z

Young Writers Society


First Paragraph Feedback



User avatar
387 Reviews



Gender: Male
Points: 27175
Reviews: 387
Tue Aug 14, 2007 2:25 pm
Kylan says...



I liked this. You're description is wonderful and true-to-life. Your voice also stands out as sarcastic and cynical.

Booker Lee sat at the wheel of his Mercedes silently as he maneuvered the car through the downtown traffic. Advertisements and incandescent store fronts stared down at him, brightly proclaiming their presence in the nocturnal city: invading sight, drawing attention to themselves like some obscene strip-joint dancer. Buy this, buy that. The signs practically screamed, cried out to be inspected. In your face, raucous, loud, leering. Two-dimensional salesmen, every one. I want your money, you want my product, everyone wins. And yes, I do take visa.
"I am beginning to despair
and can see only two choices:
either go crazy or turn holy."

- Serenade, Adélia Prado
  





User avatar
516 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 890
Reviews: 516
Sat Aug 18, 2007 6:15 am
chocoholic says...



It was good. The description was real, and the last bit was funny. The whole thing really put you into the story, and you can see the setting clearly.

Cicely sat away from the other girls. They didn’t want to speak to her, and she didn’t want to speak to them. They all hated her, skinny little Cicely Green with her pale skin, blonde hair and timid manner. To a passer-by, they all looked the same. They wore the same uniform. A pleated black skirt, a white button-down shirt and a black blazer with the school logo on it and black leather school sandals. But that wasn’t what the other girls saw. The other girls saw a weird little girl who didn’t speak unless she had to. And Cicely saw tall, beautiful girls who knew everything and everybody.
*Don't expect to see me around much in the next couple of weeks. School has started again, and it'll be a couple of weeks before I've settled in. If you've asked me for a critique, you will get it, but not for a little while. Sorry*
  





User avatar
241 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 1090
Reviews: 241
Wed Sep 12, 2007 10:20 pm
lyrical_sunshine says...



it was good - a little bit cliche - but good.

The clouds hovered cold and gray above the aerie like masses of steel. I shivered as the damp breeze fluffed up the feathers tracing down from my neck to my shoulder blades. Digging my fingers deeper into the crevices of the cliff, I continued inching down the rock face. My bare toes were scraped and bleeding, battered to a fleshy pulp. Blisters reddened my palms, coloring them the muddy brick shade of my wings. The wind whipped my hair around my face. I could hear it whistling in my ears, its song angry and shrieking. “You are a failure, little bird-girl! Little sky-child! You do not belong, with your dull feathers and your weak wings. Failure.”
“We’re still here,” he says, his voice cold, his hands shaking. “We know how to be invisible, how to play dead. But at the end of the day, we are still here.” ~Dax

Teacher: "What do we do with adjectives in Spanish?"
S: "We eat them!"
  





User avatar
115 Reviews



Gender: Male
Points: 890
Reviews: 115
Thu Sep 13, 2007 5:31 am
Icaruss says...



That was great. I haven't read fantasy in a long time, but that paragraph really eased you into the story. I like how you described his wings, without actually saying something like: "My wings hurt." It's also really interesting. Why is she a failure? What's happened to her? Really gripping.

This is from a Western I'm writing.

The stranger wasn’t a stranger at all. He had lived in Creeksview for years; it’s just that nobody remembered him. Hell, he didn’t remember. The only memories he had of the place were the ones involving her, and his brother, and old Two-Gun Howie all those years ago. Everything else was a blur. Nobody found it strange to see him walking the town. Creeksview was a small place, but a lot of wandering travelers seemed to pass through, especially after the war, when so many people had nowhere to go home to other than the cold road and the warm beds of kind enough hosts. To them, he was just another face they’d never get to see again. So the stranger strolled around the town, and looked everyone in the eyes. He smiled his crooked smile, and croaked "Howdy" at the ladies, and his skin was toasted under the burning sun, and his clothes were old and his stand was weak. He was carrying guns. Two of them. Nobody seemed to mind. He had a quiet drink in the tavern, bought some fun with a whore, and then asked where Melinda Kenning was buried. At noon, he walked to the lonely grave and prayed. Some say he cried, which was unlikely. The stranger never cried. Others said he just laid some flowers in the ground for her, and then left. The sun was setting, right about then.
A day had passed. He needed a place to sleep.
He had a man to kill.
there are many problems in our times
but none of them are mine
  





User avatar
241 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 1090
Reviews: 241
Thu Sep 20, 2007 11:11 pm
lyrical_sunshine says...



excellent. really, really excellent. Dang, i'm impressed.



She sat on the bench day after day, dressed eternally in a gray scarf, a threadbare wool coat, an ancient felt hat, and snow boots. During the summer the coat came off, but only on the hottest days. She slept under bridges and in the parks and on her own bench, as unchanging and as constant as the buildings or the streetlamps. Sometimes she disappeared for a few days, but always within a week she was back, peering at passersby with keen, bright brown eyes half-hidden under straggly gray bangs. Some said she was insane. Some said she was a witch. Some said she was a troublemaker. But most just ignored her, as if she were merely one of the pigeons pecking at the sidewalk.

She was old, although no one knew how old. Her face was the color of tree bark, gray-brown, leathery, and heavily lined around her mouth and eyes. If she had a name, it was unknown to everyone but herself. Her only companion was an old basset hound with one brown eye and one blue eye and folds of rusty skin. The dog sat faithfully beside her day after day, head erect, his bearing as regal as if he were a hound in Pharaoh’s palace instead of a scabby flea-bitten stray.





ok, so that was two. sue me.
“We’re still here,” he says, his voice cold, his hands shaking. “We know how to be invisible, how to play dead. But at the end of the day, we are still here.” ~Dax

Teacher: "What do we do with adjectives in Spanish?"
S: "We eat them!"
  





User avatar
571 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 14170
Reviews: 571
Sat Oct 20, 2007 2:51 pm
Esmé says...



Yes, two. ^_^ T'is horrible! Tsk, tsk.

Whatever. I have to say that it is highly interesting. Very interesting. In fact, I loved it. Is it posted somewhere here on YWS?



The Basement was a large, large cavern, just waiting to swallow him in its murky depths. It was here that horrible monsters lurked behind every shadow, and witches cast their spells in the gloom, and giants hid underneath brooms, and other scary, beastly things that just ached to eat small children, preferably little six year old boys, skulked. Lissie said so, and Lissie was never wrong.
  





User avatar
241 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 1090
Reviews: 241
Sat Oct 20, 2007 8:51 pm
lyrical_sunshine says...



ooh, very cool, very cool. no, that first paragraph is the first paragraph of a novel i started a long time ago and hvae not worked on in ages. mostly because its part of a series that i started when i was nine, and i'm working up the courage to go back and rewrite all FOUR books. *shudders*





When I was nine or ten years old I ran away from reality. Thinking about it now, I can’t even remember what triggered it. Maybe it was during that time that I fully comprehended my parents’ divorce. Or maybe it was a result of the painful awkwardness I went through. Buck teeth. Far-sightedness. Baby fat still clinging stubbornly to round cheeks and a pudgy tummy. Clumsy feet and hands attached to a body inches taller than all the boys in my class.

But whatever the reason, whether it was grief or loneliness or a lack of confidence, my mind checked out. I left my family, my friends, and my home and delved into the vast resources of my imagination, and I told myself that I would never come out again.
“We’re still here,” he says, his voice cold, his hands shaking. “We know how to be invisible, how to play dead. But at the end of the day, we are still here.” ~Dax

Teacher: "What do we do with adjectives in Spanish?"
S: "We eat them!"
  





User avatar
115 Reviews



Gender: Male
Points: 890
Reviews: 115
Sat Oct 27, 2007 10:52 pm
Icaruss says...



I don't know. I never like it when the first-person narrative tells a story. I mean, I know that sounds confusing but what I meant to say is that I don't think it sounds good when the guy narrating talks to the reader like he's his grandfather. I like it better when it sounds more like scrambled thoughts, or casual conversation. It's just that it sounds too much like she's explaining something, and I know she is, but it shouldn't sound like that.

But it's interesting, though. Autism.

OK. This is from a story I'm writing.

So, I get a call from Freddy. He sounds anxious. Louie, he says. Louie has jump bail. I normally don’t do the bounty hunter type of gig, but I haven’t eaten anything other than spaghetti for months, so I figure what the hell. It may be a pain in the ass, but it’s still more interesting than filming adultery for the eightieth fucking time and it pays well. Besides, I owe Fred a favor. And Louie is a fat fuck, so my guess is that I won’t have to chase him or anything. Dumb, too. He gets stopped by a cop in the way to his girlfriend’s house because his taillight is broken, ends up being charged with possession. Probably had cocaine dangling from his nostrils, the fat bastard.

Doesn’t take me too long to find him, either. I ask around, I call a few people, and two hours later I’m standing in front of this shitty building in Old Town. Windows broken, senseless messages spray-painted all over the walls, two fifteen year old kids offering me drugs as I walk inside, some old ass bitch ODing all over the floor next to an elevator that’s probably been out of order as long as anybody can remember. This is the world I live in. Fuck.
there are many problems in our times
but none of them are mine
  





User avatar
1176 Reviews

Supporter


Gender: Female
Points: 1979
Reviews: 1176
Tue Nov 25, 2008 2:53 pm
Twit says...



Mm, it's all right. I'm put off by the ammount of swearing, which takes my attention away from the story. I probably wouldn't continue reading.


Magpie, magpie, chatter and flee. Turn up thy tail and good luck to me.

I hate running. I hate the way that my legs tremble and my side hurts and my feet hurt. I hate the dry feeling in my throat that doesn't go away. I hate the way that I can never run fast enough. I can never run the way that cats run, stretched out and graceful and going. When cats run they get to places. I never get anywhere fast enough.

And now my thoughts want to run. They want to run until their hearts ache in their chests and their knees quiver and their toes are bruised from the hard earth. They want to run away from what is happening upstairs.

Upstairs there are voices and more thoughts and anger and hurt and fear. Too much emotional thought, not enough clear thought.

And there’s fire.


They're very *short* paragraphs. :P
"TV makes sense. It has logic, structure, rules, and likeable leading men. In life, we have this."


#TNT
  





User avatar
202 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 890
Reviews: 202
Tue Nov 25, 2008 5:58 pm
CastlesInTheSky says...



Hm...I like it, TL-G. It's a bit bewildering and jerky. I think this is an advantage, however, as it adds to the confusal of the reader, therefore intriguing them and instilling inthem a want to read on. Very good.


It was one paragraph - but rather long so I broke it up for you to read it easier:

The scream shattered the stillness of the day’s warmth. Birds shrieked a counter-note of fright as the rag-doll form somersaulted down the mountainside, crying out each time it was raked by a low-hanging branch or grazed a tree or boulder.

The woman suddenly grabbed a clump of bracken as it skidded by. The rustling descent was abruptly halted, as the bracken’s roots stubbornly kept their grip on the soil. For a while, the figure hung there, gasping for breath. Slowly, she reached for a low-hanging branch that hung just beyond her reach, conscious of the steep incline that began bare centimetres below her scrabbling feet.
Had I the heavens embroider'd cloths,
I would spread the cloths under your feet.
But I being poor, have only my dreams,
So tread softly, for you tread on my life.
  





Random avatar


Gender: Male
Points: 300
Reviews: 0
Tue Feb 10, 2009 6:16 pm
comical death says...



Pretty intriguing, I like how you jump right into the action, but with enough vagueness that it leaves me wondering how she ended up in this predicament in the first place.

This is from a little something I'm writing. It's more of a foreshadowing of the actual story, a dream sequence that acts as a sort of metaphor for events that will actually take place.

It always began like this. I was wrapped in a cocoon of darkness, aware only of the rhythmic heartbeat in my eardrums and the unseen tightness around my body. I would struggle and thrash about, longing to break free from the confines of this shell and emerge into the world. My efforts would give way to pinpricks of light, the brightness blinding me as I broke through and found myself trapped in a new prison. But this was a cell of naivety, formed by my own lack of understanding of this strange, new place. Weakened limbs would carry me onward at a crawl, each movement gaining strength and sureness. Every breath was a delight, every sight and every smell a new adventure for my body to experience. Before long, I was able to stand, taking my first wavering step on the earth.
  





User avatar
1162 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 32055
Reviews: 1162
Fri Feb 13, 2009 3:48 am
Carlito says...



The opening line was pretty good. Kind of intreging.
I really liked this opening paragraph. I loved the detail and I thought you described everything really well. All of the thoughts, all of the feelings. It was great. I loved how you wrote it. :)


From Alana:

I live to fight and I fight to live. What I do is not an act, it’s not easy, it’s life. My life. My life is thrilling, my life is dangerous. My life is martial arts. Not karate or kung-fu or any of those other simple branches. I take part in the true mother of the sport. Man on man combat fighting. There are no pads, there are no helmets, there are no second chances. You get one shot and one shot only at greatness. Most fail, only a few are good enough to succeed. I am one of those few.
It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.

Ask a Therapist!
I want to beta read your novel!


Ask me anything. Talk to me about anything. Seriously. My PM box is always open <3
  





User avatar
312 Reviews

Supporter


Gender: Female
Points: 6403
Reviews: 312
Thu Feb 19, 2009 9:07 pm
Mars says...



Mmm, I like it. Takes us right into the story and into the mind of what must be a very straightforward character (am I right?). Also interesting, since I haven't seen many books about martial arts.

Snow blanketed the streets of Chicago, transforming the big city into something wonderful, and deceptively covered the ice, which could disable a careless pedestrian in fifteen seconds. Under the mellow glow of streetlights, a young man stumbled out of a pub. Though lacking a coat, the freezing cold did not seem to bother Jack. He wandered the pavement, feeling alone despite the five other bodies on the street, and watched the sky begin to lighten.
'life tastes sweeter when it's wrapped in poetry'
-the wombats


critiques // nano
  





User avatar
158 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 890
Reviews: 158
Thu Feb 19, 2009 9:27 pm
Lauren says...



Impressive, impressive... Good variation in sentence structure, thankfully free of cliche. Personally, however, I'm not too keen on starting stories with a comment on the weather. It's been done so many times.

Here's mine:

Ginerva stood, relieved her legs of their constant uselessness, and roamed the room in a circular motion, careless of course not to irritate her master. Sometimes, when she knew him to be in a mood not too horrendous, she would linger at the disused piano for a moment too long, and then, if not growled at in vexation or told to sit, she would place a finger upon a key of the varnished Broadwood Grand and press. One note would sometimes cause her master a fit of anger, and yet sometimes it appeared to sooth him; he would start out agitated and bothered but then his eyes would flutter closed and his mouth go slack till he looked almost dead. Playing on, Ginerva liked to think it was the effect of her talent, but in truth he was thinking of his late wife.
  





User avatar
1176 Reviews

Supporter


Gender: Female
Points: 1979
Reviews: 1176
Sat Feb 21, 2009 3:35 pm
Twit says...



It's all right. It's rather quiet, but I'd read on to perhaps the end of the chapter. If it hadn't picked up by then, I probably wouldn't read on.


Of two things, Shadow Tattybogle was quite certain. First, Mistress had chosen a hopelessly uncoordinated dancing partner. Second, Romil would not be pleased at the thoughts spilling out of the young man's head as Mistress twirled past him like a silken butterfly. Mistress herself, on the other hand, would probably be quite pleased.
"TV makes sense. It has logic, structure, rules, and likeable leading men. In life, we have this."


#TNT
  








We think in generalities, but we live in details.
— Alfred North Whitehead