# Her Agony, An Experimental Short (400 words)



## Gaurav (Mar 21, 2014)

*To all my readers, please read the story twice, you will enjoy it even better.*

"Wake up," I yelled. He slapped me. I was silenced, yet again. Everyday I tolerate this misery but he doesn't care.

"What the hell, its 9am, why didn't you wake me up?" he frowned looking at me.

"Come on, I must leave, its already late," he said, putting his anger aside.

His day was quite nightmarish and he vented out his frustration on me. What does he think he is? Doesn't provide me energy, doesn't listen to my wake up alarm, but expects me to complete all his tasks in a whisker. He has been with me for over a year but our relationship has been through turmoil.

Exactly a year ago, he was standing in my shop, when he first looked at me. 'Beautiful,' he remarked. Since then, I have been by his side just like a toy in his pocket. I ditched all my friends just to be with him. I was commited to this relationship, but he never really loved me. He doesn't care about me. Perhaps because I am losing my charisma, with every passing day.

May be he has found someone better than me? Why should I bother? I try satiating each of his demands and commands, to the best of my abilities. I keep myself up to date everyday. I try correcting my flaws, rectifying my mistakes but to no avail. Certainly he has lost his interest in me.

These days, even his friends make fun of me. He doesn't even bother protecting me. They sledge me and he joins them. Whats wrong with these men? Why can't he accept me with all my flaws? He ain't flawless either.Though he pretends it more often or not.

The agony of my mother might soon be mine. The pain of been thrown out of your house is unbearable. Gosh! The technology might work for humans but it gives nightmares to all the mobiles like me!

A new model is released and these humans forget us. No strings attached relationship, may be. We have better humility than them, for sure.

*So guys please tell me whether you liked this no strings attached relationship between a man and his cell phone.*

Leave a comment or review! Remember


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## Plasticweld (Mar 21, 2014)

I like it, a creative way to look at something we see every day. I think the only paragraph that does not quite work is "The Agony of my mother" which no matter how many times I read it did not click with me. I wonder if you even need it? Am I missing something?


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## Gaurav (Mar 22, 2014)

Actually the whole story is personified. Since the mobile can talk in my story I have also created her mother who was thrown out after getting old and useless. That's what I wanted to say through her narration.


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## InkwellMachine (Mar 22, 2014)

Could have been a nice read, but as it stands it was... clunky. The syntax was off in a rather big way.

A few simple examples of this:
-The dialogue is formatted strangely between the first few lines. You don't need to start a new paragraph if it's the same person speaking; just break up the spoken segments with actions.
-"Has had turmoil" is a really weird phrasing for that expression. Usually people will say "Our relationship has been in turmoil," or "has gone through turmoil."
-"A new piece comes in the market" implies that the "new piece" (which might serve you better as "new model") comes into the store of its own accord, when really it's being delivered. You'd want to say "A new piece *enters* the store," or more ideally "new model is released."

There are also a lot of issues with commas and redundancy. Sentences drag on in places where you could have ended them comfortably. I don't mean to rail on your or anything. This is certainly an interesting concept, although it's not the first time someone has personified an inanimate object and revealed at the end that the narrator isn't alive as a "twist." As a matter of fact, someone else even posted a piece with a mannequin as a narrator here on the forums not too long ago. It's in the latest LM competition thread.

Anyway, I'm straying from the point. I think you need to do more reading. Find books with clear and concise first-person narration, and pay attention to the syntax (if you're unaware, "syntax" is basically the structure of the sentence). Honestly, there's no better school for fledgling writers than the pages of a good book.


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## Kepharel (Mar 22, 2014)

Hi Gaurav,

A nice read that packed a lot into a relatively few words.  An eye for the different and the absurd is far more important, in my view, than syntax and grammar.  A manual on programming in Excel will have 800 pages of perfect and very informative prose, but none of your originality   Have fun writing for now, worry about the grammar later.


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## Gaurav (Mar 22, 2014)

InkwellMachine said:


> Could have been a nice read, but as it stands it was... clunky. The syntax was off in a rather big way.
> 
> A few simple examples of this:
> -The dialogue is formatted strangely between the first few lines. You don't need to start a new paragraph if it's the same person speaking; just break up the spoken segments with actions.
> ...



Thanks a lot for your reviewing my story. I have made most of the corrections as mentioned. Hope the story looks better 

Also, you can see that English is not my native language so certain errors are quite natural.


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## InkwellMachine (Mar 22, 2014)

Gaurav said:


> Thanks a lot for your reviewing my story. I have made most of the corrections as mentioned. Hope the story looks better
> 
> Also, you can see that English is not my native language so certain errors are quite natural.


I didn't know English was a secondary language to you. In that case, well done. It can be hard to grasp the subtleties of another tongue.

Keep at it.


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## Gaurav (Mar 22, 2014)

Thanks!


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## ShadowEyes (Mar 23, 2014)

I think it's a great idea. It's almost like a mystery. You put the gun, or the cell phone, on the table and we have to figure out what it is. Is this also a bit self-reflective? For what you're trying to do most (which I assume is to be surprising), you do it well. I might say that it's not original, but frankly, I've never read a story from an inanimate object's point of view. So it's functional, clever, and it might strikes some people as personally interesting.


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## Gaurav (Mar 23, 2014)

ShadowEyes said:


> I think it's a great idea. It's almost like a mystery. You put the gun, or the cell phone, on the table and we have to figure out what it is. Is this also a bit self-reflective? For what you're trying to do most (which I assume is to be surprising), you do it well. I might say that it's not original, but frankly, I've never read a story from an inanimate object's point of view. So it's functional, clever, and it might strikes some people as personally interesting.



Actually I have been writing only satires. This was my attempt to break my shackles. The main idea of the story is to shock the reader who feels the story is a tragedy after reading initial paragraph. It can also be perceived ( Barring few lines which I will soon edit) as a tragedy if mobile is considered symbolic. But that was not the aim of the story. I wanted to write something funny and different and I hope you enjoyed it..


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## ShadowEyes (Mar 25, 2014)

No matter what you write, _write_. That's what my mentor always told me. Just write. And when you're done writing, write some more. So that when you don't write, you feel out of place that day. That's why I'm using this site, like I said in my introduction. So when I read that you're writing to "break out of [your] shackles," I wonder what you're gonna do. It's great that you're pushing yourself.

You seem to have a gentle touch with your writing. It's not off-putting; it's honest. It's something everyone can relate to.


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## Gaurav (Mar 26, 2014)

Thanks for your compliments!  I am currently working on my first novel which is an adaptation of my first short story. And obviously it is a satire!


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## Trygve (Mar 27, 2014)

I think you meant to say "being" here:

"The agony of my mother might soon be mine. The pain of been thrown out of your house is unbearable."   

Putting your stories out there for critique is the best way to fix any usage that may sound clunky to native English speakers.  When I was living in Italy, I asked my friends to correct me whenever I said something that could have been expressed in a better way.  I was corrected often. I think I learned. Then I came back to the States and allowed it all to atrophy.


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## wainscottbl (Apr 1, 2014)

Sorry but I did not get it was a cell phone talking until you is outright. I was thinking this was some girl that was being neglected and abused by her boyfriend, some girl that listens to Taylor Swift and expects to find the answers in her music. Now that I see it is a satire where a cell phone is talking I will read it again. In that context I like it but you need to work on your dialogue. There is not absolute rule for dialogue, but there are some rules which cannot be broken like:

"What the hell, its 9am, why didn't you wake me up?" he frowned looking at me.

Question mark after "hell". Upper case the new sentence of course. And period after 9:00 AM.

Of course maybe that was just you being in a hurry. Not to sound like I am nitpicking things like that but when they are so obvious I have to point them out. And speaking of obvious I feel like a dunce not realizing it was a satire now that I read it after you told me. The things that make it clear it is not about a girl crying about her boyfriend are obvious now. I was reading it like that and thinking it sounded strange. 

But I think any other flaws have been pointed out.


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## thepancreas11 (Apr 1, 2014)

You really shot yourself in the foot with that spoiler alert. Honestly, I spent the whole time more focused on the twist I saw coming than on the writing. When you say something like, "Look out, there's a twist ending!", the story becomes less surprising. Think of how a joke becomes less funny when you tell people, "Here comes the punchline!"

I did read it a second time, and when I did, I found that there was no indication of what the object was. I thought it was a car until you said it was a cellphone; I just couldn't come up with a reason why the car should be waking him up. You might need to write a little more just to tease more out of this. If nothing else, you need an actual punchline, something that definitely says, "This here's a phone", so we don't have to speculate.

That being said, I love the idea. If you're going to make something longer out of this, you're definitely going to have an uphill battle to make it interesting, but there is certainly something to the necessity of technology in human culture these days. Have you ever seen the movie "Her" which recently came out and reminds me of this story? There's a lot of depth there to the character that interacts with his computer in that movie, a lot of motivation to be swept up in the way of gadgets and gizmos. You should definitely explore whatever reasons this man has to be obsessed with his phone.

For someone who's writing in a not first language, Bravo! You're definitely an ambitious and creative person, so keep posting and we'll do our best to help you.


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## Deb47 (Apr 8, 2014)

Neat little story! It's an interesting topic that I think could be further explored. 

Though, I do agree with some here that towards the end you could make it much clearer that you are talking about a cell phone. I can see how someone could miss that without you telling us.


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## 30Drummer30 (Apr 8, 2014)

Grammatically it was fine for not being your first language. If you don't mind me asking what is your native tongue? Because of this story I will always look at my cell phone differently.


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## TheGreatKhan (Apr 12, 2014)

Excellent piece given that English is not your first language!


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## Gaurav (May 1, 2014)

30Drummer30 said:


> Grammatically it was fine for not being your first language. If you don't mind me asking what is your native tongue? Because of this story I will always look at my cell phone differently.



I'm from Mumbai, India. My mother tongue is Marathi and native language is Hindi.


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## W.Goepner (May 3, 2014)

Gaurav said:


> *To all my readers, please read the story twice, you will enjoy it even better.*
> 
> "Wake up," I yelled. He slapped me. I was silenced, yet again. Everyday I tolerate this misery but he doesn't care.
> 
> ...



Great work. In the beginning I thought another, "Sleeping With The Enemy" sort of thing. I actually thought humanistic android by the last line until You told me Cell phone. Keep on writing.


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## RubyEclipse (May 15, 2014)

It was a very funny read the second time round... but the problem is just that, it was funny the second time round, not the first. Once I knew where the perspective was coming from I enjoyed it but the first time round I felt like I was just reading another self pitying woman in a bad relationship. I get the point of twist but if you hadn't given the warning of it coming at the beginning I probably wouldn't have read past the first couple of sentences if I'm honest.


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## wmgardner (May 31, 2014)

"Commands and Demands" a little bit repetitive, I would suggest cutting that down. Also, I  suggest looking at paragraph five again. Their meeting seems a little abrupt--try to go into more detail, give the reader a little more information. You can make this story longer, if you do it may cause a little less confusion; if it weren't for the blurb at the bottom I wouldn't have known you were talking about a cell phone. However, you did a very good job working with a foreign language.


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## Gaurav (Jun 7, 2014)

RubyEclipse said:


> It was a very funny read the second time round... but the problem is just that, it was funny the second time round, not the first. Once I knew where the perspective was coming from I enjoyed it but the first time round I felt like I was just reading another self pitying woman in a bad relationship. I get the point of twist but if you hadn't given the warning of it coming at the beginning I probably wouldn't have read past the first couple of sentences if I'm honest.





I had planned it just like that. A dull and boring story turns dramatically into a funny one. That's the reason why I mentioned 'Read it twice' in my author's note.


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## GummyBear (Jun 24, 2014)

To start with I thought, _Where is this going?_  And I have to say, I really enjoyed it.  Not what I was expecting.


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## dagrar (Jun 25, 2014)

After observing peoples unfortunate relationships with their phones, this story hits the mark.


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## MizzouRam (Jun 25, 2014)

It's okay. There is something about 1st person/past tense that doesn't sound natural to me JMO. Thanks for sharing.


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## LunarFuror (Jul 1, 2014)

Really enjoyed this though I wish you'd left the bold out of the bottom out, I felt bluntly putting your plot out like that lessened the "wow" of the end just a little. This was well written in my opinion, and I liked how you slowly peeled back the twist in a way, and how well you personified the phone the way you did giving it feeling, I legitimately felt bad for my phone.


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