She tossed her head back in laughter, causing her loose, brown curls to cascade down the back of her grey knit sweater. I was slightly startled by her reaction because I didn’t really think that my joke about the weather was that funny. All my friends say that it’s usually a good sign when she laughs at your dumb jokes. I couldn’t help but laugh a little at myself. I had no doubt that I was going to say something to embarrass myself sooner or later. The dark clouds were looking more and more menacing as I walked Natalie back to her house. Her eyebrows scrunched together in concern as she tried to reassure me yet again that she could walk herself home perfectly fine. She stuck out her bottom lip as she explained that the storm would most likely hit on my way back home. To make Natalie feel better, we decided to take a shortcut through the park, hopefully I could get home from before the downpour. The park was a ghost town with the only source of noise coming from the shuffling of our shoes on the paved walking path. Conversation stopped for a little while as we gazed around at the empty playground equipment. The swings were slowly moving in the breeze. I looked over to see if anything was the matter and I found her softly smiling to herself as she walked beside me. My stomach did a flip-flop and I shoved my hands in my pockets, awkwardly thinking of something to talk about with her. Suddenly, I felt a few droplets of water landing on my arms. I looked over to see Natalie reaching over and taking my hand. We ran for cover under a big oak tree in the middle of the park. A loud crack of thunder erupted from the inky sky, making Natalie jump and scoot a little closer to my side. Under the protection of the branches, our eyes met and the color rose in her cheeks. Her giggle was muffled by her slightly damp scarf.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,015 Literary Works • 672,847 Reviews
That is absolutely adorable. I love it! You did a great job at describing the way he feels about her when he saw her. "Stomach did a flip-flop", that is so much better than butterflies, because that is exactly what your stomach does when you meet that right person. Maybe explain how the giggle sounded and the way he felt when he heard her. Like it was the most joyful sound he had ever heard. But other than that it was amazing! Keep writing, I can't wait to read more about this.
Thank you so much! Honestly, your feedback really means a lot. I have never posted any of my original works on here before and your comment made me smile. Happy New Year!
Hey there!
This was cute, though I can't help feeling a little jibbed! What happens next? You said this was a short story, so I can't help wondering why you stopped there? And what do you hope your readers to get out of this story?
I find Natalie a bit hard to relate too, at first. Her actions make me feel like she's tricking the MC, because she doesn't seem very genuine. At first it's like she's putting on a show (laughing loudly at dumb jokes, pouting...), and it almost seems like the MC thinks so too, just how he mentions the fact that she's laughing at his joke. Towards the end she started acting a little more innocent- like she actually liked him (I'm assuming the MS is male but if not that's okay). Still, I'm suspicious of this girl, and I don't think that's so great unless you were aiming for that. I'm not sure what to suggest for making her seem more genuine at the beginning, but when he looked over and saw her smiling to herself, that's when I started feeling like she actually liked him, so that's a good example of her simply not being able to contain her feelings.
Another thing I wanted to mention, is that you've got a lot of description in here, but not a lot of story. In such a short story, we don't really need to know that the breeze pushed the swings, do we? Honestly, I'd much rather hear the MC's supposed "dumb" joke, which shouldn't be too hard to come up with, either, since it's not very good. Also, what are they walking home from?- a date? Something else? It's not very clear what the situation is, other than the MC likes Natalie, and we're pretty sure Natalie likes the MC. But what else? What happens next?
Also, it's not a very good idea to hide under the only tree in a thunder storm- or at least that's what I was taught as a kid. Lighting strikes high things, so if you're under a tree and it gets struck, not very good things can happen. Just thought I'd mention that~
Anyway, let me know if you write more on this! And Keep it up!!!
-Socks
Hey there music. It is just I, lizzy, stopping by for a quick review. This is my first time reviewing anything involving romance, so without further ado, let the reviewing begin.
Grammar and Spelling
-I always like to start with grammar and spelling because these categories reveal a lot about the story.
- I noticed that a couple of your sentences were a bit long and some had commas but not in the right places.
1.
- I believe that a comma "," is needed after reaction and before because. When I read the sentence aloud I heard a pause in my voice, but on paper there is no such pause.
Content
1. Oh look, is that what I think it is, a possible cliffhanger? If so, I applaud you my friend for writing that. I was drawn to your story for a variety of reasons but the most important was the title. It was simple and gave more answers to me than those deep, dark, mysterious titles that usually label short stories. This was going to be a short story about somebody in the rain.
2. Though the title drew me in, the first three sentences convinced me to stay for a little while longer. The description was great in these lines but it died off a bit later on in the story. Please work on this.
Length
1. Length of Paragraphs
The whole short story has been confined to one paragraph. This makes the text a bit confusing because all of the events are shoved together, they do not have any space to expand in the reader's mind. This definitely needs split up into more paragraphs. You may say, "But I don't have enough content to fill up two paragraphs." The only solution here is to write more. Your descriptions are pretty good already, but make them vivid, colorful, and so the reader can feel like they are there.
2. Length Overall
From all of the knowledge I have gained, most short stories that I have read, were at least three paragraphs long. Like I stated in the previous statement you may need to add more.
Well that's about it.
Happy New Year!
-lizzy