Young Writers Society

Hi there!

Wow...that's all I can say right now. I'm such in awe by how good this story is. Here I thought that the main character was going to go beat up this crapy boyfriend and saved the day, but the complete opposite happened! You did a great job leading up to the end, not giving many hints as to what was going to happen. That way, by the end of the story your reader would be utterly suprised, like me. I didn't see and grammer or spelling errors so you're good there. The emotion you put into this was great.

Overall this is a great, amazing story. Keep writing!

Hola!
Firstly, let me get this out. I LOVE THAT SOONGG!!! Ah-hem. Secondly, this might be a late review..? Oh well. Points for Team Red!!

I remember when I first met you. It was in the seventh grade, and I was the new kid. I was assigned the desk next to yours. You looked over at me with inquisitive blue eyes, and introduced yourself as Hanna. You proceeded to ask me questions about my family, my hobbies, etc. I answered them cautiously at first, then loosened up quickly. When the lunch bell rang, we sat beside each other. It was that day that you became my best friend.

Begin with a bang. This was sweet, but I think the beginning of a story needs to be a little more spicy. Maybe if you start with dialogue, with these two first introducing themselves, I don't know..

I remember when you called me at one in the morning, saying that Mike has had asked you out and you said yes.

you've you'd only been dating him for a month.

I should've seen it from the start. Mike started getting possessive when I stopped hanging out with you. He called you every ten minutes, demanding to know where you where at. He was always by your side, and forbade you from hanging out with friends.

How did he know Mike was calling her every ten minutes if he stopped hanging out with her? How did he know Mike forbade her from hanging out with her friends?

The police report says that you approached him, telling him that it was over, not knowing that he had a loaded gun. He tried the regret route, promising to change. When you said no and tried to leave, he got violent. He hit you, but this time you fought back, which only enraged him. He then shot you four times.

Here it sounds like you're using the police report as a crutch to tell the reader what happened. If he's writing a letter to her, he wouldn't tell her all this. Cut out the details, and the story will be better, more emotional since we already know he's at her grave, and he's already apologizing for not being there.

I'm so sorry... It's all my fault. I loved you, but I wasn't there to help you when you needed me.I should've been there to save you. I should've told you this before; maybe you felt the same way. As I sit beside your grave, writing this letter and crying like a baby, I feel like dying. But I know you would want me to continue on. So, I will live and go on with my life. Because I love you; always have, always will. Someday, we'll be together. Someday.

Cut out the ellipses. Avoid ellipses as much as possible in stories. Apart from that, I loved this part!! It was sooo cuuuttteeee!! I loved the piece actually. It was cute, and your writing flowed well. Well done. ^.^

Hello! I am the Nitpicker Extraordinaire! I am here to nitpick your work.
Here goes:

Towards the Beginning, you spelled cautiously wrong, and that is the only spelling mistake I found. I saw no grammatical mistakes of any kind, so good job there! I also saw no capitalization or punctuation mistakes, so again, good job. This piece flowed very well. I was able to surf through it in about 2 minutes, so very well done. most reads take about 5 at the least. I really liked this piece, but I do think that it could be expanded upon. The story leaves a lot of room for expansion. apart from all that, It was very well written. You didnt bore the reader at all. So, good job, good work, and good luck with future writing!



----LostMagi

Hey again! Okay so I'm not sure if the poem at the top is inspiration for this or part of this but it was cute. I think I'll concentrate on reviewing the prose though, since I already attacked one poem of yours

I remember when I first met you. It was in the seventh grade, and I was the new kid. I was assigned the desk next to yours. You looked over at me with inquisitive blue eyes, and introduced yourself as Hanna. You proceeded to ask me questions about my family, my hobbies, etc. I answered them catiously at first, then loosened up quickly. When the lunch bell rang, we sat beside each other. It was that day that you became my best friend.

[Alright so there's a great use of short sentences here, but it would be even more effective if you interspersed them with some long ones. If you have a long sentence or two and then a short one, it really builds the atmosphere and adds extra emphasis to the short one.]

Annnd that's the only specific comment I had. You've done really well with this, there's a great depth of emotion and a really strong atmosphere to the piece. A little more description would have perhaps been nice, just so that we could build more images in our heads of the grave, of her, of every little detail that matters so much to him. But even without that, this is a good piece.

Maybe think about the senses a little more? There's not much of touch in here which is so important when dealing with romance. When he pulled the baseball cap from her head, how did it feel? Did his palm brush against her hair and feel that it was stringy and coarse, like she hadn't washed it properly, like she'd been having bad days? You can do such a lot with touch so I really think you shouldn't over-look it!

Thanks for the read and drop me a pm if you have any questions. Also, good luck in the contest!

Heather xxx

Sock! <3

I know this is old, but we're reviewing all the entries to the Capture That Emotion contest...hence, I am bringing this back up!

So, I enjoyed this a lot. You did a good job building up the tension and I loved the ending -- sad, heartbreaking romances are my favorite. ^_^

The way you told this story was very tell-ish, though. The MC's writing to someone and I think it's a good way to go, in regards to the pure, raw emotion and foremost thoughts coming from the MC, but when it comes to relating past experiences, it feels too forced. I mean, Hanna already knew everything that he's talking about, since she was there and all, so it seems a bit redundant to be telling her about events that she was participating in as well, you know?

I think you also could have emphasized his love for her -- maybe write about his feelings for her and the way that he couldn't overcome them, however much he tried and such. Make it a bit more heartfelt and show that he had some serious strings attached, thus making the ending become more poignant and sad.

All right, so that's all I've got to say. This was a good piece and I enjoyed it a lot. Thanks for entering the contest, and thanks for all your patience.

Cheers!
~Hawk