Drowning

This is very short. Just something I started writing the other day, you may get I wasn't in the best mood at that point. I really want to know if i should be bothering to write something around this.

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Drowning

The water rushed against my skin, ripples accepting me into the muddy brown. I shivered. My body shaking uncontrollably. Tears streaked, abandoning my eyes; falling in drops to join the water.
I couldn't touch the bottom of the lake. My feet just kicked frantically, trying to hold my weight. Not that I was bothered by going under. It was my reason for being there, in the murky waters. My hands swept, colliding with the waves, legs splashing uselessly. Why was I fighting the inevitable?
My jaw tightened, blocking the air from entering my lungs. I flung my body as far under the water as I could, my hands remaining still; no desire to return from the depths.
My body floated downwards, sincerity clouding my mind. Extreme happiness drugged me. What if life has a point? What if life can get better? What if I don't want death? It was far too late for questions. I felt the water chilling my body. The mud and rocks crumbled under my feet. There was no air in my lungs. No thoughts in my mind. No strength in my body.
I was just floating, suspended by the water. Lifeless and sparkless in despair.

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Please review

It's quite short, so I'll do you a line-by-line since there's no real plot to it. That's not a bad thing, by any means, though.

My comments are in bold.

MiriamHannah wrote:The water rushed against my skin, ripples accepting me into the muddy brown. 'Muddy brown' - could you do better? It's a rather overused adjective combination. I shivered. I assume this was deliberate, but I actually think these two sentences would work better joined with a comma. Perhaps get rid of the next sentence completely and leave the short, sharp contrast of 'I shivered'. My body shaking uncontrollably. Tears streaked, abandoning my eyes Nice.; falling in drops to join the water.
I couldn't touch the bottom of the lake. My feet just kicked frantically, trying to hold my weight. Not that I was bothered by going under. Suddenly your character sounds like a sulky teenager, a contradiction of the first paragraph. Personally, I hate 'bothered' as a word, and it makes the piece informal. Also, "by going under" sounds a little stilted. It was my reason for being there, in the murky waters. My hands swept, colliding with the waves, legs splashing uselessly. Why was I fighting the inevitable?
My jaw tightened, blocking the air from entering my lungs. Again, a bit of a stilted sentence. I think it might be the wrong choice of words surrounding 'blocking'. I flung my body as far under the water as I could, my hands remaining still A minute ago your character was struggling. Did I miss the moment of acceptance?; no desire to return from the depths.
My body floated downwards Interesting choice of words. Floating downwards? I'm not criticising; I just find it a bit odd. :S, sincerity clouding my mind. Extreme happiness drugged me. Very nice sentence. What if life has a point? What if life can get better? What if I don't want death? It was far too late for questions. I felt the water chilling my body. The mud and rocks crumbled under my feet. There was no air in my lungs. No thoughts in my mind. You've mentioned the mind being 'clouded' before though. I understand it was "clouded by serenity", i.e. peaceful, but 'clouded' doesn't imply clarity. If you want to convey emptiness, I think it's the wrong word. No strength in my body.
I was just floating, suspended by the water. Lifeless and sparkless in despair.

Very well written. My critique seems harsh because I pointed out so many errors, but pretty much all of it is nitpicking. Watch your word choice, but even that is such a minor point that it doesn't affect the piece as a whole.
I'm not sure how you would write something around this. Presumably a point leading up to this, the character's reasons? Personally, I think it works better as a standalone piece. This is one of the better written pieces I've seen on this site, though I haven't been here very long. It was a good read.

Oh man, this made me think of Jeff Buckley and made me sad inside. ):

I'm going to be blunt. I wasn't a huge fan of this piece.

Now, hear me out! I've got some CONSTRUCTIVE critique!

"My body shaking uncontrollably" is a sentence fragment. You could connect it to "I shivered" with a comma to make it correct, turning those both into one sentence: "I shivered, my body shaking uncontrollably."

Let's continue:

"Tears streaked, abandoning my eyes; falling in drops to join the water."

I think there's a lot wrong with that technically, which is why it bugs me. Tears streaked doesn't sound right if you end it there and don't talk anymore about what they streaked down or where they streaked down. They just...streak? I don't think that's a verb by itself. The word "streaked" is an adjective...Hmm. I'm not sure, it just doesn't feel quite right.

I think "abandoning my eyes" sounds a little over-dramatic.

"Falling in drops to join the water" doesn't make sense; If you rearrange it, you get "Drops falling in to join the water", which does. I think that's what you were trying to say, right?

"I couldn't touch the bottom of the lake. My feet just kicked frantically, trying to hold my weight. Not that I was bothered by going under. It was my reason for being there, in the murky waters. My hands swept, colliding with the waves, legs splashing uselessly. Why was I fighting the inevitable? "

My problem with this bit is, if you kick frantically and are splashing around - apparently "fighting the inevitable", then yes, it does seem you were bothered by going under... even though you specify that this person is not bothered. Actions speak louder than words, right?

"My body floated downwards, sincerity clouding my mind. Extreme happiness drugged me. What if life has a point? What if life can get better? What if I don't want death? It was far too late for questions. I felt the water chilling my body. The mud and rocks crumbled under my feet. There was no air in my lungs. No thoughts in my mind. No strength in my body.
I was just floating, suspended by the water. Lifeless and sparkless in despair."

Once again, if you weren't bothered by it, and were drugged in extreme happiness, why would you be in despair? It's a contradiction. I know that when you're going through something like that, you must be feeling a bunch of emotions, even contradicting ones, at the same time - but I don't think it translates smoothly the way you've written it. Instead of being overcome by happiness and despair simultaneously, you say he/she isn't sad, and is resigned to fate, and then have her actions and feelings directly contradict that in the next sentence.

Why would you be happy while wondering if this suicide was a mistake? As soon as she/he feels happy, they start having doubts... I dunno, I'm a little lost on this piece, but maybe I'm just missing the point or something. I tend to over-analyze, take my review with a grain of salt!

But I really liked the idea of comparing being lifeless to being sparkless. That's a really cool turn of phrase.


Keep in mind that when you write something short, every word, every syllable, becomes that much more important - shave everything that's unnecessary, and you're left with the most important ideas to display.

When and if you choose to keep revising this peice, I'll be glad to critique the next draft - just drop me a line.

Love and luck,
Breezy

Hey there!
I am Incognito and I am here to review your short story today. Don't mind me.
Let us begin!~

I. Nit-Picking

The water rushed against my skin, ripples accepting me into the muddy brown.

This whole sentence seems off to me. There is no spelling mistakes or improper structuring, yet how you phrased it, it made it seem oddly weird and not as how it should have been.

First off, the water rushed against my skin doesn't work because usually the water would not rush against just your skin, and that 80% below your skin is water also. I am not quite sure what kind of setting you are trying for here too because I am no sure if she is being dropped into the water or is already drowning. Be specific and give the reader a clear picture of what they are trying to see.

The bolded part is the part that really bugs me. Ripples can't accept you. You cause the ripples. I see what you are trying to go for here, trying to make it almost sound poetic but the use of 'ripples' does not work for me. It is also a problem of the setting malfunction. I am not quite sure if she is plunging into a lake, or a river, maybe even an ocean. Unless the water is really still there would be ripples. More over if someone slipped into the water, it would be a splash, because of the imbalance of the water.

Thirdly, the use of muddy brown helps a tiny bit with the setting but you could even progress it with 'muddy brown lake' or 'muddy brown river' whatever it may be. I knoq you end up saying it was a lake after in the next paragraph, but in a short piece like this, it is almost guarenteed that you need to get the setting in right away.

This whole sentence I recommend rephrasing.

I shivered. My body shaking uncontrollably.

I bolded that period there because it is supposed to be a comma. The reason for that is because those points are so closely related that they can actually be put together in the sentence and shouldn't be separated.

The second piece about this is that 'shivered' is not plural but in the neck part you are describing the effect of 'shivering'. I would rephrase it to 'I started shivering' and then maybe even write that it was the cold water which caused her to do so.

Tears streaked, abandoning my eyes; falling in drops to join the water.

The usage of the word 'streaked' in this sentence does not seem to work for me. Frankly, when I hear the word 'streaked' used, all I am think of is my cat Mouse who slides her butt across the carpet leaving nice chocolatey brown streaks on our newly washed carpet. My families phrases for that is 'the carpet got streaked again'.

Streaked actually means to leave residue, something behind, and it seems that the main character was only crying. Try using words like 'fell' or 'plumetted'. Grab a thesaurus and have fun.

Secondly, you do not need the semi-colon. That is becuase you already started to elaborate on how she started to cry meaning that semi-colon is unnecessary and can easily be replaced with a comma.

My feet just kicked frantically, trying to hold my weight. Not that I was bothered by going under. It was my reason for being there, in the murky waters. My hands swept, colliding with the waves, legs splashing uselessly. Why was I fighting the inevitable?

First things first, if you were kicking frantically in the water, you would not be able to stay above the water for long. When you swim, you tred the water, and tredding is not described as 'frantic'. It is the use of 'frantically' in this part that throughs me off because she would not be able to swim properly.

Reading this paragraph you made it seem like she knew what she was doing, yet she was unsure. The adjectives and fragments you used made it seem like she could not swim, that she was unsure of what she was doing, and that she was going to drown any way. That is a big contradiction.

When writing, you should try to make it believable using your verbs, adverbs, adjectives and nouns. Find the ones that work the best in the piece. If you are trying to describe clumsiness, you can do that with an array of words. Make the characters thoughts connect with the actions to make it more enjoyable and realistic for the reader.

My jaw tightened, blocking the air from entering my lungs.

Your jaw tightening doesn't stop you from breathing. Breathing is a natural thing that our bodies must do to survive. She still has her nose to get the air to her lungs. Think of everything when you write, maybe say that she plugged her nose here too. The reader will find faults and loop holes in the writing if given any, so don't ive them any.

I flung my body as far under the water as I could, my hands remaining still; no desire to return from the depths.

I like this except for the last part because if you look at it, she would still use her hands and her feet to get deeper after she flung herself down. She would not just fling her self or else that would get her nowhere. She can use her hands and feet, that doesn't mean that she was to return from the bottom of the lake.

My body floated downwards, sincerity clouding my mind. Extreme happiness drugged me.

First off you contradicted yourself. You cannot float downwards because floating is a term used for bouyancy, and downwards is a term used for gravity. Bouyancy and gravity don't work well together. The human body is fairly bouyant. It will float to the surface, and that means she will still have to be kicking and pushing for herself to stay downwards. She is fighting one of Newtons laws, and unfortunately, Newton's laws are correct. She has to still be propelling herself to get anywhere except up.

Next, she would not be happy down in the lake even if she was trying to kill herself. She would be sad and she would not be drugged unless because of her depression to make he want to do such a thing as that. It was just an odd thought that came to mind.

I felt the water chilling my body.

In you piece you stated that she was shivering before. Shivering is a case that the human body does when the core body temperature is dropped, and the series of movements heats up the body somewhat. That means, her body would have already chilled enough for that action to be taking. She would not necessarily feel the chilling of her body, but of how the water around her got colder.

II. Grammar and Punctuation

You had spectacular grammar and punctuation. I found bare to none errors. I was really impressed. One tip though that you should keep in mind to read over your work carefully and slowly to make sure all the sentences make sense and no word is out of place. You did a great job in this area and I am happy.

III. Writing Format

Don't mind me, I won't be going into Character Development because there was not much about your character that I could ramble on. I am just going to state that in Overall.

Now your writing is certainly well written. You have great presence and you know how to make a story work and how to aim for a certain feel. The one thing that I noticed though was that you tend to use the wrong adjectives and verbs in odd places making your writing not as good as it should be. A lot of author's don't really see the necessity in this, but your writing, based on how well it flows, helps the reader understand it and like it more.

Another thing with your writing is that I want you to make your setting clear. Don't info dump it in a paragraph, just add a lot of hints here and there of what everything looks like. If indeed this character is a girl, then describe her looking back or not wanting to look back to see her hair. Give subtle hint unto which everything looks like and it would be incredibly awesome to read. You have the stuff there, all you have to do is fine tune it.

IV. Overall

Now for your character, I suggest you make her thoughts conntect with her actions more. It seemed even though she has a normal mind, she was still panicking in the water when she first got in. I also suggest you give a bit more on her thoughts, make the story more interesting because there is only one character. Give an insight as to why she wanted to kill herself and add parts into it to make it seem like she is as depressed. There was nothing out of the ordinary with her thoughts to me, nothing making it seem for her to randomly commit suicide.

I didn't like this piece. Don't get me wrong, your writing is beautiful and with some fine tuning it would be excellent but it just doesn't connect with me. It seemed almost too dramatic, and almost too over done. And it made it seem like you were trying to hard.

Don't force the words to be written on the page, let them come to you. I believe your writing could be spectacular.

The content of this piece just wasn't as good as I thought it would be. There was no emotion or a story behind it to make it have much meaning. It seemed kind of shallow.

Keep up the good work though, and keep writing!~
~Incognito

Thankyou so much for the reviews, I really enjoy reading them, even with critisism it helps me learn. I wrote this very quickly and when I was not in the best mood. I like writing things like this so they impact my bigger stories and i can get feedback and improve. So Thankyou so much for the comments!!!

Bonjour!
It's Beth (: Naylor...

Okay i don't really have time for a proper review, but I did really like this piece because of the situation and emotion. yet it reads as if something is being held back in the writing because it seemed a bit stoppy and starty... bad english

I think you should give a few little details about his/her life, but for a short piece, it's very good (: xx