Memories

Searching my memory for a happier time, I come across a long forgotten memory. I see a girl sitting in a hard chair covered in plastic, sitting in an empty cafeteria, surrounded only by her parents and grandparents, one of which doesn’t seem to know exactly what’s going on.
The girl looks bored, annoyed even by the repetition of her grandmother’s stories of Christmas’ past. She smiles of course, not wanting to be rude, her parents taught her better than that.
“Dinner is served,” a lady says as she wheels out a tray full of food. The girl’s eyes bulge for a moment, taking in the plastic plates filled with cold slices of ham, rings of pineapple, and spoonfuls of green beans. Her grandmother smiles to herself, thinking that her granddaughter is pleased by the sight when the truth is the exact opposite.
The girl accepts her dish gratefully, reminding herself about the starving kids in Africa, and pokes the food around the plate, suddenly not hungry. Everyone else ate it though, as if it were a delectable treat, worthy of their full attention. The large room filled with the booms of her mother’s laughter as the family got farther into the meal.
One look at her grandfather and the girl remembers why she’s there, sitting in the plastic covered seats. She coughs a little and begins to eat the ham, scared that it may be a little spoiled. Much to her surprise, it isn’t, although she would count it as being spoiled since it was the most disgusting thing she’d ever eaten in her life. Swallowing it down quickly, she looked pleadingly at her father who nodded in agreement. She took a swig of water and gulped it down quickly, her eyes tearing up.
“I’m not hungry,” she insisted, staring back at her mother after they all had finished as well. She sighed and nodded, suggesting that they’d better wheel the girl’s grandfather back to his room before leaving.
“Ooh, sweetie pie, I’ve got some goodies for you at home,” the girl’s grandmother cried as they got up to leave the cafeteria.
The girl left the room last, turning the lights off like the staff had asked them too, and closing the door. The only thing that was going through her mind was the fact that that was the first Christmas that she hadn’t had more than one bite of her food.
As she turned to go, I see a small glint in her eye, maybe a tear of some sort, a tear for the past.
If only the poor girl had learned to appreciate the things she had, maybe she would have fonder memories and I wouldn’t have to keep searching endlessly for a time when everything was right.


Hey guys, I was kind of distracted while writing this so reviews reviews reviews!!! Ahhh! Thanks you! Like seriously, anything you see, anything at all, just tell me!!!!

Hey there!

This was good. It was a little bland at parts, and a little choppy at others, but I'm going to try to help you fix this.

Quotes 'N' Comments

Searching my memory for a happier time, I come across a long forgotten memory.

So this is your opening sentence (duh if course you know that), but it doesn't draw you in. Plus, it annoys the reader instantly because you use the same word twice in one sentence. Nuh uh no no, not good. How about saying it like this: "Searching, I stumble upon a long lost memory." That is more dramatic, yes, but I don't think it's more dramatic in an annoying way. I think it adds character, and a voice to your narrator. It adds a voice that is mystical and young.

I see a girl sitting in a hard chair covered in plastic, sitting in an empty cafeteria, surrounded only by her parents and grandparents, one of which doesn’t seem to know exactly what’s going on.

I'm only going to explain this once, and leave finding the rest of them up to you, because if not the review will get waay too long. But there is too much description here. It's over descriptive. This means that all of those underlined words need to disappear. You could write the sentence as simply as this: "I SAW (remember to keep your tenses the same. You change a lot in this, be sure to keep it past tense, because that is what most of your story is written in) a girl sitting on a plastic chair in a cafeteria with her parents and grandparents." You see now much simpler that sentence is? Then it doesn't sound like word vomit.

Punctuating the Memory

Whelp, this section of the review is all about what the title of the section is! The memory is confusing. Even though you say "I see (saw)..." it's still hard to understand what's the memory and what's not. I think you should punctuate it. This means that instead of just having the memory being in another paragraph, you should add an asterisk (*) to separate the memory from the realtime scene. That means that it would be something like this:

This is not the memory.

***

This is the memory

***

End memory

This way people can better understand what you are explaining.

Characters

I realize this is some sort of flash fiction. However you need to define your characters. I think you might need more dialogue. The reason why you need to define them? 1. Because it's a major plot element 2. Readers don't care about characters unless they know them 3. So we know who they are. The third one especially applies here. What I want you to do with your character is make us know for sure that the girl in the dream is her. I have a hunch - I mean who else would it be? - but I need to be certain. In this story, mystery is not needed. Leave that to Sherlock Holmes. You need to make us know that the little girl is her. How do you do this? Describe what she looks like. Add some dialogue so we know certain words or phrases that she likes to use.

Plot

The plot's pretty good. It's sad, but pretty good. I think that you need more detail. One of the main parts you need to describe more is the end of the memory. As I was reading it I was thinking (Like... what?) and I still don't really know what happened, even after reading it twice. Here are some points you need to focus on:

- When the grandmother rushed off and said something about presents at her house. Is she not living with the grandfather? Explain this. I don't understand. And who was leaving at this point?
- When you explain her grandfather in general. What's wrong with him? It seems like he's sick. Am I interpreting this way wrong?
- It seems like the memory is worse than how she is in realtime.

Overall, you need to keep working on this. Make it easier to understand, simpler even. I did like this though. It is true, what your character said. You don't know what you have until it's gone, right? Good moral, now just work on portraying it.

Keep writing!

Classy

Hello! =^.^= I'm here to review 8D

I was actually happy that it was short since long short stories kind of hurt my eyes.
Anyway, I actually didn't understand the story at first until I finished it. Like captain.classy said, it was a little bland and choppy. I felt like it was going a bit too fast, I know that since I do go a little bit too fast on my story too. Take your time, it's not a rush, just try to describe the surroundings, what her parents/grandparents look like. The plot was a good overall. The only thing that I have to ask, why are they eating on Christmas in a cafeteria? D:

That's all for now~~Keep on writing ^-^

Ha, thank you guys for the reviews. You see, not only was I listening to a bunch of music, totally distracted about school stuff, but I was also writing it when I was supposed to be working on an essay for English thAt was due the next day that I hadn't even started, and it was seven at night, =]... so, yeah, eek. Thanks for the suggestions, now that I read it again I'm even confused about what's going on.
Thanks again,
hearts...