Harper's Story

*This story is not anywhere near completion, but I would like some critique on it before I continue. Also, for some reason dashes are not showing up right now. Sorry about that!*

The snow fell gently on the ground as the cold pierced every person to the bone. A baby’s cries were drowned out by the priest’s moaning voice echoing through the air. Most listened attentively as tears slid down their faces.
One boy in the crowd did not care about the freezing wind, nor the baby’s cry, and blocked out the priest’s speech. How could this have happened? His little brother-his only brother-was gone forever. Harper choked back tears, he had to be stronger than this, but he couldn’t manage. He hated everything and everyone. Why did his brother die and not him? Why didn’t anyone even know who killed his brother? The injustice was insane. If he ever found the person that murdered his brother…
Soon Harper’s silent stream of tears mixed with anger and sadness joined in the ever-growing sea of sorrow. He couldn’t take this anymore, he needed someone-anyone to talk to, to relate to. But who did he have? No one could understand his feelings. Not even his parents. Harper was never the person to talk and was often considered anti-social. The only person he really opened up to was his little brother, Haie…but he was gone now and forever.
Hours seemed to pass as Harper stood in the snow and the funeral procession finally ended. His parents had to forcefully drag him away from his brother’s coffin. Harper refused at first. They tried to convince him that Haie was at peace, but Haie wasn’t at peace. Couldn’t they see what Harper saw? Haie was dealt an unfair death-his years were taken from him long before his time. None of this made any sense! Why!? Why!?

When the family returned home, Harper went to his room, slamming his door, and throwing himself on his bed. He thought several times of suffocating himself with the pillow. It would be so easy to just end this terrible pain-a pain that he knew would never go away. But he would always stop himself and think of his parents. No, he couldn’t do it, after losing one son, what would happen to his parents if they lost another? Harper knew it would be selfish, so he decided to deal with the pain by himself as he did with everything else.
It was late in the night and Harper was exhausted mentally and physically. He tossed his body this way and that, but he couldn’t sleep. Would he ever be able to sleep from now on?
He groaned as he eventually sat up in his bed. He had to have someone to talk to. It wasn’t a want, it was a need. Still refusing to speak to his parents, he turned to the one place where he would find console. Turning on the internet, Harper hoped to vent his thoughts out. Even if he went on and on about his brother’s death to people he didn’t know, Harper just needed to communicate his feelings to someone.
Quickly, he logged into a random chat room under the username MetalAnger7X . No one was there. He logged into another-the same situation. Someone else had to be on one! Just as he was about to log off of the third one, another user popped up. This one was named TwilightScream. Harper honestly didn’t care who it was and typed in, “Hi.” What else could he put? He wasn’t about to blurt out his brother died right away. “Hello^_^”, was her reply.
Harper just sat at the keyboard motionless. He didn’t know how to start this. Gradually telling her would be best, so he started with the basics.
“I’m 17. What about you?”
“I’m 15...So what’s up?” Harper nearly smacked his head-this wasn’t getting anywhere.
“Uh, I just wanted to talk to someone. I can’t sleep. How about you?” For a while the girl didn’t respond and Harper wondered if TwilightScream had logged out., and then she sent a comment back,
“I’m sleepy but I can’t fall asleep either.” Once again there was no typing and Harper started to think this was pointless.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” was the girl’s next question. This was it, this was Harper’s opportunity to tell her what happened. He was about to type the answer when another person popped up. Harper had hoped to have a one-on-one conversation, but at this point he didn’t care how many people would end up in the chat room
The new-comer was named Nightwing51, obviously a guy. He was a fairly quick typer and wrote, “What’s up!?” This guy sounded young. “Just talking, nothing much so…how old are you?” Harper didn’t want anyone too young to have to deal with this. “I’m 13 ok? Got a problem?” Oh god…this was a young kid and a bratty one at that. “Don’t look down on me just ’cause I’m 13. I could take you on!”. This was all Harper needed now. “Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it. We were just about to talk about our siblings. Do you have any? Either or you?” Harper typed. It was true he didn’t want to get this kid involved, but he couldn’t hold his feelings in much longer before they blurted out. “Nah, I’m an only child.” “Figures,” Harper scoffed under his breath. “I have an older brother in college, so I don’t see him much,” replied TwilightScream.
“Oh, I’m sorry about that,” Harper typed.
“Yeah, sorry,” said Nightwing51.
“It’s all right, at least I still can talk to him. What about you MetalAnger7X? Do you have any siblings?”
Finally, Harper could describe his feeling of loss. Before he could type the next word, a fourth user popped up.
“Ahh, every time,” thought Harper.
“Hello all,” the new user said. Harper noticed the new user didn’t have a user name on the screen…maybe he or she was hiding it…was that possible?
“Harper, such a pleasure to meet you.”
“What!?” Harper said to himself aloud. Who was this!?
“Harper? Is that MetalAnger7X’s name?” Nightwing51 asked. Before Harper could type anything, the fourth user continued on his speech uninterrupted. “Ah, I see you have friends…

Hello! First I would like to welcome you to YWS! If you have any questions about the site, or need help finding something, feel free to PM me. I'd just like to remind you that we have a 2:1 policy: for everyone one thing you post, you should review two. So, since you've posted one story, you should write two reviews. It says you've only written one. You're new, so we won't kill you! But try to keep your reviews and posts balanced, so it is fair for everyone. Plus, the more you review, he more people will look at your work, and get to know you! It's a great way to make friends, too. So, on to the critique! I hope I'm not too harsh.

The snow fell gently on the ground[comma] as the cold pierced every person to the bone. A baby’s cries were drowned out by the priest’s moaning voice echoing through the air. Most listened attentively as tears slid down their faces.

The first thing I want to know, is where are they? It sounded like they were outside, but then there is a priest giving some sort of speech. They probably are outside, but you never say. My assumption is they're at a grave yard - make the location apparent. "Every person" is a general statement, and I wasn't quite sure who you were talking about. Why not "mourners"? The phrase its self is weird though, because later on you're in Harper's head, so why not stay in his head? Describe the weather as he feels it. " The snow fell gently on the ground, as the cold pierced into Harper's bones." If you connect us immediatly to your main character, rather than later, we'll feel closer to him. Also "fell gently" is a bit cliché. Either cut the word "gently" or try to find some other way to describe it. What does it fall like? Feathers, or stars? You can see how those two words, unusual though they are, would give the snow a whole different meaning. Piercing is a great word for cold, but try to go into more. You only explain the cold once, briefly, but couldn't you explain it stronger? I think the second sentence would sound better as, "A baby's cry drowned in the priest's moaning voice...". The following part "echoing through the air" doesn't really fit. You could say "the priest's moaning voice as/while it echoed through the air."

One boy in the crowd did not care about the freezing wind, nor the baby’s cry, and blocked out the priest’s speech. How could this have happened? His little brother-his only brother-was gone forever. Harper choked back tears, he had to be stronger than this, but he couldn’t manage. He hated everything and everyone. Why did his brother die and not him? Why didn’t anyone even know who killed his brother? The injustice was insane. If he ever found the person that murdered his brother…

As I changed the sentence in the first paragraph to reflect to Harper, this first one could be changed too. Shorten it to avoid redundancy, and get to the point. But then, we need to know that he doesn't care about the world around him, he's only thinking of his brother. "Harper didn't care; he only wanted to know who killed his brother." But that's a little strange. I think you should rewrite it yourself, and think about what, and why, Harper doesn't care. Is he ignoring everyone else because he wants to feel isolated, or because he is in deep thought? You would think that one mourning for their loss would care, so the reason for him not to care needs to be significant enough to make sense.

Soon Harper’s silent stream of tears mixed with anger and sadness joined in the ever-growing sea of sorrow.

Emotion is something that's incredebly hard to convey. It has to be done so that it isn't cliché, and so that the reader can feel with the main character. What I'm getting at, is you need to be more specific. "silent stream of tears" isn't bad, but it doesn't have much feeling in it. Give it life, don't be cliché. More than anything, the words "anger" and "sadness" are much too vague, and "sea of sorrow", though a good metaphor, is an overused one if it isn't used in a new way. For example: "Soon, Harper's silent tears dried up. He only thought of the man who killed his brother. He wanted to find him, get him in a dark ally and beat him until he, too, was dead. He wanted him to feel as alone as Harper did now." It's really bad, but you see my point. Not only should you use stronger words, but show what you are saying, don't tell [I'll go into this more later]. Another thing I notice is you say "sadness and anger" but from the sentence it's assumed that his tears equals his sadness, and that now his emotions are changing, but then wouldn't he be going from sadness to anger, rather than to angry and sadness?

He couldn’t take this anymore, he needed someone-anyone to talk to, to relate to. But who did he have? No one could understand his feelings. Not even his parents. Harper was never the person to talk and was often considered anti-social. The only person he really opened up to was his little brother, Haie…but he was gone now and forever.

Here is where I will expand on the Show-Don't-Tell adage. You could cut this paragraph out altogether, and the story would be fine. Instead of telling us he needed someone to talk to, show him walking around his school, looking for someone to talk to, or maybe he goes through an old phone book trying to find friends to call to talk to - but he realizes that he has no one else but his brother. It's kind of hard for me to explain, using this paragraph as an example, but you don't want to say "He wanted someone to talk to" instead, "He paced through his house, words trapped in his mind that wanted to come out, but with no one to hear them. Harper came to his brother's bedroom door. He opened it and whispered, "Hey, Haie, are you...?" But then he remembered his brother was in the ground, rotting." You can see this is a lot more powerful, and more true to life. Yes, it puts him in a different setting than where he is, but it's a lot better.

His parents had to forcefully drag him away from his brother’s coffin. Harper refused at first. They tried to convince him that Haie was at peace, but Haie wasn’t at peace. Couldn’t they see what Harper saw? Haie was dealt an unfair death-his years were taken from him long before his time. None of this made any sense! Why!? Why!?

Again, Show, don't tell! But I can explain this one a lot better. Instead of what you have here:

Harper's mother grabbed his hand. "Come on, we need to leave.

"No! I'm not leaving Haie." Harper pulled his hand away from his mother, and walked closer to the coffin.

"Harper," his father said, his voice mixed with frustration and dried tears, "You can't stay here all day. Haie is in peace now, he's --"

Harper turned to his father. "No, he isn't! Can't you see? Haie shouldn't be dead! He was too young!" For a moment, he was silent, then he turned to his mother: "Why! Why is he dead? Why wasn't it me, or you, or Father? He was so young! He was..." Harper would have said more, but his voice whithered into a gasp, and he started to cry again.

Dialogue is incredebly powerful. I just took your paragraph, and turned it into actions and dialogue. I changed some things, added a bit to Harper's personality, but you can still understand what I'm saying. I'll stop harping [no pun indended ^_~] on show, don't tell, because I think you have the idea down. Just keep it in mind for the rest of the story, and everything else you write.

He thought several times of suffocating himself with the pillow.

Actually, it's really hard to suffocate oneself. Think of it this way: if you try chocking yourself, eventually you will pass out, but you won't be dead. Your hand will loose the power to hold your throat when you pass out, and you will start breathing again. The same thing would happen with a pillow. Either find a different method, or have him talk about how it wouldn't even work, but there was nothing else.

He groaned [s]as he eventually[/s] and sat up in his bed.

“Hello^_^”, was her reply.

Unless the chat displays gender, he probably wouldn't know it was a girl - don't assume that a username will determine gender. ^_~



I think the mixture of literature and chat is an interesting one. ^_^ I think it might be more interesting if you wrote it in a more chat based way:

MetalAnger7X has entered at 11:45pm
TwilightScream has entered at 11:47pm
MetalAnger7X: Hi
TwilightScream: Hello^_^


It's just a stylistic thing, but I thin it would work a lot better. I'm not big on stuff like this, but it is interesting. The mixture of media formats is always fun! The spooky in-comer without a username is real interesting, and that is a nice hook to leave us with! We have a chat here at YWS, but you need a certain amount of reviews (25, I think? Or maybe it's just posts...) to join. I would suggest hanging out in there a bit to get a feel for what a chat room is - and a safe one. I would not suggest going to any random chat room. A lot of them have creepy people. The YWS chat is safe, and almost always monitored.


Again, if you have any questions about the site, feel free to PM me! And if anything in this critique seems confusing, or you would like more help/explanation, you can pm me for that too. Hope to see you around some more! Enjoy the site.

Oh wow Danielle, I really liked this. I agree with Suzanne on this one. You should write the chat conversation like a chat room. You could even use different colors. Play around with it a little. I am really in to that though, so you must keep writing cause I am very curious to find out what happens next!

Another suggestion would be, if you could put more of a description for the characters; what they look like, how they dress, the tone in their voices, little descriptive things that help us become attached to the characters. Keep writing it though, because I want to read more!!! xD

Josh

the chatroom idea is good, you should totally try it! i liked how you did the online thing in the first place.

i think the beginning was my favorite part. a little more description, and it could be totally smash.