Lorraine Thellois.

Hello.
Have to write short story, anything as long as it concerns mental illnes for a school competition. So mines's a sort of tale of muder and psychology.
Just like to see what people think. If i've got stuff right...or horribly, horribly wrong.

The sun always caught the trees in mid-morning. It would become entangled in the wiry branches, sending twisted bolts of bronze across the garden lawn. Many of the residents of Hawthorne Grove would never have had time to appreciate the beautiful art of nature, they had their hectic lives to worry about. Not her. She seemed to have all the time in the world. The clock reminded her of that. With it’s incessant ticking and alarm in the morning. She wanted to destroy all the clocks in her house, in the street. Time had lost all meaning. Time was a dictator, an overlord. It told the world how to live their lives. She’d had enough of being told what to do.
The phone rang.
Ring. Ring. Ring. It formed a harmony with the clock, which caused her teeth to ache.
She could never answer it. She had to listen to its taunt, every ring reminding her of what had become of Lorraine Thellois.
Ring, ring, ring.
Lorraine’s shaking hand wiped her brow, as she tried to block out the noise.
The phone stood on an oak stand at the far end of the hallway. It was an old cream phone, and shivered slightly every time it rang.
“Stop ringing!”
It ignored her.
“I said stop ringing!”
Obeying, it rang for the last time.
Normality and silence descended on the house, and Lorraine’s face glowed with relief. Her tense muscled relaxed into a smile.
“Better get back to the cleaning then.”
Removing a yellow duster from the depth of her apron, she lifted it up to the sun with pride.
It was quiet again. And she was happy.
*****

He could see her through the window. The glass had contorted the view slightly, and now he couldn’t gaze at her swimming blue eyes.
She was dusting the kitchen surface, with an eerie precision. It was exact and proper, not unlike the ticking of the clock.
He’d tried ringing her, a distraction, but as the report had confirmed, she would not answer it. The fear that he’d seen in her pretty powdered face had caused the hair on his hands to stand erect.
Wipe, wipe, wipe. God, it was hypnotizing.
Climbing to his feet, he took a final look at Lorraine Theollis. Her breezy auburn hair, that old-fashioned pale complexion, those haunting eyes.
Tonight he put a bullet through her pretty little face.

Oy... nicely done, but use spaces! This is very difficult to read as it is...

Hi there. Allright, your proper critique...

Gazza_14 wrote:The sun always caught the trees in mid-morning. It would become entangled in the wiry branches, sending twisted bolts of bronze across the garden lawn. Many of the residents of Hawthorne Grove would never have had time to appreciate the beautiful art of nature, they had their hectic lives to worry about. Not her. She seemed to have all the time in the world. The clock reminded her of that. With it’s incessant ticking and alarm in the morning. She wanted to destroy all the clocks in her house, in the street. Time had lost all meaning. Time was a dictator, an overlord. It told the world how to live their lives. She’d had enough of being told what to do.

Right here - it's a very good opening paragraph, nice description, nice flow... the clock reminds me incessantly of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but lol, perhaps that's just me. Nice into to your character, here, too...

The phone rang.
Ring. Ring. Ring. It formed a harmony with the clock, which caused her teeth to ache.

Still good, but you want to put the triple rings in italics, it's fitting for an onamonapeatic line...

She could never answer it. She had to listen to its taunt, every ring reminding her of what had become of Lorraine Thellois.
Ring, ring, ring.

(Here too, italics...)

Lorraine’s shaking hand wiped her brow, as she tried to block out the noise.
The phone stood on an oak stand at the far end of the hallway. It was an old cream phone, and shivered slightly every time it rang.
“Stop ringing!”
It ignored her.
“I said stop ringing!”
Obeying, it rang for the last time.
Normality and silence descended on the house, and Lorraine’s face glowed with relief. Her tense muscled relaxed into a smile.
“Better get back to the cleaning then.”
Removing a yellow duster from the depth of her apron, she lifted it up to the sun with pride.
It was quiet again. And she was happy.

Good here, very good as far as characterization goes... this is a very short piece and already I have a good feel of who Lorraine is. I like her panic here, her anger, and I like how quickly it dissapates once the irritation (the phone) is removed.

He could see her through the window. The glass had contorted the view slightly, and now he couldn’t gaze at her swimming blue eyes.
She was dusting the kitchen surface, with an eerie precision. It was exact and proper, not unlike the ticking of the clock.
He’d tried ringing her, a distraction, but as the report had confirmed, she would not answer it. The fear that he’d seen in her pretty powdered face had caused the hair on his hands to stand erect.
Wipe, wipe, wipe. God, it was hypnotizing.
Climbing to his feet, he took a final look at Lorraine Theollis. Her breezy auburn hair, that old-fashioned pale complexion, those haunting eyes.
Tonight he put a bullet through her pretty little face.

Wow. Not at all expected. GREAT ending! Kudos! Keep on with this... I want to see what happens! Great job.^_^

~Dreamy

Thanks for the crit. I'll be sure to correct the italics thing. I'vr never read or seen [i]One flew over.[/i].. so its co-incidenc-honest!

Lightly revise, and expand/elaborate.

And space it out more.

DD has already gotten to some of the feel, and noted nicely some of the aesthetic difficulties.

...I'll go a bit more in-depth. You've got a good ear for the sound of language; this almost seems like it would be better read aloud or dramatised then read to one's self. That's a good thing. But at points it's awkward in the structure - that makes it unintentionally vague, rather than (what you've managed quite a bit well) intentionally.

The sun always caught the trees in mid-morning. It would become entangled in the wiry branches, sending twisted bolts of bronze across the garden lawn.

To-the-point, vivid opening description.

Many of the residents of Hawthorne Grove would never have had time to appreciate the beautiful art of nature, they had their hectic lives to worry about. Not her. She seemed to have all the time in the world.

Switching tense here needlessly - from would have had to seemed with Lorraine - it becomes vague, hard to follow. Try - "Many of the residents of Hawthorne Grove never HAD the time to appreciate..."

With it’s incessant ticking and alarm in the morning. She wanted to destroy all the clocks in her house, in the street.

-Small thing here; ought to be its after 'with' for the possessive. Then following - the staccato brevity of a lot of the sentences works well for the diquiet of the narrative. 'She wanted to destroy...' might flow better - and keep its bluntness - if you added a third place she intended to kill clocks, or cut 'street' out altogether.

Ring. Ring. Ring. It formed a harmony with the clock, which caused her teeth to ache.

Convincing description of the sound - I can hear it.

Lorraine’s shaking hand wiped her brow, as she tried to block out the noise.

Comma after 'brow' is needless. Unless you think the pause is imperative how you'd want it to be read ( -hand wiped her brow ---PAUSE---ase she tried to block-) then pull it out. ^_^

Normality and silence descended on the house, and Lorraine’s face glowed with relief. Her tense muscled relaxed into a smile.

--Typo - 'muscles'

The glass had contorted (distorted?) the view slightly, and now he couldn’t gaze at her swimming blue eyes.

Frankly (though writers bend and twist metaphors and words all the time) contortion is something someone can do to their face or limbs perhaps. Distort is what light in a glass will do to a view.

She was dusting the kitchen surface, with an eerie precision. It was exact and proper, not unlike the ticking of the clock.

-Extra comma again between 'surface' and 'with'. But I love the image of exact and proper compared to a clock. ^_^

Tonight he put a bullet through her pretty little face.

Stark, pointed ending. But confusion on the timing of it all with the past-tense. Tonight he will put a bullet through her face? You could switch to future technically. Has it already happened? Tonight he would put a bullet through her face?

All in all, it was compelling. A bit brief - not in actual length - but in how much we get to know what's going on; and it wavers with the verb tense. Watch that you don't switch. But it had a deft eeriness about it, and the clock made an apt image.

I'd prefer it if the format were different when you posted.. spaces between paragraphs makes it a whole lot easier to read.

I think you definitely have a good idea of how to write well - better than me anyway! - and it's nice to see that. I like some of the imagery of the telephone, and how Loraine get so frustrated with its ringing.

However..

Imp's right: it does seem rather brief. I'd expand it if I were you - at least, if there isn't a word limit.

Tonight he put a bullet through her pretty little face.

This is very to the point, but does leave you wondering why. There's no reason for it at all.. and it'd be one thing to expand on a little.

Aside from that, the tense needs changing, though Imp seems to have pointed that out already..

I'll try and finish this critique tomorrow, as it's late here and I need to log off..

Good luck with it!

~Kay

Very disturbing, but nicely written. Everyone has pointed out the errors, so I will just say that it is a great story, even though it creeps me out. Is there any more?

Whoa, freaky. But good nonetheless. It'd be much more interesting if it was made slightly longer, and more answers need to be given. It'd show more of your ability as a writer if you gave more answers, and I think you should write more of this.

Gazza_14 wrote:
The sun always caught the trees in mid-morning. It would become entangled in the wiry branches, sending twisted bolts of bronze across the garden lawn.

Nice, but somewhat confusing.

Thanks for crit, everyone. There's more to come, and i'll also iron out all the errors in the first part. Thanks

Hehehe! YES. Story polls should be banned. Why? Because usually they're just a sad pathetic thing like, "Do you hate my story?" and there's only two options and it's just so LAME. And then, of course, you pick yes and then the writer goes psychotic on you.

UGH.

Oh yeah... the critique.

The story, on the most part, was pretty. It had interesting descriptions and stuff. And, on the first reading, I didn't spot any grammar errors! You get cookies for that.

And now the time has come for me to be critical...

The story was waaaaaaay too short. You have this obsessive-compulsive person and that's cool. But then you have this guy coming out of nowhere, and he's going to kill her. It brings into mind the age old question of "Wtf?" To make it nice and fluffy and stuff, I would beef up the story a bit.

No, I probably wouldn't add superfluous description everywhere, but I would expand the storytelling. For example, the first part is awesome because she goes friggin' crazy just because someone calls her. I mean, that's awesome. But I want to see more of her craziness. Because, for all I know, she may just hate telemarketers. I know my dad does. And I want to know why the guy kills her.

Yes, that part needs to make sense. I mean, she has some obsessive-compulsive disorder, but that doesn't mean that she should be murdered. There has to be a specific reason for her death. At the moment, it looks like you're only going for the shock value. You want people to feel stunned that she is killed, and I think you're going for a surprise element.

The problem is that surprise elements rarely work, for me anyway. It makes me pretty unhappy, in any case. I guess you can say I prefer mysteries for this reason. So if you're going to do a plot twist on me, I want to be surprised. And the I want to say to myself, "Wow! It makes sense, but I didn't see that coming!"

For your story so far, it was a surprise and I didn't see it coming, but it largely doesn't make sense.
Makes sense?

So basically, make the woman a lot more mad and put some reasoning behind it.

Gazza_14 wrote:The sun always caught the trees in mid-morning. It would become entangled in the wiry branches, sending twisted bolts of bronze across the garden lawn.

I would add something like, "...before prevailing over the world." No, not as corny. My line sucks and if you use it, I shall have to kill you. Slowly. But basically, you want to say that she has lots and lots of time so why can't she notice it drift into the sky, unharmed?

Many of the residents of Hawthorne Grove would never have had time to appreciate the beautiful art of nature, they had their hectic lives to worry about. Not her. She seemed to have all the time in the world. The clock reminded her of that.

And then, the question is why? I am assuming she has no job, so at first I thought she was a child. But, hopefully, that is not the case. Is she in an insane asylum? In her parents' house? Why does she have all the time in the world?

Instead of going to the clock for now, I would include more description of the main character. She's going to be the one of interest.

Also, I would probably introduce her name here.

The clock reminded her of that. With it’s incessant ticking and alarm in the morning.

Hehehe... you know how I said I didn't notice any grammar mistakes in the first reading? Well, upon second reading, I found one. It's a tricky one... the difference of "it's" and "its." "It's" is a contraction that stands for "it is." "Its" is the possessive that you want. It's a tricky little bugger, and Word often is stupid and thinks it's the other way around for me, but you need to change it.

Just remember: the possessive in pronouns rarely have any apostrophes.

As far as the sentences? I would probably combine them. The fragment sounds awkward and disrupts the flow of everything. Or, maybe, I might say, "With its incessant ticking and alarm in the morning, it made her want to kill herself." Or whatever.

She wanted to destroy all the clocks in her house, in the street. Time had lost all meaning. Time was a dictator, an overlord. It told the world how to live their lives. She’d had enough of being told what to do.
The phone rang.
Ring. Ring. Ring. It formed a harmony with the clock, which caused her teeth to ache.

I would separate the last sentence and make it a different paragraph. Also, I would make the rings separate from each other and italicized so the would look like:

Ring! Ring! Ring!

Or! I would take it out completely, because as a general rule, I don't like sound effects. It's not very effective as it is now though. Either emphasize it or get rid of it.

She could never answer it. She had to listen to its taunt, every ring reminding her of what had become of Lorraine Thellois.

Ugh. The last sentence is So Corny. If you're going to bring up "Lorraine Thellois" then what you're going to want to do is to tell us who she is. Unless you plan to do this (quick suggestion: don't) then delete the last sentence. There is another way, a more powerful way, where you can introduce her name without it sounding corny. Read on!

Lorraine’s shaking hand wiped her brow, as she tried to block out the noise.
The phone stood on an oak stand at the far end of the hallway. It was an old cream phone, and shivered slightly every time it rang.
“Stop ringing!”
It ignored her.
“I said stop ringing!”
Obeying, it rang for the last time.

Gah... okay, this passage annoys me.

If I am going insane, I hate all times of noise except for the familiar ones, like my clock. It makes a gentle, continuous whirring noise, and I can't sleep without that. But I hate telephone rings. Once, I even came close to pulling out the telephone, just so I wouldn't be able to hear it ring. And yes, I did have issues at that time.

Then again, that's just me.

STILL!

Wouldn't it be such great imagery? She's huddled up, hoping that it stops ringing, and then suddenly she goes PSYCHO. She grabs the telephone, rips it out of the wall and then throws it to the other wall, plaster crumpling down as it hits.

I mean, people get annoyed at the phone all the time. Now, people normally don't do much about it, and that's the key element here. So when your readers read you story, they'll go, "Wow. She actually did that? She must be crazy!"

And, considering that you want us to think that, it would be a very good impression.

And then, though it would take a little effort to make this not corny, you can have her scream at the broken telephone, "You're not my master! I am! I am Lorraine Thellois! You don't control me."

You might be looking at that thinking, "Wow. That's way too dramatic." But overexaggeration works for stories, especially short ones.

Normality and silence descended on the house, and Lorraine’s face glowed with relief. Her tense muscled relaxed into a smile.

NO! Normality and silence DO NOT descend the house! It never does! Don't forget that she is surrounded by clocks and they are ticking continually. And she doesn't have the nerve to take them out. Make her nervous here. It never ends. She is not the master, no matter how much she screams, and the end, her life is controlled as much as the others.

...I like endings like this because they're dramatic in a sophisticated way. So probably I would end it here.

And yes. I disagree with anything in this section. She's not happy as long as she doesn't have abject silence.

And with a second rereading... no, the part with the murderer makes no sense. Either scrap it and beef up the ending for a really dramatic climax or make the murder make sense.

Dramatic endings don't have to involve death, you know. They can be much more powerful without them.

So yeah. Hope I helped you some! Good luck!

Thanks SNoik. I'll work on, well, everything.

Oh, and rthere is a reason for the murder and stuff, though. Just for people to know, i didn't make it up on the spur of the moment. And unfortunatley, later on she has to use the phone. I'll try and work around them. So thanks everyone. I'll be back soon with 1st part changed and next part.
Thanks

Gazza_14 wrote:Oh, and rthere is a reason for the murder and stuff, though. Just for people to know, i didn't make it up on the spur of the moment.
Thanks

I guessed that.

Oh, and I have a title for you:

Lorraine Thellois

Lorraine Thellois.
As you are the only applicant so far...you've won!
Please accept this pair of sunglasses, as modelled by this guy: .
I cant edit the title on here, can I?