Dear Cammy,
This is the story of a main character named April living with the guilt of her past mistakes. More specifically, allowing her partner to take the fall for a crime so she can pursue her future. I liked how you opened the story in the middle of a moment that effects the rest of the story. It’s a good hook to make a reader want to know more of what’s happening. I do wish there was a little more to it, though. By this I mean set the scene a little more for the reader by describing where this conversation is taking place, or how the police got them in the first place. My reasoning behind this suggestion is that this moment you open with is the crux to the conflict/big dramatic question for the entire story. Spend some time unpacking it! I enjoyed the voice you gave the character as it leaned in to what their personality is like in subtle ways. The internal monologue seemed to drive a good portion of the story forward so its descriptiveness helped. I think if I had one overarching suggestion (that ties with what I was saying earlier) it would be to slow down in between periods of time or scenes. In some moments, it feels like a lot of ground is covered without a lot of description on what that time was like. I’m curious to know more about what this character was like in the everyday interaction dealing with such guilt. You give us a bit of that in the descriptions, but I want to be told more than shown.
Dear Coco,
I would say this is the passionate story of unrequited love. Your description is truly off the charts in this story and it really keeps you not only engaged as a reader but also stuck in the narrators head, feeling and navigating her emotions with her. I think your story is very powerful and you have a lot working very well in this. I like that despite the amount of tension already in the room that you dialed it up with the addition of students walking by and looking into where the RA event was happening and then hearing the convo, and then choosing to continue walking past. I would have recommended that you did something like this to dial up the tension more with maybe having a student or two walk in and hear the narrator raising her voice and then making an immediate U-turn and having the residents walk right back out, however as i continued to read you did just that with like I said having them walk by and most likely hear what was being discussed since we all know that dorm walls are ungodly thin. I really liked this story and I also found it really cool that you ramped up the tension even more with having them be lesbian lovers at a Christian college, mentioning how there was a cross or picture of Jesus around ever corner, being the only one who truly knew of their sins. You really took advantage of making tension work for you in this depiction of the relationship between these two and it is beautiful. In the end we have hope that the narrator will be able to move on from Tatiana because she obviously has no interest in anything long term with our narrator, however, we really do not know or have any idea how this changes the narrator. Does she get some form of clarity from this interaction? Will she be able to accept the fact that things wont work out and be able to get out of this consuming unrequited love? I think my only minor suggestion would be to provide some small hint to the reader as to how this interaction may have made the narrator shift mentally because from what I have gathered the only shift that occurs is the realization that poetry is all about love when really it all stems from anger and loss, with nothing else being more poetic than anger. There is the last few lines of saying that the narrator is realizing that she is not even fire that Tatiana even loved her at all and she now knows that Tatiana never will, even if there was a change of it beforehand. I think I would just need maybe one or two more sentences really showing the shift if there is a shift. Overall great work!
Coco, I really liked this story. I think you did a really good job showing the way young love looks like in college. It really showed the desperation of someone who wants to be loved and wants to have the love from someone else. I think that this story is really relatable for many people, and showed just how impactful that first love is. I think you did a really good job exploring the mind of your narrator and how these big feelings were encapsulating their entire life. The raw emotion and desire was clearly seen throughout this story, and really showed how much the narrator cared for Tatiana. The description and imagery was also really well done, it created such a vivid scene that immersed me as a reader. I think the only thing that I felt like was missing was some sort of emotion and care from Tatiana. I think if you explored more about her, and showed how she did care for our narrator, or maybe didn’t and was just using him for convenience, would be really good to see. I think just by giving us a little bit more of her, and what she was experience through their conversation would help create the dynamic much more compelling. This could make it feel like right person, wrong time. But overall I think the story was really well done.
Coco, I thought this was a really interesting story! Thinking about “what” this story is, I would say it is the story of unrequited love or the reality of grieving someone still living. The amount of descripton ou used in the story really drove it forward for me. It felt like in cerain points I could picture myself in the place of narrator. The tension between their relationship was there through the descriptors as well. I think my main suggestion moving forward would be to dig into Tatiana’s character. I was curious to learn more about possibly how the narrators met her/their initial connection before these two weeks. Also, a little more of her reaction in the moments the narrator admits their feeling. Doing so I think could heighten the tension more between the characters and develop their relationship. Turning the dials up on the characters anxiety/motivation to shift as well. I think the shift or wha changed for the character was something else I was looking for. By the end, it feels like our character hasn’t arched very much from their original state. Or, that potential change isn’t full laid out. I’m wondering if adding slightly more to the end would alleviate that.
Coco,
Looking at this story, I can see there is a lot of passion. Coming from both a writer and a narrator perspective. There is a lot of language and descriptors in this piece that really give it a lot of emotion., something I think is suit a strong suit here. The direction of the narrative is very interesting to me as I know someone who is dealing with extremely similar circumstances at the time of writing this. Because of this the story had me hooked, interested to see what the end result was. I felt the ending was satisfyingly unsatisfying. This piece does an outstanding job at putting us in a position that allows us to feel what the narrator is feeling. On a craft note, I particularly enjoyed the varied paragraph lengths and the emphasis on lone words. Overall, interesting read, well crafted.
Coco,
Oh wow, this is a beautiful story. It is about a college student at a Christian college struggling with liking a girl who also may very well feel smothered by Christian beliefs. This story talks about really hard things in a very beautiful and tasteful way. The way you describe everything is absolutely gorgeous. You have such a poetic way of writing things. I will say though that sometimes I get so lost in the descriptions that I feel a little removed from the story itself. I also really liked the voice you gave the narrator as opposed to the voice you gave Tatiana. The narrator felt so genuinely and deeply in love with Tatiana and then Tatiana felt so quick to want to ignore her feelings. Maybe I am just projecting here but I do think Tatiana was suppressing her feelings. I think it would maybe help to dial up those vibes of Tatiana. Maybe have her boyfriend mention something or be confused about what happened between the two of them or something like that? This story was truly beautiful though. Love a good queer story even if it is very sad and heartbreaking.
Coco,
This was such a gripping read; Once I picked it up to read, I didn’t want to put it down. There was a lot I loved about your piece, but the metaphors and tone by far were really strong to me. I loved the way that the narrator spoke about Tatiana and their brief relationship. I could feel the desperation at the end of each passage. The tension felt consistent and well balanced throughout. I did find myself wondering what would’ve happened if their residents walked in to them arguing. What would they have seen? I also really liked the way you portrayed the narrator’s jealousy over the boyfriend. It was petty but also so nuanced. As far as suggestions, I would want to see more on Tatiana other than looks (unless that’s all the narrator really knows about her). Is the narrator only drawn to her physical appearance? Or is there a different quality that drew them together? I was also curious if there was an ulterior motive for Tatiana dating Dyllan; Since the characters attend a Christian college, I think you could explore more on the expectations and pressures of that culture, or maybe look into expressing how Tatiana might not actually feel anything for Dyllan but has to be with him because of social pressures or shamefulness. Great work! I really enjoyed this piece!
Dear Coco,
This story seems to be about past, unrequited love and the almost-obsession that comes from it. The whole story had so much tension, like the narrator was holding themself back from taking action even as they talked to Tatiana. It gave the whole story a feeling of yearning and like every action, every scene took place just in the two feet between these characters. The narrator has this desperation for Tatiana where they remember everything about her with so much detail that it feels like an obsession. Overall, I like the way the narrator’s emotions are written, such that it feels like an atmosphere in and of itself.
My biggest criticisms are with mistakes in dialogue where the reader can get confused about who is talking, like in the first paragraph on page 8 and the second to last one on page 9.
Admittedly, the narrator seems self-centered in some ways, like how they see Tatiana as both the villain and the object of their desires. The narrator wants Tatiana, but the evidence shows that she doesn’t want them. Neither of them made the right decisions, exactly, but they should let her live how she wants and love who she wants and have more self-respect, instead of bemoaning a girl who never wanted them. I feel like this aspect was portrayed really well though.
Dear Coco
I loved this story! You fit so much character into this short story and I really enjoyed it. The line stuck out to me the most was “I don’t want to be turned into your poetry”, I feel sympathetic for both of the characters in this scenario and I think that’s a mark of a great piece of writing. I really don’t have anything to critique, the only thing I would say is I’m not sure how sympathetic we’re intended to feel for Tatiana. the more our main character goes on, the more I understand where Tatiana is coming from. That line sticks out to me again – “I don’t want to be turned into your poetry”, I think our main character at this point is so focused on her grief that she’s wallowing in it intentionally, and as she stated in the story, she doesn’t want to move on. Are we supposed to continue feeling sympathetic for our main character or is this story intentionally an exploration of the gray area where it’s simultaneously everyone and no ones fault? Great stuff!
Coco: This is a story about a college student finding love. I really liked the passion and emotion used throughout this story. You do a really good job of making the reader feel connected to the narrator. The story felt very real and relatable which made it even more attention drawing. The ending was very shocking as I thought it was going to end differently. The use of description was very well done as I didn’t have any issues trying to imagine the story as I’m reading. A suggestion I have is to be more clear of who is speaking when and as well give more insight on Tatianas emotions other than what the narrator perceives. Overall this was a great story!
10 thoughts on “JOURNAL # 20”
Dear Cammy,
This is the story of a main character named April living with the guilt of her past mistakes. More specifically, allowing her partner to take the fall for a crime so she can pursue her future. I liked how you opened the story in the middle of a moment that effects the rest of the story. It’s a good hook to make a reader want to know more of what’s happening. I do wish there was a little more to it, though. By this I mean set the scene a little more for the reader by describing where this conversation is taking place, or how the police got them in the first place. My reasoning behind this suggestion is that this moment you open with is the crux to the conflict/big dramatic question for the entire story. Spend some time unpacking it! I enjoyed the voice you gave the character as it leaned in to what their personality is like in subtle ways. The internal monologue seemed to drive a good portion of the story forward so its descriptiveness helped. I think if I had one overarching suggestion (that ties with what I was saying earlier) it would be to slow down in between periods of time or scenes. In some moments, it feels like a lot of ground is covered without a lot of description on what that time was like. I’m curious to know more about what this character was like in the everyday interaction dealing with such guilt. You give us a bit of that in the descriptions, but I want to be told more than shown.
Dear Coco,
I would say this is the passionate story of unrequited love. Your description is truly off the charts in this story and it really keeps you not only engaged as a reader but also stuck in the narrators head, feeling and navigating her emotions with her. I think your story is very powerful and you have a lot working very well in this. I like that despite the amount of tension already in the room that you dialed it up with the addition of students walking by and looking into where the RA event was happening and then hearing the convo, and then choosing to continue walking past. I would have recommended that you did something like this to dial up the tension more with maybe having a student or two walk in and hear the narrator raising her voice and then making an immediate U-turn and having the residents walk right back out, however as i continued to read you did just that with like I said having them walk by and most likely hear what was being discussed since we all know that dorm walls are ungodly thin. I really liked this story and I also found it really cool that you ramped up the tension even more with having them be lesbian lovers at a Christian college, mentioning how there was a cross or picture of Jesus around ever corner, being the only one who truly knew of their sins. You really took advantage of making tension work for you in this depiction of the relationship between these two and it is beautiful. In the end we have hope that the narrator will be able to move on from Tatiana because she obviously has no interest in anything long term with our narrator, however, we really do not know or have any idea how this changes the narrator. Does she get some form of clarity from this interaction? Will she be able to accept the fact that things wont work out and be able to get out of this consuming unrequited love? I think my only minor suggestion would be to provide some small hint to the reader as to how this interaction may have made the narrator shift mentally because from what I have gathered the only shift that occurs is the realization that poetry is all about love when really it all stems from anger and loss, with nothing else being more poetic than anger. There is the last few lines of saying that the narrator is realizing that she is not even fire that Tatiana even loved her at all and she now knows that Tatiana never will, even if there was a change of it beforehand. I think I would just need maybe one or two more sentences really showing the shift if there is a shift. Overall great work!
Coco, I really liked this story. I think you did a really good job showing the way young love looks like in college. It really showed the desperation of someone who wants to be loved and wants to have the love from someone else. I think that this story is really relatable for many people, and showed just how impactful that first love is. I think you did a really good job exploring the mind of your narrator and how these big feelings were encapsulating their entire life. The raw emotion and desire was clearly seen throughout this story, and really showed how much the narrator cared for Tatiana. The description and imagery was also really well done, it created such a vivid scene that immersed me as a reader. I think the only thing that I felt like was missing was some sort of emotion and care from Tatiana. I think if you explored more about her, and showed how she did care for our narrator, or maybe didn’t and was just using him for convenience, would be really good to see. I think just by giving us a little bit more of her, and what she was experience through their conversation would help create the dynamic much more compelling. This could make it feel like right person, wrong time. But overall I think the story was really well done.
Coco, I thought this was a really interesting story! Thinking about “what” this story is, I would say it is the story of unrequited love or the reality of grieving someone still living. The amount of descripton ou used in the story really drove it forward for me. It felt like in cerain points I could picture myself in the place of narrator. The tension between their relationship was there through the descriptors as well. I think my main suggestion moving forward would be to dig into Tatiana’s character. I was curious to learn more about possibly how the narrators met her/their initial connection before these two weeks. Also, a little more of her reaction in the moments the narrator admits their feeling. Doing so I think could heighten the tension more between the characters and develop their relationship. Turning the dials up on the characters anxiety/motivation to shift as well. I think the shift or wha changed for the character was something else I was looking for. By the end, it feels like our character hasn’t arched very much from their original state. Or, that potential change isn’t full laid out. I’m wondering if adding slightly more to the end would alleviate that.
Coco,
Looking at this story, I can see there is a lot of passion. Coming from both a writer and a narrator perspective. There is a lot of language and descriptors in this piece that really give it a lot of emotion., something I think is suit a strong suit here. The direction of the narrative is very interesting to me as I know someone who is dealing with extremely similar circumstances at the time of writing this. Because of this the story had me hooked, interested to see what the end result was. I felt the ending was satisfyingly unsatisfying. This piece does an outstanding job at putting us in a position that allows us to feel what the narrator is feeling. On a craft note, I particularly enjoyed the varied paragraph lengths and the emphasis on lone words. Overall, interesting read, well crafted.
Coco,
Oh wow, this is a beautiful story. It is about a college student at a Christian college struggling with liking a girl who also may very well feel smothered by Christian beliefs. This story talks about really hard things in a very beautiful and tasteful way. The way you describe everything is absolutely gorgeous. You have such a poetic way of writing things. I will say though that sometimes I get so lost in the descriptions that I feel a little removed from the story itself. I also really liked the voice you gave the narrator as opposed to the voice you gave Tatiana. The narrator felt so genuinely and deeply in love with Tatiana and then Tatiana felt so quick to want to ignore her feelings. Maybe I am just projecting here but I do think Tatiana was suppressing her feelings. I think it would maybe help to dial up those vibes of Tatiana. Maybe have her boyfriend mention something or be confused about what happened between the two of them or something like that? This story was truly beautiful though. Love a good queer story even if it is very sad and heartbreaking.
Coco,
This was such a gripping read; Once I picked it up to read, I didn’t want to put it down. There was a lot I loved about your piece, but the metaphors and tone by far were really strong to me. I loved the way that the narrator spoke about Tatiana and their brief relationship. I could feel the desperation at the end of each passage. The tension felt consistent and well balanced throughout. I did find myself wondering what would’ve happened if their residents walked in to them arguing. What would they have seen? I also really liked the way you portrayed the narrator’s jealousy over the boyfriend. It was petty but also so nuanced. As far as suggestions, I would want to see more on Tatiana other than looks (unless that’s all the narrator really knows about her). Is the narrator only drawn to her physical appearance? Or is there a different quality that drew them together? I was also curious if there was an ulterior motive for Tatiana dating Dyllan; Since the characters attend a Christian college, I think you could explore more on the expectations and pressures of that culture, or maybe look into expressing how Tatiana might not actually feel anything for Dyllan but has to be with him because of social pressures or shamefulness. Great work! I really enjoyed this piece!
Dear Coco,
This story seems to be about past, unrequited love and the almost-obsession that comes from it. The whole story had so much tension, like the narrator was holding themself back from taking action even as they talked to Tatiana. It gave the whole story a feeling of yearning and like every action, every scene took place just in the two feet between these characters. The narrator has this desperation for Tatiana where they remember everything about her with so much detail that it feels like an obsession. Overall, I like the way the narrator’s emotions are written, such that it feels like an atmosphere in and of itself.
My biggest criticisms are with mistakes in dialogue where the reader can get confused about who is talking, like in the first paragraph on page 8 and the second to last one on page 9.
Admittedly, the narrator seems self-centered in some ways, like how they see Tatiana as both the villain and the object of their desires. The narrator wants Tatiana, but the evidence shows that she doesn’t want them. Neither of them made the right decisions, exactly, but they should let her live how she wants and love who she wants and have more self-respect, instead of bemoaning a girl who never wanted them. I feel like this aspect was portrayed really well though.
Dear Coco
I loved this story! You fit so much character into this short story and I really enjoyed it. The line stuck out to me the most was “I don’t want to be turned into your poetry”, I feel sympathetic for both of the characters in this scenario and I think that’s a mark of a great piece of writing. I really don’t have anything to critique, the only thing I would say is I’m not sure how sympathetic we’re intended to feel for Tatiana. the more our main character goes on, the more I understand where Tatiana is coming from. That line sticks out to me again – “I don’t want to be turned into your poetry”, I think our main character at this point is so focused on her grief that she’s wallowing in it intentionally, and as she stated in the story, she doesn’t want to move on. Are we supposed to continue feeling sympathetic for our main character or is this story intentionally an exploration of the gray area where it’s simultaneously everyone and no ones fault? Great stuff!
Coco: This is a story about a college student finding love. I really liked the passion and emotion used throughout this story. You do a really good job of making the reader feel connected to the narrator. The story felt very real and relatable which made it even more attention drawing. The ending was very shocking as I thought it was going to end differently. The use of description was very well done as I didn’t have any issues trying to imagine the story as I’m reading. A suggestion I have is to be more clear of who is speaking when and as well give more insight on Tatianas emotions other than what the narrator perceives. Overall this was a great story!