Hi everyone!
I'm looking for *realistic* ideas a teenager might face that are dramatic and/or depressing. Why, you probably may not ask? I recently wrote a fairly short story (About 30 pages) and am posting it to a private website of mine.
So far, I've got these:
-Main character, Alexa, finds out she's been told a lie her whole life (that she was adopted)... not too dramatic, but that's how she takes it
-Alexa's adoptive mother dies in a car accident that Alexa was also hurt in
-While in the hospital, A (Alexa)'s best friend, Naomi, dumps her. (The friendship kind of 'dump.')
-Alexa goes to her house to collect things cuz the Social worker instructed her to, but the house is entirely engulfed in a huge, blazing fire that destroys everything that was in the house
-Alexa's crush starts dating another girl

Marvelous, indeed!

So what do you think, and what are some other ideas? Thank you!
(At the end, Alexa gets adopted by a splendid half-Black, half-Caucasian family that all get along, and Alexa becomes best friends forever with her new sister...)

lol.
You sort of have to laugh reading this because it's just remarkable how unlucky this girl is!
I think that she needs to have something go good for her to break the ice a bit. A realistic story is never ALWAYS awful. I think she should get back in contact with her biological parents/mother/father. And give them a story as well.

yeah... but her biological parents are dead, lol, thats why she was adopted.... and then her adoptive mother died, yadda yadda.
She gets a great family at the end and it's like a happily ever after... Cinderella much? Not quite.