Young Writers Society

Snowflakes clung wetly to the windows, slowly trickling into nothingness. Rose ventured a look down from the tenth floor of her sister’s apartment building window into the madness magnified by the array of tiny white lights that was New York City, burying herself in the view. She was stuck here for winter break while her parents vacationed in Hawaii with several of their other friends. She shuddered at the great height of the apartment’s living room, clutching her shawl tightly around herself, until minutes later Deepika emerged in the tiny living room, clad in a glimmering black and silver sequined dress, cut short, missing one shoulder. Ironically, for all the cloth that it lacked, the dress was rather expensive.
“So??” Deepika proclaimed, waiting for praise.
“So?” Rose replied, flatly.
“So, tell me how is it. Thee dress, dum-dum. It was $349.”
Rose bit her lip from saying something too harsh. The Christmas tree glowing with the prettily arranged ornaments in the middle of the cozy living room and the snow gently falling didn’t seem to call for a cat-fight.
“It’s nice, Deepi,” she answered rather defeatedly, her heart set on the theme of loneliness.
But Deepika would not be bought by the pouting look on Rose’s face, and threw a red strapless dress at her younger sister.

It was one of the first nice things Deepika had done for her sister, but perhaps it was justified in the Holiday spirit. Deepika was letting Rose hang with her and her possy this Christmas. It wasn’t as if Rose had been begging Deepika to let her tag along all these years, but Deepika somehow, after much cajoling, was able to convince Rose that clubbing was a perfectly grand way for one to celebrate Christmas Eve.
Rasheed was drunk. He stumbled into the club, “Bang,” frequented mostly by Indians, Pakis, Orientals, and a scattering of whites here and there. It was the biggest party of the year. His buddy Imran had thrust several generous shots of vodka down his friend’s throat after hearing the tragic news. Although Imran had good intentions, he thought that the old drink could solve everything. Although Rasheed was in no clear state of mind, he still noticed that a beautiful girl was less than five feet away from him. She was about a foot shorter than he was, and was wearing a deep red colored dress. The problem was, she looked Indian, and that was worse than white-skinned. However, the girl was in danger. The scum of the earth, Ralph Patel was approaching her like a hungry shark. Before the girl could even open her mouth and protest, Ralph was all over her. Rasheed knew he had to act fast.
~~~~
Rose could barely hear her obnoxious sisters and her friends clamoring for men and booze. The cold of the midnight air itched her skin, which became burning hot once inside the sweaty room. The music sent shivers across her body and the smell of alcohol infiltrated her senses. Blueish purple fuzzy light was all that she could see and it practically blinded until she saw something else, after about a half an hour of bouncing around, pretending to dance to loud, pop music. This alien object was like a fish down her throat. Uugh! She wanted to puke. The fish was swimming around in her mouth and was suddenly yanked off her by strong powerful hands. To her surprise, and to Deepika’s dismay, she was the center of drama that night, or to be more politically correct that morning, Christmas morning. Someone had tried to kiss her, another young man was explaining to her, as he wiped the slowly trickling tears from her eyes. That would explain the “fish” she thought.
“Don’t cry,” the man, Rasheed, urged, but she kept crying. She didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be at home, writing a fictional story, in her familiar bedroom with the dim light on because the other members of the house were sleeping safely, not in some dangerous part of the city with dirty men and women grinding it out like there was no tomorrow.
“Wh..who are you?” she finally managed to ask him, through pathetic sobs.
“My name is…Rasheed,” he said carefully, hesitant about giving away his real name.
She felt unusually comforted by this Rasheed. His eyes looked so familiar. Almost as if, she had seen them in a dream. This Rasheed, whoever he was, had managed to bloody the face of the pervert who had tried to kiss her.
“Don’t worry.. the jerk is knocked out,” Rasheed replied to the alarm on Rose’s face.
Later, back at the apartment, around three a.m., Deepika whined excessively.
“I knew it was a mistake bringing you along!” she exclaimed.
Rose found this to be a ridiculous statement. “You were the one who dragged me there!” she shouted.
“You’re just too naive, honey-bumpkins!” Deepika answered.
Rose did not even know how to begin arguing this so she simply gave it a rest.
She fell asleep on the couch and awoke around eleven a.m.
Finding that her sister was fast asleep in the apartment’s bedroom, probably hungover, Rose showered, dressed, quickly ate something, and quietly snuck out of the apartment, bringing the spare key with her. The shock of the night before had begun to wear off. Rose wasn’t weak-minded so she didn’t dwell on the situation, but, instead, walked with a mind set on enjoying the beautiful Manhattan Christmas morning. Snow tainted by the grease from cars and dog piss, was sprinkled across the frozen city. The city was overwhelmed by tourists, some walking expertly, others looking around aimlessly, wondering where NYC’s notorious thugs were hiding. Rose spotted a Starbucks and headed resolutely towards it, trying to blend in with the city scene. So set was she on walking that she barely noticed the blue parka she practically walked right into.
Drops of brown, scalding liquid splashed across her cream-puff coat. She jumped back. “Aaah!”
“I’m so sorry,” came the soft reply.
She quickly looked for the source and found it in a pair of bright hazel eyes.
His hand reached to into his jacket for some napkins, which he began patting her coat with.
“It’s okay. I got this,” she awkwardly fumbled with the napkins, meeting the warmth of his flesh in the exchange.
She could see his light-bronze skin turning ever-so red and looked closer. He looked strangely familiar.
“Rasheed?” she suggested.
“You’re the girl from last night!” he exclaimed in recognition.
It was all to unnerving to Rose that there paths had crossed, yet again.
“Well, I should get going.” Rose supplemented for the empty pause that had begun to reign between them.
“Yeah,” he snapped back into focus, “Of course. See you around,” and he passed, leaving Rose wondering if she ever would see him around.
But, to her pleasant surprise, she did. Sneakily, Rose played with fate, going out the every morning to see if she could catch Rasheed in the act. She felt strangely attached to her hero of that one stupendous, horrific night. About a week had passed since Christmas Day. It was the second day of the New Year, and Rose had made an oath that she would start studying for graduate school. She packed her GRE book into her backpack, stuffed in a peanut butter jelly sandwich and several water bottles and set off to Starbucks, armed with excuses. Once there, she played it cool, but begin to sweat, noticing Rasheed across the room dressed in a red sweater and faded blue jeans, sitting on stool sipping coffee, hurriedly jotting down something or the other, completely absorbed in his own world.
Rasheed had noticed her, and smiled in her direction. His smile made her heart skip a beat. Awkwardly, she made her way to his table, hoping he didn’t notice the emotions that were running through her mind.
“H.hi,” she stammered.
“Hey there,” Rasheed replied, totally cool, totally casual.
“What are you writing?” she asked, peering down at his messy notes.
He almost choked on his response, but managed to get it out. Rose swear, that his eyes turned watery, “Oh just an article. It’s about this old well-known professor who just… passed away.” Rasheed spoke. “His name was Professor Fen.”
Rose’s head was spinning. She was falling, fast, into oblivion, that bottomless pit. Memories of working on projects with Fen flipped through her mind like snapshots in a revolving slideshow. The rules of gravity ceased to exist. Thus, it was no wonder that her tears, which almost imperceptibly sprouted form Rose’s eyes hung, suspended on her face, refusing to move, just as Fen refused to budge from her memories. Everything turned to black.
A pair of hazel eyes shrouded by long, black lashes swam before her. A boy was kneeling over her, trying to wake her.
“Rose..Rose.. are you okay??”
Rose gradually opened her eyes, embraced by the bittersweet smell of coffee, the comforting footsteps of innocent, busy customers, faces flushed red from the cold. A huge circle of them had formed around her.
“Should I call the ambulance?” Jose, the hefty, store manager, boomed, wiping his hands on his coffee-stained apron.
“No she’s okay,” Dan replied, gently helping Rose back on her feet.
This was the second time he had wiped away her tears.
~ ~ ~ ~
“How..how do you know Fen??” Rasheed asked, still shocked by Rose’s free-flowing tears that had only begun to stop. They sat outside, on a park bench, sipping the complimentary coffees that Jose had offered them upon hearing the word, “death,” amidst their conversations.
“He.he was like a mentor to me. Taught me everything I know,” Rose explained. She was not even being melodramatic, it was the sordid truth of the matter.
Rasheed took a long look at the Indian girl. The makeup under her dark-brown almond eyes had begun to run. She was a complete mess. She looked the way he had several nights ago, when he stood clutching his mother after the dreadful news reached their apartment.
Rasheed’s hands trembled and the coffee began to spill. He didn’t want to tell Rose the truth. As much as Rasheed liked Rose, he could not help but feeling jealous that his own birth father probably spent more time with Rose than himself. However, Rasheed had a heart of gold. He could not hold a grudge for more than a few seconds, and the feelings of jealousy slowly dissipated.
“How did he die??” Rose asked, her huge eyes full of question.
Rasheed hesitated. She had the right to know but he felt he could not tell her. The words simply would not come out, so he showed her the first draft of his article instead. A daft reader, Rose got to the news in record timing.
She was in disbelief. Rasheed had to explain to her that his mother’s first son had been born with a white man, Benjamin Fen. After all, Rasheed was light-bronze.
So it had been a…suicide. The word didn’t even sound right in her mind, let alone outloud. She sat on the park bench clutching Rasheed’s hand for what felt like eternity as snow fell all around them, hitting the ground flawlessly, sugar-coating the dirty grass, a half-filled bottle of whiskey, and the general filth of New York City. A death, and an unlikely yet coincidential meeting had brought these two strangers together. Somewhere in the distance, a bell tolled the coming of the hour.

Hello.

Back again for chapter 2.

You cut down on the amount of backstory in this chapter, but you didn't cut down on your language. The prose is just a bit purple, with adjectives and adverbs intermingling with words that are a handful of syllables long. This style of writing tends to make the language feel like star of the piece, instead of the plot itself.

This tends to not be a good thing because it distracts from the characters, story, and conflict going on in the plot. Readers want to focus on that, instead of being dragged away by details every few sentences because of the rich language used. Try to use less of it, only sparingly, to draw attention to things that are important. If we're constantly being told everything is important, things tend to all become unimportant and there's nothing to show us what is truly important.

Also, the plot is sounding a bit... too accidental. He just happens to be there. He gives her his real name despite having no reason what so ever to do so. While there might be a reason in your mind for all this to happen, it seems a bit too convenient for me. I like a little conflict in what's going to happen.

I'd work on your transitions for time. Start a new paragraph when you start talking about longer and longer spans of time going, or are about to transition into a new scene.

One thing I'm really noticing is how long your paragraphs are. Each paragraph should contain its own idea, and you can use shorter paragraphs to draw attention to important ideas, ramp up tension, and create a faster pace. Your really long paragraphs are making it hard to follow all the ideas, and slowing your story down to a crawl.

You're also very focused on the one plot: her meeting Rasheed. You're ignoring the points around it, such as being able to afford a Starbucks drink every day, her sister getting suspicious at the amount of time out she's spending (or, her sister's obliviousness at how much she's going out) and being torn between a normal life and going out every day to meet a guy she's crushing on.

While it's really easy to be focused on one plot, think about what else is going on and pay attention to it. Readers enjoy the slice of life aspect, most often, because it makes the world seem real. It's not just a story crafted for the sake of being a story; it's a window deep into the lives of characters, which paints a much nicer picture and lets us see more than the narrow plot.

Overall, this just needs more fleshing out and shorter paragraphs. Your writing reminds me of mine when I first started writing, with its long paragraphs, narrow plot focus, and "just happened to be there" lines. It is very possible to polish these stories, but it just takes slowing down and learning more about the craft of writing.

Hope this helps. PM me if you have any questions/comments.

~Rosey