Response to "Kids" by Alyson Smith

Alyson-

This story is about teenage girls at church camp.

The things about this story is that there is really no conflict Jenny is dealing with except for her judgment on the girls she is rooming with at camp.  She never changes throughout the story.  I feel like you could condense all of her watching and judging how they do things to a paragraph or two because it gets cliche.  It seems that things happen so Jenny can judge how stupid it is; like that is the only reason the story keeps going. I feel like it gets in the way of Jenny's character development.  It just gets really negative and Jenny's emotion never rises above that judgmental sarcasm.  I also found that I couldn't keep any of the girls's names straight.  I didn't know how many there actually were and if there was anyone else at the camp besides them.  I also didn't believe Jenny was their age.

I think you can have a good story.  I like how you describe the girls getting ready in the morning, like the girl whose hair looked like a desert bush.  I like the comedy in the images you create and I would like to see that continued.  I think you have an interesting situation of girls that go to church camp that are obviously not Christian, or I guess they are painted as hypocrites here.  I think if you want to keep them at church camp then make that more significant.  I think it can have the same effect though, and a less offensive one, if you put it at a normal camp.