(URGENT NEED FEEDBACK ASAP)
The prompt is to write a 500-750 narrative about any important or memorable event that does not include a moral and is also original (it can't be cliche). Writing isn't my best subject so please give me helpful feedback because my teacher grades really hard . Thank you!
*For any grammatical errors, such as sent. 5, please tell me and give me feedback on which words better replace the word that is used incorrectly.
I thought dads were a daughter's first love. Dads were their watchdogs who'd pull the "I'm-gonna-beat-him-up" phrase when boys were mentioned, their defense attorneys even in times when both knew mom was right, and their shoulder to lean on when obstacles arose. Dad. Her teacher, her role model, her best friend. But life was simply jacked up, and my childish world was too ignorant to have realized this. It was only the typical 7 year-old scenarios where everything was perfect, and thus, my dream land shattered when divorce decided to surprise me with another gift of his, my stepdad. He was that classic stepdad you'd see in movies except that he was eviler than Hannibal Lecter. Yes, worse than the worst and it was safe to say I hated him.
Home was no longer that refreshing feeling of a cold shower on a sunny day. Every day, somewhere along my 12 year-old summer routine of getting up, eating breakfast, and chilling on the couch, it would be disturbed by the carping of my stepdad. If I forgot to fix my bed, he would nag. If I didn't wash dishes for one day, he would nag. He would find any mistake to keep his record going, and today, while I was watching T.V. in the living room after my Tuesday breakfast, he decided to nag about how I forgot to sweep the floors.
"Yesterday, I told you to clean the house before I came home. That meant the living room, the kitchen, and everything within those spaces, so what part of that did you not understand? You're a straight-A student! Quit acting stupid, and start applying what you do at school to home. You'd be getting F's if you were graded here..." he yelled.
Mistakes were inevitable, but he seemed to have never understood that. He treated me like I was a perfect being cast down from the heavens, and that constantly vexed me because it was idle to tell him my feelings. He was my stepdad. The one who grumbled 24/7 about my every flaw. The one who didn't care to think twice about whether the things he says will hurt me or not. To him, I was just a silhouette in a crowd of many; I was nothing.
"...Your sister plays on these floors too, but who gives a damn, right? You're not the one rolling in that crap..." he continued.
The words following his remark then blurred from my hearing. My fists loosened, my body boiled with this strange feeling, and my desire to speak plunged. No longer could I deal with how I wasn't the stepdaughter he envisioned. Once the talk ended, I went to my room, only to go to my bed. I was not angered, as usual, about what he had said. I was shocked. I was hurt. Who knew that someone you hated could ever strike a blow that hard. I thought their words didn't matter, but they did, and I sat there crying.
Afternoon then came, and my stepdad stopped by the edge of my doorway, merely staring directly into my puffy and bloodshot eyes.
He eventually murmured, "Scolding you to give you a hard time, right? I, too, was there, in your shoes, but the difference is..."
Then, as he tried to continue speaking, his voice cracked, and he looked away, as if to hide the shame and regret that mentally picked at him. Never had I seen him like this.
'I care' was all he managed to say; no longer were the words after that comprehensible, and the tears avalanching down his face were the only things spoken. However, there was no need for an apologetic talk. His cry said it all. He was sorry for the times he went overboard. All he wanted was to teach me lessons his parents didn't teach him growing up. The things he wished he could look back to. He didn't want me to end up like him; to struggle and figure things out for himself the way he did. Everything he did, he did it out of tough love, and I began to reminisce through all the times that I used to consider hell. All along, he was, my role model, my teacher, my best friend lurking within the shadows, and I did something I never thought I'd do in a million years:
"I'm sorry, Dad", I said and locked my arms around him.
Hi Dominic :-) I am wondering if you cannot better improve the beginning of your essay. It just seems to me that there was a total demonizing of your stepdad without any proper basis. As a teacher, I would look for an example of your relationship with your biological father first, up to the time of the divorce, prior to the introduction of your stepfather. I would also look for a less evil characterization of your step father other than Hannbal Lecter. Throughout the story, there was nothing there to indicate that he had the instincts of a madman, and a killer. He never laid a hand on you nor tried to do anything truly evil. So perhaps using Lecter is overkill in this case? Try to present a comparison of the two important men in your life. Represent how your father treated you in order to create a more believable influence when describing the ill treatment you got from your stepdad.
Throughout the hurtful words of your stepfather, I am wondering where your mother was? Surely she would not have allowed the continued attack on your person to the extent where you cried already. I think that in order to believe that your stepdad was evil personified, we need to see that your mother at least tried to defend you to no avail.
When you talk about the part where your stepfather talks to you about scolding you to give you a hard time, go back into his character. Make it more interesting. Sit down and talk to him. What was his background? Why did he not know any other way to treat you than to berate you with his words? Tell us where he is coming from when he says "I care."
If you complete the background and characterization of your stepfather in comparison with your father, then your narrative will be quite interesting and complete to read in my opinion. You can review your essay and try to cut down on some parts, possibly on the various berating events, since we need only the strongest berating event in this case, so that you can have extra words with which to better improve the presentation of the essay. After the comparison, then we can finally come to understand why you finally connected with him as "Dad". If you can clarify that you father abandoned you after the divorce, then maybe everything will make more sense. It is just difficult for me to understand, as the reader, why you did not have any biological parent coming forward to defend you in these instances. That is the only loophole that i see in your story. It is a plot hole that can still be addressed at this point.
