Young Writers Society

“Not much of a view, is it?” John turned away from the window.

“Sure it is! It’s not every day you get to watch the rain on a different world.” I leaned back to enjoy the show.

Millions of silvery drops cascaded against the glass. Beyond, in the untamed jungle, trees rustled and hissed under their weight.

The wind gusted, bringing a whiff of alien air. It smelled of mineral-laden rain,
plants and something fainter yet somehow familiar.

“Ah,” I sighed. “I can’t see why anyone doesn’t like rain.”

“It does smell nice,” John admitted.

A ship, coming in to land, made a blur against the sky. Its running lights glowed green and red.
“Bet you five credits it lands here.” He waved a hand at the settlement.

”You’re on.” I fingered the cool, solid metal of a dozen worlds.

The ship did land. I slipped the five credits from my pocket with a subdued, “Here you go.”

He shook his head. “Nah, keep your money. This view is worth all the credits in the galaxy.”

Written between 19 and 28 September 2007.

This was pretty attention grabbing I must admit. I like how you made it feel normal. I really like that in science fiction when the author is able to generate the feeling of normalcy for the world they created.

Your descriptions are short, but potent. I get the imagery quite well. I do want a bit more, but more as a longer story I suppose. To much information would obviously not work in this flash fiction.

My only suggestion is to use a different word than gusted. It doesn't really roll. It seems to break the rhythm of the story when i read it. Perhaps "blew" or "streamed by."

Very cool flash fiction.

Hi!

So, I liked this. Within such a short amount of time, you capture the setting and the characters really well.

However, I think that this could be a little bit longer! You introduce a lot in a very short amount of time, so much so that you can only briefly mention them and that the audience no longer has time to delve into what it's supposed to symbolize. I see you have this classified in sci-fi, and I can start to see the beginnings of the society, but I can't feel what your characters are thinking or get the symbolism since I don't understand exactly what is going on.

Otherwise, it's pretty good. I'll give it a 5/10.

PM me if you have questions.

-Elinor xo

There... wasn't any symbolism. This was simply an assignment to write a descriptive piece.

Long Time no see, Stori! On to your piece, this was good,but sadly in my eye's not great. First off to me it could have been a wee bit longer and your descriptions were short, but not bland or overdone. All in all it was good, so I'll like to thank you for the read.

Your imagery is staggeringly beautiful... As if I could taste and smell the rain, see the jungle, feel the metal beneath my fingers... This is incredibly well-written, Stori, and I want so much more! I don't think there is a technical issue to point out... Your word-choice is keen and precise, your sentences flow... You win.

Hi Stori,

I enjoyed this, especially the end - very zen .
I like the relaxed atmosphere of the piece and some of your descriptions were very poignant.

I felt, however, that the ending was a little abrupt. It could have done with some fleshing out and while you had my interest some further descriptions regarding the setting wouldn't have gone amiss. Another thing that jarred with me was the fact that the main character appeared to be watching the rain from under glass -giving the impression that he was indoors - yet could still smell things on the air. Some further descriptions of environment/setting might have cleared this up.

Hope that was of some help,
OisinBebe

Comments in red.

Stori wrote:“Not much of a view, is it?” John turned away from the window.

“Sure it is! It’s not every day you get to watch the rain on a different world. The last part of this is a little awkward. Might want to edit.”
I leaned back to enjoy the show.

Millions of silvery drops cascaded against the glass. Beyond, in the untamed jungles I think it would flow better if it was just "jungle" instead of "jungles"., trees rustled and hissed under their weight.

The wind gusted, bringing a whiff of alien air. It smelled of mineral-laden rain, plants and something fainter yet somehow familiar. Ah. So here you tell us that the window is open. Then how come a minute ago it cascaded against the glass? I'm a little unsure here.

“Ah,” I sighed. “I can’t see why anyone doesn’t like rain.” The double negative in this sentence isn't working for me. Mind changing it?

“It does smell nice,” John admitted.

A ship, coming in to land, made a blur against the sky. Its running lights glowed green and yellow. WHOA WHOA WHOA. Now I really really don't know where this is set anymore. *very confused* If it's a jungle they shouldn't be able to see past the beach, especially since the way you described it a while ago I thought they were in pretty deep. “Bet you five credits it lands here.” He waved a hand at the settlement.

”You’re on.” I fingered the cool, solid metal of a dozen worlds.

The ship did land. I slipped the five credits from my pocket. “Here you go.”

He shook his head. “Nah, keep your money. This view is worth all the credits in the galaxy.”

Written between 19 and 28 September 2007.

I liked the imagery, yes. But I'm not sure how the world before them is shifting. I mean, I get that this is science fiction so it should be possible but I honestly don't understand whether everything behind the window is shifting or if they're just popping from one place to another.

It does have a very relaxed feeling, though, if I ignore how confused I got.

Sincerely,

Kara

Hello Stori,

I really enjoyed your imagery in this, it was staggeringly beautiful and I really felt as though I was there.
I did want a little more, but you were set a descriptive task and a descriptive piece you gave.
I really enjoyed it, I would say that you should change 'gusted' to something else because it didn't read to well.

Other than this I thought it was beautiful.
Keep Writing,
~Lydia

(A 'like' for you )

“Not much of a view, is it?” John turned away from the window.

I don't know if you noticed, Stori, but there's something a bit off about this first sentence. I think it's becaues the dialogue tag doesn't describe how the quote was said and instead describes John's actions, if that makes sense. Maybe try:

"Not much of a view, is it?" John sighed, turning away from the window.

“Sure it is! It’s not every day you get to watch the rain on* a different world.”

*Perhaps using "in" instead?

Millions of silvery drops cascaded against the glass.

I'm not a big fan of you using "silvery" as an adjective. It would've been fine as "silver"

The wind gusted, bringing a whiff of alien air.

Because I'm so used to seeing "gust" used as a noun, the word "gusted" seems a bit odd. It's also redundant since the word "wind" is used prior to it, and gust is wind.

A ship, coming in to land, made a blur against the sky.

You might want to consider finding another word, since this one doesn't seem to fit.
-----------------

Short and sweet. Well executed short story idea. The only problem I had were the few instances where the description was off, but other than that, thumbs up.

-Shina

Hey Stori!

I don't know... I didn't really find this descriptive. It felt like you were trying to describe everything at once in as few words as possible, but I didn't really get a good sensory depiction of the rain... or anything else. My main suggestion would be to tighten up your description and focus on only a couple things. You don't have to describe the whole world, really.

I really liked it...I belive that it captures your attention with in the first line. I love how you kind of make it feel normal and it almost like fades. You are able to blend what you have and make it work with sci-fi writing. It draws me in, while making me think about it at the same time. Great job, i look forward to viewing your other work in the future

Hey Stori. Okay, you said that this was an assignment to write a descriptive piece. But I think you lost the descriptiveness of this piece.

I mean, obviously this is a piece of flash fiction but you definitely could have done more with this I think. Check out Elinor Brynn’s piece of flash fiction, The Sharpest Thorn is the Suspect as a good example of flash fiction. Of course, what your word limit was could make a difference.

But what would really help this story out would be to go in and add a little bit of descriptive action here and there. The way these two characters sit next to each other. Even something as simple as twittling with their hair or biting on a fingernail can make a story sound far more impressive.

“Not much of a view, is it?” John turned away from the window.

I really liked this intro. beginning a story with dialogue always shakes things up, and it really grabs the reader's attention.

Millions of silvery drops cascaded against the glass. Beyond, in the

untamed jungle, trees rustled and hissed under their weight.

The wind gusted, bringing a whiff of alien air. It smelled of mineral-laden rain,

plants and something fainter yet somehow familiar.

This description was great. You could practically see what your characters are seeing.

A ship, coming in to land, made a blur against the sky. Its running lights glowed green and yellow.

“Bet you five credits it lands here.” He waved a hand at the settlement.

”You’re on.” I fingered the cool, solid metal of a dozen worlds.

The ship did land. I slipped the five credits from my pocket with a subdued, “Here you go.”

What other places can the ship land? Since you only tell of one place, it's a little confusing for the reader. Maybe add in a little description about the settlement. Also, I think that the running lights should be red and green. That's standard lighting on most ships and aircraft. Yellow is hard to see, and distinguish from other lights. Red however stands out more, and as an added benefit, doesn't ruin your night vision. But that isn't really integral to the story.

He shook his head. “Nah, keep your money. This view is worth all the credits in the galaxy.”

Why bet money if you aren't gonna follow up? That seems a little awkward.

Overall, I really liked this story. It was short, which worked really well for this story. If you had made it longer, and included plot lines, and more characters, it would have ruined this story. Like they always say, short and sweet, and that was this story in spades.

cheers,
Pros

well the writing was good it flowed well and all pleasing to read you could say, but i thought it was lacking i mean it really was a "short" story to it was lacking it seamed like the whole thing was just the ending to a story i mean come on sure that's cool and all the story but i feel like you could have done so much more with that.