Young Writers Society

It’s late, but sleep refuses to come. I had a nightmare last night, about the world bombing itself until it was nothing but black. Walking alone, the city was reduced to piles of dust, everything took on the appearance of an old photograph, faded and grey. I remember walking through the rubble, the air warm and damp, dust seemed to float in the air, mixing with the air and moisture forming what seemed like a never-ending grey curtain blocking out the horizon. I could feel the rubble and debris under the soles of my sneakers, and my dress clung to my thighs. There was a slight breeze felt like it was pushing me into the ground, and instead of being cooling it was hot, yet brought a chill down my spine.

The world seemed empty, and all I could hear was the wind whistling by my ears. No cars, no sound of construction, no noise of the people on the street going about their daily lives, none of New York’s everyday sounds. There were no people, no roads, no buildings, only rubble. Then a thought hit me. These rocks and debris that I was stepping on-they weren’t only chunks of buildings, they were plants, sidewalks, subway cars, people…

As that thought sunk in I suddenly felt stifled. The air I was breathing, the ground I was walking on, the heat radiating from the ground, the moisture in the air. Now it all made my skin crawl. I squirmed as if trying to shake off the feeling of nausea and repulsion. My knees buckled and I fell to the ground screaming in grief and realization.

I woke up in my cold bed; a thin layer of sweat covered my body, my sheets twisted and contorted around me. I could feel my heart racing.

Now I can’t sleep, and my mind wanders. I envy the freedom Annie has, she’s only six spending her days playing jump rope, and hopscotch. Blissfully unaware that everything could end at any moment. It’s sad to think she’ll have to grow up and realize that the world is a lot harsher then she could anticipate. What scares me even more is the idea that she won’t have the chance to grow up…Death has been on my mind lately, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not afraid to die, but more afraid that I’ll die without ever really getting to live.

I told this all to Mama yesterday. She listened quietly with a sad look on her face. She turned around back to the dishes, telling me not to think about it. But I can see she worries about it too. When we’re listening to the news programs I can see the lines in her face deepen. It reminds me of President Kennedy; he used to look so young and handsome, all the girls at school thought so. Now he looks tired and haggard, a shell of his former self. Last night we listened to his speech, and it was as always inspiring.

“My fellow citizens, let no one doubt that this is a difficult and dangerous effort on which we have set out. No one can foresee precisely what course it will take or what costs or casualties will be incurred. Many months of sacrifice and self-discipline lie ahead -- months in which both our patience and our will will be tested, months in which many threats and denunciations will keep us aware of our dangers. But the greatest danger of all would be to do nothing.” As long as he remains strong, I think the rest of America will too.




(So it's 3am right now so forgive me and my sleepy writing. This is a thing I had to do for my English class, and I'd like to get some feedback on, I had to write a diary entry from the point of view of a teenager, during the Cuban missile crisis. So basically I was very uninspired to write this, have no idea what to do with t, and it's being graded.
Also the title is not permanent, I know it fails, but I've always failed at titles. So please leave any little comment, every little bit helps and don't be afraid to tear it apart and be as harsh as you want! Also any kind of ideas about what to do with it, where to take it etc. would be awesome. )

Edit- Okay I reedited again, and I'm still not sure how I feel about this story, but lets see how this one goes over.

Hey!
I like your writing style and if there more to this I would probably read it haha.
When is this set? I take it during a war?
Anway sounds good haha
Sorry I don't have much feedback for you, I'm not very good at this review business unless I hate it

Hey, BondGirl, I'm here for a review. I don't know if you really want nitpicks, but I'll start with those anyways, before talking about the piece itself.

I’m afraid to close my eyescomma, afraid to fall into a dreamland I can’t escape.

I had a nightmare last night, about the world bombing itself until it was nothing but black.

I know what you mean, but it sounds very awkward to say that the world is bombing itself. Consider rewording it so you either use a verb like "imploded" or introduce the people doing the bombing into this sentence.

everything took on the resemblance of an old photograph, faded and grey.

I love this comparison. I wouldn't use "resemblance of" because it stilts the flow. Try, "my world was like an old photograph".

distant things

Try "the horizon". It might just be me, but I don't like reading "things" in writing.

I could feel the rubble and debris under the souls soles of my sneakers

Then a thought hit mefull stop. These rocks that I was stepping on em dash there they weren’t only chunks of buildingsfull stop. They were plants, sidewalks, subway cars, people…

As that thought sunk in I suddenly felt stifledfull stop. The air I was breathing, the ground I was walking on, the moisture now made my skin crawl.

I fell to the ground screaming in realization, and grief.

Cut the "in realisation". Again, it's sort of awkward. However, this is one of the most powerful sentences in this piece, mainly for that "and grief" that seems to have been added as an afterthought, but actually lets us connect to your MC much more clearly than we have before.

a thin layer of sweat covered my body, my sheets twisted and contorted around mefull stop. I could feel my heart racing.

I envy the freedom Annie hasfull stop. She’s only six and knows nothing about what’s going onsemi-colon she spends her days playing jump rope, and hopscotch, blissfully unaware that everything could end at any moment.

I edited this sentence mainly because it was one long run-on, where it could have been divided into two or even three separate sentences. I crossed out the "and knows nothing about what's going on" because you already cover that with the "blissfully unaware..." part later on. Watch that you don't repeat when you have such a small space.

It’s sad to think she’ll have to grow up, sad she’ll have to someday worry about things like thisfull stop. We don’t know it but I suppose it really is truecolon: ignorance is bliss.

Again, I edited to split the run-ons. This "bliss" is a repeat of the earlier "blissfully", so make up your mind which is more important and cut the other. I'd assume you want to keep the latter as it relates to the title.

On to the story itself. I don't know what war we're talking about here, or if it even is a war, but I'm not sure how relevant it is for us to know. I also don't think it was your intention for us to specify. I mention it, though, because getting across the setting could help us relate better emotionally to the piece. At the moment, it's almost too general and we can't quite appreciate the fear of your MC. Some unique imagery will help with that; the idea that she's stepping over bodies as well as rubble could be expanded upon, I think. You can also work on sound a little more. We have some very generic "city sounds" here, but is there anything specific that would contrast with the silence? I'm about 70% sure you didn't have any particular place in mind when you wrote this, but I think it would help if you were to characterise this dead city.

As to how to do that, it's up to you. If you have C S Lewis' The Magician's Nephew, try reading the passages from that describing the ruined city of Charn. I know it's been longed destroyed, and is almost ancient compared to a modern city, but whenever I read that, I am seriously creeped out by the pure loneliness and stillness of the place. After all the violence of the first paragraph, you slip into describing the stillness of this city, so it could be applicable. Alternatively, if you want to address the "violent" side of the piece, look at images from any major war. I'd suggest Vietnam off the top of my head, because we studied it this year and some of the pictures were genuinely disturbing. If you want to approach it from both angles (violence and stillness), that might be slightly more difficult because of the contrasting atmosphere, but both build fear. Of course, if you did have a particular city in mind - though I'm only going on the fact you posted this in Historical Fiction - you can just look into that, and read accounts from that time.

On a similar note to the city's anonymity, I think the title is a little vague, and doesn't necessarily suit the subject matter. Obviously it's your decision, and if you decide to leave it in place, capitalise it (Ignorance is Bliss). I'd also suggest Oblivion as a title, but I like single words.

I'm not too keen on the diary format in principle, but here it doesn't add anything. Your piece is fine without the opening "dear diary" and you don't use it particularly for any images later on. Unless it's part of the assignment, I'd cut it and leave the piece as a short in its own right. Diary entries can help to establish a voice or personality in a character, but as this is so short, we don't have time to appreciate it much; we're looking to the message rather than the messenger. Fortunately, you avoid the "and it was all a dream..." scenario. I still see and understand your MC's fear all the way through the piece, even when she's writing in present tense, awake.

I can't quite tell from your note whether this was written at 3 in the morning or whether you decided to post at 3 in the morning. Either way, there are quite a few run-on sentences. I won't ramble about it if that's just a product of late night writing, though; I only want to mention that while short sentences are good for something as dramatic as this, you seem to have the odd combination of short sentences and then a few run-ons. Conjunctions are fine once in a while; as long as you don't overuse the same ones, you can afford to break your dramatic style and use an ordinary sentence structure every so often.

Anyway, I hope my review helps you somewhat with your assignment. If it's no trouble, you could post the details of it here, so we have something more to go on when reviewing. Good luck with any editing or continuation of your piece.

- Jet.

Hey BondGirl.

It's my first time reviewing your work, so hey again. I would like to pay back the reviews you did for me in the past.

First of all to start with the title. I don't know if it's what you have been given, or you gave it yourself. If second option is the deal, then I would like to make some minor corrections here. All the letters in the title of a story, or a novel, or a writing piece, are in capitals except for the articles. Like:Ignorance is Bliss. And if you go by the proverb there should be an 'a' after 'is'.

I could feel the rubble and debris under the souls of my sneakers, and my jeans clung to my thighs.

This sentence was nice.

I squirmed as if trying to shake off the feeling of nausea and repulsion.

It’s late, but I can’t sleep.

To be honest, I wasn't much intrigued by this very opening line. As a great writer, you could have expressed this same felling in a more poetic manner, and in somewhat more interesting way. I am just going to give an example, though it might not do with you.
Example: The clock neared {any time in the late night], but sleep didn't come to me.
I know it's a pathetic example, but I just tried to help you out. You know what all you can do, so I won't bother on this much.

Secondly, there were tons of comma mistakes, which Jetpack has taken care of already, so I didn't feel a need to repeat it again. I can understand it's maybe because of the fact that you wrote this around 3 A.M. There's one thing I have already told you before that the famous proverb is 'ignorance is a bliss'. So you need to add an 'a' wherever you have used this proverb.

If we had known what exactly the task was to write, we would have been in a better position to tell you what is wrong with your story. But as for now, I liked your descriptions of the devastating world, but the beginning and the end kind of didn't match upto the other parts' level.

Repetition
There was a lot of repetition in the first and the fourth paragraph where you repeatedly use 'afraid' and 'sleep'. As I have told this before also, that I found the starting and ending a bit bore, and knowing that you could have I would have liked more of powerful speech. I am not sure if you are getting me, but what I mainly want to say is that it didn't impress me much there, but rest of your parts, and especially somethings were beautifully presented.

Guessing from the fact that she is wearing 'jeans', I assume that it's of the present day setting, so whoever asked that question is now answered.

Good Luck and I hope you get a good grade here.

Bye,
~Shubhi

Hi Bondgirl, thanks for the request!
Shall we get started?

I'm not going to nitpick really, since most of the things I wanted to point out have already been addressed.(Yay!)

I'm honestly pleased that you decided to describe the scenery as well as give us a glimpse of a dream. I think that the dream was a great idea to enforce the horrors one might fear during that period of time. Speaking of time period, I do think mentioning that it's during the Cuban missile crisis may help. But since it's a classroom grade, I don't think you necessarily need to put that in, since everyone will already know what you're talking about. Although, all was well, I think in the first paragraph some of the description wasn't as vivid as I would have liked it to be, maybe because you made it too specific and complicated to the point where it's hard to image unless you really think about it. Honestly, it would be nice if you simplified it a tad. Watch out for the repetition too, I know you were trying to get a point across but the repetition in the first paragraph doesn't really work.
Also, in the last paragraph, I think your last sentence went unfinished...

It’s sad to think she’ll have to grow up, sad she’ll have to someday worry about

There wasn't a period and the quote coming right after...well it kind of didn't make sense to me so I think it's unfinished.
If I may, I agree with Shubhi on the opening. It wasn't as gripping as I would have liked it to be. I also second Jetpack on the title, Oblivion is good

Now, although I loved the dream part about this, there really wasn't a connection between that and the the point you were trying to get across 'Ignorance is bliss'. Unless I'm not thinking hard enough. Overall, you've got some good ideas but don't be afraid to make it a bit longer and give us some more detail and background. Hopefully this reviewed helped some! Good luck editing and hopefully you get a good grade

~Pink

Phoenix lands to review.

Okay overall I liked this.

My only comment is that you should connect things better. For example in the dream she notices the destruction and the lack of life. When she wakes up I think you can connect the thought by having her in some way notice the very things that were missing in her dreams and reflect on how it can all be gone. Which can be connected to her mention of her sisters blissful mind set. See what I mean? You have to connect the dots.

I also think you could expand on her thoughts and feelings. You have her walking through all the devastation, but there was a detachment when it came to her emotions.

That's about all I got.

Hope I helped.

Phoenix flies away.

I'm going to lock this and re post it once I'm finished maybe.