Julie felt different.
When she woke up this morning, she felt different. She didn’t wake up with a smile on her face, nor did she look out the window and see a beautiful view of the suburbia.
Instead, she rubbed her eyes and dragged herself out of the bed.
Once she was in the bathroom, she looked at herself. Her face wasn’t shining with a morning glow; she was only staring at an almost-dead face in the mirror.
She decided to ignore it and trudged on with her morning routine.
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She felt like an outcast in school that day. No one bothered to look at her or notice her; not even her friends. But she wouldn’t let anyone see her sadness. She merely shrugged it off and went on.
On normal days, her friends would greet her and huddle up by the quadrangle and talk. They’d share stories, jokes, and things like that. Next, she tries to catch her crush’s attention, which does happen, and gives him a smile or a wave.
At lunch, she decided to sit on another table, rather than with her friends. She picked on her food and watched the students laugh and play with their food.
“At least they’re happy.” She muttered.
She wasn’t really feeling like eating, so she went outside to the field, and sat on the bleachers. She felt nothing; not even the heat of sun.
It was quite depressing. She loved the feel of the sun touching her face.
Maybe I’m just sick. It’ll pass. She thought to herself. She tied her hair in a ponytail and relished the sun.
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When Chemistry came, she hugged her book, and searched for a vacant stool to sit on. She saw her friends huddled up on one counter, talking and giggling.
She smiled, hoping that they would notice her. One of her friends, Jaja, turned her head and saw her.
Julie smiled and waved, but Jaja only shrugged and turned back around.
Julie frowned; were her friends mad at her? She didn’t do anything wrong.
She started to feel angry rather than sad. She decided to skip school and go home, since nobody bothered to notice her, anyways.
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She rode on her bike and zoomed home, and used the ladder at the back of the house to crawl in her bedroom window.
She sighed, plopped her bag down on the floor and leaped to her bed.
What was wrong with her today? She shook her head, refusing her tears to fall.
She decided to go downstairs and talk to her mother. But when she was about to enter the living room, she heard her parents crying.
“Oscar…” Her mother sobbed. “Why?...”
“I don’t know, Marie… I don’t know…” Her dad replied.
She decided to step in the living room, and then she noticed the newspaper on the coffee table.
She was horrified when she read the headline.
Julie Ronsen found dead at her home; possible suicide is the lead.
She just realized…
…She was dead.
Points:
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Canary word: Present
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Hi!
I have to agree with velar that this story needs more emotion. It feels really, really stoic at the moment. Like this part:
If it was me in a situation like that, I think that I would feel really left out and be really upset. But with Julie, she just seemed mildly upset about her friends ignoring her. Tell us how she feels. A story needs emotion. Especially when something this emotional (in my opinion anyway) is happening.
I did notice that you put some emotion in it. Like here:
That's good. But to make it better, I think you can elaborate on it. Tell us why it was depressing, tell us how depressing it is. I believe that sadness can come in different levels you can feel really, really sad. Or you can be mildly sad. Tell us how sad she was. Make us feel sad with her. I find that in really good stories, I can feel what the characters is feeling. I can feel their joy, sadness, excitement and etc. I guess the goal here is to make us feel what the character is feeling.
Another point I'd like to make is:
If she's dead then shouldn't her friends be sad? Shouldn't they be feeling rather down and miserable instead of giggling? I find the fact that they're giggling when one of their friend is dead seems rather strange. Unless of course if her friends hated Julie. But no mention of that came up, so I had a feeling that her friends didn't hate her. I would suggest making her friends seems a bit more solemn and not as happy.
Another thing that links back to that point is that he atmosphere of the school seems quite happy, bright and normal. Which seems quite contradictory to how it should be. I think that the school would be in a more solemn mood if someone died regardless of how close they were.
Overall, I think that you have a pretty good story. The plot seems to be an interesting one. But I think that you need to work on creating the atmosphere and putting more emotion in the story. As it's lacking a bit of those two at the moment. But they aren't hard to fix. You just have to rememeber to tell us how the character feels and elaborate a bit on it from time to time. Other than that, you have a pretty good story. Keep it up!
I like this story, but I think it could have more feeling in it.
She feels left out, go more in depth about it.
She is shocked that she's died, right?
Nitpicks:
No one bothered to look at her or notice her#FF0000 ">; *semicolon isn't needed, a comma is fine* not
even her friends.
.
I like the ending, but you could write it better. Her death would not have been on the headlines, it would have been on the sidelines or something.
keep writing, your a good writer.