Young Writers Society

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All the replies were great and very helpful

Ugh... Cool... It's so weird, so intriguing... What can I say... This is certainly a very special piece of work and it looks as though you have put some thought into it. Very few grammar and spelling mistakes, good suspense, building the world into the readers' minds, all well done. I just want to know - was the narrator a male or a female? You could show us that by giving a passing mention of a husband or wife, using the doctor to call him/her a specifically male/female name, perhaps mr or mrs.

pettybage wrote:A flapjack-mole sniffed at my trouser leg and tried to chew on them.

tried to chew on it? Trouser leg is singular.

pettybage wrote:From now on

In past tense, use from then on.

pettybage wrote:Their lung and kidneys were first shedding cells, then rebuilding themselves following a modified cellular pattern. Bone density increased to beyond normal human such. Puberty triggering pheromones were released. Body hair started growing even as they slept.

Lungs - it should be plural. The bone density sentence is a bit clumsy - how about "Bone density increased beyond normality." It is shorter and still conveys the original meaning.

pettybage wrote:by this point.

at this point, or by this time is standard.

There are only a couple of little mistakes like this, but I love this story! It is crazy and strange and simply out of this world! Great work!

Barefoot runner - great general feedback and every point you brought up is absolutely valid - thanx. The narrator is a guy and I should probably have the good doctor address him with a more gender-obvious name like Patrick or something.
Thanx again.

Hey there, pettybage! So, it’s been some time since I’ve reviewed so bear with me; I might be a little rusty.

Anyways, to begin with, you have a wonderful title. Do you want to know why? Well, regardless of whether or not you want to know, I’m going to tell you. It’s because you got me to read a piece in the science fiction short story section and I’m pretty sure that’s happened less than ten times in my three years on YWS so congratulations. Just remember that “of” and “the” don’t have to be capitalized in your title.

Another note to make is in the name. The first time you said “Donnah” I was thinking, “Wow, that’s actually a rather unusual but awesome way to spell the name.” The second time, however, you spelled it without the “h.” Inconsistencies like this can throw a reader off, especially since you only use her name three times throughout the whole piece so when a third of them are wrong it seems rather silly.

Two of the kids went past me; I recognized Peter, the other could have been Josh or maybe Andrew.

Suddenly three children that we the reader know nothing about are showing up in the story that we don’t know or really need to know about. Part of the art of short story writing is the art of minimalism and knowing what you really need along with what you really don’t need. The only character whose mention I actually really liked was Billy Jenkins but I think that has something to do with the addition of a last name.

Overall, the biggest issue I had with this was the time line but at the same time, it was my favorite part. Each of the “…It all started” sections at first felt repetitive but now that I’ve read the whole piece I was kind of like, “Wowsers, that was pretty darn creative on your part.”


Anywho, if you have any questions on anything I’ve said, let me know on my wall or in a PM.
Best of luck,
~lilymoore

Haha, I must echo lily and say the same about your title. I have read--wait for it----waaait for it---wait for iiiit------four stories in the science fiction section by now, ever since joining nearly two years ago. This is one of them. They may say "don't judge a book by its cover" but, by golly, we all do and this "cover" drew me into the strange world of science fiction.

You've created an interesting little world. I think you got a little gratuitous, though, with the wildlife. Every chance you get, some kind of alien creature bumps into him or nibbles on him or he touches it or he sees it or in general interacts with it. They're like everywhere and you can't walk without bumping into wildlife. They're all over the place like cobwebs in a haunted house and you couldn't avoid it if you tried. It's like you're trying to remind us at any chance you can get that, yes, we're on an alien planet.

the groves of Donnah’s shoes

"grooves" by the way.

Three nights in a row I managed to keep myself from going to check up on Donna in the middle of the night. The fourth night I went in quietly and checked her sleeping figure. She was fast asleep.

I should have been relieved but I wasn’t. From now on I checked up on her every night. On the fourteenth night she was gone.

What did you gain from all of this? "I didn't look. I looked. I looked again." Yes, maybe we're learning that it's not every night, but it just feels extraneous. Perhaps you could have phrased it better or given it more importance? Maybe if something happened over the course of time? If he voiced his concerns to anybody or worried himself sick or sat up sleepless nights in a chair waiting for movements just so we get a sense of how worried he is and how unwell he is. This would also prepare us for how he falls apart into "hysteria" towards the end of the story.

and I this time I followed her

reread that.

…It all started half a year ago, when all the children fell ill.

It's not until the end that we make the connection of this whole sequence of events to the current events. So it seems contrived or unnecessary until we are given the solution to the riddle. Perhaps you could add in that the children's sleep patterns changed as a result or they wandered off or they became isolated or whatever. Because without it, it's just a floating island of story that you gave us because you are the author and you gave us this story on a silver platter because you knew it would mean something later...but to the narrator, there is no direct connection.

The children seemed healthier than before, but subtly changed.

Anything else? How did the children feel about this? The whole narration feels rather selfish--it's always about the narrator and how he feels...but any parent would be concerned about the state of his child, right?

As if I was an old-time explorer spying on the activities of some completely foreign bush-dwelling tribe.

I liked this line.

Then they killed the poor critter. With stones. Then they skinned it. With stones.

And this. There's shock and disgust hidden in those words. Love it.

My gibbering hysteria had been suppressed.

You say this, but we had no indication of it earlier. Yes, he was shocked and disturbed. But gibbering hysteria? I got no sense of that.

The doctor's recapitulation of mankind's history on Earth is great. How bluntly he puts our disgusting choices of food. Great.

This is what you witnessed, Carlo.

You did take quite a while to let us know the narrator is (probably) male.

So anyway, good job. The world is appropriately alien, the idea you put forth here interesting, and the acts of the children gross-o. Just a few choices here and there could use work as I mentioned above, but as a complete product, I enjoyed it. I would like to know more about this world and this story, but that's that, I suppose.

Sargsauce and Lilymore, thanks for the feedback. As not really sci-fi enthusiasts, your input is probably more objective in a general literary sense. So far all three reviews have been very useful - when I'll edit the slime out of this little story it'll be like 30% better. And sometimes that's all it takes:)