Submitting a gay themed story to a writing contest

So I wrote this short story about a kid who comes out to someone at his school, and I think it's really good, but it's bothering me now. There's this writing festival/contest for high schoolers coming up that I really want to enter a story in, and I want to enter my gay themed story, but I'm nervous about doing so. I'm basically afraid that I'll be criticized for doing it, and I'll lose horribly in the contest due to the theme of my story. It's a very subtle coming out story, but I'm just scared I guess. So, does anyone have any advice? Should I enter it anyway?

Oh, and I'd be reading the story in front of about 20 people and a judge at the festival, so it'd be all that more terrifying.

 

Well, it's got a lot of editing to go through. I just shared it with a few people, and things didn't go so well.

 

Well, it's been a while since I posted this thread, but I'd just like to offer an update for everyone who supported me on this.

I went through six drafts of the story in total. :lol: I kept trying to figure out the perfect ending and plot and such, so that's why it took me so long to get back to you. Stories still not the best but...meh.

I sent the 5th draft of the story (which is the best version) to this girl in my school who offered to read it and edit it. I only told her that the story's theme might surprise her. I'm pretty sure she read it, and now she just won't talk to me about it, and I'm really afraid to continue asking about whether she liked it or not. I really don't know what to do about that... :icon_sad:

Also, does anyone know who I should ask to edit the story for me besides a girl in my school who won't talk to me anymore? :dry: Maybe I could ask a teacher or something?

Some of you wanted me to post the story, and I guess I could use opinions and advice from people who know a lot about the topic. So...here it goes. The format's a bit off, but I hope that isn't too annoying. I hope this isn't against the rules of the site or anything. I looked over the rules before this, and it all seemed okay, but I hope I didn't miss something. Please forgive me if I did. :icon_sad: Please enjoy.


Audience of One

“Oh my God! You shot him! You shot Carl!” Patricia screamed. The entire situation had taken a terribly dramatic tone. The blue, unfinished paint job on the house’s walls seemed only to darken the situation as Carl’s dead body lay on the floor, and Jimmy stood over his corpse with a gun in his hand.
“Yes. Yes I did. And you’re going to keep your mouth shut!” Jimmy demanded. Patricia looked at the monster that stood before her, and yelled at him.
“No! You won’t get away with this!” she said, stamping her foot to the floor and pointing her finger at him. She soon put it down though as Jimmy raised his gun and pointed it directly at her. “ Then I’m sorry.” He said. “You’re too much of a burden now.” But just before Jimmy could pull the trigger, I opened the door to the room and ran at him.
“No!” I yelled, and I attacked Jimmy, wresting the gun from his hand and knocking him to the floor. I got a handle on the gun, and pointed it directly at him, growling. “So you’re the cause of all this. Luring us to this house so that we would find your father’s hidden will for you!”
“I had to!” Jimmy said, getting up from where he lay sprawled on the floor. “Millions of dollars in inheritance, and it should belong to me!” Jimmy’s eyes glowed with a convincing madness, and a cold and eerie glare.
“Well, I’m not going to let you have it. Officer! Arrest him!” I waited for a while, but the police officer didn’t appear. “Officer!” I yelled. The entire room went silent for a second, and then several more before we heard it.
“Oh come on!” the director, yelled from the auditorium seats. “Eli, where are you?” Almost immediately we heard the rapid footsteps of someone running as fast as they could from behind the stage of the school auditorium. Eli, after a short wait, finally ran onstage dressed in a police uniform.
“Sorry! Sorry.” He apologized. A great sense of worry showed on his face, as if he had just stepped in front of a firing squad. Liz, who played the part of Patricia walked across stage and scolded Eli, taking the director’s job on herself.
“Eli! That’s the second time you’ve missed your que. If we’re going to get this show done on time, we need you focused, freshman. This is a high school show. It’ not middle school anymore. That means that you need to get it together.”
“Yeah. Okay. Sorry.” He said. “I just…got distracted.”
“By what?” I asked, finally speaking up. Eli looked at me as if I had just asked a very embarrassing question. I was just as ticked off at Eli as everyone else. We all loathed the after school play practices. This one didn’t end until 6, and we all just wanted to paint the set for the show after rehearsal and go home.
“I was writing, Sam.” Eli said shyly to me.
The two guys who played Jimmy and Carl both looked annoyed at the situation, as if they couldn’t believe we had to start the scene over again because of Eli’s incompetence. I just stood there, watching as Liz walked over to Eli and took him by the shoulders, shaking him and telling him to get a grip.
Eli had always come off as a strange kid. An infinite amount of rumors about him got passed around backstage to explain how odd he acted, and because of this, he had become a target for the blame of almost every problem with the show. Someone would spill coffee, and say that Eli had spilled it. Someone would screw up a line, and they’d say that Eli had caused them to. The blaming seemed harsh, but it was freshman initiation; a welcome to the club.
“Sam!” The director yelled from the auditorium seats. “Get back behind the door. We’re starting the scene over.” I followed her orders, walking to the set and opening the cheap half cardboard half wooden door, stepping behind the stage, and making sure I could jump out for the scene.
We went through the lines again, with me jumping out of the door and tackling the character of Jimmy. Then, when I called for the police, Eli came walking in from offstage, drawing his gun and pointing it at Jimmy.
“You’re done, Jimmy. It’s all over,” He said rather convincingly. Altogether Eli was an exceptional actor; something that most people didn’t agree with me on, yet, he always got terrible minor roles in shows. Probably because he seemed so odd.
Suddenly, Eli’s gun went off, and the pop of the fake cap in it made us all jump. A little puff of smoke drifted into the air, illuminated by stage lights. Eli had accidentally fired the gun. That wasn’t supposed to happen.
“Oh come on!” Liz said. “You just killed Jimmy.” Everyone onstage burst out laughing, and Eli stood there, shocked by what had happened.
“Listen, Eli.” I said as I walked over to him. I stood in front of him and whispered intentionally just loud enough for everyone to hear. “I don’t even know why Ellen gave you a role at all, seeing how you’re acting, so get with it. This is why you always get picked to be the extra.” Eli looked at me with disappointment and fear.
“Okay, everyone take five minutes and get a drink or something.” Ellen said, frustrated. I walked offstage with Liz, and moved toward the doors to the auditorium. Then I heard something. The sound of the director yelling again.
“Eli!” I turned around, and saw Eli frozen onstage. “Eli, get offstage.” Eli turned his head toward the director, and then started to walk towards the door, slowly increasing his speed. He walked faster and faster until he ran, and he sped directly towards Liz and I. We both had to jump out of the way as Eli sprinted out the door. I only caught a glimpse of his face, but I saw the tears.
“Oh my God, what a wimp.” Liz said. “He shouldn’t even have gotten a role. Right, Sam?” I just watched as Eli disappeared down the hallway of the school, curious about why he ran away; feeling bad for what I had said. “Sam?” Liz asked.
“Oh, yeah. I’m going to go see what the heck is wrong with him.” I said. And I started walking down the hallway, finally able to break out of drama mode.
For the past two years I had trained myself to keep up with personality of the school’s drama department. For them, blending in meant that you didn’t get run out of the play. Because of this, putting on a show could seem like a constant battle for the director’s and the actor’s approval and barely anyone could evade their bullying; especially as a freshman just entering a show.
I found myself curious about Eli. Maybe the memories of joining the shows as a freshman myself, and having to adapt to the environment made me want to talk to him. I was a Junior now, and it wasn’t as hard for me. Eli reminded me of myself. In reality, outside of shows, I acted like a pretty nice guy, but when I performed or practiced onstage, everything came down to conforming or quitting. I had to insult the actors below me. It was part of the show. Part of the hazing.
I had stayed out past my five minute break, but I didn’t care. I had to get Eli back, and I eventually found him collapsed against a wall on one of the side hallways of the school. I watched him for a while, confused about what I was seeing. Eli sat against the wall, crying.
“Eli?” I asked, finally deciding to approach. He jumped a bit, and turned toward me like I intended to kill him. Soon, he realized it was me, and seemed to become even more terrified. He still wore his police uniform.
“No.” Eli said. “Not you.” Eli wrapped his arms around his knees and buried his face into them. I was confused by what he had said. Maybe, as a junior, I seemed intimidating.
“Not me?” I asked.
“No.” I paused at this, but soon forced myself to walk up to Eli and sit down next to him. Eli just cried for a while, and it felt extremely awkward. Eli was acting strangely for a relatively grown up high school student.
“Uh, do you need to talk about something, or…what?” Eli kept crying, and in between sobs, said,
“No, I… can’t.” At this point I felt so awkward that I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to apologize.
“Look, I’m sorry about what I said. I just need to say things like that to stay on good terms with the rest of the cast, that’s all. You’ll learn that you have to do it too someday.” Eli wiped his face with his hands.
“That’s not the problem, Sam. It’s just not.” Eli came off as a questionable person. Shy, quiet, but mysterious. I didn’t understand what he had said. Something bothered Eli that didn’t have to do with the show?
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked. Eli shook his head. “Alright.” I said.” I stood up and started walking down the hall.
“Wait.” I heard, and I turned around to face Eli again. He seemed extremely desperate. “I have to…but I can’t do it now. I just need to...get it together.
“Then when, Eli?” He didn’t respond. I sighed, frustrated and finally came up with something to give Eli what he obviously wanted. “You know what, talk to me while we’re putting the set together after practice. Let’s get back though. We have work to do.”

Practice ended slowly, and by 6:00 we found ourselves onstage again, but this time out of costume, and with brushes and buckets to paint the rest of the set’s blue wall. Everyone in the cast had to stay for the set painting. While we all worked, Eli and I talked silently so that no one else could hear.
“So what’s wrong, Eli? I asked. “What’s with all the crying?” He remained silent for a long time. “Eli, if we’re going to talk, then you have to contribute a little.” I said as I dipped my paintbrush in blue paint again, putting it against the wall and pushing the color around.
“Well…” Eli said. He looked over towards the place where Liz and the other cast members were working. “They’re terrible.” He said, referring to rest of the cast. I felt obligated to explain.
“Everyone here is a jerk, but we have to be. Joking around with each other is what keeps us sane.”
“You call that joking?” Eli asked. He stared at me with a look that showed he couldn’t believe what I had just said.
“Well, yeah.” I replied.
“It’s not joking, it’s bullying for the sake of making someone feel better. They did it when I missed the que today, and the only reason that I was late for it in the first place was because I was…writing a journal.” Eli stopped painting, and stood there watching a drip of paint run slowly down the wall. I didn’t know what Eli meant by writing a journal. Why would someone doing such a thing at play practice? Instead, I concentrated on his problems with the cast.
“I know, but we put on great shows because of it, don’t we?” I asked.
“The show isn’t that great if you know about the awful things that are going on backstage.” He said. “And nobody in the audience ever does.”
Eli and I talked about this for a long time. The problems with the rest of the cast were big, but not such a problem that someone should go crying in a school hallway about it. I felt like Eli was hiding something from me.
Eventually the time to leave play practice finally came. I was relieved, but Eli didn’t seem to share the feeling. Something in his eyes screamed fear. A something that he hadn’t told me was tearing at him. I could tell by his urgency.
After putting away our brushes and storing the paint away, I had to keep a close eye on Eli, who kept working as quickly as possible so that he could leave. I kept track of him regardless though, and we both picked up our backpacks from the school day from the auditorium, and slung them over our shoulders, carrying them on our backs. I couldn’t help but notice that Eli’s pack looked very similar to mine. Dark black with silver zippers, and I wondered about this as I found myself walking down the hallway toward the door to the high school with him. I couldn’t help but continue the conversation from before.
“Eli, you know that all of that stuff with the cast will get better right?” He looked at me like he had heard the words before.
“Yeah…right. But that’s not really all of it. The bullying was only a trigger. Things like that make me think about the real problem.”
“What’s the real problem?” I asked. Eli stopped walking and started to stare at the floor. Pain shown on his face. I stopped next to him, and stood at his side. “Or do you want to tell me?” I wondered what he could possibly mean, and why it seemed to hurt him so much. What else could he possibly mean by “the real problem”?
“What?” I asked. Eli turned his face toward me. His eyes became watery, and tears ran from his eyes. “No, Eli, what is it? Tell me.” Eli turned his face towards the floor again. “Look, whatever it is, you can tell me.” I pleaded, putting my hand on his shoulder. “We’re friends now, I’ll keep the secret.”
For a long time, Eli just stood there and I watched him as tears rolled down to his chin. He stared at the floor, and wouldn’t stop. He seemed to be thinking about something. Thinking about it so hard that he couldn’t do anything else but concentrate on that one thing. One thing that hurt him more than anything else.
Slowly and surely, Eli broke from his thoughts, leaned over and kissed me.
He held his lips to mine for what felt like a long time, holding them there and not doing anything else, and when Eli drew back, he looked at me, waiting for a response. I didn’t say anything. I just looked at him with a blank stare. Little time passed before Eli realized that I was in shock, and started toward the doors. I just stood there, stunned. Eli had kissed me. Eli was gay.
“Wait! I yelled snapping out of it. I ran to Eli, catching up with him as he walked towards the front door of the high school. “Hey!” I said. Eli turned around and looked at me. I stopped in front of him. “You’re…”
“Yeah.” He said. I could see that he could start crying at any moment. I just…” Eli looked down with a shy smile. “I just like you. I have for a long time.” I couldn’t believe it. Here I had participated in this show all this time, thinking all of that bullying from the cast was the problem, and instead the real secret was that Eli, the kid who everyone joked around about, had been…that way, and he liked me.
“Eli....” I said, but he interrupted me with a flurry of words and panic rushing his voice.
“Nothing else is as bad as that! Nothing I told you about while we were painting is as wrong! My parents would kill me if they found out about this! Who knows what else would happen with the cast and the school! I can’t deal with this! It wasn’t supposed to happen this way! I shouldn’t be like this!”
“Eli, you shouldn’t be scared.” I said, trying to calm him down.
“I know, I know, I just…I need to…leave.” Eli turned and started walking out the doors of the school.
“Wait, let me drive you home.” I offered.
“No.” He said. “I’ll get home myself.”
“Eli, you live out of town. You can’t walk that far.” Eli paused, realizing the truth, and eventually, he agreed to leave with me.

We reached Eli’s place in a very silent and awkward fifteen minutes, only speaking when Eli was giving me directions to his house on 92 Willow Road. Soon I pulled into the driveway of his house, and when I stopped the car and put it in park, Eli put his hand on the door handle, but didn’t open it. It seemed like Eli had something else that he wanted to tell me.
“What is it?” I asked. He didn’t answer.
“Eli, tell me. Just like everything else.” Eli looked over to me and gave me a fearful look before replying.
“Goodbye, Sam. Just…Goodbye.” And then he left. Eli opened the door, and stepped out of the car. He grabbed his backpack from the backseat without looking, and he walked into his house; disappearing from sight.

I got home rather quickly, and found that my parents weren’t home from work yet. I immediately walked through the kitchen, down the hallway, and into my room, collapsing onto my bed. Eli had just given me a huge burden to bear. How could I deal with that? I lay there for a long time and the minutes passed quickly. Fifteen minutes later I realized that I needed to get it off of my mind, and I walked out into the kitchen where I had put my backpack down. I opened it, and something caught my eye: a black, hardcover book that I had never seen in my backpack before. I took it out of my backpack and looked at the title. It said “Journal”. I opened it, and on the inside, it said “Property of Eli”. The book was Eli’s journal. Oh no. Eli took the wrong backpack. I thought. I almost put the journal back so as not to invade his privacy, but a strange instinct told me that I needed to read it. Something Eli had said about it being his distraction. I flipped through the pages, and didn’t see anything all that interesting. Just drawings and some writing, but then I found something strange. An entry titled, “Letter to Sam” at the end of the journal. I began to read.

Sam. I’m backstage right now since they’re running over a scene that I’m not in, and I’m going to talk to you during set painting today. I wanted to talk to you because I wanted to tell you about myself. I’ve liked you for the entire year now. It’s really the only reason I auditioned for the show at all, and to have you ask me to talk later, it was terrifying, but here I am about to talk to you after practice. I don’t think you can convince me of anything though. I’ll be dead by the end of the day. My mom has some sleeping pills in her cabinet that aren’t locked up. I found them last week. I plan to reveal to you the secret that I’ve kept for a very long time. Please, do whatever you want with it. Tell anyone you trust, but please don’t make me out to be a bad person. I’m going to write this letter so that, after I’m gone, someone will find this journal and send it to you. Hopefully it offers some closure. Please forgive me, and thank you. Thank you for the talk we’re going to have.

I bolted out of the kitchen, and ran out of the garage not even stopping to close my house door. I jumped into my car, backing out of my driveway and into the street before stepping on the gas. As I drove, I fumbled with getting my cellphone out of my pocket, and I dialed 9-1-1. An operator picked up.
“9-1-1…what…” I interrupted them.
“Get someone to 92 Willow Road! There’s a kid named Eli there, and he’s killing himself right now!” I hung up to concentrate on how fast I was driving. I sped down the highway at 80 miles per hour, passing slower cars and making daring quick turns. I arrived at Eli’s in about five minutes, and police weren’t there.
I jumped out of my car, ran to the front door of Eli’s house and began pounding on the door.
“Eli!” I yelled, before ringing the doorbell as fast as I could. No answer. Eli wasn’t coming. I tried the door, but it was locked.
“No!” I yelled, and I walked backwards from the door before running full speed at it and ramming my shoulder into the surface. The lock on the door broke, and the thing flew open as my momentum caused me to trip, sending me to the ground. I heard sirens behind me from a police car that had just pulled into the driveway, and then more sirens could be heard as an ambulance appeared. I got up from the floor, quickly running through the unfamiliar home shouting for Eli. I ran through what seemed like an infinite number of rooms until I found him in one, lying motionless on a bed with an empty bottle of pills and a glass of water on the side table.
“Hello?!” An officer shouted from somewhere in the house.
“Get in here! He’s already done it!” I yelled. I grabbed Eli by the shoulders, shaking him and screaming for him to wake up, but he never did. Soon, police officers came running through the doorway to the room, one of them pulled me back from Eli and practically dragged me out of the house as I protested. Paramedics suddenly appeared, carrying a stretcher and rushing to get to Eli and save his life. The officer who led me outside tried to calm me down, and I watched as Eli was carried out of the house, and loaded into an ambulance before being driven off to places unknown.

I found myself sitting in the waiting room of a hospital the next day. Eli’s parents had called me, telling me to meet them there, and I could imagine that they knew I was involved in Eli’s suicide somehow. I sat in the waiting room, staring down at the ground running over what had happened in my mind once again, still trying to come to terms with it. Days before, while painting the set, Eli had told me that a show isn’t good when you know that something awful is going on backstage. For Eli, being gay was that awful thing behind the scenes in his life; the problem unknown to everyone else but him. Eli was the only one who saw his life as a living hell.
“They’ll see you now.” A nurse said to me. I snapped out of my thoughts and got up from my seat before the nurse led me down a long hallway. We reached the room quickly. “In here.” The nurse said. I paused before walking in; preparing myself for anything, and then I took slow steps into the room.
There were two people standing there. A man and a woman. I could only assume that they were Eli’s parents.
“Sam?” Eli’s mom said to me. “Oh my God.” She immediately walked over to me and embraced me, thanking me for what I had done. “You saved him. I don’t even know you and you saved him. You saved my son. Thank you. Thank you so much.” She said. Tears ran from her eyes. She stopped hugging me and looked straight into my eyes.
“What happened, Sam? Tell us what happened.” Eli’s dad suddenly said. I looked at both of Eli’s parents, and I saw the care that they had for him. How could Eli try to leave them behind?
“Sam?” I heard a weak voice suddenly, and I looked over at the hospital bed in the room. The voice had come from Eli, and he was awake, lying flat on the bed.
“Eli!” I said, and I walked away from his parents to go to him. I stood at the edge of the bed and leaned on it. “I’m here, Eli.” I said. “How are you?” I could guess at his response.
“I’m terrible.” He said. Eli was hooked up to monitors and IV systems, and a tube ran below his nose as well. The bed sheets covered him up to his waist, and he wore a hospital gown.
Eli seemed wary about saying anything more. “Can we be alone?” He asked his parents. They seemed confused for a second, but walked out of the room slowly, and without argument. Eli looked at me and smiled.
“You saved my life.” He said. I put my hands in my pockets and laughed shyly.
“Yeah. I guess I did.” Eli took a deep breath. I could sense his exhaustion from whatever the hospital had done to save him. He seemed as though he couldn’t keep his eyes open.
“Thank you.” He said slowly. Relief filled me. Eli thankfully regretted what he had done.
“Are you going to be okay from now on?” I asked. “With your secret I mean.” Eli looked at me, unsure.
“I don’t know. They keep telling me that I’ll have to get treatment for the suicide attempt.” He said. “I still haven’t told my parents why I did this. I’m really scared, Sam.” Tears began to fill Eli’s eyes. I could tell that he was still terrified of what his future held, but I had seen Eli crying too much, and I was determined to stop it.
“Then let’s do it. Together.” Eli looked at me like I had just gone insane.
“What do you mean?” He asked.
“There are a lot of people like you Eli. A lot of people who are living perfectly good lives, and who want you to as well. You’re going to find more support than you can imagine. You’ll find it in places you don’t even expect. That’s why if you have a secret or a problem, and it’s killing you, you need to tell someone. Anyone. It’s worth your life. If no one knows about what’s killing you, you can never get the help that you need, and you could lose your future, which gets so much better. I promise.”
“How do you know? You can’t say that.” He said. “You can’t promise it.”
“Yes I can, Eli.”
“How, Sam?” Eli asked. I looked at him and smiled.
“Because you’re not alone.” I leaned over to Eli, and slowly but surely, finally returned his kiss.

 

Wow! Thanks for reading. I really appreciate it, and the fact that you took the time to edit it a bit is really nice.

I think you can just attach the edited file to a forum post via the attachments option. (That's probably what I should have done instead of copying and pasting the story )

 

Ahh! Sorry. Haven't responded in a while. :lol: Thanks for all the help everyone. I've edited it a bit more, and I think it's getting better. I have to keep it below 10 pages at 10 point font and double spaced, which is a challenge, but I think it's still working.

My real problem now is gaining the courage to actually submit the story to the contest. It's on a very sensitive theme, so I hope it doesn't end in catastrophe. With stories like this, you need it to be good or else you just look bad. Plus, that girl I sent the story for advice hasn't talked to me in days, which is freaking me out. :icon_sad: I'm wondering if I should give the paper to one of my english teachers to see if they'll edit it, but I'm worried that this would be a bad idea...

:help: