How or When

By Sam, Lyev, Justin, and Bash

Dystopian BM Final Draft

Comments (9)

Jalop Pewu (Student 2025)
Jalop Pewu

This was absolutely amazing. I loved this story. I was actually able to see what was written as I read, this story felt too good to just be an English project. I like how the POV switched every chapter. It was really creative. One technique I noticed was having a limited POV. Which is interesting because the characters know when (or how) they are going to die but it still feels unknown. Overall I loved your story and the message I got from this was precious time and knowledge.

Jonathan Cuthbertson Jr. (Student 2025)
Jonathan Cuthbertson Jr.

I really like the whole idea of writing from all different kinds of perspectives to show the wide variation of human behavior in society. This story definitely showed a wide choice of emotions that the characters were facing throughout the entire book. I also felt as though the whole idea of how time is so special and needs to be cherished more shaped this story. You guys really made sure to have the reader picture an image of everything that went on which made me never want to stop reading. Great work you guys!

Grant Keo (Student 2025)
Grant Keo

How or When

I think I can safely say that this story feels the most professional to me. I could genuinely feel the frustration the characters had being unable to communicate their fates to each other. Plot suggestions aside, I found the narration very descriptive and compelling to make me keep reading. The existential crises can be clearly known in the different first person views as they express their sorrows to the reader and go through the five stages of grief. The dramatic irony of knowing why each character thinks what they does, while being unable to read each other or tell each other is intriguing, if frustrating.

Spoiler: Very well planned

Eliza Cucchiara (Student 2025)
Eliza Cucchiara

This story was so detailed and intricate, and the ending was so well thought out! I noticed that you wrote it from different perspectives, which gave the reader more information than the characters had about why everyone was acting the way they did and how they were going to die. Still, I was so surprised in the end when they all died at the same time! I think that the deeper meaning is that sometimes it's better to not know things, and that humans are controlled by fear. I particularly thought Maggie's part represented really well what it would be like to find out what she found out.

Azaria Levites-Cohen (Student 2025)
Azaria Levites-Cohen

One technique that I enjoyed in this story was how you have very limited dialogue. This makes the story feel like you are getting the authentic feelings of the people in the story and they don't have to hide anything from anyone. I found the moments in the story where people find out how they die particularly interesting. They take the reader on a suspenseful journey. A message that I got from this story is that people tend to lose hope if they think that they have no chance of beating the odds.

Eliza Cucchiara (Student 2025)
Eliza Cucchiara

This story was so detailed and intricate, and the ending was so well thought out! I noticed that you wrote it from different perspectives, which gave the reader more information than the characters had about why everyone was acting the way they did and how they were going to die. Still, I was so surprised in the end when they all died at the same time! I think that the deeper meaning is that sometimes it's better to not know things, and that humans are controlled by fear. I particularly thought Maggie's part represented really well what it would be like to find out what she found out.

Conor Goldrick (Student 2025)
Conor Goldrick

First off, great story and I could visualize every part of it. I noticed that each chapter is a different perspective so we get the multiple point of views. I also notice that most of description is thought-based rather than physical. Based on the deeper meaning behind this story, that makes sense. This was definitely an emotional rollercoaster. From the beginning I knew that many conflicts would arise but the level at which the conflicts happened made the story much more emotional. I do think that the different perspectives helped with the emotion in the story because we got to hear  everyone's inner thoughts and how they were actually thinking rather than other characters telling us. The deeper meaning was definitely around how time is the most influential factor in life. Without a limit on time, there is no need to do anything but when time is limited, the need for doing is elevated. In other words, time is precious and the not knowing is what keeps us going everyday.

Levanah Cohen (Student 2025)
Levanah Cohen

I like how each character gets their own chapter and how it's told from their perspective. It's interesting to see the pov of a situation from one character, but then a different pov of the same situation, but from another character. This story is really interesting and I can really feel the dystopian vibes and how on edge each of the characters are.

Thorne Englander (Student 2025)
Thorne Englander

this was really well written with a really cool concept. for what was essentially a pov tiktok it had an amazing amount of depth to its looks into peoples daily lives. each of the scenes had a sense of looming dread or melancholy, and the idea that your life ends at 13 was really well communicated. I felt kind of let down in the end with the dear reader piece, i would have loved to read the story and figure out that these two perspectives happened at once instead of being told outright though.