Published December 29, 2015
*Note: This is a part of a short story that may or may not be continued*
A bright light streaked through my eyelids causing them to flutter open. Of course, I couldn’t see the light but I could sense a warm, radiant presence. Alarmed by this unfamiliar intensity of light, I sat up right and felt an instant chill creeping through my skin.
I fluttered through the familiar, fluffed blankets and stuck a foot onto the cold hardwood floor. Reaching out, my hand snaked around the bed headrest, anticipating a foam handle to hold onto. When I finally found my target, I relaxed my hand on the handle and let the cane guide me around the room. I took a deep breath and noticed that the room smelled of putrid dust and grime with a hint of some sort of lingering chemical that resembled bleach. Something didn’t seem right about this strange room. There was something that was ever so familiar about it but that was ever so distant. This feeling surged from its cocoon into butterflies gnawing at my stomach. I had to find a way out. I just had to.
In an effort to find an exit, I laid my hand on the wall and guided it across the engraved waves until I reached corner of the room. As I turned, I hit a piece of furniture with a clunk. Carefully, I guided my hands across the soft cushions and through the curved shape and realized that it was a recliner. I scrambled around the mushy armrests and continued around the room. I repeated this pattern, hitting bookcases, chairs and stacks of books through my way around. When I finally reached where I had started, I realized there were no doors or windows. There was no exit, no hope of getting out.
There was only one place which I hadn’t checked: the middle of the room. Scrambling over there, I hit my shin on a hard wooden block. Reaching out my hand, I felt a substance smooth to touch. Glass. The glass seemed to be rectangular in shape but as I skimmed my hand against one of the sides, my hand collapsed into the cavern of a holes of the glass box. Inside, I grasped a thin plastic frame. After a little more examination, I discovered that it was a pair glasses with the bridge broken in half only with a piece of tape to helplessly attempt to keep it together. I recognized these from somewhere. Instantly, the memories filled my head and my feelings diminished into darkness.
~
When I was walking down the hallway to the girls’ locker room, I was bubbling with excitement. The Paradise Horses were finally going to beat our biggest rival, the Maple Leaf Bears thanks to the genius tactic that I had come up with the team to follow. As captain of the girl’s ice hockey team, I knew two things. One, teamwork is just as important as footwork and two, tactics come with practice. With these rules in mind, I went into the bustling locker room.
Ready to make a captivating speech, I shout, “All right guys! Who’s ready to go out there and fight, fight, fight?” As I stood on a bench, I realized that the clamoring in the room had continued as always. No one had even turned around to blink an eye at me.
“I said… Are you guys ready to go and beat those bears?” I call out in another attempt to recollect the group. No one seemed to notice the scrawny girl with brown mousy hair and black nerdy glasses perched on her nose. They must be too busy to hear me, I thought to myself, denying the fact that they could possibly be shoving me to the side like an abandoned kitten on the side of the road.
I shuffle over to my locker and spot my locker buddy, Holly Brady, who was a beautiful blond, brown eyed girl with a reputation for flirting with every boy she met. At the moment, she was gossiping to Margaret Hughes about some cute lacrosse player they spotted across the hallway the other day. Holly spots me and exclaims with a giggle, “Hey girl! Margaret over here tells me that you like someone! Oh my gosh! You just got to tell me who!”
Confused, I awkwardly stumbled away from Holly as the twenty-four piercing eyes of the girls on the hockey team glanced at me. I had never really had the same attraction to boys as other high school girls who swooned over guys like bees to honey. This fact had always been a secret of mine for it was out of the ordinary to not be dating or having a crush on a guy at all times. Quickly, I thought of some generic guy that I heard about a lot and blurted out, “I guess I kind of like Eric Hayes.”
Eyes. They were coldly staring at me. “Eric Hayes?” a red-headed freshman exclaimed. “Isn’t he that one guy who got expelled for hacking the school website? Gross!”
Darn it, I cursed under my breath. Of all the guys that I had to choose from, I just had to choose a nerdy guy who got expelled for some early April fools prank.
“Guess our team captain has got a crush on some geek,” called out Margaret. “I’m glad she didn’t raise her expectations too high because I wouldn’t expect much from a girl like her!”
A sudden wave of laugher from the girls rushed into my ears, forming tiny droplets of water near the corners of my eyes. I could not cry in front of them. Not here. Not now. Why was I even upset? They were only trying to create a joke to make everyone laugh, including me. Right? And yet a cloud of desperation surrounded me, separating me from the ones who encompassed me with pointed fingers and smirks on their faces. Why did I feel so alienated when I was with my friends? Why didn’t I get to laugh along with them?
~
The heated rush of the game swelled in my chest. The score was tied at 2 to 2 and I had the hockey puck. All that stood in between myself and victory was a wall of pudgy warriors armed with sticks and armored in plastic. Meghan and Holly were behind me ready to back me up if I failed to slide my way through Maple Leaf’s hockey team’s defenses. The cheering crowd around us was almost certain that I was going to be overwhelmed by the mass of the opposing forces but a sudden rush of adrenalin envisioned me crushing through the mass of people like a puck bouncing off a net.
Drawing in a cold breath of air to fill up my warm chest, I attack. Skating from side to side, I sway my hockey stick to advance the puck to the army which laid ahead. Closer and closer, the wall crept up. Cheers became more intensified. Lights became brighter. My vision became blurred. All of a sudden, a stiff whack sounded throughout the room.
Images became blurred. A sharp pain crept through my head. Voices shouted. Tall figures started to lurk above my head. After a final glance the glooming bright light overhead, I became submerged into the darkness.
~
When I wake up, I opened my eyes but I could see nothing but blurry circles dancing around me. Instantaneously, the sweet smell of sweat and possible victory swelled through my nose. Ah yes, the game had been just moments ago. The question was why wasn’t I there, holding up the trophy with my friends holding me up like a grand champion? In fact, where was I?
Suddenly, I was answered by a nurse who said, “Oh, you’re awake! Hello, Miss. Ava Woods! How are you feeling? You had such a rough game today, didn’t you? If you need anything to make you more comfortable, I can get it for you right away!”
“Where am I?” I managed to mutter out as I searched for the circle which could resemble the mysterious nurse’s face. “What happened?”
“I can’t answer that for you right now,” the nurse responded. “We have to wait…” She was interrupted by a load thump of the door opening as several people entered inside. “Oh, never mind! There they are! Doctor Damon will tell you everything that you need to know!”
Curious, I tilted my head to the side to see if I could recognize the people who had entered the room. One blob seemed entirely white, probably the doctor. But what about the other two entities? Who were they? Have my team mates come to visit their fellow fallen warrior? A sudden surge of hope rose in me but instantly fell when I heard them speak.
“Hey, sweetie. Are you okay? You need anything? I got some bottled water if you’re thirsty.” Of course, it was mother. Who else would have come? My hockey friends didn’t care about me. They probably wouldn’t even come to my funeral if they happened to accidently drop me down a well.
Only my sweet, caring mother would have come to me in any time of despair. She was constantly busy working as a nurse at the Kalamazoo Central Hospital and somehow she always managed to come to my rescue ever since I was a little kid. If I had a boo-boo, she would come and kiss the pain away. The circle of love and admiration that we had for each other was something that someone from ten miles away could notice.
I shifted my face towards the other individual, my step-father. The fact that he was here meant something wrong had happened. He was never one to miss work, even an hour of it, for simple scrapes and bruises. Thus I noticed an aurora of discontent around him. We didn’t talk much. In fact, I would be lucky to see him once every week. He just seemed to constantly be working as a manager of sales at a local company. Maybe it was his way of showing his love for our family; by providing us food, shelter and all other necessities that we needed.
I turn back to my mother and murmured, “Mom, what happened to me? Am I really messed up? Is that why I can’t see?”
“Oh, sweetie,” she sighed in reply. “It’s going to be all right. I promise you!”
Still confused, I stared at the white figure and said in a hopeful tone of voice, “Doctor, is that true? Am I really going to be all right?”
“From your prognosis,” the doctor stated stiffly. “I am sorry to say but you are going to stay blind for quite some time and it is almost certain that your vision might not recover at all.”
A shock of horror rang through me, chilling me to the core. I was blind? Did that I could never play hockey, my life and love, ever again? All my dreams were shattering before me: being on a professional hockey team, winning the national championships, and maybe even winning the Winter Olympics. How could I ever live without the sport that made up who I am?
~
I wake up with a great ringing in my head. Oh great, I’m back in this room again. I stood up, took my cane and retraced my steps to the recliner again. Relaxing, I recollected my thoughts from my memories. I am Ava Woods. I have a mother and father and I became blind when I hit the ice floor in a hockey match. All my dreams were ruined. I took a deep breath and continued to think about the memories.
What would happen to my loose friendships that I worked so hard to maintain around the basis of ice hockey? I don’t think me from the past would be able to handle that. How could I survive high school without a group of friends to hang out with?
I stood up, moved myself towards the bed and sat on it. Stroking the bed sheets, I recognized a similar texture from the hospital bed. Where was I? Was this some sort of room of subconsciousness? How would I escape out of this cage of thoughts and unanswered questions? The only possible thing I could do now was to put the covers of the bed over myself and to fall asleep, awaiting for the answers in the coming day.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
139,683 Literary Works • 672,648 Reviews
Hey, Kataya! I'm am here as I said I would be :3
), but there comes a time when this becomes a little too much. Not everything is completely about the narrator anyway, so the subject does not always have to be "I". So my suggestion for this sentence in particular is to remove the "and felt" because it's 1) a weak phrase and 2) referring back to the subject I, and then slap a comma in where they used to be. Be Be careful that not everything has the subject I, even if you have a dependent clause before to make sure every sentence doesn't start with I.
For your sake, I'm going to put some of my more nit-picky comments in a spoiler because some of them are a little much, but they may help if you want this to be perfect ^^ (Even though some of the stuff isn't nitpicky and is legitimate. I'll just call it stuff that I have to pull a quote out for xD)
Spoiler
Here, the repetition of "flutter" is a bit much. While they are in two separate paragraphs, they are in the end still too close together and even if this repetition was intended, it seems more like an accident. There are better words for the second verb than flutter anyway (as I've been trying to tell you.)
Two things here. First off, I'm a huge fan of italics myself, because they provide great emphasis on words and it kind of forces the reader to take in a little extra, so I feel like you could utilize this to your advantage a lot more throughout this. Granted, I haven't read a lot, but do consider using more italics to make things pop. Second, I pointed out the "a", which reads a little strange to me. I feel it would be better as "it" considering you'd already referenced the light before, twice.
(told you I'd be nit-picky >.>)
Stating the light again in this sense is starting to get a little redundant as the word was used three times in that one three lined paragraph. The entire sentence would just read better without it. Also, this also doesn't sound quite right. Just saying "the" will suffice.
Now I split this part into another quote because I have another qualm entirely. One large part about first person is seeing the world through the narrator's eyes (or other senses in this case
In general, be careful with commas. And I know, I know, the judges are not going to be huge grammar sticklers like I am, but remember that between to adjectives, if you can place "and" in between then and the sentence still makes sense, it needs a comma. Things like "the cold, hardwood floor" need one, but something like "the apple flavored pie" doesn't.
This reads a little strangely to me. Instead of having the dependent clause at the beginning, it may just be better to say something like "My hand reached out and snaked..." so it continues as a single thought and the sentences doesn't have two dependent clauses. (Helpful hint! Read your story out loud to yourself. It'll help find spots that just don't quite sound right.)
A couple things. First, there's a little bit of repetition with "my hand" here, which could be easily removed by rewording somethings. Such as, "my fingers curled around the handle", "my palm pressed against its usual spot", etc. etc. You can come up with something better. Next, "let" is such a weak verb. Try something stronger like allow, permit enable, etc. Final thing, does she never have to stand up? She's already up and allowing this cane to guide her? IS SHE MAGICALLY SITTING AND WALKING AT THE SAME TIME?
Wow this sentence is a mouthful. We really don't need to know all this extra "well it might be bleach, but it might also not be." Just cut it out and leave us with thinking it's bleach. This detail is also not majorly important either, so having this much detail about it just sticks out way too much. Almost purple.
I'm sorry but this sentence is just worded very, very, very strangely. I can understand what you're trying to say in this, that it's familiar but not, however it's very jarring. It draws you out of the story and I had to read over it to make complete sense of it. I strongly recommend you reword this to be less confusing. Also, again, not every sentence that is written has to be beautifully crafted, it's okay to just say something like, "There was a familiar sensation about the room, yet everything still felt distant."
Here you talk about the waves like she can see them. There is no fingers fumbling across the pattern until she can discern it's a wave patter that stretches all the way around the wall. You just straight up tell us there are engraved waves. It makes me wonder how she knows. Or you could even say something earlier that she expects there to be waves, like her childhood bedroom (because that's what you wanted her to sort of be in, right?) Also, this is another place that kind of goes back to the main character being the center of the universe because "she" lays her hand on the wall, rather than her handing finding its way to the wall.
Uh, this sentence reads really awkwardly to me. First, there are a lot of ands stringing the words together and second, it second, soft cushions and a curved shape can quite literally be anything. Frankly, I feel like this part is unnecessary -- we don't get really anything big from it and it's not something that's easily described by touch and feel. If anything, it would make more sense that she gets stumped on what it is or that she feels around more that just one sentence. So either just cut this out or bring it out a little more.
Since this is just nitpicks, see the first point out of this spoiler for something else that I feel isn't quite right about this part, but I point this out because "through" just because it doesn't fit super well. It's awkward and I feel like you should rephrase this clause.
These two clauses just don't really seem to go together super well. It feels like the dependent clause is just there for the sake of the line not starting with I (even though that is still the subject and I have mentioned it twice already, I know, but it's important.) I'm not even sure how to make it much better, but maybe have something with her taking the courage to get off the wall and the scuffle over the center. The same is with the second sentence, as it's obvious that she'd reach out her hand to feel what it is, so maybe have like a knee jerk reaction, of her hand jerking out as she falls over from the pain. Because I feel like it would hurt even though she has no reaction to it.
I'm sorry, what? I can see that you wanted to say she abruptly found a hole in the glass but I'm just confused by this sentence. Please, please, please rub this out a little xD It's super confusing.
Wow is this sentence convoluted >.< It seems to go all over the place in terms of images and how does she figure all this out so quickly? Because she's blind, I feel like you should go into a little more detail on how she has to feel everything out, like perhaps the material splintering out and then the tape trying to bandage it. Maybe how she hears the crack or crinkling of the tape trying to hold it. The she presses against the glass part and feels around it a little more. It just seems so quick that she determines all this without her sight.
How? She's blind. And I don't think anyone spends their life memorizing the feel of their glasses. A lot of glasses can feel the same >.<
The use of the adverb here only seems to weaken the force of what's happening. I recommend replacing it with a stronger verb, maybe even make it a mini-metaphor (like memories climbing the walls over her mind and flooding the castle or whatever.) It just doesn't feel strong -- and also, by feelings do you mean emotions? Because currently she doesn't seem to have any of those. More on that later. Or do you mean like passing out/losing the feeling in her skin? Maybe clarify and make it stronger.
The dependent clause before this a little unnecessary, since you can probably add it in another way, and it's just a strange transition I feel. It's also a good spot to change up the subject a bit, perhaps something like, "Excitement bubbled through me as I walked towards the girl's locker room." Or, you know, something better than that because even that's not very good. Just a suggestion though :3
First, this is also worded awkwardly. You're probably missing a word at the end. Second, this sentence is also quite long on its own. I feel like you could break this up into two or three others, just to give that extra impact. Maybe even have an exclamation point to really show she's pumped for this upcoming game. However, I really like the use of "genius tactic" because it gives a little more characterization, showing this girl as a little more cocky than we saw in the previous scene. Just little things like this add to the voice and the character, which is what we're trying to understand.
WHEN DID SHE GET ON THIS BENCH? I AM SCARED. TELEPORTATION IS NOT SOMETHING MOST CHARACTERS SHOULD HAVE. *ahem* Uh, there was no mention of any bench before this and I feel that this should be mentioned before hand. It could even add a little more personality to the narrator -- but I love her dialogue currently. It's filled with her own flare and it reads really well. (Also, this is in past tense. Fix the present tense :3)
This piece of dialogue I got a little tripped up over. I suggest adding back in "out there" again, because she's repeating herself. It's probably more of a tendency to use the same words again, plus it has a more spunky rhythm to it (and it rhymes ^^). One other thing is that I feel italics would work great here, as well as the other dialogue, at the end to show that extra emphasis I want to imagine. Italics can be your best friend :3
Recollect doesn't really seem the right word right here. They were never "collected" in the first place, so perhaps gather, inspire or pump up might work a little better. Also, past tense, not present tense.
I brought this up to you before that I didn't feel this simile fit in the paragraph very well, and my opinion still stands. I could understand if there was more of a build up, maybe a hint before hand, but this is just out of the blue and it doesn't add very much to it. It's not imperative you take it out, but something simpler would do.
Please split into two sentences. This is really just wordy all shoved into one. Another thing I wish you would include is how she feels about her other teammates. Whether she's jealous of Holly for her looks or a little nervous around her because she's so pretty or maybe she wants to be friends with her and tries to be really perky around her. Just these things so we can see more just how much of an outcast the narrator is. Also, past tense not present tense.
First thing, at the moment is a little out of place to me. It implies more of a present tense relation than a past tense one, so perhaps you could swap it out with something like "at the time" or just cutting it out entirely. Second, I don't feel like many people gossip to someone. They more often gossip with. It would read a lot better.
... Katya. Past tense. Not present tense. (Oh, and stereotypical mean girl xD Nice touch.)
First, I don't really see I would be confused. Shocked might be a little better. Second, I'm bringing this up again because this is yet another great opportunity for you to shove your narrator off their high horse and have the shock ramming into her body or taking over or whatever. Next, it is very wordy. Either break it up or condense it down. (Because you might have forgotten through the wonderful amount of nitpicks I have -- it is always a good idea to read your work out loud ^^)
This part is a bit redundant. Basically, the line before just told us what we needed to know about Eric and this is just telling us again unnecessarily. You could probably just end it off there and we'd still get the shame. However, it would be nice to have more descriptions of that shame coursing through her as everyone else judges her.
This is really a mouthful, and for dialogue it doesn't flow quite right. I suggest playing around with it to sound a little more sharp and just overall more mean. As well as natural. I'd suggest something like "At least she didn't expect too much from a guy. She couldn't get anything anyway."
I really liked this paragraph and its imagery within it, but this is just so long and wordy that it takes away from the beauty of the tragedy you're setting up for this character. Rework it and maybe even separate it into another sentence because it's really pretty wording right here.
First off "myself" needs to be "me" because it can only be reflexive if the subject is being talked about later on. Well, the subject is not 'I" (for once xD) so it must be "me". Second, I do like the metaphor you're setting up, trying to create the intensity of the scene, but once again, I recommend cutting this down into a shorter sentence and splitting this up. This is especially important because normally in more fast paced scenes, things need to be a little more sectioned up rather than long flowing sentences. It reads faster and gets the tension building. Keep that in mind for the rest of the scene. (Especially the very last line of this paragraph because wow is it long.)
This isn't really necessary. I recommend just cutting it. Also: PAST TENSE NOT PRESENT TENSE.
//quick intermission
When she finally got hit -- even though I'm confused how that happened, but I'll talk about that later xD -- I really like the effect you gave. Things got choppy, short, confusing and it makes sense because she's also quite confused in probably in a lot of pain.
I don't really think crept works here very well. She just got hit in the head with a puck -- I only know this because you told me xD -- and creeping seems like slowly but gradually. I imagine it would be something that explodes and rips into her head, causing her pure agony. It feels a little underrated here. And you could probably go a little more descriptive without losing that choppy feel.
I know this is out of order but I was going back to make sure your tenses were consistent (just as another check) and I found this. Now, if it was under her breath, as in she actually is saying it then the rest would have to be quotation marks rather than italics, but that's a little odd. I recommend you keep it as it is but change "under my breath" to "in my head" or something. That way everything lines up and its logical ^^
Oh look, another back-track >.> Okay, not this is a little weirdly worded to me. The didn't implies to me that they are not allowing her to laugh with them, and I know this isn't the case. I think it's more of a "she feels uncomfortable laughing along with them" kind of scenario, so maybe reword this one part to get that across more, because it's not like she's forbidden to force her way in.
... Need I say it again?
So, I'm definitely going to touch more on this later, but it's quite the event -- the quite literal game changing event -- just occurring in one line? I guess I like that it's very tension breaking, a good way to crash down all the tension built up in the last couple lines (which is a good thing, because the tension needs to snap at one point xD). The one thing that I don't particularly like is the "all of a sudden." It's cliche, I must admit. Now, I know my style is quite different than yours, which is totally okay! However, I recommend putting this one line on its own paragraph because it's important. This one line changes her life. You don't even need that big of a transition, just something like "Then..." and then having this on its own line shows everyone this is a big deal.
FIX IT.
This just doesn't read right. I recommend just sticking to "I couldn't see anything" or maybe even changing it to "everything was dancing circles..." or however you had it.
This is really strange punctuation because I don't know if she's saying "Hello, Miss." and pausing before saying "Ava Woods!" of if she means "Miss Ava Woods" because Miss does not need a period after is like "Mrs." or "Ms." or "Mr." Miss is just "Ms." spelled out. Also, don't think she'd say her first name in that, because Miss normally just addressed last name.
Such doesn't seem to be the right word here. I feel like "quite" would be better. I can't tell you why, it just doesn't read the same.
I like the effect you're giving here, a lot more disoriented and everything as she just got hit in the head. However, saying "resemble" implies knowing what something looks like before hand, which obviously isn't the case because she calls the nurse mysterious. Thus I feel like you should just say, "that might have been". Or something better than that xD
I really don't see the point in having this >.< I recommend just getting to the point with something like, "Now wait just one minute, Sweetie! Doctor Damen will explain everything." It's just a little more straight forward and cutting out the fruh-fruh stuff.
I do like the self-pity coming out right after this though :3 It's a nice contrast against her bubbly, pumped self before the game. And of course, who wouldn't feel pity for themselves in a time like this?
The rest of this paragraph is really well worded and mostly informal, so the sudden use of "notice" just threw me off. I recommend rewording this so it's a little smoothing and maybe rearranging the phrases.
I am so confused on how this would even be possible. Since she really can't see him at all -- not enough to recognize him at least -- there's no way she could see his facial features to see he's discontent or upset or whatever. Nor his stance because I assume everything is too blurry for her to see that. I just don't see how she would come up with this conclusion to "notice" anything. I can understand her assuming he would be agitated for having to miss work though, but there is no way she can tell without hearing him speak.
This detail is rather unnecessary. We really don't need to know, nor do we care about, what he father does at his work. It's just not necessary to the story. So cut it ~
Two things: The semi-colon needs to be a full colon (as shown here) and you'll need to remove the by from this for that to make any sense. If you want to keep "by" then change the semi-colon to a comma.
KATYA.
This is really contradictory xD First he's saying that it's almost certain, but then he's saying might a moment later? Reword that last part so it all agrees with each other :3
You're missing a word here xD Also, this is really such a telling moment. I mean, I guess we could tell she was good from the fact that she was the captain of the hockey team, but I didn't really get that she was in love with hockey. For the most part, her thoughts veered towards worrying about why the other teammates didn't like her rather than on the hockey. Not sure how else you could show this love but think on it a little bit.
It's normally your ears that ring, not your head :3
This is not a nitpick. I love this line! To be honest, it's probably my favorite one because it's the bitterness inside of it, the voice and character of this girl having rediscovered her memories. This is the kind of thing I'm talking about when I ramble about giving your narrator a voice.
Uh, how did she learn this? Nobody told us this anywhere else and she only saw the memory we say and I didn't know this. I recommend adding this in when she's talking with the doctors so that we can see it too. Also, this one piece of information gives me more to ramble about later on ~ watch for that.
You never had friends, Ava. Get over it.
How did she instantly come up with this? Since this is supposed to be a combination of her childhood room and the hospital, maybe had her think about that for a moment and then finally connect to this point. Like, have her wonder why things from her childhood are here along with after the accident. And then other things like waking up without a memory and then having this flashback. Then she thinks she's in her head. xD
The "to" just makes this sentence awkward xD Remove it and it'll be fine. Also, it's a bit wordy. Maybe split it up some?
(You did ask for thorough xD) Now, under here will be stuff more relevant to the plot and more than just nit-picky syntax and other quote related things! I'm going to start from the beginning again.
First! I'm going to piggy-back on Noelle's points about the first scene. So, Ava has been blind for a year, and you did explain to me that she went back to a semi-normal life for maybe a year after she got out of the hospital. I would think that she would know how to walk around a place -- even unfamiliar -- without slamming into everything. However, since she did slam into everything, I do wish there was more emotion to that. Like, maybe she would be frustrated that she's being so clumsy or her legs would be bruised and hurting to her touch or just something of more emotion in general. We get a little bit of distress here and there because she's stuck in the room but not a lot.
Now, on the part of emotion in the narration, the second scene was a lot better about it. It had a more bubbly, uplifting attitude towards everything -- optimistic even. Things like the word choice, maybe even the dialogue, gave aspects to it that helped give us more personality to the character. Before, she just seemed like a voice with no character at all. Try looking at what you did in that second scene and trying to adapt some of that the voice you want for the first scene. Maybe something more dreary or scared, but something more than just description. That's not voice xD
Okay, when Ava starts talking about how she doesn't really have crushes or like boys in that way, it feels a little in our face. It's just a bunch of information being put in front of us at once. While it's not so much that it could be considered an info-dump, it gives me the same feeling. I recommend playing around a little more with that part to have a better way to give it off rather than "I just don't feel that way". It's not a big deal but something that would make it better.
Wow, the preppy girls xD My first big impression of these girls are the stereotypical blonde girls that "own" the hallways of the school. Their dialogue especially gives me that kind of vibe. So, why are these girls playing hockey? I can understand these pretty girls being all stuck up, confident and cocky, but they're kind of giving her crap about things that maybe don't matter as much to most people in sports, I've found. Maybe it's me stereotyping xD But even so, I can understand even a group of like four or five of them, but every other girl on the team? It seems like all the other girls on this team are written off as the cast from "Mean Girls". Maybe there could be a few awkwardly to the side that laugh along with the other more preppy girls, too afraid to reach out to her for fear of the backlash of the others? Just a suggestion.
Okay, why is Ava so naive? Now, I know we can't go back and see how these girls interacted with her every other moment of her life, but perhaps she could think about it. Like how those are the kind of "jokes" (as she writes the insults off as) they normally make or she's always been cast out, why is she so worried about it now? It just seems so brutal and she's still convinced that she is their friends? What kind of things keep her coming back? Is it their teamwork in the game that convinces her that they actually like her? Maybe have her have other reasons defending them because if this has been going on for a long time then there is no way she could kid herself of this for very long.
So, the third scene -- for a more action type scene -- could use a little love. Allow me to suggest some thing that you might want to add in there: have some things with her charging foward and the ice skates pounding against the ice with screeches, the adreneline running through her, sweat pouring all over her body while the outside chill of the air fights its way in, the enemies swarming around her as she charges, other noises of skates and sticks clashes as she moves around, other general emotion! Maybe this spurred some ideas ^^
Final thing. (About time, right? xD) I'm so confused on how she went blind. So, she somehow fell, but we got nothing about that. So I am going to suggest something that you don't have to add in, if there isn't enough space, time or you just don't want to. Otherwise, I suggest giving more details on the fall. Maybe someone trips her -- even one of her teammates. The suggestion:
First bad thing ~ The other team steals the pucks from her, their sticks clashing and the anger boiling inside of her.
Second bad thing ~ She is knocked unbalance by the swipe and knocked onto the ground, perhaps her feet fly out from under her and she's on the ground.
Third bad thing ~ As the ref blows his whistle to get everyone out of the way and make sure Ava's okay, someone hits the puck with all their might (maybe one of her teammates taking it back?) and it bounces around and hitting Ava on the back of the head.
Three strikes, you're out.
But this was actually quite a nice read! I know I tore it up, but it's a good story and the writing itself isn't bad. It just needs some polishing ^^ If you have any questions, please ask!
Best of luck!
~ Wolfe
o.0
That is a review. xDD
0.o
Amazing Quality. Top notch xD
Thank you Wolfe for spending all this time on me. I <3 you too!
Wow
Great review!! xD
Holy cow... O.o
She spent 5 1/2 hours on it. 0.o I be blessed with the Wolfe's grace. Ever since she submitted it, I've been reading it. Just finished reading and editing the nitpicks.
Is this a review or a chapter?
Hi there! Noelle here for a Review Day review!
I'm gonna be more on the harsher side since I know what this is for. Hopefully I can help you out ^_^
The quotation marks aren't needed here. She's saying that she can't see the light, literally.
Horses and Bears should be capitalized as well. In this case they're being used as proper nouns.
I want to talk about the beginning part for a moment. It's obvious from the start that this girl is blind. You do a good job giving us context clues and the like to make sure we understand. However, she starts acting like she doesn't know how to act being blind. This isn't a room she's used to being in so of course she's going to bump into a few things. But wouldn't she start using her cane to feel around in front of her? Go slower to make sure she doesn't bump into things so hard? It just seems a bit strange to me that she'd continue on bumping into things and not try to stop herself from doing so.
Another thing I wanted to mention about that is the lack of emotion. There's a lot of telling going on in this first part, which is going to be needed because your MC is blind. You should definitely keep it because it does well for the story. What I was looking for was her reaction to trying to find her way out. Just from reading through it seems that she would be frustrated because of hitting basically everything in the room, maybe a bit desperate to find her way out, fearful that she doesn't know where she is. I didn't catch any emotions like this at all. It's missing that. This could be so much stronger if you'd just weave emotions into it.
Usually I'm a fan of separating memories from the narration of the actual story. However, I feel like it breaks the flow here. If you had just dove right into the memory, not bothering to put the break there, it would've read a lot better. It's like we're suddenly detached from her and thrown into her past. Especially since we don't get her reaction at the end, I wanted to see that mixed in with the memory. Something like trying to pull herself out of it or silently cry at the moment that overwhelmed her.
Speaking of the end, I'm going to focus on that next. (Sorry I'm jumping around like that) You know how I love my cliffhangers :3 This one is great. We can only assume what happened at this game. There are enough context clues to tell us that this is the moment she went blind so that adds to the mystery as well. It doesn't wrap up the story though. With shorts there needs to be a definite beginning middle and end. We can't be left hanging too much because it won't be continued. Yours will because it's an excerpt from something bigger, but that's a different story. As a stand alone piece, I don't feel like it's finished. The story I get from this is this: a blind girl is in a strange room and finds something that jogs her memory of a terrible time. So what would be the ending to this? What's going to wrap up that particular story? We have to go back to her present day just one more time in order to get that closure. As of now we're stuck in the past with her memory even though the story starts in the present.
Alright, going back to the memory. Another thing that doesn't make it flow is the break. First we break to start the memory, then there's a break during the memory. After that second break I thought we were going to be back with your MC in the present. But then I realized it was just another part of the memory. I'd suggest finding some kind of transition to move from one part of the night to the other. Something like "I tried to shake it off and focus on the game. Before I knew it, the game was almost over." That moves the story along just as effectively as the break.
Let me know if you have any questions about anything I said! I'm around to help if you still need it
Keep writing!
**Noelle**
Thank you so much for the helpful review (finally)! I'm just a little confused on your comment on her narration and memories. Are you suggesting it to be like Scrooge and him flying around like a ghost with his ghost buddies in Christmas Past, Present and Future? Also, I'm going to post the second part to this soon, so if you wouldn't mind, could you please review that when that goes up? :0 Again, thank you so much for the help! Be as critical as you like on this piece!
Hello! I'm here to review your work. Let's start at the beginning.
I don't think you need to have these two sentences, maybe it would be better to combine them into something like this: "I felt the warm, radient presence of the light as my eyelids fluttered open." This is something I came up with off the top of my head, but II think you should make those two into one sentence somehow.
This sentence feels a little awkward. I would suggest phrasing it differently. When people think of butterflies, they think of fluttering, not gnawing. You can leave it if you wish, just my thoughts.
In the team names of the schools, leave Horses and Bear capitalized. When I first read the names, I thought that you meant literal horses. Also, the girls went from very nice to very mean in basically three seconds flat. If they truly hated her, why would they be greeting her with, "Hey girl!"
I'm assuming that she was knocked out at the end of the hockey game, right? What bigger short story is this a part of? You'll have to post it. I think this is a decent start.
-Grace
So just to answer some of things that you said, the reason why I said she couldn't "see" light is because she is blind and I have to emphasize that so the reader doesn't miss that. And most of the bullies I have dealt with have been passive aggressive so I created a false sense of friendship there with the, "Hey girl!" It's just something they do. :/ I do admit I should I have posted this with the two final scenes so it would make A LOT more sense. Thanks for the review!
I noticed this was part of a bigger short story, so I'm not sure if I can say I grasp it at this point. In the beginning, it seems that the protagonist is blind. Is the room from a dream of hers? I can't tell if it's in dream world or not. After she finds the glasses, we see her memories of school life. I pitied her being unnoticed and left out by "friends". When she goes to give her speech, I found it strange that absolutely nobody turned to listen to her. Was it that nobody cares?
I didn't spot any typos or other errors, and it flowed well overall. I'd be interested to see where this story goes, and I also wouldn't mind hearing more about Eric Hayes, if that's relevant. Keep writing this!
Basically the "room" in the beginning is where she is a coma. She can see in the 2nd scene because she is not yet blind and because it's a memory. It all makes sense with the last two scenes that I have not yet managed to write!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Hello, InfiniteRectangles here with a review for you!
First, I'd like to say: Happy Review Day!
Okay, now on to the review. I was intrigued from the very beginning of this story! You are so descriptive and use imagery so well, you really made the story come alive. I'm really curious as to how the beginning of the story correlates to the rest, but seeing as how this is part of a bigger story, I'm guessing the confusion was intentional. If it wasn't though, you should clarify the relationship between the beginning of the story and the rest of it.
"I had to find a way out. I just had to."
I felt like these two sentences were weak in comparison to the rest of the paragraph. You described everything so well, but then you ended the paragraph with kind of a letdown. Instead of saying it the way you did, maybe you should try describing the character's increasing sense of panic. It would make it much more stronger and more vivid to the readers than "I had to find a way out. I just had to." Why did the character have to find a way out? Why were they panicking? Remember the old saying "show, don't tell". It will make your writing much stronger.
The only other issue I found with this was with the consistency. You seem to switch back and forth between present and past tense randomly and it can throw the readers off. When writing a story, it is always important to maintain consistency, especially when it comes to plot or which tense you use. For example, for most of the third paragraph you use past tense, but then for two sentences, you switch to present, and then switch back to past.
"I scramble around the mushy armrests and continue around the room. I repeat this pattern, hitting bookcases, chairs and stacks of books through my way around."
These were the sentences where you switched tenses. This is an easy fix, though. Just change "scramble" to "scrambled" and "repeat" to "repeated" and you should be good to go for this paragraph. Look for any other inconsistencies in the story and fix those as well. I spotted a few more but I don't need to point them all out.
That is all I have for you. Overall, this was a very intriguing piece and I do hope that you'll continue it, because I want to know more! Keep writing and have a wonderful Review Day! ^-^
Thanks for the comments on the tenses!