Broken part 2 ( Girl pov)

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Broken part 2 ( Girl pov)

Postby snowcatgrlX7 » Wed Mar 19, 2014 5:34 pm

It was first day at my new school. Needless to say, I wasn't excited. Why? Well, let's see. I have these braces which can really ruin my day sometimes, I've got asthma, my eyes are two different colors (gray and blue. I don't even know.) and there's a whole bunch of other problems I've got but, eh, I'll spare you the story. To sum it all up, I'm basically a walking freak. Other people have noticed that too. That's probably why I got bullied out of school three times. Three. Yeah, it's pathetic but, that's what I am right? Well enough chat for now. I've got to get ready for school. Time for another episode of getting called derogatory terms, being laughed at or being talked about. Great.
At school~
After my parents had signed some forms and other papers, I finally got assigned to a class. I was really dreading just walking to it. As I walked down the long hallway, people passing by gave me these really perplexed looks. I'd gotten used to it though. It still hurt me a little, but I'd learned to shrug it off. As I approached the classroom, I got really, really nervous. You see, I have a really bad anxiety disorder. I started to breathe heavily and my legs started to feel wobbly. I almost fell over in the hallway, but I stopped myself. I tried to keep my composure and took deep breaths in and out. I kept walking until I finally reached the classroom. Part of me wanted to run away and avoid it altogether. Another part wanted to go in just to get it over with. My hands were starting to get sweaty now. I took a deep breath and said a quick prayer before I went in.
"Please help me get through this. In Jesus' s name I pray, Amen,"
After that, I reluctantly turned the doorknob of the classroom door. I kid you not, I almost had a heart attack right there.
Everyone was just staring at me. I stood there in the doorway, frozen like a deer in headlights. Finally the teacher spoke.
"Hello, miss! Are you the new student?"
"Yes," I said in a quiet voice.
"Oh, splendid! And what's your name, dear?"
After I said my name, the teacher assigned me a seat. It was way in the back. Good. I didn't really like to make contact with people anyways. I started walking down the aisle of desks and heard several snickers from across the room. I ignored them and continued to walk down the aisle. Some guy then decided it was funny to put his leg out to trip me. Unfortunately, I saw his
leg too late and you know what happened? I tripped and fell down. Hard. I got up and the class erupted with laughter. I was humiliated. I was really on the verge of crying so I just rushed to my seat and sucked up the tears. The teacher scolded the class for laughing at me, but it didn't make me feel any better. I just wanted to go home. To make things worse, the teacher said,"Okay, let's get into groups! I'll give you 5 minutes to get your groups together. Once you're all ready, I'll give you your assignments," she said enthusiastically. Now I really wanted to go crawl into a hole. Within a matter of seconds, the class had already formulated their clusters. But not everyone was in a group. There was this guy sitting at a lone desk. He actually looked really lonely and I could tell he was sad by just looking at his eyes. No one seemed to want to pair up with him or invite him into their group. I looked at the clock and saw that I had 1 more minute to form a group. I finally mustered up the courage to go up to him and I sat in the desk next to him. He seemed sort of alarmed that I was sitting next to him. It was clear that he wasn't going to start a conversation so I did instead. That was really out of my character to do so, but this situation called for it.
"Um hi," I said nervously.
"Hi," he said, not even looking at me. He was probably too shy. *sigh* I could tell this would probably be a long day.
Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
Psalms 23:4
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Re: Broken part 2 ( Girl pov)

Postby snowcatgrlX7 » Wed Mar 19, 2014 5:41 pm

As the story suggests, this is the story from the girl's point of view. This part kicks off from where the other one ended. The last part ended with the boy waking up. After that he got ready for school and he went there.
Sooo, if there's something in the story that you don't get, then please let me know.
You can critique this if you want.
I might make a part 3
Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
Psalms 23:4
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Posts: 33
Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2013 3:04 pm

Re: Broken part 2 ( Girl pov)

Postby Yuki-Anne » Fri Mar 21, 2014 6:52 pm

Having read part 1, I decided to give part 2 a shot. Your writing is a little better than I expected. Your characters are decently believable. I appreciate that your female character doesn't wallow in self-pity overly much. Just a few critiques:

snowcatgrlX7 wrote:It was first day at my new school. Needless to say, I wasn't excited. Why? Well, let's see. I have these braces which can really ruin my day sometimes, I've got asthma, my eyes are two different colors (gray and blue. I don't even know.) and there's a whole bunch of other problems I've got but, eh, I'll spare you the story. To sum it all up, I'm basically a walking freak. Other people have noticed that too. That's probably why I got bullied out of school three times. Three. Yeah, it's pathetic but, that's what I am right? Well enough chat for now. I've got to get ready for school. Time for another episode of getting called derogatory terms, being laughed at or being talked about. Great.
At school~
After my parents had signed some forms and other papers, I finally got assigned to a class.


Okay, this first section is kind of a mess. You don't need, "Well enough chat for now." You're writing a story, not an IM. In fact, you start off your paragraph like you're writing a story ("It was my first day at my new school.") and then you digress into facebook message-land. You've already established that it was your first day at school so you could just drop off at "I've been bulled out of school three times" and pick up at "After my parents had..." and you wouldn't miss much of anything.
One of the best pieces of writing advice I've ever received is to exercise economy with words. What does that mean? It means to shave off every word that doesn't add to the story, and pack as much meaning into your nouns and verbs as possible. Here's an example of what it would look like with your story.
On my first day at a new school, I wasn't excited. My braces often ruined my day, my asthma sometimes acted up, my eyes were two different colors (gray and blue), and I possessed myriad of other problems too long to detail. I'd been bullied out of three different schools. Most days I just felt like a freak.


Just a note: personally, I liked the addition of "I don't even know." and I really debated about whether to leave it in the example but despite how fond I am of that phrase, it's just not particularly good writing. Also note that the entire paragraph has been written in the past tense. It's bad form to start off a paragraph in the past tense, then switch to the present, then back to the past. As much as possible try to keep your story in the same tense; otherwise it feels disjointed.

As I walked down the long hallway, people passing by gave me these really perplexed looks.


...why? Is it because you have two different colored eyes? Because gray and blue is not that big a difference, and not everybody is immediately going to notice that. Were you wearing unfashionable clothes? Are you overweight? Do you have a mohawk or bizarre body piercings? Is Geico's phone number tattooed to your forehead? Or are you a new face in a small-town high school? We need a reason for them to give you perplexed looks. Or maybe you just felt like everybody was staring at you? Because that's believable, especially considering the anxiety disorder.

My hands were starting to get sweaty now. I took a deep breath and said a quick prayer before I went in.
"Please help me get through this. In Jesus' s name I pray, Amen,"


I don't know about you, but when I say quick prayers it usually just ends at, "Please help me get through this." There's something that hits me as really awkward about including the whole, "In Jesus's name I pray, Amen" part, like a kid praying a memorized prayer at the family dinner table. But maybe that's just me.

"Oh, splendid! And what's your name, dear?"


...what kind of teacher is this? How old is he or she? Are we in England?
This is another thing about your story: It's too vague. Your characters have no names (why skip giving us the character's name when you set up a great opportunity to introduce it right here?), we don't know where we are, we assume we're in the present, 2014, but we might not be for all we know, and except for the information you give us outside the story, we don't even know if we're reading about a boy or a girl. We don't know what anybody looks like, we don't know if it's a rainy day or if it's fine, we don't know if the school is clean and newly remodeled or dingy and old, and so on. You need to describe things beyond just giving your characters a laundry list of flaws, otherwise your audience feels like we're reading about a nebulous consciousness in a floating classroom in space.
Also, you could take time to establish your character's relationship with her parents. How do THEY feel about her being in her fourth high school in two years (I assume that's the timeline here). Do they pity her? Are they doing their best? Or are they just about at the end of their patience with her? Are they supportive or not? Is she appreciative of her parents or not? Since they dropped her off at school, you could throw in a short goodbye scene which would establish the family dynamic nicely. After all, a character is not just her attributes: part of what makes a good character is establishing her history and relationships as well. You don't have to do it all at once, but a little bite of info is better than nothing at all.


After I said my name,

I'll say it again because it bothers me a lot: please tell us who we're reading about... unless your planning to do some kind of bizarre twist by revealing the name at the end (it was about Helen Keller and Abraham Lincoln the whole time! :o ).
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