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Young Writers Society


12+ Mature Content

A Fresh Start

by hockeyfan87


A fresh start. That’s what they were calling it. A chance to start over again with new faces. I knew it was a lie though. They didn’t move me for a ‘fresh start’, they moved me because it was too embarrassing to face their peers with a 16 year old daughter who had been raped and impregnated at 15. Most people would embrace their child, but not my parents. They looked at the situation like it was my fault. They sent me away for the whole pregnancy to live with my grandma. I was supposed to come back after 9 months looking the same as I did when I first left, the only difference being I would be without a baby. But that wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want to give up my child. I had already had so much taken from me, I wouldn’t let anyone take my child. I didn’t tell my parents that though, until the day I gave birth to my son, Hunter. My grandma knew what was going to happen, that I was planning to keep him and she was ok with that. she understood what I was going through and knew that my parents wouldn’t accept my choice, so we both decided not to tell them. Yet, once they found out they were furious. Not that I kept the child, or that I wouldn’t be a fit mother for my son. They were concerned what the neighbors would think. I remember my mother screaming at me, “You’re father just got a promotion! What will his co-workers think? You can’t do this to us!” I couldn’t do it to them. How dare I, the 15 year old who just had a child after being raped, put my family in this position. My grandma was supportive of me and my choice though, and knowing that she would be moving to an elderly care center, decided to have me move in with my aunt and her boyfriend. That was that. My parents put up no fight. They didn’t care. As long as me and my son were out of their lives.


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Fri Jul 23, 2021 7:03 am
KateHardy wrote a review...



Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

Anyway let's get right to it,

A fresh start. That’s what they were calling it. A chance to start over again with new faces. I knew it was a lie though. They didn’t move me for a ‘fresh start’, they moved me because it was too embarrassing to face their peers with a 16 year old daughter who had been raped and impregnated at 15. Most people would embrace their child, but not my parents. They looked at the situation like it was my fault. They sent me away for the whole pregnancy to live with my grandma. I was supposed to come back after 9 months looking the same as I did when I first left, the only difference being I would be without a baby. But that wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want to give up my child. I had already had so much taken from me, I wouldn’t let anyone take my child. I didn’t tell my parents that though, until the day I gave birth to my son, Hunter. My grandma knew what was going to happen, that I was planning to keep him and she was ok with that. she understood what I was going through and knew that my parents wouldn’t accept my choice, so we both decided not to tell them. Yet, once they found out they were furious. Not that I kept the child, or that I wouldn’t be a fit mother for my son. They were concerned what the neighbors would think. I remember my mother screaming at me, “You’re father just got a promotion! What will his co-workers think? You can’t do this to us!” I couldn’t do it to them. How dare I, the 15 year old who just had a child after being raped, put my family in this position. My grandma was supportive of me and my choice though, and knowing that she would be moving to an elderly care center, decided to have me move in with my aunt and her boyfriend. That was that. My parents put up no fight. They didn’t care. As long as me and my son were out of their lives.


Well that's a rather powerful start there for a story...definitely talking of a very realistic and rather horrible set of circumstances for our protagonist here, and really establishing the main premise of what this story is going to be about really well there.

I love the way that the background is set here. You've directly gotten to the point about the horrible set of circumstances that put this girl in the situation she's currently in and the way that the parents and then the grandmother reacts to it all. There's a nice amount of contrast being shown here to see just how the parents receive the news and what sort of priorities the parents seem to have along with the kind of thoughts that her grandma has. You clearly see just how much support is actually being offered to her from either side and the ulterior motives behind here parents ideas.

All in all, this builds a nice picture for us to get a sense of who each person and how the protagonist ends up where they do, its almost a nice bit of backstory here to start with. Overall, seems like it could lead to a pretty interesting story here, and one that I would potentially read. :D

Aaaaand that's it for this one.

As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.

Stay Safe
Harry




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Sat Jul 13, 2013 6:36 am
ERZA wrote a review...



Hey hockeyfan! Erza is here to review your great story!!

First of all I think this is a great story...the plot is different and so original.
Also..the way that you wrote was kind of rushed but thats alright seeing that you can do so much for this story.
Here is what you have done....
Wrote out the whole outline of the story and stopped it at the point where you think the real story begins. Wrote out the whole stuff in a single paragraph which annoyed most of the readers(not me!) I think.

Here is what you can do....
Make this a prolouge or the outline and start anew.
Like how one would write a novel...you need not write many chapters..just make it large..
You could even develop the story and write it out elaboratly with generous amount of description about the characters and their emotions and all because some people like to feast on good stories..

Overall...

This story has great potiential and this plot is very good too but I hope you will be able to write it the way it is supposed to be..
Good Luck! And yeah I will be waiting!! :-) :-)
So long~




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Thu Jul 11, 2013 8:07 pm
YoungMom1210 wrote a review...



Hey there :)

Well the first thing i noticed like everyone else here that it is one great big paragraph. I think if you went through this and actually made a couple changes and put more detail into it then it would be an amazing story.

Another thing, This sounds more like a prologue, not a first chapter. It would be really awesome if the next chapters were like a back story of how all this happened and about her family and stuff.

Another thing, PLEASE go through and work on this more. It has a LOT of potential and it would be an amazing story otherwise.


When you have time please go to my works and read and review :) I would appreciate it !!


Thanks
YoungMom1210




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Mon Jul 08, 2013 10:02 pm
ForeverRebel wrote a review...



Hi there. Rebel to review.

I noticed right off the bat that this piece was one large paragraph. Paragraphs are your friend! After about 6-8 sentences, you need to begin a new paragraph.

Also, I feel liked you rushed everything. I think it would've been better if you slowed down with everything, and you could possibly elaborate on some of the details you've written.

Now, here are the mistakes I found in this:

"... they moved me because it was too embarrassing to face their peers with a 16 year old daughter..." -> You should put a hyphen between 'year' and 'old'. Also, you always write out numbers if they're less than twenty. So, you'd write out sixteen, fifteen, nine, and all the other numbers in the piece.

"she understood..." -> You forgot to capitalize the 's' in 'she'.

"Yet, once they found out they were furious." -> "Yet, once they found out, they were furious."

"You're father just got a promotion! What will his co-workers think?" -> "Your father just got a promotion! What will his coworkers think?" 'Your' needs to be possessive because the father is the girl's. If you don't know when to use the two correctly, take 'you're' and change it to 'you are'. It doesn't make much sense saying "You are father..." :P

"How dare I, the 15 year old..." -> "How dare I, the fifteen year-old..."

"As long as me and my son were out of their lives." -> "As long as my son and I were out of their lives."

With some editing, I think you can do a nice job with this book.

Good luck with your writing!




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Mon Jul 08, 2013 9:38 pm
LadyPurple wrote a review...



Hi! I'm LadyPurple! I will be doing a review of your work here!
The first thing I noticed about this was that the text was in a big block. This may not even be something you intended. Sometimes YWS spits the story out like this, especially if you're an Internet Explorer user (I used to be). But, if that's not the case, non-block text is easier to read. Paragraph breaks are your friend! The idea is fairly common and, when not done properly, can be cliché.
Honestly, I feel as though this could have been good if we, the readers, could have seen all of this unfold. To see her struggle with what happened to her, the rejection of her parents and peers. I also want to feel for her. I don’t feel connected to her by a summary for the first chapter.
This is a suggestion and you may do as you please because this is your book. (:
That’s all from me! Good luck and keep writing!
~LP




LadyPurple says...


OOh! I forgot! PM me if you have any questions!




If all pulled in one direction, the world would keel over.
— Yiddish proverb