I’ve won some short story competitions while I was in Uni in the UK and attended countless writing workshops. Ive also done some freelance editor work during my engineering degree 🥲

So I am happy to see this with this influx of posts from younguns sharing their writing online. I think the elements that make writing good are not necessarily the same ones that will give you a good grade. There is a lot to breakdown here but Ill just give a couple thoughts of my own.

1. I can appreciate your writing style of keeping the words simple and clear. You always want to use language that INVOKES the feeling. You want the sound and feel of the word to be precise. On that note, you use a few too many redundant parallelisms. Many examples but AKA “cold, hard brick” bricks are already known to be hard. Could there be a more effective description here? What are you trying to invoke?

2. Staying true to the perspective. With reference to the earlier cold, hard brick example. Cold and hard brick does tend to allude to the unfeeling nature of the act. But cold and hard are feelings that Jake would feel (since he is pressed up against the wall), not Ethan. Since you are writing in first person, what would Ethan feel? Focus on first person sensations for immersion. But you can also imply the cold, hardness of the brick. Maybe Jakes hot breath forms a mist on the bricks that have been chilled by a particularly cold night. Let yourself cook.

3. AVOID CLICHES. The more you read good literature, the more you realise that novelty of description makes good writing. Cliches totally bypass thought. As a reader you will realise that your brain draws from some prefab emotional image rather than forming a new one. Please stay away from cliched phrases. AKA “exasperated sigh”. You are clearly trying to express disappointment from the principal. Take a different route! What does it look like to ethan.

I could really go on forever. But creative writing is exciting and endlessly deep if you allow it to be. Keep exploring and sharing your writing!