To please Sylar, who dared me to post something this week.
This was given to me as a prompt. A website called www.underwaternewyork.com includes a list of objects that were found in rivers or washed up on beaches near New York. I was handed a piece of paper that said, "bird cage" and was told to write a story about it.
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I am undeniably pretty. Though it's vain, it's true. My wings are covered in vibrant feathers that draw the eyes of all who see me. Well, all except my owner. I'm not beautiful, I'm an annoyance. Singing in the early hours of the morning to wake him up. Making loud noises when he doesn't feed me. But really, he is the evil one in this situation.
He managed to capture me in the wild. One minute, I was flying free in the air, the next, in a birdcage. I have yet to leave the cage, even to stretch my wings for a moment. All he cares about it his money. I am worth $100. That's all. My life, my existence, boils down to just $100. A simple ad on Craigslist is all it took, and now I'm being flown overseas to New York City. I've heard about that place. All the people, the tall structures, the moving metallic boxes. Not at all where a bird like me belongs.
The plane lands. A plane may be designed like a bird, but it certainly is not one. I am alive and breathing, and this metal crate has no breath, only a whirring engine. The airport is a blur and so is the taxi ride. All I can remember is that the man driving was not pleased to have an animal in his taxi. He seems to forget that humans are animals as well.
We stand at the river, my owner on the pavement, I on the cold, slightly rusted floor of the cage I regret to call home. He slowly opens the door. My instinct is that he is setting me free, since that is what is right, but better thinking tells me this is not true, I am let out of the cage, but only into the hands of my owner. He tosses the cage into the river.
It's strange how quickly you can miss something you hate so much.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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Original Text:
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125,008 Literary Works • 672,827 Reviews
This really pulls at you, good job. I haven't read much of your work yet so I'm not going to speak on the voice, but in general the only thing that really stood out to me in any negative way was that almost all of the sentences started with a pronoun. This is not necessarily a bad thing, again it could be mostly your style. The ending sentence was lovely and really hits you hard, very nice.
First of all your story was really good. Second of all you should keep writing stories. There are a couple of grammar issues, but it still is really good. I really like the way you started it out by saying "I am undeniably pretty. Though it's vain, it's true. My wings are covered in vibrant feathers that draw the eyes of all who see me. Well, all except my owner. I'm not beautiful, I'm an annoyance. Singing in the early hours of the morning to wake him up. Making loud noises when he doesn't feed me. But really, he is the evil one in this situation." because to me it is talking about a really pretty bird who does everything right, but yet the bird is still treated badly. To me the story is about a bird owner who treats the birds badly and he is also a bird smuggler. The story was really good.
Keep On Writing!!!
~Rose
Thank you
Hello! Flash here for a review.
Alright, let's see what we've got here. Animal smuggling, fun!!
I honestly didn't see any grammar mistakes. Good job on that! I noticed you wrote this in present tense, which isn't commonly used. It seems as though you executed it well, and the only time you changed tense was when she was telling about the past. Well done.
The story itself is a bit too straightforward. We've got a bird (a macaw, perhaps?) who is telling about how she went from being wild to being a domestic pet. That's pretty much it. It would be nice to see more details such as: how was she captured? Did she fight to be freed? Was she scared about any of this? Etcetera. We need more details to "get to know" this character. You did a lot of telling and not enough showing.
Oh, and I really like the last line. It speaks for all of us, not just for the character.
Keep writing!
-Flash
Thank you! I honestly don't know what the bird is, I wanted to keep it vague because I doubt a bird would know what humans call it.
This is so great. You are Really good alt writing and I think that you should keep working on this. It really caught my eye, making me want to read this, which is a good thing. I think that you should write a book about this.
Thank you! I'm not sure how I could extend it into a book, do you have any ideas?
Maybe you could start it with explaining how the bird got captured and then later you could explain the trip to New York. Then you could create an adventure that the bird goes through and how he escapes. Does that sound like a good idea????
Yeah! I'll think about doing that, thanks!