Young Writers Society

I smile at the brunette sitting across the table from where I stand. She’s upset that I’ve kept her waiting, but all is forgiven as I pull a small bouquet of daisies out from behind my back. She exclaims something heartfelt and meaningful, kissing my cheek.

_____Our meal goes off without a hitch.

She tells me she can’t wait to see me again as she gets in the cab to go home.



On my way to the park, I pick up a bouquet of roses. Coming up behind the blonde on the bench, I cover her eyes.

_____Guess who.

She jumps, letting out of high pitched squeal of delight as she throws her arms around my neck. I hand her the roses, and our fingers entwine as we begin our sunset stroll through the park.
_____She laughs at everything I say, her hair shining in the golden light.

She tells me she loves me before we part.



This is too easy.


I meet up with a few guys, and we head out to a club. Within the hour I’ve collected three more numbers – three new dates for tomorrow.

_____I go home alone.


_____On my coffee table lies the book.

It was a plain notebook, until I took my markers to it during my junior year of high school.

It’s a simple design – an empty jar.

Inside are notes – I’ve been doing this since high school.

As I strip for bed, I look through the pages, smiling at the memories.






I arrive at the pier at 10:30.

The brunette is waiting for me by the ferris wheel. She slides her arm around mine, and I lead her onto the ride. We are silent until we stop at the top.

“It’s over.” I say, turning to face her. Her eyes begin to water, and she stammers.

“W-what…why?”

“There’s somebody else.”

She cries through the rest of the ride, and doesn’t move when the gate opens at the bottom.



I spy the blonde right where I asked her to meet me. I take her hand in both of mine, pulling her down to sit on the empty bench beside me.

“It’s over.”

“Um…why?” she looks confused. I expected this – she’s less fragile than the brunette. But breakable, nonetheless.

“I’m just not feeling it.”

Her eyes glimmer. Anger, confusion, hurt.

Just like the brunette.
Just like every other girl before her.
Just like I planned.

I can’t help the small smile playing on my lips as I stand up.


Why wouldn’t they be confused? I shaped myself to each of them, made myself everything they wanted, everything they needed. I was the perfect boyfriend to each girl in turn.

I leave the blonde staring blankly into the water.






I arrive home, grabbing my book. I flip to the two most recent pages.

_____Christine. Brunette.

I add to the end of the page:

_____Cries.

Next page.

_____Isabelle. Blonde.
_____Quiet.

I close the notebook, staring at the cover. I’ve been collecting girls in these pages for six years.

An idea strikes me, and I grab a red marker.

I begin filling the jar with small, red hearts. Within in each, I write an initial. I make some hearts bigger than others – these are the girls who took me back. These are the girls I held the most of.

When I’m finished, the jar is about three quarters full, about as much as the book itself. Ninety-seven small hearts, one for every girl I molded myself to.


I smirk, reaching for my phone as I pull the phone numbers from last night out of my coat pocket.

I like this a lot

I was gonna do this contest too but I decided against it. But as it seems, you've done very well on following the rules to it. Your right...no romance at all!

But- and this is just a suggestion- maybe you could add in here why he wants to break hearts? It would give the piece more meat. Of course, this isn't something needed.

I didn't really catch anything that didn't seem right here. Grammar looked good as well as the whole story!
Good luck in the contest!
-Brie

Very nicely done. I never would have seen this from that song! It was a clever way to look at it, without romance and all. Very nicely done =] You might have a shot!

This had so many clean angles to it, I have to say that overall it was very nicely articulated. Your writing style seemed very spacy and unnecessarily lengthened, but by the end of reading I felt that it fit well with the type of detached feeling your main character gave off. So nice work with the style.

I think your way of beginning this at first seemed to me like it was going to be something more cutesy and heartfelt. I love how you started it that way, because as I read on to the part where he meets up with another girl just after the first one and snags a bouquet of a different type of flower and pulls the same routine, you made such an impact on the reader at that point. Like 'What a jerk!' And at that point you hadn't even gone through the rest of your story. As you continue it just shows how even more detached the main character is to girls and relationships, and how disposable women are to him. I think by writing something like this and making it so simple yet with so much depth at the same time was what made this story so easily digestible and relate-able to the stereotype of players.

Another thing that I really found interesting was the way you put this outright sort of motive in your character. You made him show some kind of reason behind his love for playing with girls hearts. You used material things like the notebook dating back into his high school years along with that jar that he filled with these little red hearts at the end of your story. So greatly done. It made it very apparent that the character payed such close attention to the way different girls came off to him in the end. It was a look inside his mind the entire way through, and that's where I think the success of this sprouts from.

Overall, I don't really think I have much bad to say about this piece. Sometimes I run into pieces of writing that I just really like and wouldn't want to really change a thing. This is one of those works. Keep up the great work. I think your simplistic style will end up getting you a long way with your writing. You have a flawless way. ^-^

-Smylin'

Wow! Okay, I review based on the six trait writing system, so I'll list the six things, tell you what I thought, and then give you a rating on each from 1-6. (six being highest, 1, lowest) Here we go!

Ideas: Great! Clear, focused, compelling, and held my attention right to the end. 6

Organization: Fairly good lead; excellent ending. I was not quite expecting that little twist. A very satisfying conclusion, led up to well by the story. 5.5

Voice: Definitely an original voice. Appealing, lively, expressive. Very good! 5.5

Word Choice: Natural language was used well, and it was easy to understand what you meant without having to reread any phrases. Some eye-catching phrases, and a few strong verbs here and there made it much more interesting. 4.5

Sentence Fluency: Excellent! Easy to read, good rhythm and flow, good variety in length and style. Natural and realistic dialogue. 5.5

Conventions: Very few grammatical or punctational mistakes. However, your layout was entirely distracting. I'm really not sure why you feel the need to use indentations; they aren't necessary. Also, there is too much spacing. Obviously you must have some, so we can actually read it, but don't fall in love with it please. 4

Conventions was the only thing you really had a problem with. This was an excellent story; I thoroughly enjoyed it. Gold star! I really really love this!

TS

Thank you guys all so much! I'm glad you liked it, and I really appreciate the reviews =)

tigershark -- I think a lot of my spacing issues are in relation to copy and pasting from word - it came out much more spaced than I expected it to in some spaces. As far as indentations - it's just something I stylistically choose to use. I feel that it separates thoughts in a certain way. I think you might understand more if there weren't already the other spacing issues, and the underscores all over the place. Those are definitely distracting.

Thanks again! =)

Great Job! This was really good!
I love this song, so when I read your title I was hooked. This piece is interesting, clever, well thought out, and just overall good. The only thing I reccomend you might want to do would be to give us some backstory about the boy. Why is he doing this? Was he broken up with or cheated on and now he is getting revenge on other girls? That is just a suggestion, you do not under any circumstances have to use it, and your piece is fine without it. It would just add more to the story.
Overall, great job! Good luck in the contest!

~Ktg

Wellpp Kayla here!

To start this off I really like the song, and I think you story did it justice. I like how some off the same ideas from the songs in the story. I love how he plays this game while the girls are upset. I like the voice and characteristics in this storry. I'm sure what else to sayy
--Kayla!