z

Young Writers Society



Dreams

by Aley


What I'm looking for: Trends in my typical sentence structure, where does it read well, where does it read poorly?

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The dog lay dead at the side of the road. The helpless white coat hid beneath/me  a layer of snow which lay across the land in all its horror. Snow covered everything in its thick blanket of death and mayhem, nature's one thing which tries to stop the human population form completely taking over. Darwin would be proud of it I'm sure although Darwin was more about things that chose people for their own specific reasons in order to produce the best offspring. This dog wasn't one of them. Instead this puppy lay sideways on the side of the road limp and dead like a pathetic leaf caught in the wind on the stormy sea.

We go towards the sea with a mystical rhyme carrying us on the wind and carefully land gracefully within a clasping wave which falls over us. It drowns our breath out and we wonder if we will die from the breathless land. A hand caught ours as we were devouwered by the wave and pulled us out onto an island. Tropical sunny days grace our mind as we think about the last time the sun was with us instead of this icy snow. The sun beats down with warm relaxing rays instead of the threat of ice and we begin to relax. Hopefully we're not driving back in our own land. Hopefully we're not dragged away.

The falling happens too fast for us to realize we were doing it. We sit bolt upright in the chair and stare out at the sky as if it was some mythical beast, held up like a plate above a waiter's head. The plate balances with dishes of soup, scalding and hot, steam away the winter's grasp on us. Slowly we drift back to sleep, again it overwhelms us and babies us like a mother cat refusing the mouse's child death. It lets us slowly sink into our slumber.

The Tower of Pisa stands before us and we climb towards it, climbing forever towards the top of our own pyramids. Our neighbors are just as tired as we are, but we don't see their pain for our own suffering is much too extreme. We focus on the top of our tower, not realizing that a monster lays in weight on the other side. We pause for just a moment to catch our breath, and the rock tumbles us back down the hill again. Such a long way to climb back up again, but we must reach the end in order to move past this tower and onto the next. Perhaps we'll have a friend on the next one. A hand pushes us towards the top, a never ending grasp for perfection, for balance that will only last a millisecond like the storm which never came to the desert. Like the wind which never kissed the sails. We cannot sit still on this tower as we wish in awe of others who have made it, to make it as well, not seeing them as they vanish on the other side, dead to the world of ours as we seek their company again, dead still to the world beyond perhaps, but we couldn't know for we are not on the other side yet.

Hopefully we'll make it, time pressing closer to our grips and we wish that we could stop it like a fire out of control raging across a country eating homes and people's memories. Eating all that would not be tangible without the fire to create it's sanity in this crazy world. We see that normality is just our imagination playing tricks of memory games and organizing things which don't belong together. There has to be something else. There has to be.

We turn the card and look for something new, something on the other side of this pyramid. There's so much sky above us that we cannot reach for it. We cannot get passed this barrier of the ground, of gravity which holds us to our lives and never lets us go. We have; instead, to work with what we have and build our pyramids as tall as we can go. Nothing but to build is going to help.

Waking slowly, we don't remember our dreams; we don't see that our thoughts have told us of the futility of our alarm clocks, and driving through this storm. We idly pull on our clothes, not thinking, not living, we're still back in the desert lands climbing up the Tower of Pisa and wondering why we even started this quest. We'll get there eventually, but not from climbing, not from standing still, or even searching. We'll arrive suddenly when we don't know where we're going or why we're moving there. So suddenly the others will have thought we were walking up our pyramid.


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Mon Jan 28, 2013 2:03 am
Panda11 wrote a review...



it vare drmatik. the "caught in the wind on the stormy sea." prt was a little confusing...i think that it wood have been beadier if you had don som thin a long the lins of "caught in the winds of a storm" or sum thing like that.

thank you...P~~




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Sun Jan 27, 2013 3:55 pm
Hannah wrote a review...



Dream sequences are very hard. In prose, unlike in real life, it almost always needs to have some way for a reader to interpret it on their own, and if not right away, later in the prose. The problem with writing a prose piece completely in a dream state is that it would have to carry itself with a plot or some kind of string; otherwise, it leaves the reader as quickly as a confusing dream over night will. We hardly remember them anyway.

So here's what I remember of your poem from one read: many people scaling a pyramid. I remember a white dog in the beginning. That's all. I don't remember any emotions. Well, I mean, I just read it, so I remember being hit over the head over and over again with this struggle on the pyramid, but not actually believing in the struggle because I felt none of it. The best line, I think, was the simplest

Our neighbors are just as tired as we are


Just simple and strong. That along with your opening line, which was non-assuming, straightforward. Those gave me images. The rest is too languorous. It slithers around me, but slips off just as easily.

Also, I can't really give good feedback on your sentence structure, because there's a lot of spelling that's off, which makes me feel uncomfortable about the whole piece in general. Why would I comment on sentences you haven't worked the way you want? I mean, you probably see this as a very raw piece with the opportunity to work out rough sentences in a different way than you usually would, but there are so many ways to edit them down that I don't want to even start.

I'll just say that I think the clearer sentences are stronger. The winding sentences lose your audience VERY quickly, and especially in such a nebulous subject, they don't serve any good purpose.

I'd be interested in seeing this edited thoroughly once. Then I can see where it came from and the ways you made edits and comment on it after that.

Otherwise, PM me with questions / comments, as always. Keep playing!




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Sun Jan 27, 2013 2:13 pm
blakey789 wrote a review...



The starting was strong, no doubt about it but it lingers on its way as the line goes on.
The dreamlike states might sound interesting but hard to write it as much engaging as to capture the reader's attention from the first line to end.
Your writing give a feel of poetry too which is nice but you need to remember that a reader won't be impressed until its really seems to snatch their attention and leaves them wanting more.
You draw your readers in and let them out nicely.
The line :-
"We turn the card and look for something new, something on the other side of this pyramid"
It would've been better if the line would've been compact and short, carrying the same meaning in less lengthy way.
It is good the way you described about dreams, our minds, how we don't remember it.
Hope my reivew helped!
:)
regards,
blakey789




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Sun Jan 27, 2013 6:17 am
Trident wrote a review...



Hello, I'll just give you a few of my thoughts here:

-Dreamlike states are always interesting, but in writing you have to really ratchet up the prose to hold the reader. I think you succeeded to some extent, but there were parts that were troublesome.

-You start strong, but it kind of lingers on the awkward snow idea, and I would just completely drop the Darwin reference. It's just uncomfortable and seemingly out of place and doesn't totally equate.

-The second paragraph doesn't offer much, and only seems to be a transition to more of the good stuff; the imagery. In dreamy prose, imagery is so important, and we want to stay away from the metaphysical and cerebral. This kind of prose does well when it follows the basic tenets of poetry. Your writing is poetic, so that is good.

-Tower of Pisa is odd, but it works because it grounds us in the story and gives us absurdist images. I feel like after the tower is mentioned you go into this angsty metaphysical stuff that can be trimmed down. Save only the stuff that you really think is important.

-The last paragraph is just kind of a muddled message without conclusion. I will say that that is NOT necessarily a bad thing. This kind of writing doesn't need an end that gives us some grand revelation, but maybe just offers us a thought or perspective. It's kind of an appropriate ending for the dream state. This is all kind of stream of consciousness, so it works in that sense. I would just try to maybe focus more on what you want the reader to take away from the piece. It's a bit muddled.




Aley says...


I'm glad you did this, it will be useful to keep these in mind when I go into writing other dream-like sequences and reworking this one.



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Sun Jan 27, 2013 12:59 am
veeren wrote a review...



I'm sure you meant to write 'Trends' and 'Read' in your A/N, no? :p

I know you didn't ask for grammar and spelling, but here:

Spoiler! :
... beneath/me a layer of...


Is that slash supposed to be there, because it's really confuse. Actually, even without the slash it's confusing.

Spoiler! :
... human population form completely taking...


That's supposed to be from, not form.

Spoiler! :
Darwin would be proud of it ,I'm sure. Although Darwin was more about things that chose people for their own specific reasons in order to produce the best offspring.


Yeah, this is a bit long so i fixed the first part for you. I didn't really understand the second part. Maybe it's because I know little about Darwin, but I'm sure it's written pretty awkwardly.

Also, the last sentence of the first paragraph didn't really make sense. I get that you're trying to make an analogy there, but what you were comparing just didn't go together. A dead dog on the sidewalk would be an non-moving object on another non-moving object. A leaf in a stormy sea would in fact be moving, as well as the sea itself, and pretty violently at that.

Now I won't do anymore nitpicks, for your sake, but hopefully you can pull other problems out from what I showed you here. Now I'll get on to what you asked for.

Trends in your typical sentence structure.

You seems to like compound sentences a lot, settling on more than one idea at a time. Like here;

Spoiler! :
We turn the card and look for something new, something on the other side of this pyramid.


What you could've done instead was write: We turn the card and look for something new on the other side of this pyramid. This way, it's a regular old simple sentence, and doesn't sound repetitive.

You could spot yourself doing this throughout, pretty much more than every other sentence, so I'd work on that.

Where does it read well.

Well you seem to start and end your paragraphs fairly well. You draw your readers in and let them out nicely. Now the paragraphs being on completely different subjects is a different story, so I won't get into that. Other than that, there's nothing more to say.

Where does it reads poorly?

Like I said, check your compound sentences.
Also, you seems to try and mix many ideas into one paragraph, like you did with the first. Like here in the last paragraph;

Spoiler! :
We idly pull on our clothes, not thinking, not living, we're still back in the desert lands climbing up the Tower of Pisa and wondering why we even started this quest.


This being one sentence, as you wrote it, shows to conflicting ideas. You write that you not thinking at first, and end by saying you're wondering why you started this quest. Wondering requires thinking, last I checked.

And that's pretty much it.
Though I might sound harsh with my reviews, this is by no means a bad piece. You're a wonderful writer with a few problem that can easily be fixed. Once you do, I'm sure you'll have much better works to share.
Until then, keep on writing. :D




Aley says...


Thank you for answering all of my questions. I will work on making simple sentences naturally instead of my long compounds.
One idea-one sentence. One overall theme/image-one paragraph. Something like that right?

Thank you also for taking the time to point out specifics. It was very helpful.




GET YER EYES AWAY FROM MY EYE SOCKETS >.>
— herbalhour