MEGAN.
I absolutely love how your piece is so heavily linked with lyrics that so perfectly fit the moment you’re describing. Especially on page two where I’m assuming you referenced, “All I Want” by Kodaline. Either way, it connected with me enough to get the song stuck in my head for the rest of the night. I feel like this is a good move because then it makes your reader connect with your story more because you include actual songs that they may know and love. One thing I will note, however, that your entire story tends to blend together as one and it’s hard to tell when there is time break. Maybe separate these with space or lines to make the separation more clear. On page four, your last paragraph seems to jump after the quote. Maybe add a paragraph at, “I’m brought…” I also love how specific some of your descriptions are. Some that really jumped out to me was the chlorine burned skin and promises to be limitless and dead. Your text messages are a nice touch both story and format-wise. These types of texts really hit me because I’ve experienced it a lot. You did a good job showing an emotionally abusive relationship without being explicit about it.
GRACE.
First off, I really like how relatable and real your story is for a typical female college student. Especially the scene with her friend about being bored and going shopping. That made me laugh. I think the atmosphere/setting/body language/tone could be more deeply described. I noticed this a few times. Like when the mom said, “oh stop it” on page one. I’m not really seeing her implications of that from the shoulder prodding. Maybe add some tension? Also, when her mother is embarrassing her, showing people staring and whispering to add to the embarrassment? Thirdly, you seem to have a lot of different settings in this story. I think the setting needs to be described more in order to set the scene and mood. Later on, on page 5, there is a cut scene that I feel is out of place. I kind of get the point of it, but I feel like it should be fleshed out more for more effect. I also feel like the traumatic scene could be more dragged out to show how much it sticks in her mind. Just some thoughts.
JORDYN.
Nice start so far. I like how you use imagery to show some tension in the story. One example I noted was how you said their eyes crashed like the ocean and sky during a storm. That really painted a picture of how their interaction started. I also liked the part where the narrator is having an internal conflict but then someone responds which brings them back to reality and tells them that their conflict was oral since they were unaware. I feel like you could have more detail about the emotions of the narrator. This is especially noticeable when they are going in to interrogate the suspect. You’d think they’d have a little more of internal conflict to approach the case. Right now, the character seems kind of flat right there. I also feel like the story would be more interesting if you went into more detail with the court scene. Like maybe show the lawyers presenting their cases through dialogue so the reader is brought in closer to the story. Maybe it would also be nice to see what broke them up in a flashback to see what this suspect was like that maybe alluded more to why he might do this. Or even have a cut scene of what actually happened at the crime scene? Just some suggestions as you move forward and develop this story.
