First Impression:
An emotional story that deals with a tough topic of abuse but in a strong way because unlike many (unfortunately) she leaves him. Is a bit passive which in part may be because we are being told about the relationship that was in the past instead of being shown it. But overall, decent writing to showcase something that isn't always easy to handle.


Prompt:
Course since you talked about it in chat, I knew that you weren't going for comedy and that's fine. I can see the influence of the prompt and that's all I really ask for because even though the prompt was to have the romance movie be what ruins the relationship this is close enough. It would have had more of a connection if something in a romance movie made her leave but that might have pushed it too much into being unrealistic sounding and deterred from the story.


Characters/Story:
The character in focus is the female as the abusive boyfriend is only talked about by the main character, though it is in third person. We don't get to know her name in this short piece. I would have liked to have more description to get to know the main character more, or at least have been given a name. I hate when even first person doesn't tell us the main character's first name because I feel the name is an important part of their identity. Also, when you work on showing more than telling in a story, I think you will be able to create an even stronger story.


Other Notes:
Nice work at getting a topic that some would struggle with and making it easy enough to read. While there is room to grown and develop (as there always should be) this is a good point to jump off from when working to learn more about writing.

One of the common things you will hear in writing advice is "show don't tell" but for a simple phrase it is definitely easier said than done. The trouble with trying to convey something that happened in the past while having the character move forward is that talking about it comes of as telling. There isn't much description, the voice gets more passive, and it lacks an emphasis that showing would give the story. Course the problem with showing more is that it tends to increase the word count, so that makes it harder to do in flash fiction or very short stories, but it will eventually make for better writing. It's something most of us have to develop as writers (I'm still working on it too).

You did have some really good points that some wouldn't have thought of, like the part about the little bit above her lip getting red. Stuff like that will make your story stand out and easier to visualize for the reader.

Passive and weak phrasing are the other thing to work on (as many of us need to work on them in writing). An example is near the beginning you have "was supposed to be" "was" is often a sign of passive voice. The sentence after has "seemed" and that is an example of a weak word (one I use too often in my writing and am working on fixing too). If edited, changing things like the passive parts and adding more visual/senses to the story to bring it more to life, you could have a really good piece.



Thanks for your entry. Good Luck!