Young Writers Society

I think this story could be elongated by changing the approach, perhaps inserting a kind of lead up of events to being hit by car, because all the drama is at the beginning of the story, and so, doesn't leave much room for anything else after it.

I think it's a good memoir of personal experience, but for it to be more of a short story I think there has to be more of a lead up to it.

My main problem with this is that I can't figure the actual point of the story. What do I mean by this? Well, it seems like you told the story in the first short paragraph alone. The following paragraphs were just the description of the aforementioned event. By the end of the story I was not satisfied. I was thinking, "Why did I read the rest? The first three sentences told me the whole thing."

So, I have a couple of suggestions:

1. Change the title to something that only hints at the main topic of the story. Saying that your life was changed forever forces the reader to make the assumption that the main event was traumatic and devastating, or wonderful and heart-warming. This in and of itself isn't so bad, but you don't do anything with the small bit of suspense you had built up in the title. You killed any suspense in the first paragraph! If you do it right, you can tempt the reader into clicking the link to your story with just a subtle taste of what the tale is actually going to be about. You have to reach that fine balance between giving away to much and giving away too little (in this case, you're giving away too much). A creative, eye-catching title can make all the difference in both getting the reader to come into the thread to read the story, and to set up a foundation of suspense upon which you can build the rest of your story. By revealing things little by little, the reader will have an incentive to keep going.

2. Change your first paragraph/sentence. You need something that does not really give away anything, but that also instantly sucks your reader in. I actually think this story would be better with its structure inverted -- first describe the whole event, but in vague terms. Make sure the reader doesn't know exactly what you're describing; keep them guessing. Then, near the end of the story, you reveal what happened, leaving everyone saying, "Ohhhh. I get it now."

So I mostly agree with everyone else in that this story could be something, but as it is, it's pretty mediocre.

I will mention, however, that aside from the actual outline of the story, your writing isn't bad in the least. It's just the structure of the piece that needs work.

Some closing comments:

"tyers"

You mean "tiers"?

"high pitched scream from someone very close to em, someone I had known forever. Me."

First you need to fix that first "me," and second, I think this sentence is really awkward and repetitive. I would take out the first "me" and make it: "high pitched scream from someone very close to my heart, someone I had known forever. Me." Even with that correction I still don't know if I like the sentence, but it's okay, I suppose.

Keep writing.

Prokaryote

I think this piece has alot of potential.

In a short story, to me, the first lines are where you capture your audience and pull them in, and although your beginning is dramatic, it doesn't look dramatic. I think you could make more use of language to really play this part up.

I agree with Phorcys that, although I think that the descriptive part about the Toyota and its driver is good, its like it shouldn't be there, because it seems that if you had enough time to take all this in, you shouldve had enough time to move out of the way of the car.

Maybe if you started off with some other, less significant, event before this and led the reader up to this point it would give you more of a chance to capture your audience and develop your characters Alex, Jane and Jason, as we have no real idea who they are or what they're like.

There seems to be a big thing about the fact that this Alex has been her boyfriend for three months. As I've said, I think if you do take the reader back in time a bit before hand, you won't have to state this because the reader will already have some prior knowledge on the characters.

I think if you take into consideration what has been said, and generally elongate this piece, then it will have the desired effect on the reader. I think you could really shock and interest the reader with more input into the part where she gets hit.

Hey!

Hmm... this was an interesting piece- a sort of 'what would happen if...?' thing. Kind of scary to read, actually. I like your main character (she's pretty likeable, even though it's too early in the story for her to be fully developed yet), though I had a few qualms about some other stuff. Only two things, actually:

1. FIRST LINES- are amazingly tough to do. Trust me, I've started my current WIP over seven times because I've gone along and then become dissatisfied with the first paragraph or so. Though, with a few revisions and some foresight, you can avoid...er...misery and agony.

The first thing you've got to do is determine the style of your piece. Is it humorous, or is it tragic? (These would be the main two categories you'd want to pick from with this piece, I believe.) Whichever one you pick, you'll want to make sure the reader's first impression gets them set up for what they're about to get bombarded with- I mean this in the best possible way.

As I stepped into the road, I turned and looked at my boyfriend of 3 months - Alex. That's when the car hit me. That's when my life changed forever.

"Come on!" I shouted to my boyfriend of three years- and, being his usual self, he didn't listen. Infuriated, I stepped off into the street alone.

That's when my life changed forever.

Quote:
As I stepped into the road, I turned and looked at my boyfriend of 3 months - Alex
‘(…) my boyfriend of 3 months?’ That just doesn’t sound right… (Also, as Phorcys said: change 3 into three).

Quote:
That's when the car hit me. That's when my life changed forever.
In my opinion, there’s too many of the ‘that’s when‘.

Again, I agree with Phorcys here - the second paragraph is a bit unrealistic, considering the fact that the car hit her.

Quote:
I don't remember any squealing of breaks, only the high pitched scream from someone very close to em, someone I had known forever. Me.
I don’t quite get this paragraph. I suppose that the ‘em’ is a typo and that you wanted to write ‘me’, but then the second ‘me’ wouldn’t make much sense…

Quote:
I guess only a few seconds passed, but it seemed like a life time, and I then felt excruciating pain shooting down my landing side.
‘Only a few second HAD passed’, -I think, anyways. The last bit after the second comma should be turned into a separate sentence, and ‘then I (…)’ would go better with the general flow of the story. Also, I don’t like how you have two different times in one paragraph.

Quote:
I could hear the cries from my mate Jane and the comforting words from Jason her boyfriend.
Uh… How did they suddenly get here… I mean, I understand that she passed out, but I think that you are jumping way too fast from one thing to another. I don’t expect you to go on and on on one subject, but… -You know what I mean? Also, the last bit of this sentence is a bit uncorrect. Maybe: ‘(…) Jane and the comforting words of her boyfriend, Jason?’ -But that’s just a suggestion.

Quote:
Lester central hospital.
That in capital letters? -I’m not sure here, though.

quote:
Max shouted to Alex as the doors were closed,
'as the doors where closed?'

To tell you the truth, I didn’t like this story, mostly because I think you did not put enough effort into it. For one thing, it was way too fast, as if you were rushing to get the whole thing done. Another thing that I didn’t like was how you put emphasis on the car description: a) as I already said, it’s not realistic in that situation
b) You did not describe anything else.

As I stepped into the road, I turned and looked at my boyfriend of 3 months - Alex. That's when the car hit me. That's when my life changed forever.

The car was a small Toyota - dirty red with mud spattered on its tyrers - it looked old. The driver didn't see me, he had his head bent down looking into his lap, one hand off the wheel. By the time I saw him, the car was inches in front of me, all I could do was wait and see what lay in store for me. I don't remember any squealing of breaks, only the high pitched scream from someone very close to em, someone I had known forever. Me.