Young Writers Society

Hello!

First of all, I seriously love the imagery you used, and the way you described the main character!

However, in this passage...

"It lets in the sun that stabs the cold dark air in my room, lets sea salt walk to my nose, guides the waves of chilling breezes that kicked the boats along the big puddle outside my window to my face."

While I do love the fact that you personified the scenery in the first few sentences, the way you did it could have been done a little better. The structure is a little hard to read and it contrasts with the harmony of the rest of the story, you know?

Another thing...

"My nose whiffs the glass as they pass, my eyes follow them, and I wonder why she would live the life she lives as I forget the life I claim as my own. And the woman looks up and sees me wide-eyed like a child on school bus passing an ice cream truck. I put my roses back."

The first phrase about the whole nose-whiffing thing kind doesn't really make sense. But this is just a minor thing. Then, you draw the correlation between the woman and a child seeing an ice-cream truck. This comparison definitely interrupts the flow of the story, and, again, it doesn't really make sense.

Other than that, this story is absolutely amazing! It has wonderful characterization and imagery (I cannot place enough emphasis on how good the imagery is, oh my gosh) and you definitely did a wonderful job!

Keep writing, please!

Hi,FCD here for a quick review.

I found this story intriguing. I think you did an amazing job of displaying the central character.
The reader can see that the character is clearly flawed, as he or she hates perfection. This is evident from the lines:

"That little non-necessity is all I have to look at in my room, in my house; my leaf green walls are blameless, my desk has no faults and I hate them both."

I think one thing that could improve this story would be better spacing and commas.
I think you should start a new paragraph after the line above, as the characters attention has switched from the perfect room she despises to the lady with the dog outside.

I can see that you attempted to use personification in the first few lines.

"I like my window. It lets in the sun that stabs the cold dark air in my room, lets sea salt walk to my nose, guides the waves of chilling breezes that kicked the boats along the big puddle outside my window to my face."

I think that these first few lines could be significantly improved upon. It's important that your opening paragraph captivates the readers attention. A bad start can put people off.

I think that the personification in the line "lets sea salt walk to my nose, " is not very effective. I think that there is a better way to communicate the way the character smells sea salt. Maybe something like " The window invites the smell of sea salt inside and it lingers for a while."

One thing I really liked was the ending paragraph. I love how you communicated the characters desire for solitude by using the lines;

"Beyond the sea is the little castle on the cliff, that lovely abode of solitude and safety. I would much like to live there. Strong walls to hold me and towers to see the world through a far away telescope."

This was interesting to me as it made the story a mystery. I wanted to know why the character dislikes the world, and desires to be spectator from afar. This made me curious about the characters life, allowing me to speculate about her situation. By not stating what the characters problem is, you allow the reader to dream up possibilities about the life of the character. This makes your story ambiguous, meaning that it can be interpreted in many different ways.

For example, someone who has gone through depression might decide that the character is in a depressive state. How people interpret your story will depend on their own experience, making the story rich an diverse.

Hi,FCD here for a quick review.

I found this story intriguing. I think you did an amazing job of displaying the central character.
The reader can see that the character is clearly flawed, as he or she hates perfection. This is evident from the lines:

"That little non-necessity is all I have to look at in my room, in my house; my leaf green walls are blameless, my desk has no faults and I hate them both."

I think one thing that could improve this story would be better spacing and commas.
I think you should start a new paragraph after the line above, as the characters attention has switched from the perfect room she despises to the lady with the dog outside.

I can see that you attempted to use personification in the first few lines.

"I like my window. It lets in the sun that stabs the cold dark air in my room, lets sea salt walk to my nose, guides the waves of chilling breezes that kicked the boats along the big puddle outside my window to my face."

I think that these first few lines could be significantly improved upon. It's important that your opening paragraph captivates the readers attention. A bad start can put people off.

I think that the personification in the line "lets sea salt walk to my nose, " is not very effective. I think that there is a better way to communicate the way the character smells sea salt. Maybe something like " The window invites the smell of sea salt inside and it lingers for a while."

One thing I really liked was the ending paragraph. I love how you communicated the characters desire for solitude by using the lines;

"Beyond the sea is the little castle on the cliff, that lovely abode of solitude and safety. I would much like to live there. Strong walls to hold me and towers to see the world through a far away telescope."

This was interesting to me as it made the story a mystery. I wanted to know why the character dislikes the world, and desires to be spectator from afar. This made me curious about the characters life, allowing me to speculate about her situation. By not stating what the characters problem is, you allow the reader to dream up possibilities about the life of the character. This makes your story ambiguous, meaning that it can be interpreted in many different ways.

For example, someone who has gone through depression might decide that the character is in a depressive state. How people interpret your story will depend on their own experience, making the story rich an diverse.

Hi there!

The first thing I notice is three big paragraphs. There's nothing wrong with large paragraphs, but with this being a short story it's a bit much. Read it again and see where you can break those up. The main issue with this is readability. Our eyes can get distracted with longer paragraphs and lose focus. I always read word for word so I wasn't bothered much by it, but others may. Just something to think about.

It lets in the sun that stabs the cold dark air in my room, lets sea salt walk to my nose, guides the waves of chilling breezes that kicked the boats along the big puddle outside my window to my face.

At the times when I keep the roses there, I have to try to forget that world outside and not peer out to the street. Looking at my roof, I’m always drawn to that one knot in that one board.

All the other boards don’t have anything in them, they don’t have anything other than the bare minimum necessary to hold up my roof end sentence, start a new one. but that board has something else.

Roses are moved and I see a dog on a rope hopping across the sidewalk and a woman in a blouse pulling the dog from the street and with her other hand she holds the brim of her sunhat on against the wind.

Hi ^^ CoffeeCat here to review ~

When I imagined "roses by my window" I thought of "rose-coloured glasses" and idealised perceptions — a good title for the story's sensual tone and content. What really struck me was the vividness of the words you chose and the use of personification. You made a lot of appropriate choices when it comes to the way in which you convey this particular story.

I found that the window serves as an anchor within the story, allowing the trail of narration to drift in and out of it. The story is very thought-heavy or passive, which can often cause a reader to become bored and apathetic, but your interesting writing style compelled me to keep reading. The moment I really became engaged was halfway through the first paragraph, when the character's unique perspective of the boats going unmourned kicks in. It's also when the character is first revealed in a significant way. You set up the story well by leading the reader into this unique character perspective while giving the writing a slow yet alive atmosphere. It all feels relevant.

I like my window.

All the other boards don’t have anything in them, they don’t have anything other than the bare minimum necessary to hold up my roof, but that board has something else.

my desk has no faults and I hate them both. A dog barks from beyond these perfect walls.

Roses are moved and I see a dog on a rope hopping across the sidewalk and a woman in a blouse pulling the dog from the street and with her other hand she holds the brim of her sunhat on against the wind.

The sunhat is a different blue than her blouse, yet she wears it anyway, her Terrier is much too excited for her liking, but she loves him anyway.

on school bus

I put my roses back.

Beyond the sea is the little castle on the cliff, that lovely abode of solitude and safety.

This is probably the second best work I've ever reviewed on YWS, though that total number is low.
Although I liked almost all of it and can provide no real general criticism from a writing perspective and only a little as a reader. I'll start with why I liked it, since I read this at least 2-3 times.

1. The story type -- I don't know the proper words but this isn't a <cap'n obvious> introduction - conflict - climax - conflict resolution </cap'n obvious> plot. This is more of a what I refer to in my mind as a "journey" story. Like "the curious case of benjamin button" or "the man from earth"; and it's great. Especially because I like them but i can't write them — yet. What I look for in such stories is i. how credible they are ii. How the descriptions of actions, feelings and things work iii. while being credible, how insightful the story remains
This post did well on all counts.

2. The pacing - to a speed reader like me, it immediately reminded of Margaret Atwood's writing like The Handmaid's tale since it made me slow down and look at and understand each description. I then started scanning them for frivolity ( a bad habit, i know) and the only one I could not understand completely , was
"My nose whiffs the glass as they pass"
I thought of it as her nose being pressed up against the window so they could see better? But they also have the option of opening the window, though it's understandable that a shy person might not want to do that. If that is right though, I have not even the tiniest nitpick left.
Other than that, this gives a sense of completeness in about 600 ish words, something I've always struggled to do and failed in even double that.
The focus is on the window, even the slight foray into the interiors of the room only serves to re-enforce that. (Along with a whimsical element in the lead's nature?)

3. The descriptions -- they work pretty well. This actually inspires me to approach short story writing in a different way, because since Atwood's descriptions were part of a novel,they sometimes got boring. In a short story however, since there isn't much of it, it all fits, even to a distracted speed reader. I won't pick favourites because if I choose one I have to choose them all. I feel like they add to a purposeful ambiguity in the over-all state of the lead, where they are established to be shy, but not a whole lot more is made clear. I thought I could also feel melancholy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdfRU0F9XSY), but lonely=/=solitary.The ambiguity is also helpful because people sitting by the window are often thought of and portrayed as sad, longing and aching, and this upends that. ( and by the end, I thought this person rather liked to stay where they were, only expressing a wish to go outside so that they could get to the castle and do even better what they do so well already.)
If you didn't want it to be ambiguous though, that is something I feel could be improved upon.

The roses work way better from a poetic prose aspect than say, curtains, because they offer much more. They wither, they fall, they are to be replaced. Similar to curtains partially, but also new and different.


This review isn't very long because I'm stingy with praise (as my past reviews attest) and I can't find anything more to criticize.


Keep writing so we can keep reading.