Sometimes you just have to wonder...

... if maybe these people didn't go to school.

I don't even know what this one is about. Some girl hating her life and running away to find her real parents in Hollywood or something. That says a lot, doesn't it? You almost don't have to read it.

No, wait, you kind of do... this is a textbook, poster-child example of how NOT to write.




Title: FORGOTTEN


Prose/crit:


I never knew my mother or father [isn't that just the most original, promising opening sentences you've ever heard? Wait, no? Oh.]..... [Why is it such a hard concept for people to grasp that ellipsis have THREE DOTS. Not two. Not FIVE. Not a hundred... THREE. Plus a period if it ends a sentence.] I was left on someones[Someone's] door step[doorstep. And wow, story of EVERY orphan's life, ne? Actually, the last time I saw that... was in KUNG FU PANDA. That alone should be a hint.]! It was the time of year when blizzards come[... do you mean winter?]. Then someone took me in, noticing that I was cold and almost frozen to death [Because otherwise, people would just LEAVE a child out on a doorstep]. They fed me[Because that cures the cold]. When I was old enough to walk and talk they gave me a name, May[because BEFORE then, a name would have just been silly.]. They didn't even know my birthday. When I was 15 [Wait... if you don't know your birthday... how do you know how old you are?] I wanted to find my mother. My parents said, "No!" Why, I didn't know [Because they're selfish assholes who so clearly abused you]. They kept secrets from me that sometimes made me wonder[If they kept secrets, how did you know? Hmmm?], would a real mother keep secrets from me[Santa Clause... durh. I actually had to read that part a few times, thinking that they were questioning if the adopted mother was their real mother. This wording is so jumbled and confusing.]? I never knew my real mother so I never really knew what a mother would be like[Bullshit. I know my real mother and I know my step mother and I have other people who have at some point acted as mother figures towards me, so if I didn't know my mother I would STILL know what a mother was like. Just because they aren't your real mother doesn't mean you don't know what a mother is like. Just throwing that out there...] . All I knew was that the parents I have now were selfish [Wow, tense switching]and didn't really care about me![Nice exclamation point. They get so tiring by the end of this piece, the author uses them so much... and yes. They didn't care about the MC, that is why they saved her life and took her off the streets. That's so uncaring...want to bet the author is a spoiled brat IRL?] Well, I had enough of this! [Tenses...] I wanted to search for my mother [But not father] and I was going to do that with or without help[I would seriously slap a child in the face if they said that to me. What a bratty, spoiled mindset, hey?]. That day, December 19, 2003 [Do I care about the date? Should I? Why is it special?] I packed all the stuff I loved and needed like, [unneeded comma and bad sentence. Take out the "like" and put a colon.] laptop, iPod, clothes, snacks, and soda [Wow. That's some list. Snacks and soda... you have free access to those, but your current family sucks, yeah? And they got you a laptop and an iPod? I JUST got my first laptop not three months ago. Wow, those adopted parents are really mean... and those are essentials, yes? You don't want spare clothing, meal foods, money, water, first aide, cell phone, lighter, or any other survival crap.]. The last thing I packed was a picture in a pure gold[Do you know how soft pure gold is? Not strong enough to make jewelry out of.] heart shaped[heart-shaped] locket[How cliche...], which was left with me when I was left on the door step[Even MORE cliche. Someone grab my cliche hammer, I need to whack the author with it.]. It was of my mother [Assuming that it at some point they MEANT to mention there was a picture inside of it... wow. My head just exploded from cliche overload.]. She had long, thick hair, eyes blue as water[LOL water is clear!] and she had skin the color of maple leaves in fall. When they turn slightly brown [even more lol... maple leaves turn RED in the fall. Ever seen the Canadian flag? The color is no accident.]. I snuck [I do say this word, but I'm actually 99% sure it doesn't exist. It's "sneaked."] out of the house around 12am [does the exact time matter? Why can't you give us a visual instead? Seriously, I have no images from this writing, just a bunch of choppy sentences that make no sense and don't hold interest. A better thing to say might be "around midnight," or "in the extremely early hours of the morning.]. I followed the street for a wail [... while?]. Okay[They have overly excessive commas everywhere except for where it's needed!] I have to admit I wasn't ready for this [Aside from this terrible sentence... do you THINK? Really? What an observation.]. I didn't even know where to find her! Where she lived![DURH. That's what you get for being a brat.] I needed an address book[Chances are, if you didn't even know your own name, you don't know your parents'. An address book would/should be useless]. Wait![FOR WHAT?] I stopped [What were they doing that they stopped? Oh, following the street... for a wail...]. I placed the pack back[the last time I heard someone say "pack back" it was because my eight-year-old brother stuttered over what he was saying.] I was carrying on my back onto the ground [Or... "I put my pack down." So much more simple, effective... and easier on the reader's head.]. I opened the zipper in the front of the backpack [or "I unzipped the pack's front pouch." Why is it so hard for people to simplify crap? These don't take me any time to think of, they just pop up. It's just common communication.]. There was the photo of my mother. I felt the coldness of the gold locket[Sentence is irrelevant and unimportant and WOW would it kill the author to change sentence structure?]. I opened it[Wait, if you see the photo of the mother... wouldn't it already be opened?]. I took the photo out [The writer clearly has never had a locket before. DAMN those pictures are hard to take out and put in.].
"Oh my goodness!" I said[Golly gee gosh!]. There was writing in it. I read it [generally what you do with writing.], "I went missing years ago! [WTF?]I'm sorry little sister! [I thought it was her mother? :shreds hair out of head:.] Mother told me to put you out there in the cold![Jerk.] I hope you find this note here is my address[oh how completely convenient. It's like magic! Like it would never happen in real life. Oh, wait a sec...] ....... [Oh, and did you see what I just did there? Ellipsis. Three dots... not rocket science. Ou, there it is again.]"[Have they never seen the size of a locket? The picture is TEENY. You could NEVER write that much in one.] I stopped reading it[That's generally what people do at the end of notes, you don't need to tell us.]. I was so happy! [so HAPPY. There's going to be a paaaaaarty!] I just found the first clue![It's a fricking address, if that's a clue then your treasure hunt is OVER.] The address was from Hollywood! [wtf... so now they're movie stars?] I just knew it![Look, just because you're a spoiled bratty princess doesn't mean that your parents are completely awesome and super famous and have everything handed to them like you do.] Now how will I get there![Because when you ask a question, you end with with an exclamation mark. This is so tedious...] I realized I had no money on me![DING DING DING] How stupid can I be![Do you really want to know the answer?] Well I guess I’m going to have to sell my iPod but first I needed to rest I was tired [Tense switching and a complete "wtf" factor. And yeah, you're running away but you wanted to rest like 30 seconds after you leave. You are the worst run-awayer EVER.]. I put the [PURE]golden locket back into my backpack[But pack back!]. Then [My eight year old brother writes with more complexity than you do and his most recent story was about a fire engine with wings!]I picked up the backpack and ran![OMIGOSH IT WAS SO EXCITING THAT I NEEDED REST I BOOKED IT AND THEN ENDED IT WITH AN EXCLAMATION MARK!] I knew a place I could stay! My best friend’s house named,[Oh, I found a lost comma, I believe you needed it a while back.] Chelsie [The house's name was Chelsie?]! After 10[T-E-N] minutes I was more tired [That's what happens when you run.] but there was house [Now its name is house?]. It was only 1am [Only? And uh... wow, time went fast. First there was the "wail" walking and then thirty seconds to stop and make an epic convenient discovery and then a ten minute run... where did an hour go?]. I threw a rock at Chalsie's[The house doesn't appreciate you throwing rocks at its windows, nor does it appreciate the misspelling of its name.] window. The window opened. I yelled, "Can I stay here for the night!"[PARAGRAPH BREAK, DAMMIT] "Sure, just give me a sec and I'll open the door!"[Yeah, no inquiries, just "yeah, whatever. This is all normal."] There was silent’s [I'm sorry, did you mean silence?] after she closed the window. For a few minuets I thought she went back to bed [haha it would have been so funny if she had. I woulda done it.]. But then surely enough the door opened[Surely enough! She just SAID she was going to open it you fool!]. "Hi," I said. I had nothing to say really but hi[It might have overloaded your brain.]. "Come in and I’ll let you sleep on the sofa[BUT NOT IF YOU DON'T COME IN]."[Again, lack of questions and paragraph breaks. This whole thing has been one tedious block of text with no breaks.] "Okay." She held the door open for me as I went in. "Thanks." I put my stuff down next to the sofa. "Yep, well I’m going back to bed there’s some blankets in the closet."[the? What a horrible host.] With that she went up the stairs without another word... [And the parents aren't going to find this weird or anything at all.]




I don't get how people can expect a good critique from this when they won't spell check, proof read, or even sit back and ask themselves if they just wrote something worth asking people to help them fix?

This is completely choppy and all tell, no show. Simplistic sentence structure, marred punctuation, a story line that not only SUCKS but really doesn't make any sense. It has a lot of cliche elements, no filler, no real development and no really convincing motive. One day, I'm going to take one of these and re-write them, into a good piece of literature. Maybe if I find time later today, to show that no matter the story line... if you use your head, you can make it PRETTY DECENT. It's not rocket science.