The Advanced Writer's Club

[indebted]

hey guys!
http://www.wattpad.com/12522095-glory-of-the-s-t-a-r-s
new story.
dr.who fanfiction.
c:
check it out, will you?
it's PG. nothing bad.

[breath.]

Username:
{ f l y a w a y }
Nickname:
Fly or Kaala
Writing Preferences (Poet, Novelist, roleplayer...):
Poetry, Roleplays, Novels and above all Fiction/Fantasy
Example (Can be anything; must be a good length):

Smile

I hide in the shadows,
Not daring to speak.
For they are the strong,
And I am the weak.
Sometimes I feel like running away,
To end my life,
To not see another day.
But them I turn around and see my friends smile,
And then I realise my life is worth while.



Friends

You were always there,
By my side.
No matter where it took us,
You stayed on the ride.
When others tried to make me frown,
We would laugh at them,
And turn around.
I know that you will stay by my side,
Till the end,
And that's what make you,
My one, true, friend.



Dream

I dare to dream,
When others don't.
Because life is not what it may seem,
There is still darkness,
In the brightness sun beam.
Like the Titanic,
How it crashed and burned.
We fade away,
All in turn.
But unlike these,
Memories stay.
Until even time,
Fades away.



The Truth About Love

You took him away,
Begged him to stay.
Now whenever I turn around,
You are together,
Forever bound.
But that should be me,
By your side.
To give you my shoulder,
When you need to cry.
But now I know,
It wasn't to be.
She is for him,
He is not,
For me....

Links to stories / roleplays:
Rp
viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1663487#p50881936
Rp
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1619685
Rp
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1650989
Story WIP it's not my best ,my best story is inappropriate for CS, I have done much better
viewtopic.php?f=57&t=1181250&p=50266237&hilit=Leaf#p50266237


Other: thanks for the opportunity

[pancreas]

Username: consulting detective
Nickname: Abi, Pan
Writing Preferences: I jump around a lot, depending on what I have muse for. Poems, roleplay, fan-fics, short stories, novel-type...
Example: Okay, bearing in mind I haven't had chance lately to write anything really, so this is pretty old. And embarrassingly cliqued, urg.



One - Monika

For me, running away was the easy part.

Unlike most teenagers, I had nothing to lose by leaving. In fact, I’d probably actually be happier homeless. I had nothing. I was nothing. Becoming a nobody wouldn't be too big a stretch.

My parents died when I was five years old in a tragic train crash, and I was entrusted into the care of my elderly aunt, who passed away a year later. After that – when it became apparent that I had no other relatives willing or able to take me on – my carers became foster parents. Temporary foster parents. And lots of them. For a decade I've been passed from house to house, never staying at the same place for more than a month.

At first I didn't mind. I thought that one day “my time would come” and I’d find a loving couple who’d whisk me off to some secret cottage in the countryside where we’d live happily ever after, like it always is in films. But I was obviously never intended to have a fairy-tale ending. No happy, smiling couple came for me, and I've never caught a glimpse of a cosy cottage nestled in a cluster of trees. I've accepted that no one wants me, and I've grown not to care. Even my social worker is tired of seeing me returned to her week after week, month after month. So now it’s my turn to make it work.

I’m tired of being juggled around like the prize in a pass-the-parcel game. I’m bored of packing and re-packing, not having a constant education or a stable home-life. So I’ll show them. I’ll show them all. I don’t need anyone, and I certainly don’t want them. I've had more than enough of being other peoples’ unwanted responsibility. I’ll make it on my own.
--
“Monika?” Jackie’s – my current carer’s – voice drifted up from the bottom of the staircase and I froze, halfway through bundling a fistful of tops into my body bag/carry all. “Monika!”
“Yes?” I called back, stuffing the clothes into the bag and hoping desperately that she wouldn't decide to take an out of character trip to my room tonight – of all nights.
“What’s going on up there?”
“What do you mean?” I stalled for time, giving my room a quick once over. Clothes littered the floor in untidy mounds; both wardrobe doors were flung wide open, their contents spilled across the floor; my bed was covered in books and all my other possessions. In short, if Jackie came upstairs, it’d be game over.

“I heard banging, are you throwing things around or something? It certainly sounds like it. The ceiling’s been vibrating down here.”
Vibrating? God, she was so melodramatic. Rolling my eyes, I scanned my mind for a hurried excuse, “Uh yeah, I’m sorry about that. I just… couldn't find my homework, so I kind of tore my room apart looking for it. Don’t worry,” I added hastily, “I’m tidying up right now.” There. She had to believe that.

“Right.” Came Jackie’s answer after a sceptical pause. Well, as long as she didn't come upstairs for another hour or two, I didn't care what she thought. “Just be careful what you’re throwing around. I don’t want anything broken.”
Swallowing back a snort of humourless laughter – except for the bed, desk, dresser and wardrobe, everything in the room belonged to me, anyway – I replied in the affirmative and listened as she made her way into the living room and the television, which was currently blaring out the results of the most recent lottery draw. As soon as her footsteps faded out of existence, I resumed my speedy packing. Already my carry all was nearly full and I’d only been packing essentials.

Sifting through the books stacked on my bed, I chose a couple of my favourite titles and pushed the rest aside with a regretful sigh. After the books went an envelope filled with photos of my parents and a younger me, surrounded by friends and as happy as only a five year old can be. Lastly, in went my stuffed raccoon – named Raccy – who had been with me as long as I could remember. No way would I be leaving him behind now. And then that was it. I was packed.

Looking down at the bag, a surge of uncontrollable emotion swelled inside me. This was it, I was really going to leave. I was finally taking my life into my own hands. But as I gazed down at the carry all, I realised that these were the only possessions that I now owned. Just one bag’s worth. I think that’s when I started to cry.


(also I'm the worst at paragraphs I really need to work on them.)

Links to stories / roleplays: I'm currently writing something on fanfiction.net, but I won't link to it because I'm not sure the majority of people on this site would... approve of it. It's a Pepperony/Frost Iron thing, and if anyone's really interested I'll PM it instead, ahah.
Also, Comatose, but it's not really up-and-running as of yet.
Other: Sorry the example I've given isn't very good, I just haven't had a chance to produce anything new for a while because of exams and all that. :>

[O.G.]

Username: I-am-CC
Nickname: CC is just fine.
Writing Preferences (Poet, Novelist, roleplayer...): Novelist, role-player, and occasionally fanfictions
Example (Can be anything; must be a good length): The dripping of the faucet was constant, yet subtle like a glass of wine that had been sitting untouched for too long. Keen ears observed it early on, calloused, bloodshot eyes capturing each lone drop under an emotionless stare as they splashed into the porcelain bathtub that was filled to the brim in water. The chain reaction of water rings dispersing was just as observed as they rolled across the unobstructed surface of the water to the rim of the tub where each ripple softly lapped over its lip to mimic the soft lull of a lakes waves washing ashore on the calmest of autumn evenings, then spilling off onto the polished side of the bath in droplets that lazily slid down to its base where they dropped one by one like tears from the footed tub and to the gray tiled floor that was puddled with hours of the process.

It was almost almost humorous to him how the scene made a near complete cycle, dripping from the faucet and then again from the tub. He gave a rasped, throaty chuckle that echoed throughout the empty room and into the adjoining bedroom. He had been gazing, fixated upon the scene since the dawn of the previous night, sitting comfortably on a dark wooden bench. His feet, concealed in black leather wing tipped shoes and diamond weave wool socks, sat perched atop a stool and crossed at the ankles while he rested his folded arms below his chest to leave his hands shrouded beneath the silk fabric of his cobalt robe. The position stayed original to the moment he had rested himself there.

He drew in a slow breath, his dry eyes blinking once before he finally broke his gaze away from the eerily empty corner so that his eyes could sweep across the floor around him. Cigarette butts lay strewn in an encompassing circle around him, two days worth collected in several hours time, and a lingering smell of smoke still filled the air. He had figured that he best indulge in a habit while he had the time, and alcohol wouldn't have had the right effect. He was never a sloppy drunk, but to indulge he imagined himself ending up so.

His eyes flicked up to the one small, circular window at the far end of the room, the morning sun beginning to peek through in rays of blinding white light. Blue eyes narrowed to a squint. 7:00 AM, at least. He was expecting visitors any moment. They were unwelcomed, but visitors nonetheless. His hobbies drew the relentless group in, and it was hungry for only one thing. Justice. He could relate to some degree. They loved the law, he lusted for blood. Similar, but a world apart. It was just unfortunate that a lust for blood satisfied was a law broken, pittng good against what was labeled 'sick'.

But he couldn't help it. When one was hungry they ate. His lust for blood was the same concept; a need. When he craved it, he spilled it, and there was nothing more he could say about it. It was the world that was not open to see things the way he did, and he could only deem it a crying shame. He was a victim to the world's blindness--stubbornness to see things through his eyes. Unfortunately, it was just a reality he had to accept, and he had years ago, forced to constantly hide in the shadows and cover up his deemed 'crimes'. It was a sad game, one that was finally coming to an end.

His eyes slowly drew away from the window, a single, aged hand reaching to the silken pocket of his robe to pull out his only cigar and lighter. His final indulgence in something considered more slightly 'wrong'. It seemed nothing he did was ever quote 'right'.

Pale lips parted to reveal dinged yellow teeth as he placed one end of the cigar into his mouth, and then he closed his lips around it. With a few strikes of his thumb, a flame danced from his lighter before he held it to the free end of his cigar, waiting to see a wisp of smoke trail from the end of it before he pulled his hand away. Removing his thumb from the lighter, he tucked it safely back inside of his pocket before giving a few testing puffs of his cigar. When more smoke billowed from it in small bursts, he smiled contently and brought his hand up to support it between his middle and index fingers.

He inhaled and puffed its strong flavors, his eyes slowly resting shut for the first time in over twenty hours. The game of waiting was running short and he knew it, yet it didn’t stop him from dragging out the smoking as much as he could manage. There was no need to rush, to run anymore.

He could feel that the weight of the cigar had dropped to half of what it originally was when finally he heard a sudden rapping at the door downstairs. Heavy eyelids lifted as his eyes shifted to his opened bathroom door and out into his bedroom. He pulled his cigar from his mouth for just a moment. "I've been expecting you," his deep voice nearly purred despite the dread that formed across his face. His feet slipped from the stool they rested on as he stood in one fluid motion, and he stuck his half finished cigar back into his mouth.

Another rap at the door was heard, softly, tauntingly pounding into his eardrums. "It's open," he muttered to himself with a hint of bitterness tainting his tone as he untied the belt that bound his robe. He pulled it from himself with little effort, revealing the black dress suit he had been wearing beneath it, and he dropped the robe to the floor just as he heard the crack of his front door being kicked open, several stomping feet sounding in the next second. He hardly paid mind to it as he walked over to the bathroom sink, catching a glimpse of his tired, wrinkled skin and combed white hair as he carefully picked up his hair dryer, plugged in and ready, in his hands. He gave a single puff of his cigar, handing off the dryer to one hand as the other left to reach into the jacket of his suit.

He pulled a crisp index card from it, propping the message neatly against the mirror, and he observed its perch for a few seconds before he turned in the direction of the tub. His steps towards it were slow and stopped at the puddle collected around it, his eyes immediately drifting down to look at his leather shoes. "Oh," he gave a groan of pity to them, bending down and stripping the water sensitive apparel from his feet before setting them aside. There was no use in ruining his favorite pair of shoes.

Taking a tentative step into the puddle, he could hear the footsteps below beginning to disperse more silently as the chilled water beneath him soaked through his sock and to his flesh uncomfortably. However, he ignored it as set another foot in, inhaling on the cigar as much as he could and dwindling it considerably before he finally pulled it from his mouth again, exhaling it in plumes of smoke from his lungs. As it wafted to the ceiling, he leaned in to the tub, his cigar emitting a small sizzle as he put it out in the water. A small frown creased each corner of his lips as he let go of it so that it could drift at the water's surface, its staining brown tobacco leeching out to encompass it as it floated with the ripples of water still caused by the dripping faucet.

He didn't waste his time staring at it, hearing footsteps quickly nearing the stairs. He lifted one foot and then the other over the lip of the tub and into the cool water filling it, sinking his feet and legs into it tentatively to keep from slipping as water poured over the sides of the tub and to the floor at his weight. He stood completely still until the flow stopped, and only then did he allow himself to sink to his knees in the water, sending a chill down his spine as another burst of water spilled from the tub’s sides, his suddenly soaked clothes floating from his body in small bobs as he still clutched in his hand, above the water, his blow dryer.

The heavy footsteps that barged into his house were fast to stomp up the stairs, voices blaring at him. The splashing of the water against the floor had obviously given him away. He drew in a steady breath and closed his eyes as he listened for another moment to hear them bash open his bedroom door, and then, without a word called to them, he fell back into the tub with a splash, both hands going with him.

I'm sorry that you never opened your mind to my way, and I'm sorry it ever came to this. But, it seems this unfortunate game has come to an end, and there can only be one victor. What you see as justice has been served. You pinned me. Checkmate.
- V.R
Links to stories / roleplays: None.
Other: Well, I hope I'm good enough to be accepted! I've been reading through this thread for a bit now, and I primarily want to join so that I can post here on the rare occasion I actually have something decent to say. But other than that, I'll probably be a bit of a thread stalker. xD.

[abbie-sama]

Hello everyone! I hadn't realized that I was accepted. My bad...

I have a new "emotional" scene in my RA fanfic that I might post later. It's the first one that I've done, and I don't think that it's very good. Basically, my character has a real-feeling bad dream about her father, who's lost/dead. It brings up a lot of emotions, yadayada...

I feel like it's cheesier than swiss cheese. Okay, I just wanted to say that. What I really meant was, I don't know if it's very emotional because I love my characters so much that I feel their pain in a way that other people might not. It's in chapter 18, so that have had time to like my characters. I'll post it later, since I can't really post a snippet since I haven't finished the whole chapter. xD

So, how is everyone? ;D

[princess pudding]

The following members have been accepted:

{ f l y a w a y }
consulting detective
I-am-CC

If you have not been accepted, please do not post. Try practicing your writing and apply again.
There is always room for improvement! If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

[winter.]

I've been in a writing slump lately.
I don't have much muse for the part of the story I'm in, and I don't have much time or motivation to write.
I was really excited about my story when I started, but it's kind of faded.
Does anyone have any tips or experiences?

[abbie-sama]

Hey guys! This is the snipped that I just finished. I copied it off of another topic that i put it on, and I'm on my tablet, so that's why it's formatted so horribly. ^^' Excuse me!

Haha, so I'm not the only one who does that! :3

Anyway, I'll post it, I guess.

Note: This is my RA (Ranger's Apprentice) fanfic, where Lyssa's father never came back from a mission. She is a Ward, which means orphan in the RA world, along with three other Wards -- all of them bullies to her for a reason that I haven't figured out yet. She ran off to go find some people who could answer questions about her father, but Rusl, one of the bullies, insisted on coming with her. You'll find out more later -- but this is not a romance scene, got it?
Also, I know the grammar might not be good, but I plan on fixing that later. This is just a rough draft, and I only want to know about emotional quality (If that makes sense). <3
This is chapter 18, so I understand if you don't feel any relation to her yet, since I've already built that up with the previous ones. So I gave you guys an exclusive skip.
And it's long, but I put it in small text so maybe you wouldn't notice.
Enjoy.



Lyssa choked on her words, tossed directly into another dream. She saw it forming in her mind, which seemed happy to torture her tonight.
She saw the house that she had lived in up until the age of eight. Transparent like mist for just a few moments, the house finally formed and solidified.
Lyssa wrenched her head away, trying to close her eyes—but her heart told her to keep looking. She tuned into the feel of her own body, not this dream one… and she couldn't move. Her body slept; her brain assisted her in futile attempts to move and maybe, somehow, awake.
Lyssa prayed that she would awake, used all of her strength to try and move, until she finally collapsed. Her imaginary reserves of strength within this dream world were completely sapped. There was no escaping the invisible prison that locked her body away—there was no stopping this dream—there was only waiting for the inevidable, harsh truth of pain and sadness.
In a sudden rush of overwhelming emotion, she was stricken with the urge to cry. The urge to cry like a child, to let out wails and moans, to let the snot bubble at her nostrils and collect above her upper lip—to rock back and forth until she was cradled by someone larger, someone safer, someone who would rescue her from drowning in misery.
Lyssa felt the tears in her throat, in her eyes, in her stomach, in her heart, but not on the outside. Instead, the dream moved the house in a way that made perfect sense within dream. Just about everything made sense within dream, like you had suddenly gone to your own twisted little world, a place where you—and only you—made the rules. Sometimes those rules would betray you, and sometimes not.
The house creaked and cracked like it was trying to sprout legs. Its bulk dragged into Lyssa's vision until it rested right in the middle, right where she could see it. She could see everything.
The house, her house, was normal. If anything, it was a bit too normal, but that had never mattered to Lyssa, because she had loved it all the same. She had loved her house because it contained everyone that she loved. It was a place that she had relied on to house her loved ones, a place of true comfort.
Those reasons were why the sight of the house disgusted her. The dark brown wooden body, the rugged porch, the roof designed to be slanted at one side, was nothing but a part of the house, which was a disgusting thing serving only in bringing back memories.
“Make it leave,” Lyssa whispered to an unseen being. She wrapped fingers into her hair, cupping her palms against her temples, shaking her head as a distraction. The feeling rising up in her throat made her feel dizzy, hot, cold, and nauseated at the same time.
Lyssa shrieked at the grass that her legs rested on: “Stop! I don't want it, I don't want it!” She felt her head pound. She heard her own squealing words fill the air, piercing through her ears painfully.
The house didn't leave, no matter how many times she demanded. Maybe she was demanding her mind or maybe some other being, some other person who she knew was there.
“Shh…” the wind whispered in her ears, cooing as gently as a warm kiss on the cheek.
“I'm here.”
Who was there? Whose voice was that? Why did Lyssa feel joy—no, it was more than that. It was delight. Why did she feel delight when the those words came to her ears?
“Daddy's here, Lyssie. Daddy's here.”
She drew in a breath and felt the comforting warmth of a hand, a familiar hand, pressing against her shoulder. Daddy was there, comforting her—loving her.
A gentle pull from his grip and she turned without hesitation, falling into his arms, breathing in the scent of his cloak, relishing in the feeling of embrace. She had missed the hugs and the kisses. She had missed her father's jokes and his horrible cooking. She had missed the simplicity of a life where, one day, she would be able to shy away from the long hugs like a normal teenager.
Lyssa felt the glow of happiness flicker deep within her rapidly thump-thump-thump-ing heart. She held onto the source of that happiness for dear life, her fingers clutching the body right there, right beside her.
Forever, Lyssa thought, I'll hold on forever.
Her father's warmth enveloped her whole body in a hug. She wrapped her arms around his neck as tightly as she could, her sadness mixing with happiness that gave birth to laughter. The laughter sounded more like tearless sobs, but yet they were a release. A wonderful release.
He was here. Yes, here. Here with her. She was his Lyssie, he was her Daddy, and she loved him.
“I love you, Daddy.”
Lyssa hugged her father until she felt him go limp. She buried herself into his warmth until it burned her.
Her father had missed so much… She would have to tell him everything. That would come next.
Her eyes opened.
“Daddy—”
And a pit of misery, cold misery, followed by flaming disbelief, formed deep within her soul.
The sensation of near-burns were forming on her shoulders. There was a woolen vest in her face, pressing down her nostrils, smothering her. Lyssa felt everything around her, yet she could only lay limp, crunched in the shape of a crescent moon.
Lyssa squeezed her eyes shut, hoping that her father coming alive behind her eyelids. No matter how many times she willed the vision on, there was only the flickering orange light in front of her, an extremely unwelcome distraction.
Was it all a cruel joke—rolling over too close to the fire and feeling the warmth, hugging the woolen vest and thinking that it was a person?
No. Lyssa had smelled her father. She had felt her father. She loved her father. It couldn't have been a dream.
Lyssa sat upright, stiffly sitting on the floor. Even the motion of hugging her vest close propelled a sense of soreness into her half-locked muscles.
Lyssa sat still for the longest time, a part of her waiting for something that inevidably would not come. Every second that passed, the denial would shrink away until it all but left. Slowly, the girl pulled her legs forward in a call for safety, wrapping her arms around them. She rocked her head forward until the soft touch of wool hit her nose, her forehead resting against the dip between her two knees, and breathed a ragged breath.
“Lyssa?”
She was confused for a moment, her gaze darting as if she thought that a monster would leap from the darkness. Then the voice came again, repeating her name until, finally, she remembered who was saying it.
Lyssa's dark, brown gaze trailed to the small bed at her side. She felt extremely drained, as if one movement was dependant on a million urgings from her brain. Her sight turned back to the flickering fire and she sat still, limp as if weighed down by sadness.
“Lyssa…” Rusl said, then stopped to yawn. He mumbled something and rubbed his messy hair.
Lyssa pulled her face out of her legs and said, “What is it?”
“Dream fuel,” Rusl grumbled, teetering as he stepped slowly out of bed. He looked at Lyssa with sleepy eyes and yawned again.
“Right now?” Lyssa croaked, her quiet voice brandishing a forced, weathered tone. Rusl stared at her for a few seconds before nodding. In answer, Lyssa shrugged dismissively, gesturing towards the place where her sturdy, small leather pack had been.
“Lyssa, I can't find it.”
She sighed, turning her head to the direction of Rusl's sleepy, childish words. One of Lyssa's hands twitched before moving to her mass of red hair, which she rubbed diligently. Then she asked Rusl, “Did you try looking on the other side?”
Rusl moaned in reply, flopping down flat on his stomach beside her. He pressed his head into the creaking wooden floor, muffling his next words: “I'm too hungry.”
Lyssa heard the begging for argument deep within Rusl's bored voice, but she just couldn't bring herself to acknowledge it. She wanted him to leave her alone. She wanted to zone into the crackle of ablaze firewood. Most of all, she wanted her father.
Lyssa swallowed quickly, a salty lump rising in her throat. It had become so very alien that she felt scared of it. Gnawing ferociously at her cracked lower lip, she ignored his gesture by simply feeling for the thick leather strap. Her hand reaching it, Lyssa pulled the leather up from an entanglement of her long sleeved shirt, and dropped it onto Rusl's head.
“Wha—?”
Lyssa groaned after a few more moments. She felt Rusl staring at her, and imagined him asking questions in his head, wondering what was wrong.
He still wasn't leaving. Instead, he kept staring at her in that curious, questioning way.
“What now, Rusl?” she asked him quietly, her voice dry and listless. Then, when she got no answer, Lyssa turned her head towards his chocolate brown eyes.
Rusl tilted his head very slightly, wondering why Lyssa was acting so unusual. She didn't have that fire, something that frightened him. Usually, Lyssa's fire was in her stature, in her eyes, and in her words especially, but now the only fire that Rusl saw was her hair.
“I can't open it,” Rusl moaned mischeviously. In a dramatic gesture, he slapped a hand over his forehead.
Rusl couldn't believe it. His eyes widened at the noise of slight movement and his hand immediately unglued itself from his face. When the next dim flicker of firelight came his way, he saw the pack—opened. Opened. It surprised Rusl so much that he thought his jaw hit the floor.
What in the world was wrong with her? Had she gone completely, totally insane? Had she hit het head? Was she sad? Was she angry? Was she scared? Was she regretting something? Or was she plotting to kill him? Whatever it was, Lyssa wasn't there—not his Lyssa. Not the Lyssa that he teased and bullied. Not the Lyssa that had given him that bite mark. Not the Lyssa who he tried to despise because she was someone that he wanted to be.
Stressed, Rusl took a chunk of dried meat strips, and ate. His whole being fought with hunger, sleepiness, and confusion. The whole time that he ate, Rusl couldn't stop stealing glares towards Lyssa. They were probably longer than he had thought, but when he stared at her form, crunched in a tight ball, he couldn't bring himself to care.
For the first time in his life, Rusl realized something: He wanted Lyssa to punch him square in the face and get mad. He always had—because it was… fun. It gave him something to look forward to, even though he had been cruel to get it out of her. Forcing those thoughts away, he added, At least yell at me a bit.
After the longest time of thinking, Rusl felt something scratch at his tonsils. He had forgotten to swallow, but when he tried to, it all got stuck as a huge glob in his throat. Not for the first time, he was on the verge of choking. Instead, his eyes bugged out and he coughed like a maniac.
For a very long time, Lyssa stared back at Rusl, watching as he fought to keep food from going into his lungs. In sudden realization, she screeched, “Oh God!” and proceeded to slap him—none to gently—on the back.
Gosh, she's heavyhanded, was all that Rusl could think until, finally, the ordeal was over. At least his sister, who had dealt with him eating too fast, always patted him gently…
“Idiot,” Lyssa murmured, her hand still raised. She saw the slight grin on Rusl's face that said: I was scared for a second, but I'm just going to play that off. Lyssa felt angry about that, mostly because she'd been scared, too—scared for an idiot. Her way of “playing it off” was a bit different than Rusl's.
Decisively, Lyssa rose her hand a few inches higher. Her arm muscles tensed and a deep frown came to her lips. Once Rusl was drawing in a breath, she slapped the hand down upon his back. He seemed to vibrate from the movement, and so did her hand, which also went red and shot with needles pain. The pain wasn't exactly pain right then, but more of a twisted release.
The incredibly satistfying sound coming from his shaking chest filled the air, louder than the pop of firewood.
“L-Lyssa—” Rusl sputtered, scarcely able to fathom the girl's strength, “You can stop now.”
He turned his head and saw Lyssa's eyes, which scared—no, unnerved him in that familiar way. They were filled with a split second of empowerment.
“Lyssa…? Don't—!”
A sharp pain, which he partly expected, jumped into his left shoulder. Rusl flinched immediately, a silent yelp coming out of his mouth without his consent. He wanted to cradle his arm, but something else distracted him.
It was the rush of recognition that came over Lyssa's face, recognition filled with such sadness. Rusl watched for a moment, surprised at this show of emotion, until she looked away. He'd always thought that, with Lyssa, she was either angry or an obnoxious, “emotionless” introvert. Maybe he was wrong?
Rusl didn't know the details, but he did know that he wanted to cheer Lyssa up. How ironic. He wanted to make her, of all people, happy so that she could pay him back with grumpiness, a temper, and whatever else was in store—the good and the bad.



I can't keep up with sadness for too long. I'm naturally a very bubbly girl, so I had to do something to lighten up the mood a bit. :3

^*embarrassedcoughcough* This got lost on the last page.

I absolutely love characters that involve those kind of background stories. :3 As long as they're not impossibly sad, or Mary Sue-ish...

[Rivkah]

So I've had this idea while listening to a song. And I want to know your opinions.
So these two girls, from two different sides of the social pole - meaning one of them is a popular cheerleader and the other is your classic loner, band religious kind of chick. {Don't get me wrong, I was in band myself}. They get stuck together working on a project. So, of course you can tell that it doesn't go over well and the popular girl is stalking away, walking across the street, and a car comes jumping over the curb. Terrified she freezes, and the band-geek shoves her out of the way. The bandie gets hit, but she's touching the popular girl whens he does. And somehow, her "existence" meaning her brain and thoughts, etc, are propelled into the popular girl. So the popular girl and the band geek are stuck in the same body.
Any critique? I'm not sure if I'm going to do this and the plot line isn't really fleshed out, so I can't really provide more detail than that. The title would probably be the popular girl's name.

I absolutely love that idea. My advice would to use different ways to portray that the bandie is in the cheerleader such as the fact the cheerleader has to deal with the conflicts of the soul/emotions of the bandie fighting with her own. c:

[breath.]

I like the idea maybe you could call it

"Meeting ??????" Then the characters name? Just a suggestion