Young Writers Society

Wow, I'm a major historical fiction fan to begin with, and this was quite skillfully done. As the person above said, need to get the comma thing down. And some of the dialogue was a bit over the top, as in, real everyday people wouldn't say things like "absutely breathtaking", I mean, they do once in awhile, that's just my point of view. The whole chimes telling the story was genius. Everytime I come back here I find a technique that I've overlooked in my own writing. A few lines I really liked:

"their sandals slapping against sidewalks on sticky summer days, the noise of ball playing, the sight of their thirsty red tongues licking vanilla ice cream cones."

"She tilted her face toward the light reflecting off my chimes, and sat thoughtful for a brief moment. “Play for me when I am gone...” "

"I wish that I had played for her one last time. I have seen war begin and war end, I have seen others like her taken away and seen some of them come home, yet she does not return. Christoph comes back. Christoph waits and then Christoph leaves. I see a sun much less happy than the one I had once known so well. An icy wind blows from the North and my song that had been so strong and sweet clangs out empty and forlorn. I did not sing for her, and now she is gone."

I loved this last paragraph, the only part I didn't like was the sentence starting "An icy wind..."

To finish it off with a bite of salt, this line sounded weird to me. trading the period with a comma won't help either. Maybe just some rewording?

"She was an art student. Interested in watching the streets below and drawing what she saw."

Thanks for the help!! I know I have issues with commas... *eyes the punctuation mark with disdain*

Oh and the tenses thing, I struggled with that while first writing it, so thanks for pointing that out to.

Hello,

Okay, all my corrections are in bold so...here is goes!

I am a set of wind chimes which hang from a dirty window frame located in the third room on the fourth floor of my apartment building.[okay, hold up and freeze. This is WAY too informative for the first sentence of a piece. You need to create a hook to bring the reader in. Don't tell us the MC is a wind chime. Let us figure that out! ]I’ve hung here for as long as I can remember, watching, listening, singing a merry jig on the morning breeze which blows up the Rhine river and through the streets of my city. Seasons have changed in all this time, but even more than that [comma] the world has changed, for I’ve watched with sorrow.

My bells clang together creating something lonely, something hollow and empty now. [cross out "now" at the end of this sentence. With it, the sentence drags. Cutting it out will make it flow easier] The world has transformed before my view, and I wish so badly to cling to the past, to the joy I once knew. I long to hear the sound of children’s laughter, their sandals slapping against sidewalks on sticky summer days, the noise of ball playing, the sight of their thirsty red tongues licking vanilla ice cream cones. Yet [comma] those sounds, those songs of joy [comma] have long been banned from the streets of my world. I miss sunlight too, the happy kind. Blazing yellow beams which burst through bright skies, the kind my chimes would sing for, the kind people who’ve lived through the cold winter live to see explode over the horizon once again [good description! ]. Now [comma] I alone [comma] wait for spring’s first rays in the distance. I alone rejoice in the sad yet magnificent beauty.

My owner has long disappeared, the young university student with eyes as rich as the earth and hair the color of a burning sunset. I miss her laugh, her glittering smile.

“Good morning, dear chimes.” These words would greet me every morning; they would graciously greet the sun as it crested above the waking city. “Breathtaking.” She would whisper [comma] a small lopsided grin radiating from her face. “Absolutely breathtaking.”

She was an art student. Interested in watching the streets below and drawing what she saw. The day she moved into her apartment and discovered me, a set of chimes forgotten by their previous owner, she had smiled, and run a gentle finger over my dusty, neglected limbs. “You,” She had whispered. “Shall be the background music to my genius.” Oh [comma] how her eyes had sparkled! I miss the way she looked at me with awe, and beauty. She never ceased to make me happy.

But then the day came when the sparkle in her eye disappeared. Those dark gems filled to the brim with a deep biting fear I could never figure out [comma] yet felt everywhere. It was in the air hovering somewhere between heaven and our precious German city. The streets had grown silent [comma] engulfed in that frightening dark. Yet somehow amidst her worries she still remembered me.

“Good morning, my darlings.” She would coo [comma] her cheek brushing the cold aluminum of my arms. “You still play, despite all of this sadness...” That day was the first time in a long time she sat in the sill below me and put pencil to paper. She sketched like she had before the darkness; she sketched like she still loved to do it.

I could not see her picture, yet I played my song as brightly as I could. My sweet notes floated above the sad shadow of the town, falling over her glossy hair like snow floating gently over grass. She tilted her face toward the light reflecting off my chimes, and sat thoughtful for a brief moment. “Play for me when I am gone...” The sadness in her voice is the sadness I feel now that she has left. Somehow she knew that her time was almost up. She knew the men with the heavy boots, and loaded weapons were coming. I was afraid because I could smell fear in the streets, in her hair, in the quavering of her hand tracing the city onto paper. [ooo, mysterious! ]

The next day her fiancé came for her. Came to take her away from this place of darkness.

“Katya!” He whispered. “We must go -go now!”

“Christoph,” Her eyes were holes in her head, remnants of the happiness she once consisted of. “I will not leave, you know this.”

“Please,” His face was full of dread, fear, worry for her because he loved her. As much as I wished she wouldn’t leave me, I wanted her to listen to him. “They come tonight. They will take us away, and you,” His voice was bitter. “You will never see your family again-“

“My family,” Her words were sharp. “Has already been taken to those concentration camps. They are already dead.” I saw an energy in her eyes that had been absent for days, but it was not a good energy. It was full of anger, full of a pain I couldn’t soothe. “We can’t run… we cannot run from them…” Her face turned back to a stone mask as she looked at Christoph with something dark, something like hate.

“Then come with me because I love you.” Christoph grabbed her shoulders, his face white with a fear she seemed empty of.

“Love is not enough.” She pulled away, and walked toward the window, her eyes were empty of emotion, [This shouldn't be a comma. It should be one of these " ; "] they were fixed on me.

He begged her once more to leave with him, promised safety, food, a place to live until the war was over. His words fell on deaf ears. She was not listening anymore.

“I’ll come back for you,” He stood at the door his hand gripping the knob angrily. “Someday when it’s safe again.” When she didn’t reply, he shoved his hat onto his head, and stomped from the room.

“We are alone, you and I.” Her tear streaked face looked up toward where I swayed back and forth from the rotting ledge of her window. Slowly she had made her way to me, leaning against the bottom of the window frame, and looking out. She was saying goodbye to the life she had known. She was beginning to accept that everything was about to drastically change.

Then suddenly the sun was setting over the groggy village and a deep thundering sound struck from somewhere in the distance. The streets quaked from the marching steps pounding a steady beat, the rhythm of drum, which worked their way toward a young girl brave enough to stay [comma] yet too scared to leave, too scared to save herself.

“I will miss you, my chimes.” She wrapped her hands in my limbs. “But I’ll be back soon, you’ll see. We’ll all come back very soon.”

The boots reached us then, pounding up the stairs, their owners shouting from the hallway. The sound of fists banging on wooden doors echoed from somewhere below. I hoped it wouldn’t reach us, yet I knew better. I knew it was coming for her, my precious owner. Coming like dark rain clouds which dot the western horizon and threaten rain. [good description ]

She listened to the sounds, yet stood [comma] arms crossed [comma] eyes distant. She prepared to accept a fate I did not understand. As the pounding began on her door a lone tear trailed down her cheek leaving a smooth imprint [comma] the only evidence that it had existed at all. The droplet fell from her chin, parachuting to the rough wooden floor. [umm, I'm not sure if I like the word "parachuted" here. How can a tear "parachute"?]

The soldiers burst into her room as I watched in horror. [You should reword this so it says: I watched in horror as the soldiers burst into her room.]They shouted at her to move, but she didn’t, her eyes were fixed in the distance. The men rushed toward her pointing weapons against her small shoulders. It was then that she stirred and slowly made her stocking covered feet move. She snagged her shoes as they passed the bed, and sadly I watched as they shoved her away from me. They reached the door, and she paused [comma] despite the soldier’s prodding, looking back hoping I would play one last song. I stayed motionless. I didn’t sing a single note. She gave me a half hearted smile then, and with a push from her captors she was thrust into the hall.

Later [comma] I turned my attention to the streets where I saw she was taken amongst many others. Her face was turned upward watching my unmoving body all night long. Her eyes begged me to play, and I couldn’t, I wouldn’t because she was leaving me and I was angry that she was leaving, angry that she had not tried harder to stay. The stars in the sky twinkled above her head, and as the morning came [comma] merry rays of sun ignite on the horizon. The soldiers began to yell again. The people move [moved instead of move here] away, and as she marched her head spun in my direction letting go of one last strand of hope that I would sing above the noise surrounding her. I do not play, and she is herded from view to a place far away that I have not seen, to a destiny I do not know.

I wish that I had played for her one last time. I have seen war begin and war end, I have seen others like her taken away and seen some of them come home, yet she does not return. Christoph comes back. Christoph waits and then Christoph leaves. [Okay, now you just switched tenses?? Is this set in the past or the present??] I see a sun much less happy than the one I had once known so well. An icy wind blows from the North and my song that had been so strong and sweet clangs out empty and forlorn. I did not sing for her, and now she is gone.

The streets of Ludwigshafen are silent in the early morning hours. People do not want to rise, to face another day of reconstructing a once beautiful city. The only sound to be heard is the sharp, empty sound of chimes tapping together on the breeze, a remnant of what life had been like before Adolf Hitler. A life the people hope to have back some day. The chimes alone wake the people from their slumber, it is the sweet forlorn sound which urges them to begin again, and resurrect their city from the ashes. The soft tinkling floats down the streets and in an odd way the lonely sound gives them hope.

Very good ending!

Okay, most of my corrections are grammatically and punctual so, no worries there. You did switch tenses there from past to present towards the end but otherwise, you did well with this. I do think you need more description of the city and other such things. I'm guess the chimes are on a deck so wouldn't they look out at the city all day? So, you need to do that.

Otherwise, this is decent. A few corrections and such you need to make but this has potential!