z

Young Writers Society



Behind a Painting - Ch 1

by Nikachu


Two cookies, a slice of cake and now I’m opening up the freezer to find the ice cream. Yeah, it’s one of those nights. My hand finds the carton, and I actually consider grabbing a bowl. I reconsider.

Armed with mint chocolate chip and a spoon, I pass into No Man’s Land. I carefully pick my way around the pieces of broken dreams and land mines. I choose the long way around to avoid being caught in the crossfire. These night raids are so consistent that I can map in my head exactly where and when the conflict will rise. If only I could answer the question why. I check a clock and try to figure out where they would be. 1:30 am puts the main hallways and the east wing in danger zone. Exiting the kitchen through the south door, I double back into the library and sneak through the living room where I’m sure no one would actually be. While this path may be longer and more time-consuming, I successfully avoid the great hall altogether. My feet find the stairs when my eyes are lost in the dark. I rush past the rows of empty bedrooms and leave enemy territory. As I close my bedroom door behind me, I imagine myself as a great thief arriving safely from a glorious heist and, once more among friends, removes her mask. So I, too, remove my mask and invite my soul out from hiding. It refuses.

I plunge my spoon deep into the frozen tundra creating valleys of guilty pleasures. An image of my previous indulgences of the evening flash in my mind, but I push them away. Like a miner digging for gold, I search through the cool minty cream to find those chocolate nuggets. I can still hear the gunfire below. I ignore it; I'm no soldier.

Occupying my mind on something other than the war going on around me, I explore the profound nature of mint chocolate chip ice cream. If one scoops a bite of just ice cream with no chocolate chips, it melts too quickly in the mouth with nothing solid to hold onto, like a frozen blizzard flying by. Yet, a bite with many chocolate chips has too much to chew and not enough cool cream as a reward. The perfect bite carefully balances the ratio of ice cream to chocolate chips, but these bites are few and far between. More often than not, we get stuck with too much or not enough.

It is now that I realize I’ve spent the last five minutes of my life philosophizing ice cream. Yeah, it’s definitely one of those nights.


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Wed Jul 07, 2021 10:44 am
KateHardy wrote a review...



Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

First Impression: Okay..a pretty neat little chapter here, it certainly was a fun read..although as a first chapter, it does seem to be missing a concrete hook of sorts here. Its a fun scene but there doesn't seem to have too much that makes you want to find out more...if you get the gist of what I mean there.

Anyway let's get right to it,

Two cookies, a slice of cake and now I’m opening up the freezer to find the ice cream. Yeah, it’s one of those nights. My hand finds the carton, and I actually consider grabbing a bowl. I reconsider.


Sounds like a pretty good night there, cause that definitely sound like a pretty awesome little midnight snack haul there from the fridge....hopefully they don't end up getting losing that wonderful haul of food to some late night catastrophe here.

Armed with mint chocolate chip and a spoon, I pass into No Man’s Land. I carefully pick my way around the pieces of broken dreams and land mines. I choose the long way around to avoid being caught in the crossfire. These night raids are so consistent that I can map in my head exactly where and when the conflict will rise. If only I could answer the question why. I check a clock and try to figure out where they would be. 1:30 am puts the main hallways and the east wing in danger zone. Exiting the kitchen through the south door, I double back into the library and sneak through the living room where I’m sure no one would actually be. While this path may be longer and more time-consuming, I successfully avoid the great hall altogether. My feet find the stairs when my eyes are lost in the dark. I rush past the rows of empty bedrooms and leave enemy territory. As I close my bedroom door behind me, I imagine myself as a great thief arriving safely from a glorious heist and, once more among friends, removes her mask. So I, too, remove my mask and invite my soul out from hiding. It refuses.


Okayy...this was a really interesting paragraph. I loved how you managed to make the action of someone stealing ice cream from the fridge in the middle of the night sound like some kind of high stakes heist film, it creates a lovely vibe here for the start of a chapter and its simultaneously making this more interesting while also adding a touch of extra humor. It also manages to showcase a bit of the personality of the person doing the heisting here...and that's always a plus. To top all that off, those last two lines add a touch of mystery to the whole thing too.

I plunge my spoon deep into the frozen tundra creating valleys of guilty pleasures. An image of my previous indulgences of the evening flash in my mind, but I push them away. Like a miner digging for gold, I search through the cool minty cream to find those chocolate nuggets. I can still hear the gunfire below. I ignore it; I'm no soldier.


Okay...considering the battle imagery has referred to normal things so far, I'm assuming perhaps someone is yelling at them for stealing the ice cream but that's one's a hard thing to judge there...at any rate, this is another touch of lovely imagery here, on one hand its a bit funny, but on the other hand, this guilt eating ice cream in the middle of the night seems to also be referring to something potentially bad having happened to this person at some point.

Occupying my mind on something other than the war going on around me, I explore the profound nature of mint chocolate chip ice cream. If one scoops a bite of just ice cream with no chocolate chips, it melts too quickly in the mouth with nothing solid to hold onto, like a frozen blizzard flying by. Yet, a bite with many chocolate chips has too much to chew and not enough cool cream as a reward. The perfect bite carefully balances the ratio of ice cream to chocolate chips, but these bites are few and far between. More often than not, we get stuck with too much or not enough.


Well, I have a feeling that is talking about more than just how to eat chocolate chip ice cream with the best taste...and well, that's definitely some good advice there, both for life in general and also for eating chocolate chip ice cream...and that's a combination that you can't complain about.

It is now that I realize I’ve spent the last five minutes of my life philosophizing ice cream. Yeah, it’s definitely one of those nights.


We all have those nights...

Aaaaand that's it for this one.

Overall: Overall, a pretty solid chapter, but I do think once again, there's the small fact that while its an interesting character and a pretty fun scene...it does kind of need to have a bit more of a hook here for the story itself.

As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.

Stay Safe
Harry




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Tue Jun 24, 2014 3:45 pm
RoyalHighness wrote a review...



Hey friend!
RoyalHighness has arrived to review!
Okay, so this was good. I'll start with a few nitpicks.

Nitpick #1

Spoiler! :
Two cookies, a slice of cake and I’m opening up the freezer to find the ice cream.

I know what you're saying here but I had to read it twice before I understood it. Consider re-wording just slightly to make it easier to read. Maybe adding, "now," after "and," would help? Food for thought (maybe ice cream for thought?)


Nitpick #2
Spoiler! :
Echoing Wolfare's observation, there seems to be a lot of metaphor and that's great but too much can be tedious to read. You could say the exact same thing in the last paragraph with one or two sentences: "Life, like ice cream, requires a balance. More often than not..." Something like that.


Content
Spoiler! :
I totally heard your voice in this, but that's only because I know you. :D I love the narrator's voice, the tone and the juxtaposition of a house with a battlefield. I know I do that when I'm sneaking food at night. The way you wrote this makes the character easy to relate to. Now the big question is: what's the conflict? The answer, of course, will come in chapter 2 (which I hope you'll keep me updated on!) but I need some more background info in this chapter to make me want to go on to the next one. Maybe add another sentence or two explaining how often the "war," takes place, or how the character feels about it, or maybe what other characters are involved in the war, and why this character wants no part in it. Just one or two more little hints and I'll be hooked for good (well, more than I already am, anyway!).


Conclusion
Well, that's about it for this review! I can't wait to see what else you put out. I told you you're a good writer! :P
For every work I review, I give out a rating of stars on a scale of one to ten.
So I give your work a solid eight out of ten, m'dear. Great job bae, keep writing!




Nikachu says...


Thanks for the review babe! I might add a sentence or two setting up the conflict but expect more in the future!





Fabulous! :D



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Tue Jun 24, 2014 3:24 pm
SpiritedWolfe wrote a review...



Hello Nika, Wolf here for a review.

Wow, I really loved this, and all the metaphors that you added in make it really interesting and hilarious at the same time. When I read the first sentence of the second paragraph, I couldn't but actually laugh out loud (and my mom now thinks I'm crazy.) You did a really nice job of hooking the reader and pulling them into this situation. I am disappointed on how short it is.

In some spots, the repetition is really nice and helps get the point across, but in others, it just gets tedious. I was a little confused about the second to last paragraph and why she (I assume the main character is female?) was analyzing the ice cream (even though it was cleared up at the end), and it especially got tedious to read 'minty' over and over again. Maybe it adds the affect? I'm not sure, but I would recommend to change it (you don't have to, this is just my two cents.)

One little nitpick:

My hand finds the carton, and I actual consider grabbing a bowl. I reconsider.

Here's another part about repetition. It just seems a little choppy to say 'consider' so close together. Also, maybe this can be combined into one sentence? Finally, 'actual' should be 'actually', tiny grammar thing, no big deal.

I know I've mentioned this before, but I love the imagery you convey by using all those metaphors. The way you describe the downstairs area as a war zone really makes me wonder what's going on. You give us just enough information to kind of pull us in (and not let us be lost and loose interest), but not enough that we know everything that's going on. Nice job!

The flow was nice, and everything was pretty intruding. Unlike most pieces, I didn't have to 'force' myself to continue reading, and never once got distracted by a random thought. I think by now I'm just rambling about other things I've already said. I can't wait to see more (and hopefully something longer). Keep Writing,
~Wolfare




Nikachu says...


Thanks for the review! And yeah that was a typo...oops haha I'll fix that! More will be coming and it will (hopefully) introduce more of the story. I'm really excited!!



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Tue Jun 24, 2014 3:17 pm
ellact2000 wrote a review...



Ok, so I loved the fact that you used so many similes and metaphors. I like this because it made me want to keep reading. What I don't like though, is that a whole chapter is just eating and smuggling a tub of ice cream. It might be a personal opinion but I would've wanted to learn a little more about the character. I honestly love the overall feeling of the book and I hope it isn't lost when you continue with the book.




Nikachu says...


Thanks for the review! And yeah that's a good point about the character development. I guess I wanted to keep the first chapter short so I don't lose reader's attention. Stay tuned for more!




No, it's not that you didn't succeed. You accomplished a lot, but, if you want to touch people, don't concentrate so much on rhyme and metre. Think more about what you want to say instead of how you're saying it.
— LCDR Geordi La Forge