Young Writers Society

Float
It was the last day of summer, balmy and bright, and Danny and I were drinking root beer floats outside our favorite soda fountain. Women passed by in skimpy sun dresses and most men walked around shirtless or in tie-dyed tees. Little children alternated between holding their parents' hands and scampering underfoot, filling the park with their giggles and screeches.
Old man Bartholomew watched birds from his usual spot, a tiny window in the brownstone facade of the apartment next door. Watching him swelter made me appreciate my half frozen root beer float all the more, and I sipped it, savoring the sweet creamy coldness.
"Hey, Terri?" Danny asked as he fiddled with his straw. His glass stood on the tiny table between us, empty, dregs of foam coating the sides and bottom.
"Yeah?" I said, glancing up from my float inspection. I liked watching the ice cream bob and melt in the soda.
Danny looked pensive. "Right now, what do you want most?"
I blinked, wondering why he was asking a question like that out of the blue. "Right now?" I thought a moment, but nothing of significance came up. All I could think of was the root beer float with its syrupy sweet goodness. "Enjoying my root beer float."
It was Danny's turn to blink. "Just that?"
"Yeah."
Danny lapsed into silent thought as he usually did, and I went back to sipping my float while admiring the scenery. The sky was a rare and deep cloudless blue – my favorite color. Just as I was contemplating where I could find a shirt of the same color, Danny spoke again.
"Terri?"
"Yeah?"
"There's something I want to give you," he said, his eyes boring into mine. His gaze was intense, and so I looked away and focused on the drink in front of me.
"But I'm not done with my float yet," I said, slightly pouting. It was a very good root beer float, and the day was so very hot. I glanced up at him.
"It can wait," he said with a smile, his mesmerizing brown eyes locking with mine. They were the color of sun-filtered root beer.
"Close your eyes," he said.
"But—"
Danny gave me "the look," and so, with a sigh, I obliged. I sat there for a minute before I felt his presence right in front of me, and I thought it odd that I hadn't heard him get up from his chair. He smelled of cologne and sassafras, and just as I was about to open my eyes and ask him what he was doing, he kissed me.
My eyes flew open as I jerked back in surprise. "What—?"
Danny placed a silencing finger on my lips, and a smile tugged both corners of his mouth. "I'm not done yet," he said before he gently kissed me again.
This time, though, I kissed him back.

Hello Kyllorac and welcome to YWS! My name is The.Dreamwalker although most just call me dreamwalker, and I'll be reviewing your work today!

Okay so this bit was very cute. Very fluff really. I found it sweet for it had such an innocence about it, a very interesting flavour to the style. The simple language and the characters obvious ignorance make it very suspenseful which is good to have, even though the ending was kind of perdictable. You left an edge there so you could have changed it around at any sentence which was good, even if you kept it towards the perdictable idea.

Okay so onto my critique:

It was the last day of summer, balmy and bright, and Danny and I were drinking root beer floats outside our favorite soda fountain.

This is an interesting first sentence and it gives off a nice almost calming vibe. The story starts off simple with sweet and uncomplicated words. I dont like the use of balmy in this sentence for it seems to cut the flowing and I would have prefered maybe the word shop at the end of the sentence, at least in some sort of context.

Old man Bartholomew watched birds from his usual spot, a tiny window in the brownstone facade of the apartment next door. Watching him swelter made me appreciate my half frozen root beer float all the more, and I sipped it, savoring the sweet creamy coldness.

I dont know what it is about this bit that I like, but I like it. Good job!

"Yeah?" I said, glancing up from my float inspection.

She's asking a question. It's okay to write asked. Takes down on a lot of the redundancy.

The sky was a rare and deep cloudless blue – my favorite color.

This could be me just being nit picky but I am not a huge fan of -'s and ;'s in writing. It's one of those things that I just cant stand when it comes to literature. We read books like sentences, and do we talk out loud like that? Not really. It just sounds silly to have a dash. I'm not saying your wrong for using it, it just seems silly to use it.

"But I'm not done with my float yet," I said, slightly pouting.

I dont really think it's uncommon to continue to eat her icecream float if he gave her something. The sentence doesnt make much sense to me.

They were the color of sun-filtered root beer.

Okay this sort of makes your character sound obsessive over root beer. Silly I know, but the redundancy level kind of screws thing up. If the piece was longer, I'm sure that bit wouldn't have sounded so repetitive but it is a short piece. Watch out for things like that.

Okay so thats it for my critique.

Now what I thought could use some work in this piece.

For the most part, I see not many flaws. In fact, it was pretty well done and I enjoyed it immensely, but theres one thing that bugged me about this work. Although it was nice to see she was clueless and such things, I would have liked to see some background imagery, like him hinting at liking her or her hinting at liking him. It seems a little odd that she can go from what complete opposite to another after one kiss. He kisses her, they aren't really just friends anymore. It sounds.. kind of bizarre.

Other then that, I enjoyed this piece and keep up the good work!

Cheers
-The.Dreamwalker

Awww. This was really cute! It was written quite nicely and there weren't too many grammar errors (or at least, ones that I could pick out) but I think you could have led up to the big kiss in a slightly better way. Maybe by giving us a better description on who Danny and Terri are, just a little info on them and yea...

That's basically it. Good job!

Thanks you two. :3 I don't normally write romance, and this is my first dabble into fluff, so your comments were very helpful.

The.Dreamwalker wrote:This could be me just being nit picky but I am not a huge fan of -'s and ;'s in writing. It's one of those things that I just cant stand when it comes to literature. We read books like sentences, and do we talk out loud like that? Not really. It just sounds silly to have a dash. I'm not saying your wrong for using it, it just seems silly to use it.

I can see where you're coming from, but I've found that parentheses and dashes work very well to signify a change in the narrator's tone. In this case, Terri goes from observing something to musing on it, and since the two parts were directly related, using a period didn't feel appropriate. Parentheses also didn't feel right. A comma would have been grammatically incorrect, and a semi-colon doesn't look as nice, so I went with the m-dash.

I dont really think it's uncommon to continue to eat her icecream float if he gave her something. The sentence doesnt make much sense to me.

This was supposed to be a subtle hint at how well Terri knows Danny, but I suppose it was too subtle. XD Basically, Terri knew that Danny was going to ask her to close her eyes, and it's a bit difficult to eat with your eyes closed.

Okay this sort of makes your character sound obsessive over root beer. Silly I know, but the redundancy level kind of screws thing up. If the piece was longer, I'm sure that bit wouldn't have sounded so repetitive but it is a short piece. Watch out for things like that.

I know, but I like the imagery, and I couldn't come up with anything else that didn't sound cliche. XD

Although it was nice to see she was clueless and such things, I would have liked to see some background imagery, like him hinting at liking her or her hinting at liking him. It seems a little odd that she can go from what complete opposite to another after one kiss. He kisses her, they aren't really just friends anymore. It sounds.. kind of bizarre.

As I mentioned above, I did try and hint at how close they were (in addition to her attention to his expressions and actions and "the look"), but I was a bit too subtle. XD I'll try to make things a bit more obvious next time.

Evacuating London wrote:It was written quite nicely and there weren't too many grammar errors (or at least, ones that I could pick out) but I think you could have led up to the big kiss in a slightly better way. Maybe by giving us a better description on who Danny and Terri are, just a little info on them and yea...

Well, this was intended just to be a short fluff piece, but if I do write a more substantial one, I'll keep this in mind. :3

Hi Ky.

I had to read your comments to realize Terri was a girl. I usually associate Terri as a boy's name; if the spelling is supposed to denote gender, I didn't pick up on it. The story read as just a bit weird to me because of it, but that was in part due to my next point.

While the dialogue was strong, the emotions and descriptions were really weak. The first paragraph read like a third person narrator, making it a bit jarring when I saw the first person again in paragraph two. While you peg the PoV right away, I skipped it over because of the description.

While I could see some traces of the character's voice in certain lines, it was difficult to really get a feel for her. It sounded like a third person narrator or your voice. Mostly third person, because of how all description for the whole situation was given. It's like you didn't limit it to PoV.

Overall, though, it was kinda cute and I liked the end. Not really memorable, but as you said this was supposed to be a fluff piece. I'd still work on making the emotions a bit more real and present in the piece, so there's some sort of feeling to the day. Everything felt surprisingly neutral for what should be a nice day. Although it matches the relaxed tone you were going for, it's a bit too relaxed.

PM me if you have any questions or comments.

~Rosey