Short Story 2 - 'Worked Out' (1 Viewer)

[bored of sc]

Yeah. I’ve got it worked out. This is who I really am. No strings attached.

Welcome to my life. My name is Gemma. I am a 14 year old girl. I live in Australia. My mother died when I was 8. I live with my father and sister. Things have never been normal. My life is intense, to say the least. I've had 6 close relatives and family members die in as many years. I am suffering with a disease of the lungs, although dad won’t tell me what it is. My sister is taking drugs every weekend now and I have to help her hide them in the house. She swore she’d kill me if I said a thing to dad. But dad is barely there anyway. He’ll never notice. Tucked away in his room a level beneath us, he reminds of a hermit crab.

It all scares me, I won’t lie. When I’m just laying there at night staring aimlessly at the ceiling, the thought of it all physically weakens me. I feel as if my body is going to turn to jelly. As if all the strength is being sucked away. I try my hardest to accept it and move on. Things are as they are. You don’t have any control over them. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and move on. Self-pity is self-centeredness.

So here I am. Sitting in my room. Thinking of what to write. Actually caring about little things like grammar, expression and spelling in the hope that someone will read this and feel some form of empathy.



What'd you guys think so far? Boring? Decent? Needs work?

 

[sonyaleeisapixi]

Over dramatic to be honest.
Almost home and away - esque in the way one disaster follows another.


That aside, I like the idea of finding solace from tragedy and hardship through grammar and punctuation. I think if you worked the tragedy on a more subtle level, then it'd be great. You have a nice way with sentance structure.

 

[marcquelle]

interesting voice, don't mind it but does feel a little over emphasised in parts but over all good.

Whats your AOS. I'd guess its IDentity cause it sounds like she's defining herself, and allows us to explore who she is

 

[wixxy2348]

Ummm
Ok I think it would be a whole lot better if you wrote it in third person (rather than first, as you have). The reason being, that if it's in third you'll be able to use a lot more imagery and language devices (couldn't find much).
Also... I agree with the previous posters who reckon it's overdramatic. VERY VERY overdrmatic.
It's an alright idea, but needs a lot of work (sorry!)

 

[wendus]

what's this for? it's a bit melodramatic.

 

[hopethisworks]

imho: typical C grade response.

 

[bored of sc]

interesting voice, don't mind it but does feel a little over emphasised in parts but over all good.

Whats your AOS. I'd guess its IDentity cause it sounds like she's defining herself, and allows us to explore who she is

Yeah, it's identity.

 

[bored of sc]

what's this for? it's a bit melodramatic.

Preparing for my prelim english exam by writing a short story on the concept of identity.

 

[bored of sc]

Cheers for your thoughts all. Much appreciated.

 

[lionking1191]

self-reflexivity - cliched: don't go there
sentence variety - vary s. length
melodramatic - no one wants to know about how and why teens are depressed..

gluck wit ur story

 

[bored of sc]

Don't worry. That's perfectly fine. I posted it up to get criticism. I'll go improve my story (or try to) and repost it.

 

[Empyrean444]

Good ideas but very histrionic. Try and tone down the tragedy a bit (so it is not just an endless sequence of pain). Even better, work up to and develop the tragedy.

The reason too much tragdey is bad is because it actually reduces the impact of each individaul tragedy (rather than getting exponential sadness/empathy within the responder, the tragedy becomes far less than the sum of its parts).

 

[Zephyrio]

I think that it would work really well if you created your persona as this hypochondriac who was fussy over a lot of things. To achieve this effect however, you have to be a lot more intricate with your descriptions, to give the reader a sense of claustrophobia almost. By this, I mean that it might unsettle the reader - the more the persona tries to convince the audience that she's normal, the more unreliable a narrator she really is.

------------------------------

Errr, actually. No. Disregard what I just said - it's clear that we're not after a Poe-ish Tell-Tale Heart story. LOL. Keep working on it.

No idea what I was thinking there.

 

[AkaiHanabi]

Vary sentence length. Short sentences are used to create impact, especially with traumatic events. However you have many traumatic events, and each is expressed with short sentences, so the overall effect is that the events occur too quickly for the reader to comprehend.

Also, the self introduction seems a little... unneeded? Like, it's a cliched way to start, and not very sophisticated. If it's a short story there isn't very much room to move in, so all unnecessary bits need to be chopped out. If character development is what you're aiming for, factual information is not really needed. Perhaps, instead, try to show the reader what the character's personality is like through her actions and reactions to the tragic events.

Also, 14 seems like a really young age, and teachers have warned students in our grade to steer away from sex, teenage angst, and drugs. You have two of those. Honestly, it does leave a bad impression. When I read it, I thought "Oh, she's 14. She's still a kid, basically, and has no depth of emotion." It's judgemental, but sometimes English (especially creative writing) can be impression marking.