Adrenaline

Hi!
First of all this, piece was really well done. You capture the raw feelings of anger and sadness and confusion so well. I think the last line best captures the desperate nature of the piece. I've always thought that choppy, fragmented sentences really create the frustration it seems you're trying to portray.

I agree with spectator about ending sentences in prepositions. The sentence "She lockers herself in her own black hole where she spends numerous hours in" could be more effective if written as two sentences or if the end is taken out all together.

Additionally, you're so spot on about the feelings of the character, but the piece would be more powerful if you pull the reader into the story more intensely. Instead of more passive sentences ("When adrenaline is pumping her heart") you could use the more powerful active tense ("When adrenaline pumps her heart"). This switch not only makes the read smoother, but also packs more of a punch and draws the reader into the life of the character.

Also, I'm a bit hesitant on this one, because I don't know if you're trying to create a theme of sorts with your sentence structure, but there are many phrases that would be more powerful if you put us into the character's mind. Instead of "She can't understand why she gets so mad" you could say something like "Why can't she stay calm?" or even "she constantly asks herself why she gets so mad."

Finally, most of the sentences are structured similarly. If you want to make your passage more jolting, you could intersperse more choppy sentences between the long ones. Over all this is a really great piece! I love the idea, I just tend to nit pick about mechanics

-Caiti

Hey there! How about a review this lovely day?

So this certainly was interesting! I could relate to the very first part where she didn't know why she got mad- I find myself every once in awhile feeling angry at myself, and sad, because I snapped at my mom or sister or someone. Emotions are a very strange thing that can be hard to understand sometimes, so I really thought that part was quite relatable. It was also interesting how you used third person for this... I don't know why, but it just kind of separated us enough from the character that made it so that we could sort of stand back and calmly listen to the horrible things that she felt compelled to do. I think if it had been in first person it might have worked me up a lot more- which could be better or worse depending on what you wanted to accomplish with this piece.

Well we're at that point... What were you wanting to accomplish with this piece? It's quite short, which is alright. It doesn't have a whole lot of content though, and doesn't allow us to get to know the character very well. Honestly I'd like to know why this character gets urges like she does? Has she seeked help? Does her family know she imagines killing them? I wouldn't say it's normal to imagine murdering people, but I think it is normal for some people, and I think as long as they don't act on those visions, they're okay..? I mean, sure, it's disturbing... but I think it's normal for people to imagine their family/friends dying tragically. It's also somewhat normal to get little urges to do things like jump off a cliff (while you're standing next to the cliff) because apparently it's your body getting ready for the possibility that you're going to fall. So maybe this character is imagining these things because she something in her body is trying to prepare her for if she did something tragic to her family? I mostly feel like you could do a lot more with this story.

Also, you kind of just rushed through- maybe give us examples of times she's tried to do these things, don't just say she yells at her brother- show us a scene where she blows up at him! Though I wanted to mention that this first part, where the narrator is talking about her yelling at her brother and not wanting to play games with her parents- that's a SUPER common things for teenagers to do. It was after that that I started getting concerned for her though, ahaha. But slow down a bit! Bring us into the scene; don't just tell us it happened! Go She saw her parents coming out with the board game, and booked it out of the room before they saw her and then you can go into detail about stuff!

The ending was pretty darn creepy! Though it was a little confusing, because I didn't get the impression from the rest of the work that she'd actually killed anyone- yet the last line implies that she has. You might want to clear that up a bit for us!

Overall, interesting short story! I hope you keep writing! We need more horror writers around here!!! ^_^

-Socks

Oh, Hello!! It’s spectator here, to review your poem. And also to welcome you to YWS!! Woo Hoo!! For the most part I review (and write poetry) so I thought I’d try something new!! Your short story was really awesome and I don’t have very many criticisms for you, but here we go...

There were just a few phrasing things I noticed. First, the sentence “She locks herself in her own black hole where she spends numerous hours in.” is phrased weirdly. You really do not need the word “in” at the end of this sentence. The sentence makes so much more sense, and reads a lot better without it! Next, in the second paragraph, I would not capitalize the word “SNAP”. I assume you have done this to place emphasis on the word, but I think effective writing should be able to put emphasis on this word without the use of aggressive capitalization. The metaphor you use right after the word snap, is a much more effective way of establishing the sound. That’s it for phrasing!!

Now, I want to tell you some things I really enjoyed about this short story. It’s the perfect length! It was short enough that it didn’t bore me or make me feel as if it was dragging on and on. At the same time, it was long enough that you had time to establish details about your character and the setting around her, without feeling curt. Another thing I enjoyed, was the way in which your story progressed. At the start readers believe (or at least I did) that the girl is a fairly normal girl with a couple problems, this belief evolves into the realization that “oh, she’s crazy” at the perfect pace. Also, I enjoyed the 3rd person narration - the narrator is like a force of stability in the character’s chaos. I find this juxtaposition super cool. One last reason I really enjoyed this story is that adrenaline affects me in such a different way then it affects this narrator - so that made it an interesting read.


Finally, here are a couple things I would consider that I think could improve your short story. The first is how do you want readers to view your character? Because after reading I am not super attached to her - mostly I think she’s insane and troubled. Is this the way you want readers to view your character or do you want to expose a more humane side of her as well? Second, be careful of your metaphors. Most of them were really great, like the previously mentioned rubber band one and the idea of being locked in a black hole. However, I felt like the roller coaster metaphor was a little excessive and came across as a bit cliche. That’s just my opinion though!! Metaphors are a great tool to use while writing, but they can become immoderate and exaggerated to the point where writing seems less sincere. My advice is to watch out for this. My last piece of advice is to consider what makes this short story unique from other, similar ones.

Overall, great work! I really enjoyed reading this short story!! It was super captivating! And again, welcome to YWS - I hope you have a great time writing!!!


~ spectator