doot doot doot nothing to see here

[Aderia]

我真的不能写一个故事。真不好意思。

Edited January 28, 2020 by Aderia

[Velox]

Official SSCC Charity ReviewOkay, so, for a little bit of dialogue practice, this really wasn't bad. Not bad at all, actually, and I really enjoyed it. You accomplished a lot through just this little scene -- well done. One of the things I really liked was the description placed throughout the dialogue. Far too often writers will have just a big chuck of dialogue. Possibly very well written dialogue, sure, but still -- only dialogue. You didn't do that here. There were really only a few lines where all you said was "he said" (or some variant thereof), and that's an extremely good thing -- you payed attention to how they saw other people, what their actions were while talking, etc. It really just makes the scene a lot more realistic. I was able to picture things very clearly in my mind which really added to the story. Another thing I liked, whether you consciously did it or not, was the fact that you didn't spend a lot of time on the descriptions of the school, the most being that it has a cafeteria. Usually I'm all for descriptions, and many, but for this I think it was good without -- it felt like this was written from the perspective of these two students, and as such, having no descriptions really fits. After all, if you've been going to a school for over a year (even a month or a week), you're probably not going to be observing the actual building around you. When I walk around my house, I don't notice "oh look, there's that wall with this photo, and that, and then there's the bookshelf over there", etc. I don't know, it's hard to explain, I guess, but I just felt like considering the type of story you were writing (a scene between two high schoolers), it just really fit to keep the focus completely on the dialogue and their personal actions. Sure, a little more description could've been added here and there ("she looked over at a group of friends crowded around a green table, eating...." etc. etc.), but it definitely wasn't needed, especially since this was (I assume) just a little exercise in dialogue -- a very well-done one at that.Maybe it's because I just graduated high school, I don't know, but I could really relate to this story. The things people talk about, whether just while eating lunch, or in a lunch line, etc. -- it just all felt very realistic. I can't say that this particular thing has happened to me, but there's definitely been similar events that have caused a lot of "oh my gosh can you believe it"-type reactions, and a lot of gossiping. I also liked the attention you put on their phones. I went to a Catholic school, and we weren't allowed to use our phones during school, but just from hanging out with people outside of school, etc., this, too, was definitely extremely realistic. And it's sad, really, that modern young society is focused so much on their phones rather than each other. But let's not get into a rant about that right now, haha. The important thing is that you portrayed modern teenagers well. I only have a couple of nitpicks:

“Oh my god.

Should be capitalized. and:

“She switched over to cybershooling halfway through freshman year, remember?

Forgot a "c" there, between the "s" and "h" in "cyberschooling". (and I think that should be two words)The only other thing is capitalization for dialogue. I'll quote a few lines and try to give some basic rules, rather than pointing out every single time:

“Shhh,” Jay looked around as Lea’s words echoed in the empty cafeteria that was slowly filling up.

The comma after "shhh" should be a period, because you're not saying "he said" (or variation thereof) afterward.

“Save it for when the rest of the table gets here.” He advised.

The period after "here" should be a comma, and "He" should be "he".

“I hate freshmen,” He muttered, shooting them a dirty look.

The "He" should be "he" (uncapitalized). So, basically, whenever you use "he said" or any variation of that, there should be a comma ending the quotation, and the "he said" should be uncapitalized. The exception, of course, is if it's a proper noun. If the dialogue ends in a question mark or exclamation point, you don't use a comma, but the "he said" is still uncapitalized. And, if you have dialogue, and then switch to just an action, instead of saying "he said", then you would use a period inside the quotation marks (for example, the first one I quoted -- because Jay is "looking" instead of "saying", you'd just put a period. If you had said "Jay said, looking around..." then you would use the comma. But because you're not saying any variant of "he said", you would just use a period). Other than that, as I said, this was a good story. It was a very well-written exercise, and I enjoyed reading it. Keep up the great work, Aderia!