After all, I asked for it.

[TomLanford]

Before reading the first part of this story, please know that it is the first story that I ever published and I am just getting started with writing. The following story is 100% fictional and should be treated as such. Having said that, please enjoy and any feedback is welcome. 

I have just been through the most embarrassing moment of my life, and it would be easy to blame my mother who definitively played a big part in it, but I do have to take ownership as well, after all, it is what I asked for. 

My name is Nathalie, and I am 24 years old and currently doing my master’s in computer science at the University of Birmingham, while studying I am still living at home to save money on rent. Actually if I want to write down what happened completely I can't just put it down, I want to have a complete record on how everything happened that led me to that specific moment. 

The beginning of this story starts, when I was eighteen and in the last years of high school. I was never one of the most popular girls, but I had a good group of friends, and I was even voted second for Prom-queen due to my good looks. One might consider it bad manners to refer to oneself as good looking. And I do agree that this sometimes can come across wrong, but I want to give a complete picture. I am 165cm, have green eyes and long brown hair. Doing sports has always been one of my favourite ways of spending free time, be it in the gym or running outside, I enjoyed most of all activities. 
All in all, I had a pretty normal life and even started dating when suddenly my parents got pregnant again and had my little brother Chris. I have always been proud that my parents choose to have me. When I was sixteen, they sat me down and talked to me about how they had troubles conceiving and that they used some help in order to get pregnant. It made me feel special and loved. would think that one would be ecstatic when getting a younger sibling but for me it was the complete opposite, I can’t quite explain it, I have never hogged the attention of adults or anything remotely similar to that, but I did really like my life. It had a clear structure and Chris changed that. Writing this out, does make me feel terrible and I sincerely feel bad, but I can’t change my feelings, even though I wished they were different. 

When Chris was born, I started acting up, I broke up with most of my social circle, I even stopped dating the boy that I had been seeing for the last two months, stayed out past my curfew and basically did everything that defied my parent’s expectations. To their credit they did let me act out for a while, but after they saw that I wasn’t returning to normal, they took me to a therapist to talk about what’s going on. The first few session were me being completely closed off, not answering, I just didn’t want to be there. It got better. I don’t know why and can’t remember the question that finally let me to open up, but somehow my therapist got through to me and it just snapped. I think I just talked for over an hour, unable to stop, luckily, I had the last session of the day, because I really don’t think I could have stopped talking at that time. I talked about everything, my plan in life, my feeling towards my baby brother and how I am hurt by the love that my parents show to him instead of just me anymore, feeling excluded from the family that I considered to be mine. I later found out that having those feeling is actually not that uncommon for someone who has been an only child for a while. They even have a name for this phenomenon but can’t remember it at the moment. 
With my permission Thomas, which is the name of the therapist, my parents, and I sat together, and they just listened to me expressing those feelings. I think I have never been more nervous then right before this session, I imagined all the different scenarios of how my parents will react to me, if they will hate or shame me for of my feelings. But nothing like this happened. I can’t 100% recall the whole session but I will never forget the feeling of relief that I had right afterwards. During this session Thomas gave us both a homework exercise, my parents had to write down special things they could do with me that they enjoy and that would strengthen our relationship, and I had to write down five scenarios were I felt disconnected and not included. 

The list, that’s the name I gave to the paper where I had to write down five things that made me feel excluded. It was easier to write my whole bachelor thesis then to start with that assignment. I thought that I could come up with at least 50 different examples but sitting in front of the paper, not a single one came to mind. That’s actually a lie. I had one concrete example, but I just couldn’t put it down. It would be to embarrassing. 

The List: 

1.
2.
3.
4. 
5. 

The list stayed empty, it stayed like that for nearly a week when it was time to get together again and talk about the things that we came up. I clearly remember sitting in the waiting room, having arrived earlier than my parents, and contemplating if I should put on, my one item. I nearly didn’t. I don’t know what changed my mind, it must have been the session before, the feeling of trust and love that I got from my parents, or maybe it was something different that I just can’t name, but I did put one example down. 

The List: 

1.    Diaper change. 

 

[Apache Raccoon]

Good start, I'm curios to see where this goes.

My only criticism is the lack of paragraphs making it hard to read. 

This part in particular is the worst offender. 

38 minutes ago, TomLanford said:

When Chris was born, I started acting up, I broke up with most of my social circle, I even stopped dating the boy that I had been seeing for the last two months, stayed out past my curfew and basically did everything that defied my parent’s expectations. To their credit they did let me act out for a while, but after they saw that I wasn’t returning to normal, they took me to a therapist to talk about what’s going on. The first few session were me being completely closed off, not answering, I just didn’t want to be there. It got better. I don’t know why and can’t remember the question that finally let me to open up, but somehow my therapist got through to me and it just snapped. I think I just talked for over an hour, unable to stop, luckily, I had the last session of the day, because I really don’t think I could have stopped talking at that time. I talked about everything, my plan in life, my feeling towards my baby brother and how I am hurt by the love that my parents show to him instead of just me anymore, feeling excluded from the family that I considered to be mine. I later found out that having those feeling is actually not that uncommon for someone who has been an only child for a while. They even have a name for this phenomenon but can’t remember it at the moment.  

 I had to copy and paste it into Word and add in paragraphs myself so I could actually read it.

That's about my only gripe though, I look forward to chapter 2

[Babypants]

It's a promising story line, but AR is right about the paragraphs.  When there is no dialog and a chapter is pitched from a single point of view, the paragraphs can become unmanageable.  I broke the one AR references at "the first few sessions," then at "it got better."  You could also split it at "I later found out," although this one is negotiable.  Just keep in mind that, in general, stories favor short paragraphs, not long ones.

You can also tighten up the text and make it flow more freely.  For example, "the first few sessions" should read "the first few sessions with Thomas."  Then you can delete "which is the name of the therapist," which really makes a mess out of the sentence in which it is lodged.

Going forward, you have to decide whether to write from a single point of view, or give other characters such as the parents voices of their own.  Since this is your first go at this sort of thing, I'd recommend keeping it simple, at least in the beginning.  So, if you want more than one narrative point of view, you could give the next chapter over to the parents, and let them talk it over (dialogue) in the privacy of their bedroom.  This would also give you an opportunity to tell us more about them so that they are no longer generic "parents."  This opens the doorway, if you choose to go there, to writing later chapters with real interaction between your characters.

Writing is fun, but there is a pretty steep learning curve.  Don't get discouraged.  Keep at it, and you'll master the tricks of the trade in due course.  

[aldl4811]

Good start!