entire lives. Then, we finish the story with a kiss. Honestly, this confused me. Would you ever kiss someone you had only known for less than a day? I personally wouldn't. This could have ended with the idea that the girls like each other in a different way; maybe Alex admits that she feels that they're connected somehow and wants to get to know Natalie better, etc. It doesn't have to end in an illogical and confusing way like it originally was.
Overall, I honestly did not enjoy this piece. You had simple mistakes with punctuation and vocab that could have been cleaned up to make the piece much more enjoyable. That being said, please feel free to take my advice and improve! I bet you can do it! Keep writing and I'm sure you'll be surprised at how much you improved!
I saw this post on your wall:
Well, buckle up, because I've got a lot of suggestions for this piece.
The impression that I got from this story was that it was an assignment to use as many vocab words as possible. Not that there's anything wrong with that (heck, one of my literary works on this site is a collection of vocab stories). I'm just not sure if it was intentional. Most of the story is written with simple vocabulary, but then there are random words like "clemency" and "coruscated" thrown in there. You said you gave this to your English teacher before posting it, so I suppose that might have had something to do with it. My suggestion would be (if this isn't an assignment) to remove these words unless you edit the wold piece to match that level of vocabulary, otherwise they just seem out-of-the-blue. Especially in dialogue.
This also has some grammar issues. For instance, you switch between past and present tense.
"Isn't" is a present tense verb. "Was" is past tense. Switching between the two tenses is confusing and unpleasant to read.
There are other problems, too, like lack of commas and the like, but I'm pretty sure you can fix those yourself with a bit of proofreading.
Something else that was a recurring problem was that you didn't always put a space after punctuation.
There needs to be a space after that comma. Seeing it the way it is is like the visual equivalent of nails on a chalkboard for me. This happens many times throughout the work, so I'd recommend going through and looking for the other times that it happens.
Now, looking at the story itself, the one thing that I keep thinking is this: Where's the plot? This is a nice snippet of romance, but I'd like to see more. Why do Alexandra and Natalie like each other? Why are they friends, and what causes them to end up kissing? This would satisfy the reader and make the piece much more fleshed out. This also ties into my next comment.
I felt like the romance was rushed. At the beginning, Natalie doesn't even know Alexandra's name, and at the end, they're kissing. It seems as if they've been best friends for years, when, from what I can tell, they only met a few hours ago. This would work better if they did know each other at the beginning. Something else you could do to flesh out the romance is show snippets of them becoming better friends over the years.
If I were to describe this piece in one word, it would be sloppy. It doesn't seem like a lot of thought and care went into writing it, as evidenced by the grammar mistakes and the half-baked romance. It also doesn't seem like it's been proofread at all, because that how most of the problems in this piece could be fixed. By taking a step back and looking at what you've written, you see it from the eyes of the readers, and it helps you make it so much better.
Overall, I didn't really like this. Please don't take it personally, and instead do as you said in your wall post and use my advice to strengthen your writing. Keep on writing!