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Young Writers Society


Beautiful Fantasy



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Thu Dec 29, 2011 1:29 am
mistielovesyou says...



We walk through a deep meadow on foggy trees. The air is bright and blurry, like we’re in a dream. Or a fantasy. I snatch my hand away from his.
“Hey.” He says, looking down at me.
I look back and give him a quick smile to recover. He shrugs and chuckles.
I look down and tears prick in my eyes. He knows I don’t want to be here. Neither of us want to be. But we are.
“What are you thinking about?” He stares down at me.
“Nothing.” I quickly cross my arms like a child and stare off into the air. The blurry mix of colors emanate and smack me in the face. I shiver.
He’s smoking a cigarette and looking me deep in the eyes. He smirks.
I look and burst into tears and turn to keep walking. He grabs my shoulders and pulls me toward him.
“Ha ha ha!” He waves his arms. “It was just a joke.” He’s moving his hands and shakes his head, still keeping his mocking eyes on me.
“Don’t do that.” I sniffle. I feel a prick of sadness in my stomach. I’m such a baby. I pull my head back up to look at him.
He’s so beautiful. I feel like slapping him. Bastard.
“Come on!” He throws his arms over my shoulder. He takes another puff of his cigarette and stares off into the distance.
“Come on.” He takes his arm from my shoulders. He throws his cigarette to the grass below.
“Let’s do it.”
And we do. It’s the most beautiful thing in the world.
Afterward, I lean against him. We’re talking.
“Want one?” He winks and grins and me. He shows me a cigarette.
“Come on.” He says, “Do it.” He smiles and raises his eyebrows. He ducks his head.
And I do.
And it’s the most beautifully ugly thing in the world.
I shiver again. And the colorful air turns to ice, cracking in our faces.
Last edited by mistielovesyou on Tue Jan 10, 2012 12:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Tue Jan 03, 2012 10:55 pm
Rosendorn says...



Hello.

I find you have an interesting concept, but too short an execution. You create part of a world, part of a character, part of a concept, but you don't take the time to flesh them out before shoving a moral in our face.

Slow this down. Don't try to keep it as short as possible, keeping one line for every action. Spread it out. Give your MC a voice that has opinions on the setting, the man on her arm, his roughness.

In order to have this stick to readers, you'll really need to consider making this an actual story. Have a beginning, middle and an end. At the least, consider how this would become a character sketch. A character sketch is when you explore something about a character or relationship in a relatively small package, but it gives us a window within the character's viewpoint.

That's the key to stories, though. They give us an idea about a character, or a situation. You're using first person here, which lends itself to a beautiful voice, introspective nature, general comments on what's going on.

That's what I'm craving here. You have the bones of something good. I'll give you that. But you need to slow the pace down here. Give us something that we can sink our teeth into. Let us follow the character inside her head, so we get to understand her.

Right now, all we're looking at is actions and a little, tiny bit of description. There's no richness, no depth. Add in some introspection, some richness, some opinion on the whole situation. Make the prose beautiful, so it mirrors the actions. Twist it a little for the smoking portion, so it, again, does the same.

Just make this longer, slower, and more introspected. That should add in details. Make this piece linger.

Right now, it's nothing more than a boring flash in the pan.

Hope this helps. PM me if you have any questions/comments.

~Rosey
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo

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Thu Jan 05, 2012 4:00 am
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Carina says...



review #6 - team yellow
Hiya!

I really like this piece. It makes me wonder and reflect back on my own life as well as the character's; what is this beautifully ugly thing? Better yet, why is it so beautiful?
That, in my opinion, is what makes a story beautiful. I like to leave these little details away and keep the reader on their toes.

Anyways, I'll break this review down for you.

What can you do to improve?
What can you do to improve? Ask your self that. For stories that's not even half a page--let's be frank here--it has to be pretty awesome.

Well, first off, I'd kind of agree with Rosey; you could use a little more details and still keep the mysterious and hollow voice. What's the character thinking? What is she feeling? Add in the essential, juicy details, but make sure the voice is still hollow. Keep the juicy details to a minimum, because you don't want to start using fruity, big paragraphs when you're trying to be a mysterious, right? (At least that's my opinion.)
Also, you could double-skip lines.
Since the internet doesn't really support indenting, a whole story could look unorganized as a big block of text. There are some good things about that, however. You could make yourself look even more mysterious by spacing things out. A good one would be:

“Ha, ha, ha!” He waves his arms. “It was just a joke.” He’s moving his hands in a ‘no’ way, still keeping his mocking eyes on me.

He’s so beautiful.

“Come on!” He throws his arms over my shoulder. He takes another puff of his cigarette and stares off into the distance.
The double spacing would be as "He's so beautiful." You get the idea here.
Red: There are commas after each "ha." I don't think it's necessary or an official rule yet, but it's like using CAPS IN STORIES. Makes you look kind of amateur, doesn't it?
Underlined: There's nothing really wrong with this phrase; it just sounds a little funny and off to me. Try rewording it, maybe?
We’re chatting.
I don't really like the word "chatting." I don't know, it feels off. Remember, mysterious tone, right?


in general;
Again, I liked this story.
Sometimes, length--whether it be long or short--is style.
I do have to say, however, that it is a little too short to be considered a short story. It's more like a, I dunno, one of those 250 Words a Day Challenge? Because a lot happened in a short amount of time, and you used as few words as possible, but the piece is still considered art. I know YWS doesn't have anything like that (at least not that I'm aware of), so if you want to add on to this story and improve it, I'd recommend to add more into it (like I said above) and have a minimum of, I don't know, at least more than half of what you have now. It would be much better than.
However, I think you should keep the short, choppy sentences. I like that, and although it doesn't register into the reader's mind, the writing seems kind of--oh, what's the word--satanic...to the lowest extreme, of course. And that is exactly what you need, so bravo on keeping that.
Oh, and good job on keeping everything present tense. To me, that's really hard to do.

A beautiful, ugly thing. I like that.
Society accepts ugly things. It's normal. It's beautiful.
You're pressured. You know it's not right. You do it anyway. You try to make make it look beautiful.
It's the most beautifully ugly thing.

That, my friend, is beautiful.
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Tue Jan 10, 2012 1:48 am
Rosendorn says...



Hello.

I'll be blunt. I believe you missed the point of my review.

I said to slow this down. I said to add in more introspection, which is the attitudes and opinions the MC has on the piece. I said to richen the language, and description, so we understood what was going on, and could actually get a picture for very vague lines like "And it’s the most beautifully ugly thing in the world."

You didn't do that.

I'll give you an example, here. This is my own writing:

“Thank you,” she said almost as an afterthought. “And you’ll—” Ranya cut herself off as I let the ward around my sadness slip. I couldn’t hide it anymore.

It was easier to keep my back to her. “I talked to Mother and Father just now. You know how our family can be, each branch wanting more power. How difficult it is to protect against them.” I quirked a bit of a smile; we both knew why I was so good at tracking magic. “They… want me to stay here. Protect those near Father. You— you’ll be well protected at the palace. And on the trip. I’d be useless.”

“No,” she whispered, coming up. Her grip on my shoulders was almost tight enough to hurt. I tensed my muscles to try and loosen her grip, only to have her squeeze more. “No, no no. They can’t. Cat, look at me.”

I closed my eyes and kept my head down. I had to relax to speak. Her nails were starting to dig in. “What’s the point if all you’ll see is tears?”

She forced my head up, knowing full well I’d reflexively open my eyes. Letting her search them. My old teacher had taught me the importance of keeping eye contact, because it was easier to find intention with open eyes. Blurry vision was better than none.

My throat tightened. I’d already lost him to the capital city. Now I was about to lose her.

She shook her head, still not breaking eye contact. “It’s just a ten day ride. You’d be able to come. Not often, but sometimes.”

‘Just’ a ten day ride? I wanted to snap back. But I couldn’t. There was hope burning within her, helping to muffle the cracked shock both of us felt, that our family would calm down for long enough to allow me some time away so I could visit. I latched onto that feeling, absorbing it into my own emotions. I doubted she’d be able to visit her family. Once she was married, the Tijals would be her family. Not us. Not me.

She hugged me, but there was no warmth in the movement. Tears began to run down my temple as the corner of her eye pressed against my forehead. I hugged her back, the same coldness in my movements.

Her magic opened itself to mine in its entirety— she’d always had the strongest wards of all our family, making her the easiest to be around— reforming the whirlpool of grief in my chest that was only bearable because of her arms around me and our shared emotions. This. This was the closest I could ever be to anybody, with no wards between our blood-tied emotions and only physical touch keeping either of us from losing ourselves completely.


See how I take certain emotions and explore them? Granted, the narrator here has empathy so she can narrate others' emotions, but they are given depth. The language weaves around emotions like "sadness" (the whole point of this scene, actually) and turns them into something real. Something readers can take and examine, and feel themselves.

That is what I meant with my review. When I said make it longer, I really meant to expand. While it's possible to write highly emotional flash fiction, you have to be good enough to show the emotions in the small space using exact, critical words to show the emotions in a short space.

Right now, you are far from that.

You tell. Every "emotion" in here is a line that doesn't explain how it actually affects her, where it comes from. You expect readers to fill the reasons in on their own, when you should be doing the opposites. Give the reasons for an emotion, and let readers fill the emotion itself in on their own.

And keep "the most beautifully ugly thing in the world" as your last line. I told you to rich the language so we got a picture of that act. Actually make it beautiful; don't try to tack on another half-hearted attempt to make this a sob story at the end. Think of how smoke looks, the taste of a cigarette on her tongue, how the smoke goes up and gives her a rush. That is what it takes to show it as the most beautifully ugly thing in the world. Description of the thing.

And description does not mean the setting. Description covers absolutely everything, including emotional states. Your piece is weakened by all the setting you put in, because it doesn't add anything to the story. Instead of richening the work, it flattens it because the description is unneeded detail. Make sure every single piece of description adds something to the work.

That's not to say you can't use setting to richen emotional setting. It simply means that, right now, you haven't done that.

I think this piece is totally crippled by your unwillingness to deal with "tough" emotions. You don't explore the root of the sadness, the motive of a nasty boyfriend, and the reasons you'd stay. You don't get into the true concept of addiction (you show two, here. One is an addiction to manipulative/abusive people, one substance).

Instead, you attempt to show the trapping to just use the concept of things being beautiful and ugly.

Let me say this: you will never get this piece anywhere close to good unless you are willing to explore the tough emotions. You cannot expect to write lines like "I felt like a baby" and showing a girl crying at her obviously evil boyfriend to get any sort of quality work.

Speaking of obviously evil boyfriends. Those types are far, far from obviously evil. There is always something good to them, something that makes a woman stay with them. Either it's dependence, or they have just enough caring to make the bad worthwhile.

Look at your characters. The depth of the situation you're putting them in. The emotions that would actually be involved in that situation. Take basic writing techniques, like description, dialogue punctuation, character development to bring life to this story. Use that to build around your basic concept of "beautiful" and "beautifully ugly."

Then you'll have something good.

Until then, this piece is weak.

Hope this helps. PM me if you have any questions/comments.

~Rosey
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo

Ink is blood. Paper is bandages. The wounded press books to their heart to know they're not alone.
  





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Tue Jan 10, 2012 9:40 am
JabberHut says...



Hi, Mistie! :D

I find you have a very nice idea. In fact, it has a lot of potential. It's an interesting concept. Usually, you find stories like these to be about resisting peer pressure, but this one gives into it.

Unfortunately, that's all it seems to do for me. XD But I think there's a few ways to improve this and make it a very powerful read if you were so willing to work it up to such a standard!

For one, I think you would benefit from more explanation. The story itself moved by so quickly -- but not only that, the narrator didn't care. At all. At least, that's what it felt like to me? As if the chick didn't care about what was happening right now, that this guy was forcing her into all these bad decisions. I think more emotion or thought from the character would benefit. With such a monotonous narrator, why should the reader have any reason to care either? You know what I mean? If the narrator has interest in her story, then the reader certainly will.

Story-Telling

Sssso. Basically, tell the story. You have an idea -- this story that you want to tell others. You want to grasp the reader's attention and make it interesting so as to keep them interested. When you read a story, what makes you keep reading? There are a few aspects that contribute:

1. Original characters -- People are interesting. Have you ever sat down to watch people? (As creepy as that sounds.) It's very intriguing. There are so many little details that make a person unique. An old man puffing his pipe, a little girl chasing her Barbie convertible, or a young man nervously fingering a tiny ring box. Just from those three descriptions, you have an idea of who these three people are. They each have interests, habits, and personality.

2. A thought-out plot/conflict -- Your story is on its way here, but I only say that because it's being held back. The story focuses on the plot. The plot's the whole reason the story's being told! So if the plot is interesting, the reader will keep reading. The characters are the reason the plot comes alive, but the characters don't do anything for a story without its plot.

3. A well-voiced narration -- Imagine a mother telling a bedtime story to her daughter. Mom always go into those finer details to help set the stage -- a big pink castle! -- with a main character the audience (the daughter, in this case) will love -- a pretty princess wearing a sparkly, pink dress! -- and a plot that keeps the story interesting -- she was captured by an evil dragon!

So with all that in mind, I see your story, and I see a little bit 1, a little bit of 2, and nooot much of 3. So how can we make it ten times better?

Characters

Well, for 1. You have dialogue, and that's awesome. I love dialogue. It's seriously the best thing ever when it comes to character development. I love making my characters talk, and a lot of personality can come through their words if you write it well enough. I think your guy character was better written than the girl in that respect.

However, I think what's part of creating a lovable character is explaining the character's motivation? So why is the guy acting this way. What exactly is he trying to do, and why should the reader care? Is this normal behavior? Have these two been together for long? Are they even together? And what does the girl even think about it all? She seems like such a pushover. xD I'm honestly worried about her. Providing a little more background on that would definitely help the reader understand the situation. And these are just a handful of the questions that could potentially be answered.

Any questions can be answered using 3, which I'll get to in a bit, but basically, description helps. You can also explain using dialogue. Thought bubbles are nice, though with first person narration, it's all done in 3. And the description can be handled through the narrator info-dumping (just a LITTLE bit. That's a delicate technique, in my opinion.) once in a while or, most preferably, sneaking it into the potential scenery you'd edit in. ;)

Plot

So secondly, it's the plot. You have a pretty fantastic idea, it just needs to polish up a bit. Sort of a diamond in the rough. The potential of this idea isn't seen anywhere except through a critique's eye. You have this idea of falling into peer pressure, but you can use your characters' emotions to describe how either scary or wonderful or alien this feeling is. Use your atmosphere and characters to better portray why, exactly, this story is worth reading. What they're doing is important, but so is why they're doing it, how they're doing it, where they're doing it, when they're doing it, what got them there in the first place, is there background history to consider as we read this, and so much more. How can you get your readers to understand the story? They can't get into your head, so you have to get into theirs and think about what they want.

Narration

So your story has dialogue, but that's all it depends on. Yet, it still has a bit of narration, so it's not one of those dialogue-dependent stories. This is your typical short story, using both dialogue and description to pull the reader into this different world and understand a different situation.

Since this is in first person, you have a lot of opportunity in delving into the main character's thought process. We can understand just how the character is feeling, what her point of view is, and how we should feel for her as the story is told. It's important that we understand her position, but we can't fully comprehend her situation without knowing who she is, and in this case, that's easily done through dialogue and her narrating voice.

The narrator has a huge role -- HUGE role -- in story-telling. This is how the reader can follow along in the story, gather the information they need on a need-to-know basis, and come to a satisfying end to a story they enjoyed to take the time reading. If the narrator isn't captivating, if the narrator doesn't explain anything, if the narrator doesn't lead the reader through the story, the reader will give up 'cause they'll become bored, uninterested, and inevitably frustrated. It's sort of a teacher-student relationship or parent-child. Lead them by the hand, so to speak, and help them through it. They'll thank you in the end. :)

----

Hopefully, that helps you a bit! I think re-writing what you have would be best, but I think you can potentially make it a whole lot better. Remember to also read. Just read. Anything. It helps a lot in improving your own writing as you better understand the writing styles around you -- especially those already published or those belong to authors you enjoy reading.

Best of luck, and keep writing! :D

Jabber, the One and Only!
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