Reasons to Move (1)

Er, I'm trying to write! I'm trying!

---

I

Julia Oeland died in March.
Her scrunched up grinning freckled face was in the papers and, every morning for a few weeks, mothers shook their heads and drank their coffee over it. They would read all about the police search and the fruitless leads. Then they would all turn to the Obituaries and see if anyone they once knew had died.
If someone had, they would tell everyone they currently knew that someone they once knew had died.
They found Julia’s body in April.

II

Addy Jenkins swung her keys around, her college photo ID flapping in between them on the little chain. She would flick her wrist forward and her own face would fly up and peer blankly at her, descending a millisecond later with the keys to smack the ground.
She reclined at her desk in her room, her laptop flipped open in front of her. A word document was open, flashing white, and in the document: the, the, the, the, written repeatedly in Times New Roman. Her bottom was nearly falling off the end of the chair, her legs propped up on the edge of her desk and entwined, her toes wiggling in the direction of the keyboard
She sucked idly at a Capri Sun.
She was mad at her necessity to write something about it, when she could barely bring her thoughts to collect on the subject for longer than a fleeting second. She would try to let the memories pool in to one location, but it was like forcing two magnets together, and the thoughts refused to click. She had been blocking the thoughts out for too long; now they were locked away somewhere, and they only peeped out of their dark room at night when everything was quiet. She would lie awake, staring at the blipping red light on her cellphone, swinging out of bed, I need to write something down, and then the open laptop screen would frighten the thoughts away again.
As if expression could help her track back through the mess her mind had become.
At that moment, a research paper was face down on her desk next to her laptop. On its back were penciled portraits of herself, all crooked and glaring. One of the faces wasn’t hers. It was rounder and had an explosion of freckles across the cheeks, unlike her own full moon face. There was a big toothy smile, a sliver of a gap in the middle.
Julia.
The name was a stone now and it could be thrown to injure and protect.
They had been distant cousins. While their family and all the distant people smoked on lawn chairs at the family picnics, they would sit on the swings and talk. In the heat of the summer, when their families spent every day in the kitchen with their beer cans and bowls and smoky haze, the two girls would lie upside down on Addy’s bed and read the sex articles in Cosmopolitan.
People have their foundation. Addy had hers. Her closest friend, in her distant cousin.
Until they found pieces of her in the estuary.
Addy let the withered Capri Sun fall to the floor. This wasn’t writer’s block. She couldn’t keep her mouth shut and her brain shut like she had been doing, calling it everything that it wasn’t.
She just couldn’t sit there any longer.
So she took her gigantic black and white floral purse from out behind the plastic bags she saved in her closet and began shoving things into it. Balled up clothes, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a shaving razor, her old leather wallet with her shiny debit card, and various other things in reach.
Tying her hair up, she threw her purse over her shoulder and shoved her key-card into her pocket. She posed before the mirror as she passed it, shaking off the milky grief that breathed through her pores when she wasn’t careful.
She closed her dorm room door behind herself, locking it with the little rusty key every student was issued. Squatting down, her hands fumbled with the key for a moment. She set it down on the cool tiles then, sliding it under the door, effectively locking herself out of her room, unless she ever grew desperate enough to jam her fingers into the inch of space and wriggle the key back into the hallway.
She couldn’t just sit in her room anymore. She wouldn’t.
Now, she couldn’t.
Two Aprils had passed, and Addy knew it was time to move on. But there were things to think about, things to do, before there could be any movement.

Hey Clo!

Her scrunched up grinning freckled face was in the papers and, every morning for a few weeks, mothers shook their heads and drank their coffee over it.

I love this line. Actually I like this whole chunk here it has a good beginning and a good end.

The name was a stone now and it could be thrown to injure and protect.

Great comparison!

She couldn’t keep her mouth shut and her brain shut like she had been doing, calling it everything that it wasn’t.

Your word choice has been exquisite so far, but this seems all jumbled.

Really I'd take this whole chunk out:

This wasn’t writer’s block. She couldn’t keep her mouth shut and her brain shut like she had been doing, calling it everything that it wasn’t.

It's really not needed.

So, this was written well. I'm curious as to where this is going, so when you put the next part please please please PM me.

Keep writing,

~Angel

Clo-twin! It's review party time!



I. Little Things

Her scrunched up grinning freckled face was in the papers and, every morning for a few weeks, mothers shook their heads and drank their coffee over it. They would read all about the police search and the fruitless leads. Then they would all turn to the Obituaries and see if anyone they once knew had died.

If someone had, they would tell everyone they currently knew that someone they once knew had died.

I like this introduction, first of all, because it gives an amazing introduction to the kind of town and the kind of people that the first part is about. I especially love it because you don't just say 'they were slow-paced, gossipy people', but you kind of infer it through your description. However, I think you need a comma after 'scrunched-up' and to put a hyphen where I just did. xD Also, you know how you're using the commas in that second part of the sentence? Usually if you enclose something in commas like that it means it's not actually necessary to the sentence, but I think that 'every morning for a few weeks' is definitely essential! It shows the regularity but the brevity of the care. C: Take out those silly commas. xD

Meep. And then I don't know if you should capitalize 'obituaries'. Also, that last sentence in this passage is full of repetition and I think you could just like cut out the whole second half and say. 'If someone had, they would tell everyone'. =P And then you could make another sentence to point out the kind of sick pride they had that it was someone they'd known. xD If that is necessary to you. C:

Addy Jenkins swung her keys around, her college photo ID flapping in between them on the little chain. She would flick her wrist forward and her own face would fly up and peer blankly at her, descending a millisecond later with the keys to smack the ground.

=O First of all, I think there might be a tense change in here? <_< It seems like it -- between past and then 'would' {haha, I love how I don't know the terms. D:}. I think you need to keep them consistent. Also, I don't really get the second part. Is she hitting the ground with her keys because she's sitting? The visual is just a bit confusing. C:

A word document was open, flashing white, and in the document: the, the, the, the, written repeatedly in Times New Roman. Her bottom was nearly falling off the end of the chair, her legs propped up on the edge of her desk and entwined, her toes wiggling in the direction of the keyboard

=O Okay. 'Flashing' makes me think that it's like flashing on and off, but I think you just mean that it's sending the light out into the room, right? D: Maybe we should find a different verb for that like 'beaming white' or something? -shrugs- Also, I think there's a rule that you have to have complete sentences before colons. Ohp! Yep! Here it is. <_< Which would mean you should say something like 'but there was some text in the document: the, the the' or something like that. C: Then, you might want to say 'crossed' instead of 'entwined', because it just makes me think of long, flexible legs all twisted up with each other. And a period at the end. XD My hand smell like stale cheese. :C EW.

She was mad at her necessity to write something about it, when she could barely bring her thoughts to collect on the subject for longer than a fleeting second.

D: Ahhh, the way you have this, it makes it seem like she's trying to write about the Capri Sun. xD Which, by the way, is a lovely touch of specificity. =] Also, the sentence is just a bit confusing. ;C You might try to rephrase it more simply. Like...

'She was frustrated that she felt she needed to write something. She could barely bring her thoughts to focus on something for longer than a second, much less actually jot something down.'

Or something like that. <_<

She would lie awake, staring at the blipping red light on her cellphone, swinging out of bed, I need to write something down, and then the open laptop screen would frighten the thoughts away again.

Well, 'blipping' isn't really a word. Did you shy away from 'beeping' because it infers sound? I think it would work just fine. Or use flashing here instead of up with the laptop screen. xD Okay, and then when you get going through the sentence it kind of seems like she's lying awake, staring at the phone, and swinging out of bed all at the same time. D: Because you say 'swinging out of bed' as if it's connected to everything else. You might say 'red light on her cellphone, then swing out of bed, I need to write something down, but then the open laptop screen would frighten the thoughts away again.' You might even refer to the brightness of the white again, if you wanted. ^_^

As if expression could help her track back through the mess her mind had become.

This, again, is kind of confusing. You don't really specify what the 'expression' is so it kind of trips up the reader. <_< Or me, at least.

They had been distant cousins. While their family and all the distant people smoked on lawn chairs at the family picnics, they would sit on the swings and talk.

You repeated 'distant' and 'family' both in the space of these two sentences, so I think you have to address that. <_<

In the heat of the summer, when their families spent every day in the kitchen with their beer cans and bowls and smoky haze, the two girls would lie upside down on Addy’s bed and read the sex articles in Cosmopolitan.

People have their foundation. Addy had hers. Her closest friend, in her distant cousin.

Clo. This is my favorite. This is real and exactly what those two girls would do! It's so beautiful. My favorite part ever. Also, it seems kind of like this piece could go in a different direction right here. Of course someone would be sad if someone they were close to had died, but what if the sadness was kind of more unexplained because the relationship had been just brief smatterings throughout life and based more on what Addy thought Julia was like? -shrugs- Just an idea if you wanted to go further with this. C;

She couldn’t keep her mouth shut and her brain shut like she had been doing, calling it everything that it wasn’t.

D; I don't really like this sentence, mostly because it's confusing. Try maybe... smoothing it out into a few more sentences?

So she took her gigantic black and white floral purse from out behind the plastic bags she saved in her closet and began shoving things into it. Balled up clothes, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a shaving razor, her old leather wallet with her shiny debit card, and various other things in reach.

:O Oh~ This is one place you can use a colon instead. I'd put a colon after 'it', since you just had a complete sentence and the rest is the list! ^_^

She set it down on the cool tiles then, sliding it under the door, effectively locking herself out of her room, unless she ever grew desperate enough to jam her fingers into the inch of space and wriggle the key back into the hallway.

<_< There is no meat to this sentence -- it's all one big dependent clause {or something like that} waiting for the actual main verb and subject kind of thingy. I think you should say 'effectively locked' and that would solve the whole problem. xD

II. Overall

Clo! I love this piece! I want more! Tell me where Addy is going, tell me more about her time with Julia. Give me more snippets of that beautiful, real painting you created of the two girls together. That was my favorite part. Give me more.

I thought the characterizations in this piece were beautiful -- the town in 'I' and Addy in 'II'. All you have to do is give us more. We want to know more about Addy's past, and more about how she acts {though you do give us a lot in such a small space!}. =] More more more~

I like the plot as well, though I don't really have any idea where it's going. <_< I like the base of it, is what I mean to say, I guess. C:

Are you planning to continue this?

I LOVE YOU~

-runs to throw sprinkles on a gold star-

-Hannah-

Hi :] I thought I should critique something of yours, as I haven't before.

Her scrunched up grinning freckled face was in the papers

Yeah, I see what you're going for here. That kind of sparse, as-few-commas-as-possible kind of style. But, for me at least, this seemed contrived. I see that Angel and Hannah liked it, though, so please ignore me.

Now, she couldn’t.

did you mean 'no', rather than 'now'? It seemed unnecessary otherwise.

Otherwise, I see nothing to grumble over. Which is a pity on my account. The whole thing seemed professional, and as I said earlier, sparse. It was easy to read and might have come across a little stoic, but there was a kind of beauty somewhere underneath. I don't know. I could just picture it, images unfurling slowly and with a quietness. That's a definite skill: portraying so much with so little.
A great thing about it was the use of short mini-paragraphs (well, just sentences actually) for effect. Very subtle. I suppose if you used it too much it would grate a bit. But you didn't, and the whole thing was just balanced nicely.
Well, that's about it! I would really like to read more of this.

Lauren

Clo! Thank you for using my thread, dear. ^_^

So, I love your opening sentence. Deaths are, as much as we might hesitate to admit, some of the best ways to interest a reader in your story. I think you started out wonderfully, except for this line:

If someone had, they would tell everyone they currently knew that someone they once knew had died.

Err...I just think it's unnecessary, don't you agree? It doesn't tell us anything we don't know, and it doesn't help your flow or atmosphere any. So...*presses delete button*

I agree with Hannah about Addy swinging the keys so that they hit the ground. That whole paragraph of description is wonderful besides that part; everywhere else I can perfectly envision Addy's movements. But keys hitting the ground? Does that mean she dropped them?

She sucked idly at a Capri Sun.

MAJOR nitpick alert, but I think the 'at' could be changed into 'on'. However, like I said, major nitpick. Your writing is just so good that I have to work at finding things wrong with it! *strangles Clo and her wonderful literary skillz*

She just couldn’t sit there any longer.

Major nitpick alert Numero Dos, sorry, but perhaps put the 'just' in front of the 'sit' instead of after 'she'? Just a suggestion. I think it reads better that way, but...

She was mad at her necessity to write something about it

'Mad' means different things to different people in different places, o I think you could substitute it with something more concrete like 'angry' or 'frustrated with'. And the 'it' doesn't entirely specify what she's trying to write about. The death? If so, you could just come out and say it. Or, if it's more just writing about Julia, you can say that too.

So, Addy tried to lock herself out of the room? Why ever would she do that? She wants to get something done, sure, but to physically prevent herself from re-entering the dorm room? That sounds serious. So, to match with the determination/desperation of Addy to actually get out there and do something, perhaps describe a bit more why she feels the need to do this. Is she furious at herself for waiting so long, afraid of her own memories? Or is she tired of not knowing?

With your title 'Reasons to Move', I kept thinking that you'd have a whole list when I saw your Roman Numerals. But there are only two. Unless you pick up at three in the next installment, you might want to abandon the Roman Numerals since there were only two. But, if you do pick up at reason number three, then ignore me.

I didn't really understand that Addy was so close to Julia until that sentence about the foundations. It was a wonderful sentence, of course, but I was like, "Wait, they are? Since when? Why? Do they go to the same school? Are they the same age? Or do they only see each other at family reunions? What interests do they share?"

Hehe. My mind is a labyrinth of unanswered questions. But you might want to explain a bit more about their relationship either here, or later in the story. Sound good?

Your description is fantastic. I can see it all clearly. I can feel most of it too, which is totally awesome. It's practically seeping emotion and passion.

I'll look forward to reading more, Clo! If you would, I'd appreciate another post in my WRFF thread, just to alert me as to when you get it posted. Otherwise, I shall surely forget.

~Evi

Clo -

Ah. Good to read something of yours. It's like finding a twenty dollar bill in a pair of pants you haven't worn for years.

This is good stuff. I love the candid way you wrote this, married nicely to a distinctly poetic language. I like the way you managed to describe a modern day situation without dating things. A lot of times, people (especially a few young'ns here on YWS) will write something set in modern day and wind up putting a big fat date stamp on their stuff by mentioning iPods and laptops and Capri Suns. But here you pulled it off with a grace and a poise. Very nice. I wish that there was more to this. But c'est la vie, I guess. Reading an extended story on YWS is always difficult.

I think the bit describing Addy's and Julia's relationship was pure gold.

It's also too bad that so many other people have gotten to this before me.

Anyway. Probably the only thing I have to complain about is the suddenness of Addy's departure from the room, and the suddenness of her choice to leave the key under the door and *probably* never come back. I think a move like this needs to be explored a little further in the character's mind before executing it. First she's playing with a key chain, then she sucks on her capri sun, and then she bails out. There was no build-up to her decision. Probably one of the most deadly mistakes I see people making at the beginning of their stories is forgetting to explore the main character, before pivoting the plot. I think that you need to get us used to Addy before puppeteering her. Answer a few more questions. Why is Julia dead? Why does Addy seem so casual about it? What is this paper she has to write? Why does she decide not to write it? If these questions were answered, then they should be explained better. In short, transition from Capri Sun to locking herself out of the room and deciding to take action about something we don't even have a clue about is too fast and clunky. Add something.

If someone had, they would tell everyone they currently knew that someone they once knew had died.

Awkward sentence. Doesn't read very smoothly. The problem with it is that it has too many 'ones', too many 'knews', and too many 'theys', all highlighted in bold. I was going to fix it for you, but I got lazy. I trust that you can tinker with it on your own.

The name was a stone now and it could be thrown to injure and protect

.

Yeah. Not sure if I like this.

She posed before the mirror as she passed it, shaking off the milky grief that breathed through her pores when she wasn’t careful

While I appreciate the beautiful metaphorical language here, I'm going to have to say that it doesn't fit in with how you've been describing things before. It's seems a little high-brow for what you have already.

Anyway. Good stuff. Post more. Or Else.

-Kylan

Hey Clo! Here I am as you requested, sorry for the little wait.

Julia Oeland died in March.

I like this as an opening line. It's quite effective and does a nice job in drawing the reader in. I started to wonder, though, whether it would've been more effective if we actually knew who Julia Oeland is – you know, like "Johnny Depp died in March" (a lousy example, but anyway) – but after a little line munching, I came to a conclusion that this is very fine as it is. Which makes the previous word jumble completely random and unneeded, but I just thought I'd let you know about all my thoughts considering this piece. =)

Her scrunched up grinning freckled face was in the papers

I think there are too many words describing the face, it makes it jumbly. Like "She had a long beautiful blonde curly shiny hair". So maybe nix one of the words, or else just use a little punctuation to make it flow better. The rest of the paragraph (not quoted here) is cool.

If someone had, they would tell everyone they currently knew that someone they once knew had died.

I have a feeling you meant this kind of word knot to be funny, but I also think that the risk is too big – most people won't probably see anything funny in this and just tell you to ditch or reword it. Sometimes the price of writing your own kind of stuff is too high. I actually think that I could write this kind of sentence too, to make it a joke by writing it as awkward and eye-burning as I possibly could, but I would only get flamed. So yeah. If you meant it to be funny, I just wanted to say that I see it the same way, but if you didn't – well, it's awkward. Get rid of it.

They found Julia’s body in April.

Ooh, nice touch! It's getting interesting.

She reclined at her desk in her room, her laptop flipped open in front of her.

Hmm. I face this problem every time I write something, but there are really too many 'hers'. I never find a proper way to make it less repetitive, though. Maybe even replace the third 'her' with 'a'. And, if you find more short-cuts, it's only better.

At that moment, a research paper was face down on her desk next to her laptop.

When I first read this, I thought of the 'at that moment' as a sign of that something's going to happen soon. As in, "At that moment, Jane rushed in the room panting." But it's clearly not meant to be like that, but instead it means the present time while she was sitting at the desk. The possibility of misunderstanding is, I think, too big, in which case you should maybe rephrase a little. I don't mean exactly 'misunderstanding', because of course we realize the truth right after we continue reading. I just mean that after setting your brain to think of it as the sign I mentioned, the rest of the sentence is a little in-your-face,

It was rounder

¨

Is it 'rounder' or 'more round'? I'm actually not quite sure.

They had been distant cousins.

This is also a little in-your-face, and also a bit unneeded, since you have the distant cousin thing coming up later. Instead, you could write 'They had been relatives.' Or something.

Until they found pieces of her in the estuary.

The bittersweet harshness of this line is admirable. I adore it.

***


Clo, I really liked this. That sounds so empty and blank thing to say, but I mean it. And – this is going to sound very weird and insane – but I think I understand the way you're thinking when you write, and the way things happen in your texts. I don't have anything to wonder of about this piece, or anything that I felt you could've extended or explained more or whatever. I will gladly read more of this, and your other stuff, too, just let me know when you post more and poke me if I haven't read anything by you in a while.

That sentence was a mess. :0

So. This was my rambling review, hopefully it gave you something to think about. Thank you for letting me read.


Love,
Demeter
xxx