z

Young Writers Society



She was a Ghost

by Mikayla386


Dear Diary

Today I did not have to anybody. Today was a good day.

Dakota sat on the far corner of her bed, which was situated in the far corner of her medium sized room. With rather bland cream colored walls her room was rather very bland, not unlike anyone else’s around this place. A simple black desk in the middle of the left wall, across from the cheap bed. A light green blanket and matching sheets carefully laid out on the bed, not a wrinkle in sight. At the opposite end on the room along the same wall as the bed was the almost always closed door to Dakota’s lonely, empty room. Unlike many of the girls here Dakota didn’t collect “souvenirs” from her missions. Many of the others would get a poster or magazine, sometimes a kick-knack or book while out on a job. Dakota on the other hand didn’t want to remember the places that she traveled to, no, she wanted to forget all about them. Forget every little detail about the target, like the shade of their perfect hair and the expensiveness of their many shoes, and how they took their coffee. But so far with no such luck, it had been engrained in her brain to remember as much as possible, so whether or not she liked it she would just have to deal with remembering everything about the many people that she had killed over the past few years. Despite have an overly photographic memory somewhere along the way she had lost count of the amount of lives that ended with her and how many people’s blood was on her hands. Being just the mere age of eighteen she had the mental maturity of an elderly woman who lived with several cats in a small cul-de-sac in a friendly movie-like town. But the truth was Dakota had never even seen a cat and the only movies that she had ever seen had been while on mission, not that she actually watched those. Another difference between Dakota and the other unfortunate souls that roamed the halls of Darchelle Manor was that, as an orphan since birth, she had been raised here. Most of these girls came here when they were anywhere from five to fifteen, but Dakota had been here for her entire life and as you may guess has little personality that truly represents her, all of her personas had different personalities. Much like that she also had little real emotion left for he had killed so many people, so often that she couldn’t let it affect her every time, so instead she locked away her feelings and got really good at acting. She was, at the mere age of eighteen the best operative that Darchelle Manor had and possibly may ever see, she was Dakota, she was a ghost.


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Tue Jun 15, 2021 10:21 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!!

Anyway let's get right to it,

Today I did not have to anybody. Today was a good day.

Dakota sat on the far corner of her bed, which was situated in the far corner of her medium sized room. With rather bland cream colored walls her room was rather very bland, not unlike anyone else’s around this place. A simple black desk in the middle of the left wall, across from the cheap bed. A light green blanket and matching sheets carefully laid out on the bed, not a wrinkle in sight. At the opposite end on the room along the same wall as the bed was the almost always closed door to Dakota’s lonely, empty room. Unlike many of the girls here Dakota didn’t collect “souvenirs” from her missions. Many of the others would get a poster or magazine, sometimes a kick-knack or book while out on a job. Dakota on the other hand didn’t want to remember the places that she traveled to, no, she wanted to forget all about them. Forget every little detail about the target, like the shade of their perfect hair and the expensiveness of their many shoes, and how they took their coffee. But so far with no such luck, it had been engrained in her brain to remember as much as possible, so whether or not she liked it she would just have to deal with remembering everything about the many people that she had killed over the past few years. Despite have an overly photographic memory somewhere along the way she had lost count of the amount of lives that ended with her and how many people’s blood was on her hands. Being just the mere age of eighteen she had the mental maturity of an elderly woman who lived with several cats in a small cul-de-sac in a friendly movie-like town. But the truth was Dakota had never even seen a cat and the only movies that she had ever seen had been while on mission, not that she actually watched those. Another difference between Dakota and the other unfortunate souls that roamed the halls of Darchelle Manor was that, as an orphan since birth, she had been raised here. Most of these girls came here when they were anywhere from five to fifteen, but Dakota had been here for her entire life and as you may guess has little personality that truly represents her, all of her personas had different personalities. Much like that she also had little real emotion left for he had killed so many people, so often that she couldn’t let it affect her every time, so instead she locked away her feelings and got really good at acting. She was, at the mere age of eighteen the best operative that Darchelle Manor had and possibly may ever see, she was Dakota, she was a ghost.


Well...right off the bat, this giant paragraph is a little bit too much there...the flow of the actual words themselves is surprisingly not that bad, but just reading a massive paragraph like this without losing track of where you are is a bit hard...not to mention you really do have points where this would easily split into smaller paragraphs, so...it would be a good idea to split this thing up just a little so that its easier to read, and perhaps even easier to convey some of these points here.

Now, moving right on to the content of this giant paragraph of text, well, that, is actually suuper interesting...its not the first time I've run into a story like this, but its certainly still a pretty unique idea to see a whole lot of children just being brought up as a bunch of assassins for some secret organization of sorts here. And the fact that it appears the character we shall be following is the one that spent the most time there and is their best operative is certainly very interesting. So the overall premise here certainly sound quite awesome and well this is 100% a story that I would read.

But....regrettably I do have a few nitpicks on this one...the first is that cat comparison thing...it seems like a bit of a stretch there, also its just straight up telling us what her personality is like. I think it would be a lot better to just show us that through her actions and thoughts later. It's the old cliche show, don't tell, but it just applies here I'm afraid. And then also the suuper nitpick is..how does one invade and kill people in so many houses, but never see a cat....somebody's gotta have a cat for a pet right?

Aaaaand that's it for this one.

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

Stay Safe
Harry




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Wed Dec 30, 2015 9:03 pm
hyperview wrote a review...



Hey, Mikayla!

I'm going to have to jump right in and say this, but you've really got to break up this huge paragraph you have here. Take note that since this is online, staring at a big block of text for a while can be harsh on the eyes. So for the sake of your fellow readers on this site, it'll do some good to break this up into separate paragraphs. c: You can do this by looking for where there's subject changes. For example, at one point you stop talking about Dakota's room and shift to the souvenirs. That would be the perfect place to make a new paragraph.

Although you've got a cool story set up, I feel like the whole idea of these agents or something living in this manor can be expanded. I'd love to read more about what they do, how they function, or who's the one who keep all these girls there and what makes them do these missions for them. Are they held hostage? Are they brainwashed? You're off to a great start here, but you could add so much more to this.

Another thing was your sentence structures. Here are some examples:

Dakota sat on the far corner of her bed, which was situated in the far corner of her medium sized room.

You repeated "far corner" twice, which makes this redundant and lowers readability. Instead, why don't you switch it up a bit? Maybe, Dakota could be sitting at the edge of her bed which is situated at the corner of her room. With that, you don't need to repeat the use of 'far corner'.

she had the mental maturity of an elderly woman who lived with several cats in a small cul-de-sac in a friendly movie-like town

The information about the cats and movie-like town isn't needed, really, and makes the sentence longer than it needs to. Besides, being elderly doesn't necessarily mean they're mature. Simply saying that she has a vast mental maturity is good enough and makes the sentence more concise.

She was, at the mere age of eighteen the best operative that Darchelle Manor had and possibly may ever see, she was Dakota, she was a ghost.

This sentence, like some others, is also longer than it actually needs to. I feel like if you gave the "she was Dakota" bit its own sentence, it could have a greater effect.

Here's a suggestion: "She was, at the mere age of eighteen, the best operative that Darchelle Manor ever had. She was Dakota. She was a ghost."

Today I did not have to anybody.

Like the reviewer below me, I also don't understand this sentence. Are you trying to says she didn't have to kill anyone?

There were many other errors like the ones I've mentioned above throughout the story, and the best way to catch them are to read the story as it is in front of you. If it sounds odd out loud, then most likely it would sound odd to the reader. If you've got any questions or would like me to clarify anything, please let me know. Have a good day/night, and happy writing!




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Wed Dec 30, 2015 12:58 am
Kelpies wrote a review...



Hello Mikayla386!

This is really cool! Seeing inside her head was pretty cool, seeing how Dakota deals with her life, or death, as it seems. However, I'd like to see some more background on her, maybe some details on a particular job? She seems like an extremely interesting character, and I'd like to see more of her. I think this work is absolutely brilliant, however I have a few small nit-picks.

First off, a very minor thing, I think you need to add a comma after the words "Dear Diary". Also, the first sentence didn't make much sense to me. I know what you mean, but maybe you could re-word it? Maybe " I didn't have to do anyone in today." ?

Overall, great work! Can't wait to read more from you!

-Kellpies.

P.S. Sorry if there are typos in the review, I usually review on a laptop but I'm using a kindle for this one.




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Tue Dec 08, 2015 6:04 am
Abhipsa says...



It is a nice work. The emotions are very aptly described and justified too. The excerpt is wrapped up in an air of mystery and it induces the wish to read further. Keep up the good work! You should also write more about exactly what had happened to the girl at the end.





Prometheus, thief of light, giver of light, bound by the gods, must have been a book.
— Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves