Young Writers Society

The memories, the memories. Susan thought, biting carefully at her small fingernails. She fluttered her long eyelashes back towards her teacher, Mrs. Matten. Susan observed her teacher carefully, a stout woman with an extremely thin, pale face. How peculiar, peculiar. Susan's thoughts echoed in her head. Mrs. Matten turned around, her lipstick still smeared onto her heavily, colored face. She grinned foolishly as the teacher began to talk about Angola, and its history. Susan watched as the teacher turned back around, heaving on her red, glossy high heels as she talked.
Susan looked back at the clock, and Eric caught her eye. She stared at him dreamily for awhile. His lightly tanned faced topped with smooth black hair made her begin to fall out of her chair. She stopped herself, shook her head and stared back at the clock. 2: 44 p.m. Susan turned back at the teacher and called out, her singsong voice echoing down the silent classroom, "Mrs. Matten! It's time for clean-up!"
The teacher heaved, turning around to look at Susan, and then at the ticking clock. "Precisely, Susan. Thank you, dear. The following people, see me after class." She chuckled, her fake eyelashes beginning to fall off the tip of her eyelids. Susan grabbed her books hastily, her mud-stained fingers reaching for them. She pulled them up towards her chest, thudding with excitement as Eric approached the desk.
"Hey, Ellen. I want to know if you know what Angola's capital is again?" he sang, the beautiful voice hanging on his tongue for just a while.
"I'm not Ellen. I'm Susan." Susan replied, her eyes holding back the tears that wanted to burst.
"Oh, then. What is it, Susan?"
"Um............Dagai." she replied, biting her lip as she knew she was wrong.
"Oh, I thought it was Qidao." Eric grinned, whipping his hair to uncover his sparkling blue eyes.
Susan blushed, her face turning a deep red as she ran out of the school. She heard cruel laughter behind her, always chasing her every step. She ran and ran back home, back to Mama. Only, it wasn't her true Mama. Tears formed around her eyes as she remembered that day when her Fake Mama told her. She let them fall, dropping on the ground as her skinny legs stretched to run and run.
Susan burst into her Fake Mama's house, her black, silky hair dangling from her head like a piece of string. She looked around the living room. The white fireplace boomed as colors of red, orange and yellow flickered from the fire. Three couches sat, close together to keep warm. Susan remembered the feel of them, soft and bouncy, like an inflatable chair. A white coffee table stood in the middle, filled with mugs of coffee and hot chocolate. She took a deep breath, smelling the marshmallows and sweet bitter chocolate.
Fake Mama stood there, holding a mug and smiling pleasantly at Susan. She laughed, her voice sounding so comforting and sweet, "Susie, dear, come and dry off and have some hot chocolate." Susan dropped her books, sat on the cold, hard floor and cried, the tears streaming down her face as she bawled. Her mouth opened and she emitted a piercing scream. Fake Mama stood there, and finally set the mug down carefully and pulled Susan up to make her stand.
"Susan! You're already twelve years old and you have yet to learn about not bawling and screaming?" she scolded, her voice sounding harsher and meaner. Susan stood there, the warm, hot tears still falling down her cheeks. "You're not my Mama. You're my Fake Mama." she shouted, the tears falling faster and faster. Fake Mama's face turned into sympathetic and sweet. She grabbed the little girl and set her on one of the couches, a plush green being. The mother put the books away carefully in a wooden drawer and picked up the mug of hot chocolate.
Fake Mama settled down next to the still sobbing girl and handed her the hot chocolate. Susan took it, staring at the almost transparent fumed rising from the drink. She smelled the sweet chocolate and hungrily took a sip.
"Fake Mama?" she asked cautiously, her voice beginning to rise a bit.
"Don't call me that, Susie. I'm not exactly fake." Fake Mama sighed, her voice beginning to give in to a bigger sigh.
"But, can you tell me about the story of Mama? My real Mama?"
"Oh, Susan, you know that you'll be crying soon enough."
"I won't, I won't! I just want to hear it again." Susan pleaded, her voice rising as the anger rose.
"Okay, now little Susie. Hush and hush.
Once upon a time, there was your Mama. She was very beautiful, was she. She was the prettiest maiden in Angola, but she married the ugliest man on earth, Jacque Wielf. Ah, I liked Jacque all right. He was just very, violent. Maybe that's why she took a liking to his brawn. Anyways, they loved each other very much, until Mama had you, little Susan Wielf. Jacque hated babies. Well, maybe because babies made too much noise and they were too fragile. So your Papa went off and married another woman, Xiaoming, a Chinese lady. She was brutal, was she. She had a face as hard as stone and could never give birth.
Well your Mama, she was so angry and so sad. She cried for months, your Mama did. I was her sister, I was. So I took care of you while your Mama mourned and cried. She finally stopped and took you back in. She loved you, she did. Your Mama loved your beautiful face and you were so pretty that all the kings and queens in Angola came to see you. A beauty, you was.
One day, your Mama was walking out to catch some fresh air. She saw this flying thing. I can't describe it. Not a soul can. It had wings like a bird and a bunch of windows. It was heading straight for her. She screamed and I ran outside of my house, which was across the street. That's all I saw of her, I did. I mourned her, I did. You were the only survivor."
With that, Fake Mama looked down on Susan tenderly and shook the little girl's cheeks happily. Susan stared back up and asked again,her face as solemn as the midnight sky and her voice so flat there was no emotion in it at all, "How did my name come to be?"
"Susan. That was your Mama's name. But everybody called her Susie because she was so pretty and it fit her just as well."
"Does Susie fit me well, Mama?" Susan's voice lingered, hope shining in her bright brown eyes.
"It fit's you well indeed, dear."

this is very good I like your main person in the story and how bad she is at flirting. But I was wanting the last sentence at least plz.

srry, I canceled that out because I forgot what I was going to say. Okay then! Some more writing is being prepared!

I think the idea is good and some of your writing is really nice. I love how detailed you are in certain parts like about the teacher, the boy, and the scenery. The dialogue--I don't know if this is your intent or not--is really choppy and childlike. If this is your intent I hope there's a reason for it later in the story, because even Fake Mamma has childlike dialogue. If this isn't your intent I would work on not being so repetitive because that makes the story really hard to read.
Also, I don't know that much about Angola, but this doesn't seem to be set there. What I do know is that Angola is really poor. I don't know your time period, but currently there are no kings or queens--just a president who is really a dictator--and a civil war just ended in 2002. There are almost no Chinese people and since the native language is Portuguese and most people are fully African--like tribal descent--I can't imagine too many people having names like Susan and Eric. If you have reasons for giving them those names feel free to post them on my wall. I can't see the direction your plot is going or the message you are trying to convey.
I like the idea of your story and Susan seems like a relatable 12 year old. Other the technical issues I mentioned, the beginning seems good.

I'm back and ready with another flood of positively draconian criticism! Here are some typos and grammos:


The memories, the memories.
That full stop must be a comma.
Susan thought, biting carefully at her small fingernails. She fluttered her long eyelashes back towards her teacher, Mrs. Matten.
Fluttering eyelashes immediately conjures up a picture of flirting, not looking up, but if you change it, put the eyelashes somewhere else, like around the scene with Eric.
Susan observed her teacher carefully, a stout woman with an extremely thin, pale face. How peculiar, peculiar. Susan's thoughts echoed in her head. Mrs. Matten turned around, her lipstick still smeared onto her heavily, colored face.
Observation makes me think that Susan is attentive, so if she is studying her teacher, use "scrutinised" or "studied". This woman is very heavily built, but with no facial fat? Unlikely. You never mentioned any reason for lipstick not to be on the teacher's face, so the "still" can be deleted. The comma after "heavily" must be gone, too.
She grinned foolishly as the teacher began to talk about Angola, and its history. Susan watched as the teacher turned back around, heaving on her red, glossy high heels as she talked.
Just remove the comma; it is unnecessary.

Susan looked back at the clock, and Eric caught her eye. She stared at him dreamily for awhile.
In this case, "awhile" must be written "a while".
His lightly tanned faced topped with smooth black hair made her begin to fall out of her chair.
Hee hee! Nicely done!
She stopped herself, shook her head and stared back at the clock. 2: 44 p.m. Susan turned back at the teacher and called out, her singsong voice echoing down the silent classroom, "Mrs. Matten! It's time for clean-up!"
The teacher heaved, turning around to look at Susan, and then at the ticking clock. "Precisely, Susan. Thank you, dear. The following people, see me after class." She chuckled, her fake eyelashes beginning to fall off the tip of her eyelids.
Eyelids don't have tips. Just say "beginning to fall off her eyelids" or something like that.
Susan grabbed her books hastily, her mud-stained fingers reaching for them. She pulled them up towards her chest, thudding with excitement as Eric approached the desk.
"Hey, Ellen. I want to know if you know what Angola's capital is again?" he sang, the beautiful voice hanging on his tongue for just a while.
"I'm not Ellen. I'm Susan." Susan replied, her eyes holding back the tears that wanted to burst.
"Oh, then. What is it, Susan?"
"Um............Dagai." she replied, biting her lip as she knew she was wrong.
"Oh, I thought it was Qidao." Eric grinned, whipping his hair to uncover his sparkling blue eyes.
The real capital is Luanda, so I can only assume that this is a fantasy world, which you simply called Angola. Again: be warned! People know that the place really exists and get pretty confused when it is suddenly so different.
Susan blushed, her face turning a deep red as she ran out of the school. She heard cruel laughter behind her, always chasing her every step. She ran and ran back home, back to Mama. Only, it wasn't her true Mama. Tears formed around her eyes as she remembered that day when her Fake Mama told her. She let them fall, dropping on the ground as her skinny legs stretched to run and run.
Susan burst into her Fake Mama's house, her black, silky hair dangling from her head like a piece of string. She looked around the living room. The white fireplace boomed as colors of red, orange and yellow flickered from the fire.
Phew! I just thought there was an explosion there!
Three couches sat, close together to keep warm.
Remove the comma or even replace "sat" with "were positioned".
Susan remembered the feel of them, soft and bouncy, like an inflatable chair. A white coffee table stood in the middle, filled with mugs of coffee and hot chocolate. She took a deep breath, smelling the marshmallows and sweet bitter chocolate.
Fake Mama stood there, holding a mug and smiling pleasantly at Susan. She laughed, her voice sounding so comforting and sweet, "Susie, dear, come and dry off and have some hot chocolate." Susan dropped her books, sat on the cold, hard floor and cried, the tears streaming down her face as she bawled. Her mouth opened and she emitted a piercing scream. Fake Mama stood there, and finally set the mug down carefully and pulled Susan up to make her stand.
"Susan! You're already twelve years old and you have yet to learn about not bawling and screaming?" she scolded, her voice sounding harsher and meaner. Susan stood there, the warm, hot tears still falling down her cheeks.
Warm and hot? Synonyms.
"You're not my Mama. You're my Fake Mama." she shouted, the tears falling faster and faster. Fake Mama's face turned into sympathetic and sweet. She grabbed the little girl and set her on one of the couches, a plush green being.
That word is reserved for things that are alive. Currently it sounds as though the girl is green!
The mother put the books away carefully in a wooden drawer and picked up the mug of hot chocolate.
Fake Mama settled down next to the still sobbing girl and handed her the hot chocolate. Susan took it, staring at the almost transparent fumed rising from the drink.
Firstly incorrectly spelt, secondly, steam is not a fume, it would be more accurately described as vapour.
She smelled the sweet chocolate and hungrily took a sip.
"Fake Mama?" she asked cautiously, her voice beginning to rise a bit.
"Don't call me that, Susie. I'm not exactly fake." Fake Mama sighed, her voice beginning to give in to a bigger sigh.
"But, can you tell me about the story of Mama? My real Mama?"
"Oh, Susan, you know that you'll be crying soon enough."
"I won't, I won't! I just want to hear it again." Susan pleaded, her voice rising as the anger rose.
"Okay, now little Susie. Hush and hush.
Once upon a time, there was your Mama. She was very beautiful, was she. She was the prettiest maiden in Angola, but she married the ugliest man on earth, Jacque Wielf. Ah, I liked Jacque all right. He was just very, violent. Maybe that's why she took a liking to his brawn. Anyways, they loved each other very much, until Mama had you, little Susan Wielf. Jacque hated babies. Well, maybe because babies made too much noise and they were too fragile. So your Papa went off and married another woman, Xiaoming, a Chinese lady. She was brutal, was she. She had a face as hard as stone and could never give birth.
Well your Mama, she was so angry and so sad. She cried for months, your Mama did. I was her sister, I was. So I took care of you while your Mama mourned and cried. She finally stopped and took you back in. She loved you, she did. Your Mama loved your beautiful face and you were so pretty that all the kings and queens in Angola came to see you. A beauty, you was.
One day, your Mama was walking out to catch some fresh air. She saw this flying thing. I can't describe it. Not a soul can. It had wings like a bird and a bunch of windows. It was heading straight for her. She screamed and I ran outside of my house, which was across the street.
out of
That's all I saw of her, I did. I mourned her, I did. You were the only survivor."
the last I saw of her
With that, Fake Mama looked down on Susan tenderly and shook the little girl's cheeks happily. Susan stared back up and asked again,her face as solemn as the midnight sky and her voice so flat there was no emotion in it at all, "How did my name come to be?"
"Susan. That was your Mama's name. But everybody called her Susie because she was so pretty and it fit her just as well."
"Does Susie fit me well, Mama?" Susan's voice lingered, hope shining in her bright brown eyes.
"It fit's you well indeed, dear."
That apostrophe is illegally parked!

Other than that, the mother's whole narration is fraught with "she did"s and "I was"s, which seem to me to be completely out of character. I liked the school scene the most! And Eric *sigh*...
Keep going!

Yeah the previous people pointed out all the grammatical errors :p I loved this but I have to agree that it seemed quite childlike, then again Susan is twelve, will this change later on as she gets older? I hope it does because it may be 'cute' now but after a while it might get slightly annoying, hope to read s'more soon