Published May 19, 2009
"Get Out!"
Even though Krislyn expected the words, they stung her like a swarm of bees.
Krislyn was a seventeen year old party girl. She should have been kicked out months ago but her parents let her slip on a lot of things. But not this, definitely not this. Her boyfriend, Marcus Kingslish had gotten Krislyn pregnant and when he found out, he left the state. He was nineteen and was a drug addict. So, here she was, packing her stuff to move out of her parents house with no where to go. She lost all of her friends by hanging out with Marcus all the time so she was alone.
With tears coming down off of her chin, Krislyn left the house. She could understand why her parents kicked her out, anybody could. They have told her multiple times to leave Marcus. He didn't treat her right and left her to go get drugs every time they were together alone. But she loved him.
Krislyn trusted Marcus and now she didn't know if she was ever even going to see him again.
As far as the baby goes, Krislyn had no idea what to do. She wanted to keep it, but she didn't have a job, home, or money so how was she supposed to support the baby?
But now, Krislyn was tired and found a park with benches, laid down, and fell asleep.
______________________________________________________________________________________
Krislyn woke up with the freezing cold wind, blowing her hair around. She quickly got up to her feet and shivered. It was so dark last night that Krislyn didn't know where she was until she saw the park sign that read, " Canary Family Park" . She squinted her eyes remembering that this was the park she went to when she was little with her mother. Every week they would go to this side of town to see Krislyn's grandmother. Her grandmother lived just five blocks from here. That was where she would go, her Grandmothers! Krislyn hadn't talked to her grandmother for about a month but she was sure that she would at least let Krislyn stay a night.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
141,299 Literary Works • 674,334 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 this one certainly spares no expense cutting right to the heart of the matter here. Things have quite clearly gone very very wrong and despite the slight hint of this being a bit of an info dump the sheer emotion and the turmoil being thrust on us here covers up for that and absolutely gets our attention really quickly here.
Well this certainly seems like a little bit of a stretch in terms of quite how calmly this is coming across. While you're mentioning the sort of emotions that come with a scenario like this, it does quite come across quite that powerfully in the words themselves so it falls maybe a little bit flatter than one would expect with something of this nature.
That makes for a decent ending here. Once again I think you need to try and do a little bit more than just what we've got here to actually makes these emotions appear just that little bit more powerful than they're currently appearing as here, but besides that particular issue, I think you've got yourself a decent foundation to work with. Its a powerful scenario and this ends off on a place where you do find yourself wanting to read more.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
So, as many before me have stated, it is rather info dumpy. We don't need so much backround story just yet. Just go right into the action. Wait until she has a flashback or something to show your reader that shes a 'party girl'
As for length, nothing was really proven here. Maybe wait until you have a bit more before posting. If you are just looking to bounce ideas off of people, that's cool too.
The last paragraph is a little fuzzy. you switch tenses a few time and it seems more like a jumble of her thoughts instead of actions. Whcih, thoughts are good, they help shape characters, but actions help.
You don't ever describe the setting. Yeah its cold...hmm, is there any frost? is there any sounds at all? I'd like to see a little more setting. It might help not info dump.
The pace of this story is 'this then this then this then this then....' get what i mean? You are just shoving the reader this way and that. Have some space in between her waking up in the park all homeless and when she thinks of her grandmother. Slow down a bit and let the reader catch up.
Well, that's all i can really think of. If you need to bounce ideas off of someone, i'd love to help. This should really be continued. Might scare some young party girls, ya kno?
I think the majority of so called "mistakes" have been picked up by the other member and fellow instructor that have already critiqued your work. SO, trying not repeat what they're saying, my advice is going to be more general.
I've noticed on a number of occasions you miss out conjunctives...example "to go get drugs" when it should "to go and get drugs"... be careful of this as it doesn't give the feeling and portray enough that you're a competent writer. This is more like speech. Re-reading usually helps things like this make themselves apparent.
The other thing is the lack of description which has then led to a lack of any kind of emotion. A pregnanyc, and in particular teen pregnancy, is obviously a dramatic and highly emotive time. SHOW THE READER!!
If you need a hand, don't hesitate to give me a shout!
First Impressions
First hint, and it's one you'll hear a lot around these parts, show, don't tell. This entire first part is all tell and no show at all. It's basically just an info dump, and it bores the reader.
Instead of just coming out and being like "well this is the character, she's pregnant, and her baby dady is a jerk". Show us this, have her rubbing her hand against her flat stomach, completely shocked that a life is forming in there.
Instead of telling us why her parents kicked her out, show us with a big blow out argument! Anything that is more exciting than this.
And how to show that her boyfriend is not good for her? Well drag him into a scene too! Instead of saying all of this stuff, show us ^^
Basics
So you jump around with your verb tenses a few times, from past to present tense.
Like here, you go from "could" which is past tense to "They have" which is present. It's a simple fix, just switch the "have" to "had".
Overall
The main advice I have to give is to just slow down, really really think about your characters. How angry are her parents? Is one of them crying while the other is yelling? What are they *doing* when they kick her out? It must be painful for them as well, right?
And what of Krislyn? What was she doing when her parents kicked her out? Did she storm off with a bag of clothes? Did she cry and beg them to let her stay? Right now you gave us the information, now you need to bring the information to life.
Best of luck!
OverEasy
Hey there well alright this is a really good story so far its good its got a good story line and its very well written
but to be honest i think that when it said
"With tears coming down off of her chin"
i think that it should of said something along the lines of "with the tears streaming down her face or off her chin"
just to have a little more descriptive words in there you know
but other than that i saw nothing wrong with it so far.I really like the story so far and i hope to see more from you if you don't already have another peace like a sequel or something
and hey if you want any more advice or help just email me on here ok