This piece had me scratching my head more than being engaged in the story, both for its odd, rough diction and its staccato and just-unexpected-enough delivery of that diction without enough context to understand why it should be that way. Either this half of a short story is simply not enough to convey what it's trying to be, or it's indicative of an unfortunately floundering, though appreciated, attempt at an engrossing piece of writing.

The biggest obstacle, both for my reading enjoyment and my ability to critique this, is that the English here is so peculiar. Not even because it's written with UK English and I'm American, but because it sounds at once so uncommonly elevated and unnaturally stilted. In places, it sounds as though the author speaks English as a second language (see Mechanics section below). The first sentence sticks out:

>Stepping out my front door, as crisp air meets skin, a pang of unpleasantness always accompanies--and I am reminded that the day ahead is as ines

Thank you very much for the incisive critique. As has happened multiple times in the past, I think I've tried to write something I'm not yet smart or skilled enough to pull off. Rather worryingly, I didn't notice how much of a mess the diction was. I was aware the style I went for was quite ambitious, but now I see how badly I'm actually executing it. And I also think one of the other reasons the piece may be such a mess is due to my own lack of contextualising the story in my head. I don't know the era, proper location, etc, of the narrator and the piece. The many similarities to Dazai is also problematic. I didn't notice a fair few of the ones you pointed out, but it makes me realise that this piece is most definitely crossing the line of inspiration over to cheap imitation.

>This excerpt does not give context or explanation or even internal commentary on why she thinks the way she does

I will say that, as opposed to the directness of Dazai's narrator, I tried to more subtly imply 

**Is the voice of this sixteen-year-old believable?** To me, no. I've never heard a teenager say, "the animosity assuaged my sadness." Nothing in this story tells me why this character would speak in such an elevated way. Is she wealthy? Did she have an isolated childhood, acquiring vocabulary from books, perhaps? But the real issue is that I don't know if this type of speech is supposed to be interpreted as elevated. I don't know if the girl on the bus speaks like the people around her. She uses words like gormless, exposit, asinine, assuaged, and convalescing, which are not insurmountable words, but I don't know if she fits into her world or if she stands out from it. Dazai's character has a line to the man who took her seat early on, "Uh, that was my seat," which at least sounds like it's supposed to represent a very casual type of speech, which contrasts with her narrative voice, indicating that she is, in fact, just a real girl in her real world. So your character sounds like an e

**CHARACTERIZATION**

Focusing on just the story, this girl seems hateful and full of contempt, and I can't wait to see her fall in mud. I hope she burns her lasagna. I hope her smudged mascara makes her face look like a Rorschach image. I don't like her. This does not mean the story is bad, but she is not endearing in the slightest, in my eyes. I think her being caught in the rain and her dropping the coins is meant to draw sympathy, but that is short-lived because she is immediately calling people ugly, gormless, and grey-faced fools. Saying she has self-hatred is probably meant to do the same, but then she's calling her friends stupid. And her revulsion of noses is not quite relatable, so when she says she is miserable and pathetic, all I could say was, "Yeah. You are." This excerpt does not give context or explanation or even internal commentary on why she thinks the way she does:

* **School is always an ordeal.** We never actually see this. And when she complains about people giv

Thank you for sharing your work here and hope you will share here again!

\*\*First Impression\*\*

So my first impression of this work was that it was very overwritten, as there wasn’t a lot of discrimination when it came to detail. I felt like everything was written with equal importance, and while this may be a more “true to life” approach, I don’t find it very enjoyable in fiction. I don’t think the reader needs to be told the exact details of everything the protagonist does and sees. Some things can be painted in broad strokes and still get the point across. I also didn’t really enjoy a lot of the descriptions that were used and found several words were repeated throughout - like “unpleasant.” not sure if that was on purpose or not, but it didn’t really feel purposeful. And as someone else already pointed out on the document itself, the word vulgar was also used several times, as well as sentences beginning with “God” especially toward the end.

\*\*Characters\*\*

I didn’t connec

They say that plot is the least important element of a story, so it’s possible to write a story that’s just a student on a bus thinking about stuff.

However, “young person has mental health issues” is not enough to carry the whole piece by itself. What is lacking is a satisfactory setup and resolution of the narrator’s internal conflict.

The main character doesn’t really have a lot of “endearing” qualities. However, she is relatable and her vitriol is understandable. This works because she is self-aware and understands when she’s being terrible. Also, she only thinks these things, her actions don’t negatively affect anyone, so we don’t have a problem empathizing with her.

I do think this would be a good fit for a YA audience. The character is someone that kids that age could see themselves in. Moody, pretentious, better than everyone, but also incredibly fragile and conflicted.

Her voice is believable for an intelligent 16-year-old who thinks she understands the world far more than

[1696] Schoolgirl