The Typewriter

The Typewriter

It had been two weeks since mom left me here at Uncle Louis’s house. ‘Spaghetti prison’, I called it due to the fact all uncle Louis ate was spaghetti. I long since had finished exploring the house and grounds, and the only thing left to explore was the closet. I began to dig through the piles of junk, dust, and dirt. And there at the bottom was the typewriter. Old, dusty and broken, to me it looked majestic. To me it looked like water would to a man in the desert. To me it offered an escape from the prison of boredom. All I had to do was make it work.

Fixing the typewriter turned out to be easier then I thought. A few keys needed tightened, a problem that I easily solved with an old wrench I found in the attic, but that was it. Slowly I inserted apiece of paper and began to type.

I told a story of a beautiful princess, a heroic knight, and an evil villain. I looked down at my work and read it through once more, it wasn’t half bad. As I looked I realized I wasn’t in my room anymore, infact I wasn’t anywhere near my room.

“Princess, we must hurry.” With a start I turned to face the voice. In front of me stood a handsome young man in shining armor. Who was he? And why did he call me Princess? I looked down at my clothes I wasn’t in my t-shirt in jeans anymore; instead I was in the most beautiful dress I had ever seen. Then it hit me I was in my story. I was the princess in my story!

“Princess, are you coming?” he said

“ Yes” I said.

We hurried down the passage, then down a flight of stairs. We had almost reached the castle’s gate when we hard voices behind us.

“Quick, catch them before they escape!”

“The guards!” I cried my voice shaking.

“Don’t worry I won’t let them get you!” We turned down a hall and then down another. As we did the voices kept getting closer, the guards were gaining on us!

“Quick, hide in here!” He whispered. We slipped in the door of a side chamber carefully we bolted the door and stood breathing hard up against it.

Then the guards’ voices were herd from outside, “Open this door!”

“Never,” the knight cried. I felt his grasp tighten around me. Then suddenly his grasp faded away; once again I was in my room, at my uncle’s house. It had all been a dream. Or had it? I would never know.



This story was the result of one of those write a story using these three random objects (in this case spagetti, a typewriter, and a wrench) exercises. I know it needs major revising and any input is welcome.

Thanks,
~®®§

Welcome to YWS!

Yay, I read it! It was a good start, but I have a few suggestions...

1. Familiar Subject Matter: the idea of the author being sucked into his/her story is a familiar one and one that is often overused - to make this fresh and unique, you need to make it original. Add some sort of twist, anything to make it stick out from the rest...

2. Description and Pace: You have proved to me throughout this story that you know how to describe. You have some really good description sections, but I felt you were rushing through this. The entire part at the beginning left me wanting more. What did she find in her search? More description in here would be good.

3. Characterization: Your rushing pace made it very hard for me to get a grasp of your main character. She seemed very lacking in personality and I would like to see more of her character. Use some down-and-dirty characterization tricks such as dialogue, actions and insights to show us her personality.

Those were the main things I wanted to cover, and I know it will be hard for you to incorporate those, but they will improve your story a lot. If you edit this, PM me if and I would be happy to give you a more complete critique (I feel the above things I mentioned will help you more than a crit right now). Nicely done and keep writing. You have tons of potential! PM me if you have any questions.

I began to dig through the piles of junk, dust, and dirt. And there at the bottom was the typewriter.

Make it one sentence.

I liked the way this started. I think WD pointed it out already, but this first scene seemed a bit quick. All of a sudden she's dressed in princess clothing and being pulled by the arm by some handsome young knight. She's sucked into this a bit quickly and is thrust back out just as fast. If that's how you want it to be, then that's great, but it seems harder to get into the story that way.

There are plenty of ways this can go, most of which are fun and let you be extremely creative. I liked your idea to begin with, so keep working on it! =]

I agree it was a little too quick. Maybe you should have it go a little longer before having it pull you in.

Thansk to all of you for your imput! This story is currently going through a major overhall and I'll post it again when it's ready.

~®®§

I agree with writersdomain; it seemed a little rushed. I couldn't really tell what the plot was, so maybe if you made your main character reflect her thoughts about the problem in the story more, besides the last sentence. Also I thought that her jumping into the world that she was creating and just not really doing anything didn't seem like the story needed it from what you typed so far. Like why did she need to run away from the guards? She seemed like she knew why and since her thoughts were basically what the reader read I think that she should state why or something like that. Also I thought it would make the story more interesting if the reader was there when she found the typewriter, since the typewriter is obviously important to the story (did that make sense?). Also back on the topic of when she goes into her own story, she seems to know where she is and so I think a little explanation to the reader might be nice.

These are just some of my first thoughts reading your story. I did like how your main character called her uncle's house the "spaghetti prison" since it was unique and gave the reader a bit of information of the main character's personality plus it was a nice metaphor.