She's barely visible as she walks through the hall. Scampering through the crowds, she finds herself out of place. Her friends that were once there, has gone to a new place. Leaving her behind to fight for herself against the harsh words of the people she never knew. She sits at her own little table at the back of the class. Silently doing her work without the help she once had. She can hear the faint, whispered conversations going on throughout the room. She wishes she had someone to talk to again. Someone to share answers with and gossip about the music or trend.
Later that night, sitting in her room, she wishes she had never decided to drive. She blames herself every day of her life for what happened over summer. "It just wasn't fair. She had everything going for her and I ruined it" she tells herself.
Now, as graduation nears, she finds herself preparing for a speech that should have been her friend's. Finally, the moment comes for her speech to be heard by the people she never knew, strangers, and family. She tells about the friend that was lost. Who was loved by all and exceeded in everything she did. She tells how she had no reason to die. And that this speech should have been hers. As she comes to the end, she looks around the room, seeing it filled with tears and sounds of sniffles. She finishes her speech, saying "Life is what we make it. We can't change the past. No matter how hard we try. But we can learn from our mistakes and fix the future. Congratulations class of 2008! We made it! Now lets make the best of what we have left."
As she walks back to her seat, everyone stands up, applauding for the girl that never had anything to say.
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,856 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
Anyway let's get right to it,
Well this is a pretty start sad. It seems we've got someone who for some reason has ended up estranged from her friends and most of the school for some reason. Its an interesting case because clearly this person did have quite a few friends and a healthy social life at some point even though she appears to be an outcast now. The second paragraph does seem to hint at something, perhaps along the lines of some sort of driving accident that left maybe this person's best friend dead in some way...although it is a little bit of a jump, it seem the only explanation for this current situation. At any rate this gets our attention quite well.
Well it appears my suspicious were in fact correct there. The conclusion really was the only way, and I think this really makes for a beautiful ending here. It seems a bit more forced on the emotions and these two sections don't quite connect to each other, I think you've got something that's a little shorter than it should be. But besides that, as a beginning and a end these two come together as an excellent start here for this piece. It just needs a stronger bridge there in the middle.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
It was a bit hard to get into. The structure was a bit weak and the first paragraph turned me off. I felt like I was reading an angsty story, and, well I was. Try to eliminate that feeling.
This story is morose, so you don't want to interrupt that with other odd emotions. Excitement is one of these emotions. Drop the exclamation points. It would make it infinitely more powerful.
I didn't mind the non-descript nature of the narrator. Unlike many, I often could care less about their physical description, especially in a short piece such as this. And thank you for not naming the girl. This seriously ups the level of your story. It would look rather silly and conceited if there were an "Ashleigh" or "Lindsey" in there every other sentence.
If you can develop your main character more, you're gold. One thing that this piece lacks is really any emotion. Obviously there's the potential for emotion there, because this is centered around what seems like a traumatic event, but I don't actually feel any of the main character's feelings. What you're doing here is telling, not showing. You tell us that she has no friends anymore. Show us! Do they purposely avoid her in the hallways? Do they give her dirty looks? Do they just ignore her?
As both Jennafina and Claudette have pointed out, this piece is very dry. It is very important to hook the reader in the beginning, to make them care about your characters right from the start, but because we know almost nothing about your main character, we have nothing to relate to. This piece has the potential for expanision, because really, it's not easy to handle such a big topic in four paragraphs.
I hope I helped!
This is kind of sweet, and obviously heartfelt, but it doesn't seem very catchy, especially at first.
I hope this was helpful.
You need to grab the reader with an interesting opening or character. Why should the reader care? What keeps them going, prevents them from giving up on your story?
I think it's a good start, but it needs to be longer, or at least have more details. I know nothing about the main character except that she's lost a friend. She has no personality or mannerisms that I can relate to. If she's so shy, how did she get appointed to give a speech at graduation?
Why is she not dead when her friend is? I get the vague sense that the main character was driving a car, got in an accident, and had her friend(s?) killed. Was she drunk? Was the fault of the other car involved, if there even was another car involved at all? Why isn't she in jail or something for manslaughter, if that is the case?
Why is she not completely traumatized?
Answering some of those questions (maybe I went a little overboard, I don't think you have to answer them all or anything) would really help your interestingness factor.
Your transitions are nice, I like how one paragraph flows to the next. I also like the speech of the girl, and how the ending ties in with the introduction.
Good luck and keep writing!
You need a comma before the second quotation mark.
It seemed really flowing, and didn't catch me. It was good, its just not something I would find myself reading. It feels passive, though I don't think there is any passive usage in it. It's not moving, though, it just sits. Also in the last part you repeated some stuff about how it was her friends speech to give and they shouldn't have lost their lives, you told us that already.
BFG has a good point. ^_^ Moved.
I like the topic, but I think of this as fiction, not poetry. It was well done as fiction though, except for the occasional word repetition or use of a boring word when there was a chance for a more interesting one. It reminded me of a book called Owen... have you read it? Anyway, good topic, but the way it's written I really wouldn't call it poetry.