Bright Smiles and Silent Voices

The narrator of the story is a guy

Another long story. I feel too lazy to actually review long stories this, but I just gotta do it. For the newbies. Bear with me if my review's not on point like my other reviews; I don't really like long stories (2lazy). Also, take everything I say with a grain of salt. It's your story, not mine. One more thing, I'll just comment on overall and things that stand out about the story. 2lazy.

I personally do not like your writing style. It's cheesy, and there's so much grotesque descriptions and so much adverbs. But I have to give credit where it's due.

Don't worry, though. It's just a conflict with my noir-like writing style, but I have to admit: your writing style is good in its own way. I'll just say this quickly. Your imagery makes me feel envious. It's actually an issue that I'm trying so hard to work on. Your imagery helps me imagine every single bit of the story, and the feelings that come along with it.

There are two problems that stand out for me, though. The first is transitioning. It seems like you keep on jumping to different points in time without any smooth transitions or transitioning devices/methods. Thus, it messes up the chronology and confuses the reader.

Another is the paragraph structure. At first, your paragraphs are well-constructed and are actually blocks of sentences. But it seems like the all sentences quickly go rogue and become independent. There's nothing wrong with having one-sentence paragraphs. They can be used for emphasis, or that's just all there is to say on the paragraph's main topic. The thing is though, there are actually sentences that are related and can be grouped together in one paragraph, but you keep them apart. Don't do that, please. It scatters ideas, and can actually make your story really messy.

Just remember what you've learned in English: each paragraph should have its own main topic, and several other supporting ideas that elaborate on or support the main idea.

Overall, the writing style is very descriptive and the way you present the plot is unique, but it is hindered by your lack of smooth transition from one topic/point in time to another and your poor paragraph construction.

I rate it 7/10. Two for the writing style, two for the plot, and three for Hisoka (hue)

Take note of all these reviews around you, apply them, and I'll see you again. And hopefully, I'll give you a much better review.

Hey there, zsmith here to review.

This piece speaks volumes of sadness, love and simplicity. Your word choice, sentence structure and flow are all excellent.

I just have one critique. I felt a little unsatisfied with some parts, though. You speak often of driving, but never where to or why. It jumped from driving to falling back in bed, which ruined the flow a bit. So its just difficult to always picture things and understand the situation and what's going on. Maybe the story isn't supposed to be about what's actually happening and more about how the narrator is feeling, but its still good for the reader to understand little details like that. I don't know why they're not speaking, why she refuses to say "I love you", and that mystery creates tensions and suspense which is good, but then they suddenly start talking about without ever explaining why. I guess I'm just the type of person who's always asking "why", so feel free to ignore me. Just personally I'd like to see more details to gain a deeper understanding of the situation, it would, for me at least, make it a more satisfying read.

All in all, this was a beautiful piece. Well done.
Keep writing.
-Zsmith.

Hi thnksfrthcffn! Welcome to YWS! I'm glad to see that you already adapting well to the site.

This story is good. There is surety and confidence in the voice and tone of this piece that I really admire. All of this has contributed to a very cute and adorable atmosphere. Considering you classified this as "Teen Fiction", I think you have done a good job in keeping with the YA theme. There's enough sadness, enough love, enough simplicity. Kudos to you!

However, there is always room for improvement, even in the best of stories. One of the big issues here is that the clarity is somewhat lacking. There is no problem with keeping the reader guessing and making things somewhat ambiguous, but in doing so you have to make sure to leave enough tiny clues throughout the story that, by the end, your reader has been able to kind of piece things together. Yes, perhaps they will not be one hundred percent sure about the outcome or what transpired, but at least they will have a fairly informed guess. Otherwise, the other option is that the reader will sort of have an idea but they're mostly unsure of it and themselves. Unfortunately, there is enough jumble, enough jumping around, that your story has ended up being too ambiguous. If this were part of something bigger, than that might not necessarily be an issue but because this is a stand-alone short story – and it's rather short at that – you need to give the reader at least something to latch onto.

Still on the topic of clarity versus ambiguity, I felt that the events that took place were a little confused. Perhaps I read it wrong, but I'm fairly sure they were driving and talking and then all of a sudden they were falling back on a bed. Good ideas, well-written all of them, but I am also left confused. You might be missing some crucial linking sentences or maybe you just forgot where they were or maybe you meant for it all to be like that. If it's the latter, then I do suggest you switch it up a bit just because I think the strange occurrence of events is greatly contributing to the unfortunate case of total ambiguity.

In fact, a moment where I think you could have gone on and which might be a good case for making time pass is where the narrator says she remembers the first time the guy told her he loved her. Really, I thought then we were going to have a heartwarming flashback... but then we didn't and I was kind of shocked. I mean, you could count that as defying a cliche, yet you also kind of build the reader up to that moment. Personally, I felt that it was slightly unfair to deny us of such a tender moment that would have likely provided some crucial background information (which then might also help clear up some of this confusion going on).

I'm a little annoyed with the narrator as well. I understand that she is scared that the moment she says, "I love you" then that will mean their love has reached some sort of peak. It's a twisted way of looking at it, but I guess it works. At the same time, her guy is dying or something and she can't tell him in his last days of her love for him? It's obviously all that he wants and, considering the common conception that the person who does confess their love is the one who loves less, I don't blame him for being a little disappointed when his girlfriend/wife/whatever else cannot admit her love. I think it's a little melodramatic on her part and I end up actually having difficulty sympathizing for her and her situation when she doesn't seem ready and willing to wholeheartedly devote herself to her dying significant other. Just my thoughts.

Overall, this was well-written and sweet. It had just the right amount of tragedy and love to make it feel very much like a YA tear-at-the-heartstrings kind of story, even in spite of the confusion and slightly annoying narrator. Let me know when you write anything else, because I would definitely love to read it!

Also, if you have any questions about this review or the site, feel free to ask me or anyone else in green (the moderators).

Best,
Lav