Forward and Back

Once, a thousand life times ago, a young woman sat in her rocking chair weeping. Slowly forward and back. Forward and Back. Forward and Back. Tears trickling down her cheeks, her eyes circled by red rings. She was mouthing her one wish, without which she felt her life would never be complete.

The women looked up, an ancient looking woman had appeared. Her nose was long a pointed, a wart sitting hideously on the end of it. Her clothes old tattered rags of what looked like it had once been a fine ball gown, and her hair a long straggly knotted mess. The young woman gawped at her. How long had she been there? How did she get in?

“Why are you crying young one?” cackled the ugly wrinkled maid, to the horrified looking girl in front of her.

“Well…” said the young lady, feeling herself, almost hypnotised, trusting someone she had just met. “…The one I love could never love me, for I, a poor miller’s daughter, could never be a match for his superior family’s standard.”

“Ok, little one, I feel your pain. Something like this can be hard to ignore. Yet I know a way, to get him to love you too. I shall tell you on one condition.” The old lady replied, her face contorted into an evil smile.

“Tell me. I shall do anything” the young desperately pleaded.

“I myself have never been loved. It is hard for me. I need a child. Two of your children may be yours. You shall give me your third.

“Okay” The girl agreed, “Anything for him”.

“Tonight at 10 o’clock he shall realise he loves you, you shall be married within the week.”

“Oh thank you, thank you, thank you.” The young women happily shrieked.

“Remember my face, I shall have your third child, leave it on your doorstep the night it is born.”

“Okay” The young lady span round on the spot, overjoyed. When she looked back the old crooked lady was gone.

And so, as the old women had promised at 10 o’clock that night the young women’s love realised that he wanted her to be his wife. They were also married within the week. Ten short years passed, two babies were born, and things were forgotten.

On the eve of the birth of the (no longer young) women’s third baby.

As the women laid her new baby in it’s cot to settle, her mind brushed over the thought of the old woman.

“I shall not obey her command, it is my child, she is probably dead by now anyway.” She told herself, hopefully. The child fell into a trance-like sleep, it’s slightly audible breath in a steady, even rhythm. When the mother was sure it was at rest and would be for a while she made her way into the next room to complete her sewing.

She sat in here rocking chair. Forward and Back. Forward and back. Forward and back. A rush of cold wind tingled down the woman’s spine, then the cry of her youngest child rang in her ears. She went to have a look at the baby, thinking something awful had happened, yet all that had occurred was the candle blowing out.

‘Just a breeze’ thought the woman, relighting it, ‘it’s quite windy tonight’.

So she settled her child again and walked back into the other room and sat on her chair to sew, as she had previously. Forward and back. Forward and back. Forward and back. Her chair creaked as it swung.

Then, what had happened 10 minutes ago repeated itself. Except this time, not only had the candle gone out, but the window was wide open and cold air was rushing in at a face numbing pace.

The woman relit the candle, shut the window and settled her child back into a steady sleep. Then, just as previously, she yet again went back to her sewing. She sat in her chair going forward and back. Forward and back. Forward and Back. When, after 20 minutes a high pitched cackle echoed from her youngest child’s bedroom.

Then women hurried in to see an empty cot, an open window and a shadow on the floor. She looked up to see the same wrinkled prune of a lady in the same tattered ball gown, who shrieked, “YOU PROMISED! YOU FOOLISH CHILD! HOW DARE YOU NOT KEEP YOUR CONTRACTS?! I HAVE MY CHILD NOW!”.

And with that she few on her broomstick out of the open window and let the darkness hide her, leaving the poor woman kneeling in the room begging, shouting for her child to return. But it never did.

I'm going to be super harsh. Warning now.


This whole thing was super cliche. Just the whole premise is has been done way too much, In child fairy tales. Especially with a first line like this.

Once, a thousand life times ago, a young woman sat in her rocking chair weeping.

I'd suggest rereading, and asking your self why anything in your story is happening. Go deep into your characters thoughts and feelings.

As a couple of nitpicks

The women looked up

Woman. YOu do it a lot, switching from women to woman.

HOW DARE YOU NOT KEEP YOUR CONTRACTS?!

A question mark will suffice there.


Write On
~WickedWonder

Hello there, nanah96, and welcome to YWS. You might want to get around to reviewing other writers' stories. It's a good way to make friends, and it will also help you improve your own writing.

That said, I have a soft spot for fairytales and stories that are fairytale-like, so I was really happy to come across this. You've got a pretty good fairytale story here, though it does need a fair bit of polishing up. There were a number of grammar and spelling mistakes throughout this, and since it was so short, they were very noticeable. The bright side is that, if you fix these up, you'll have a very nice fairytale story.

So onto my suggestions:

Once, a thousand life times ago, a young woman sat in her rocking chair weeping. Slowly forward and back. Forward and Back. Forward and Back. Tears trickling down her cheeks, her eyes circled by red rings. She was mouthing her one wish, without which she felt her life would never be complete.

You have a lot of what are called sentence fragments in this first paragraph and throughout the rest of your story. Sentence fragments are basically sentences that are missing either a subject or a verb. Having a lot of sentences fragments makes your story read bumpily, like driving a car over a potholed road, which isn't very pleasant.

Sentences are ideas, and they need a subject and a verb to be complete. The subject is usually a noun (woman) or pronoun (she), and the verb is some sort of action the noun is doing (sat). You can then add adjectives (which describe nouns) and adverbs (which describe verbs and adjectives) to make your sentences even more interesting to read.

I suggest that you write your story as simply as possible. For example, the first paragraph would read "A long time ago, a young woman sat in a chair. She cried and rocked forward and back. Tears trickled down her cheeks. Her eyes were circled with red rings. She mouthed her one wish. The wish would make her life complete." It's not pretty, but now you can go back and add some complexity, combining some ideas, and using more descriptive words.

Eventually, you will get something like this:

Once, a thousand life times ago, a weeping woman sat in her rocking chair. Slowly she rocked, forward and back, forward and back, as tears trickled down her cheeks from red-rimmed eyes. As she rocked forward and back, forward and back, the young woman wished for the thing whose missing made her life incomplete.

Good luck, and keep practicing.