Young Writers Society

[Rip it apart. Be as harsh as you like)


Limp, lifeless, lonely, the muddy green material specked with dirt, debris and crimson. A mystery, lying in the dark, damp dirt; shouting guns explode. The stench of sweat, blood; remembering death as it clings for dear life onto its doomed owner, it’s too late. A stained red rip at the back where the bullet had hit; ripping through the tough thick fibres, thoughtless murder. The buttons still in place. Perfect, not even a crack. As if unaffected by events. Small, shiny, sickening. Placed in their perfect positions.
Nothing could have prepared a coat for its owner’s demise, left; abandoned to rot. Its arms outstretched. Awaiting a new friend to take it away; live, life, laugh, to forget its past, its horrors. Dark, deep pockets. Something in there? Piece of paper. White, wrinkled paper, screwed into a ball; like you would snow; the light casting shadows in the dents and gaps, the others looking illuminated. If it is opened, the cold, creased paper. Small slanted scribbles scattered across straight, simple silver lines. The words are ones of love short-lived love but beautiful silk in your ears. Love. Endless love? That lasts moments:

Like a crimson red rose on valentines,
The dark and deep colour full of feeling,
The insides unending like a deep mine,
As it grows the petals start peeling,
Sleek as fingers might brush it, the mine collapsed,
The dents are craters on the moon up high,
The rest smooth, wishing the cracks would just go,
It sounds like birdsong, a note, a love, a sigh,
The high notes make you feel like nothing’s wrong,
It might smell like the most sweetest flowers,
Taste like chocolate melting on your tongue,
Not hate, or lust, or the need for power,
It might wish to live forever, always,
But mostly, sometimes, it only lasts days.

Everlasting emptiness eating away at the miserable chamber of no life. The room dominated by one thing, not much else. Small, shivering, silent, just tiny. Devoid of a wondering warm welcome, only cheap, white heat at one corner, a rank looking square in the other. Do they sleep? The home owner? Or lay awake? Wishing for an escape into warm waves. Waves of a soft silk instead of a cheap dirty cotton. Alone, abandoned, no world around. A clock, a mirror. Reflecting back the utter urgent solitude. Everlasting emptiness. Loveless.
He saunters in. Tall and skinny, red curls, the colour of the leaves in the autumn, frames a drawn out, devoid of emotion face. Captivating emerald eyes likes fresh, green, growing grass. Heart shaped lips the colour of perfect plump tomatoes. In one hand, a green coat. And the other, fingers curling around a piece of paper. The poem.
The coat was just there. Lying limply in the dark, desolate alley way. He thought maybe something sorely needed in those deep dark pockets. But only the paper, not the satisfactory tinkle of coins. He’d felt a strange silly urge to take them home; the little, lonely room, maybe to read whenever he felt the agonizing aloneness always. And so he sits on the sad excuse for a bed. Drowning in a pool of positively pessimistic pity, made by his own foolish hand.

Hey SheepMonoxide! (I love that! It's so awesome! ) I'm Trish, and I'm here to drop off a review! So let's get started, shall we?

First off, I'd just like to say that I love how you formatted this, especially the middle part. It gives it an almost poetic feel, and makes it more attractive to your readers. Good job!

However, your wording is a bit confusing sometimes. For example, this first paragraph took me a couple times to really understand what you're trying to say.

Limp, lifeless, lonely, the muddy green material specked with dirt, debris and crimson. A mystery, lying in the dark, damp dirt; shouting guns explode. The stench of sweat, blood; remembering death as it clings for dear life onto its doomed owner, it%u2019s too late. A stained red rip at the back where the bullet had hit; ripping through the tough thick fibres, thoughtless murder. The buttons still in place. Perfect, not even a crack. As if unaffected by events. Small, shiny, sickening. Placed in their perfect positions.

This first sentence took me a few read-throughs to understand, and then I realized that it wasn't even really a full sentence. Make sure you're carefull with fragment sentences, if you put them in places that don't really make sense your readers won't understand what you're trying to say at all; and you want your readers to understand your story.

Also, I think that you might have meant to say "shooting" here, probably just a typo...

Other than a bit of awkwardness here and there, I think your grammar and spelling is pretty much spot-on, so I won't really go into that here.

So pretty much the only thing I really have to talk about still is how this doesn't really do much for the story, at least not as far as I can see just by reading this one part. Now, I know that it's just a prologue and it's supposed to hook us in and all that, but it doesn't really do that. (at least not for me anyways) Despite being well very well written, it doesn't really create the interest and need to know more that prologues need. Maybe try to make it more striking, especially the part about the material. Show us why you wrote about that, and make sure that we know that it is important. You need a bit more than just empty images here, otherwise we're left thinking, "What's the point?"

But then again, if you're going to somehow tie this in and show us how this matters and why it's important in your next installments, just ignore all this. Just make sure that you need this, and don't just have it in there for no reason.

Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. I loved the description, and I feel that you have tons of promise. I can't wait to read your next chapter(s)! Make sure you PM me when you update, and I'll be sure to review!

Anyways, I hope that this helps, and please feel free to contact me if you need to know more about something I mentioned here or if you just want to say hi! But I must be off now, so I'll bid you goodnight! See you around, and it's nice to meet you!

Thanks Thechocolatewritingcat..xD
I think I understand what you mean about where I've placed the words, (No typo, I meant shouting guns, I was trying out some personification because you wouldn't normally describe the noise of a gun as shouting) The reason I put it there with a semi-colon is because I wanted it to seem like a little bit of a snippet of a memory, as if the person holding the coat is getting flashbacks of the coat's own memory just from touching it? Hmm,I'll take your advice in account, do a little work on the prologue. xD Thanks again for your review, it's very helpful; 'course I'll PM ya when I get the next one up. ^^.

Hello there Sheep Monoxide!

Limp, lifeless, lonely, the muddy green material specked with dirt, debris and crimson. A mystery, lying in the dark, damp dirt; shouting guns explode. The stench of sweat, blood; remembering death as it clings for dear life onto its doomed owner, it’s too late. A stained red rip at the back where the bullet had hit; ripping through the tough thick fibres, thoughtless murder. The buttons still in place. Perfect, not even a crack. As if unaffected by events. Small, shiny, sickening. Placed in their perfect positions.

~First of all, your introductory paragraph relies very much on descriptions. You seem to adore adjectives a lot but you need to tone it down here. Needless to say, it doesn't hook me at all. It's like a house in a forest, covered with trees and a thick canopy that it gets hard for your readers to know your point. This also leads to my second point, I agree with "thechocolatewritingcat" since your sentences aren't complete but fragmented. It's hard to comprehend every phrases you're trying to tell your readers because it doesn't stand by itself. Try slashing out every adjectives and see if those sentences makes sense or understandable. As what they've said, nouns and verbs are better than nouns and adjectives. ^^ Show it to us, not tell.

It might smell like the most sweetest flowers,

Did you mean to say "... like the sweetest flowers"?

~I don't want to sound harsh in any way, but this needs some fixing. The prologue doesn't just create any connection to the readers. Even if there was, it'd be a blur. Fragmented sentences... I'd say not a good idea. They tend to skip ideas and it's hard to keep track of. I appreciate the poem, but it doesn't just suit the prologue itself. Although it's pretty well-written but still, I don't know how it helps the prologue. Try elaborating it more.

~There are also some parts when it became totally confusing. The speaker himself didn't create an intact and didn't lead the readers very well. And again, strip adjectives as much as possible. And with that, you'll have a stronger prose. Try rereading this once again. Sometimes, there are things that you write that your readers can't understand but you.

~Overall, this has some potential but I need you to make this more striking and motivate your readers. Let me know if you have any questions. ^^

I would want to recommend that you take a look at these thread written by awesome people:

topic41426.html ~ by CastlesInTheSky
topic71848.html ~by Sureal

Keep writing,
Yuri

Thank you for your review, I'll take it all into account. (:

First, off this was interesting, It isn't really my cup of tea but I did find it interesting. The only problem I had was I really wouldn't have categorized this as a romantic short story but that is just my opinon. But other than that I did like it. And it also took me a while to figure out you were actually talking about a coat and not a person. Haha! Keep writing!!!