Pain - Comments

I’m here to judge for ‘Paramore’s Self-Titled Song-Fic Contest’.

This was a bittersweet one-shot and I liked it for that. Where it was nice in the surroundings and in Stephan’s loyalty, it was pretty sad that the girl’s boyfriend ended up being shady and disgusting. There was almost a contrast between the beauty of autumn and the dreary emotions of the girl’s heartbreak. The way you explained their age difference using autumn cycles was also unique. I like that Stephan didn’t take advantage of her and try to be more than he actually is to her because he’s okay with being her friend so long as he’s in her life. I liked that you came full circle with that in the final line.

The only thing I would recommend that you change/work on is the detail of their emotions. You did well in painting a detailed picture of their surroundings, but when it came to their emotions, you bordered that line between showing me and telling me. It kind of took away from the story for me. I know I’ve said it on previous stories of yours, but I definitely think you should expand more in that area so I can connect to the characters more. I want to be more than just aware of how Stephan is feeling or the girl’s betrayal, I want to actually feel it. I want to be sad and angry, too. Instead of being told that the characters are in an unpleasant situation.

There were also a few errors that stood out, such as:

I grabbed a bite at the office and then left to meet her, not bothering to step to my house first to get out of that black suit. – I think you meant ‘stop by’ rather than ‘step to’ because it doesn’t make much sense.

Under the October twilight; the water mirrored a still sky. – The semi-colon should just be a comma. Semi-colons are used to combine two similar thoughts whereas this is really just one continuous thought.

‘’He broke up with me,’’ She whispered once her head was against my chest[.] – ‘She’ shouldn’t be capitalized because it’s a dialogue tag. Also, I’m not sure if you know this or not but the quotation key (“) works for the left side of a sentence too, rather than doing double apostrophes.

All in all, this was a nice one-shot that I did end up enjoying. Good job.

Here judging the third round of Sixth Time's the Charm!

I really like what you've done with the prompt and especially how you incorporated it into the banner. I instantly get the sense of that location when you start writing about the trees and how beautiful they look during the autumn. I always get this airy feeling during autumn and it seems to make the senses heighten and I like that you've included this as much as possible throughout. Even when Stephan is comforting the girl, I get this heightened sense of everything that's going on - so much so that I feel like I'm looking at them from the location.

I like that the location didn't take precedence over the story itself, and that the characters seem very well fleshed-out, even though we only see them for such a short time. Great job!

Oh my god. So this is the exact same situation I am in right now. Lol the guy I'm hea over heels in love with just got cheated on and dumped and I held him while he cried. This is crazy. But the story was really good!!

Before I can be sad, why don't you bring them together in a next chapter? That would be soo cool!

"I grabbed a bite at the office and then left to meet her, not even bothering to step from my house first to get out of that black suit."

In this sentence, I think you may mean "Not bothering to step to my house first".

I like how you explain their ages in months rather than just stating "She's 17 and I'm 26". That's a nice change from other stories.

I love this line "I was old enough to know that no one was perfect but she had made me love her cons as well". I think "flaws" would make a nice substitute though for cons.

I'd try taking out the third "Autumn" since you already explained it was Autumn. Maybe the first one too could be taken out.

I think you mean "intertwining" rather than "interviewing". I think you mean "in my mind" rather than "on my mind".

Maybe take out the dash between "thought" and "of" in the next sentence.

I could relate really well to the latter half of the fifth paragraph. Ah, unrequited love.

You might change "her voice called me" to "her voice called to me".

There's a typo for black in the next sentence. You accidentally put a "d" in front of black.

I think you could take out "with" in the sentence "…while with the one…".

You might change "she'd ask" to "she asked".

You may take out "And" in the beginning of the sentence in the eleventh paragraph so it's just "We walked…".

Now that that part's over with, I really like the relationships all of your characters have with each other. They seem very realistic. While this was a tad predictable, I like that you didn't have the two characters suddenly saying "Oh I've really loved you this entire time. You're the one for me." type of thing since that's done a lot and it's also not very realistic.

I like how Stephan didn't admit his feelings to the girl because that would have just been…hard. I love how he's so dedicated to her even as just her friend and he's okay with that. I can relate to that part very well in my own life. It's hard not being able to be with someone due to unrequited feelings but it happens a lot and I just love how he's okay being her friend even if they never turn to anything more. I think you did pretty well on this.

I find Stephan to be a very likable character merely because he's so easy to feel for. I mean who hasn't had someone they felt romantic feelings for, only to be seen as a friend?