If you said that having a boy for a best friend was crazy then I guess I am.
[What? Who would say that?] My Name is Emiko Amane, I’m not much of a jokester, but to be honest I have a dramatic best friend that seems to like to ruin my entire being.
[Why is this set in Japan? Are you Japanese? Does the setting enhance the story? Or are you doing it because you're in the middle of a love affair with Japanese culture? No matter; it's ill-advised to set stories in cultures or settings you know little about. Also, why is Name capitalised?] One morning, as I was waiting for my friend Yuki Higurashi, I noticed I forgot my math and science books and only brought my binder and latest mangas, Japanese comics.
[If they're Japanese, why do they need to explain what manga are?] The train wouldn’t get here ‘til 8:30AM so I had time to run home and get everything.
[Given that this isn't speech, it's writing, the slang is a bit strange. Most people don't write exactly the same way they speak, so 'til is odd.] When I got back the train just pulled up and Yuki was standing there waiting for me. “’Bout time Emi” he said. I shoved him and laughed. “You should’ve been here earlier, then let’s see what you say.” I said with a devilish smirk.
["then let's see what you say" is incorrect, but as it's speech, that's probably okay. Either way, the grammatically correct form is "then we'd see what you'd say" or similar]
We got on the train and took a very quick pace to school; it was almost 9:00AM!
[I hate exclamation marks outside speech! The last bell rang just as Yuki and I burst through the door of homeroom. The teacher, our beloved sensei, Mr. Haji Kishimoto,
[Teacher and sensei mean the same damn thing. Use one or the other. As you're writing in English, I advise using teacher.] clicked the timer he was holding in his hand. He began to speak to us with a slight smug,” You made it just in time you two. I was getting worried.”
[What in god's name is a smug? I think you mean "a slightly smug tone". Also, is this guy for real? What kind of maniac keeps a timer to make sure students are on time? Are you aiming for realism or something else? Because Kishimoto sure as hell isn't a convincing character.] The class laughed as Yuki blushed and walked to his seat.
[I think most classes would laugh more at the freaky teacher than at the late students.] I slumped down into my chair just as Mr. Kishimoto started to lecture us about the last grammar test, when Yuki began his ever so usual drama about forgetting his homework.
[Ever so usual drama? That seems clumsy.] Mr. Kishimoto sent Yuki to the hallway and Yuki began to act like that guy on OHSHC (Ouran High School Host Club). I stifled a giggle as I tried to imagine Yuki as a dramatic anime cartoon character.
[No worries, everyone so far acts like an anime character anyway. Also, references to Ouran High School require that your audience has intimate knowledge of the program. Otherwise "act like that guy" is the worst description ever, because it says nothing. It's like if I said "you act like my brother" and then didn't tell you how my brother acted or how you acted like him.]
It was lunch time finally.
[I think that it was finally lunch time, word order is important.] Yuki and I sat in our usual corner of the lunchroom. After three more gruesome hours of school, we were out.
[Gruesome? I actually quite like that.] “Oh I forgot to tell you. The drawings we have for our club are due tomorrow. We better be ready, okay, Yuki?” Yuki nodded and invited me to his house to play Naruto on his ps3, but sadly, he knew he would never beat me, yet, he still tries.
[The meaning of that sentence is unclear: requires clarification.]
As soon as we got there my mom called. I wonder how she knows when I’m there and when I’m not. It creeps me out. She told me to be home at 5:30 sharp. As I hung up Yuki came running down, freaking out about his room. He grabbed my shoulder and began to shake me hard. I got irritated and poked his forehead hard and nudged him off me. "What's your problem for you to do that to me, you little rat?" I said with a grouchy look on my face. After he finally calmed down he said he was going to accuse me of stealing his video game. I stared at him with a queer expression. “Are you sure that you didn’t lose the Naruto game?” I asked. He nodded slowly, as if he was a robot or zombie, or something. I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him to his room and began to investigate.
My first clue about his room was that it was rather clean.
[Is this guy Sherlock Holmes? Who looks for clues?] I searched under his bed and he searched in his drawers and game box, but sadly, we found nothing. We went downstairs and sat down in the living room. I began to find as many solutions as possible as to what there could be going on. One: Yuki’s neighbor’s kids are taking his things and hiding them. Two: There’s a thief lurking around. Three: He misplaced them. Four: Someone OR Something is playing games with him. I looked at Yuki and then began to speak, “Na…Yuki, You think someone is teasing you or have you been having a paranormal experience? “
[It seems odd for the protagonist to suggest paranormal activity only to take the piss out of Yuki for believing her, unless she's a complete bastard.] Yuki looked at me like I was going crazy. Then Yuki thought for a second. “THERE ARE GHOSTS IN MY HOUSE!!”
[Yuki is not mentally stable.] He said in a shocked tone. “Yeah, Right, I highly doubt that. It was only a suggestion. Besides; we both know that ghosts don’t bother the living unless there’s something bad that’s going to happen.” I said with a calm tone of voice.
[WHY DO THEY BOTH BELIEVE IN GHOSTS?]
After a while, his mom came in and offered some Ichigo Daifuku; it’s a type of Japanese sweet, kind of like a powdered sugar cake with a strawberry in the middle.
[Who cares? Stop bombarding us with Japanese culture.]It was delicious!
[THIS POT ROAST IS DELICIOUS. This sentence is ridiculous.] Soon after that I began to investigate again. “Well,” I said, “I think I know who your ‘ghost’ is. It was just your mom cleaning your room.” I said with a tad bit of irritation in my voice. “Didn’t you notice your room was spick and span?” I asked. He looked at his room and then his eyes widened. “The Ghost cleaned my room!” he exclaimed, as he did that, I quietly growled and smacked him on the arm. “You Doofus.” I said with a lot of irritation in my voice. “It wasn’t a ghost; it was just your mother. Good grief!” I sighed, he whined, and then we heard a ‘THUMP’. We both jumped and looked at the attic. We were standing directly underneath it and we slowly backed up. The attic door, along with the stairs that were attached to it, fell down and we slowly crept up to the attic and peeked up inside it. There went the ‘Thump’ again! We both jumped again and then a shadowed figure looked back at us. “Creak…” we screamed, ran downstairs and hid behind the sofa.
[These people are unconvincing. One acts like a smartass, one must be very stupid, and they're both like tiny children in the way they react to household noises.]
Yuki’s mom came down from the attic and looked around. “What was that all about, I wonder…,” Yuki’s Mom, Mitsuki, thought. She went downstairs and looked for us. Yuki and I were holding each other, shaking violently. Mrs. Higurashi peeked at us and grinned mischievously. “Well if you two wanted to have some time alone, you could’ve just asked and not screamed”, she said with a slight sweet and teasing voice. We looked at each other and let go quickly. It struck 5:25 pm . It was time for me to head home, I said goodbye to Yuki and Mrs. Higurashi. The ghost hunt was finally over. Thank goodness!
WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THIS STORY? It's a day in the life of a schoolgirl, there's virtually no exploration of the characters, not that the characters could really be explored, given they're as two-dimensional as the anime that obviously served as the inspiration. There was no dramatic tension, no comedy deriving from their actions (at least, none I could find: people being stupid and melodramatic isn't funny to me), and no climax. It doesn't have a proper dramatic structure. It's incoherent, and it's like an inferior rehash of some anime (Ouran? Probably). This is a pity, because your prose style isn't awful, it just has problems with word order and grammar, and there were flashes of promise.
Why are you writing this cutesy anime crap? Write something that challenges you and helps you to improve; get outside your comfort zone. Otherwise you simply won't improve.
And I'm sorry for being acerbic.
Reply With QuoteOriginally Posted by Celestial-Fox
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