~Hey, back again, with the first chapter. Enjoy.~
Present
The scent of the wild flowers and the salty air coming from the beach felt absolutely wonderful. I could feel the warm June breeze wrapping around my cold skin making me heat up. I breathed in and out feeling content and peaceful sitting in the patted wicker chair.
I slowly lifted my eyes and was blown away from the brightness coming from the sun up above. I immediately lifted my right hand blocking the suns rays from hurting my eyes even though I was sitting in the shade.
I gently pulled my hand away and saw that there was not one cloud in the baby blue sky. This month of June seemed just right and I felt happy because of it.
Shifting to find a comfortable position in the wicker chair I noticed I was still holding the novel I was reading. I glided my hand softly onto the cover of the book realizing there was no title on it. Maybe the novel's title was faded from usage.
I lightly opened the book where the folded flap was and read the first paragraph. Somehow the paragraph intrigued me giving me the tense feeling what would happen next.
Suddenly the feeling of weakness swam all through me and getting inside was for the better.
I closed the book and stretched up lifting my hands to the sky and heard the cracks through out my body. Afterwards I felt more relaxed, got up from the outdoor chair and went inside.
Living in this house I knew from experience that it had it's essentials. What I love about this house is the wild gardens in the front yard with the red roses to the yellow tulips and that white small fence that bordered the house.
Thinking of my family I remembered mom absolutely adored the white porch that wrapped along side the house and also the white swinging bench.
My family's name the Hemingway's lives within this house and I will always remember the childhood memories that come with it.
What I really liked about this house was that it had a old Victorian style to it and modern touches to dazzle it even more.
Living inside our modern Victorian home we have different shaped couches with colorful pillows from baby blue to pure white. In some of the rooms there are the old-fashioned tables with antique lamps, and the old styled windows that had the floor length dark red curtains that hung from each side. What is really amazing about the inside is the gold staircase that glistens gold when the sun pierces through the curtains in the morning.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Walking into the study I placed my novel at a near by table. Out of nowhere the phone rang and I jumped in surprise.
I wonder who's calling? I walked to the phone that hung from the wall and gracefully picked it up. “Hello?”
“Eve? It's me Riley.” I smiled knowing it was my younger sister.
Hearing from her made me feel so happy, “Oh, hi Riley. How's the family?”
“Great actually and guess what?” I didn't reply because I wanted to hear her first. “I have good news.”
“What?”
“We're coming home.”
“That's great Riley! When?”
“Tomorrow or if that's to early-”
“No. No. Riley, it's great. I'll have the place looking clean and fresh.” We both laughed at my lame remark of the supposedly clean house.
“Cool. And Eve?”
“Yes Riley?” I wonder what she needed?
“We have a surprise for you.”
“Thanks Riley and tell the family I said hi and that I can't wait to see them tomorrow.”
“Sure. Bye Eve.”
“Bye Riley.”
I placed the phone back onto the wall and thought for a second. That was nice of them to think of me. As I thought of what the surprise was.
Remembering the garden, I needed to check it before the sun goes down. So I walked out of the study and out the front door.
Outside the temperature was rising so I had to make this quick. Trying not to go so slow, I walked down the front porch to the front lawn.
A sigh of relief escaped me when I saw the garden.“Well the gardens look the same...absolutely gorgeous.” I said to myself.
Then all of a sudden I felt hot and looked at my arm. My arms were turning red and were almost burning. I sighed, “I better get inside.”
I pulled myself from the sun's hot rays and headed inside. This was only for the better and I didn't want the end to come near to me and my family.
As I got inside a rush of tiredness went all through me. Not even thinking of trying to sleep I pushed myself up to my room.
At the moment I got to my bed I felt weird. I looked at my end table and saw the picture I didn't want to see. A photo of my past and while I thought about it, I closed my eyes. Drifting to a part of my life I never wanted to venture into again.
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125,011 Literary Works • 672,840 Reviews
lucy-
wow, thanks for reading what I have so far. It means a lot.
I'll see if I can download the file you sent me.
-Merry
Merry_Haven,
Having read your preface to this, I have read over this & enclosed a document for you with critique etc.
First of all: wow! You have a real good knack with your endings (just luike your preface), as they automatically reel the reader in, wanting them to read more! I can’t wait to read the next installment!!
The only things which you could improve in were your emotions of your MC and your descriptions.
With your descriptions you’d mention how something is pretty or gorgeous, but won’t elaborate on it and I think if you did that it would really improve your writing and help your readers to paint a clearer picture of your MC’s surroundings.
The only other errors I found were minor grammatical ones and in some places your wording wasn’t altogether clear. Also, you have quite a lot of long sentences which you don’t seem to break up with commas etc, and it doesn’t make fun reading having to read a long sentence in one breath. There’s nothing wrong with long sentences (mine are almost always long!!) but you just need to break them up for your reader. Again, this is only a grammatical error.
Just one last note: having read your other piece I have found that you seem to make a lot of grammatical errors, so try to proof read your work a couple of times before submitting. But, you always miss something (well I do anyway), but it just makes easier reading if there aren’t as many grammatical mistakes.
I hope I haven’t sounded harsh or bossy & I hope this will help you!! Also, can you please PM me when you post the follow-up piece to this story as I am really intrigued!! (:
Lucyy xx
Okay, I found that you have a pretty solid plot going. But let me get the individual stuff out of the way first:
"Fell content"?? I think you meant "felt content"
WAY too much telling in this sentence. Try to find more creative ways to describe things instead of just coming right out and telling the reader what everything looks like.
"More warmer"?? That's not proper english...
Umm, I'm not sure what you are getting at here...very confusing. I suggest a complete rewrite.
All these are the same: Commas before names. Simple enough to follow but a very big rule in the grammatical world.
Now, besides those things, this is what I advise:
1)SHOW. Your telling is WAY overpowering your showing. I mean, sometimes for a writer, you need to use a little bit of telling, but yours is too noticible. Tone it down.
2) DETAILS. Description is a big nit-pick for me since I usually OVER-describe in my works. But adding more to yours would be the best choice. When you describe things, that also helps with the showing part. They kind of mesh together in that sense.
3) CHARACTERS. Your MC is too vague. Give her life! Personality! Desires! Hates! Joys! Stuff like that will make your now-2D character become 3D
4) ENDING. Too abrupt a end. Need to make it more gripping, hooking. I felt that you just ended at a random spot. Make it matter!
Other than that, I think you know where you are going with this story and I say "Go for it!" Just use some of the things I suggested and I think it will all come together!
Hope that helped!
Okay, I'm not really one for nitpicks, especially when the story has bigger, more urgent problems. So I will not nitpick, but try to address bigger probs.
Now, within YWS, there are four common problems new writers always seem to have at least one of.
1. They tell instead of show.
2. Their characters are flat.
3. Their dialogue isn't believable, and as the characters, flat.
4. They repeat words, making the story less grabbing and much more cardboard-y.
Your problems seemed to be one, two, and three, though luckily you have somewhat escaped four, from what I read. Now, the remedy to the first three are mostly practice, and reading good books, instead of not very good books (ex. Stephenie Meyer), and not enough writing done.
The first, telling instead of showing, is a simple matter of not really getting into your own story, but merely telling things as they come into your head. So just put yourself in the story, and be more creative about the adjectives, verbs, and nouns, (etcetera) that you use.
Problems two and three are mostly the same thing, but there's more to those. Now, in problem two, people try to borrow from authors they've read, and end up just having nothing, or very little bits of a cliche. So add quirks of your own that help your reader connect to the characters you create, things that really bring them to life. And, as with problem one, put yourself in the story!
Problem three, now. You need to not just have 'oh, okay. Yeah, right. Love ya, Riley.' And so on. That just isn't believable, and cardboard comes more to mind than anything else when you use the dialogue you incorporated for this chapter, and the rest of the story as well. Remember, the writer's road to a good story is to be in it, to be writing as if they are merely watching and writing it down as it goes!
If you take these tips and throw them in, much like you might throw chili powder into a bland batch of egg salad - or something like that, xD - it will be exceedingly more interesting.
Good luck!
-SELA
Let me guess the guy from the preface, Cain, is her surprise?
It's a very interesting story, and you got me waning to read they other when they are post.
I can't wait to read the others.
Good Luck.