22 likes
9 comments
1.Eat ice cream at night
Me: Did you know that ice cream tastes better at night?
You: Idiot, there’s no correlation between the two.
Me: Doesn’t matter. Everything’s better when you’re around me, but I bet you can’t find a correlation!
You: Stop saying cheesy things. You just want me to go stargazing with you, and you’re using ice cream to bribe me.
Me: Awww man, you caught me!
You: You were pretty obvious.
Me: Goddammit. I guess that’s a no then?
You: …
You: I’ll go if you’re paying for the ice cream.
2. Make snowmen
M: Hey look! It’s snowing! Woohoo!
Y: It snowed last week too. And last month. And last year. And all the years before that.
M: C’mon! You know it never gets old! Make a snowman with me, won’t you?
Y: Alright, but only because it’s you. I still can’t believe I’m emotionally engaged to a toddler.
M: Don’t worry, once we get out of high school I’ll make sure you’re engaged for real to me!
Y: That was not my point.
M: I can’t hear you!
3. Write love letters (they’re still for you even if you can’t read them)
M: Did you get my letter?
Y: I can’t believe we actually are going to do this.
M: We’re a couple, so we should do more couple things!
Y: Do we really have to mail them to each other? We see each other everyday.
M: Yes, you do. And don’t forget to seal it with a kiss!
Y: Fine. I got your letter. Did you get mine?
4. Sing karaoke
M: TESTING...TESTING
Y: Argh, stop that! The mics obviously work!
M: Hehehe, I know. It’s gonna be worse when I actually start singing too! I’m going to choose a metal song...with lots and lots of screaming!
Y: I hate you. Quick up and choose a song.
M: I love you too!
5. Ride roller coasters
Y: I wanna go on it again!
M: No, no more! If we go again I’m gonna puke!
Y: You’re the one who wanted to come to the amusement park in the first place. I finally found something I like, and you won’t let me enjoy it?
M: Nggggh, stop making me feel guilty! I thought we were going to ride the carousel and the ferris wheel and eat cotton candy and you could win a stuffed animal for me. Not roller coaster after roller coaster!
Y: What made you think that?
M: You hate horror movies and you’re scared of heights!
Y: True. Here, I’ll make you a deal. If you win a stuffed animal for me then we won’t go on any roller coasters for the rest of the day.
M: You’re the one with good aim! And you don’t like stuffed animals either!
Y: I know. I’m just making sure you’re not getting your way.
M: I can’t believe you.
Y: You’re the one who fell in love with me. Now c’mon! Let’s go win a stuffed animal.
6. Pick wildflowers (these are for you too)
M: Hey, get off your phone! We found this great field with thousands of wildflowers and you won’t even look at them!
Y: Shush. I’m trying to do something.
M: I know that I’m supposed to be the romantic fun one and you’re the grouchy mean one, but this is taking it to a whole new level!
Y: I’m trying to be romantic. I’m searching up what type of flowers these are and their meanings. Also I’m not the grouchy mean one, and you certainly aren’t fun. You’re more...tiring.
M: You really are grouchy and mean! Besides, you don’t need to know the meaning behind the flowers. Just give them their own meaning instead of going by other people’s thoughts. You’re missing out on how pretty they look by obsessing over details!
Y: Huh. You’re right for once.
M: What do you mean “for once”?!?!
7. Eat dinner
Y: What happened? What’s the emergency?
M: I wanted to have dinner with you!
Y: You-
Y: I thought you had gotten hurt or something! You scared me!
M: Hey, hey, hey, don’t cry. I’m sorry. I won’t do that again.
Y: You scoundrel! You text me saying it’s an absolute emergency and the emergency is just takeout!
M: Not just takeout! Look, I lit a bunch of candles too!
Y: I can’t believe you.
M: Sorry again.
Y: Is it really just takeout?
M: Well, I wanted this to be a surprise, but I baked you a cake!
Y: I forgive you. Now where’s the cake?
8. Laugh
M: I know I’m funny, but I’ve never made you laugh that much before. Wait a sec...are you crying?
Y: Shut up! I am not crying! And I’ve never seen you laugh until you're curled up on the ground before either!
M: Says the one in the fetal position!
Y: Just...just stop! Stop existing! Or else I’m never gonna stop laughing! Ack, I can’t breathe!
M: AHAHAHAHA
9. Cry
M: Hi again.
Y:
M: You know. I still can’t believe this. I was gonna propose.
Y:
M: We were going to get married and have kids and grow old together.
Y:
M: We were supposed to do everything together.
Y:
M: Nngghhh. Goddammit. I’m crying again.
Y:
M: Everyone tells me it's time to move on. They keep telling me it’s been a month since the accident. They say it’s not healthy to spend all your time in front of a gravestone.
Y:
M: Here. Wildflowers and love letters. Someone keeps taking them away, but I keep putting more and more here for you. They must be getting tired of me. I wonder, did you ever get tired of me? Is that why you left me?
Y:
M: Everyone tells me that life will go on. But I don’t want life to go on. Especially if it won’t go on for you.
Y:
Y:
Y:
M: What am I going to do?
10. Live (without you)
You must sign up or log in to submit a comment.
Authors Note:
I'm new to Reedsy, even though I've had this account for a while. It's been sitting there collecting dust and now I've finally written a story. It's drastically different from my usual writing style, but oh well. I think it's an alright first story. Criticism would be nice if anyone's actually reading this, and it doesn't have to be constructive. I hope I'll be more active, and maybe make a few friends.
Reply
Well, welcome to the posting-stories part of Reedsy! 😄😆
Reply
Hello Echo! (Can I call you that??) This is such a great first story! Honestly, I still cannot believe that it is your first story, because I really cannot imagine a person having such a great quality story on their first trial, and on their first prompt! I do hope that you are enjoying this website and that you are having fun reading, writing, and posting stories!
I came to your story because of my mails. Yes, I did. It doesn't mean that I have your gmail account saved, but meaning I got a mail from Jenn (The Wednesday Critique Circle thing...) and I got your story as a suggestion to critique—so here I am Echo! (If you HATE me for calling you that, please do tell me about this and I will make sure that I stop).
Why I LOVE your story:
1. I'm kind of glad that I clicked your story, because it is very unique and simply beautiful, and really creative work. One of the major things I like about your story is the new style you wrote it in. I kind of liked that you did it in 1st and 2nd position. The change between each perspective was also very smooth and easy to see, so great job on that!
2. I am very intrigued by the fact that the "You" character is actually getting very annoyed by the "Me" character. It just feels like the "Me" character was trying too hard for their relationship to work. Not to lie, I was kind of glad that the "You" character (either died, or just broke up with "Me") wasn't with "Me". Though the "Me" character was sad, I think it happened for the better.
3. Something else I really like about your story (now that I am reading over this comment again, it's not really your story but your title I am going to be talking about), or the title for this matter, is kind of confusing at first (because "Me" does everything with "You"), but at the end, or the 10th one, you understand why the chosen title was given. I really liked that you made it like that.
*** DISCLAIMER: I AM VERY AWARE OF THE FACT THAT YOU CANNOT EDIT YOUR STORY ONCE YOUR STORY HAS BEEN SUBMITTED FOR THE CONTEST, AND THAT ONCE YOUR STORY HAS BEEN APPROVED, YOU CANNOT DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. BUT I DO HOPE THAT MY FEEDBACK AND CRITIQUES HELP YOU WHEN WRITING YOUR FUTURE STORIES*** (sorry for the caps...lol)
My Objective Feedback:
1. I only have a few of these because your story was mostly grammatically correct (which is very surprising for first stories...I still remember my first story on Reedsy, and it had countless of mistakes, so that's another thing you excelled at Echo!!) But when you are saying the word 'everyday', the correct way or writing/typing it is like this: 'every day'
Here is where I found that in your story: "Do we really have to mail them to each other? We see each other everyday."
Same sentence, but just grammatically correct: "Do we really have to mail them to each other? We see each other every day."
2. Another mistake I found on your lovely story was when the "You" character was saying the word "Also..." for a part in your story. I know that I am kind of nitpicking little things, especially if I consider the fact that these characters are kind of speaking "casually", so commas and grammatical things shouldn't be so much of a concern, but what can I say? I like doing these critiques, so here you go!
Here is where I found that in your story: "Also I’m not the grouchy mean one, and you certainly aren’t fun. "
Same sentence, but just grammatically correct: " Also, I’m not the grouchy mean one, and you certainly aren’t fun. "
3. This is the last (kind of major) mistake I found in your story. Yet again, it is where the "You" character is speaking. (I mean...how can a person be serious and grammatically incorrect, am I right? Lol) But it was when he was saying the word "Now" for a sentence in the story. Same thing as above, the comma was the only issue in this story too.
Here is where I found that in your story: "I forgive you. Now where’s the cake?"
Same sentence, but just grammatically correct: "I forgive you. Now, where’s the cake?"
My Subjective Feedback:
1. In this segment, I am going to basically explain some mistakes that I found in your story, but they are just my own opinion. Meaning, they are "subjective" hence the name of this category. One of the first things that I found was that your story had a bit too much of italicizing in it. Maybe if you only included it for some words or for some sentences, your story would have looked a bit better (this is my opinion)
2. Also, another thing I found in your story was that it is a bit too short. Not that "short" short stories are not good, but just that this story could have used a bit more detail to expand it better and make the plot, and the unnamed characters a little bit more interesting as well as a bit more engaging for the readers. That's why I thought that you could have made the story a bit longer.
3. My last subjective feedback for you is about the entire character dilemma. I wish you could have had some names for the characters, and that you could have included in the story how these two characters met. Was it in high school? Was it in some other event? Also, you could have included a 200 word backstory about their entire relationship from then to now.
Other than those little mistakes that I just found in your story, I think that overall, this story deserves a win, or at least a shortlist. I really enjoyed the flow and the hint of creativeness and the originality you added into your story Echo! I am really happy that I got to read and critique your story and I want to continue to read and comment on your stories! Great job! :)
Reply
Hi! I don't mind being called Echo. Thank you for all your positivity and your feedback!
To clear up one bit, I did kill off the "you" character. I tried hinting at it when "me" said this: "Everyone tells me it's time to move on. They keep telling me it’s been a month since the accident. They say it’s not healthy to spend all your time in front of a gravestone." I meant for it to imply that the "you" character died in an accident, but I can see your point.
I actually didn't mean to make the "you" character annoyed at "me." In my mind, most of the stuff "you" says is in a sarcastic tone. However, I did want to convey that their relationship was imperfect. I wanted to make "me" a bit too obsessive and I definitely agree that in the end it's for the better. That ties in with my point about the title. I'm really glad you liked it. I wanted to highlight how "you" and "me" do everything together, but now "me" has to learn how to live without "you," so I'm glad that you caught that. Although, to be honest, the title mostly serves to alleviate my obsession with full circles haha.
About the grammar stuff, the stuff you pointed out is a pretty big weakness of mine. I usually figure out grammar, where to put commas, and all that by writing it how I would speak it out loud. I also do the "everyday" vs. "every day" thing super often, and I'll try to catch myself in the act now that you've brought it to my attention.
The italicization was because I wanted it to look different from the list titles, but I also didn't think that putting it in quotes would be that great. Then, I remembered how thoughts are italicized, so then I got the image of "me" writing the list while remembering all of these memories. But after I copy-pasted this into Reedsy from Google Docs I never looked at it again haha. Going back up and reading it in the Reedsy format, I can definitely say it looked a lot better in Docs.
As for the story's length, I didn't want to squeeze all of these scenarios dry. Once I got all the ten items down and I was barely in the word limit, I stopped. I wanted this story to be sort of like a glimpse into their relationship, and I was scared of going into detail. I also didn't want to include a separate backstory or more details because I wanted to keep within the format that I had already established. But looking back, I see that I could've definitely lengthened the story and disregard the format I had willingly boxed myself into. After all, story comes first.
Now I've finally finished writing the meat of my response! Phew...it ended a lot longer than I intended for it to be. Thank you for reading my story and giving me critique! It's really helpful and I'm happy for your response.
Just...thank you so much!!! :)))
Reply
Wow Echo, (thanks for letting me call you that!) thanks for clearing all that up! I am so glad you liked the comment! :)
Also, I get that you wanted to kill the "you" character in the story...I guess the flowers explained it. I don't know why I didn't get it until now! =l
But, thanks for taking the time to comment back! I really appreciate it! =)
Reply
:D
Reply
:)
Reply
Eep! I love this story! Such a creative take on the prompt with beautiful wording. I love these vivid yet unnamed, quirky characters. Awesome job!
Reply
Thank you so much!
Reply