Young Writers Society

Hi babymagic18,

Mailice here with a short review!

A somewhat interesting and strange short story you present to us, with a very unusual outcome.

Let's start by saying that I liked the story in one way; in terms of structure, it reminded me very much of a script, which is what you have written here. The characters are mostly just talking and I like the way this creates a kind of flowing reading. Since the story itself takes on a very realistic tone, I also like how the characters complement each other here and how you can quickly put yourself in the shoes of the individual participants.

Another thing that struck me is how the story started. It's definitely very interesting that it's a normal day where the character Amelia comes into the kitchen and thus gets the plot going.

I think what also struck me is that I don't really know what to start with. I think that's more because it's uncertain where the story is going and why the title is called that of all things. I'm also unsure about the overall effect. I don't think there's enough depth in the character of Amelia to understand why something has changed here. I think you could go into more detail here, so that we learn more about what Amelia used to be like and what makes the title so special.

Apart from that, I think the writing style is very good, you could sometimes go a bit more into description, but on the whole you have a solid start.

One other thing I noticed while reading:

"Gracie Potter," Ivy said.

Hi there!
So, I think what you have here so far is good. You've got a fairly straightforward plot (at least, as much plot as you can have with a story this short). Something that I really like is that each character really has their own voice. I can pretty much tell who is talking at a given time just by looking at how things are worded. That's really good, and somewhat of a difficult thing to get the hang of. Awesome job there!
Now, although you have pretty strong characterization so far, it could use some work. Just as a small example, I have no idea how old those women are, or what they look like. What was their motivation for being in that room at that given time? All of this was lost on me when I was reading. The good news, this would be relatively easy to fix.
Okay, one thing I just loved was how you inserted flashbacks to Amelia's childhood. That really did a great job of helping me to understand Amelia's motivation. I always enjoy flashbacks in stories, as long as they're not used too much. But here, you've got the perfect amount of it for such a short story.
Another thing that I wanted to point out is that you have very little description. When I read something, I want to get a very clear picture of it in my head, and it didn't really happen here. I want to know what each location looks like, how the people act and react to certain things being said, even facial expressions. This will help immensely in characterization as well. If you know your character well enough to know how they'd react to what others say, then put it in! It could help the reader get to know them a lot better.
Now, going on with the point I was making earlier, this story visually is a bit overwhelming. It's usually good to see a balance of longer paragraphs with shorter dialogue and description, but you have all of the latter and none of the former. This might be partially because you didn't combine dialogue with description, where you should have in a couple places. For example:

Amelia leaned against the counter, eyes on the other women.
"Do you have a name?"

This is one example where these two sentences should be in the same paragraph, because they are about the same person.
My last critique was that I had no idea why Amelia needed to know this about Gracie until the very end. It sounded almost like they were plotting against her or something...but the reality is much better than that. I wasn't sure why they were all meeting where they were, or why they were discussing this specific person. It sounded very suspicious to me.
So, I know this entire review probably sounded pretty harsh, but don't take it that way, I just wanted to give my opinion. Take what you want from this, it's your story. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me, and I'll be happy to answer them.
Thanks for sharing! Keep writing!
~Devan