Hey Kathie,
I saw your suitcase on the Anniversary Review page and thought I'd drop in to honor this occasion, your 13th WDC Anniversary!
Your story rings so true for many people in this world. Young love found, then lost so quickly. I'm amazed at how someone can die so quickly. One moment they're here, the next, gone.
While I enjoyed your story, I felt throughout most of it that you were reciting it to me, not that I was reading it. I guess that's what you could call telling, not showing. I know you've heard that term many times before, so let me explain why I say it was mostly telling, with just a little showing. When you 'show' in a story, your readers are involved emotionally. Tears come to their eyes, they're afraid to put the book/story down because they don't want to lose the moment. They are so caught up in it that they lost all track of time. This didn't happen hear, but the story did keep my interest, I did want to see where Beth's journey would take her.
When you tell a story, it's as if the reader is listening instead of being involved. That's what I meant by my opening comment in the previous paragraph. There are so many places you could show more, but it would take a lot of re-writing/editing. Let me see if I can find a small part of it, show you the original text, and a suggested text that hopefully is more show than tell.
Your version.... One time three girls caught her from behind and stuffed her body in a trash can. They rolled the can down a hill.
"That's were you belong!"
Their laughter hurt and tears stung her cheeks.
it was frightening; the dark, the smell and not knowing where she would end up.
My suggestion.... One day while she was walking home from school, three girls came upon her from behind. Two of them grabbed her arms while the third one came in front of her. Leaning in close, so close Beth could smell her bad breath, she said, "You pee'd yourself all over the gym floor last week. I wonder if we can get you to do it again."
Walking across the street, she picked up an aluminum trash can. "C'mon girls, let see how well she does rolling down the hill!" Beth shrieked and thrashed about as the three of them picked her up and roughly stuffed her body inside latching the lid with the handles. Beth could feel them walking a short distance carrying the can. The next things she knew, the can, with her inside, was tipped on its side. She felt a sudden jolt as one of them kicked the can, then it started rolling down a hill.
See/feel the difference? I am not going to go through and detail minor errors I saw in the story, other than the one below. The story is fine as it is, but I really feel it needs to involve a reader more. I do have a couple of additional suggestions also.
1. They had left me alone to go to a movie. It was a "Apollo 13". I remember cops coming to the door. I coould describe everything in detail about that night, even the smells."
2. Double space between paragraphs or with every hard return. It just looks better, and makes it easier to read on line.
3. If you like, use the {indent} command to indent the first line of each paragraph. I've done that here in each of my paragraphs. Again, it's just something that helps the look of the story.
Overall, a very interesting story that just needs a little editing TLC.
Sum1
 WDC POWER RAIDER
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