Published March 15, 2007
War Child
1
The was a soft, buzzing noise ahead, slowly getting louder and louder. Then, a shrieking siren wailed, piercing the peace of the nightime. Then there was a huge crash, and another one as bombs rained down on the River Mersey. Even the screams of horror coming from the Anderson shelters throughout Liverpool could not be heard over the explosions.
Above a fleet of planes, glided over the jet black city, recklessly releasing a bomb of destruction.
The soft buzzing noise that grew louder and louder now crescendoed to almost silence as the nightly raid was over.
* * *
A young, skinny boy was running towards the local butchers, as fast as his spindly legs would carry him. The young boy opened the door and walked in. “ Alright Charlie” boomed the butcher, Mr Pippin. “ G’ mornin’ Mr Pippin” replied Charlie. “ Erm, can i have six pork sausages and erm, make it quick. Mam will kill me if im late for tea.” Charlie requested.
Mr Pippin chuckled and whipped out
1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 5 ... 6 pork sausages from under the counter, wrapped them in celaphane and slid them into a plastic bag. “ That’ll be sixpence please” requested Mr Pippin. Charlie fumbled about in his pocket, pulled out a small, shiney coin, placed it on the counter and ran out the shop without saying goodbye. He sprinted down the street and up into his driveway. Charlie hammered on the door. A small, plump woman answered. It was mam. “ Am I late mam? Charlie panted. “ Nearley!” replied his mother, “ C’mon, get in ya scally” said his mother, ushering Charlie into the house. Charlie quickly handed his mum the sausages and ran into the dining room. At the other end of the dinner table, his dad sat reading the Evening news as he always did. Charlie sat at the opposite end. Then, his mother came striding in with two plates of Toad in the Hole. Charlie’s favourite. “Oooo thanks mam” Charlie grinned. As soon as the grub hit the table, Charlie tucked into his evening meal. At the same time, a fleet of German planes were preparing for the second night of the Blitz. Not one soul in Charlie’s house, or in Liverpool knew of what they was going to hit them that fateful night.
* * *
Charlie lay in his bed, staring up at the ceiling. Before the war started, Charlie used to look outside his bedroom window, watching the sun dip back behind the horizon. This was soon replaced thick black curtains. Charlie wasn’t tired and because it was really hot, rather agitated. He tried getting comfortable but he just couldn’t sleep. After a while he became drowsy and his eyelids closed other. Simultaneously, an ear-piercing siren screeched throughout Liverpool. Charlie sat bolt upright. It felt as if a thousand, icy cold daggers had stabbed him in the heart. Cold sweat streamed down his forehead. He jumped out of bed, pulled on his slippers and dressing gown and ran out the bedroom. There on the landing was his mam and dad. “ COME ON!” Mam yelled, “TO THE ANDERSON SHELTER!!!!!” The trio ran down stairs, through the kitchen and out the backdoor. The bombs had already began to come pouring down. They rushed into the rather cramped shelter and slammed the door. They panted in silence as the the planes above destroyed their city. A small wave of relief swept over all three of them but they still weren’t safe.....yet! They would have to live the raid for most of the night.
That was the second night of the Blitz.
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.
141,254 Literary Works • 674,330 Reviews
I like your title! Please double space your dialogue and paragraphs.
Luke's right, you do say 'then' a lot. That can be easily fixed, though.
Saying 'now' is a tense change. It should be 'then'.
Skinny and spindly legs both imply the same thing. I'd take out skinny, and just leave spindly legs. That's cooler.
You just said 'a young (skinny) boy'. Maybe you could just say 'he'? Then, about the double spacing dialogue thing.
This should be something like this:
“Alright Charlie,” boomed the butcher, Mr Pippin.
“ G’ mornin’, Mr Pippin,” replied Charlie. “Erm, canI have six pork sausages and ,erm, make it quick. Mam will kill me if I'm late for tea.”
I double spaced your dialogue, and took out the space in front of the words, after the quotation mark. I added a comma after 'Charlie', 'mornin'', and 'and'. I capitalized both I's, and added an apostrophe in I'm. Since Mr. is an abbreviation for mister, I added a period in that too.
In fiction, try to spell out numbers twenty and under, as well as thirty, forty, fifty, etc.
You've got a bunch of little punctuation mistakes that need fixing. I'm not going to point all of them out.
About dialogue punctuation:
"Yes," he said.
Never a period if you're going to add a tag.
"Yes!" he said.
"Yes?" he said.
Those are both correct.
"Ooh," and "Oh," are both correct, I think. I'm not even sure about the first one. "Oooo" isn't.
[quote]“ COME ON!” Mam yelled, “TO THE ANDERSON SHELTER!!!!!”
Italics are much less distracting than capitals, and they emphasize it the same. Also, never use more than one exclamation point.
I like how this isn't clouded with unnecessary scenes. Everything is to-the-point, and adds to your plot. Also, I can see you've done some research. Nice job! Historical fiction can be really tricky.
It would be cool to know a little more about your character. I'm not getting a lot of personality just yet. A flashback might help with that.
Thanks a lot for posting this, I hope you continue! Be sure to read through your post a few times and take out the punctuation errors, though. If you've got any questions about my critique or if you need help with anything, just send me a PM!
-Jenna
I really enjoyed reading this; the overall story was fun to read. Although the plot was interesting, it's grammatical errors make it slighty less pleasing. I found myself reading parts several times because I was so distracted.
The thing is that you need commas when you have compound sentences, lists, and long descriptions. You seemed to put them in the middle of sentences where they weren't need and omitted them when they were needed. For example....
You don't need the first comma. There are couple places like this.
.
There needs to be a comma after kitchen because you are listing a series of things.
The was a soft, buzzing noise ahead, slowly getting louder and louder. Then, a shrieking siren wailed, piercing the peace of the nightime. Then there was a huge crash, and another one as bombs rained down on the River Mersey. Even the screams of horror coming from the Anderson shelters throughout Liverpool could not be heard over the explosions.
You've used the word 'Then' in two sentences in a row. It doesn't sound right I think you could improve that bit.
But that was well done! I enjoyed it!
[ Moved to Fiction ]
Hullo Alginon. ^_^
You start on an involving note - it caught my attention in the first few sentences. But the lack of paragraph structure and lack of punctuation will make it seem tossed-off.
Double space between paragraphs and separate your dialogue; and slow down. It is good to begin with a bang, so to speak, but you don't want to rush through everything like a freight train - you'll leave your reader and characters behind.
IMP