Pain. Suffering. Poverty. Those were the words that described my life. At the mere age of 8 years old I was diagnosed with Leukaemia, and that’s when it all began. The smell of disinfectant, the waiting room and the squeaky floors of the hospital became home to me. The treatments were long; my hair fell out after a few. I cried for days. But I survived, most of it anyway.
Finally I was alone. The silent footsteps of the nurses and the doctors echoed into my room. I silently crept out to check if it were clear. One nurse and the janitor, streaks of moonlight lit up the wing, keeping myself against the wall I moved into the room beside mine. “Take your time!” Anya impatiently whispered into my ears as she pulled me into her room. “The stupid Nurse wouldn’t leave my room” I hissed in reply. ”I’m surprised I wasn’t dead by the time you got here”. She mumbled slyly. We both crept onto her bed staring out the window.Anyas bare head glistened in the light she caught me staring at it and laughed. “Yours is going to go to” we had a good laugh about this. Reality wasn’t a problem to us then, we were too young. We two girls talked for a while but she soon told me to go back to my room “You’re going to need the sleep”. She said. “What? No way! I’m going to be sleeping throughout the whole operation!” I firmly replied. But I listened she had had more experience.
Later that night, Anya died. I awoke to the sound of tears then my nurse came in. It was unexpected. Well that’s she said anyway. But I think they knew. The doctors stopped giving her transplants months ago; they also stopped giving her hope. She was given up on and she didn't have a say. That night I lay there sodden in tears, Weak light stretched up trying to get to my window, it was morning. After a restless night I awoke to the sordid smell of breakfast. A few minutes Mum burst in she ran up to me and hugged me she knew. HOW SHOULD I FINISH HAS TO BE A SHORT STORY
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hi Ela!
I like what you have here, it's interesting and it's emotional, the right kind of emotional. I think that if you are looking for a way to finish this you should consider that you've already mentioned she is having an operation in the morning, which is why she needs sleep. You can reference that, that it went well or didn't go well. Or that your main character doesn't care if it goes well because she's so sad, or so angry.
I think that's the main thing I'm looking for here. Usually I'd say I want more description and more scenes, but I don't think that is what your story needs, it needs you to tell us how your main character feels by the end of it. Is she going to keep fighting? Does she ask to be put in Anya's room after the operation so she can feel closer? Maybe Anya's mum gives her the blanket that used to be on Anya's bed. These things are tokens of a moving on, or an acceptance and if she's given something she can end it there with a mention of how she feels about how Anya died and about her own Leukaemia.
I agree with Beck in that you should put your dialogue, your characters speech, on a new line each time. That way we're clear about who is speaking and we can understand what's going on a bit better.
I think I'd also like to know how she is feeling physically at this point, maybe she feels drained and unhappy or maybe she just feels like she always does, waiting for another operation with another round of chemotherapy afterward. Her language isn't of an eight year old so we know she gets through it all in the end. Perhaps you could remove the bit about her mum and instead have her saying about what it's like to remember someone she knew so briefly? I don't know how long your short story needs to be, if it's longer than this by a lot you should talk about the operation and things like that. Have her mum try to console her. And yes, like Beck says, have more about their friendship, have them hold hands or how cold they are together on the bed. We just want to know more about them so that the sadness of her death really touches.
I look forward to seeing any edits you make of this. Hit me up if you have any questions, queries or just want to chat.
~ Pen
thankyou! your and beks reply were just what I needed ,you dont know how much help you have given me thanks
Hey there Ela
PM me if you need any help!
Hope you've been enjoying YWS! But remember to get out there and have a look at other people's work. I'm sure they'd reaaaally love you and you never know, you might make a few friends along the way!
So I guess you need help with molding this into a complete short story. One thing I would suggest is making it wholly about Anya's death and how that affects the main character.
So, you have this scene in the middle where the main character and Anya are sneaking around the hospital wing at night. That is nice and kind of shows their friendship, so what I suggest you should do is extend that scene but also add a few scenes showing their friendship more. Showing how they help each other, how they make each other laugh. Maybe you could show when they meet or when the main character goes for her first operation and Anya helps her. Or maybe Anya is throwing up in the toilet and the main character is helping out. Things like that would be interesting. Little snippets of scenes that show the journey of their friendship. And the main character could tell it as though looking back and remembering her friend and then you could reveal that Anya is dead and how this has affected the main character. Either it's made her lose her will to battle her disease because she's seen what it can do or she decides to fight on for Anya. You can decide that. I just think it would make the emotion of the piece more real and impacting.
Also, as a little side note. I would suggest spacing out your dialogue onto separate lines when a new character speaks because then it'll be a little easier to read.
Hope that was useful
Bex x
omgoodness you've helped me so much I didnt know where i was going with this story but your ideas fit and im real gratefull thank you veryy muchh:)))