Young Writers Society

OK, so this isn't exactly the story, just the first page i recently finished. PLEASE leave feedback, good or bad, thanks!
Day 3. Drowning most of the grief in vodka and my father’s old musty stash of surprisingly terrible wine. Come to think of it, since the fat old man never bothered with a will, I suppose I’ll take it all of his cold, dead hands. Maybe I don’t want it. After all, if I wasn’t so preoccupied with the booze in question, I might have seen the burglar slip in through the window, grab my father’s old cast iron colt from its place of honor, on a rotting wooden pedestal above the mantle place, and put a .357 mag between his eyes. And if I wasn’t so absorbed by the intoxication of said liquor, I would have pulled my own gun from its hidden holster under the table and dropped the thief dead before he could take another breathe, let alone blow two golf ball sized holes into my own sister’s forehead. The he just knocked me out and left. With everything still in its rightful place, or as far as I could tell when I woke up…
“This is FREAKING POINTLESS!!” I roared as I hurled the journal as hard as my arm would allow into the wall opposite me. I threw that journal with the intent of demolishing that cellar wall, as if demolition could ease the pain. Unsurprisingly, the cellar’s old bricks and stones refused to budge. I slid down to the floor and gave the longest, hugest, most discontented sigh of the century. You gotta start movin eventually, I thought to myself, the social workers will show up from out of nowhere. Take you to an orphanage someplace in some old suburban town you’ve never heard of. And make you go to school. I shuddered. School. Just the sound of that word brought a chill to my spine. So the old overcoat came on, a long, jet black duster that went down to my knees. Old fashioned and pretty cowboyish, but I loved it. One of the few things my old man could afford. Next, the shoes. I had these faded black, tall Chucks that I just about wore everywhere. They were stylish enough to the point where I didn’t look too poor, but athletic enough where I could go anywhere with them. Open the door went, and out came the last descendant of Flint Wesson, the gun fanatic, who had even infected his son, Collin Wesson, with the love of guns. He walked through his overgrown garden, turned left, and never looked back.

It was true what they said about us, I thought, Me and dad love guns. Well, at least one of us does and the other did. How fitting that guns kept him here on this earth, and his own trusty revolver took him off it. But he got me into them, and it’s your only hobby, and the only thing you’re good at. You can take any gun apart, put it back together, and fire it with dead-eye accuracy. And that’s why every one’s afraid. Afraid of what you could do to them with those guns you love so. That’s when your only friend became your 15 year old sister, Carla. And now, you have absolutely nothing. Well, accept the cast iron colt from the fire place mantle and 20 extra shells from the your secret stash under the cold, lumpy mattress you spent many a night pondering what it is you’re doing with your life. Sure, your only fourteen, but it’s not out of the question to just stick that cold, black barrel in your mouth and pull the trigger. Maybe- my thoughts were cut off as I walked straight into a man dressed in dusty tight brown jeans and a large black duster, not at all unlike my own. ”Look out s-” but I had not even thought of what I was going to say next before I looked up, and recognized the face. The face that will never leave my memory. It was the robber. He had a very long face, indeed, like a big brown mare, for he was darkly tanned. He had short, military cut hair, a strong jaw, and muscles that were even visible under the baggy black duster. And the eyes. The stunning, sharp, piercing blue eyes, cold as the arctic, sharper than any blade imaginable. They seemed to be looking into me and not at me, accessing my strengths and weaknesses. Then, he brought back a fist the size of the bricks in the cellar, and brought it straight into my left cheekbone, then the other fist came up, and crashed into my right, then finally a foot came up and slammed into my stomach. My world turned black and my coherent last thought before I went under was, am I hallucinating, or is there a hole opening up in the air behind him, dragging me and him into it?

It was writen really nicely, I don't think there's anything wrong with the plot, but you can only get so much out of one page. Anyhow, for someone interested in guns, this is a really great books. It wasn't the kind of topic I was much interested in so it was kind of hard to follow, but that's just because I wasn't interested in it. NIT PICK TIME! WOW only a few errors, really good!

TheGreatBronsteeny wrote:Day 3. Drowning most of the grief in vodka and my father’s old musty stash of surprisingly terrible wine. Come to think of it, since the fat old man never bothered with a will, I suppose I’ll take it all of his cold, dead hands. Maybe I don’t want it. After all, if I wasn’t so preoccupied with the booze in question, I might have seen the burglar slip in through the window, grab my father’s old cast iron colt from its place of honor, on a rotting wooden pedestal above the mantle place, and put a .357 mag between his eyes. And if I wasn’t so absorbed by the intoxication of said liquor, I would have pulled my own gun from its hidden holster under the table and dropped the thief dead before he could take another breathe, let alone blow two golf ball sized holes into my own sister’s forehead. The he just knocked me out and left. With everything still in its rightful place, or as far as I could tell when I woke up…
“This is FREAKING POINTLESS!!” I roared as I hurled the journal as hard as my arm would allow into the wall opposite me. I threw that journal with the intent of demolishing that cellar wall, as if demolition could ease the pain. Unsurprisingly, the cellar’s old bricks and stones refused to budge. I slid down to the floor and gave the longest, hugest, most discontented sigh of the century. You gotta start movinmoving or movin' eventually, I thought to myself, the social workers will show up from out of nowhere. Take you to an orphanage someplace in some old suburban town you’ve I think You Have would sound better. never heard of. And make you go to school. I shuddered. School. Just the sound of that word brought a chill to my spine. So the old overcoat came on, a long, jet black duster that went down to my knees. Old fashioned and pretty cowboyishChange this, Cowboyish isn't a word. If you made it up, indicate that., but I loved it. One of the few things my old man could afford. Next, the shoes. I had these faded black, tall Chucks that I just about wore everywhere. They were stylish enough to the point where I didn’t look too poor, but athletic enough where I could go anywhere with them. Open the door went, and out came the last descendant of Flint Wesson, the gun fanatic, who had even infected his son, Collin Wesson, with the love of guns. He walked through his overgrown garden, turned left, and never looked back.

It was true what they said about us, I thought, Me and dad love guns. Well, at least one of us does and the other did. How fitting that guns kept him here on this earth, and his own trusty revolver took him off it. But he got me into them, and it’s your only hobby, and the only thing you’re good at. You can take any gun apart, put it back together, and fire it with dead-eye accuracy. And that’s why every one’s afraid. Afraid of what you could do to them with those guns you love so. That’s when your only friend became your 15 year old sister, Carla. And now, you have absolutely nothing. Well, accept the cast iron colt from the fire place mantle and 20 extra shells from the your secret stash under the cold, lumpy mattress you spent many a night pondering what it is you’re doing with your life. Sure, your only fourteen, but it’s not out of the question to just stick that cold, black barrel in your mouth and pull the trigger. Maybe- my thoughts were cut off as I walked straight into a man dressed in dusty tight brown jeans and a large black duster, not at all unlike my own. ”Look out s-” but I had not even thought of what I was going to say next before I looked up, and recognized the face. The face that will never leave my memory. It was the robber. He had a very long face, indeed, like a big brown mare, for he was darkly tanned. He had short, military cut hair, a strong jaw, and muscles that were even visible under the baggy black duster. And the eyes. The stunning, sharp, piercing blue eyes, cold as the arctic, sharper than any blade imaginable. They seemed to be looking into me and not at me, accessing my strengths and weaknesses. Then, he brought back a fist the size of the bricks in the cellar, and brought it straight into my left cheekbone, then the other fist came up, and crashed into my right, then finally a foot came up and slammed into my stomach. My world turned black and my coherent last thought before I went under was, am I hallucinating, or is there a hole opening up in the air behind him, dragging me and him into it?

Over all, very good. I think some of the grammer is off and that may be part of the story, and there was one word that wasn't a real word. Either change that sentance or indicat that it was made up.

Thanks a bunch for the feedback! I didn't proofread that one too much so a few errors was a lot less than I expected. Glad you like it! Working on the next page now...

This looks to be the start of a good story. I like your voice here, kind of a detached internal monologue, it really helps set the mood.
Slight criticism:
It would be good to make more paragraphs. It's always easier for me to read some skeletal, strung out story where every sentence is a new paragraph than two or three solid blocks of words. It's kinda like a rock wall. It's easier to climb when you have steps.
You have a few grammar errors and you need to work on commas. I always found it's useful if you read it aloud and see if it works alright. This also helps you find a lot of mistakes you might miss if you're just reading it.
Keep it up!

Thank you so much for your review! I know there isn't a lot to work with for reviewing, I'm just kind of setting up the whole thing from here. I've already trashed two drafts of the second page. Anyway, glad you like it.
Best Wishes!

A few things.

1. Run this through a spell-checker, and then re-read it yourself several times. "Except", not "accept"; "you're", not "your"; "moving" would be better style than "movin". I respect a story with style and shine. I don't respect a story that looks like it was churned out in 10 minutes and never looked back upon.

2. Break up your paragraphs. It was difficult to start reading because all I saw was a wall of text. My eyes had nowhere to rest. Break them up, make the story more pleasing to the eye, get more viewers / readers / reviewers.

3. Why do you spend so much time describing the character? Is his appearance a plot point? If it isn't, the text serves no point, and my eyes glaze over it. The only important part was the duster, because the robber also wore a duster. So that's all you should really mention.

4. The kid's 14 and he's already chugging alcohol like a bro, hmm? Can you justify this? Is it because his dad is dead? What's his sister doing? Not being a supporting sibling, so it seems.

5. Overall, nice voice. I do like the style of this piece, and it'd be interesting to read the whole thing. But I'll advise you to write first, post later. Write the full novel, edit it many, many times, then post it here to everybody's delight.

Your robber,
cC