The Anger

The Anger


I could tell by his face that he was angry… and it wasn’t the first time…

Farhan, my best friend. We have been together for many years. Farhan is a calm-looking guy. He never let himself bursts his temper. A person whose always in control. Someone who never fails to smile when greeted by people. Someone who is dedicated to the library and an average student. Someone whose favourite colour is typical blue. He is tall and straight. He always looks at his best upon public; neat and smart. His glasses and appearance made him appeared professional towards people. The school community loves him as who he is. Farhan is very calm and manage to bring that cool feeling in someone by just smiling at them. He always have that smile on his face…

But it ended…

These past few days I noticed changes in him. It wasn’t distinctive. It was small changes here and there. But still, it was a negative sign . For instance, he had changed his favourite colour. He used to love blue. But now I haven’t seen anything blue on him anymore. He changed his bag, his pencil box, his stationery into red, orange, yellow and every colour which exist except blue. He’s rarely seen hanging out in the library anymore. Although he still smiles, but it wasn’t the same smile he had. It was different. He frequently day dreams and most, he avoids communication a lot, especially with me. We haven’t spoke for days. I don’t understand what happened to him but I could not bear to bring myself close enough to ask him why.

Until one day, I caught him smoking alone in the park. Smoking!! This wasn’t the friend I knew. This is not Farhan! I decided it was time to put this to end. Without further due, I approached him and scolded him. I asked why had he changed, why hadn’t he speak to me? What was his problems? Why can’t he share them with me? And why did he seemed so angry? Angry of what? But he never replied to any of my questions. He stood there, in silence and gently blew the black smoke, letting it escape between his lips. He never even looked at my face.

Suddenly he took out a picture of us acting silly that he kept in his wallet. The photo was then torn into small pieces. After that, he set the pieces in flames using the lighter he kept in his pocket. His expression was solemn in fury, yet he didn’t voice a word… I was absolutely baffled…

A while later, he began to speak.. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you, Syah. I deserve this. It was all my fault! It wasn’t you who should’ve been trapped in the building!”

I saw tears running down his cheek… I saw his left hand gripping my name tag ‘Ahmad Syahrul’ which was smothered with thin black dust, along with a pocket knife in his other hand. I tried to stop him but….

He cannot see me…

I could tell by his face that he was angry, but soon I realized it was anger towards himself… and the anger had finally ended right in front of my own eyes. I couldn’t speak a word.. all I could do was cry…

I am going to review this when I get home from school. I can't wait to read more of your writing.

~Incognito

Hey! Before I review this, I just want you to remember YWS' 2:1 ratio for when you post things for critiquing. That way, you can guilt people into reading your stuff.

I could tell by his face that he was angry… and it wasn’t the first time…

There's nothing special in this. I don't feel the slightest care. In some cases, where we know the character to be very jumpy, or paranoid, for example, the character development can be used to make us care. However, since we don't know the character at all, the only alternative is to hook us with something powerful and intriguing, out of the ordinary. As it stands, my expectations are at a mediocre level, and I feel even more secured on the fact by:

Farhan, my best friend. We have been together for many years. Farhan is a calm-looking guy.

Another three sentences and I can understand is that someone who is usually calm is angry. So what? It's not intriguing; you can use character, but you need it in the first sentence, if that makes sense. I think it's stronger if, instead of ramming down our throats the history of some guy called Farhan, you just bring us into the consequences (banging, shouting, for example: there may be other forms of anger, but is what I am expecting). Otherwise I'll have forgotten he's angry at all by the time you get to it.

Besides, you don't need to state anything, because descriptions tell us things anyway as they are from your character's perspective: going into long explanations of Farhan makes me feel like a bystander and unconcerned. Show us the story and then, throughout, drop in the information as appropriate. Don't give him a name yet. Put in a bit of mystery. Call him "he". I actually, however, like the short sentences you've got going on. Just consider what is necessary before you write it.

He never let himself bursts his temper. A person whose always in control. Someone who never fails to smile when greeted by people.

I have a few issues with this. Firstly, proofread! The first two things that I put in bold are simple mistakes that need to be edited, and could have been simply sorted out by a spell-checker or your rereading eye.

Secondly, the "let himself" doesn't feel necessary. It's much more active and snappier to say that he is in control of his actions, making those times in which he's not much stronger and more passionate. Furthermore, the "greeted by people" makes me wonder if the characters in this story are animals. It's unnecessary and drags out a better-when-shorter sentence.

His glasses and appearance made him appeared professional towards people.

Yeah. More typos. But also, I mean, his "glasses and appearance"? Did you just get lazy, or something? Don't say it gave him a professional look, but describe it. A woven black and grey tie, or the slim jacket that stretched to his jet black trousers, are examples of what I mean.

Oh, and I'm get a mega tense change issue, especially when I read this:

He always have that smile on his face…
But it ended…
These past few days I noticed changes in him.

First: ellipses overload. Something that should be blunt becomes stretched and dull.
Second: wut? At the start, you say he is professional and happy and in flower land and that, but then you say that you have noticed changes, but then that he was miserable, which really doesn't fit into the context of the piece. PM me if I'm confusing you too much. Pay attention to the orders that you're picking, and be very careful with the present tense, which is easily confusing.

These past few days I noticed changes in him. It wasn’t distinctive. It was small changes here and there. But still, it was a negative sign . For instance, he had changed his favourite colour. He used to love blue. But now I haven’t seen anything blue on him anymore.

Yes! This is how to start your story. It brings into account what it used to be like, without mentioning his name, but also something funny like changing your favourite colour. The thing is, it's taken us a while to get here, and I have now forgotten that this guy is angry.

Okay! So it got much better. And I loved the blunt mystery concerning what happened. It still wasn't perfect (watch out for excessive and amateur exclamation marks), but it was a vast improvement. The story began and I felt involved. Just don't spend a forever doing it next time.

My suggestion for this would be to expand it into a longer story. Put a character in place of a silhouette, for both characters, and put us in his world. Let us be the main character who sees this, not a perverted reader apparently flicking through his diary. We need to witness the change and be more subjected to it. Give us some reason to suggest that he might change, but don't specify.

I hope I helped! I skipped out the the grammar errors later on, as I think that they can be resolved with simply skimming through.

Best,
Blinky

Hey there!
Here is my promised review. It seems Blink covered a lot, but still I will try my best!
Please ignore me if I repeat somethings that he may have said.
Let's begin.

I. Nit-Picking

I could tell by his face that he was angry… and it wasn’t the first time…

First off, you use dot dot dots a lot. That can be seen in other works of your writing. I personally only like them if placed in the right spot. What you are doing here is having one after the other which doesn't get the readers attention very well. Maybe you should try something like;

'I could tell by his face that he was angry, and this wasn't the first time.'

The second problem I have is that I am sure that everyone has indeed been angry at one point in time. Truly. Also, you may have noticed I changed the one appove with 'it' to 'this'. I recommend sticking with that either way because it makes it more specific and makes more sense. It also adds to the fluency of the piece.

Farhan, my best friend. We have been together for many years.

Make this into two sentences in the least. Right now, and even if you read some of the rest of the paragraph it is increasingly choppy. Might I recommend blending some of the sentences together using commas and 'ands'. Anything to make it more fluent. Also in the rest of the paragraph, some of the sentences you wrote aren't actually real sentences. They really should indeed be combined with each other.

Lastly, I recommend with that paragraph that you put the sentences at least in a proper formation. Otherwise it does not make much sense.

I would change this line to; 'Farhan was my best friend, and certainly we have been together for many years.'

He never let himself bursts his temper. A person whose always in control. Someone who never fails to smile when greeted by people.

I have a few issues with this. First off, most of these sentences are fairly jumbled. I would recommend fixing the first sentence most of all. Try; 'He would never let his temper flare.

Secondly, these sentences can all be combined. I said before that this paragraph is getting increasingly choppy, barely any fluency to it. Choppy writing is only used in moderation for melo-dramatic pieces but in this case it is not called for.

I recommend rephrasing all these sentences to something that is on the lines of this;

'He would never let his temper flare, he was in control. He would never fail to smile back when people greeted him kindly.

Something like that. There is nothing I can write that won't fully remodel all your information.

Farhan, my best friend. We have been together for many years. Farhan is a calm-looking guy. He never let himself bursts his temper. A person whose always in control. Someone who never fails to smile when greeted by people. Someone who is dedicated to the library and an average student. Someone whose favourite colour is typical blue. He is tall and straight. He always looks at his best upon public; neat and smart. His glasses and appearance made him appeared professional towards people. The school community loves him as who he is.

This is the whole paragraph. I would definetely recommend rewriting it fully. There are the main issues of choppiness and one more that I will go into more detail.

When readers read, they want the story to just piece together and fit nicely. Most of the time that happens, but sometimes it doesn't, like in this case for instance. That is only because the paragraph was not well thought out. It was not planned and set out in a logical order to make it easy for the readers to read. When I read this, you repeat a lot of things, or you have things in common with each other in random parts of the paragraph. At points you were describing his personality, then his appearance, then back to his personality with no transitions at all. This whole paragraph is recommended for remodeling and restructuring.

Also, I was confused because your tenses are becoming tangled. It makes it really hard to understand where you are coming from with this story and what point of view you are looking at. Are you saying this on how they happened, or how they are happening? It is really confusing at points. It is just how you conjucate your words. Like 'appeared' in this piece. When you write 'appeared' it is in past tense. But there was other parts in this paragraph that stated it was in present tense.

The school community loves him as who he is. Farhan is very calm and manage to bring that cool feeling in someone by just smiling at them. He always have that smile on his face…

With this part, you have returned to the present tense so I don't know how to correct it. Moreover I will switch it to past tense from now on.

I would rephrase this to; 'The school community loved him for who he was. Farhan was very calm and managed to bring that cool feeling in someone by just smiling at them. He always had that smile on his face.'

Now to branch off from there, there is a few issues I found. For one instance you are becoming repetitive. We already know that Farhan was calm so you don't need to keep telling us. Secondly, I do not know what emotion you are trying to display by saying 'that cool feeling'. What 'cool feeling'? I do not think I have ever felt that before unless I was knee deep in snow with shorts on.

But it ended…

*'But it had ended.

It was small

'There' instead of 'It'. It would work better.

It wasn’t distinctive. It was small changes here and there.

I would make these two sentences into one using a comma. Remember to replace the capital with a lower case.

now I haven’t seen

**hadn't

which exist except

**existed

He’s rarely seen hanging out in the library anymore.

**He was

Although he still smiles,

**smiled

Although he still smiles, but it wasn’t the same smile he had.

I would get rid of the 'but'. The word 'but' is usually usually used to contradict something, not branch together two contradicting facts.

He frequently day dreams and most, he avoids communication a lot, especially with me.

**day-dreamed

Another thing I have to say is that I don't understand why you added most in there. I would eliminate that with the comma and add an 'and' in there. That way I believe it would work out well. Now on with the other corrections.

**'he avoided any communication, especially with me'

We haven’t spoke for days.

**We hadn't spoke to each other for days.

I don’t understand

**didn't

Smoking!!

Please don't have the excessive exclamation points! It burns my eyes!

This is not Farhan!

**was

why hadn’t he speak to me?

You need to fix this too 'why he hadn't spoken to me.' Make sure it is a period because it would not be a question any longer.

his problems

Unnecessary pluralization here. I think you should fix that up.

Why can’t he share them with me?

This sentence is becoming jumbled again. I believe it should be; 'Why couldn't he have shared them with me?'

he seemed so angry

**seem

Suddenly he took out a picture of us acting silly that he kept in his wallet.

I don't believe the 'acting silly' part is very necessary, but you can keep it because it adds some more humour into it.

The photo was then torn into small pieces. After that, he set the pieces in flames using the lighter he kept in his pocket.

The only thing I thought was at first when I read the first sentence, I thought I ripped it to shreds and they fell to the ground. Then the second line said he burned them all. What would most likely happen, would be that either one of those would hhappen but not both.

His expression was solemn in fury, yet he didn’t voice a word…

I love this, but the only thing that ruins it for me is the dot dot dot. The one thing I want to get across is that your piece does not need the '...' because it is already emotional. You don't need that to get your point of the emotions across. Your writing is very passionate, and I find the '...' takes away from the effect.

I was absolutely baffled…

I bet you know what I want to say here.

speak..

You have two periods. Eliminate one. xD

He cannot see me…

**He could not see me. Get rid of the dot dot dots here. The other ones work, but if you use the ellipse here then it takes away from the blunt astonishment this proclaims.

I could tell by his face that he was angry, but soon I realized it was anger towards himself… and the anger had finally ended right in front of my own eyes. I couldn’t speak a word.. all I could do was cry…

Holy, wow. This is a great way to end it, but might I suggest switching the first dot dot dot to a comma, the second to a comma, and the third to a period?

II. Grammar and Punctuation

You have good grammar and punctuation. Obviously you use spell check because none of the words you wrote were spelling incorrectly. The only problems with them was that they did not fit in the moment, or they were the wrong tense. You have to be very wary about those tenses. Usually speaking the sentences out loud or getting someone else to read it will help you clear up any confusion. You will know where to add certain details.

For punctuation, I would like you to stay away from excessive exclamation marks and dot dot dots. The reasons for this is simply because you want to make your writing seem professional and experienced. When you have the dot dot dots, it takes away from the piece along with the excessive punctuation.

III. Character Development

In the beginning it was really rough with your characters. It was that first paragraph that gave the confusion to the piece, but you were also trying to get Farhan's actual traits. I would have liked you to tell the traits more over through out the piece rather than telling it all at one moment, but that doesn't matter much.

Farhan's character is a unique one and I believe I am interested in his actual character. I would have liked you to get more over his character traits using dialogue and actions more, rather then explain them all in the beginning. You have to be careful because you can lose a reader doing that. I also would have liked more physical description. I know it is hard to include what they look like without info dumping, but one of the main strategies I personally use is to add subtle hints into the matter. For example; instead of saying 'He reached out' you could say 'He reached out gracefully, the light brandishing the fine embrodiery in his suit.'

I hope you get the point.

IV. Writing Format

Your writing style is fairly superb. I really do like it. You have a great vocabulary but you just have to work with settling your words together right. A lot of times your sentences are jumbled and hard to make sense of. I would recommend again reading it out loud if you are confused about something.

Another thing I noticed was how you had very choppy sentences. I think that was probably because of the emotion in the piece. A lot of times with your sentences, they can easily be placed into one sentence using commas and conjunctions because they are so closely related that they are nearly intertwinned. This is harder to figure out by yourself. But read through it slowly, and if the pause is not as long as a normal period, then it should be a comma. Keep the connected ideas together.

Also, I suggest when writing paragraohs that you keep them in a logical order. You tend to add additional after thoughts to something after you wrote something else. You have to be wary about that because a lot of times the additional thought can mess up the readers interest. It starts to become incredibly redundant. Be careful of that also.

You also had a lot of repitition with your wording. Might I recommend using a thesaurous or another word if you notice that you are using the word to much. This is a natural habit of a writer and I have a few words in particular that is frequent in my writing, like truly, surely, and slightly. That is a common mistake but again it is for the readers interest. You don't want to come off repetitive.

The last thing I need clarification on was which tense you were actually trying to use. You have to be extremely careful with this because it is easy to mess it up. Usually if the verbs end in 'ed' then it is most likely past tense. Otherwise it is just a matter of the is' and the was'. You have to watch out on this one certainly. I believe you should try to fix this one up definetely. The only remedy I know of is to pay attention to your writing, and if you put it down, read it over again before you start just incase you forgot the tense. The rest is up to you.

V. Overall

This was certainly an interesting piece. Your overall writing increased dramatically near the end. Certainly it got better. I also liked the end more because there was less of analytical remarks and returns to the actual story. I believe this story could have great potential.

I agree with Blink and believe that this piece should indeed be longer. The reason why I think that is because there is so much detail that you could add that would help the reader understand the plot line more. You could also state the observations of Farhan slower and make it more detailed and interesting. Maybe even hint about the building crashing.

I was slightly amazed. I did not expect that the MC was indeed dead and a ghost. I thought she was an actual person. This story was incredibly sad but I loved the idea and I think that this certainly be astonishing.

I really liked this piece and don't let my nit-picks get you down.
~Incognito