Young Writers Society

Rosalie knows what day it is. She smells it in the air and senses it around her, from the fresh blanket of snow outside, to songs like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer playing on the radio and the plastic snowmen sitting on her beside table. She puts on a robe and slippers and runs downstairs, inhaling the overwhelming smell of cinnamon and vanilla icing. She smiles, remembering that her mother always made cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning.
Rosalie wonders what presents Santa got her. Did he answer her request for the pink sparkly dress she saw at the store the other day or the pack of seventy-two crayola crayons? She's very, very excited. She just hopes Sean won't try to steal her presents and tease her about them.
“Rosalie,” Mother calls, “Is that you?”
“Yes, mommy,” she answers. “Merry Christmas!”
She hears her mother laugh. “Can you come into the kitchen, please? There's a surprise for you.”
Rosalie thinks her mother is referring to the cinnamon rolls, but she happily darts in anyway. It seems fairly normal at first; Sean is at the kitchen counter, greedily digging into a cinnamon roll. Her mother is at the sink, washing some dishes. But then she notices someone behind her, someone she has not seen in a long, long time.
“Daddy!” As she runs to hug him, she notices he's still wearing his army uniform. Rosalie wants to know how long he's been here, how long her mother and father had this planned. She can feel tears streaming down her cheeks. The last time they got a letter from her father was a month ago, saying that he wouldn't be able to make it home in time, but he wanted to send his love. So when had this changed? And why had they kept it a secret from her? Did Sean know? But her anger quickly subsides. Her father is home, finally home after many long months overseas.
“Daddy, are you back from the war to stay?” Rosalie asks as her father picks her up and gently sways her back and forth.
“No, honey. Just for the week,” he replies, “But I'm glad I got to come and see you and Sean.”
Rosalie doesn't say anything for a moment, but instead lets her eyes wander around the kitchen. For the first time in a year and a half, her family is together. And at Christmas, too. She feels warm and fuzzy. Most of all, she feels complete. And suddenly she realizes that she doesn't care if Sean steals her toys or tries to bug her when they're opening presents.
“Daddy?
“Yes, Rosalie?”
“I think Santa gave us the best present of all.”

Oh, that was cute.
Well written, and the POV/Perspective you chose to write from (Third person, present tense) is super tough to write from.

I really likes your setting, with a young girl, and her father coming home from war. Very Christmassy.
The only thing you need a little bit more of is emotion. Actually, ignore that, you're emoion for a young girl is perfect.

Write On
~WickedWonder

Hey Elinor.

I had a hard time staying interested past your first line. Sentences that are structured like that ("As this happened, this also happened") are good for sudden twists right at the start. This rather mundane event at the start made me underwhelmed with the story's content. The remainder of the first paragraph followed suit. There's nothing interesting to catch our attention until the last line, when you mention Christmas, and even then it's such a small thing that it doesn't act as a hook.

Mid-way through I noticed a quote within the dialogue, here:

“Can you come into the kitchen, please?” There's a surprise for you.”

As for the story itself, I didn't really feel much from it. You use a lot of telling, with an omniscient voice describing the results of strong emotion instead of letting us feel the emotion. I know this should be emotional, but I just can't feel anything from it. Even if a situation has really obvious emotions/reactions present, you can't count on readers filling in the blanks.

Overall, this didn't really grab me and had a pretty monotone feel, emotion-wise. Really try to think of what's running through a little girl's head and write the story from within those thoughts/feelings, instead of a more "security camera" style that just describes emotions. Really get into her head more and make us feel what she feels.

Hope this helps.

~Rosey

Hey Eli, Pink here

For your opener, it wasn't exactly pulling me in. Your descriptions were nice but it lacked strength. Plus, as Rosey had already stated, you do a lot more telling than showing. "She did this, and then that. She went here, then there." I suggest tightening your sentences together in this part and adjusting the flow.
I also noticed this little sentence here:

“Daddy!”As she runs to hug him, she notices he's still wearing army uniform.

I think it should be, "she notices he's still wearing his army uniform."

Also,

“I think Santa gave us the present of all.”

What do you mean by, "the present".
You've never mentioned anything about specific present before. I'm thinking you meant, best present. Not so sure, however.

In the end, this story is quite short. Because it's so short it's hard to get into it. Now, I would have liked maybe some more information on her life, or how hard it is to live with a father who is in the army. Something that can make us connect to the little girl, as a character. I'm not very familiar with children perspectives, so I can't really help you out there, but anyways, I can't find much else to say that hasn't been pointed out by Rosey already.
Sorry if this review was a little unhelpful

~Shear

Hello there

So this is a very bitter/sweet story. I was not expecting the ending at all, the whole time I was thinking that Rosalie was going to run to a huge Christmas tree and open a load of presents.
I thought the first paragraph was very stiff and swift. Maybe it's an 'in the moment' kind of story, but the events from when Rosalie woke up until she goes to the kitchen, are very disconnected. I mean, she does that and then something else. It's like you made a list of her actions. There is no in between.

Her mother is at the kitchen,

I think you meant to say 'kitchen sink' because otherwise it sounds a bit awkward as you already mentioned that Sean was at the kitchen counter.

I think that is about it. I enjoyed the story and the concept either way.
Good job

Hi there, Elinor!
I agree with WickedWonder: this was a very cute story, written in third person present tense, which, as WickedWonder pointed out, is a very hard 'tense' to write in. It was written very well, with correct spelling and grammar.
One thing, though: in the first line, you refer to Rosalie's eyelashes fluttering open. I think it would make more sense if you changed 'eyelashes' to 'eyelids'. But maybe that's just me - you don't need to listen to me if you don't want to. I am an annoying blowfly buzzing on your windowsill. (:
Anyway, overall, well done. I enjoyed reading it. Keep writing and God bless,
Ignis

This is a cute little story! I also like it because it reminds us that it we mustn’t take it for granted to always have our family around, and we are lucky to live in times of peace. And I always like Christmas stories because they have that special kind of atmosphere… just like Christmas itself!

*Edited*

Hey Elinor!
Here as requested (:

I've got to say, the way you do this is brilliant. I found myself being emotionally touched by the idea of having someone like a father return from a war, even though I've had no experience myself of a relative going off to war. So you've written the atmosphere very well. I think you easily capture the feeling of family in your dialogue and the editing done here has kept it grammatically flawless as far as I'm concerned.

My question though is where could you go next? Are you dropping the short story at the idea someone has returned home? Is it just for that burst of feeling for your readers, or do you want to take this somewhere?

Also, in terms of perspective of writing, I think (instead of editing this) you should rewrite it, but really make it appear like you're doing everything from the viewpoint of the little girl. Like very short sentences, simple vocabulary and description to describe the feelings. Perhaps a made-up word for excitement she has? You know? Just to get the reader inside the head of how she feels as the person experiencing it all.

But, anyway, I have to say I really enjoyed this piece. Keep writing Elinor! You're brilliant at it!
Ben

I think that even though this story is cute, there's nothing that special about this story. I've seen a lot of Christmas specials like this. Definitely NOT original.
I do however like your descriptions! They're very developed.

Rosalie knows what day it is. She smells it in the air and senses it all around her, from the fresh blanket of snow outside, to songs like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer playing on the radio, tothe plastic snowmen sitting on her bedside table. She puts on a robe and slippers and runs downstairs, inhaling the overwhelming smell of cinnamon and vanilla icing. She smiles. Her mother always makes cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning.

Overall, this is a pretty good opening paragraph. There were a couple areas where I thought your word choice could have been stronger/struck me as awkward (especially "senses"), but I can see why you have things phrased that way, and it makes sense.

As for the last sentence, I think it works better split into two simpler ones. Since this is told more from Rosalie's PoV, and she is fairly young, it makes sense to use simpler language.

Did he get her the pink sparkly dress she saw at the store the other day or the pack of seventy-two Crayola crayons?

Again, simpler language would be better. Also, watch your capitalization. I caught at least one other case of a proper noun not being capitalized.

“Rosalie,” Mother calls, “is that you?”

Without the tag, the sentence would be written "Rosalie, is that you?" so it makes no sense for the i in "it" to be capitalized. You have another case of this later on with Rosalie's father's dialogue.

Overall, this story was very cute. I especially liked how you mentioned Rosalie worrying about Sean teasing her; that struck me as very realistic and something a child would do. I also liked how brief this was; it's just long enough to tell the story, but not so long that it drags out. A nice balance.

The only thing this story really needs as far as I can see is a bit of tweaking with the word choice and sentence structre. Since this is so short, there's not much time to become attached to Rosalie, but by having the narration more strongly in her voice, that attachment can be formed much more easily. You're almost there, but there were a couple of sentences that struck me as a bit too complex or used not-as-appropriate wording. Simplify wherever possible, and I think you'll be set.