Published July 29, 2009
I often find that, in my eager attempts to be descriptive, my wording becomes very heavy. Criticism is smiled upon!
~~~~~~~~~~~
The teenager on the corner with the misapplied lip gloss is in a state of paranoia, complaining, via text messaging, to her bevy of friends about the lack of decent tanning weather. As her fingers chatter away, she leans a bit harder against the side of the brick building to lessen the globs of acid dew forming on her luminescent screen.
Her mother is in the barber shop, just beyond the wall. In spite of the rain, the girl won’t deign to, by chance, be seen assisting her mother on a trip to get a hair cut.
But the mother’s hair is getting more than cut; it’s getting shaved. She had always cut her own hair, but she didn’t have any shears around the house. The chemotherapy is getting to her, and she doesn’t want to have to contend with clumps of greasy hair stuck beneath her pillow any longer.
The barber’s feelings are rather down, this being the third shave he had given to a woman this month. He has a bright pink crossed ribbon stuck to the window of his shop, portraying his vain hopes that the breast cancer rate would cease, along with -- even in the failing economy -- his income of hair-shaving money.
Finally, the girl outside proves to have reason for her move to get away from her slowly dying mother. A grinning boy with a Mediterranean complexion comes forward flirtatiously on his four tiny skateboard wheels. Then, at the closer sight of the girl (still spilling letters on the minuscule screen at a mile a minute) and her sloppy job of putting on lip gloss, revulsion overcomes him, and he begins to scoot away without as much as a word of farewell.
The girl is rather offended at this, and glances (fingers still going) at his descending silhouette, a sneer of disgust forming on her upper lip, making the lip gloss look even worse. Before she can shout after him with a word of reproach, a sight unfolds before them both.
The barber holds the buzzing shears at his side, and a smile develops over the mother’s face. The lip gloss is no longer gross to the boy, whose skateboard wheels have slowed their churning to a halt, and the girl’s twitching painted nails suddenly stop flailing. The woes of the world are pushed aside for a moment as a double-rainbow fades into the sight of four preoccupied minds.
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140,282 Literary Works • 673,074 Reviews
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,
Well that's quite the picture to start with wow. A tiny little emotional rollercoaster that you've managed to send us on already and we've hardly just started here. I absolutely love how you play with the opening being a sort of very typical teenage drama sort of vibe and how that transitions so nonchalantly into a much more pressing situation that suddenly makes this whole thing appear far more grave that it at first does. Needless to say you get our attention very quickly.
Oh kayy well that was quite the interaction to slip in here. Another lovely little sense of duality to see the priorities the barber seems to have with his outlook on the world and how its clashing with the teenager's here. Its another rather powerful moment and it really makes you wonder so much about what could be behind this. The fact that this person came here to be near her mother but still seems to be doing this creates a whole other mystery in and in of itself.
And that is quite the ending there. I'm not entirely what its perhaps meant to represent but its such a contrast to the emotions from the earlier bits that this ending really leaves you wondering. Honestly this story just throws you through a full on rollercoaster and you're just left wanting to know so much more about all of this. Because there seems to be so much more here than what's just at the surface in this one snapshot.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Oh Abbi! I loved it! I've probably told you this before. I really hope you write more.. Can you please? It will stink if you don't write more. Well I think you should fill out an application or how ever... It's really good.
-Your best friend, Jessie.
Too many commas here. Instead of using commas around "even in the failing economy" I'd go with hyphens.
That just sounds weird. I think it's the "flirtatiously" that's been misplaced and throws off the whole sentence. Rearrange it.
I'd take out "the". In fact, I'd change the whole sentence to something like, "Then, at a closer distance to the girl, he sees..." But hey that's just me. I'd definitely change it up a little though.
This was interesting. It wasn't the over-detailing that was the problem, it was just the structure of the sentences that was a little off. I do like the style of this. The end left me wondering though "What the heck just happened?" was mainly what I was thinking. Was there an actual rainbow? Or was it metaphorical...? I don't know. You need to be more clear about that.
At first I thought this was schizophrenic because the scene changed from something that was rather comedic to something that was a little more somber and dramatic, but now that I look over it I actually quite like it. It's original. But you shouldn't let originality get in the way of making a clear point. Like I said, I didn't understand this at all.
Let me know when you re-write this.
Do you think I ought to submit this to a publication website I know?
Yes, Tusker, it was a double-rainbow. The premise of this story is that people in psychology say when a sight, like an aurora borealis or a rainbow, is presented to a large group of people, most of the people will get the same feeling.
Normally, I have a hatred for large amounts of unneeded description which fail to paint a picture effectively. When you said that you think you get rather wordy with description I considered clicking away from this story and reading another but I'm glad I didn't.
I visualised the scene so well - even adding my own details. You provided enough description to form a proper picture and to leave room for visualisation - something that many writers, including myself, struggle with.
I'm still trying to work out what the 'sight' was exactly. Am I right in thinking it was a rainbow? If not I'm totally confused.
Overall, this was really well written and I enjoyed it. Nice one.
- Tusker -
Oh, bluedragon, you're absolutely right about "massaging." Thanks for pointing that out, and, yes, I know the difference; it was just a typo.
I thought that the boy was preoccupied with thinking about the girl's lip gloss, but I'll think about that a little more, and maybe post a revised version of this.
Thanks a bunch!
Wow, I liked it and the meaning behind it. You have an excellent vocabulary, by the way and I understand what you mean by being "wordy" i also struggle with that issue.
That's all i have to say since the person above me got to everything before me. I loved it. Happy writing!
Hey!
This was really good! Your descriptions were amazing, and I loved the way you introduced the characters.
I only found one mistake, which was in your very first sentence.
I think this should be messaging, not massaging.
Characters:
I thought that you did very well on your characters. You gave them each a unique personality, especially for the girl, which is actually pretty hard to do in a piece as short as this.
I was a bit confused on this part, though. You said "four preoccupied minds," but one person's missing. The girl's preoccupied with her dying mother, the mother with chemo, and the barber with all of the women in the world that has breast cancer. But what about the boy? You never quite introduced him to us, and why would he be preoccupied?
Overall:
I really liked this. Keep up the good work!
zOe
Wow I totally like it the description is amazing!