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Young Writers Society


Fireworks



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13 Reviews



Gender: None specified
Points: 405
Reviews: 13
Sat Jan 07, 2012 12:12 pm
SpeedyPencil says...



More spirals of firey light spat into the air and twirled, as if showing off to the aweing crowd with a deafining boom, before fading away and leaving a cloud of smoke behind.

"5 minutes." Sydney rubbed her hands together with anticipation.
The group sat on a tartan picnic rug that lay on the thick grass as they huddled together in the dark to keep warm.
Around them shouts and cheers echoed from the throng who joined them on the chilly night to witness the wounderous display.

Victoria opened the basket up before scooping camping mugs in her hands and placing them down on the rug. After pouring the steaming liquid she passed them round to the thankful thirsty pack. Ron peformed his signiture 'loudest-known-to-man' slurp before spilling half of it on his shirt.
he looked down at his shirt and shrugged. "I'll change it next year"
"Prehaps your New years resolution could be to invest in a bib?", Victoria sighed, as she warmed her hands round the brim of the warm mug.

Meanwhile Sydney was too engrossed in the epic fireworks that exploded above them, to notice any conversations.
There was a thunderous clap as another rocket of light shot up from the Jetty and spread in all directions before another cloud replaced it, adding to the smokey layer that covered the blanket of stars.
Victoria yawned. "I don't know If I can even stay awake 5 minutes"
"3 minutes actually", Said Sydney and she ruffled deep into her backpack and pulled out a black chunky camera.
"I didn't know you owned a time machine"
"Its a poloroid camera, beautiful isn't it?", Said Sydney as she pointed the camera up at the sky.
Victoria collapsed backwards and stared at the part of the sky that hadn't been flooded with smoke. She felt her eyes stinging with fatigue but refused to close them, she didn't want a recap of last year. Her friends still teased her about her little snooze one minute before midnight, missing the 'amazing' finale. ten minutes later she had woke up in a littered abandoned beach with a sharpie mistache drawn on her face.

"Vic, Vic!", Ron said, shaking Victoria violently.

"Ouch.." ,She said, rubbing her arm, "What?"
"One minute!" He pointed up to the giant countown sign like a excited little five year old.
"Oh- right" She smiled.
"It's amazing isn't it? The atmosphere, the excitement", Sydney said after snapping a few more pictures of the fireworks.
"Pretty cool I guess", Victoria said as she studied her surroundings and suddenly felt a wave of exciliration.
"Oh! I almost forgot, what're your new years resolutions guys?", Ron said, turning around to face us.
"Easy! to get into art school- oh and to go to America and meet my extended family", Sydney said.
"Mines to win the rugby tournament, not that'll be much of a stretch for me"
Sydney rolled her eyes. "What about you Vic?"
Victoria looked downwards, trying to come up with something she could stick to for once.
"To have a good year."
But their conversation was drowned out with the starting of the countdown with voices from around the whole city.
10.
9.
8.
7.
6.
5.
4.
3.
2.
1.
The music blared in their ears, the fireworks went of like crazy, illuminating the sky with fluro blues, reds and greens. The crowd roared, all getting to their feet and starting to break out into spontanous dance. It was madness, but the kind of madness that filled your body with thrilling brightness and a sense of a new begining. The countdown sign now read, Happy 2012! in neon yellow lights.

"And I think It will be"
Scissors cuts paper, paper covers rock, rock crushes lizard, lizard poisons Spock, Spock smashes scissors, scissors decapitates lizard, lizard eats paper, paper disproves Spock, Spock vaporizes rock, and as it always has, rock crushes scissors.
  





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152 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 244
Reviews: 152
Sat Jan 07, 2012 3:43 pm
Niebla says...



Hey SpeedyPencil,

I'm torn about whether I truly like this piece or not, to be honest. I like the way you've written it generally, but at the same time, I can't really see it going anyway. It's not much of a story, but the line at the end does provide at least some satisfaction. Also, I did notice quite a few things which bothered me about your story.

1) Spelling. Reading through this, I noticed a lot of spelling errors. I think it would be pointless for me to go through the entire piece and correct them all -- so I suggest that you copy and paste this into a word document and run a spell-check. That's a super-easy way to get rid of any spelling mistakes, even if spelling is not your strength. You can always do that quite easily before posting pieces on YWS, too.

2) I'm still on the technical things at the moment -- and another thing I noticed was the way you write your dialogue. You tend to either write dialogue with a comma after the quotation marks, or not include a comma at all. What you should always do (unless you're using a different form of punctuation, such as an exclamation mark or question mark) is add a comma right before the closing quotation marks. I'll give you an example.

What you do:

"3 minutes actually", Said Sydney and she ruffled deep into her backpack and pulled out a black chunky camera.


"And I think It will be"


What you should do:

"Three minutes actually," said Sydney and she ruffled deep into her backpack and pulled out a black chunky camera.


"And I think it will be."


Okay, now I'll get on to reviewing the actual story.

I like the way you've made it fairly real and realistic, but at the same time, I wish there'd been a bit more of a story to it. Also, there were some parts which I just didn't really like, to be honest, such as this:

10.
9.
8.
7.
6.
5.
4.
3.
2.
1.


This is probably completely personal preference, but I wish you'd just written the numbers on one line -- maybe in words and with quotation marks?

So overall, it's not too bad, but I wish there was more depth. Next time, try adding depth to characters to make them more interesting and relatable, and try adding more of a story. This isn't bad, but it could be much better if you tried.

Keep writing,

~MorningMist~
  





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13 Reviews



Gender: None specified
Points: 405
Reviews: 13
Sat Jan 07, 2012 3:53 pm
SpeedyPencil says...



Firstly, thankyou very much for the feedback. I was aware this piece was just a spir of the moment piece of writing that I didn't really check. I've always been confused with dialouge so thankyou very much for clearing that up for me. I also was unsure of the numbers thing and it thankyou for prodividing me with a second opinion so I could decide. I will work on the spelling errors and adding more depth to the story, the feedback means a lot.
Thanks,
SP
Scissors cuts paper, paper covers rock, rock crushes lizard, lizard poisons Spock, Spock smashes scissors, scissors decapitates lizard, lizard eats paper, paper disproves Spock, Spock vaporizes rock, and as it always has, rock crushes scissors.
  





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66 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 3055
Reviews: 66
Mon Jan 09, 2012 11:38 am
Angelreader77 says...



Hey Speedy!
Here as you asked.
As you said, it was a spur of the moment thing so I won't go to the part where I don't know what's behind all of this. :)
I guess you just wanted to portray a scene before New Year and it was nice. I have a few things to nitpick, though:
Your spelling: You need to work on your spelling. You've misspelled quite a few words. I think with a read through you'll find them.
Your starting sentence is fine, not a hooker but not a drag either :)
SpeedyPencil wrote: After pouring the steaming liquid, she passed them round to the thankful thirsty pack.

I added a comma to help with the flow.
Also, your quotation marks. Basically, when you're using quotation marks, you have to put the comma/question mark/full stop/exclamation marks before closing the quotation marks. I'll give you an example:
''I like chocolate.'', she said.
Also see that I've put a comma after the quotation marks and before the she. Again, you don't have to capitalize the first letter of the word right after the quotation mark.
Another thing I didn't like: You used 'said' way too many times. Try using different words.
This is too nitpicky maybe: you used numbers instead of actually typing words. I mean you wrote ''3'' instead of "Three". Not that it is necessary, but I'd prefer the latter more. :)
The end was good and keep writing! :D
PM me if you have any questions
Angel
"The cure for anything is salt water- sweat, tears or the sea." --Isaac Dinesen
  








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