Gate 23 (Solo)

Hey Jane,

There's not a lot to this piece. I've got a coupel of points for how you could improve it:

Characters and Dialogue

The problem with internal thought is you have to a lot of telling to the reader. But, if you give them someone else to interact with, then you can express their emotions through speech. For example, you might have another passenger talk to her, or a flight steward. Anyone really. But just having another character for the MC to interact with might give this piece a dimension that it's missing right now.

The Brain Thing

I like this -- it's original and pretty cool. But I think you should go even further with it. Right now it seems you got this really cool idea to do it but you weren't sure quite how to do it so didn't make it as good as it could have been (if that makes any sense at all). Each brain has very little to say and they don't debate with each other. In fact, you could make the brains the characters I talked about above! It could be a bit trippy, but because you're MC is so scared, she thinks her brain has become four different people, and they're all pleading for her attention. Can you imagine the conflict, the debate? How fun would that be to write? I don't want to hijack your story but I think it would be great to have an internal brain debate.

Good luck!

JaneThermopolis wrote:
“The three thirty flightFlight seven-thirty-three to Philadelphia is now ready forboarding.” Usually, when they announce flights, they have a number thing to announce boarding. As I just wrote. You can change the number, it was just randomly chosen

I gulp, and a wad of spit slides down my throat ([Bolded part] sounds odd). I pick up my two carry-ons, my purse and my hot pink tote bag, and hesitantly make my way to the door in front of Gate 23.

I get in a line full of older men with briefcases, ladies with romance novels, and families with cranky, spoiled kids.(Hah, I totally can see this.) I don’t see anyone my age boarding the plane. It makes me too nervous. My palms start sweating again, and I have a desire to crack my knuckles, a weird habit I’ve had since I was a little girl. I’m flying in this plane by myself, and I’m not sure how to deal with that.

My boarding tickets areis in a Continental Airlines travelingpacket in my purse. I try to un-zip the zipper, but my hands won’t stop shaking. As much as I mentally tell them to stop, they still shake harderuncontrollably.

I was the one who wanted to go to California to visit her family. I was the one who was sure she was independent enough to fly three thousand miles away by herself. (This sounds odd. I mean, I know the MC is referring to herself, but it just doesn't work with the MC referring in the third-person (or whatever it is...) )

A stewardess with brown hair and pearls earrings starts scanning tickets at the front of the line. I completely freak out as the two sides of my brain feud over this whole trip. Here’s a basic dialogue of what I call my nervous, anxious brain and my calm, collected brain:

Calm and collected brain: I’ve been on tons of planes before and I’ve never crashed.

Nervous and anxious brain: This trip could be different though. A guy from the Taliban could hijack the plane, like on September eleventh, and fly it into one of the tallest skyscrapers in the world. You are flying over Chicago right?

Calm and collected brain: Planes are the safest form of transportation. (Totally not true. This is redundant and no kind of transportion, via air, rail, sea or road.)

Nervous and anxious brain: Still…this could be different. (refer to above)

So while Imy brain kept on changing its opinions, the line keptwas on moving forward. I almost wasn’t aware when it was my turn to get my tickets scanned. Luckily(doesn't seem to be the right word here), I easily reached down in my purse and grabbed them, my hands still shaking a little but not as nervous as I was.(Huh?)

But when I walk through the connection…,I start to panic again. I successfully guide myself to my seat near the middle of the plane and get settled. I have a window seat right over the wing, so at least I’m near the safety exit. However, my imaginative mind thinks of the scariest things possible. So many different crash scenes fly through my head as I feel like I’m about to hyperventilate.

Once everyone’s settled in their seats, the flight attendants go through all the motions, making sure we know where everything is and what to do with it in case of an emergency, which you(never refer to the reader unless you can seriously get away with it) can only guess made the my anxiety worse.

As if I wasn’t even paying attention, they suddenly tell us to fasten are seatbelts (Huh? again). I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack. I grip to the armrests, thankfully the older man next to me said he didn’t want to use his, and hold on for dear life.

The plane starts going down the runway, first at a slow speed, then advancing to a fast gait. I suppress a scream as the plane finally lifts off the pavement and begins the ascent towards the fluffy, marshmallow clouds-like. The plane’s engine grunts and it makes me nervous(you've repeated many times your MC is nervous about the plane. We don't need it another time), and tilt of the aircraft only makes me feel like we’re going to fall backwards and crash.

The thing is, we don’t stop. We get up to 30,000 feet, and everyone else acts like the ride is fine. Meanwhile, I secretly hope that birds don't fly into the engines. I’m not ready to die.