Let's take a look at the first couple of paragraphs:
Sara looked around her room.
In terms of opening lines, this does not entice me to read further. It's not interesting or engaging there's nothing about this sentence that pushes me to keep reading. First impressions count, and this is a pretty generic sentence. You may want to find some other way to start the story. Focusing on some aspect of her furniture and beginning the story with it, or even starting the story with It looked boring is more interesting than the way it currently begins.
It looked boring but she didn’t recall it being so dull before going into the care home.
Again, not very exciting. I know it's not an action/adventure story, but it doesn't need to be it does, however, have to engage the reader somehow. As the reader, I can confidently say I'm not engaged. Show, don't tell; instead of letting us know it's boring, describe the room in a way that makes us better understand its boringness. What's so bland about it? Explain.
The single wooden bed sat in the corner opposite the cupboard that held all cloths and her few toys.
Again, you're not really highlighting what exactly about the room is boring. Is it the lack of colour and vibrancy? The spartan furniture? The childishness of having toys?
She had gone into care will her father got over his drinking problem and had enjoyed the freedom.
"Will her father got over his drinking problem," should be, "While her father got over his drinking problem."
At home she had to stay in and was only allowed out when she was told to go to school or go to buy another bottle of whiskey for her father.
There should be a comma after "home". Also, a bit of an awkward sentence, mostly because of the second half. "Go to buy another bottle of whisky," should be, "to go buy another bottle of whisker for her father."
Even though she was only 15 she looked older and therefore it was easy to go and buy the whiskey as long as she didn’t go to the same place to often or buy it at her local shop where they knew her age.
"15" should be written out, so, "fifteen", and there should be a comma after it. "Same place to often" should be "same place too often."
Also, this is a major run-on sentence, and you need to punctuate it appropriately. I'd suggest breaking it into a couple of smaller sentences. The easiest place to segment the sentence would be after, "Even though she was only fifteen, she looked older." I'd suggest snipping out "and therefore," because it makes the story sound very wooden and overly formal. Start the second sentence at "It was easy," etc., and stick a comma after "too often."
Also, I'd suggest changing "her local shop" to "the local shop," simply because:
her local shop where they knew her age.
the two mentions of "her" in such a short space is kind of awkward.
You'd then have:
Even though she was only fifteen, she looked older. It was easy to go and buy the whiskey as long as she didn’t go to the same place too often, or buy it at the local shop where they knew her age.
And the last sentence of the paragraph:
The care home had been a taste of freedom and Sara didn’t know if she could go back to her old life.
Dramatic effect! Break the sentence into two shorter ones, so something like:
The care home had been a taste of freedom. Sara didn’t know if she could go back to her old life.
Or, if you don't want to do that, cut out "and", replace it with an em dash. Do something to make the sentence more interesting.
Some other notes:
- Format. Please. Double-space at the end of every paragraph.
This passage:
Sara looked around her room. It looked boring but she didn’t recall it being so dull before going into the care home. The single wooden bed sat in the corner opposite the cupboard that held all cloths and her few toys.
She had gone into care will her father got over his drinking problem and had enjoyed the freedom. At home she had to stay in and was only allowed out when she was told to go to school or go to buy another bottle of whiskey for her father. Even though she was only 15 she looked older and therefore it was easy to go and buy the whiskey as long as she didn’t go to the same place to often or buy it at her local shop where they knew her age.
The care home had been a taste of freedom and Sara didn’t know if she could go back to her old life.
becomes formatted like this:
Sara looked around her room. It looked boring but she didn’t recall it being so dull before going into the care home. The single wooden bed sat in the corner opposite the cupboard that held all cloths and her few toys.
She had gone into care will her father got over his drinking problem and had enjoyed the freedom. At home she had to stay in and was only allowed out when she was told to go to school or go to buy another bottle of whiskey for her father. Even though she was only 15 she looked older and therefore it was easy to go and buy the whiskey as long as she didn’t go to the same place to often or buy it at her local shop where they knew her age.
The care home had been a taste of freedom and Sara didn’t know if she could go back to her old life.
See the space between the two paragraphs? Each paragraph should be formatted like this.
- Proofread. If you run this through spell-check, it'll appear as if you've spelled everything correctly but you actually haven't. There's lots and lots of spelling mistakes in this story that either weren't caught by Spell-Check or were (and you replaced the misspelled word with the wrong word.)
Observe:
Sara herd footsteps coming up the stairs.
That should be "Sara heard foosteps."
I bed that night she remembered about phoning her friends
This should actually be "in bed".
It had almost been to much when she had finally admitted that her father had a drinking problem and she had lied to get out of that.
should be "It had almost been too much."
You get the idea. Lots of spelling mistakes; proofread and correct.
- Dialogue. Remember to punctuate it properly.
This:
“Fine”
should be punctuated with a period (or an exclamation mark, depending how enthusiastic Sara is).
“Fine.”
In the same way:
“No, he’s better now” Sara retorted
The word "now" should be followed by a comma, so:
“No, he’s better now,” Sara retorted
(And, of course, there should be a period at the end of the sentence, after "retorted".)
Her father put an arm around her shoulder, “calm down sweetheart, she’s only doing her job, you can’t blame her for that”
The comma after "shoulder" should be a period. "Calm" should be capitalized, and there should be a period after "That":
Her father put an arm around her shoulder. “Calm down sweetheart, she’s only doing her job, you can’t blame her for that.”
(I'd also suggest putting a period at "job" and starting the next sentence at, "You can't blame her...")
For the most part, you're pretty good about this, but there are still blocks of dialogue which you completely neglect to punctuate.
- Emotion. I didn't really empathize with Sara or her father, or any of their problems. Why? Because I had no emotion invested in them. This could mean I'm a heartless horrible person, but it also means that you haven't really conveyed much emotion in the narrative. The story rushes along without really allowing us to have time to get to know Sara and her father, without really exploring their lives in-depth. And because this entire story is the kind of tale fuelled by emotion, it falls flat. So, slow down. Give us time to know Sara and her father. There are a lot of unnecessary anecdotes about Sara and her father which would be slightly more necessary if you allowed their personalities to shine through the dialogue, and if you slowed down and took the time to explore their characters during these anecdotes.
- Clichés. You've used a myriad different clichés in this story, most notably the Evil Abusive Alcoholic Father and the Annoying Patronizing Social Worker. This partly results in the characters becoming caricatures instead of three-dimensional, interesting people (and as a result, curtails our emotional investment into the story), and it partly gives us a story that has been done to death. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing but it becomes even more necessary for you to infuse some originality and emotional and interest into this story.
I admit, the Abusive Alcoholic cliché frustrates me on a really deep level, because not all abusive fathers (or people in general) are alcoholic and not all alcoholics are abusive. Alcoholism is a crappy excuse for abuse, and it's a cop-out. Instead of giving the father depth, you've chalked up all his problems to alcohol so, basically, we've got a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde Syndrome going, except that even Dr. Jekyll had his own issues and it was acknowledged in the narrative. Here you've made it seem as if the father is a wonderful, amazing, well-adjusted person except when he turns to the bottle. And that's, like I said before, a cheap way of explaining character issues the alcoholicism becomes a scapegoat. And that's not good. I'm being very repetitive, but not all alcoholics are abusive, so clearly alcohol isn't an adequate excuse. There has to be something beyond it, something in his inherent character that makes him do these things, something that the alcohol heightens. Make it realistic. Turn the cliché on its head and I'll be impressed.
Points: 2834
Reviews: 131
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