3.00

The below story is just a quick one I wrote a while ago and I've decided to offer it as a sacrifice to you all.

3.00

Darkness wraps itself around everything while a chill blankets the world. Tuesday, 3.00 am, and once again I’m wide awake. He thinks I cant hear him cry, thinks I dont know about all those 3.00 am’s he spends wrestling with your ghost.
The shadows are black against deep grey and the oranged glow from the street lamp outside cast eerie shadows across the walls through the slanted blinds I never get around to closing properly. Distant sounds of cars passing, even at this hour, seem muted by the oppressive darkness; sounding hollower and lonely.
He’s hidden himself away under the dim yellow glow of a single lamp as he bleeds his heart out onto rough lined paper. Page after page of his own personal hell. His mind’s layed out like empty corridors for his heartache to tread.
Day comes and he thinks i dont notice his distant eyes, like blinds pulled tight over startling blue. He’s a million miles away torturing hiself with the memory of a kiss in the rain and tentive hands over flushed skin.
Nothing he can say will bring you back, so instead he washes the dishes in the sink, sightless eyes staring out the window to the dirty streets below; while newspapers he always says he’ll throw away pile up on the floor like flimsy towers of heartfelt words.
But for now while the night lingers we hide away in our cacoons of warmth and heartache. Tomorrow he’ll pretend his vacant eyes see and the burn in his chest isnt there, and in return I’ll pretend I dont know about all the 3.00 ams he spends wrestling with your ghost.

End

Very interesting.

First off I'll hit all the grammar bumps

Distant sounds of cars passing, even at this hour, seem muted by the oppressive darkness; sounding hollower and lonely.

Use a comma, not a semicolon.

He thinks I cant hear him cry, thinks I don't know about all those 3.00 am’s he spends wrestling with your ghost.

There were some other typos, but I don't remember where they are... One good suggestion is to read your piece over a few times before you post it, and catch everything you can. Less work for us.

Another not specific suggestion is to space your paragraphs out. See how my paragraphs all of spaces in them? This helps your reader out, because otherwise it is a big block of text, and if this was longer than it is, that would be annoying.

Onto the story! Your writing was OK, though honestly I'm not sure what to say to fix that up. It wasn't horribly bad, but it wasn't stunning either. It was neutral, we'll say. And I was reading in the context of this story, so it really depends... The problem with this is that it has no conflict, you're just telling us about something. Maybe if this was the beginning of a novel, it would be good, but within those paragraphs you need conflict, and resolution, of some sort. Short fiction (otherwise called flash fiction) is really hard because you have to do so much in so little of words. I'm not sure how you could edit this up to make it better, but in general you need some kind of conflict, or the formation of conflict. (Though not always? I actually got away without conflict once!!) One thing that jumped out at me was your descriptions of things, they almost seemed like purple prose, but bordering on the edge of, and not exactly. Descriptions are strange to do--I'm not good at them--but you picked out lots of colors and things, which is good! I guess it just came off weird because all you did in the whole story was tell (Remember, more often than not, show don't tell!) and so all your descriptions of lights and things got sucked up into the rest of the story... oy, I fear that made no sense?

Well, I think I've finished rambling. I hope this helps, and if you have any questions/comments, you can PM me. Bonne chance!

Welcome to YWS

This was extremely well written. There is a lot of beautiful imagery and passion in 3.00 which draws a reader into it immediately. The length is good, the metaphors and similes were thought provoking and fresh, and yet it wasn't overdone or overly verbose, which is a trap many people fall into when writing something like this. You did a good job.

However, space out your paragraphs in the future. There's no indentation here on YWS, so you'll have to go with a block format.

3.00 am’s he spends wrestling with your ghost.

The '3.00 AM' part doesn't work here. Consider rewording this to: "the early mornings he spends wrestling with your ghost." You already used '3.00 AM' in the sentence beforehand and repitition should be avoided.

Day comes and he thinks i dont notice his distant eyes, like blinds pulled tight over startling blue.

You made reference to blinds two paragraphs earlier. Try to come up with a different simile, or all your readers will come away with is the knowledge of your obsession with blinds . It's the repition thing again.

I’ll pretend I dont know about all the 3.00 ams he spends wrestling with your ghost

.

I don't know why, but I think the ending is the only downfall of this piece. It leaves the reader feeling cheated, I think. The final sentence is the most important, next to the first. Choose it well, young padawan. This sentence just doens't convey the same power of the rest of the piece. Its just... there. Consider drawing out the end (not too much, this piece is best brief) and using the actual structure of your paragraphs to convey more emotion. Like single lines as paragraphs and the like. Something anyway.

Well, happy to have you aboard! I hope I was of some help. Also, seeing as that your a new member, consider checking out The Buddy System where you can choose a mentor to show you around YWS for a month. It's extremeley useful.

Anyway, cheers!

-Kylan