Published July 1, 2013
I stepped out into the white wasteland, my breath hung in the frigid air. The wind sliced through my skin, but i could not feel it. The air may have been cold but my heart was warm. I could see her apparition dancing in the snow, the sunlight reflecting off of the snow creating a soft angelic glow. A tear rolled down my cheek as I thought of her, her memory fresh in my mind. I could just hear her sweet laughter, she twirled through the snow. She brought life to the endless lifeless white. Now all of it was dead. I dropped to my knees and sobbed, my hot tears melting the snow. I peered up and I could see her body, blood flowing through the snow, her chest torn open. I screamed in agony, the pain seemed so real, it seemed like it was happening again. I could not handle it, I slowly climbed back to my feet my knees weak beneath my body. I stumbled towards the dark building but I collapsed into the snow again, sobbing uncontrollably, in agony hoping, wishing, praying for the cold to take me, take me to her.
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140,223 Literary Works • 673,046 Reviews
Hi! I really loved this story...or perhaps this is a vignette.
Anyway, I loved the vivid descriptions and imagery. Also, the ending line is so expressive. I love endings like these.
I also liked how you didn't describe the girl's beauty or anything obvious like that. It was subtle, and thus more powerful (at least for me).
I wonder if the girl really died, or if its just a metaphorical vision of the main character.
Keep up the great work! Good luck!
Hi there. Rebel here.
I enjoyed your short story. I could appreciate the descriptions that you wrote, and a picture was painted in my mind. Kudos to you on that.
There are a few things I would change. In the first sentence, I'd either change hung to hanging, or put a period where the comma is. In the next sentence, there's just an 'i' that was not capitalized, so be sure to fix that. In the next sentence, I'd put a comma between snow and creating. In the sentence that begins with 'I could hear her sweet laughter...', instead of putting a comma between laughter and she, I'd put the word 'as'. I think you could make 'I screamed in agony' a sentence and then continue it.
Aside from that, nice job.
I really loved how you were so descriptive! I could easily imagine the characters' surroundings. There were some grammar mistakes such as the capitalization mistake in sentence two involving "I". Also, maybe your sentences can vary a bit more instead of always beginning with "I". Nonetheless, your short story was really good!
Hey everyone thank you so much for the critiques, and I do seem to use the word snow a bit too much but they're are not not many synonyms that come to mind when I'm in the moment of writing.
This piece has a lot of emotion in it. You left me wanting more. I feel like you repeated to word "snow" too many times though. But I do wonder what happened to that girl and who she was to the narrator.
I really liked this story--I'd only check out how many times you said "snow"
~vivien
Hey there, Copp, and welcome to YWS
I've dropped by to review this for you, and I'm going to give you my overall opinion on your story by including the good, the bad, and the ugly of your piece! Though I'm sure there won't be too much of the ugly 
Right then so you have a pretty fascinating concept here, and I'm dying to know more. I love the idea of the contrast of the red blood and white snow, and I think you portray that contrast well to create some good impact. You also have some beautiful moments of imagery here, and I must say that I'm generally very impressed with it. I'm a little jealous if anything because I am absolutely dreadful with creating effective imagery, so you've certainly done a far better job that I could ever do!
With regards to critiques, I want to begin with more of a nit-picky sort of thing, and that is the fact that you have a tendency to repeat a lot of words within your piece. You don't always repeat the exact same word, but you'll use a lot of similar words. The problem with repetition is that it can become distracting for the reader, and as a result, their attention may be drawn from what's going on in the story slightly because their attention has been taken by the repetition. You especially repeat the word, snow.
That's a lot of snow, right? With regards to this kind of repetition being distracting, if you read your piece aloud you may notice it more. There are a few things you can do to fix this small issue, and the easiest one is to simply replace the words you repeat a lot with synonyms. Come up with lots of alternatives to the same word, basically. Something else you can do is actually elongate the piece and while you're doing that, be careful not to fall into your habit of repeating words. By elongating it you may not actually have to remove any of the words you've repeated, and instead just space all these words out some more so the repetition isn't as noticeable.
The other thing I want to mention are details... Details, details, details! Now I will hold back with this critique because I have a feeling this is meant to be a flash fiction piece, right? If it isn't a flash fiction piece though, I think you really need to give us readers some background information on the whole thing. Who is this girl? Who is the narrator exactly? How did this woman die? Did your narrator kill her? If not, how did he come across her body? If It is a flash fiction piece though, then I do understand why some of those questions may go unanswered because it's meant to be short, and so details aren't as easy to fit in.
Even if this is flash fiction though, you still need a plot, and right now, there isn't really one. It's just a guy (I assume he's male anyways) thinking about a dead girl, and being pretty depressed about it. You need some kind of pattern, you need a conflict. Right now I don't think there's any conflict really. I mean, maybe the guy's feeling guilty? Could that be inner conflict? I don't know... It's just kind of hard to be able to grasp onto what's really going on in this at the moment because it feels pretty empty of detail. I'd suggest either elongating this and adding in more detail, or if you want it to be a flash fiction piece then just be sure to create a substantial plot.
And I'm done! Negatives aside, I really do think this is a wonderfully written piece, and your imagery is something I am definitely in awe of. With a bit of tweaking and editing, I think this could turn into something pretty amazing. But anyways, if you have any questions or comments regarding this review, then please don't hesitate to let me know.
Keep writing,
xoxo Skins
I love this. The emotions seem so real that I was lost in that one paragraph for the entire time I was reading it. Very realistic, intense, creative, also dramatic. Keep it up! =)
Welcome to YWS!! I will reviewing your work today. great work i must say!! i Absolutely loved your style of writing. It was simple, realistic and very believable!! If this is the first work that you have posted, then hats off to you!! You have the potential to become a great writer and i am looking forward to your work.
Keep writing,
Cheers,
Shiksha!
I normally post all my writing on tumblr if you want to check out more of my stuff before i post it here go to http://god-of-infernos.tumblr.com/