Flash Fiction

I don't have a name for it, but everyone I've showed it to thinks it's good. (Please be nice)


When the couple and their seventy-five friends went to the reception hall, they found Aaron, and the defaced cake having toppled to the floor. The bride’s scream, frightening and raw, brought another rush of tears to Aaron’s eyes. The boy searched the crowd for rescue. His mother, among the crowd of faces, stayed in her place. Aaron’s foolish, red face stirred her anger. For the boy was too old to be scooped up, apologized for and taken home for a short scolding and a long, forgiving embrace.
Aaron’s dumpy, bruised and oddly bent legs had carried him away from the moving ceremony, held in an old house belonging to the bride’s parents. Although beautiful, the unfamiliar rooms were oddly placed. Thus, when stumbling down the hall, the boy fell through an open door and found the library, decorated with flowers and prepared for the reception.
The fool was over taken by the warm hold one gets when one is somewhere he or she should not be, but wants nothing more than anything to stay, for upon the table at the far end of the library was the cake. It stood four tiers, and was a creamy off white. Thick ribbons of yellow icing cascaded down the sides.
Beside the cake, there was a little girl, dressed in a soft, pastel pink dress, hair tied in a bow. Her eyes and mouth gaped. She was somehow familiar, but the sight of her troubled the thoughtless boy.
“Isn’t it swell?” she asked, a grin spreading across her face.
Aaron tried moving closer, tripping and falling to his knees. His childish inquisitiveness pulled him up again and again until he reached her side.
“Are we allowed to have some?”
The girl turned her head and looked at her new companion. His face was pudgy, and his left eye was black and blue, his nose was running and his clumsy cheeks were blushing red.
Her continuous, wide gaze fell on his bruised eyelid.
Aaron snapped his wrist mechanically. His hand fell over his vision.
The girl turned back to the cake.
“Don’t do that!” Aaron shrieked.
The girl’s tongue lapped off a thin stripe of yellow. Slowly her puckered lips pressed against the butter-cream. Her eyes widened. Her mouth opened. Her teeth closed.
Aaron stared in horror, his weak legs failing to carry him away from the scene. Sure enough the girl was able to swallow much of the cake, half of the bottom tier.
Tears streamed down Aaron’s face. “Help, I need to go” he called out to his limbs. The bones in his legs cracked and creaked; he tumbled onto his back and held his head under his thick arms. His pathetic cries paired with screams of pain.
The cake leaned and broke, falling to the floor. Aaron’s tears began to slow, the girl ran off, giggling and blowing the boy a kiss as she ran. But Aaron didn’t see her gesture, his eyes locked in a stare with the cake lying beside him.

First of all, Welcome to YWS. I'm Kit, and if you haven't already, go to the welcome mat and introduce yourself.
Now, onto your story-
It's interesting. I think the description was balanced with both showing and telling.
You write well, I love how it just played out to then end, with Aaron, the girl and the cake.

So congrats and welcome

KitxKat wrote:First of all, Welcome to YWS. I'm Kit, and if you haven't already, go to the welcome mat and introduce yourself.
Now, onto your story-
It's interesting. I think the description was balanced with both showing and telling.
You write well, I love how it just played out to then end, with Aaron, the girl and the cake.

So congrats and welcome

Thank you very much! I'm Liz.

Cheers! I'm here as asked =)

I haven't noticed any bad grammar mistakes and I had no trouble following the flow of text, that's a + for you. I'll agree with KitxKat that you had a nicely balanced show&tell. I didn't have to read those 'long boring' descriptions, it was easily described with a piece of information I swallowed right away. I didn't feel bored while reading it and so I hope it applies to others. The descriptions of Aaron's feelings were really interesting to be honest, I haven't seen those in quite some time. Made one feel the terror of a poor kid.

The twist of story, well, wasn't bad. I'm just not used to reading a piece of work where I read about a boy who by accident appeared near cake, that was a bit eaten by the girl and in the end Aaron got all the blame as the only suspect at the place of crime. But then again, it's not something one would come across often, I think I've read such an idea first time. So that's + for creativity.

What bugged me though is the ending. I suppose this is meant to be like a short story, but the ending left way too many questions for my tastes. I get the idea he'd be in a darn trouble, but what about the girl? Will she come visit him again or he goes searching for her or something more complex? I had a big ? there and in the end decided to let it be. ( That's in terms of story ). I understand this might be wrong, but that's what I think about the ending. ( There's that case that everybody sees it different, so unless you'd agree with what I say, just don't pay attention ^^. The most important anyway is to find your own style of writing and improve it to the best you can. And don't forget that you should enjoy writing what you write =) Imagine you're a reader, if you enjoy it, why shouldn't others? Even though there'll be always somebody who'd dislike it, there are also those who'd like it and you devote your works to them )

In overall it's a nice piece and I'd be looking forward to reading more of your creations =) Keep writing and good luck!

Have a nice day!
Kyou

Kyousuke wrote:Cheers! I'm here as asked =)

I haven't noticed any bad grammar mistakes and I had no trouble following the flow of text, that's a + for you. I'll agree with KitxKat that you had a nicely balanced show&tell. I didn't have to read those 'long boring' descriptions, it was easily described with a piece of information I swallowed right away. I didn't feel bored while reading it and so I hope it applies to others. The descriptions of Aaron's feelings were really interesting to be honest, I haven't seen those in quite some time. Made one feel the terror of a poor kid.

The twist of story, well, wasn't bad. I'm just not used to reading a piece of work where I read about a boy who by accident appeared near cake, that was a bit eaten by the girl and in the end Aaron got all the blame as the only suspect at the place of crime. But then again, it's not something one would come across often, I think I've read such an idea first time. So that's + for creativity.

What bugged me though is the ending. I suppose this is meant to be like a short story, but the ending left way too many questions for my tastes. I get the idea he'd be in a darn trouble, but what about the girl? Will she come visit him again or he goes searching for her or something more complex? I had a big ? there and in the end decided to let it be. ( That's in terms of story ). I understand this might be wrong, but that's what I think about the ending. ( There's that case that everybody sees it different, so unless you'd agree with what I say, just don't pay attention ^^. The most important anyway is to find your own style of writing and improve it to the best you can. And don't forget that you should enjoy writing what you write =) Imagine you're a reader, if you enjoy it, why shouldn't others? Even though there'll be always somebody who'd dislike it, there are also those who'd like it and you devote your works to them )

In overall it's a nice piece and I'd be looking forward to reading more of your creations =) Keep writing and good luck!

Have a nice day!
Kyou

Thank you, thank you for the review and for the compliments. I'm very glad you liked my story. The reason I didn't expand too much on the ending was I wanted it to be less than or about 500 words. I'll take your advice though, and see if I can include more hints throughout as to what happens next. Again, thank you for the review. 8D

Hyea F1shes.

Here to review as requested! You don't have any nit-pick critiques yet, so I'll start off with them. You said that you don't have a title? Remember, anything is better than nothing. I have a few suggestions... I guess. You could go for something obvious and simple like 'The Wedding cake' or 'The girl in the library.' Even though those ideas are smple and not very creative, they're better than nothing. You should have a title similar to those for now and when you come up with something better, change it.

When the couple and their seventy-five friends went to the reception hall, they found Aaron, and the defaced cake having toppled to the floor. The bride’s scream, frightening and raw, brought another rush of tears to Aaron’s eyes. The boy searched the crowd for rescue. His mother, among the crowd of faces, stayed in her place. Aaron’s foolish, red face stirred her anger. For the boy was too old to be scooped up, apologized for and taken home for a short scolding and a long, forgiving embrace.

As a whole, this was a pretty good opening! It got me wondering what was going on, therefore, it made me want to read on and find out what was happening. You used some nice, varied adjectives and vocabulary and the paragraph was interesting. My only critique is that I'm slightly confused with it. To begin with, who's Aaron?

Aaron’s dumpy, bruised and oddly bent legs had carried him away from the moving ceremony that was being held in an old house belonging to the bride’s parents.

Thus, when stumbling down the hall, the boy fell through an open door and found the library, decorated with flowers and prepared for the reception.

Do you mean preparations? If that isn't what you mean, I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. If that is the case, you should maybe try and rephrase this so that it's easier to understand.

It stood four tiers, and was a creamy off white. Thick ribbons of yellow icing cascaded down the sides.

I liked this description of the cake.

Beside the cake, there was a little girl, dressed in a soft, pastel pink dress, hair tied in a bow.

I'm beginning to notice that you use commas an awful lot. This is more of a personal thing, but to me, when there are loads of commas in a piece of writing, it can get a bit annoying. Maybe you should cut down some of your sentences so that they are a bit shorter with less commas. Another thing that's bothering me slightly are your descriptions. Although they are good, you are using an awful lot of them. If you use too many descriptions in a piece of writing, it can eventually bore the reader.

His face was pudgy, and his left eye was black and blue. His nose was running and his clumsy cheeks were blushing red.

Here is a good example of you using commas rather eagerly. I've changed it to what I think would look, and sound, better. This is a bit more of a personal thing; the overuse of commas, but there will be a lot of people out there that agree with me.

Slowly, her puckered lips pressed against the butter-cream.

Sure enough, the girl was able to swallow much of the cake; half of the bottom tier.

Tears streamed down Aaron’s face. “Help, I need to go!” he called out to his limbs.

Aaron’s tears began to slow and the girl ran off, giggling and blowing the boy a kiss as she ran.

Sometimes you should include the word and instead of a comma.


Overall

This was actually a very interesting piece of writing. If I'm being totally honest with you, I'm not sure what happened exactly. I figured out that the setting was in a wedding, for obvious reasons. It's just that you left me with quite a lot of questions on the end. I'll go into more detail about this later on. As for your grammar, very good! This may surprise you, but I wasn't overly keen on how you used your commas. There were an awful lot of them. This may not bother everyone, but it will bother others. It's just that, at times, I think that you should cut down on them. Replace them with periods or the word and, for example. Except for the odd comma, your grammar was really good. When it comes to your spelling, I didn't find any errors at all. The same goes for your vocabulary, you varied it and there were no simple, boring words. One of the things that I liked best about this was your descriptions. Like the other reviewers have said, you didn't tell, you showed. Your varied vocabulary also helped improve your descriptions. My only critique for the descriptions was the fact that you used them an awful lot. To be honest, it doesn't bother me. It might bother others though. To some people, lots of descriptions can be boring. Because there wasn't an awful lot of action in this, your descriptions weren't balanced out as well as they could have been.

My main critique is the fact that I don't really know much about this story. I understand what happened fine; a boy was in a wedding, found the wedding cake and met a girl. The girl then destroyed the cake, left the boy and he got the blame for it. What I don't really understand are your characters and the background of the story. To begin with, how come the boy was so bruised? That is something that I really would like to know. I found it weird how he was clearly badly bruised, yet I had no idea how or why. Also, who is Aaron exactly? Who is the girl? Who's wedding is it? What happened to the girl after the cake was destroyed? Basically, us readers don't know anything about the background of this story. It may not seem like it, but the background of a story is actually very important. If we don't know much about the characters or the idea itself, we can't really feel as connected to the story. Do you get what I'm saying? I'm not asking you to give me Aaron's life story, that would be annoying. I'd just like to know a bit more about him and the wedding he was attending. To be honest, this feels a bit like a section or a chapter from a novel or novella. Not so much a short story. I think that's because of the fact that we don't know much about the background of the story.

I don't really have anything else to critique about this! I feel useless... The reason that I don't have much else to say is because I genuinely do like this. Your writing style is very nice, the story wasn't awkward at read at all. As a whole, it was a rather quirky piece and your vocabulary is very, very good. Even though you have a lot of them, your descriptions are great and really vivid. Your grammar is good and so is your spelling. All that you really need to do is consider what us reviewers have said and edit this up a bit. In my opinion, you need to give us some background details on the story itself, cut down on the commas a bit and also consider cutting down on the descriptions. Although, I must say, that isn't completely necessary!

Keep writing,

xoxo Rhian

@ Skins
Thank you so much for the review. I do use a lot of commas, so I will go through later today and add more conjunctions to the piece and shorten some sentences. Although I understand what you mean about overloaded descriptions, I don't think I'll take many out since I like how they appear in this story.
I'll try to answer some of you questions about the content:
When it comes to Aaron being bruised, my intention was to let the reader draw his or her own conclusions. I tried to make it so there could be multiple reasons for why. In the beginning, Aaron's mother doesn't jump to help Aaron in his time of need and becomes angry because of his foolishness. She refuses to apologize for him or accept his mistake because he is "too old" but he's clearly very young. With this information, the conclusion could be drawn that he is being abused by his mother. Another example of proof for this conclusion is that he automatically covers his bruises when the girl notices them. This suggests he is used to hiding them, or is ashamed by them and their purpose. This is what I originally intended for the story.
The other conclusion could be that he's just clumsy.
The girl's real identity isn't really important. I chose not to name her, or follow her any further than her escape because she represents Aaron's Id, his pleasure complex. She jumps to devour almost an entire tier of cake with no thought about the consequences. She's impulsive and has no restraint, having stared at Aaron's bruises in a way that would be considered rude. The fact that she devours so much cake represents Aaron's inability to control himself when it comes to average pleasures for a child, such as cake. This is also exemplified by his chubby appearance. Really, for all we know she could just be a hallucination.
If the conclusion is drawn that Aaron is victim to abuse, the rest of the story makes slightly more sense. When he looks for rescue in the crowd, one would assume it's for his mother. But once the rest of the story has been read, I was hoping that it would become clear that he was truly looking for the girl in the crowd of people.
The people who are getting married doesn't really matter. The important part of this story - or what I meant to be important - was that Aaron is a little boy who cannot control his urges and it gets him in trouble often. Whether or not the little girl is a hallucination and he ate the cake, the crowd of guests will still blame him because it's known that he cannot control his urges. If the reader draws the conclusion that he is a victim of abuse, then it shows that the motivation for his urges is his bottling up of natural, childish cravings for sugary, delightful treats (like a cake). If they don't draw that conclusion, and assume he's just bruised because he if clumsy and large, then his urges are just abnormal.
The tragic part of this story is that his supposed punishments for his urges end up causing him to receive more blame and punishment. Because of his bruised legs, he couldn't escape the scene to try and save himself from the rage of the guests and couple. Even though he is innocent. While the little girl, who does not receive punishments for her action/gets away from the scene in time, will not be blamed. But this is conclusion that can only be drawn if you assume he is a victim of abuse. Which I hope most readers will assume.
I hope this gave you some insight (if you don't mind reading all my babble)
I can see how it would be confusing. When I go back and edit I'll try to add more clues for each of these. Thank you again for the review. 8D

Now I think about it, I do understand where you are coming from. I'm not the brightest of all people so I don't tend to notice hints. When you do re-edit this though, you could include some more hints for us not so smart people!

As for the descriptions thing, I agree with you, really. I personally really like descriptions, and a piece with a lot of descriptions doesn't bother me. I thought I'd let you know that it might bother other people, just so that you'd understand if anyone else ever commented that you're too descriptive. Descriptions are epic, if you ask me.

Skins wrote:Now I think about it, I do understand where you are coming from. I'm not the brightest of all people so I don't tend to notice hints. When you do re-edit this though, you could include some more hints for us not so smart people!

As for the descriptions thing, I agree with you, really. I personally really like descriptions, and a piece with a lot of descriptions doesn't bother me. I thought I'd let you know that it might bother other people, just so that you'd understand if anyone else ever commented that you're too descriptive. Descriptions are epic, if you ask me.

Oh, I don't think you're stupid. After re-reading it over I'm finding that a lot of my hints aren't subtle, and are hard to pick up. I'll try to fix that tonight. Thank you for reviewing again, you're been very helpful. :]