Young Writers Society

"You can't prove it doesn't exist!" The nerdy boy insisted, pouting and crossing his arms.
The girl merely laughed at him, her light brown hair sliding on her shoulders. "And you can prove it does? Please, John, you're supposed to be, what is it? The third smartest student at this school. You do the math. How many people get divorced each year? How many of our own classmates who are in a relationship right now think they've met their perfect match, only to break up hours later? True love doesn't exist. Not in the real world. In books and movies, yes, but not in real life. Human beings are too stupid and flawed to ever realize the idea of true love."
John's cheeks turned a blotchy red, and his glasses slipped a little further down his nose. "You're wrong!" He almost shouted, but the girl wasn't surprised by his intensity. People could be so very frail when it came to their fairytales. "I'm going to find my soulmate one day, and we'll live happily ever after, and you will die alone. I'll find my true love someday!"
Not with that acne problem, you won't. For once, she had the decency not to say what was on her mind. She just raised an eyebrow at John's outburst, daring him to continue.
He didn't. He simply grabbed his books and, head down, nearly ran for the door, stumbling a bit.
"Destiny the Destroyer." The girl's friend, Marilyn,pretended to applaud her. "We have got to get you on the debate team. Was he crying when he left? Poor sap."
Destiny shrugged, not meeting Marilyn's gaze. "Some people just can't handle the truth."
Marilyn laughed. "So you bring them into the light. You kill every hope and dream they ever had doing it, but good for you, girl. Someone has to." She patted Destiny's shoulder and glanced at the clock. "Ahh, crap, we have two minutes. Did you hear the first bell? I didn't hear the first bell. Mrs. Haags'll kill me if I'm late again." She scooped up her books and dashed out of the room. After a couple of seconds, Destiny did the same, only at a much slower pace.
The hall was crowded now, people in every direction hurrying to their classes. More than one bumped into her, nobody said sorry. Destiny shuffled along, jam-packed next to hundreds of other bodies, her mind wandering. There was half a school day yet to go, and she didn't know if she would make it. She wasn't sure how she'd made it this far.
Eventually, the group had shuffled her near enough to her locker for her to break free of its grasp and do her combination, balancing her wobbling pile of books with one arm's support. Just as she pulled her locker open, the final bell rang. The hallway cleared completely. She was late.
She didn't hurry any more than she had before. She was already late, what would a few more minutes matter? Maybe she could stall a little, take some much needed time to herself. Maybe she could skip Biology all together. She didn't usually do stuff like that, but today she could...
Destiny sighed. Maybe not. Her parents were already worried enough about her as it was. She had to keep her grades up, and at least pretend to have a social life, or they'd send her to a therapist.
She scoffed silently. A therapist. Imagine trying to explain her life to a therapist. Sure, that'd go well.
"Hey."
Destiny peeked around her locker, sure she was hearing things. But no, she was staring up into two of the most beautiful green eyes she'd ever seen, eyes that had taken her breath away every time she'd seen them for the past two months now. Sure enough, her breath caught again, and her mouth dropped open in a very unattractive way.
Ten seconds went by. Twenty. He looked at her. She looked at him. Eventually she remembered how to breathe, then how to speak. So she spoke.
"I thought you had to go."
"I do. I did. I can't." The boy stumbled with his words, all the while staring at her with so much emotion that she'd've looked away if she could've remembered how. "Destiny, I'm so, so sorry. I told you before, it's too dangerous for me to stay, for us to be together, but I can't walk away. I tried, believe me, I tried. But it is physically painful for me to take a step away from you. And I kept thinking, what if I never see her again and I couldn't breathe, Destiny, I couldn't breathe. So I turned around. I'm sorry."
He was choking now, choking on his failure to protect her, and Destiny did the only thing that felt right, the only thing she'd wanted to do since he'd left. She dropped her books and threw her arms around him. He pulled her in tight, shaking silently with unshed tears. She held her own at bay. He needed her to be strong right now, so she'd be strong. For him. "Shh." She murmured softly. "It's all going to be okay. We're together. It'll all be okay." She smiled. He was here, how could it not all turn out fine?
Eventually, the shuddering stopped, but he didn't release her. "They'll come after me." He whispered, and she could feel his fear.
"We'll fight them. Together." She promised, running her hand through his hair soothingly.
"They could..." He drew in a shaky breath and started again. "They could hurt you."
"We're together, okay? That's all that matters. They can't hurt us together." She pulled back to look at him. "You are my one true love, my one perfect match in this world, or any other, and I will always love you. They can't beat us. We're stronger than them. Together, we're stronger than anything." She reached up and kissed him gently. "I love you."
He looked down at her with tortured, agonized, perfect eyes. "I love you, too." He whispered, accepting their fate. "Forever."

Hi there, I'm dropping by for a brief review
I will only comment on the plot:
1) Originality
I liked the general idea of this piece, not the run-of-mill type.
However, towards the end when your MC is with her boyfriend, you throw out a lot of cliched lines. While it's nothing wrong, it becomes cheesy and personally, I find that it devalues the genuineness of the love you're trying to portray. At one point I started wondering if you were going down the Twilight path.
2) Plausibility
Unfortunately, this piece failed to live up to the expectations I had after getting the gist of your plot. There's no problem with short pieces unless you rush everything and are too vague with the details that you leave your readers going "Whoa, what just happened?". Sadly, that was the feeling I got.
Why? One moment she's dismissing love with such forceful severity, the next she's spewing mushy lines to her 'soul-mate'. The hypocrisy is, for me, too stark to be believable and it sort of kills the mood because I want to kick your MC in the shin. She can not believe in true love, but still wish for it, yes. However, if she doesn't believe in it but the next moment believes in it, that turns from hypocrisy to sheer fickleness.
3) Details
While I would've liked to know how Destiny suddenly came about raining on John's parade, the crucial part I was found wanting, was the relationship between her and her boyfriend. Out of nowhere: Boom! Enter boyfriend and cue sappy love scene. You leave your audience reeling and trying to grapple with the all too swift transition of scenes. I think such a seemingly deep relationship warrants more background, otherwise it diminishes the relatable factor of the piece.

4) Overall
A valiant attempt at conjuring a more unique romantic piece, and I applaud you for it. It is a good idea, and now what I believe you need to work on is how you go about weaving the story around this idea. Keep on writing!

Hope this helps and that it isn't too harsh to you!
Meep(:

I have nothing to try to fix or anything.
You don't realize how much this made me laugh.
I love it!!!!!!
This could be a story, too.

Since no one else wanted to be nitpicky, I'll do it

"You can't prove it doesn't exist!" T(lowercase)he nerdy boy insisted, pouting and crossing his arms. (Do you really need both actions? I feel like just one would be better.)

The girl merely (I would have taken this word out) laughed at him, her light brown hair sliding on (wouldn't it be sliding off?) her shoulders. "And you can prove it does? Please, John, you're supposed to be, what is it? The third smartest student at this school.(Question mark) You do the math. How many people get divorced each year? How many of our own classmates who are in a relationship right now think they've met their perfect match, only to break up hours later? True love doesn't exist. Not in the real world. In books and movies, yes, but not in real life. Human beings are too stupid and flawed to ever realize the idea of true love. (You set it up for this last sentence to be more intense, so I think she should use better adjectives and verbs. "Stupid"? "Flawed"? "Realize"?)"

John's cheeks turned a blotchy red, and his glasses slipped a little further down his nose. "You're wrong!" H(lowercase)e almost shouted, but the girl wasn't surprised by his intensity. People could be so very (you don't need both)frail when it came to their fairytales. "I'm going to find my soulmate one day, and we'll live happily ever after, and you will die alone. I'll find my true love someday!" (If you read this out loud to yourself, you might have caught that he says "I'm going to find my soulmate one day," and "I'll find my true love someday!" in one breath. I'd nix the last sentence, but you can do whatever you want.)

Not with that acne problem, you won't. For once, she had the decency not to say what was on her mind. She just raised an eyebrow at John's outburst, daring him to continue.

He didn't. He simply grabbed his books and, head down, nearly ran for the door, stumbling a bit. (This sentence is missing a few words, making it hard to read. I'll rewrite it so you can see.) He simply grabbed his books and, with his head down, nearly ran for the door, stumbling on his way out.[b/]

"Destiny the Destroyer[b].(comma)" T(lowercase)he girl's friend, Marilyn,pretended to applaud her. "We have got to get you on the debate team. Was he crying when he left? Poor sap."

Destiny (I don't know what your reasoning behind the name was, but by the end we notice that her name is sort of sappy symbolism - hey, check out that alliteration! Anyway, I think it wouldn't make the end of this piece quite as cliche'd if you changed the name, but it's up to you.) shrugged, not meeting Marilyn's gaze. "Some people just can't handle the truth."

Marilyn laughed. "So you bring them into the light. You kill every hope and dream they ever had doing it, but good for you, girl. Someone has to." She patted Destiny's shoulder and glanced at the clock. "Ahh, crap, we have two minutes. Did you hear the first bell? I didn't hear the first bell. Mrs. Haags'll (sidenote: I have a student teacher named Mr. Kaatz, and he is mighty fine. Her name just reminded me of that )kill me if I'm late again." She scooped up her books and dashed out of the room. After a couple of seconds, Destiny did the same, only at a much slower pace.

The hall was crowded now, people in every direction hurrying to their classes. More than one bumped into her, nobody said sorry. (I like the idea of combining these two sentences with a semicolon) Destiny shuffled along, jam-packed next to hundreds of other bodies, her mind wandering. There was half a school day yet to go, and she didn't know if she would make it. She wasn't sure how she'd made it this far.

Eventually, the group had shuffled her near enough to her locker for her to break free of its grasp and do her combination, balancing her wobbling pile of books with one arm's support. (Read this sentence out loud and tell me if it makes sense) Just as she pulled her locker open, the final bell rang. The hallway cleared completely. She was late.

She didn't hurry any more than she had before. She was already late, what would a few more minutes matter? Maybe she could stall a little, take some much needed time to herself. Maybe she could skip Biology all together altogether. She didn't usually do stuff like that, but today she could...

Destiny sighed. Maybe not. Her parents were already worried enough about her as it was. She had to keep her grades up, and at least pretend to have a social life, or they'd send her to a therapist. (I honestly couldn't tell if this was being serious or sarcastic. You need to word it so it's clear.)

She scoffed silently. A therapist. Imagine trying to explain her life to a therapist. Sure, that'd go well. (This whole short paragraph feels like it's in the first person, so you need to rewrite the whole therapist thing so it's clear that she's thinking this without making it seem the narrator is thinking it. My two cents: just take the therapist thing out. It's unnecessary.)

"Hey."

Destiny peeked around her locker, sure she was hearing things. But no, she was staring up into two of the most beautiful green eyes she'd ever seen, eyes that had taken her breath away every time she'd seen them for the past two months now. (it's not a run-on sentence, but it feels like it) Sure enough, her breath caught again, and her mouth dropped open in a very unattractive way.

Ten seconds went by. Twenty. He looked at her. She looked at him. (fluff fluff fluff. you're trying to make this piece un-fluffy, so take all the fluff out) Eventually she remembered how to breathe, then how to speak. So she spoke.

"I thought you had to go."

"I do. I did. I can't." The boy stumbled with his words, all the while staring at her with so much emotion that she'd've looked away if she could've remembered how. "Destiny, I'm so, so sorry. I told you before, it's too dangerous for me to stay, for us to be together, but I can't walk away. (this rhymes, and I'm under the impression that this guy isn't in the mood to pull poetry out of his bum... I'm sure this was accidental, but you should still fix it I tried, believe me, I tried. But it is physically painful for me to take a step away from you. And I kept thinking, what if I never see her again and I couldn't breathe, Destiny, I couldn't breathe. So I turned around. I'm sorry."

He was choking now, choking on his failure to protect her, and Destiny did the only thing that felt right, the only thing she'd wanted to do since he'd left. She dropped her books and threw her arms around him. He pulled her in tight, shaking silently with unshed tears. ("Unshed tears" makes it sound like he's not crying, but I'm pretty sure he is, right? Please clear that up.) She held her own at bay. He needed her to be strong right now, so she'd be strong. For him. "Shh.(comma)" S(lowercase)he murmured softly. "It's all going to be okay. We're together. It'll all be okay." She smiled. He was here, how could it not all turn out fine?(Once again, this is very first person-y. It's also very cliche'd.)

Eventually, the shuddering stopped, but he didn't release her. "They'll come after me.(comma)" H(lowercase)e whispered, and she could feel his fear. (...what?)

"We'll fight them. Together.(comma)" S(lowercase)he promised, running her hand through his hair soothingly.

"They could..." He drew in a shaky breath and started again. "They could hurt you." (Here you've brought something up that's very interesting, but you don't explain it later, and I didn't like that.)

"We're together, okay? That's all that matters. They can't hurt us together." She pulled back to look at him. "You are my one true love, my one perfect match in this world, or any other, and I will always love you. They can't beat us. We're stronger than them. Together, we're stronger than anything." She reached up and kissed him gently. "I love you." (One word: CLICHE')

He looked down at her with tortured, agonized, perfect eyes (These adjectives don't really match up, but I bet you did that on purpose. I still don't think you need three adjectives here. Actually, I don't think you need any adjectives here, and I'll explain why in a sec.). "I love you, too." He whispered, accepting their fate. "Forever."

Plot: There isn't much of one. The plot is a girl who finds her old boyfriend and they hug and kiss and cry and fluff fluff fluff. The argument with John was much more interesting than the actual plot, but it's not actually part of the plot.

Dialogue: I'm not talking about the tiny punctuation errors here. I feel like the dialogue isn't that realistic, except for Marilyn. I really liked her dialogue. In a perfect world, every single character would be the most interesting character in the universe; since we're amateur writers here, the ideal thing would to have at least the protagonist be the most interesting, right?

Characters: Like I've already said, Marilyn is currently number one on the List of Interesting Characters. Part of that is because Destiny doesn't technically qualify as the protagonist. The 4 Requirements of a Protagonist (compliments of my Honors English teacher) states that-
1.) The protagonist must be important to every scene - since it's all one, maybe two, scenes, this is pretty much inevitable
2.) The protagonist must attempt to solve the conflict - given that there is a conflict... which there's not
3.) The protagonist must have a profound mental change - "Profound" is a pretty lenient term here, but since the plot isn't very solid, it's almost impossible to have any mental change at all.
4.) We must always know the protagonist's thoughts and feelings - this one irks me here, because we don't. there are so many things I wish I knew Destiny was thinking, but you don't tell us. She just moves slowly and allows people to bump her in the hallway, even though she obviously has a hot temper. We have to know what she's thinking, or else she's not the protagonist.

Overall: The biggest issue I have here has nothing to do with the plot, the characters, the dialogue, or anything like that. You need more description. It's not things like jam-packed hallways that make readers feel connected to the story, because everyone knows that all hallways are jam-packed (at least most are). The sharper details like, "As she put her finger on the locker handle to open it, she felt something warm and sticky; someone had recently stuck their gum there," or, "She stared down the empty hallway, wondering how something that had been so lively not seconds ago could possibly become so dead," (<-- FYI, that could double as symbolism) are the things that allow readers to connect, because they're all things we've gone through, and not just broad things.

You know, people do things while they're talking too. Does Destiny have a nervous habit of playing with the hem of her shirts, so much so that she actually has holes in them? What does Destiny's boyfriend's face do when he's stumbling over his words? Does John have a nervous tick (provided that you keep John as a character at all... Suggestion: Start the story right after the argument with John, right as he's storming away. How does she feel after hurting his feelings like that?)?

I applaud your idea to write a love story that's not so fluffy. Keep it up. That is all for now. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to PM me

Good job. I liked this. Now, onto my critique!
Well, as far as the plot goes, there wasn't much of a real deep plot. It was kind of shallow. It was about a girl who doesn't believe in true love, and then sees her old boyfriend and does. That's why it's called hypocrisy, but, a few more details about why she does this would be great. Why does she suddenly change so very dramatically??? The beginning was excellent indeed though!!!! It made me smile very much. It was great, especially with John. haha.The middle was ok, but, near the end, it just really lacked. Maybe for this type of true love situation, the story might have needed to be a bit longer. For instance, giving us some real details into every single character, what they're like, their story, and where they're coming from. Then, we could see the problem at hand. Then as the story progresses, we would find the resolution, and conclusion.


But, my favorite part of this whole thing was when you were describing the girl trying to get to class, the hallways, and being late. It was filled with more descriptions about the setting, which is why I liked it!

So, yes, that was my critique!
Keep writing!!!!!

Yes, the story for me was good. But I agree to some of the people who said the lines are cheesy. They really are. The bf-gf moment would have been sweet but you should rewrite their dialogue. And there was a big change of the character's belief at such short period of time, which seemed impossible. Overall, I still think the story was good.

Everyone keeps saying things about how cheesy it was, but I understood it. Ok, guess I might be like the only one but I liked it, even the "cheesy" parts.

Oh, it was incredibly cheesy. It could've been in the romance section at Wal-Mart.
Generally I agree with all your reviews, and I thank you for them. I also thank you kind reviewers for not just calling it crap outright. I'm probably not going to rewrite it, (it just came to me one night, and I wrote it really late, so that might excuse some of it) but if I did I would definately add more clues in the beginning to show that Destiny is lying through her teeth when she says she doesn't believe in love. No one seemed to get that, and that's my bad. I'll try to do better next time.

Ok so I'm not going to do the stupid thing and repeat whatever one else says, that's a waste and ulitmately doesn't help you. Despite the cliches and there were quite a few I did enjoy this little story. But you might want to fi the cliches. Maybe not have so many of them. And my other concern is I wanted some back ground on the characters. And better description. What did Destiny look like? I love her personality, I can totally relate but I was left disappointed about what she looked like. I wanted to take that ride with you. Also, think about giving the boyfriend some more description, is the only thing she likes about him is his green eyes? How else does she percieve him. Other than this little minor things, I think you did a fantastic job of conveying your point of love. Keep up the great work. Keep writing
~Qoh16

Okay, MOIMOW, I loved this!!! I could totally see this coming from you, and the title explains it all!!
One thing, at the beginning, it was a little difficult to see that Destiny really did believe in true love. However, I noticed that somebody already brought that up in an earlier comment. I loved the reference to the debate team.
Overall, this was really good!! Keep at it!

Hmmm... very interesting. I liked the beginning; it was a good lead in. Your details were excellent in most places, and you did a good job of showing, not telling. I felt it could have had a bit more as far as plot goes, though... Your writer's voice fades in and out just a bit, but at most points it kept me intrigued, so good job on that. Your sentences are clear, though I would recommend a bit more spacing and most defintely some punctuation! Overall, it could use a bit of work, but it's a very good start!