Published April 13, 2009
SHELLY
You know how people are always telling you that things will get better? That someday your gonna look back on the bad stuff and laugh? Let me tell you something: there are some things you just won’t be able to laugh at. Like losing your boyfriend, who got you pregnant only four months before, at 16, to a stupid fire. Although I’m not the only one to lose someone. Practically the whole town did.
About ten people died. And when you live in a town that has a population of around 200, that’s like if tigers went extinct. You know like something on the endangered species list? Anyways, you get my point. I remember when I first heard that Benjamin Bar had burnt down. I hadn’t believed it at first. The Benjamin had been up since long before I was born. In fact it was probably the oldest building in Scotland Georgia, used to be a real fancy bank, but I suppose they lost use for it around the 1890’s what with all the revolutionary technology. Anyways I lost my point again. I was sitting in my mama’s old garden. Watching a grass hopper leap across a carrot sprout to a huge leaf of a pumpkin plant, waiting for my friend Dahlia to pick me up so we could head down to the movies or something down in the town Charlotte, which was only a few miles away, when I heard a siren. Now you don’t hear that much around here. In fact, I think I could count on one hand how many times I’d heard it in my lifetime. I got up to see what the commotion was about and that was when I saw the smoke. I hobbled out of the garden, towards the street, where many other people were mumbling and poking around to see what had happened. Then I saw old Mary Sue. She was drivin by in her old Chevy yelling to everyone like the crazy bat she is “Benjamin’s burnin! Lordie save us!”
Everyone grew silent, wonderin no doubt if they should believe her or not. But judging by the place the smoke was comin from, it was easy to put it all together.
The first thought in my head was somethin along the lines of well it’s about time. I didn’t like that alcohol. Never had had a drink in my life, never was gonna. I’d seen what it had done to my mama and my pa, and it wasn’t gonna happen to me.
But then I immediately thought of him. What had Sloan said this morning? What was he gonna do? I remembered then and nearly collapsed. Instead I turned and went back into the house. That was when I knew. Even before they released the official documents. Sloan was dead.
[i]
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140,277 Literary Works • 673,071 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
Anyway let's get right to it,
Well that is quite the rollercoaster to throw us into right at the very start of things. That is certainly one the more emotion packed opening bits that I have run into in a chapter one. Usually these two things happen separate from one another, but it seems we've got someone in an unusually stressful situation now losing someone very important to a natural disaster as well. It definitely does get our attention as readers very well.
Hmm...well this is interesting. I think you're doing a decent job there of trying to sell us just how important this place is and just how much of a disaster this accident is proving to be. I like that you try to put it on a relative scale and show that on the level of this town, this is a massive disaster...however I do think you end up overselling things a touch there...which isn't an issue, you just might want to be a bit careful with such a thing. I also have to say this paragraph is a little too big. It'd do well as two parts or even through honestly, but as it is, its a bit hard on the eyes to read.
Okay that ending there isn't bad. I feel like it maybe doesn't do nearly as much as it should cause it sort of repeats something we already know without elaborating too much emotion wise and it ends up therefore being a bit more bland that it perhaps should. I think you need to take a second look at that side of things here.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Hello!
*you're
You're trying to cram too much information into this one sentence, I think. You could take out the whole 'pregnant at sixteen' part and let us find that out later.
How do you have about ten people? Was it like, 10.73 people, or have they not discovered all the bodies, or...?
Should have commas after in fact and Scotland.
First of all, I love the way you've done Shelly's voice, with the gonna's and the dropping the g's and etc, etc. It works. Yes. And I totally get a picture of the town, with the crazy old woman, and the population 200 bit. So, way to go.
I agree with Storm: I'd like more emotion. I like how you're telling us what happened, setting up the story, but we do need to see more of Shelly, i.e., what does she do after she realizes Sloan is dead? She gets up and goes back in the house? How about, she feels like the fetus is a knife in her stomach? Or she goes down to the bar and screams along with everyone else?
The second problem I have ties in with the first. People escape from fires, or come out with non-fatal injuries, or whatever. So even if she knows he went down to the bar, it's weird that she's so resigned and eager to think he's dead. Even if she can feel it in her bones (or whatever) she should be hoping that he's alive until she actually sees the mangled, burnt corpse in the morgue (or whatever). IMO, of course.
Anyway, these are all my suggestions, so feel free to ignore! Just think about it. PM me if you need anything.
-Mars
Hello!
Welcome to YWS!!!!!!!
You could always use different POV's in one post you know.
Nitpicks!!!!!!!!!
Okay the second chapter was a bit long, I think you should start a new one here:
Start the new paragraph with this.
Er, it should be this ";" not this ":"
Ummm, I really don't get this part. Maybe it's just me, but could you clear it up?
She... hobbled? Is there something wrong with her legs?
Comma after is.
Take out the "that".
Okay, that's it. Onto the other stuff.
You should add way more description. Her boyfriend just died and she is acting like a robot. Aside from the "nearly fainting" part, which was good you need to put more about how she feels. Is she sad, uncaring, happy? Totally destroyed? Imagery, emotion, similes, and metaphors, will all help with this.
Hope this helps! PM me if you have questions.
~Storm
Ok...it's kinda complicated, but the story is gonna be told in 3 different POV's. And most of the chapters will be short. it's just the way i planned it out. if ya don't like the size, please tell me how i could accomplish the same effect with out it.
THANK YOU SOOO MUCH! next chapter up soon. i think.