Saved

“Ian I can’t get down!” Kali yelled from the highest branch of the oak tree.

“Yes you can. Just go down one branch at a time,” he replied.

“What if I fall?” she asked trying to ignore the lump in her throat.

“You won’t. I’ll catch you if you fall. I’ll save you,” he said.

“What if you can’t?” Kali questioned, hugging the tree for dear life.

“I promise, Kali. I won’t let anything happen to you. Don’t you trust me?”

Kali took in a shaky deep breath and started to climb down the tree. She didn’t dare look down, simply because she knew it would cause her to fall. Kali started to gain confidence as she felt the branches get thicker beneath her fingers and toes.

Then, as she grabbed the branch above her head, it snapped. She lost her balance and tumbled out of the tree. She waited to land on the ground, to feel the intense pain of breaking her arm again. She didn’t feel either. She landed on something squishy, and arms folded around her.

Kali jumped off of Ian and as he stood up, she kissed him. Ian turned beet red and turned his glowing face to the ground.

“Girls have cooties,” he said, kicking the dirt with his toe. “You’d better hope I don’t get ‘em.”

Kali laughed and ran for the next tree.


----


“Hey, wait for me,” I whined, struggling to catch up with the boy in front of me.

“C’mon Kali, we’re almost there,” he called back, excitedly. “It’ll be worth it. You’ll see.”

“I need to walk now. Please Ian, you know I can’t run as fast as you,” I said slowing my pace. Up ahead, Ian stopped moving and started to walk beside me.

I felt heat emanating from Ian’s body, and although I was sweating, I shivered, enjoying it.

I had liked Ian ever since I was five years old. I would follow him around like a lovesick puppy dog. I suppose that’s why I don’t fit in with the other girls at school. While they played with make-up and Barbie’s, I was climbing trees and playing baseball.

I always hoped that when I got older my crush on Ian would fade away, but here I am, fourteen years old and still trailing after him as if my life depended on it. He didn’t seem to mind. He was my best friend.

His hand was so close to mine that if I moved just one of my fingers, they could easily intertwine around his. My heart thumped frantically at the idea. My stomach felt as if the butterflies were having a pillow fight.

“Look there it is,” Ian said, pointing in front of us. I pushed my sweaty bangs out of my eyes and peered at, what appeared to be, a river. Ian’s curly black hair flapped wildly against his head as he looked around, smiling. He seemed so happy here.

“My Mama said I couldn’t stay out too late,” I said nervously. I wasn’t the best swimmer, but then again I didn’t want to leave Ian.

“It’s only noon, Kali,” Ian laughed. He took off his shirt and I looked away, blushing. I always stared just a little too long. I stared at the smooth, weathered rock he was standing on. There was a pretty steep drop from the rock to the water.

“Watch this,” he called from atop the rock. He jumped, doing a front flip. As soon as he resurfaced he smiled at me, a smug look on his face. I rolled my eyes.

“Show off,” I yelled. He swam to the edge of the river and grabbed my ankle.

“I’ll pull you in,” he threatened.

“No you won’t,” I replied, extracting my leg from his grip. “You know I can’t swim that well.”

“I’ll help you. If anything happens I’ll make sure to get you out. I promise I won’t let you drown, I’ll save you if I need too,” Ian said, his gray-green eyes serious for once.

My mind jerked back to the time we were five. He had kept his promise then, and I knew he would keep it now. I looked at him with trust filled eyes and slipped into the cool water. While the water came up to Ian’s chest, it reached the tops of my shoulders.

The river current thrashed against my legs, but I held my ground. Ian splashed me and swam away, daring me to follow. I stroked towards him, in hopes that I would dunk him, but stubbed my toe against a sharp rock.

“Ow,” I cried, lifting it up to see the damage. It was a mistake. The current knocked my other leg out from under me, pushing me beneath the surface.

I thrashed and kicked, earning a lungful of air before being sucked right back down. My energy was fading and my lungs were screaming in protest.

“Ian!” I yelled, once I made it up again. I couldn’t see him. The river must be carrying me away from him.

I tried to kick to the surface again, but the water was too deep now. I sucked in brackish water. My lungs burned and my heart slowed. A red-black cloud was forming at the edges of my vision. I swallowed more water and my body started to move in slow motion. I needed air. My eyes closed and I stopped moving entirely. I felt a last moment of peace before I gave into the sweet, caressing darkness.



---- 3 hours later ----



Ian held Kali’s limp body in his arms. Tear streamed freely down his cheeks, occasionally falling in her hair.

Her body had been beaten badly by the rocks and leaves were stuck in her locks. Sorrow and guilt caused him to wail. Here was the body of the only girl he’d ever loved and he had loved her so much. He had promised to protect her but he had let her die.

Ian lay next to Kali, feeling nothing except his soul-crushing grief.

Loved it!!!!!!!so so good! however i do think you could pull the part where she is being taken away out a bit more, maybe have Ian calling her name and trying to swim over to her or something like that you know? But I still thought it was awesome. I really love this story. x x x x x x

[Junior Mod Edit: No caps locks, please]

So here goes:

Know your commas! You use commas sometimes where they shouldn't be and omit them when they are needed. So, quick review: commas are pretty much the syntax-equivalent of a breath of air. If there's a breath of air/pause, you put a comma. If there isn't a pause, don't put one there. Reading your work out loud really helps for that. If you're ever uncertain about how to use commas properly, there are tons of resources on the internet that can break it down easily for you.

A couple of examples of where you go wrong:

“Ian I can’t get down!” Kali yelled from the highest branch of the oak tree.

There should be a comma after "Ian".

“Yes you can. Just go down one branch at a time,” he replied.

...and a comma after "Yes".

I pushed my sweaty bangs out of my eyes and peered at, what appeared to be, a river.

See, there shouldn't be a comma after "be" — there's no pause or break there.

Again, reading your work out loud helps a lot for this.

In terms of the story itself — well, it's pretty abrupt, and it shifts mood very quickly for such a short story. It's supposed to be funny(ish) at the beginning, then it shifts to romantic, then it suddenly jumps to tragic at the end. It's kind of all over the place, you know? The readers don't even get to prepare for Kali's death, but not in a good way — it's like reading a charming little children's story about teddybears and then suddenly they all die in a nuclear holocaust. It's abrupt but no the good kind of abrupt.

The other thing is that we don't really have a chance to get to know Kali in any significant way, and that makes her death all the more trivial. If you want us as readers to feel the tragedy of her death and the loss that Ian experiences, we need to see more of them. I would suggest expanding on their memories of each other. Amidst the funny, make it a little more serious — if for no other reason, then so that her death doesn't ring so false. Let us see them growing up together, Kali growing attached to him: let's see her reject the Barbies for him, or whatever. Let's see why she has so much trust in him. You may also want to switch character POVs throughout the story (as in, tell some segments from Ian's perspective as well as Kali's) so when you do it at the end, it's not so jarring.

Anyway, good luck with the story and if you want me to clarify anything, just send me a private message.

Hey Tiger! ^^ Thank you very much for requesting a review from me! I'll try to do my best.

First of all

I'm going to mainly repeat what Smaur said, because he'd positively dead-on. I think the concept is good (that broken, guilt-ridden promise that ends so tragically, mirroring their five-year-old selves) but it happened all to quickly for us to care a bit about it.

See, as an author, the first thing you want us to do is get to know your character. The only things we know about either character so far are that he has black curls, she has bangs, she can't swim, and they're both madly in love which each other. Then, he promises to save her. She dies.

...so, the question is, why should I care? You haven't told me anything mildly interesting about Kali, and so her death seems almost inconsequential right now. Now, it might be different if the entire story is about Ian's recovery after her death. Then, he'd be the main character, and you could characterize her through his memories or whatever. But really, this happened all too suddenly. The question for you is: how do I fix this?

Dragging the storyline out

1.) Description

Description is a glorious way to drag out scenes, add depth and atmosphere to an event, and really make your characters jump off of the page. I don't really think you've used description to your advantage here. Description is more than simply adding adjectives to a noun in hopes of describing it. For example, let me demonstrate the difference here:

The river current thrashed against my legs, but I held my ground. Ian splashed me and swam away, daring me to follow. I stroked towards him, in hopes that I would dunk him, but stubbed my toe against a sharp rock.

“Ow,” I cried, lifting it up to see the damage. It was a mistake. The current knocked my other leg out from under me, pushing me beneath the surface.

I thrashed and kicked, earning a lungful of air before being sucked right back down. My energy was fading and my lungs were screaming in protest.

This is the part where I should really start getting worried. She's obviously in danger-- and the words say so, right here. However, I can't really work up any emotion to go along with these words. After reading this part, I stopped, and said to myself, "Wait, Evi. Is Kali about to die? Oops. Why didn't I notice that?"

Now, love, let's see if this makes any difference. This is my re-write of the above quote, just to give you a taste of what all you can do with description. Of course, you shouldn't just copy my own writing style-- you have your own wonderful writing style to work with. It just needs to be a bit more honed on your topic and the emotions being portrayed in the story.

The river's current thrashed around me, threatening to pull me under with one mighty pull, but I held my ground. Through the foam of the water I could see Ian splash me playfully and swim away. His eyes dared me to try and follow.

Oh, Ian, I thought, dizzy from the effort of staying upright. You're going to get it, now!

As I lurched forward against the current in an effort to dunk him, I felt my bare foot scrape up against something jagged on the river's bottom. A rock. Wincing, I made a face and tried to balance myself on one leg while I assessed the damage.

It was a mistake.

With a single wave, I felt the current tug at my leg until it was swept out from under me. I was a dizzy, flailing mess, frantically gasping in mouthful after mouthful of the river water. After thrashing against the water, I earned a single lungfull of oxygen before being dragged back down into the abyss of cold water. It felt like millions of icy needles pricking me, pulling me, claiming me as their own.

I couldn't think; I couldn't move anymore. After a moment I let the water carry me where it wished, and my lungs gave out with a final scream of protest.

Okay, so. I'm not saying that was some amazing paragraph of literature that I wrote right there, but did you see how I used the description of the water and turned it into a metaphor? You have to include imagery in your writing, so that the reader can imagine the scene. As horrible as this may sound, you want your reader to be drowning right along with Kali.

Also, see how I varied the sentence structure? It's okay, actually, to write with fragments in prose. Although your grammar teacher might say otherwise, at YWS we do it all the time. Use this to your advantage. Throw in some fragmented, a little bit crazy sentences that are only whizzing, dizzying thoughts.

Characterization

In the next parts, add some more! I think you've set up some wonderful characters here-- it would be amazing if you could make them really live. Even though Kali died, you can still characterize her through Ian's thoughts later on, remember.

I hope this was helpful, and PM me if you need anything! ^^

~Evi

Thanks everyone (: Actually, I didn't want you to care about Kali too much beacuse of the fact that she dies. Later on in the story, you'll see why. I didn't want you to become too attached to her, but I see where your coming from. (: Thanks!

~Nicole

Hey there WhiteTiger93. I know you entered my contest quite some time ago and in fact, it ended some time ago, but I’ve been rather busy lately with finals (didn’t think that through… p.s. never end a contest the week before school lets out). Anyway, I am here now and the results will be posted back in the contest’s thread.

Kali took in a shaky deep breath and started to climb down the tree.

If I were you, I would probably swap the order of these words. They sound rather funny this way.

… branches get thicker beneath…

‘get’ kills this sentence. Try a word like ‘became’ or ‘grew’.

“Girls have cooties,” he said, kicking the dirt with his toe. “You’d better hope I don’t get ‘em.”

This is such a cute little section because it’s childish but its gives simple characterization.

My stomach felt as if the butterflies were having a pillow fight.

This is another amazing section because the word choice is sooooo cute and it’s a wonderful use of metaphor.

Overall, this is very good. And I really enjoyed reading this piece. It’s vivid and evokes a sense of empathy and understanding. Anyway, there wasn’t much wrong with this except that it completely leaves me hanging and that’s just cruel, but it’s the best part of writing…making your audience want more.

"Ian, I can't get down!" Kali yelled from the highest branch of the oak tree.

"I need to walk now. Please, Ian, you know I can't run as fast as you,"

"My mama said I couldn't stay out too late," I said nervously.

I wasn't the best swimmer, but then again, I didn't want to leave Ian.

Overall:
You have a great concept of a good short story. The middle had to be the best part, but as for worst I'd have to say the last bit. If only you described what was happening, elaborating on Ian's emotion and just not express it in only a couple of sentences. It would make the story a whole lot better and emotionally crinching if you extend the last part to about a paragraph or so.

So you've got a lot of excellent critiques for this, which is good!

I'm going to link to you a couple of writing tutorials that I thought of when I was reading your work.

Talking Heads, or how to avoid them

There are a lot of he said, she said parts without any descriptions involved. This tutorial will show you how to get rid of that! Dreamer puts it a lot better than I could, so definitely check that out.

Anything Really

When looking at the entries for the YWS literary journal, Nate found a lot of stories, such as this one, with a perfectly happy story and then a random death. When he complained about it, I made this as a parody piece!

The next thing you need to be careful about are your voices. You start the first part off in third person, then make it first, then make it third again, and it's really clunky and awkward. Figure out which character is more interesting to follow and stick with him! Don't change around. The transitions are really horrible.

O-o okay..well practically everything i was going to edit was already said, so I'm going to skip that part^^ Well I loved that cute little relationship you had going on there with Ian and kali. Very cute. But I was wondering if Ian is younger than kali? He seemed more like he was still in gradeschool, when he said the cootie part. If hes older, my apologies. I just got alittle confused on his age. You did have some lack of description as snoink said, in the dialogue. I loved the storyline though. It was very heart-warming and cute^^