Young Writers Society

Hello, elleeyyy, PastelSlushie here for review number eight for #RevMo ! Let's get right into it!

This had been lingering in my review drafts section for quite some time so I decided to finally get it out of there.

I feel this story isn't very developed. We don't have much insight on characters, like, heck, we don't even know their names! If you were going for the vague description style for this, it doesn't click well. Not much background is included and a bit non-existent here, it seemingly starts at what looks like the middle of a story instead of a beginning.

This would also seem more professional if it wasn't one big paragraph. A new paragraph should start when someone is talking, when the topic/theme/idea changes, or when a paragraph you're writing is getting too long.

As we go on in the middle and close to the end, everything gets really intense. There is nothing wrong with that, but it happened way too fast. It goes from the narrator explaining why she loved him, and then her committing suicide. To an extent, I feel sympathy for the main character because she is going through something terrible, but I wish to be more connected to her as a person, and not just a name on a screen, you know what I'm saying?

Feel free to send me a message if you have any questions or disagree with anything in my review. Best of luck in your future pieces,

Pastel

Hi there! Here to leave a few thoughts for review day.

So I think that this piece has some interesting form to it, in that we seem to learn a whole bunch about these two characters in your piece the speaker and the boy, but we don't know like their background. It's kind of odd for me as a reader to jump in where you start the piece. For a short story this isn't necessarally bad, but I think it might be positive to add a bit more background to the piece. For instance even adding a name for the boy and girl would give the reader a little something to hold onto.

As we get to the middle portion of the piece, everything gets intense almost too quickly. I want to have sympathy for the speaker and I do to an extent because they're in a horrible situation. But the relationship just seems really toxic as well. Towards the end of the piece as a reader I felt somewhat overwhelmed by the situation. I think if there was a little bit more positivity or a break from the sorrow of the piece in there somewhere it would be an easier piece to read, but right now it's sort of one noted -- intense.

I would second Stella's comment about adding paragraph breaks. This helps a ton in helping readers get the piece in chunks that are easier to read and understand. It also helps you sort out themes so the reader isn't overwhelmed.

I think the ending is interesting, heartbreaking, but an interesting twist too with the afterlife. I wish you luck in your future writing!

~alliyah

Hey, how are you doing?! Welcome to YWS, happy to have you on board

First things first, hun, you gotta learn how to use paragraphs. They're honestly really easy, you just hit enter! You should start a new paragraph whenever you start a new thought, idea, or theme, or sometimes just when you think the previous paragraph is getting too long. You have none here, and that's an issue. Paragraphs are important, like the rest of the rules of grammar and language, because they help us to read the piece and therefore they help you to communicate your point. So paragraphs! Use them to your advantage.

[New theme, new paragraph - see? ] I always got told never to kill off a character in a short story when I was in school, the reason being that your readers are never going to be attached enough to them to actually care. Now, I don't know how I feel about that, but what I do know is that here, you kill two people off, and it's difficult to care about either of them, we don't know anything about them whatsoever!

I work a lot with people who feel suicidal at the moment, so it's difficult for me to feel detached from what's going on here, though what I see isn't really a very healthy relationship. The reason being that no one wants their loved ones to die for them, or wants their loved ones to grieve for them. So the whole double-suicide thing strikes me as fairly toxic, and I find it a little weird how it's written as something warm, and something liberating. Even if your main character herself doesn't have much insight, you could drop hints that maybe this isn't everything it's cracked up to be.

An interesting depiction of the afterlife there, it was pretty, and people don't generally write to that point, so that was for sure an interesting twist at the end, I assumed it was just going to cut off at the moment that she jumped (or, indeed, the moment she decided not to). But for the moment, it's worth I think developing a little more - this is flash fiction, and you have space to develop your characters, and really make us feel for them and relate to them.

Hope I helped, drop me a note if you need anything!

-Stella x

Hi elleeyyy,

I just finished, and my initial reaction is that it's an interesting take on a sad topic.

I don't think your character should have jumped, the idea of dying for love seems so melodramatic. There is no substance there, this person has to have more to their jump, more of a story to tell. The loss of love is extreme, yes, but to throw yourself off a cliff, seems unlikely. I think if you grew the concept, and built it in a way that structures the death as accidental. Or, instead of her love dying, what if he never actually died, but found this alternate reality instead and he brings her there, much like your "Welcome to Neverland" play on Peter Pan.

I think if you add a bit more strategy to the story, instead of tragedy, you got yourself something good!