PS ROUND 2 Forum

[Anonymous User]

,.,.,.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Okay, this completely buries the lede - it never once says directly that you called Nick's parents after hanging up on the hotline. If you actually did so (I'm sort of unconvinced based on earlier versions of this PS), THAT needs to be the focus of this PS - not the whole anxiety over the "real" hotline and not calling it. This currently centers everything around your anxiety about calling the hotline, calling, and hanging up - it reads like, "I had this great friend, he got into drugs, I saw it causing problems in his life, it was hard, I wanted to call a hotline, I agonized, I called, I hung up. We stopped being friends but his parents made sure he got help. But now I'll be there for people." It still focuses on your failure to do something, and then claims you've changed without showing why. If you did call Nick's parents and this did trigger changes, that really needs to be the focus of this thing. (You could cut some of the stuff establishing your friendship with Nick because it's not really necessary.)

I think one issue is that you're trying to shoehorn changes into something you've already written. Just start over with you calling Nick's parents instead as a focus. (If you are going to do this I don't think the "will he get in trouble, will he get pulled out of school" thing works - there's no reason this would be less likely to happen with his parents than with a hotline.) If you did anonymously call Nick's parents you really need to explain how you went from not calling a hotline to calling them. I think there is a potential narrative of change and growth to be found there but I don't want to put words into your mouth.

[mjb447]

I agree with Nony - the whole thing seems to be leading up to you using the hotline to intervene, but then you don't, but then it turns out that you talked to his parents, and then you take some credit for getting them to intervene. From your conclusion it seems like you want the reader to remember that you're the kind of person who takes action when he sees someone in trouble, but it would be more effective and coherent if you focused on the parts where you took action, not when you didn't. (It's fine if it's supposed to be more of a "personal growth" narrative about how you became the kind of person that takes action, but those dots aren't connected clearly enough for me to follow.)