So I'm looking for some good honest critique of my short story. Worst thing you've ever read? Tell me why and what I can do to improve! I love writing and only hope to get better.
A Momentary Lapse of Judgement
“Would you just fucking reply to my text already?” the boy, more or less on the verge of manhood, vocalized in anxious spite as he watched the clock of his phone tick away minute by minute. It would appear that by now, after experiencing mixtures of pessimism, depression, and hopelessness on account of the last girl (the so called love of his life) that he would cease trying his luck with any sweet smile that he dared to catch in his glimpse. But, as any soon to be post- pubescent knows, the chase, and the fantasy, tend to be much more appealing than the famed “catching of the prey”. With worry growing in his heart, seconds began to appear longer as if hours would pass in those brief moments of proofreading what at face value was a simple, “Hey! What are u up to?” but in reality, implied so much more. “She fell asleep, that’s it,” was always the first thought to cross the boy’s mind when this not so uncommon scenario occurred. “She had a long weekend and just wants to rest is all.” But even as this hope began to give him a slimmer of hope and comfort, he couldn’t shake the thought, of what he could’ve possibly done to change the way she viewed him. Was he texting her too often? Pestering her about meeting up again? Am I being too demanding? These and others all seemed like possible misfortunes brought upon him by the curse of having a poetic soul. He couldn’t withstand the anxiety anymore. The lust for the contact of his love interest ignited a combination of loneliness and desire that manifested itself in the form of adolescent angst. That angst, when left untamed, turned into rebellion. Nothing too extravagant or an act that needed careful planning, but just anything to calm the nerves would do. With this in mind, he stepped into the garage to smoke one of his mother’s 100 mm cigarettes to both calm his nerves and set the mood for what needed to be done. With the smoke rising ever so gently from the tip of his cigarette, the broken hearted youth reminisced about what happened to the last girl, the love of his life, and how he was definitely the love of hers. Daily with almost a ritualistic impudence, the young girl would approach the lad by his locker, flashing a smile that could only be compared to one that cast a thousand ships out from the docks of ancient Greece. Or Rome, or wherever it was he learned from Sophomore Social Studies. All he was sure of was that her smile rose feelings that would only make what had to be done, that much harder. History was studied solely for the intention of preventing past mistakes from occurring again, which was most likely why the study had alluded him, and received a scarcely passing D in the subject of “Human Civilizations throughout the Ages.” The midnight oil continued to burn, and with every passing minute without a reply from his supposed girlfriend, so did his rationality. “Fuck it.” He proclaimed as he flicked the butt of his cigarette onto the cold concrete floor and stomping it out (with his bare feet nonetheless). With his new found passion and goal, he returned to his room, only to grab his coat shoes and car keys. As soon as he came, he exited through the front door without giving so much as a care to making his grand exit sly. In that moment, it didn’t matter if he was discovered. Let her wake up to a slam; let her walk out to see a car missing and the small cherry of an almost smothered cigarette. That can be dealt with later. The drive to her home was shockingly swift compared to the wait of receiving a simple text message. “A car can’t travel faster than radio waves, can it?” the boy forced through his teeth as he halted the engine, turning the lights off as to avoid any unwanted attention from neighbors or any other curious parties. He had snuck into her room before, only, for a much happier occasion. With all relationships came the sharing of firsts: First meetings, first dates, first kisses, and first public displays of affection so vigorously condemned by the administration at school. However, these all fell in comparison to the first time two youths make love. When he thought about that night, a flood of emotion overcame the poor boy. The fog of a late fall evening had set in as it does in the most cliché of fashions for such an occasion, something he continued to chuckle at for months to come. He climbed through the window of the one story house which was so graciously left ajar by the owner of the room. The plain white walls, white mattress, white carpet, and lack of common teenage clutter matched the perfect metaphor for her personality: a simple, innocent room waiting to be filled with rich experiences and expressions of the self. That night, was to be the first piece of furniture. Now wasn’t the time for sweet thoughts though. What happened before couldn’t possibly make up for the untamed rage that was built inside of him at this point. In the same fashion as before, the boy climbed through the window of her room, only to be surprised rather abruptly. Her room was filled. Colors vibrated throughout the room like a wave of euphoric realization that could only be obtained while on a hallucinogen. What used to be a whitewashed wall symbolizing the virginities they gave up together was full of what can only be described as a chaotic rainbow of lust and passion. Lust and passion, that he wasn’t sure was inspired by their experiences. With this sensory overload now settling into the young boy, a fire ignited in him that burned hotter than that before at home, on the drive, and in the driveway, all combined. And as he saw the young girl sleeping in her bed, he rushed over and immediately spotted a cell phone lodged between her two hands. “I knew she was ignoring me, that slut, that WHORE!” the boy thought, deluding himself with fantasies of infidelity and betrayal. He slowly reached between the sheets to pull the phone out from her sleep induced grip. Being an intelligent youth, he already memorized the password to the device in case suspicion had grown that she was moving on to the next young fool. Unlocking the device, opened the last application she had used: The green messaging app. Within it contained not texts to another boy talking about the fantasies they shared of each other, while laughing behind his back as he so expected, but was typed, but unsent message reading, “Nothing as usual! I’m sorry to leave you in such a hurry but I’m so tired!!!! Just wanted to tell you I love you before I hit the hay, goodnight! :)” Nothing could have compared to the sweet relief that boy had felt in that moment. She really had just fallen asleep. The anxieties that filled his head were nothing more than the banter of an over protective boyfriend and nothing more. The boy took it upon himself to finish the task she obviously had taken the time to put thought into, and sent the text message, instantly receiving it on his phone. The drive back was both humble and relaxing. The late hour called for simple smooth love songs to be played on the local FM station that only exacerbated his feelings of relief. The boy recollected as he did on his previous drive. How after going away for such a long time to deal with the death of his previous girlfriend, (the love of his life) whether he would ever be able to relax again. That would have to be determined by seeing Dr. Coleman next Tuesday, as he always had. With the adrenaline rush of the evening settling down finally, the young boy (who felt more like a man than ever before) retired to his room, surprised to not see his angry mother waiting at the front door upon his entrance, and stripped to his bare essentials. Again as he lay in his bed with his hands crossed and laid beneath his head, he reminisced, of the first time two youths made love.
The following sentence encapsulates the advice I'd give you: Thanks for sharing and good luck with your writing.The anxieties that filled his head were nothing more than the banter of an over protective boyfriend and nothing more.
-You could probably tell this story in half the words that you used. My advice is to severely edit this, pair it down. Try having every word be essential. The anxieties that filled his head, the banter of an over protective boyfriend, nothing more
I feel that the story's discursiveness is because it's in the third person. In third person writing, the author generally assumes the role of a story-teller in its most distilled form — the author will detail a plot and the events surrounding that plot as comprehensively as possible. In my opinion, it's a clumsy and out-dated way to tell a story. When writing short stories, there's often a constraint on what, how, or how much you can write, as unsignedinteger notes. Therefore, for short stories particularly, the author should put consideration into leaving bits open to thought and discussion; otherwise a couple of sentences or a couple of pages are left as a largely forgettable experience. Consider the extremely short story (sometimes mis-attributed to Ernest Hemmingway): For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn. That's quite poignant and whilst some might argue that it leaves a lot to be desired; I feel it leaves a lot to be contemplated upon. Above experimenting with writing about new emotions, political agendas, sentence structure, and so on, I'd recommend writing in new perspectives. Write stories in third-person, or first-person, or alternate between a whole cast of characters' experiences. You might even want to experiment with more contemporary developments in writing such as stream-of-consciousness or epistolary stories. One should do this so that the author's interaction with the characters is different and so that the reader's interaction with the characters is different. Someone reading a story that's a stream-of-consciousness is burdened, perhaps uneasily, by the fact that what they're reading is a total exposé of the absurd complexity of the human thought process and the banality of many everyday observations that enter our cognitive ambit. An author writing in the first-person for example, must uphold a certain standard of perceptiveness for how the character would act in a (their?) situation. Just to exemplify this point of narrative person in relation to what you've written, you write: "“A car can’t travel faster than radio waves, can it?”" You've jumped into the first-person to intimately detail the thoughts of this boy; but at some point here I felt you'd become lost between wanting to describe the boy's thoughts in detail and wanting to take precedence as an omniscient, dictating writer of third-person. You describe the boy as smart, but that is not to say rational. At the time that he thinks this, he's driving to this girl's house to uncover what has happened for emotional catharsis. Constructing a thought is difficult in what are apparently harsh conditions for your protagonist, so how would he construct this thought? Well, what is a text? A text is a text. Whilst that may seem a redundant point to make, it's an axiomatic, safe, and easy conclusion. So when thinking under the pressure that I feel you're trying to convey, your character would be much, much more likely just to say 'text' (and by doing this, you'd have separated the boy from the author to a further extent). Obviously this isn't a comprehensive assessment of what you've written, but I hope it's food for thought.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, it appears I've been mis-attributing For sale: Baby shoes, never worn. to Hemingway for years. Do you know who did write it?
Continuing on from what thenewgreen has said, it might be worthwhile for you to write something with some self-imposed limitations (or to be more formal, you could practice some form of constrained writing. A constraint I'd suggest for you would be a sentence length limit: try using shorter sentences (<20 words, or <10 if you're feeling adventurous) with the occasional longer one thrown in to emphasise an idea or theme you feel is important. Also, work on your grammar. As a golden rule verb tense must be consistent within sentences. When you have time you should peruse the Purdue Online Writing Lab- they have fairly accessible articles on the fundamentals of grammar and exercises to attempt if you're feeling particularly keen. Keep at it! :)