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This is something I wrote for a class. Thought I might share it because I invested some time and effort into it. If you have any suggestions for change, please post. :D I'm all up for sensible revisions. I hope you enjoy the story.
Silence. The clock ticked. The judges, hunched in the corner, whispered amongst themselves.
I scribbled onto a notebook, “Think we won?”
“I hate this,” wrote Julia
“Ugh, I screwed up,” wrote Divya
“Chill, just chill…”
Movement. We looked to the towering benches. The judges pulled their chairs back. We stood up.
“Council may sit down.”
I started twirling my pen, over and over. Twirl, spin, around the thumb, and then between the fingers.
“We’ve made a decision, but let’s give comments first.”
Scribble, scribble. Notes. My mind screamed. I smiled.
Five minutes of doodling go by. Letters have appeared on my notebook. The judges stop talking. I rush up to the benches, look upwards, and say the usual niceties: please, thank you, thanks for judging, any advice specifically for me, how do I get better on direct, etc. I just want the sheet of paper.
They hand me the pink slip with thirteen numbers per column, two columns a page. I take a glance and walk towards the conference room.
“Guys, that was great. Be proud of your performance. I think you really gave it your all,” said Will, our lawyer coach.
I smiled. I stuffed my notebook, my pen, and my affidavits into my backpack. My teammates started to leave. I turned to Julia and opened my arms. We hugged.
“Thanks for the three years.”
“Yeah, it’s been great.”
“Yeah.”
Then I hugged Divya, and said, “Maybe we should’ve put peanuts in their food after all huh?”
“Haha, and poison darts. Pew.” She clapped her thumb and her pointer finger, and she snapped her wrist forward. “Maybe I’ll come back next year.”
“Yeah! Super-senior it up! Hahaha.”
Julia and Divya left. I carried our box of materials to the bus, walking alongside Will.
“We did pretty well didn’t we Will?”
“Yeah. Easily the strongest team so far. You guys should be proud.”
“Next year, we‘ll be even stronger.” I stepped onto our bus, put down the box, and sat next to Sami. We started to talk. You know, complain about school or otherwise just shoot the breeze. Next thing I know, we were at the high school.
I stepped off the bus and waved. Snowflakes fell around me. I opened the door of my dad’s Honda.
“怎么样？” How was it?
“We lost.”
“为什么？” Why?
“Because they were better. Because I was stupid. Because I screwed up my closing arguments. Because because because! We were so close too. Six points. Just six points!”
“还有明年。” There’s still next year.
I closed my fists and inhaled. I stared out the window. Pitch black darkness. I emptied my lungs and sighed. A bit of moisture came to my eyes. I blinked it away. I turned back toward the front, looking forward onto the path illuminated by the car lights.
Then I replied, “明年不会一样的。。。Julia and Divya will both be gone.”
 
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Is English your first language? (If not wtf, too good)
What grade level are you?
EDIT: I want to know how my criticisms/compliments should be targeted.
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On May 27 2011 14:15 DamageControL wrote:
Is English your first language? (If not wtf, too good)
What grade level are you?
EDIT: I want to know how my criticisms/compliments should be targeted.
English is my second language, but it's my primary one. I learned Chinese first, but I'm not fluent in it. I'm in 11th grade.
Thanks for either one. ^_^ I know TL has great writers, so I would love to hear the comments.
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Ok, I'm not the worlds greatest writer but here goes. This is just as I go since I'm really tired.
-The beginning does a poor job of building the suspense. I believe that we're supposed to know the kids probably lost, but you need to help us really feel what the kids are feeling.
"Silence. The clock ticked. The judges, hunched in the corner, whispered amongst themselves." seems to be trying to build tension, but you only spend three short sentences doing it. Also, you could establish point of view here, although that's not really necessary. So maybe something like:
"Silence. The clock ticked. I glanced at the judges, hunched in the corner, whispering amongst themselves. Still. We continued to wait, slowly growing more nervous and more impatient. Finally, the tension was too much. I scribbled..."<----this might be awful, I'm really tired, but you get the idea, there should be more build-up here. I mean these students seem to really care and the reader should too.
I don't usually care about this, but the identical formatting of "wrote Person" two lines in a row is a little weird, not optimal.
Dialogue, ESPECIALLY written, is really hard for pretty much everyone, including me. I'm not sure how you can improve it, but it doesn't sound natural. "Think we won?" is ok, and I think "I hate this" is too. But the other two sound a little weird, at least to me.
I really like the "My mind screamed. I smiled." Awesome.
I would remove the sentence "letters have appeared on my notebook."
PLEASE don't use etc. here. Oh goodness, totally wrecks flow.
"please, thank you, thanks for judging, any advice specifically for me, how do I get better on direct. The usual bullshit. All I wanted..."
Now to the tricky stuff. As I'm most tired, great. I think this is the meat of the story and the hardest part to write. It's what the story is about--those who leave, those who stay behind....so I won't touch it till tomorrow if it's still relevant then. If not sorry.
one last thing before I sleep
"You know, complain about school or otherwise just shoot the breeze." this sentence is weird. Change it. at least change or to and, and perhaps remove the word "otherwise".
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Your chinese could use some grammar work in the last line.
For a 11th grader, this is hot stuff. I was able to read it without cringing at any moment.
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On May 27 2011 15:01 stephenkingfan wrote:
Your chinese could use some grammar work in the last line.
For a 11th grader, this is hot stuff. I was able to read it without cringing at any moment.
;p this. I re-read some eleventh grade stuff of mine and...well lets not talk about it.
edit: not even close to this pretty.
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This is the sort of passage that may have weight further on in a story. As it is now, there is very little drama. The first few lines had me curious, but the reveal of a practice law case just deadened the scene and any emotion the narrator had. Opening with a monologue could perhaps be stronger, and add some color to this if it is indeed the very beginning. Right now, the narrator is bland and flat, I have no opinion of him/her, which is a bad thing unless you're looking to develop an everyman.
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On May 27 2011 15:00 DamageControL wrote:
Ok, I'm not the worlds greatest writer but here goes. This is just as I go since I'm really tired.
-The beginning does a poor job of building the suspense. I believe that we're supposed to know the kids probably lost, but you need to help us really feel what the kids are feeling.
"Silence. The clock ticked. The judges, hunched in the corner, whispered amongst themselves." seems to be trying to build tension, but you only spend three short sentences doing it. Also, you could establish point of view here, although that's not really necessary. So maybe something like:
"Silence. The clock ticked. I glanced at the judges, hunched in the corner, whispering amongst themselves. Still. We continued to wait, slowly growing more nervous and more impatient. Finally, the tension was too much. I scribbled..."<----this might be awful, I'm really tired, but you get the idea, there should be more build-up here. I mean these students seem to really care and the reader should too.
I don't usually care about this, but the identical formatting of "wrote Person" two lines in a row is a little weird, not optimal.
Dialogue, ESPECIALLY written, is really hard for pretty much everyone, including me. I'm not sure how you can improve it, but it doesn't sound natural. "Think we won?" is ok, and I think "I hate this" is too. But the other two sound a little weird, at least to me.
I really like the "My mind screamed. I smiled." Awesome.
I would remove the sentence "letters have appeared on my notebook."
PLEASE don't use etc. here. Oh goodness, totally wrecks flow.
"please, thank you, thanks for judging, any advice specifically for me, how do I get better on direct. The usual bullshit. All I wanted..."
Now to the tricky stuff. As I'm most tired, great. I think this is the meat of the story and the hardest part to write. It's what the story is about--those who leave, those who stay behind....so I won't touch it till tomorrow if it's still relevant then. If not sorry.
one last thing before I sleep
"You know, complain about school or otherwise just shoot the breeze." this sentence is weird. Change it. at least change or to and, and perhaps remove the word "otherwise".
Thanks for the comments. I appreciate them, and I'll definitely take them into account for the revision process. ^_^
About the helping the reader thing. I think that's a good idea depending on the audience. I choose to make it "challenging" because our teacher's one guarantee as an audience is that he won't quit. Our goal is also to show as much as possible and "tell" as little as possible.
I would like to know how to better build tension though, but without giving away my/the narrator's state of mind.
For the dialogue, do you think I should change it into something more like,
"THINK WE WON"
"HATE THIS"
"SCREWED UP"
"Chill"
">_<"
"Chill!" Idk, I feel that might convey the written idea a bit more, especially amongst just cohorts at a table together.
Thanks again. 
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Definitely don't use all-caps. Seems really strong for a year 11 piece, impressed at how sparse the prose is. I'd expect to see far more adjectives cluttering it up from a young writer. The etc. is really bad and should be avoided other than that gj!
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All caps is a bad idea. Again, it's really hard to come up with something natural sounding. What you would actually do in real life doesn't always translate well onto the page.
You don't have to hide their frame of mind completely to keep the reader interested BUT building tension is imperative. You can just do more work to build the "waiting" feeling.
I guess the main complaint I have is you might be waiting to reveal more of the character later...but you don't. There's little to the characters. And that's ok for a piece like this, but I guess I need to feel SOMETHING. I feel like the dad and the main character especially have room to at least have hints of their inner personality revealed.
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EPT
