Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for language.
Veils of steam rose about Olivia as she stood under the streaming shower faucet. The close to burning water poured down her face and back as she massaged her eyelids gently with her fingers. She didn’t know why it felt so good to do so but she tried focusing on that for as long as she could before her mind turned towards other thoughts. Stupid boys, she thought and silently moaned in annoyance, ugh I hate them all. The nice ones are secret assholes. The out assholes are the only ones I like and sometimes they’ll show their stupid sweet side and make me fall for them. It’s hopeless I only like the guys who don’t like me back or show any interest. It’s like I’m setting myself up to be hurt, though I’ll never admit to actually liking anyone. Honestly I’m not sure I’m capable of it yet.
Her thoughts kept rambling on and on as she relaxed and washed herself. She thought about one boy in particular as she massaged shampoo deep into the roots of her golden/ strawberry blonde hair. God! Why do my thoughts keep coming back to him? For some idiotic reason I’m always hoping its him when I receive a text, I think about him way to much and how his shoulders felt under my hands. I need to just admit that I like him since it’s obvious I do. But really there’s no point. I never understand how girls can openly admit and continue to obsess freely that they like someone when they’ve never had a hint that their feelings are mutual. It’s just pointless. After rinsing the shampoo out of her hair she squeezed a generous amount of conditioner into her hand. She evenly distributed it throughout her hair, but her hands suddenly stiffened as a thought popped into her head. I absolutely need to get over this loser, feelings are stupid. I need to make it my goal to get over this asshole. Even if it means going on dates with people I feel nothing for.
Olivia finished her last steps in the shower and gingerly stepped onto the cold tile floor.She wrapped a towel around her face and stepped in front of the mirror. Slightly too small eyes stared back at her, which would be more terrible if weren’t for that fact that they were a pretty green-blue. She was realistic about her looks and although she sometimes fretted about them, they didn’t bother her much. She had great skin, rarely any pimples so far through her teenage years. One major problem with her almost perfect skin, was the red blotches that creeped up her skin every time she felt overly excited or nervous. It was the one thing that was always honest about her emotions even if she couldn’t be, though often there were other factors involved. Her other features were simple; not standout gorgeous or anything. Add a slightly large nose that was cute but didn’t quite fit her face, rosy red lips and cheeks and that’s the basics of her face..
Forcing herself to be nice to her skin she smoothed lotion over her face gently. She then blow dried, her thick crazy hair as long as she could before her arms gave out from holding them up for so such a long time. Mostly dry, but still a little damp in some areas, she gave up. Securely her towel once more she moved out of the bathroom and into her bedroom to get dressed. She slipped on a pair of her dads old but never worn silk boxers and a soft over worn tee. She glanced casual at her phone and after skimming social media and the texts she was ignoring (since she had no energy to respond and didn’t feel enough interest to bother trying to think of something to text back). Hmm I wonder if my lack of close friends is because of my inability to response and communicate over text in a timely and interesting manner. She dismissed that thought and a edging thought of the homework she should be doing and pulled out one her old favorite books and curled up to sleep. The somewhat deep thoughts disappearing as she fell into a deep sleep.
Ding, ding, ding, her phone kept going off. It was a Friday and when she reached over and grabbed her alarm clock to check the time, it was 7 in the morning. Crap, crap, crap. She didn’t even bother glancing at her phone before she darted off into the bathroom. Hurridly she did all the bathroom necessities, and quickly ran a straightener through her ends and bangs. Then applied the smallest amount of makeup she’d let herself get away with for school, and danced back into her room.
Ughh, she fretted, I can never freaking find anything to wear! She wrung her hands through her hair exasperated and quickly pulled on the most basic outfit possible. She laughed at herself but knew she’d get compliments for once on her style choice. She paired black leggings with a denim shirt, chesnut riding boot and a statement necklace around her neck. After she put on the necklace she realized her boobs were hanging out of her shirt big time, one thing that god did bless her with was double d size boobs. They really weren’t that great getting guys seeing as she’d never had a bf and they mostly just got in her way. She knew though that she be getting some stares and the amount of guys that talked to her would be double the usual. Even though she appreciated the attention they gave her, she still didn’t feel comfortable with them and pulled up her shirt the most she could.
A little over a half hour went by and she was out the door her little brother stumbling out after her. They jumped in the car and she quickly started the engine and cranked up the heat. She sped through the back roads, occasionally cursing when a slow car got in front of her and arrived at school just in time.
“Hey Olivia get your ass over here!” Emily waved her over with an ever bright smile.
“Yeah bish what took you so long?” A gaggle of her closest, yet not friends close friends, called out to her. There was Nina with her notable long glossy black hair and dark, yearlong tan. Pale Emily with kinky curly, yellowy blonde hair, whom was slightly chubby but had a constant cheery expression on her face. It also didn’t hurt that she also brought in delicious baked goods to school for us to taste test, though I secretly think she does it in attempt to fatten us up as well. Olivia joked in her head. And sensible Katherine with her quirky yet very stylish glasses and tousled brown hair. A different look than the usual sleek short hairstyle she'd been doting lately.
“I can’t believe you didn’t reply in our group chat! We all were thinking of doing a sleepover to celebrate the first day of break. We’re all so excited! And we are gonna play truth and dare and do other fun stuff.” Nina broke into a grin and winked suspiciously at Katherine.“So can you come?”
“Yeah of course, I’d love to.” Olivia said rolling my eyes. So that’s was what the deal was with explosion on my phone this morning. Maybe I should give my friends more credit for including me since I’m such a bitter bum mostly always. Usually I forget what great friends they really are until I’m hanging out with them. I always feel like I'm en entirely different person when I'm away from them. The warning bell rung just then and Emily and Katherine headed off into separate directions, while me and Nina jokingly looped arms and head off to our cooking class together.
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125,020 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hey there!
You're really quite good at making the characters actions feel real... like, say, when Olivia was in the shower and such- you described how she shampooed her hair, perfectly! At least that's what I thought, anyway.
I like that this story features a group of friends- it's a bit refreshing from the 'best friend' kind of relation ships that are mostly the cases in these types of stories... I have seen lots of pieces with groups of friends, but, ah, it just feels refreshing for some reason... so awesome choice I guess!
I don't understand Olivia's logic. Wouldn't that just make for an even sillier situation? Plus, why is she trying to be rid of her feelings for him? Has she had a crush on him for a very long time? It might help if you explain that she's had a crush on him for several years, then we could definitely understand why she'd want to be over him already.
Heavens, I'm quite thankful for my lack of boobs. I can't help but feel sorry for women with large busts... they're back killers! D:
It's always good to use the full, proper grammar. When you use text talk in writing ( like in your actual stories ) like 'bf' instead of 'boy friend', it looks bad. It's a good idea not to use text talk in your works unless you're writing about text talk, or showing your characters texts in the story, or things like that.
I think this must have been a typo, but it was very confusing. I think you put an extra 'friends' in there. That happens to me ALL THE TIME.
You switched from third person to first, is all.
I'm wondering why this is the intro to your novel? It just seems the same as the other short story you had for this. Which by the way, I didn't actually know this was the same story until I started reading... you might want to consider placing this story of yours under 'novel' instead of 'short story', and then label these as chapters, or parts of chapters.
Other then that, awesome job! Keep up the great writing!!!
See ya around!
-Socks
Hey there! The name's Kirah. I'm here to review this for you ^-^
Alright, I'm going to give you a round of applause for getting to the core of your character. From the MC's thoughts, it's easy to tell you know her well enough. This may not seem like much, but trust me, it is. I've read books where the author doesn't know their character all too well, which gives off stiff and static narration. Your character, however, shows what she's really feeling on the inside, which is a cluster of emotions some of us can relate to. Good job
You've also got a good start on description, although you could omit some things for a nice, cleaner finish. I'll take your opening paragraph for example. (I've also made some corrections).
The ones I've coded in red show that you're making things more complex than they should be. I'm guessing your target audience are teens, so having things simple works better. You as the writer may think you need to explain every little detail to your readers, but you don't. So things like 'close to burning' can be simplified to 'hot', 'and back' isn't needed since we know she's in the shower. Try not to explain things too much. Leave room for the minds of your readers to start working.
I also highlighted 'silently moaned in annoyance' since it doesn't make sense. You can't silently moan. You either do or you don't, right? Try to avoid phrases like that by asking yourself, "Can I do this?" Can you silently moan? Can you breathe out words? These are common mistakes, so don't stress out about it (even I've made them
Also, I've got to tell you the truth here. It really isn't interesting reading about your character's morning routine. Readers don't care about how she fixes her hair or what she's wearing to school (but if you really want to include it, be sure to make it minimal like jeans and a sweatshirt or something). It's nice that you mixed in her thoughts as she's getting ready, but there's not enough of that to balance out the narration. Instead, why don't you put her in a different scene? She could be sitting in class, in the car with her friends, in the middle of dodgeball--I don't know. Just something interesting to keep your readers hooked.
Refrain from describing your characters too much as well. Again, we don't need to know every physical detail of your characters. Leave some of it to the imagination of the readers. If you want them to know that a character has brown hair and blue eyes, then simply state it as 'brown hair and blue eyes'. We don't need to know the size of the eyes or the colour of the lips. If it doesn't serve to move the plot forward, omit it.
Lastly, I'll advise you to avoid the use of text speak like 'bf' and 'ugh' in writing. It takes away the professionalism and readability of the piece.
I hope you understand what I've stated here. Know that I'm not attacking you--I'm trying to help you improve. I'm not a perfect writer either. I make mistakes. We're all here to help each other improve c:
Hope you have a great day/night!
- Kirah
Hello! Flash here for a review!
Okay, there's really not much I have to say. I honestly didn't find any grammatical mistakes. Good job on that! So today I'll mainly be talking about the story itself.
In the first sentence, you mention "steam" and later on in the same sentence "steaming shower faucet." I would probably remove one of the "steam" words because honestly it will flow better. It seems kind of nitpicky, but it just looks weird with the same adjective repeated within the same sentence.
Okay, let's begin with the characters. You show Olivia through her (very long) thoughts rather than actions. When she does think/talk to herself, it's very long. I would consider cutting that down, because she's mainly just revealing things about herself through her thoughts. What I'm trying to say is that some (not all) of the things that she thinks kind of "tells" instead of shows. For example the last paragraph, when she says she feels like a different person without her friends. Of course it's fine to reveal things about themselves through thoughts, but I feel like too much is being said. Sorry if it doesn't make sense, but just try to scale down on how long her thoughts are, because we want to be "shown" some things instead of "told" about them.
Speaking of paragraphs, these paragraphs feel too long. Once again, nitpicky on my part, but sometimes readers get bored when the paragraphs are too long. Don't make your paragraphs too short, but don't make them too long.
I will say that the descriptions are pretty good, and you capture teenage dialogue well.
Oh, and before I go, I noticed you used "bf." Please, please spell out "boyfriend."
Anyway, that's all from me! Keep writing!
~Flash