ALEANA

She moves through the trees. Tired yet determined, she runs. As though free of the world she forgets her pain and suffering. The love she once had no longer haunts her. Its almost like there is a cloak of assure is keeping her from her own agony.

She stops to breathe and thunder sounds in the distance. She laughs as it falls from the sky. Now drenched, reality returns and her serenity disappears. Shaking her head she forces the water from her face, then continues.

Now after jogging for thirty minutes strait she loses breath again. She lets her pace slow to a walking jog than stops completely as she reaches a small stream. She sits giving time for her breath to return and her heart to stop screaming. A cold breeze Blew; causing a chill to crawl slowly through her.
A small garden snake slips a cross her brown sandles, and she immediately jumps slightly backward. Her long mid-night black air draping over her shoulder. Calming herself once again she sits beneath a large tree. Closing her eyes she falls asleep, and she dreams; remembering how and why she got here. Like a movie she sees her past in perfect pictures


What used to be her long blonde hair blew in the soft wind, her bight blue eyes gleaming with laughter as he speaks. His dark green eyes so deep it scared her stared her down like a cat and its prey with a loving twist.

"Marry me Aleana." he says to her, "Come with me, share our lives and make them one." A voice came from behind he, then he was gone.

"Alyssa?" Her sister asked, "are you coming to the lake?"

"Aleana" His voice replays in her mind. She finally stands up. Back from the coma she had seemed to be in. "Yes, Lilly" she said with a dazed voice. "I'm coming."

To start off with, part of a common courtesy (posted in the top of the forums) is that you should do two crits, of other peoples works, before posting your own. Its just a nice thing to do, but anyways back to your piece. Hopefully my critique will be of some help.

As I read it I was really curious, is this supposed to be a prologue? Because you just kind of left us hanging, not really knowing anything. Basically what I got out of it was that she is in a coma of some sort. I'm still unsure as to why, her (boyfriend?) asked her to marry him, and her sister wants to know if she's going to a lake.

I was very confused due to the fact that you didn't really explain anything you just kind of talked about how she was running through the woods and finally went to a stream thinking about some past memories.

Now I'm wondering if her running was actual reality or if that was just a part of her coma, or it was real and she was thinking about it in her coma. As you can tell I'm not sure what to think of your story yet.

I will just do some different corrections until I can really get a clear picture of what I think.

She moves through the trees. Tired yet determined, she runs. As though free of the world she forgets her pain and suffering.

I would change up this entire sentence into...She ran through the trees, tired yet determined, free of her pain and suffering...how you wrote it, does not flow well for me; firstly because you are stating her action twice with the words moving and run. Then saying as though free of the world and saying she forgets her pain and suffering, you are pretty much saying the same thing.

Its almost like there is a cloak of assure is keeping her from her own agony.

Okay, now that is just a very muddled up sentence. I had to read it three times, and then looked up the definition of assure just to reassure myself (no pun intended) that I was correct.

How I understand it is that you are trying to tell us that their is a cloak of assurance, or comfort, encompassing her. Which literally blocks her from her suffering that you have previously stated she has forgotten.

I would change the sentence into, possibly...actually to tell you the truth I hate your first paragraph. Its just all stating some of the same things over and over again.

This is what I would change your entire opener into...She ran through the trees, tired yet determined, free of the love that brought so much agony...Basically your overdoing the description so much that it muddles up your paragraph, think more simplistic and get the point across!

On to the second paragraph...

She stops to breathe and thunder sounds in the distance.

The "and" just does not flow with the rest of it. I would put it as...She stops to breathe as thunder sounds in the distance. Or you could be more descriptive of the thunder and say it like this...She stopped to breathe as the thunder roared overhead.

She laughs as it falls from the sky.

Why is she laughing? This doesn't make sense, and also thunder does not fall from the sky.

Now drenched, reality returns and her serenity disappears.

Okay...again this does not make sense. Why is she serene? As far as I know she was laughing a couple of words before.

Shaking her head she forces the water from her face, then continues.

I would change this to...Shaking her head, she wiped the water from her face, pressing onward.

Now after jogging for thirty minutes strait she loses breath again.

Why is she jogging? You just told me in the first paragraph that she was running, make sure you don't contradict yourself.

She sits giving time for her breath to return and her heart to stop screaming.

Her heart is screaming? Now I'm unsure as to what you mean by this. Is it screaming because she has been running? Or is it screaming emotionally? If its the second, then it contradicts what you said in the first paragraph about her forgetting her pain and suffering.

A cold breeze Blew; causing a chill to crawl slowly through her.

Change it to...A cold breeze blew, causing a chill to crawl slowly through her.

A small garden snake slips a cross her brown sandles, and she immediately jumps slightly backward. Her long mid-night black air draping over her shoulder. Calming herself once again she sits beneath a large tree.

This section, does not really flow that well for me. I would change it to...She jumped backwards as a small garden snake slipped across her brown sandles. Calming herself, she draped her long, mid-night hair across her shoulder.

Closing her eyes she falls asleep, and she dreams; remembering how and why she got here. Like a movie she sees her past in perfect pictures

Try this...Closing her eyes she fell asleep. Remembering how, and why she got there. Like a movie she saw her past in perfect pictures.

What used to be her long blonde hair blew in the soft wind, her bight blue eyes gleaming with laughter as he speaks. His dark green eyes so deep it scared her stared her down like a cat and its prey with a loving twist.

Change bight...to bright. I don't like how you didn't tell us who he is, it is confusing using a pronoun there, because you have not introduced who he is yet.

"Marry me Aleana." he says to her, "Come with me, share our lives and make them one." A voice came from behind he, then he was gone.

Make sure when you write, to try and separate the dialogue. Like this...

"Marry me, Aleana," he said to her. (He is addressing Aleana so put a comma before her name)

"Come with me, let us share our lives and be one."

A voice came from behind him, and he was gone. (I got a little confused with this last bit, because how you said it I wasn't sure whether it was his voice or someone else's.

"Aleana" His voice replays in her mind. She finally stands up. Back from the coma she had seemed to be in. "Yes, Lilly" she said with a dazed voice. "I'm coming."

Again, separate dialogue.

"Aleana," his voice replayed in her mind.

She finally stood up, back from from the coma.

"Yes, Lilly," she said with a dazed voice.

"I'm coming."

---------------------------------

Okay, one of the things I noticed was that your sentences didn't flow that well. I'm very big on fluency and how things roll together. If they don't roll together, it is not going to make you want to read more.

Think of writing as an art form, you have to paint everything smoothly so that it makes you want to look at it.

Another thing you need to work on is getting your point across. A lot of the time, I was confused as to what point you were actually trying to give me.

Then finally, you had some grammar and organization problems, but we all have that from time to time. Just make sure you proof read what you write a lot, so you can catch those types of things. Eventually you will find fewer and fewer mistakes when you proof read if you continue doing that and catching yourself.

Overall it was an intriguing beginning and I'd like to see where you go with it. Hopefully my critique helped you, I'll see you around!

-Aero

judging by the persons comment before.... they think they could write it better than you???
But in my opinion... I liked it the way it was... and yeah, it made sense to me.......................

Where does Aero say he could write better than the writer? He was critiquing to help out as best he could.

positive criticism is nice... but actually commenting on the most of the piece and saying it needed changing???
Nope... It wasn't kind criticism.
It was "I can do it better then you" criticism.


my opinion.


Its a free free country.... or not?

To be honest I critiqued this before and I had no idea who this character was and I would have suggested changes but the author didn't reply to any critiques and just posts the Aleana story once in a while.

Of course positive critiques is nice but sometimes you have to be realistic and be a little harsh. I've had harsh comments before and that is why I change and imporve my work. Sometimes positive comments are lies because the critic does not want to hurt the writers feelings.

hmmmm. ok.

lexy, comments telling people they're critiques aren't nice are not welcomed on this site. If you want to take up this matter with me, use PM, but do'nt clog this thread up any more.

So please don't have a go at someone for simply trying to help. That's the way YWS works; we spot things that we think the writer could improve. That's how people improve. On the other hand, your comments will entirely pointless -- the writer could have years of "I liked it" and never get any better. Don't criticise other people's comments when the best you've ever given is "It was good."

Like I said, if you want to reply, PM me, but this is all I have to say on this matter.

Its almost like there is a cloak of assure is keeping her from her own agony.

The "its" need an apostrophe.

She stops to breathe and thunder sounds in the distance. She laughs as it falls from the sky.

You make it unclear and it sounds like the thunder is falling on her.

Now after jogging for thirty minutes strait she loses breath again.

I beleive "strait" should be "straight".

She sits giving time for her breath to return and her heart to stop screaming.

There should be a comma after the "sits". I like the metaphor.

A small garden snake slips a cross her brown sandles, and she immediately jumps slightly backward

.
"a cross" should be one word: "across"

Like a movie she sees her past in perfect pictures

Lacks a period!

His dark green eyes so deep it scared her stared her down like a cat and its prey with a loving twist.

I would write it as: His dark green eyes ,so deep it scared her, stared her down like a cat and its prey with a loving twist.

A voice came from behind he, then he was gone.

The first "he" should be "him".

Hey sorry i never reply. i should do that more. Most the time i dont reply, i just look back and see what i can change, i change it then repost. But thank you to everybody for helping...

Thanks

Abigail C.S. Lindsay