Student Publishing Program ::

Emma A.

The Short Story

The blank page in front of her was the scariest thing in the world. How could she ever manage to write that story? What was worse was that the story didn’t have any guidelines; it could be about anything she wanted. So naturally, when she could choose a topic from everything, she couldn’t pick a topic about anything. She began a story about a teenage girl who hated her life. She wrote a page. Happy with the progress, she read over her work. It was all crap and sounded completely melodramatic. I mean, how realistic could a story be that had its main character sitting in the corner of an empty room reminiscing about the good old days? Why the room was empty she hadn’t quite worked out yet. She ripped it out of her binder and crumpled it up. Great, now down in front of her was another blank page, her favorite! Her next story was a love letter from a man named Danny to a woman named Julie about their heart-wrenching break up. She thought it was good until she realized she had used lines like, “I will love you forever” and “You will always be in my heart.” Crap, couldn’t she write anything that sounded slightly realistic and that wasn’t incredibly clichéd? Apparently not. She ripped up that piece of paper and looked down to find yet another blank page. She was starting to hate blank paper more than short story writing.

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