Friday, January 28, 2011

opening

I'm going to post the opening of one of my stories.  Any thoughts, critiques, opinions are welcomed.  Let me know.

Dear diary~
    I’m going to hell.  If my past indiscretions haven’t secured that fate for me, then last night certainly did.  Maybe I’ve already been punished.  That’s what my mom thinks.  “I suppose you got what you deserved.”  Just like that - didn’t ask if I was ok or what happened.  How was I supposed to know the plans if nobody told me what they were?
    I was at my best friend’s birthday party.  Her parents took in troubled teens.  Mike was a few years older than me.  He had regarded me with partial disdain for most of the night and seemed to enjoy my annoyance that he didn’t choose me out of all the girls there; just because I had dared respond to his criticism of my clothes.  Of course, he changed his tune once everyone had either left or gone to sleep.  We were the last two still watching the movie.  I had switched seats to the lazy boy facing the TV.  He came and sat in the one next to mine.
    “Pringle?”
    “So what, you’re talking to me now?”
    “I’m sorry for being rude.”
    “Fine.”  I went back to the movie.
    “Whatever.”  He got up and left.
    He liked me!  I knew it.  Guys just don’t get upset at girls they don’t like over stupid things.  He was probably just trying to get my attention.  He came back a little while later and stood behind my chair.  He leaned down and whispered, “I really am sorry.  Let me make it up to you.  Do you want a massage?”
    I didn’t think about it for too long.  I know what I’d been counseled, and I knew that it was probably wrong to let a boy I didn’t even know touch me, but he was cute!  I leaned forward a little and he put his hands on my shoulders.  It felt really good.  I stopped paying attention to things for a while and didn’t notice he’d started moving his hands to the tops of my breasts.  I put my hands up to stop him from going any lower.  He leaned forward and traced my ear with his tongue.  I gasped.  He sucked my earlobe, and then kissed down my neck.  He moved back up to my mouth.  I’d teased and played around with guys before, but never been kissed.  It was an intense first kiss.  The movie was ending when we stopped kissing.  I asked him if he could drive me home.  He said he wasn’t allowed a license and went to his room.  There wasn’t a licensed driver and I thought I needed to be home, so I decided to walk.  I didn’t realize at the time that it was a five and a half mile walk.  It was late at night and I’d just had my first kiss, obviously my brain wasn’t working.
    I’d probably been walking for an hour when a car pulled over and offered me a ride.  I tried talking my way out of it.  I could see he was a lot older than me, maybe in his twenties, and the car smelled of beer.  He kept insisting he take me somewhere to eat and it seemed like he would follow me anyway, so I said yes.  I didn’t want to get in the car, but I was tired.  I told him to just take me to my house.  It took about five minutes to drive what would have taken another hour to walk.  He pulled into my driveway and turned to look at me.
    “Thanks,” I said as I unlocked the door.
    I tried to unbuckle my seat belt, but he held it together with his hand.    
    “Where’s the real thank you?”
    “Thanks for the ride.”
    “That’s not what I’m looking for.”
    Before I could respond, he pressed me against the seat and started kissing my neck and feeling me up.  I tried pushing him off me to no avail.  He let go of the seat belt so he could use both hands to continue the attack.  I relaxed a little so he wouldn’t suspect anything and then quickly undid the seat belt.  I pulled the door open and fell to the ground.  I got up, slammed the door and ran to the porch.  When I got inside, I immediately went downstairs to my room, praying my family was asleep.  Unfortunately, my mom was still up.  She took one look at me and said, “I suppose you got what you deserved.”  Then she grounded me for two weeks for making her leave the house to come look for me.  I guess I was supposed to stay the night.
    I have NEVER felt so dirty in my life!  I wish I could take a gun and kill him and then shoot myself!

2 comments:

  1. Nice work… as with all writing it’s very subjective, depending on the reader.

    You have talent, that’s for sure, so no matter what—keep going.

    I think it would work better if you write as it is happening, rather than, as it already happened. Maybe have the problems happen, then she writes about killing herself in her diary.

    Also, I think it would be better if the guy coming to pick her up was the boy from earlier, like he just took the car even thou he wasn’t supposed to.

    This would make more sense, or this girl has the worst luck in the history of humanity.

    As readers we want to be brought into the story, this happens best with real time events, because it lets us wonder about the outcome… if she writing about it-then we know she lived, and takes out some of the suspense.

    Try to bring in emotion, smells, noises—this will help the reader live the story.

    Like all writer, we must learn to show rather than tell.

    A few great books that I would recommend are: Stephen king’s Book on Writing, and William Strunk Jr. and E.B White, elements of style, fourth edition… they helped me a TON

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  2. I did have the worst luck. It was based on me. But the beginning is more of a set-up. the rest of the story is in real time. Thanks for reading and giving feedback. I've got this story outlined, I know what's going to happen, I've written a lot, but I'm nowhere near done! And I'm kind of stuck. I've written what I could and it skips around. So I can't really give more to read or have help on.

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