Young Writers Society

The friendless Punishment
By: Samuel S.
Simon stood stagnantly at the start of the dirt path. Staring with resignation at the daunting task before him; he took his first step forward. The trail led steeply up the mountain, causing Simon to slip with every other step. The mountain looked shockingly exposed with all the lush trees of summer suddenly bare of leaves. The frost had killed it all. He felt conspicuous being the only movement of life in a place completely void of it.
The solitude did not bother him. Simon had always been Taciturn by nature. At school he had always been more astute than everyone else in his classes and for that reason never had any friends. He had never meant to act arrogant, but everything he said seemed to make people feel inferior. People didn’t seem to mind him occasionally sounding egotistical, so long as he was there to do there science project for them, but after he finished it he was confounded when they would not even acknowledge him in the hallways. “It didn’t matter now,” he thought to himself while grabbing at a leafless branch for support.
No, it wasn’t the solitude that bothered him; he was used to that, but rather, the lack of anything euphonious to listen to. The only noise was the occasional howling gust of wind blowing the left over leaves from Autumn, or the cold shriek of a bird that hadn’t made it south in time for the early frost. Simon had always liked to listen to things. He used to listen to anything, so long as there was noise. Simon didn’t like the way his mind wandered when it was completely silent. The silence was always too much.
This was the reason Simon taught himself to whistle. When ever he had needed sounded, he would make it himself. Simon started whistling any song he could think of, but none of them helped. He felt as if the silence was part of the punishment. It was a mental torture that coalesced with the physical torture to make one unbearable pain. He stopped the whistling and continued in absolute silence stubbornly, and stoically bearing his torture.

I liked your short story and I loved you descriptive word choice. I do have a couple of suggestions for you..

Simon stood stagnantly

I don't like that you used the word stagnantly. I t reminds me of stagnant rotting food.

Taciturn

taciturn.

he was there to do there science project for them

he was there to do their science project for them.
Overall I think it was very good. Reading the story has left me with some questions like why does he feel compelled to climb the mountain? and what does he find out about life after he climbs the mountain? If I were you I would try to answer there questions before finishing the story. Have a good day. Fiction

I actually really like this, it was really descriptive. There were a few grammatical errors.

Swanee wrote:“It didn’t matter now,” he thought to himself while grabbing at a leafless branch for support.

It should be, "It doesn't matter now,"

Swanee wrote:When ever he had needed sounded, he would make it himself.

Whenever

Other than that though, fiction is right. There should be a reason why he wants to climb the mountain and a reason for why he is to suffer. What I got from it is that he is after some form of enlightenment, but i'm not sure. The main point is a little vague.

Hey!

This was very well written and descriptive. The only issue I have here is that there isn't a point to it. Why is he here, alone in this desolate place? The reader does not know. Do you? There is a line between being vague and not making sense. I think you should give the readers an idea of what's going on.

I loved the prose. I hope this isn't a short story but if it is then you should do what I said above. I like the character and I only wish I knew more about him.

I believe the grammar is solid, although some words feel out of place.

That's all I could find. Good job!

-Esther

Heya Swanee

You don't have any line by line nit-picks so far, so I thought I'd give you some.

Staring with resignation at the daunting task before him, he took his first step forward.

He felt conspicuous being the only movement of life in a place completely void of it.

This was phrased kind of awkwardly for me. I think that you should consider rephrasing it so that it doesn't disrupt the flow of the story.

At school he had always been more astute than everyone else in his classes, and for that reason, never had any friends.

“It didn’t matter now,” he thought to himself while grabbing at a leafless branch for support.

Do you mean 'It doesn't matter now'?

He used to listen to anything, so long as there was noise.

You seem to be using the phrase 'so long' and awful lot in this. Or it seems as though you are anyway. You should try varying it a bit, in my opinion.


Overall

This was pretty good! Pretty vague, but still good. What stood out for me, in a positive way, was your varied vocabulary. You didn't use the same words over and over again. Instead, you thought of different, more creative words and used them instead of plain ones. I myself am terrible when it comes to varying my vocabulary. Well done for varying yours. To be honest, I can't really critique much about the plot and the story idea itself because there wasn't really one. Not much happened, if you get what I mean. Another thing that I liked about this was your grammar. You seem to understand when and where to use commas, semi colons, periods e.t.c. I did notice at one point though where you misused a semi colon. Any grammatical mistakes that you did make, I corrected for you. The same as your grammatical skills, your spelling was very good. I didn't find one misspelled word. As for your MC, he was rather interesting. I didn't know much about him, besides the fact that he's obviously smart, but he seemed rather interesting. There weren't any other characters so I couldn't comment on any other character.

My main critique for this is the vagueness of it. I don't really know much about what is going on or why it's going on. I also don't really know anything about your MC, which I think is important. Without knowing your MC, us readers can't feel connected to him or her. Without feeling connected to your MC, we can't emphasize with them and feel their emotions. After reading this, you left me with a lot of questions. To begin with, why was your MC walking up a mountain? I got the impression that he was kind of annoyed or angry, but why was he angry or annoyed? Also, what happened after he climbed the mountain? This ended a bit suddenly for me. I want to know what your main character did once he reached the top, if he did reach the top, that is. Speaking of your MC, I'd like to know more about him. How old is he? Where does he live? I don't want you to give me his life story, that would be pointless and boring! I just want to know a bit more about him so that I can emphasize with him. You said that he didn't understand why people didn't acknowledge him in the hallways. I liked that because it gave us an idea about his personality. Even though he's supposed to be smart, that gave us the impression that he is also rather naive.

Overall, I can definitely tell that you are a good writer. Your vocabulary is great and so is your spelling and grammar. You had some nice descriptions in here and they didn't take over the entire story. You managed to balance them out with actions which is always very important. After reading this, I can easily see that this story has potential. The idea itself could become interesting if you progress it a bit. All that you need to do is to give us readers a bit more background information about this story as a whole, maybe make it longer, let us emphasize with the MC a bit more, and maybe vary the way you write your sentences. Your usage of 'so long', for example. I know that you can do that because you vary your vocabulary very nicely. You should take into account what us reviewers have said and edit this up a bit. If you do that, you could definitely have a great piece of writing here.

Keep writing,

xoxo Rhian

thank you for your suggestions everbody; I really appreciate it. to answer your comments I don't have a plot. Honestly, I didn't think that far. The story is a variation of the greek story of sisyphus who had to carry a physical burden up a mountain every day only to have it fall down the mountain at the end of the day and he had to repeat this every day. that was the idea behind my story, except my character was carrying a mental burden. As to why he has to climb the mountain, I didnt think that far ahead.

I'm going to be honest with you. You have a great general concept here, and your vocabulary is pretty impressive too. But the way you portrayed this general concept and put it into story seems a bit off to me. It starts out of nowhere (which can be okay in some cases, but this didn't seem to work), goes back to another place that seems rather irrelevant, then comes back to the original setting without much of a transition. It all seems a little forced, as though you wanted to get points across, but hurried too much to do it. Or something. It's also confusing and doesn't seem to connect from beginning to end. Is he on this trail looking for noise or is he on this trail looking to get away or is he on this trail exerting himself (which he doesn't seem to want to do) because there's a goal in mind? No goal here is really revealed so it's hard to connect to Simon. It's also not clear exactly why he's bothered or tortured mentally here. He was outcasted at school, but it's repeatedly implied that that's not an issue to him. If it's silence he doesn't like, why doesn't he hit the mall or listen to music instead of a trail in the outdoors in the middle of nowhere? I'm sorry. I don't mean to be completely negative. Like I said. The general concept was really good, but I'd almost suggest a re-write. Maybe it's just me.

The following are specific examples of confusion and marks indicating a need for grammatical corrections.

Swanee wrote:Simon stood stagnantly at the start of the dirt path. (I'd personally suggest finding another way to open this. The sentence itself isn't bad really, but "the start" doesn't seem a good way to describe the entrance to a path. It could be a lot more grabbing than this.) Staring with resignation at the daunting task (It may be a task, but the rest of the story implies it's just a choice... and for no particular reason.) before him; (use comma here)he took his first step forward. The trail led steeply up the (perhaps use "a" mountain, as there's no "the" mountain formerly referenced) mountain, causing Simon to slip with every other step. The mountain looked shockingly exposed with all the lush trees of summer suddenly bare of leaves. [color=#0000FF](I'd reword this sentence as well. If the trees are bare now, they're not also lush. I know you were trying to portray that these trees are normally lush, but that has to be done another way. Perhaps say, "With the way the normally lush trees were stripped bare, the exposure of the mountain shocked him." or something.) [/color]The frost had killed it all. He felt conspicuous being the only movement of (Perhaps consider just getting rid of this term? It's not necessary and makes things cumbersome.) life in a place completely void of it.
The solitude did not bother him. Simon had always been Taciturn by nature. At school he had always been more astute than everyone else in his classes and for that reason never had any friends. (This change in subject seems abrupt to me. Forced. Like I said, it could just be me, but I don't see how solitude in the woods is compared to being left alone at school.) He had never meant to act arrogant, but everything he said seemed to make people feel inferior. People didn’t seem to mind him occasionally sounding egotistical, so long as he was there to do there science project for them, but after he finished it he was confounded when they would not even acknowledge him in the hallways. “It didn’t matter now,” he thought to himself while grabbing at a leafless branch for support.
No, it wasn’t the solitude that bothered him; he was used to that, but rather, the lack of anything euphonious to listen to. The only noise was the occasional howling gust of wind blowing the left over leaves from Autumn, or the cold shriek of a bird that hadn’t made it south in time for the early frost. (Birds don't go south to make it to the frost. They go to escape the frost. Perhaps say that they "hadn't made it south in time to escape the early frost.") Simon had always liked to listen to things. He used to listen to anything, so long as there was noise. Simon didn’t like the way his mind wandered when it was completely silent. The silence was always too much.
This was the reason Simon taught himself to whistle. When ever he had needed sounded, he would make it himself. Simon started whistling any song he could think of, but none of them helped. He felt as if the silence was part of the punishment. It was a mental torture that coalesced with the physical torture to make one unbearable pain. He stopped the whistling and continued in absolute silence stubbornly, and stoically bearing his torture. (Toward what? Why? Where? What torture, exactly?)