Young Writers Society

Wow, this short vignette took an interesting turn at the end.

Now I'm a bit confused maybe by the language of 10th versus 11th standard and then that last sentence: "it was his father's dream not his"

but did the father decide to make the son pursue something outside of his artistic dreams? That's too bad if he did, because his real passion was with the art!


One aspect I really enjoyed in this short story was how in the beginning you open with this image of a storm - drizzling on the speaker's face and the breeze surrounding him. You paint this image of a storm. And then later in the third paragraph you actually compare the father to a storm!

he dared to word it out lest his father would rage a tempest

Hi @Tsunami here!
WOW!! This short is full of emotions. I really like it. If you don't mind me saying but this would be a grate story. You have a great plot, and i can just see this being a great story, But that is up to you. I just hope your thinking about it.

I can tell by the way you've written your story that your main character doesn't have a good relation ship with his parents, and that just makes me sad because i no how they are feeling.

But there is one thing I would like to ask. I would like to no what he looks like. I think you could fit that in the first paragraph! I just think that would give your reader a better idea of how he looks. Unless it is up to the reader to decide how they think he looks.

If you don't agree then you don't need to change anything.
But over all I just loved reading this work. It was just amazing. I hope you keep writing. You have real potential.

You friend @Tsunami.

Hi! I like the idea behind this story – it’s very relevant to today’s society.

However, I think you might need to work on using more emotive language to express yourself. You state a lot of facts, such as “he spent 9 hours a day studying” and “all he could manage was a 74.6”, which makes the writing seem a little bit flat. You could maybe try writing using more imagery, similar to how you use “rage a tempest” in your last paragraph.
“He spent 9 hours a day studying” instead could be “Every day, he wore himself to the bone poring over his textbooks, straining his dark-ringed eyes to the limit.”

Another cool trick to engage the reader would be to vary your sentence structure. I noticed you tend to use “and” and “but” a lot in your writing. Maybe you could try using a few complex sentences with your compound ones? For example:

“Spurred on by his father, he wore himself to the bone poring over his textbooks, straining his dark-ringed eyes to the limit – and yet he barely scraped together a 74.6. Weeks of silence ensued between them. Although the man pretended not to dwell on it, the disappointment would ooze from him each time they sat together at the breakfast table. Meanwhile, his mother resorted to ranting and nagging as she gathered her things for work.”

Besides this, you create a setting in the first paragraph (somewhere high up, under the rain) that the character doesn’t go back to by the last paragraph. For a short story, this is slightly jarring. I think your story could benefit from that setting, for example by adding a few lines like this:
“The announcement had come one day: his father had arranged the boy’s 11th in the non-medical stream – to fulfil his son’s dream, he’d said. Leaning against the railing, he let the slowly-building rainfall run against his skin. He knew it was his father’s dream, not his.”
The setting can help to set the mood, which is vital for a short piece.

Wow, this got long! I hope you find these comments helpful for your writing. Good luck with your future work – and keep it up!

Hey nrrc102! I'll just get straight into reviewing.

I thought this was kinda short and the actual story itself would be better if there was more detail and setting involved. Ex: his name, what his school looked like, the place where he was walking to, or what his room looked like or what he drew. A description of the character would also make your story better too. As far as things that could be improved, I'll point some out.

"He had never felt like this in his life before."

This would be better as:
He had never felt like this before.

"To overcome the sense of failure he often stayed put in his room drawing sketches till he felt better."

This would be better as:
To overcome the sense of failure, he often stayed in his room drawing sketches until he felt better."

Besides this, I felt like it would be kind of hard for the reader to connect or feel anything for your story just because a good amount of things are left out. Anyways, hope I helped!