Andy (Formerly Apemann)

What should have been a pleasure to read was spoiled because the story is riddled with spelling and grammatical mistakes.

Take time to CHECK your work before submitting it. Your computer has spell-check and thesaurus facilities: use them!

On the plus side, there is a budding story-teller in you. Iron-out the clumsiness - and laziness! - and you will become a fine writer.

Yet ANOTHER tiresome and boring story on the subject of teen suicide. This topic has been (if you'll excuse the pun!) done to death already. Sure, it's a slightly different slant on the genre, but it's still a teen suicide story.

You can write, no doubt about that. PLEASE try something that hasn't already been done a thousand times before next time?

An interesting story... but I never got to the end due to my issues with your poor punctuation. take this paragraph for example:

"Lisa felt uneasy as she drove to the house, she’d heard stories about poor old people dying in their house alone, no one checking on them for weeks. Her uneasiness rose as she approached the little house, the lawn was overgrown and the letterbox was overflowing with junk mail. She walked up to the door and knocked, there was no answer and she could sense a stillness within. She knocked again and then made her way around the side of the house, she noticed the neighbours curtains flicker as she approached the open window."

This is MY punctuated version:

"Lisa felt uneasy as she drove to the house. She had heard stories about poor old people dying in their house alone, no one checking on them for weeks. Her uneasiness rose as she approached the little house. The lawn was overgrown and the letterbox was overflowing with junk mail. She walked up to the door and knocked. There was no answer and she could sense a stillness within. She knocked again (but after getting no answer) made her way around the side of the house. She noticed the neighbour's curtains flicker as she approached the open window."

Can you feel how more smoothly the sentences flow? Don't be afraid to use full-stops. If you have ever read any of Lee Child's books you will know immediately how effective they can be :-)

Also, be sparing in your use of contractions in your work. They stand out glaringly when over-used (check out the first few sentences in the third paragraph of your story...) They serve a useful purpose, but should not be used as a matter of course, as it seems you do in your writing.

You are a good story-teller and a good writer, but you have developed some bad habits that will stay with you (and mar your work) unless they are pointed out to you. I hope this helps!

Keep writing :-)

The problem with this style of writing is that it has very limited 'audience appeal'. There is nothing wrong writing for a niche market, of course, but why limit yourself when you have talent that deserves to be seen by the many rather than the few? Maybe something to think about for future submissions...

You story is well told - but your clumsiness with punctuation spoils your work. Take more time and care to CHECK your work before submitting it. I would also advise that you read again our submission guidelines as there are several instances in your story where they have not been followed... You are talented young writer: if you take more care and pay more attention to what you are doing you will be a very good writer one day.

First off, the use of numerals in prose is not good practice, as noted in the Submission Guidelines. Please remember for future submissions...

There are some good points to your story but overall, it's all a bit heavy-handed and somewhat stilted. You would have benefitted from showing your story around to friends and family for comments to iron-out some of the 'awkward' parts.

Overall, though, a fair effort. I look forward to reading future submissions :-)

I feel your writing talent is being misdirected. Clearly you have a headful of stories that you would like to tell. With some guidance and advice you could become a good writer. In order to do so, though, you need to take more care with your writing and to pay more attention to detail. Much of what you write is good, but it is spoiled by a rather slap-dash approach. I would like to see your stories being praised for their content AND presentation - and I'll be the lead cheerleader when they are :-)

I quite liked the premise of your story. However, I found the unnecessary time references off-putting and the rather clunky "she goes" and "she comes" and so on also jarred. There are many good points to your story: I hope you will submit more of your work soon.