Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for language.
I was inside secluding myself from the cold weather and the outside all together when I got a call from Penny. She was already giggling to herself at the way I answered the phone with a timid "Hey" layered with grogginess. She asked if I had just woken up, on account of my voice I assume, and I told her I did. I hadn't been sleeping though and in fact I had just thrown back my second cup of coffee that hour and my mind was sprinting. I'm not sure why I lied, I don't like to embrace false things. She and I bullshat for a little bit and she asked me if I wanted to accompany her on a walk. Now, Penny lives for walking. She walks everywhere she goes and she's always somewhere. If I was running I probably couldn't even keep up with her fastest stride. My first inclination was to tell her I couldn't walk, I barely had the motivation to roll out of bed that morning to tell the truth. I exhaled deeply out of my nose.
"Sure. I can take a walk. Not too long though." I forced out.
"Great! I'm already on my way to your house!" She barked like a puppy.
I ended the call and extended for the sweatshirt hanging from the corner of my bed. As I pulled it over my head I thought about what she would have done if I had said no, since she was already on her way to my house. I didn't dwell on the thought though and I voyaged downstairs to slip my shoes on. Afterwords, I opened the door and Penny was standing on my porch, facing away from the door. She darted her head around at me with a huge grin at the sound of the door slamming closed.
I'm not sure if it was the sun's fault or what, but the day's light illuminated onto the side of Penny's face in a really nice way. She looked really beautiful. I never realize if, when moments like that happen, the person's appearance has been changed or if my view of them has in the period of time since I last saw them. Normally it wouldn't really cross my mind to mentally judge the beauty of Penny. She must have done something different that day. I genuinely wanted to compliment her and let her know she was looking good. Not even in the sense of trying to make a pass at her, but just to let her know as a friend that someone appreciated the way she looked. I never thought she heard it very often, she never mentioned it at least. And even if she heard it everyday it'd still be a nice thing to say. My hands started to sweat though and my stomach twisted into itself in a knot and I was nervous just thinking about saying something. I'm a nervous person really, especially with caffeine in me like the way it was that day. So I stuffed my hands into my pockets and already started to walk, I figured I might as well have gotten it over with. Apparently, I was a damn clown because Penny was laughing at my actions.
That's the thing about Penny, she is a giggler. She loves to laugh at anything and everything. All the time. I don't mind it at all but it's just one of those things you need to be in a specific spirit for. I was in a blue mood and I guess I secretly envied her and her kind. Gigglers always have smiles on their faces and think sarcastic people like me are practically comedians. They always have their head back and jaw unhinged, yukking away at everything you say. Don't get me wrong, I love making people laugh- especially people who are always happy- but I guess I'm just jealous of them. I realized how selfish and unreasonable I was being to stay so glum in front of her though so I promised myself that I would stay invested in the walk and smile and enjoy the time. I truly liked Penny a lot. The glow that always expels from her is so positive. If I hadn't straightened my thoughts out she probably would have made me feel better anyway, to tell the truth.
We had just started along the block and we already were making a lot of distance fairly quickly. The chilled wind was getting in my eyes and I was blinking a lot until they were watering. Penny was going for a world record talking about what she did yesterday. She was saying so much so fast, and honestly, it was pretty impressive. She finished and turned to ask me what I was up to lately. I wanted to tell her about the lyrics I was writing for the new concept album I was working on at the time, just to talk about them to someone, but I didn't want to get into the dark subject matter. Penny is a really nice girl. When I'm with her I'm always conscious of what I say and curse practically an eighth as frequently as I would normally. It's not like she couldn't handle it or would protest against it, it's just that I feel bad saying things like that to someone so nice and I didn't think she wanted to hear about an album based on the life of a prostitute anyway.
"Nothing really. Watching a lot of movies and stuff." I said.
"Surprise, surprise." She said in a playful tone.
I'm always watching a movie and blowing Penny off from walking so she gets on my ass about it, but I know she's only joking, so I play along. I wouldn't even be mad if she were genuinely upset because truth be told- watching movies is seventy five percent of what I do in my free time. We were really far from my house at this point and I was appalled. Time is the fastest runner in history. Yesterday I was four and oblivious but today I'm some confused teenager. I thought about how it'd be in that exact moment if I was still four. I wonder about that quite often honestly. Especially about certain people and if I'd be friends with them if we were both four and how different we'd be. People are so simple at four, but so pure and truthful. I shook off the thought and continued walking.
As we had turned to go back to our starting point, Penny and I encountered a girl our age with two friends down the street. Penny said she knew who she was but I didn't have the slightest clue. Penny knows everyone. If I'm ever talking to her in school and we pass someone I know and I attempt to say something to introduce her, she assures me that she already knows them.
"Who is she?" I asked.
"Her name is Katie, she moved here a couple of months ago. Let's go say hey!" She said.
I would have loved to say hey. Especially since, even from so far away, the light was hitting Katie perfectly and she looked very attractive. The sun was doing a number on me. It would have been nice to introduce myself but it was completely out of the question. It wasn't at all that I didn't want to say anything, and I'm sure they were all very nice girls, but I just felt my stomach begin to twist again and all possible desire evaporated. We were walking towards her and her friends and my tongue began to get dry like a squeezed towel. I dread first meetings and first impressions and what they might hold. Thankfully, Katie and her friends took a turn and we never had to say anything to them. I let out a sigh of relief and didn't have to worry about it anymore. If I was meant to talk to Katie, I was sure it'd happen eventually. Penny and I were close to my house at that point and she got a phone call. She answered it and I kept myself busy studying the clouds while she gabbed on the phone to a friend. She hung up and explained that she was going to meet another friend on the street we were on. She offered to finish the walk with me first and make it back to my house but I declined. She gave me a powerful hug and we parted ways. I flung my hood onto my head and looked forward as I traveled back to my house.
The act of walking seemed a lot longer without Penny. The sun was further down in the sky now and the temperature had dropped a bit. I was very lonely to be completely honest. I knew the only thing waiting for me at my house was solitude and I wasn't too thrilled about the idea. I put my hands into my sweatshirt pocket, the kind that connects from both sides, and I did something pathetic. I held my own hands. It helped slightly so I didn't mind it. Though nothing special had happened, I was grateful that I had gotten out of the house and walked with Penny and I didn't regret it in the slightest. As I finally reached my house, my neighbor was outside playing with her baby sister and the two were laughing. It made me feel a lot less lonely and it even made me warmer. I couldn't help but grin to myself, mostly because of how sweet the scene was, but also because of how nice my neighbor looked. It must have been the angle the sun was hitting her at.
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125,013 Literary Works • 672,844 Reviews
Hey there, and happy Review Day! I thought I'd drop a review on this little piece.
Overall, it's not bad. It seems like a nice, slow start to a sweet little YA novel. However, not a lot happens here. Some form of conflict should be apparent from the very first scene, even if it's not something that important to the overall novel. It can be something as trivial as wanting a glass of water, or wanting to go to bed. Just having your main character want something makes your beginning a lot more interesting.
The other thing you want to be aware of is infodumping, which means point-blank telling the reader a whole lot of information about the characters or the world at the beginning of the story. Instead, you want to find ways to weave that information into dialogue and actions. This is rather difficult to get right, so don't get discouraged if you're having problems.
Finally, the length of your paragraphs is an issue. They are far too long. You seem to know the grammar rule that you always start a new paragraph with each line of dialogue, which is good. However, you're also supposed to start a new paragraph every time you sort of change topics or describe a different event. Right now, your paragraphs are large blocks of texts, and nobody wants to read that. So go in and break them up a little bit. In fiction, paragraphs are often only 2-4 lines, so don't worry about making them too short.
Anyway, I hope this helped! Good luck and keep writing!
Yo, Jack. c:
So you totally reeled me in with the simplicity thing you stated in the description. I also love writing shorts about simple things that occur in our every day life (which, when you really think about it, aren't so simple at all), and I got to tell you; I really enjoyed this piece. It's so true that lighting can drastically change things and even alter your mood. They use it in film, in storytelling, and can occur around you and you won't even notice it.
The sun hitting people in a certain way can also drastically change something about them as well, which I think you've captured pretty well in this piece. I also liked how you repeated the sun hitting other people and not just Penny. At first, I thought this was just going to be another romance piece, but when you used the motif again, I finally got what you were getting at. Great job on that.
I do have a few nitpicks though (I'm so sorry) that I feel you should take into consideration to make the piece stronger.
The first one would be these huge paragraphs you've got. They're kind of overwhelming, to be honest with you, especially when one is reading on the screen. Breaking them up would honestly be a good idea so it is a little easier on the eyes, and also so that when people click the story, they won't run away from seeing them (the best way to break them up is to catch where the narrative shifts from one idea to another).
Next up would be your dialogue tags. Just be sure that when you're using dialogue tags, you're using them correctly. For example, you wrote:
See, what's wrong here is the fact that 'I said' isn't a complete sentence, therefore can't stand on its own. In order for it to be complete, you need to tag it to the dialogue by a comma. So this sentence should be:
"Nothing really. Watching a lot of movies and stuff," I said.
Also, in relation to dialogue tags, be careful of what you choose. For example, you wrote 'she barked' earlier on. But do humans bark? How can one bark something? I guess you could argue that to bark something is to say something in a quick, sharp manner, but even that wouldn't fit with the long sentence to tagged it to. I'd just use something else for it to make sense.
If you'd like to learn more about dialogue tags, I always use this guide:
Spoiler
Other than that, I did enjoy this piece a lot, and I look forward to reading more stuff from you! If you've got any questions or would like me to clarify anything, let me know. Have a great day/night, and good luck writing. c:
Thanks so much for taking the time to give me advice and I will definitely use the guide. I'm glad you liked my story. Have a great day/night as well!