No more left,
Only one.
No contest,
No where to run.
This is the countdown to extinction.
~Countdown to Extinction, by Megadeth
Once there was a peaceful, quiet mountain. It was untamed and full of wild life. There were white waterfalls, lush forests, rich soil, and rivers so full of fish, you could appear to walk on water all the way to the other side. Then, like a scouter ant, a person found the mountain. More came. Farmers came to plant in the rich, never dieing soil. Hunters came for the wild life and fishers came for the wild runs in the rivers.
They spread out, and one town became two. Two became four, and so on. Forests were cleared to make way for the oncoming towns. As more and more towns were built, there were less and less forests. With the lack of vegetation came the lack of wild life. More and more houses were built, taking up the soil. The rivers were over fished as well as polluted from the mines and the wild life was over hunted.
Soon the fishers and farms and hunter left, and the people who stayed had to do these things themselves. The investors for the mines soon found them empty and left. As did the miners. The towns were dieing. Many became ghost towns, but there were still a few left.
There were still the people who were the first to come, who loved the mountain as it was. They worked to bring back the forests and wild life. But their children left, seeking a life and future elsewhere. With the children gone, the towns began to die out. People became to old to hunt and had no one to care for them. Soon there was only one town left with children, and even they were leaving.
"You're going, too, are you, Keer?"
Keer looked down, ashamed at being caught. She had planned to leave in secret.
The grandmother nodded sadly.
"I promise to visit." Keer said, hoping to cheer her. The grandmother shook her head a waved the words away as meaningless. They were.
"So they all say! And not one of them has come back, has they? No, Keer. I'll not hold you to a promise you cannot keep. Go then, and see what of the world you will." the grandmother said, turning around.
"Grandmother, wait." Keer called. The grandmother stopped and turned. "I'm sorry." Keer said. The grandmother said nothing, only turned and shuffled away.
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139,365 Literary Works • 672,540 Reviews
I agree totally with Trident. Starting a story with a "once upon a time" beginning is just plain boring/immature. I grew up for a reason: no more fairytales! Sad, yes, I know
. Strikeout the first sentence alone and the story would be better!
You spelled "dying" wrong twice in this piece.
Lastly, is this the beginning of a longer story? If so, Keer was poorly introduced. Spend some time getting into her head before you say that she is leaving. Describe a day-in-the-life of our young heroine, Keer. In my opinion: seperate this part of the story into two parts. Part 1 = describing the setting, up until the "You're going, too, are you, Keer?" part. Put a couple asterisks after this sentence: "Soon there was only one town left with children, and even they were leaving." Then introduce Keer. Introduce her doing chores around town. Get into her head. Solidify personality. Have her dwell on leaving before she actually tries to sneak out. Flesh her out! This is absolutely essential at the beginning of a story.
Anyways, that's all from me! You have a very descriptive style of writing (good thing). I can visualize the jungle perfectly!
PS: Do you mind critting Pastless ch. 3?? Only JC has even glanced at it. I would really appreciate your input!
-Kylan
Thank you!!!
:D:D:D
Hi Dreamer. Some style issues here.
While the writing itself is pretty good, I find two distinct faults with this piece. The first is your use of fairy tale-like storytelling. It's rather boring for the majority of people, and unless you had a very young audience in mind, the way the story is told is demeaning. I suspect that perhaps your aim was not that this story was for small children for a couple reasons: the character is meant to be teen-aged and your Megadeath quote at the beginning which is surely not something you'd add to a children's story.
The second fault I found was that your story fell to preaching much too early and much too obviously. When you try to make a point about human expansion/colonialism/resource depletion/etc., you don't want to make it too obvious or your reader will just raise his eyes over an already beaten-to-death message. And when you do try to incorporate this moral, you want to do it more spread out.
Good luck with the writing.
Fire Arris -- Thanks for pointing that out. Can you please let me know what was wrong with it and how I can fix it? Thanks!
Try to edit it and make it clear that they are teens. Not 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, year olds. And also "There still was one town with children but even they were leaving." Try to fix it here and there.
Heh, just what I was thinking, a run-away nine-year old wouldn't last the night!
Anywho, I thought it was pretty good. Nice plot; I got a real firm image of these people arrving and, in all respects, ruining the wildlife and tranquility. You should write more!
Arch. xxx
They're teens. Sorry if I wasn't clear about that. I think it would be kind of weird if nine-year-olds were leaving.
It is pretty good. But children are young. How do they leave? Do they leave in groups if children? There parents left, who is taking all the children? Besides these Qs its pretty good!
Me again