Young Writers Society

Author's Note: I needed to let this out of my system. It’s the first story I’ve written that’s based on my life. Thanks so much for reading

PROLOGUE - Balloon

She stood on cold stone. Her gaze sought something in the distance. Her gaunt, honey-coloured fingers clasped the leash. It was a normal balloon, held by a girl who could no longer relate to it. Spherical and smooth, a vibrant ruby shade. Imprisoning the helium with a strange, volatile power. It hovered in the choked air above, taunting her. It danced a forgotten waltz, floating half-heartedly.

What was I thinking?

She let out a breath; a slow one. It quavered. Her hand trembled.

She remembered what she had come here to forget. She shivered. The thin fabric of her dress wrinkled.

A breeze carried the distant laughter of children towards her, almost too quiet to hear. Her soft, brown hair danced in the wind; twisting and tangling as if were moving by no force other than its own


Then she heard a voice rippling towards her over the solitude.

“Are you alright?”

Her throat closed up as her breathing cut short and her heart shattered. She stretched her lips, smearing an artificial smile over her face. She started shaking. Her hands and her lower lip trembled. Her own body was betraying her.

She wanted, ached to tell him. Please. It’s not like that. I’m...normal. Her own mouth deluded her. Had she spoken out loud?

His smile faded. He looked at her anxiously and backed away.

The stars chased him away.

She crushed a half-born sob, rocking backwards and forwards on the icy stone ledge. I am normal. I am normal. I am normal.

What is normal?


She let go of the balloon.

Heavily Edited!

To read second part, click here: topic35049.html

She stood on cold stone. Her gaze sought something, everything, anything, nothing in the distance. (space – typo) Her gaunt, honey-coloured fingers clasped the leash. It was a normal balloon, held by a girl who could no longer relate to it.

This confused me a little, but it might be an obvious comparison that I just don’t understand right now. How could she relate to the balloon in the first place?

Spherical and smooth, a shade of vibrant ruby [s]shade[/s]. Imprisoning the helium with a strange, volatile power. (Like that.) It hovered in the choked air above, (What do you mean when you say the air is ‘choked’?) taunting her. It danced a forgotten waltz, floating half-heartedly. Like that line.

What was I thinking?

She let out a breath; a slow one. It quavered. (I think that’s better.) Her hand trembled. The balloon lowered, sinking feebly into her lap.

I have a silly technical point again, but if the balloon is filled with helium, how does it lower? Does she drop her hand?

She remembered what she had come here to forget. She shivered. [s]The thin fabric of her dress wrinkled.[/s] (Don’t think that’s a particularly significant detail.) Her soft, brown hair danced in the breeze, the same breeze that carried the children’s laughter across the park.

Their laughter barely reached her.

Then she heard a voice, the voice, any voice, rippling towards her over the solitude.

I also don’t understand ‘a voice, the voice, any voice’, but it might become clearer as I read on.

“Are you alright?”

Her throat closed up and her breathing cut short and her heart shattered. She stretched her lips, smearing an artificial smile over her face. Ersatz. She started shaking. Her hands and her lower lip trembled. Her own body was betraying her.

She wanted, ached to tell him. Please. It’s not like that. I’m... normal. Her own mouth [s]deluded[/s] (I don't have an alternative since you already used 'betrayed', but 'deluded' isn't really the right word for here, I don't think.) her. Had she spoken out loud?

His smile faded. He looked at her anxiously and backed away.

The stars chased him away. I wasn’t sure about this line at first but I like it now. ‘The stars’ as in fate/destiny?

She crushed a half-born sob, rocking backwards and forwards on the icy stone ledge. I am normal. I am normal. I am normal. I like how her actions, which allude to traditional characters who weren’t exactly normal, contrast with what she’s saying.

What is normal?

She let go of the balloon.

Well, as a standalone story this would have me baffled, but as a first chapter it has me intrigued. It’s quite short but I don’t think it has to be any longer.

I’m sorry, I’m being so unhelpful! I really don’t have much to comment on with regard to this chapter, but I’m going to have a read of the next couple.

Hey there, Sarah.

To begin, I'd like to say that I found this gripping as a start to a story. I'm now thinking of several interesting questions - 'why isn't she normal?', 'who is she?', 'what's her relation to Ersatz?' and many more.

Here are a few things (most of them nit-picks) which I picked up on:

Her gaze sought something, everything, anything, nothing in the distance

I don't really like this line. I can see that this technique is something which you repeat later and is perhaps just part of your writing style, yet it seems to completely contradict itself - and not in a good way. Perhaps consider re-wording or even just getting rid of the 'nothing'.

It hovered in the choked air above, taunting her. It danced a forgotten waltz, floating half-heartedly.

I think this would work better if you condense this into one sentence, or simply remove the first sentence. There is no point in describing the action of the balloon twice in one go. I quite like the second line, as well.

Her soft, brown hair danced in the breeze, the same breeze that carried the children’s laughter across the park

I'm not too sure but I reckon you could change the second comma in this sentence into a semi-colon. You may want to get a second opinion on that, though.

Then she heard a voice, the voice, any voice, rippling towards her over the solitude.

Again, it's this repetition technique that I don't like. If you get rid of the 'any' it can still work. Otherwise, I would just get rid of both the repetitions of 'voice'.

Her throat closed up and her breathing cut short and her heart shattered.

I would scrap the first 'and' and replace it with a comma.

She stretched her lips, smearing an artificial smile over her face.

Very good line.

The stars chased him away.

I'm really torn with this line. I like it - but I kinda don't get it. If it was meant to be a metaphor, then it hasn't come across very well and if it was meant to be literal then it doesn't make sense. Still......I do like it.

In general, I think you over-powered the reader with description in some places. Try to scatter the description and action about, so it's not all in one clump. Having said that, there is room for more. The reader wants to know where this is, what she can smell, who Ersatz is and what's going on. You don't necessarily have to answer all those questions in chapter one, but you should aim to answer the main ones about the setting.
I liked your tone and I liked the idea of a girl with a balloon, perhaps feeling lonely and abnormal. Your writing is strong and to improve all you need to do is work on your settings and not confusing the reader with odd repetition.

Overall a good read and I'm intrigued to read some more.

All the best,
Alainna
xxx

Thankyou so much for your help

Ersatz isn't a person, hehe It's an adjective meaning pretence or something. I suppose it could be confused as a person's name, so I'll take it out. Or i might well introduce the character, it could be fun

Thanks a lot again.

And thankyou Sapphire for your endless patience with my work. You have been amazingly helpful.


Happy Writings

Sarah

xxx

Nice prologue, Sarah!! Great job. I'll be reading more, for sure. I'm sorry that you're feeling this way, and hope life will deal you some happier cards soon.

The review is in the attachment, let me know if there's any problem with it.

PM me for anything at all.

XxxDo

From a purely plot and content point of view, this isn't the best way to start a story. I know, it's like a writer's cliche to start off with an ambiguous beginning to sort-of hook the reader in, but at a certain point it becomes too hard to tell what's going on and we lose interest, making a good story hard to read.

My suggestion: To write a story for the heart, make it from the heart. Don't worry or try to impress; just write. Let it flow out, don't backspace or correct, don't take out sentences or anything. Save all of that for the editing process and just write. Chances are, all of those feelings and emotions will translate better when they aren't being edited before they even hit the keys.

Now for the fun part
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She stood on cold stone. Her gaze sought something in the distance .Her gaunt, honey-coloured fingers clasped the leash. It was a normal balloon, held by a girl who could no longer relate to it. Spherical and smooth, a vibrant ruby shade. Imprisoning the helium with a strange, volatile power. It hovered in the choked air above, taunting her. It danced a forgotten waltz, floating half-heartedly.

Notice the way you start your sentences: She...Her...Her...It...Spherical...Imprisoning...It...It. You start the majority of your sentences the same way, this isn't always a problem, but for certain writing styles it can be. You and I have a similar kind-of choppy writing style with short sentences- and trust me, it's a hard style to write in.

If you are going to use shorter sentences, be sure to use more variety within them. Repetitive words and phrases stand out like a puppy at a cat convention, and is about as appreciated as much.

You're also using a lot of the word 'her', which would be fine if we even knew what you were talking about. This is the beginning of your story and at this moment in time "her" is nobody to your reader. This doesn't mean that you should start with something like "Her name was...her hair was (color), and her eyes were a striking...", but it does mean that before you start talking about her she should be somebody.

Try introducing your character with emotion as opposed to description. That would also help tie into the confusing line: "It was a normal balloon, held by a girl who could no longer relate to it." What related her to the balloon, and why does it no longer apply?

Or if that doesn't work for you, try starting by describing the balloon. Maybe even use phrases that can have double-meanings to make the descriptions be physical for the balloon, and emotional for the character.

What was I thinking?

Sudden change in tense? I saw that it was italics and figured that meant those were "her" thoughts, but it's still a little early in the game to be changing thoughts, especially seeing as that line doesn't really have any connection to the rest of the piece from what I've read.

She remembered what she had come here to forget. She shivered. The thin fabric of her dress wrinkled. Her soft, brown hair danced in the breeze, the same breeze that carried the children’s laughter across the park.


Their laughter barely reached her.

Repetition of the words she, breeze, and laughter.

It seemed a rather null point to first say the breeze carried the children's laughter across the park, and follow it with it barely reached her. The two come daringly close to canceling each other out. To say the same thing with a clearer effect, try something like...

"A breeze carried the distant laughter of children towards her, almost too quiet to hear. Her soft, brown hair danced in the wind; twisting and tangling as if were moving by no force other than its own."

Her throat closed up and her breathing cut short and her heart shattered.

I'm not normally one to follow literary rules down to every punctuation mark, but one thing I have always found awkward is using the word and several times in a sentence for the same general thing, especially without any punctuation. Instead you could say, "Her throat closed up and breathing cut short as her heart shattered." or, "Her breathing was cut short as her throat closed and heart shattered." Or anything like that.

Ersatz.

Adj. meaning imitating or presented as a substitute for something of superior quality, and is usually used in a negative manner. In more common terms, it means fake. It doesn't mean "Pretense or something"

Now, in a strange way it does make some amount of sense, but I still had to read over it a few times and double check my dictionary to find out what you meant by it, and while it is slightly relevant, it just doesn't fit. I think the piece would fare better without it.

The stars chased him away.

Care to explain what that means?

She crushed a half-born sob...

Do you mean held back? I think I see what you mean here, but the imagery is confusing.

She let go of the balloon.

Earlier you said, "The balloon lowered, sinking feebly into her lap."

Keeping that in mind, what is the significance of her letting go? If it's already sunk, how does it fly away? Or does it? Does it roll out of her lap or get pushed away by a breeze? The contrasting descriptions of the balloon's behavior is confusing.
_______________________________________________________

All in all, I think you have some powerful imagery and beautiful phrases to back it up, you just need to work a little on your consistency and execution.

I can't wait until it gets more into the story, but so far you have a good setup.

Just keep in mind:
Watch your repetition.
Try to make it flow a little better.
Be consistent

and most of all
Write from the heart

You'll do great, keep up the amazing work. If you need any extra help with anything, feel free to PM me.
-JC

Sapphire, xxDoxx, and JCObsessed, thankyou so, so much for all your helpful comments. It has really helped this story along. Thankyou again. i am indebted to you

Your reviews are precious to this community


Sarah

xxx

Wow, your descriptions are unreal. You have such a imagery force going on here. I can picture everything you write, everything you say. It is like I am actually there, watching this girl unravel before my very eyes. My favorite line would have to be:

Spherical and smooth, a vibrant ruby shade. Imprisoning the helium with a strange, volatile power. It hovered in the choked air above, taunting her. It danced a forgotten waltz, floating half-heartedly.

I know it’s not a line (more like a paragraph ) But I loved every word, every syllable. So life-like. Loved it!

Now, I did notice one thing that sort of stood out to me:

She let out a breath; a slow one. It quavered. Her hand trembled.
She remembered what she had come here to forget. She shivered. The thin fabric of her dress wrinkled.

Okay, in this, you use a lot of “ed” words at the end of your sentences and it gets sort of lyrical. I’m not sure if you were aiming for that but it seemed sort of out of place in the rest of your work. I guess it’s up to you if you want to change it.

I am on to chapter one!

You mentioned this story before so I thought I'd swing by and take a look.



:arrow: Fav quote because it's sooo well descripted....AWESOME!!

She stood on cold stone. Her gaze sought something in the distance. Her gaunt, honey-coloured fingers clasped the leash. It was a normal balloon, held by a girl who could no longer relate to it. Spherical and smooth, a vibrant ruby shade. Imprisoning the helium with a strange, volatile power. It hovered in the choked air above, taunting her. It danced a forgotten waltz, floating half-heartedly.

WOW.....0.0
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Okay nothing bad to say here. Sorry I couldnt be much help

Thankyou so much, jasmine and asheleey.
I really appreciate your reviews

xxx

Sorry to be late with this review, but here it goes:

She stood on cold stone. Her gaze sought something in the distance. Her gaunt, honey-coloured fingers clasped the leash.

Hmm... Your first three sentences all seem to start with 'she' and 'her', perhaps vary the sentence structure a bit? Even though the meaning of the sentence is more important than the structure, it's still important not to bore your readers when they're reading it out loud in their head.

a vibrant ruby shade

I don't know, I understand you're trying to say that it's a red balloon, but then 'shade' just doesn't really express the same connotation as 'colour'.

Imprisoning the helium with a strange, volatile power.

What is imprisoning the helium? Tell us that it's the balloon, or it's a sentence fragment.

Her soft, brown hair danced in the wind; twisting and tangling as if were moving by no force other than its own

Where's the full stop of the sentence?

She wanted, ached to tell him.

Because the comma is supposed to function as an interruption, it should be:

She wanted--ached to tell him. (Though the two hyphens should merge as one long dash, which is something the forums couldn't do.)

The stars chased him away.

You might consider expanding a bit on this imagery, I feel it's a bit vague on what you're trying to get at.

~~~

Generally speaking, you have planned some nice imageries. Though, I might suggest you to expand on them a bit, exaggerate a bit more and 'show' a bit more. You also need to give the reader more hints by foreshadowing a little more. I understand it's a prologue and the reader isn't supposed to know everything, but don't confuse them. Give them a goal, a something so they could grasp onto and continue reading on. Thus, being concise and maybe clearer are the most important things I would suggest. Asides from that, good luck!

Thankyou so much!

I don't mind , you weren't late at all.

I think your imagery is really effective. In fact I love it that the stars chased the man away. it leaves a feeling of utmost loneliness and beauty, things that are not often associated with each other.

Also, your word choice in here is impeccable. I was surprised to see your age after reading this little blurb.

The only problem I had was "stars chased him away" right after he "backed away", so there's just the redundant use of the word "away," there.

As for this being an intro of the story, I didn't have any problem being 'hooked in', because there was a lot of emotion flowing through here in a short amount of time. I suppose you could elaborate the scenery here. Since the only detail of background here was that she was standing on stone, I imagined it in a gloomy evening, nearly dark, on a bridge over a quiet river, and she was staring out to the water while she was thinking to herself.

So all in all, I give this little blurb a 7outta 10

Not bad considering I half the kids in my college english class wouldn't be able to write this.

Thanks so much, Alyce. I really appreciate your review.
Oh, by the way, it wasn't exactly a blurb More of a short prologue.
Thankyou again.
Sarah

xxx