Yellow walls:
She never liked the colour yellow. In fact, she hated it. It was so obnoxious, like it screamed to be heard, to be seen, to be noticed. Not only seen, but to be seen as happy and content. Rodgers' ex-wife, Marry, loved the colour. She had plastered it all over the walls and made sure it complemented every striped curtain in the dining room. So every time Lisa went to make her morning coffee, she had to be reminded of what she had done, what she had ruined. It made the silent room eerie with nothing but guilt and the clinking of the coffee cup.
“You know, Rodger, green is quite in style right now. I think it would look great in our dining room,” Lisa suggested while setting down the pot roast the smell filling the room with the once warm feeling the house emulated.
“Now why would we spend money to paint over a perfectly fine colour?” he muttered back, almost snorted.
Rodger hated change. He wore the same clothes Marry picked out for him four years ago when he took his manager job and had the same hairstyle he wore in high school. Lisa felt like she never really moved in. Everything around her was another push out the door. Sometimes she vented to her friend. She didn’t like to admit it, but she did. How trapped she felt, not in her own world but in the world built brick after brick by Marry. Oh, that beautiful smug Marry. How Rodger never truly moved on. How she never truly moved on either. But when her friend Ann wasn't there to vent to, all she could do was hold it all inside. Those damn yellow walls.
Lucid dreams:
The boy couldn’t help but toss and turn in his bed. Tomorrow would be long, but tonight felt even longer. As time went on, his mind began to wander, and his imagination began to dance across the walls, great big elephants and small elegant elves. What was once a laundry bin magically transformed into a pot of gold. He felt truly euphoric, his mind floating up into space while his body fell a million miles down on his still mattress.
Suddenly, a loud thud against his window tore him from his world of wonders. His head cocked back only to see something that couldn't be described in words.
The warm gold tinted light kissed his shivering skin. “Hello, my son,” the embodiment of light echoed, as a million voices spoke in unison. The boy froze.
“I am here to give you the one thing no human has been able to grasp,” it continued. “I am here to give you the meaning of life.”
Outer Parks:
He hated staying in one place. No matter where he went, he was always the weird one in the room, the one who poisoned the atmosphere with awkwardness and unknowing. He wasn’t beautiful enough to get away with being clueless; people didn’t find his silence charming, just strange.
So, like a lone pea, he stayed on the roads, trailing behind all the other cars. Being on the road made him equal to everyone else, equally vulnerable, equally unknown. At any minute, he could die, but everyone stayed close, as if sticking together might keep something from going wrong.
The only difference was that they all had places to be. He had nowhere.
Sometimes he’d look up at the moon and pray. He didn’t know who he was praying to, God, the crickets, maybe something he couldn’t comprehend. He just prayed. He prayed for belonging, for a home, for a companion. He didn’t want the moon to be the only one who followed him wherever he went.
And for the next few years, as he aged, the moon seemed to age with him.
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137,435 Literary Works • 672,020 Reviews
Hello, and a late welcome to YWS!
Honestly, pixels has given excellent feedback already, so I'm not too sure how to contribute xD But I'll do my best, perhaps focusing on some smaller details!
Hm... I feel like "silent room" contradicts the "clinking of the coffee cup". Perhaps "quiet" would work better, since I feel like "silent" means that there is no sound at all? This sentence has great vibes, though; it conveys the awkwardness Lisa must feel.
This part of the sentence feels like it's trying to do too much at once, and I'm not sure if "emulated" is the right word or in the right place. Perhaps you could split it into two sentences, like this: "...Lisa suggested while setting down the pot roast. The smell filled the room with an emulation of the warm feeling the house had once had."
This is an excellent detail to show his aversion to change =P
This could be an interesting start to a story. How would she try to break free? Would she try to change Rodger or the house, or just leave?
This captures the floating quality of dreams wonderfully :]
Gahhh I admit this cliffhanger worked very well on me XD So curious to see what happens next!
Hm... the simile didn't quite work for me here, since to me it felt like the "stayed on the roads" was supposed to connect to the "like a lone pea," yet I haven't heard of any lone peas on the roads, lol. Perhaps "like a lone tumbleweed" would work better? Or you could reword it to something like, "So, this lone pea of a man stayed on the roads" to make it clear that the lone pea just connects to the man and nothing else? If that makes sense. This could also just be me, haha ^^'
I get that :') It's more comfortable to be alone when everyone else is.
This is a fascinating twist like ahhh why and how is this happening?? Do other people see the moon aging too? What does this mean for Earth, and for the man? :0
Overall, I enjoyed these snippets, and the cliffhangers got me every time! I'd love to read the stories if you expand these ^^ Have a great day/night! =D
Three-in-one?! Consider me intrigued! :0
For Yellow Walls, I think you're biting off of a very common trope. It's reminiscent of how a small detail, like wallpaper in The Yellow Wallpaper, can become an antagonist, but that idea has been repeated throughout literature. It isn't immediately cliche to take inspiration from previous literature -- that is what it is for! -- but you should be contributing something new to the genre.
Some transitions feel abrupt, as well. For example, I don't think that jumping from Lisa’s internal thoughts to her speaking about painting the walls feels natural. There should be physical cues to show how your characters feel! People don't express themselves solely through words!
That continues in Lucid Dreams. For instance:
This is very human to not have words for something, but the point of writing is that you find the words for having no words!
I love the idea behind the transformation of the room into this whimsical dreamscape though! It is vibrant and reasonably well-paced for a short excerpt. I would love to see the elephants and elves expanded on, though, since that must be where the title comes from. Lucid dreams are meant to be lucid, so it would be nice to have an idea of how that comes into the narrative.
You follow the same traditional narrative for every story, though. It goes discomfort -> internal conflict -> barely noticeable turning point -> ending on an image. I like that! However, I feel that it gets harder to differentiate the stories because they follow the same progression. Personally, I enjoy a cliffhanger from time to time, but I don't want to read a cliffhanger every story!
I do enjoy the last story's ending though. Like:
The symbolism of the moon is one of your strongest images throughout. The moon is written as a passive, constant companion. That is great! The narrator feels intimate because of how the moon is perceived, and I liked how that created a relationship between the two.
I almost mentioned the road metaphor being strong, as well, but I think you overexplain it a bit. For instance:
These are the ideas that should be kept out of the text! They work as subtext, but to use subtext correctly, I think you should keep them vague on purpose. Show, don't tell!
Great ideas though!
Thank you for the criticism, I'm just starting to venture out into writing and even reading sense I've only recently got to properly learn it. eventually I will be posting my first full short story