A Work-in-Progress: Part One

This has an R Rating for a reason. Contains Intense coarse language, potentially graphic violence, and adult themes. Don't read if you will get offended by this... You have been warned.



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The Present Isn't Always a Gift



"Just fuck off! Go away! Leave me!"
The young girl shrieked in terror, tears were gushing out of her reddened eyes. "Just leave me alone! Do you know what it's like to.. to be stepped on? Crushed. Beaten. Bruised. Left for dead all bloody and broken on the sidewalk? Do you fucking know? Of course not! You don't know fucking shit, Murray!"
She picked herself up off the cold, rocky floor she was sprawled across and tried one more time to claw her way out of her stone chamber, while her captor stood above her laughing.
"Ha! Cry! Bleed! Scream!" His voice was menacing. "Go on! Scream out at the top of your lungs. No one's gonna save you! No one cares about you, ya filthy whore!" He spat down at her as he turned and walked away, leaving her sobbing to herself.
"Anne, what have you gotten yourself into now..." She cried to herself.

Her memories took her back to when she was a child, playing at home on the coast where she lived. She smiled through her tears as she remembered herself running through the back door all muddy from the rain that morning. Her mother was appalled. "Annabel Stacey Bedrinn! What have you gotten into this time?" Young Anne stood there and laughed; "There's worms in the mud, Mummy. Come look..."

The sound of heavy footsteps brought Anne back to reality. She looked up to see a rusty bucket flung down at her and some dried out bread. She rushed to catch it before it hit the ground; but the bucket was too quick for her and smashed against the ground to pieces, the water that was once inside now ran along the dirty ground like a small stream. She scraped with her fingers what water she could make cling to her hands and sucked it from her skin and picked up the bread and took a small nibble after dusting a few flakes of dirt off it.

Hey there!
I shall take a gander at your work today!
Don't worry, I don't bite [s]hard[/s].

I. Nit-Picking

in terror. Tears were

The period should be a comma.
The two sentences are incredibly related, and can be easily combined. Sometimes when you combine two sentences, it helps with your fluency. It makes it seem less 'stop and go'.

Also, make sure you get rid of the capital on 'tears' if you change it to a comma because certainly that is common sense. I am sure you already knew that already. xD

She picked herself up off the cold, rocky floor she was sprawled on

The way you phrased this doesn't seem quite right, almost awkward. I think it might help if you changed 'on' to 'against', but I am not quite sure. There is just something wrong with it that rubs me the wrong way.

Sorry for the no example, I am horrible at examples. xD

of this stone

**the (That is only my suggestion. There is nothing really wrong with 'this'.)

She smiled through her tears as she remembered herself running through the back door all muddy from last nights rain.

When you say 'last nights rain' it automatically makes me think the night previous to this one, where in here you are actually trying to describe the 'last nights rain' in the dream. I believe that you could possibly rephrase that and maybe make sure people know that full transition into the memories of the dream.

The child smiled and laughed:

I thought the memory was in her point of view? I would possibly change that again to make sure it is easily known that you are continuing the theme of her dream.

laughed:

The colon should actually be a semi-colon. That is because a colon is more over used for listing things when semi-colons are used for replacing a comma when the two points don't relate enough with each other or you are going into much more detail with that.

In this case, you are going into more detail because you are writing what the child is saying.

but she missed it by an inch.

The 'by an inch' is un-needed information. I believe you could say how much she missed it but by a generic amount, not an actual measurement because that takes away from the reality of the piece. You don't see people having an instant ruler in their head when measuring something. They don't automatically know how far away it is.

after dusting what she could of it off.

Try this instead;
'after trying to dust the dirt from the ground off' or something like that.
(I told you I am horrible at examples.)

The reasons why I said that was because if you read through the sentence with out actually knowing what you were trying to mean, then it would not make sense because moreover it seems that you are describing that your were trying to dust as much of the bread off of the bread. xD

II. Grammar and Punctuation

Your grammar is astounding. You had it almost perfect, barely any noticable errors. I was amazed. You have a great vocabulary making your writing not to over done and I did like that about it. Your punctuation was great too. The only thing I would like you to make sure to know is the rule for colons. I don't have it off by heart, but I basically do know when to use it where and in the proper place.

I recommend you to look into that.

III. Character Development

I had an instant like to your main character Anne. I just like how she was yelling in the beginning, obviously free willed and the language you used made it better. I actually felt concern for her. I would have liked you to add more detail though.

I understand that this is just the start, and I understand most likely that the details I want will come in later, but I would just like you know the details that are wanted in characters. We don't want the characteristics to be laid out right before us. Using dialogue and actions, you can easily get a impression of the kind of person she is, and I would have liked to see more of that. But again I know this is still a piece in motion.

Also, with her character, you could have possible added more description of what she looks like for at this moment, I still have no clue. Again you have to be careful when doing so or else you may info dump and that is like death to all readers. Just add subtle hints like saying 'the brown haired girl' instead of 'she'. It is certainly easy. You can also get into her appearance if when you describe her actions by adding again subtle details again.

IV. Writing Format

As I have said before, your writing is definetely a nice read. It is not overdone and makes it easy for people like me to read and maintain a full understanding. I believe the dialogue made it seem more like a realistic situation which draws a reader into it, making them to read on. Especially your first sentence. That certainly was an eye opener.

I am certainly curious into reading part two.

The one thing you may have to work on, I can't really tell at this point, is making sure your sentences are fluent and make 100% sense. You also have to be certain that you clarify and add necessary details so that the reader doen't get confused. It can be helped if you read a sentence you are unsure of out loud, or basically getting another person to read it.

I also think that more description is possible. It is not really needed, but I believe it would give a better understanding and ideal if you get into describing the setting and the characters. Paint the pictures in the reader's mind. Make them imagine what you are trying to say.

V. Overall

I like this idea, I certainly do. I think this has amazing potential especially if you continue it. Not many people would write about abduction or abuse because a lot of people like to pretend it is not there, but in the real world people search for news like that. People search for the melodramatic and the mind blowing stories and I think this one certainly could be possible.

One thing I felt though was that I think you could have dwelled in the flashback a little longer because the abuser just left and I think that it would make more sense that he would come by with the food later. Or maybe you could possible mention that he placed it into the room before hand.

So if you just maintain the intensity and energy I get from this story, I believe it could be great.

~Incognito

Okay, so I've taken Incognito's advice and edited a few sentences and grammatical errors in the story thus far... I'm working currently on the third part, so once that's finished I will post up the second part for your viewing and reviewing pleasure.