Goodbye Winter, Hello Spring

Deleted and locked.

Hey, this is Jet, here to review. I understand your decision to post this as one part, since as two you won't always get both halves reviewed, but posting something this long is taking the same risk. It's likely that reviewers won't want to take time to look at something this long; you have to remember that YWS is mostly for people's spare time, and a lot of people don't have time to look at something this long and give it a thorough critique. I do, but even then, it's a daunting prospect.

Right, I'll crit this in two parts anyway.

Part One

First things first. Dialogue. Not the dialogue itself, which is lovely most of the time, but the dialogue grammar. Please click here for Snoink's dialogue grammar rules, but I'll just recap on the one that you need to watch most of all.

“Are you calling me a gold digger, Ethan?” She asked.

Here, "she" shouldn't be capitalised. That's because it's not a new sentence, as it's still relating to the dialogue. When you get to this situation, though:

"Do you really think I’m here for you money?” She raised her eyebrow and continued to challenge his stare.

You're totally right to capitalise "she", because it's the beginning of a new sentence and is no longer describing the dialogue. It's a simple rule, but one that many people forget, so don't get too worried about it. The mistakes are easily fixed, and I won't point them out here.

Kaela and Ethan were young, only twenty years old. Four months ago Kaela worked as a maid at this mansion. Ethan at that time had gotten into a very ugly scandal and the media was constantly surrounding him. But, because of that scandal she was able to marry Ethan. Their marriage was used to maneuver the media away and put and end to the horrible scandal. At first it was still an employee/employer relationship but as the media demanded to see more of them, Kaela and Ethan’s love blossomed. That’s when rumors started. She had seen ugly hate mail saying she was here for Ethan’s money, but that wasn’t true. Some said she had tricked Ethan to gain his fortunes, but that wasn’t true either. She really did love him.

This entire paragraph is what we call an info dump. Basically, you've offloaded a huge amount of information into one paragraph. It's an extreme example of telling, which you shouldn't rely too heavily on, especially not in a short story. I understand if you're new at this, you're struggling with the concept of building a lot of information into such a small word count - some writers say that short stories are a lot harder to write than a novel - but really, it's just a matter of working this information into the narrative and dialogue rather than dumping it all in here.

Think about it. Do we really need to know these details? Obviously I write this with no knowledge of Part Two, but I don't think that we need to know the details surrounding this argument. We can guess from the dialogue that Ethan thinks Kaela wants his money, so why do we need this? You could just cut it completely.

I think the POV switches between Ethan and Kaela were risky, but you wrote them very well. I've seen that done badly so many times, so I thought I should mention that you did it particularly well here.

That’s what Ethan thought, all women are money hungry, status hungry, they all want to be rich and famous and Kaela was no different.

You should watch out for the comma splice. This article will really help you out in learning about it and trying to avoid it, but the summary is that a comma splice is when you join two full sentences with a comma, when really they should be separated by a full stop. So this sentence should really be as follows.

That's what Ethan thought: all women were money hungry, status hungry. They all wanted to be rich and famous and Kaela was no different.

I've changed the tenses here too, because Ethan is still thinking in past tense, if you know what I mean. Unless the thought are literal, in which case they should be in italics. Here's what I mean.

She is an idiot. Insults ran through Ethan's mind.
Ethan thought she was an idiot to think he could be duped like that.

Do you understand what I'm getting at now? Sorry if I didn't explain it very well.

Kaela’s body couldn’t handle just two minutes in this Chicago weather. Her toes curled trying to stay warm. She was reconsidering Ethan’s offer. She suddenly felt a warm coat slide onto her back. She quickly stopped to turn. Ethan was standing in front of her. She struggled to stop him from getting the coat on her. He then yelled, telling her to shut up and just let him put the coat on. She stopped squirming after that.

This is one of those paragraphs in which every sentence is very similar. They're all quite short, and all quite simple, coming together just to give a blow-by-blow sequence of events. Now, that's not very interesting to read, and it covers things too quickly. Change Ethan's yelling into actual dialogue. It'll help break this sequence up, so we have more showing than we do telling.

Lastly, before I move on to Part Two, I'd like to say that though your dialogue was very nice, you shouldn't get too bogged down in this sort of thing:

Ethan Westmore is on top of the world, he has everything that everyone wants but what he needs the most is something he can’t find.

Though I can see that being significant later, I don't think you should be quite so prophetic in the dialogue. Change it back to second person. Don't forget that dialogue is dialogue, and formality only works to a certain extent. It should be real. Leave the fancy wording to your narrative.

Okay, so that's the first half of my review. I'll be back later to do Part Two, but I think I need a break.

EDIT: I just lost an entire review here. I had almost all of Part Two done. Ah, well, here we go again. Sorry if I'm not as patient with your writing this time, but I've done that several times now - deleted my reviews, I mean - so I'm not in the best of moods.

Part Two

Right, you have several of the same issues here that you had last time around, so I'll just touch on them and move on.

You need to look at:

dialogue punctuation and grammar.
tenses.
info dumps.
comma splices.

Dialogue punctuation is fairly self-explanatory. Look at that article I provided you with further up, and read my explanations again. You've got a few more mistakes and I think you need to double check. Comma splices, too, were mentioned further up, and I encourage you to read the article.

Tenses need a lot of attention. You've slipped in and out of past tense very often here. If you're more comfortable in present tense, just write in it! Maybe it's not so common in novels, but in short stories it's less unusual and we won't mind if you write it well. Mixing the two is not an option.

With info dumps, I'm specifically referring to that part describing Kaela's new life at the beginning of Part Two, and also the descriptions of the employees. We don't need them. I think the employees are described well enough through their dialogue and their actions, though you may wish to mention that Jean-Pierre (both names capitalised, by the way) is a Frenchman somewhere in there, if you cut the info dumps. As for Kayla's life, just mention that she's managing the shop, and that its name is Chateau. You don't need a whole introductory few paragraphs. It's distracting and doesn't read well.

Speaking of being distracting, you have several typos in this piece. Typos are not hard to fix, obviously, but can be difficult to catch. Read this aloud and you should get them all, but really, you should do this before you post. Leaving typos in a post on YWS is like asking the reviewers to do the proof-reading for you, and it doesn't broadcast a good message about you and the nature of your writing. To a reader, spotting "witch" instead of "which" suggests that you are unprofessional and don't care about your writing, which isn't true, is it? Check for typos and you'll earn the respect of reviewers and readers alike.

“Mr. Westmore?” Ethan questioned. He gave a short laugh as he eyed her up and down. “Fine, you want to take responsibility huh?”

For someone who is staring open-mouthed moments before this, I think Ethan composes himself rather too quickly, and without any mention of him doing so. You need to describe him maybe appearing uncomfortable, and maybe mention that he's only cocky because of his nerves. The cockiness otherwise seems out of character, because the Ethan we saw earlier didn't display it. Let Kaela acknowledge that he's looking maybe a little nervous, because she's not at all calm, and it seems odd that he's so cool.

Ethan's character, actually, is hard to determine. Kaela is much easier: independent, but softer on the inside. Ethan seems to flit around a bit. Try to ground him. Maybe do a bit of character development in the forums.

Now, I hate to correct your French, but I think it needs tweaking. I don't speak fluent French, but I learn it at school, and do pretty well within my age group, so I'll try and help.

“y a il un probleme?”

"Il y a un probleme?"

“Ah, oui. A demain madame m’oiselle.”

"Ah, oui. À demain, mademoiselle."

I think that's right! Back to writing in English, which I understand properly, thank goodness.

They sat in her living room with the dim yellow lights. The silence between them was extremely awkward so she figured she would speak first.

There should be some sort of transitional phrase here, like "thirty minutes later", or something even longer, preferably. One minute they're in the car, and the next they're in the living room? That just doesn't work. We get confused and it ruins the flow. I know some scenes are boring, and obviously your characters just driving in the car may not be too interesting to write about, so you're entitled to cut most of it. However, that doesn't mean you can just leave us hanging and move on without any sort of transition.

Having said that there are some parts of scenes you can miss out, don't miss out the good parts. This awkward silence is one such part which you only touch on. Your dialogue is wonderful in most places, but you can't rely entirely on it. The narrative needs to shine through and give us a better idea of how awkward it is between the two of them now. You did a pretty good job in the café, but there's always room for more in a scene like this.

All of that will help to make this ending seem more realistic. I've never been a fan of the "happily ever after" thing, but this seems to take it to the extreme. I could understand the coincidence of Kaela and Ethan's meeting, because every romantic story I've read has a certain amount of this, but the love that reignites between them is just odd. I think you should insert a bit of conflict. Maybe Kaela's nervous around Ethan now? Maybe she doesn't trust him?

An overwhelming feeling pulsed through Ethan’s veins by her words. He never thought he’d be able to hear those words again.

Why do you switch to Ethan's POV here? In a block which is dominated by Kaela, why move into his mind all of a sudden? I know I complimented you on your smooth POV changes earlier, but this is an example of how not to do it. Maybe you're trying to show that Kaela and Ethan are "one" again, as you say at the end, but again, I think you should add conflict. Leave Ethan's POV alone and stick to Kaela's, and go deeper into what she's thinking. There's a lot of untapped emotion in this scene that you could focus on.

As a general comment, I didn't really see what relevance the title had to the piece. I mean, I did, but it still didn't seem like the best of titles in terms of showing us something about the piece and/or adding something to it. I don't think it did either of those things; the latter maybe, but only to a certain extent. I don't know. Maybe it's just personal taste.

Okay, I'll finish up now. Hope my comments were of some use. I'll add anything else I think of later, but this is all for now. I won't do an overall summary like I usually do, because, well, I think I covered the majority of what I wanted to say. Good luck, and keep writing. This was pretty good for a first timer on a short story, so congratulations. Keep it up.

This story was one like out of the movie scenes.

Interesting,gripping and the classical dramatic end.A well chosen concept with some brilliant storytelling.

Just before your story, tell the readers that its worth their time or use some other mind tricks.Though the story was good,the length may prevent people from reading the whole thing.

Keep it up.

Part One:

Sorry. My computer glitched and sumbited the message before I told it to.
Part One:

I liked the strength of Kaela and the way you made their breakup so realistic. Fame puts a lot of presure on a relationship.

I honestly can't think of any way to make this part better. Sorry. I know that's not very helpful.

Overall, this was really good. I'm going to go read Part Two now and hopefully I will be more helpful in my review.
-youreit

Part Two:

I liked the ending. It was sweet and dramatic at the same time. I also liked how your characters stayed the same to the end of the story. One thing you could change is, when Ethan comes into the coffee shop, instead of Kaela hiding, have her stay out in the open. If she's a proud, strong woman, she would ignore him and get on with her business without paying any attention to him. You don't have to do it. It's just a suggestion. Overall, I liked it. It was very good and the separate parts made the "3 years later" thing seem less uprupt than it would be if you just had one part.

-youreit

Hiya! The name's Irish and I'm here to review! *plays cheesy hero music*

So, this was really touching to me! Part 1 was one of those times where you look at the stupid character whos being blind *cough* Ethan *cough* and scream "You loser! Just LISTEN and BELIEVE them and your life will be a lot easier!" and for Part 2 I seriously didn't think she would take him back but apprently love is stronger than hate *sigh*

I didn't see anything wrong with spelling or grammar and I believe thats all!

Keep up the great work!
-Irish

I liked it, I think the others already got to it, but you did a really great job. You should become a professional author. I'm sorry I'm not very good at this judging thing. Oh well, SEE YA!!!!! P.S Please read some of my stories, they are called The Vampire Story.




*Cassie*




" There is nothing to fear, but fear itself." Theodore Roosevelt

This is very good. It's a great "short" story and builds up to a wonderful ending. I liked how Kaela is very stubborn in both parts but at the end gives in to loving Ethan again. Very dramatic, and it makes the reader not know what will happen next. Good job!

Now this is my type of story! It caught my attention immedietly and didn't let me go until the end, where it flung me away with tears in my eyes! Stupid Ethan! This is one of those stories were someone is blinded by something else, and can't see whats right in front of their arrogant nose* cough* Ethan* cough* I loved it. I almost cried when she walked away from him and gave the little speach!! *wipes tear away*

I loved it!

Until next time...
Tata for now!
Starleene Out!

PS. Did I mention that I loved this story!!

P.S.S If you ever get the chance, I wish you would make this story longer! <3

Wow, awesome story. I got into it immediately, it like.. pulled me in. The title of the story is good also. I cried when she was leaving his house; brilliantly written, it would be cool if you could form this into a novel somehow. I would be buying it the day it came out.

Oh, wow...
I'm glad you all like it!
I thought of this at work one day and when I got home just wrote it down like crazy. I was on the computer for 7 hours just typing away because I was just so into this.
At first I was afraid people were going to think of this as cheesy but I wanted it to be a weird cheesy story, like one of those scenes out of a movie.

Thank you guys so much for your comments, it means a lot!


~Pink

This was a beautifully written story! Very well put together, and so cute. You made it seem like a scene right out of a movie. That is a compliment by the way, because where do movies typically come from? You guessed it, books! Job well done!
Rent

Hey!
I loved this story!
What was your inspiration for it?
I really enjoyed the first part and all that jazz and the begining of the second part was good, but I didn't like the very end.
I'm sorry, but I was hoping that she would give more of a fight, she just gave in!
But everything else was marvalous!