Young Writers Society

Dear Diary,

And I thought Dad had good enough taste. The woman he brought home who is going to be my stepmom is a complete nutter. I cannot believe that he fell for such a freak. She believes that no matter what you should never walk on grass as you never know what creatures of Gods that you're trampling on. She does this yoga meditation thing every morning to calm her soul. She never cooks meat, apparently it's animal cruelty to eat any animals like cows or pigs so if Dad still insists on marrying it I'll never see another good meaty dinner in front of me. I know that Dad has had some weird injection thing that has made him lose his mind. It’s either that or she has hypnotized him becausemy Dad loves his food. Don’t worry though I told her to the face what I thought of her. It included me calling her something like a loony and telling her that she’d put our whole family to shame and me telling Dad that he was some crazed maniac to even think of looking at her. He smiled sympathetically at me and started the whole ‘I know the change is going to be hard for you’ talk and I didn’t take well to that either. In fact I wasn’t even there for any longer then a second past the first sentence. I shoved my hands in my ears and raced up to my room, jamming my IPod into the speaker and playing Tik Tok by Ke$ha, full blast. And now here I am on the floor writing to you. These days my friends and you are the only things keeping me sane. What’s hurting me most is that my Dad would go so far and change his entire personality for some nature freak show. What’s going to happen to our microwave meal and movie nights? We’ll probably have to watch nature films now. You will never catch me going anywhere near it. I refuse to even call her by a name. It would give the impression she’s actually human… And that would be a lie.

Dear Diary,

Breakfast was hell. It was just me and Dad and too be honest, I’d prefer he just ignore me. He was so…weird. It’s the only possible word I can use to describe him. He was going through everything with me piece by piece and literally I wanted to get sick all over him. I told him calmly that he obviously didn’t give a crap about me or him or else he wouldn’t go around changing himself for nature freaks and ruining other people’s lives without even asking them. I also told him that if he continued to marry it that I would never eat dinner with them, I would simply eat out where I could eat meat and without having to see, look or hear it. His point was that he had changed for the better when he was around her and that he would always care about me. He also asked me to call her Sharon instead of it. I refused telling him exactly what I told you. It would be giving a false impression that she was actually part of the human race and that would be a lie. He blew it when I said that. He started getting all aggro and saying that just because I was an insecure teenager didn’t mean I had the right to define ‘Sharon’ as non-human just because she wasn’t a cool, in-the-know mom. I told him I wasn’t insecure and that it wasn’t my mom. I spent the rest of the day with Lily and Tonya and a couple of guys down at the 24 hour diner. I wasn’t home until 12:30 which started another roaring match and it was there. I smiled at Dad all through his rampage and when he had finished I waved goodbye at him and lolloped up the stairs. I thought about annoying him with another song but dismissed that idea. I had a splitting headache so annoying him would have to wait. I crawled under my covers and lay in the dark for a while. I found myself crying. I was losing my Dad for some other Dad who I didn’t know at all. Too be honest the whole image I was betraying was just a wholesome lie. I hated the fact I was losing one of my best friends and I hated that my Dad had got over my mom so fast and fallen for such an… idiot. Right now, I hated my life completely but I would never show I really felt. That would be giving in and I wasn’t ready to give my Dad anything after taking away my everything.

Ooooh, second review.

This was really nice At first, to be honest I thought the MC sounded whiny. Ok, I've never been in the situation where my mom isn't in the picture and my Dad is bringing home women but it seemed like she wasn't even giving "it" a chance. Sure, the future step-mom is a little on the crazy side but...there was just no mercy and not really a reason why.

BUT.

This all changed once I read the second entry. I thought that one was more well-written.

It included me calling her something like a loony and telling her that she’d put our whole family to shame and me telling Dad that he was some crazed maniac to even think of looking at her. He smiled sympathetically at me and started the whole ‘I know the change is going to be hard for you’ talk and I didn’t take well to that either. In fact I wasn’t even there for any longer then a second past the first sentence.

For example: this was really wordy and the only part of the entire two entries that I had trouble reading through.

So yeah, not the greatest review and I apologize xD I would really stress trying to bring out the MC's nature more and making sure everything is clear (hard to do in a diary hahaha i know mine are confusing)

Have fun

I love how you leave the imagination to the reader, so they feel like there there watching this girl write in her diary, this is a good literary use, and it would bring the reader into their own imaginary world of this book/short story. But you just have to watch out for grammar, there seems to be missing commas in it, because the sentences go on and on, and sometimes there just too many full stops so when you read it, read it in a full breath and take a breath where there is a comma or full stop and you will understand that it is very hard, so just try and plonk a comma in the sentence but make sure it fits in, other wise it would just look stupid! Besides that i think this is really good, and was enjoyable to read so keep it up and i would like to see more of your work!

Hiya kaka! Luxy here. This was really good. Your storytelling is great, as usual. The MC was very believable in the way of a girl who's dad is about to get married to a complete wacko. I like that she's doing what she can to keep some of her own self, even if she can't have her dad. I would agree with the person before me who mentioned the commas... that was the only thing I really saw grammatically. Another thing that would be great is a little more background on your character. I'm getting her thoughts down and her personality, but I would like to know what happened to her mom. Where is she??? That's my only question.
Best of luck!
Luxy

Ah the old comma's they're a big thing for me. I can't seem to stop using them! XD anyhow I'll think about what you said and try to add bits in. I think I should write another bit op to it, like another chapter? What do you think?

Then I'll be able to talk about the mom and where the MC is.
Glad you guys enjoyed it. Kaka xoxo

Hey kaka

I'm here to review this, believe it or not. If you have any questions or anything about this review when I'm done, just let me know by posting on my wall, PMing me or whatever.

I haven't actually read the piece yet, but I have a critique for you. xD At the moment, it's just two big paragraphs, and in all honesty, it's rather distracting. Although they're two seperate diary entries, it doesn't mean that each one should only be one paragraph. This is what I'd edit it to, for example.



Yeah... I ended up correcting grammar as well. I'm weird. Doesn't this paragraph structure look better though? Plus, it makes it look like you've written more. I'm not sure about you, but when it looks like I've written a lot, I feel smart and shizz. In the end, it's up to you, but I would suggest for you to change the paragraph structure of this to something similar/the same as what I've done.

Okay! Now onto the more important stuff. I like the fact that this is a diary entry because it's different. It's also quite a hard thing to do well because most of the time, you can't include dialogue in diary entries. Dialogue is really good to help introduce characters, so it's a challenge not to be able to use it. So yeah, well done for introducing your MC to us well without having the piveledge of dialogue. I also like the situation the girl's in. You could do a lot with it.

Now here's my problem... I don't think you wanted to give this impression, but I didn't like your MC much at all. It's not that you didn't create an interesting character or that she was boring... I just found her realy rude, whiny and if I'm honest, a b*tch. I don't think you really wanted that. The problem is that she came across as really harsh on her father and his partner. Okay, so she likes the enviornment. It's not as though the woman's beating the MC. As for the father, you kept on saying that he'd changed, but how? We didn't see him before, so how do we know how different he is?

Back to Sharon though. I unerstand that your MC would be looking for flaws because she clearly doesn't want a new mother, but what I suggest for you to do is maybe have your MC feel some guilt for being so cruel and harsh on the woman. I'm not saying you have to make the MC like Sharon, but maybe have her wishing that she could be more like her real mum, or even wondering if she could ever replace her real mum. Just make your MC a bit less... aggressive and nasty. In the end, she's your character, so it's up to you what you want to do with her, but I would suggest making her more likeable.

As for the father, I want to see how he's changed. You kept on saying that he's changed since being with Sharon, but how? Also, how long has he been with Sharon, and when did your MC's mother die/leave? You said something about them having movie nights or whatever, but nothing else really. Plus, I'd like to know how his personality has changed, not just the things he did. Spekaing of his behaviour, I get the impression that the MC can't eat meat anymore. Really? I doubt your MC would be forced to stop eating meat because, well, it just doesn't work like that. My mate's mum has recently remarried, and the guy's two kids don't eat meat. My mate still eats meat though. He's not forced to stop eating it because the new members of the family don't. Stopping him from eating meat would be rather barbaric...

I'm going off track now, sorry... I'm supposed ot be talking about your MC's dad. Okay, so he doesn't have movie nights and wants your MC to respect his new partner by not eating meat, but they're all things that are connected to behaviour. How has his personality changed? Or more improtantly, what was he like before? Is he more uptight now? Or maybe he's way more relaxed and it annoyes your MC. We can't really understand why your MC is so bitter towards her dad when we don't know how different he is now, and how different her whole situation is compared to what it was like before. Do you see what I'm getting at?

Also, I wasn't overly keen on the ending. Your MC went from hard and aggressive, to soft and caring. You have to remember something. This is a diary. People write in their diaries to express their emotions, so why would she have been hiding her emotions to her diary at the beginning? At the end, you said that even though she acts all hard, she's really hurting inside or whatever. You should have at least hinted at her true feelings. By doing that, she would ahve also sounded less harsh and nasty, so it would make her more likeable. I just find it a bit weird that she suddenly expresses her feelings to her diary, when in reality, that's exactly what diaries are for anyway... expressing the emotions that you can't express to people.

I'm balbbering on now... I do really think this has potential, kaka. Some parts of this were funny, so thumbs up for that. If you edit this up a little bit, maybe add in some more details, make your MC a bit mor likeable and whatnot, this could be really great.

Keep writing,

xoxo Skins

I really liked your story but I have to agree with the others the two paragraphs are a bit too distracting , well anyway I would really like to know more about "it", like the things she says if you’re going to continue the diary entries you should write more about her. I'd like to know if she's really as bad as the Narrator says ,because trust me an enraged teen will make people seem bad even though they’re not really. Well the others have basically covered everything so sorry if this isn't too useful. I found this piece very relatable, it sucks having to deal with this kind of situation.

I think you put her feelings across clearly and i thin this exactly how someone would act in this kind of situation.
Great job, keep writing!

Ah, yes. The classic step mother story.

This reminds me about a C.S.I episode i watched last night. I think the use of a disgruntled child, coupled with a step parent is so overused in everything.

But with that said, i thought the characters were believable. But if the daughter hates this step mom so much, let me see it.

Describe this step mom's appearance. In my mind i saw a money grabbing bitch, with graying hair curled up in a bun. As well as a hook nose and she wears black all the time.

~T.K

wow! you did a really good job projecting her thoughts and feelings. and it was commical to I really enjoyed it dont really see thyat action part of it yet but I am sure its coming

I really liked this! You wrote a story that many girls can relate to. I like how you made it more personal to the character by haveing it in her diary. I also love how you don't hold back in your writing, describing her and not caring about what others think about your opinions. The world needs more writers- and people like that. Keep on writing! You surely have some talent!
-Ruth