Avery Trent sat in his kitchen one gloomy, rainy morning. His hands were wrapped around a mug of lovely hot tea; the kind that makes gloomy, rainy mornings a little brighter. He sniffed as he took a sip. He’d been planning to take a stroll through the park this morning, but the weather had planned differently and now he was trapped inside, sick and cold.
Setting down the mug, Avery picked up the dripping newspaper beside it. He unfolded it carefully, hoping not to tear it, but that didn’t matter as the paper was too soaked, the ink too ruined, to read. With a sigh he tossed it down on the table and looked out the window. A neighbor’s dog was running around in the rain, barking at doors as it searched for shelter from the elements.
Avery didn’t much like dogs as they were, let alone when they were wet, so he was glad when the dog ignored his door and ran on down the street.
Leaning back in his seat, he took a deep breath through his stuffy nose. Suddenly, a familiar tingling feeling started up in the tunnels of his nose.
A godsend to his clogged nose.
A sneeze.
Snatching up a pair of tissues in anticipation of the attack, Avery couldn’t help but feel excited. He hadn’t sneezed in weeks and, even though he’d been sick all day, this was the first time a sneeze had revealed itself.
The sneeze tickled his nose as it drew closer to freedom. His head slowly reared back, as one’s head does when they sneeze, and his eyes began to close.
Come on, already, he thought rather impatiently.
Then, just as suddenly as it had arrived, the tingling sensation vanished. Avery opened his eyes which proceeded to dart around as if they might spot the sneeze escaping through the front door. It was gone.
With a sigh, Avery leaned back again, allowing the tissues to fall from his grip.
As he sat there, staring into the depths of his tea, a thought sprouted in Avery’s mind. What if his sneeze had escaped?
What if it was on the run?
What if it was in space?
With such ideas swirling through his grey matter, Avery hurried outside, not caring that he was still in a robe and slippers. Not caring that he hadn’t gotten to read the newspaper. (Though he slightly cared that he hadn’t finished his tea, but that could wait.)
The rain had weakened since the early morning, but it still looked as if the clouds were crying because of the sun burning their backs. Avery stared up through the rain and into a hole in the clouds. He had no idea what he was doing or how he would track down his sneeze, if it really was in space. All he knew was that something was falling towards him. Something that resembled a giant, silver soda can.
The giant soda can crashed into the street where Avery had been standing just seconds earlier. It broke through the asphalt and sunk several feet into the ground, leaving a stunned Avery staring at it, shocked that it had sustained no apparent damage. Not even a scratch or smudge mark defaced its shiny, reflective silver surface. Avery approached the giant can cautiously. He reached out his left hand (because he didn’t use it for such things as writing and taking phone calls, so if something happened to it he could still do those things) and pressed it to the giant can's side.
As his hand made contact with the can’s surface the top of the can slid open and a bright green light shone out, flying through the hole in the clouds and illuminating through the raindrops, sending the street into a disco party display of green lights.
Avery stumbled backward and watched wide-eyed as a strange pink creature popped out of the top of the can. It loomed over Avery, staring down at him with piercing red eyes. From within the black cloak that wrapped around its body, the creature revealed a jar.
“I believe this is yours?” the creature spoke in a grating voice and tossed the jar down to Avery who, although struggling to catch it, managed to save it from shattering on the ground.
“W-what is it?” Avery asked as he watched a strange green mist zip around inside.
“On my home planet we call them ear demons,” the creature from the can explained. “I believe that you people call them ‘sneezes’.”
Avery stared at the mist in the jar in awe. A seemingly sentient sneeze! His seemingly sentient sneeze!
Then he remembered why he had run outside. His sneeze had gone to space! And been brought back by an alien...
“Wait… ‘ear demons’? You mean you sneeze out of your--” Avery asked, but looking up he found that the can was gone. The street seemed to have been magically repaired, not a crack in sight, and the only sign that the can and creature had been there was the jar in his hands.
With a shrug, Avery turned back to his house and went to drink his tea, before it got too cold.
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Canary word: Present
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125,030 Literary Works • 672,791 Reviews
Yo, Hatt! Storm here to review! These reviews will probably be relatively short, but I hope I touch on something helpful.
Gloomy and rainy are rather bland adjectives. Spice it up! Dismal, gray, something a little different.
This was a bit of a clunky sentence. Streamline it a little.
I'm personally not a fan of 'grey matter' being used her, but I think it's more of a matter of personal preference in this case.
Interesting description, but I feel like it could be carried out in a better way. I get it, but how does it look like the clouds' backs were burnt? Maybe just say that that was what the clouds were doing (a metaphor) rather than using a simile. (Gosh, Hatt. You had to make me look up the difference between a simile and a metaphor. Too much work, I tell ya)
As someone who is currently sneezing a lot, I have to appreciate this and your sneeze descriptions as they seem pretty accurate. Actually, I'm a fan of most of your descriptions. They're short and sweet, and the only issue I had with them was that they were sometimes clunky which seemed to be an issue with you perhaps trying out a different style? I don't really know, but there were a few times where it was longer than it needed to be, and that seemed to choke up the flow of this.
I'm simultaneously happy with how you've handled Avery so far, but also unhappy. I feel like we could have done with more of a description of him. I don't really know much about his age, ethnicity, or socioeconomic background at all. What is this neighborhood like? Is it the nice suburbs? The ghetto? (I know it's probably not the ghetto) A fancy gated community? How old is Avery? Is he 20, 30, 40? Is he in his teens, and still living with his parents? I feel like these questions should be at least somewhat answered (especially the age) in the first chapter. Unless there's a reason to hide this information from the audience, I think it should be introduced a little bit sooner.
Honestly, I'm very impressed because you called this old. I mean, it's obviously not perfect, but you've had around 3 years to improve, so I'm going to be expecting some pretty great stuff by the time I get to your more recent writing.
~Storm
oh no
hahah
Yeah I was trying to somewhat simulate (right word?) Douglas Adams' writing style when I started this (what with AT being largely inspired by HHGTTG), but my vocabulary wasn't the best and is still pretty abysmal, so that led to big ol' clunky descriptions that could be better-worded and all. I bet I'd have a better time with them now, so I'm not too worried about those when I go on to the second draft, but yee - no fun to read right now, lul
I was also trying to avoid describing my characters too much around this time because I'd read a bunch of stuff about character descriptions being annoying? or really hard to get right and I didn't wanna make my work any cringier than it need be just to say Avery had brown hair or whatnot.
I also didn't really have a clear image of him in my head, and still don't entirely, but I can try to clear up a bit ; you can probably tell he's British(? maybe? next chapter might make that clearer) (another uhhh side-effect of HHGTTG inspiration). He's around 24 years old? I keep adjusting it slightly but 24 is p solid at the moment. And yee, brown hair, light skin, either blue or green eyes? P typical fella.
Ignore this entire past paragraph, maybeYee
Thanks for the review! Hopefully it doesn't get too much worse as you go along. It's got its ups and downs in quality but I think as you get past chapter 8 (probably the lowest point; chapter 8 is entirely filler) and closer to the more recent chapters, it'll get better(???)
Yee
words are hard
*"my own version of Douglas Adams' writing style" is probably more accurate
Hey, I come here on the recommendation of Kaos and Lareine, who suggested this when I asked in chat for a whole chunk of novel I could read for review day.
As always, nit-picks first:
Pretty sure you should keep the "one" up throughout, and have it as "when one sneezes".
This is some really nice imagery, but it feels a bit out of place. I don't have a solution to that, but thought I should let you know.
Unsurprisingly for a work with 7 reviews, there wasn't much to nit-pick. Onwards...
Character: Avery is certainly an interesting character. It is very clear when it is his thoughts talking through the third person, so I'd say you've handled third person limited very well. There are lots of details that help me believe that he's a real, complex person too. Hopefully as the story goes on I will see more of his motivations and how he's come to be someone who'll take such strange things on face value.
Setting: There's lots of little details that add to Avery's character which is great. If you can figure out a way to make nit-pick 2 work I really think you should keep it in. The problem is that it comes out more like an identifier than an image. Like, you are identifying which rain it was, rather than describing the rain that was there. And identifiers aren't usually so poetic. I think it's just the sentence structure that needs to be shuffled around a little.
Plot: This very much reminds me of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and not in a I'm saying you've copied it way, just that it's that sort of genre. The plot so far has enough elements of mystery to keep me intrigued, and is comical enough that I know you're not trying to be too serious, which is always fun to read.
Flow: Spot on. Literally no more to say on that front.
Hope this helps,
Biscuits
Good morning, James! I'm about to set off to review all of this, so forgive me if this first comment/review is small, considering all the comments/reviews it already has! I haven't really read the other reviews/comments, so if I repeat something, I'm sorry! You're entitled to ignore it. XD
I'll try to make this short and not so nit-picky, but I don't know how helpful it'll be. It might even end up longer, so, uh. Sorry if that happens? I'll just jump straight into it, then, shall I?
I feel like this line is a bit long, and possibly two lines smushed into one? Maybe you could separate them a bit. For example, like so;
"His hands were wrapped around a mug of lovely hot tea. It was the kind [of tea] that makes gloomy, rainy mornings a little brighter."
This both adds to your word count and makes more sense. To me, at least. Of course, this is just a suggestion, so feel free to disregard it at your own expense or whatever. XD
I noticed that you started a lot of sentences one after the other with "he" or "his", or something similar in that first paragraph. It's just a little clunky for me. You can use the character's name, and I see you've worked to do this more in the rest of this chapter from the quick glance I gave it. So, if you want to, you can completely disregard this. Just keep it in mind for future projects, okay? Okay. Moving on...
Another long sentence, which you could break up. I feel like this could also be two separate sentences smushed together. Again, you could separate them. For example;
"With such ideas swirling through his grey matter, Avery hurried outside. He didn't care that he was still in a robe and slippers, or that he hadn’t gotten to read the newspaper."
Much better, right? And you could add something along the lines of "it was soggy anyway" in reference to the newspaper? This could add to the humour a little? I don't know. Anyways, again, you're free to ignore this. After all, it is just a suggestion!
This line amuses me, and I'm not sure why. Keep it. It's awesome and I love it. XD
I don't think you need the comma after "reflective". Someone correct me if I'm wrong!
He reached out and did what? Ignoring the stuff in the brackets for a second, but "He reached out his left hand" is a fragment. What'd he do with it? Did he reach out his left hand to touch it? You should probably add that, if that's the case.
You don't need that comma after "tea" and before "before". The sentences make perfect sense without it. ^^
Overall, I love your writing style, and how you handle Avery and his character/personality. It's really cool and nice, and kinda funny, too. Also, the entire concept of a renegade sneeze escaping into outer space, and then being brought back by an alien? Hilarious! Is it bad that I find that alien kinda interesting and creepy in a not-disturbing way? Like, why did he just show up like that? I know he's returning the "sneeze", but yeah. Weird. Also, "ear demons"? What even. And Avery's question about sneezing out of the ears? Totally a legitimate question. XD
So, I really enjoyed this, and I think I'm going to keep reviewing and/or comment on this series. Keep an eye out for that! I hope I helped somewhat. I don't normally review novel/chapters or short stories, so, uh....yeah. >.>
Remember; keep it up and never stop writing!
~ Scar.
I like his logic. *nods*
Haha, I forgot I wrote that. XP
Hahaah ahaha ha! Oh my gosh! This was fabulous! Absolutely fabulous! Okay, let me just compliment you for a little longer. I thought this was really funny! SEarching for a lost sneeze is totally random, but then Avery doesn't stop there, no, he's going to look for the sneeze IN SPACE! And when it turns out that the sneeze was ACTUALLY in SPACE he isn't that concerned at all! This is hilarious, I so far love the character. He seems like this ordinary guy with an overactive imagination that is suddenly delighted by the discovery by aliens. I also really like your writing style, how you describe things and what you compare things to. They really contribute to the tone of the story, which I absolutely loved. It was blatantly comical, which, you know, I'm not sure if you were going for but it was great! Thanks for the great story, I'm looking forward to the next one!
herby
Wow, this is so...surreal. Chasing after a sneeze? Running outside and seeing a thing like a soda can drop from the sky? And then...it's an alien bringing back his sneeze? And yet I was so intrigued. My eyes were practically stumbling over each other, trying to get to the next sentence and find out what was next.
Also, the description of Avery being about to sneeze and then not sneezing was so vivid, and it's something I'm sure everyone can relate to. I'm just...so intrigued. Your way of describing things and the details you include really make me want to read more.
Add "like this one" after rainy mornings.
He should sniff in warmth
but the weather had other plans
You should say he sniffled as he took a sip
hadn't sneezed
That is a hilarious line. Also, a lot of this story now is about a sneeze, its perfect.
Take out the first comma.
I would make that period a comma.
The rain should lessen
This line... are you trying to make a hitchhikers guide to the galaxy? The part with the whale? It's good.
Is it the color silver, or is it made of silver?
OK that's it. Really good story... a little too far fetched, but it's good enough. Great story though.
*have to rewrite my darn reply 'cause my internet sucks*
So many quotes. o.o
No, the can was not a reference to Hitchhiker's, but this whole story/novel thing is inspired by it.
The can itself is not made of silver, no idea what it's made of. It's just the color silver.
"The weather had other plans" is a bit cliche, don't you think?
Avery sniffed when he sipped his tea because he was trying to breathe. He wasn't smelling the tea.
Thanks for the review, though. If you do continue reading/reviewing this novel, please keep in mind that I'm experimenting with my writing style a bit in it.
Also, it's very random. Good luck with it.
-Jules
I'll probably continue later.
Hello! DarkWarrior here!
At first, I was not able to make sense of what was going on.
However, the end of the story seemed to clarify the whole thing.
The idea is sweet, humorous, and even though I'm more into horror, suspense and stuff like that, I actually enjoyed this one a lot.
The title of the chapter was a cute one, like a cat being named Sargent Fuzzy Boots (Yes, a Big Bang Theory reference)
Keep it up
Hi hi hi, fellow young novelist friend~~~ (sorry for my blatant abuse of tildes. It's just what I do~~~~~)
Just your friendly neighborhood Jen dropping in for a review.
First of all, I loved your story! It was short, simple, wildly imaginative, comical, entertaining, and ridiculously creative (mind sharing some of that with me? *o*). The character Avery himself adequately highlights the beauty of this chappie, sharing your imaginative thoughts and going along with the phenomenon of aliens. The concept of these aliens is interesting all on its own. It takes talent to turn paltry, everyday occurrences into the stuff of stories. But I guess that's what writers are for~~~ XD
Also, I absolutely adored this line:
"He hadn’t sneeze in weeks and, even though he’d been sick all day, this was the first time a sneeze had revealed itself."
This is oddly cute (don't question my sense of cuteness. You'll hurt yourself ^_^'). It's also an excellent personification of the sneeze, and is dripping with characteristic humor.
Though, there's something I caught in the second paragraph:
"the paper was too soaked, the ink ruined, to read."
At first this confused me, then I realized you probably wanted to say this:
"the paper was too soaked, the ink *too* ruined, to read."
Usually, that's how these types of sentence structures work. It also sounds smoother and more vividly characteristic, with that kind of repetition.
Another sentence that should be restructured is:
"The rain had weakened since the early morning but it still looked as if the clouds were crying because of the sun burning their backs."
Wow! It's quite a long sentence, ne? There are a lot of things in there that can be separated by punctuation. Like this:
"The rain had weakened since the early morning. However, it still looked as if the clouds were crying because of the sun burning their backs." Or even this is fine:
"The rain had weakened since the early morning, but it still looked as if the clouds were crying because of the sun burning their backs."
Try to tame overly long sentences with proper punctuation. And, try to work sentences with piles of dependent clauses into smaller, more amiable ones. If you were trying to go for a certain effect with overly long lines, still try to consider it from a reader's point of view. The audience may grow confused or bored if they're struggling to entertain tons of phrases at the same time. There are a few other lines like the one I just mentioned, but I trust you can weed those out yourself.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed pouring through your first chappie, and I'll be looking forward to more from this novel! (Please update soon!)
Happy writing~~~~~~~~~
Hey Jen!
Thanks for the review. I took your suggestions on fixing those sentences and edited the story to add those bits in (not much to add. I just fixed the sentences. No idea why I'm over-complicating it).
I'm glad you liked it and don't worry, chapter 2 is almost done.
All I have to do is close it off and then start reviewing to get enough points to post it (which, honestly, that'll take quite a while... >.> XD)
Might I say that your description here "dripping with characteristic humor" really fits the topic of a nose/sneeze? XDOnce again, thanks for the review!
-Jules
Hey Jen!
Thanks for the review. I took your suggestions on fixing those sentences and edited the story to add those bits in (not much to add. I just fixed the sentences. No idea why I'm over-complicating it).
I'm glad you liked it and don't worry, chapter 2 is almost done.
All I have to do is close it off and then start reviewing to get enough points to post it (which, honestly, that'll take quite a while... >.> XD)
Might I say that your description here "dripping with characteristic humor" really fits the topic of a nose/sneeze? XDOnce again, thanks for the review!
-Jules
Hey Jen!
Thanks for the review. I took your suggestions on fixing those sentences and edited the story to add those bits in (not much to add. I just fixed the sentences. No idea why I'm over-complicating it).
I'm glad you liked it and don't worry, chapter 2 is almost done.
All I have to do is close it off and then start reviewing to get enough points to post it (which, honestly, that'll take quite a while... >.> XD)
Might I say that your description here "dripping with characteristic humor" really fits the topic of a nose/sneeze? XDOnce again, thanks for the review!
-Jules
X) That was an unintentional pun. I was thinking more in line with the dripping newspaper and the rain, actually XD
?
And, no problem, it's my pleasure to review this delightful little story. By the way, ehehe... er... how do you do the line-through-text thingy?
Line through text is [s*] [/s*] without the asterisks.
Quotes are [quote*] [/quote*] without asterisks, again.
And so on. Bold is a b in the brackets. Italics is an i.
(Don't know how many of those you knew, if any)
I knew none :3
Arigatou gozaimasu, JKHatt-shi!
I forgot to mark it as review.... AGAIN Q^Q I'M SORRYYYYY~~~~~
I loved it. Quite humorous. I love that you took something so ordinary as a sneeze and made a whole entire story around it. I also love the little bit at the end, where Avery says
The only thing I could find wrong with it is...
I believe the highlighted word should be slid, because its in the past tense.
This story made me smile, and my 7 year old son smiled as I read it to him, his imagination went wild.
Glad you liked it (and your son, too)!
I'll fix that mistake, didn't even notice it... Thanks!
-Jules