Cindy and Eddie- First Chapter (Revised)

The young woman turned to her side as the sun shined through her window. The young woman groaned and went back to the dark side when the door of her bedroom opened. An older woman, her hair put into a gray bun, came into the bedroom while carrying breakfast. The young woman opened one eye, saw the old woman, and pertained to fall back to sleep; the old woman set the breakfast onto the side table next to bed and tried to wake up the younger woman.

" Cindy, honey wake up." The older woman whispered as she patted the younger woman's arm. The younger woman groaned and said, " I don't want to."

" But you must. You will be fired from your job if you are late again," the older woman quietly pleaded as the young woman sighed then sat up. " There, are you happy now?" the younger woman harshly spoke as the old woman clucked her tongue while handing the young woman her breakfast.

" Eat up. I don't want my daughter to lose her second job and we both know how hard the first one was," the old woman said as she walked out of the bedroom into the young woman closet. " You know, sweetie, you must pick out your own clothes before you go to work. Its really childish if you don't." The young woman rolled her eyes and bit into a piece of toast. Her mother had been picking out her clothes for past 16 years and every time the young woman didn't pick out her clothes, her mother would give her lecture about how every time she had to find her clothes every morning.

The old woman walked out of the closet and set the clothes on the bed then looked at the young woman, who was picking at the eggs. The old woman clucked her tongue and took the food tray away from her daughter, handed her the clothes, and shooed her out. The young woman sighed and walked to bathroom; when the young woman went to the bathroom, she saw a scarecrow staring back her. She reached for a brush and tried to make her hair knot-free but was worthless due to the fact, she slobbed on her hair; Cindy threw down the brush, it ricocheted off the counter onto her big toe. Now she had a throbbing pain in her big toe, her hair was a basket of straw, and her nose felt like a clogged drain; what could possibly go wrong next?

There knock at the door. " Cindy, how's it going in there?" Cindy groaned as she hasty put on her clothes, opened the door, and faced her mother. " I'm dressed now."

" Your hair is a mess!"

" I'll put it in a ponytail," Cindy mumbled as she walked past her mother.

" It will still look horribly made as if you just woke up!"

" Well I did just wake up."

" Don't sass me! I tried to do everything nice for you. I made breakfast, found your clothes, and even made your bed."

" I could have done those all by myself."

" But not in my way, sweetie. Since," this was the beginning of her lecture about Cindy not being a proper grown-up; pointing out her flaws, how Cindy at the age of 10 couldn't even find her own clothes, and how Cindy had begged for her to come out to help her.

" And that sweetie, is why I help you around this apartment," her mother stated as she kissed her cheek. Cindy rolled her eyes and added, " I only wanted you to come out here since I wanted you to see the town I was moving into, not to help me out. I'm a independent, young woman who can find her way through the world without being lead by your commands." Then Cindy stormed off to the door and shut it close, leaving her mother alone in her apartment.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Below the apartment, was a young man in his early 20's, walking his way to work. The young man fell in step with each stranger around him, marching to accidental rhythm. He looked up at the building meeting the new morning sky, contrasting the brights from the bleak like splashing bright paint onto a black canvas. He looked at his watch; 10:23 a.m. Not going to be late for work, he thought to himself as he keep walking with the city-goers.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Cindy pushed open the door of apartment building and looked at traffic that awaited her. She sighed and trudged forward to meet face-to-face with looming blackness all around her- with the pace of one thousand snails.

When she finally made it to work, Cindy huffed as she was thwarted by the door. She pulled on the door, harder and harder but the door would not budge. Then a little woman came up to on of the doors, pushed it open, and walked in. Cindy looked down onto the sticker on the door and saw it said PUSH, not PULL.

She pushed open the door and was greeted by perfumes and colognes making her stomach turn. She huffed as to why people had to put so much body spray on when at the end, you will be dragging around woman and men around with you; what's the point of that?

Cindy walked to the elevator and saw someone standing in there, meaning she wouldn't be alone.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

The young man stood next to a young woman, humming to the elevator music. The young man looked over at the young woman; she was tall but not as tall as him, had a long (messy) blonde hair, and a small face. He sighed as he continued humming the elevator music while the young woman sneaked a look over at the young man; he was tall with black hair coming out from underneath his fedora, by predicting he liked to sing, and carried a small weathered suitcase.

" Where are you heading?" the young man asked.

" I'm going to the fifth floor," Cindy replied as she turned to face the young man. The young man nodded as he turned to face the young woman; he noticed she had one blue eyes and one green eye with a bridge of faint freckles on her nose.

" Where are you heading?"

" I'm going to the sixth floor," the young man answered.

" So we'll be riding the elevator more often together then?"

" I guess so.."

" Cindy," she said as she extended an hand. The young man took his free hand and shook it. " Eddie, nice to meet you."

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

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Sun Jan 25, 2015 2:28 am

Kale wrote a review...

Happy Review Day, OneThousandDrums!

It's been a while since I last reviewed, so I hope you'll pardon me being a bit rusty. If you have any questions about anything I mention in this review, feel free to shoot me a PM; it's a bit more reliable than replying to the review.

With that said, I'm going to focus on the technical side of things for this piece because right now, the technical side is experiencing some difficulties that make the reading experience a bit rough.

The first sentence is a good starting point, and it reveals several of these technical issues:

She sat among a dark room; she was the only lit person in that room.

The first issue with this sentence is the use of "among". "Among" basically means that whatever it is is part of the thing it's among, so the first half of this sentence reads like she's sitting as part of the dark room, which doesn't make sense.

The second issue with this sentence is the semicolon. While it isn't incorrect to use one here, you use a lot of semicolons throughout this, and not all of them are correctly used. One example is in this sentence: "Many looked like storm clouds while she the only white cloud hanging outside the group; an outsider, if you will." In this example, an m-dash or a colon is the correct punctuation to use. Semicolons are one of the trickier pieces of punctuation, and I'd advise avoiding them as much as possible until you become more familiar with the ins-and-outs of using them. The OWL at Purdue has a great overview of the difference between commas, colons, and semicolons and when they're properly used which I highly recommend you check out.

The reason why the semicolon is an issue in the first sentence ties in with the third main issue: repetitive sentence structure. Right now, both clauses are structured "She (verb) (descriptor) room", and considering how short the clauses are, this repetition in the structure is really, really obvious. Considering you want to connect the ideas together, there's no reason why, in this case, you can't combine the two ideas together into one sentence. Something like "She sat, the only one lit in a dark room" would read much more smoothly while also varying your sentence structure.

Right now, you use the same basic structure for a lot of your sentences, and it gets pretty repetitive. Varying your structures would help make your writing a little more interesting.

Her yellow hair pressed against the dull subway wall, her nose into a dinty old book. Her green-blue eyes that wondered from word-to-word, creating scenes in her head.

Both sentences here have misspellings in them. "Dinty" should probably be "dingy" and "wondered" should be "wandered", since eyes can't think for themselves. These two sentences are also a good example of how you reuse the same structure for your sentences.

He had been there since six in the morning, hunched over a old computer that never seemed to work, with a cup of coffee staining the fake desk. He touched his headache-ridged head and sighed; his working day was over. He grabbed his fedora, black overcoat, and his brown briefcase.

He walked out to his brown station wagon and threw it in as he got in.

There are a few issues with these sentences. The first is how your actions get attributed to the wrong things. The most obvious case is in "He walked out to his brown station wagon and threw it in as he got in." which makes it sound like he walked out to his station wagon and threw the station wagon in as he got into some unspecified place. A less obvious case involves a cup staining a desk that isn't a desk because it is fake.

The easiest way to catch and prevent these sorts of misattributions is to stop every once and a while and ask yourself "What is doing this?" or "Who/what is (insert pronoun)?" If it matches up with the last thing mentioned, all is well, otherwise you'll need to specify what is doing the action or being described.

Though I think it would be pretty neat if he just casually tossed the station wagon into the someplace he was going. I know it's not what you were aiming for, but if you ever decide to write urban fantasy, it would be a very nice descriptive touch.

The final technical issue is your over-reliance on adjectives and other descriptive words. What winds up happening is that there are so many everywhere, they begin losing their effect as they clutter the writing. A lot of the descriptors you use are also quite vague and generic, and simply substituting synonyms for them doesn't work. A particularly glaring example is in this sentence:

The negro-haired man smiled to himself as he walked towards the girl.

In your quest to find synonyms for "black", you've used a slur, which is technically an incorrect usage of the word, which you really shouldn't be using to begin with. Thesauri are really useful, if you also know the meaning and usages of the synonyms it lists. It's always a good idea to check the word you're planning to use in a dictionary, though, just to be safe and avoid mistakes like the one in this sentence.

Instead of using so many adjectives, it would be more effective to use more vivid verbs and thus show us how the characters act and appear. Instead of simply walking, a character could saunter over if they're feeling very confident, or they could tiptoe over if they're trying to be quiet or go unnoticed, or they could stomp over if they're upset or angry, and so on. Incorporating more vivid verbs would also help cut down on the number of descriptive words you'd need to use, which would make the ones you do use much more effective.

Aside from practice and getting critique, the easiest way to learn how to write better is to read books you really like and then try to figure out what it is you like about them so much. You'll learn a whole bunch of different techniques that way, as well as how they work and why, which will really help improve your writing.

Points: 16
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Sun Jan 25, 2015 2:05 am

myjaspercat wrote a review...

Hello Onethousandrums,
Myjaspercat here for your review,

Ok, so despite what Burrow said below, I am going to jump out on a limb and review your piece here. However I might not go into two much depth since it is a long piece. I might be harsh so please don't take anything I say supper personally. As well I am going to review this based on the sections you have already kind of split the story up as (*****) is what I mean. I would consider in the future posting this in parts to make it easier to review. Enough with the complaining though, I am here to help you.

Section 1:
1.) "She sat among a dark room; she was the only lit person in that room."
---The beginning of the story is what is supposed to draw your reader in. It is called a hook (though I am pretty sure you have heard that before.) Here, you don't use anything to make me as your reader want to continue reading. This sentence is plain and boring as well it reads a little underdeveloped/ childlike. To make your reader want to read your story, then you need to draw us in. By just telling us there is a girl in a dark room and she is the only person there doesn't draw me in. Cut this line, for your benefit.

2.) "Many looked like storm clouds while she the only white cloud hanging outside the group; an outsider, if you will."
---You have already told us that she is the only 'lit' person in the room so this line kind of repeat's itself. It is unnecessary, long and clunky.

Section 2:
1.) "He walked out to his brown station wagon and threw it in as he got in."
---What did he throw into the station wagon? By just saying 'and threw it in' you leave the reader up to there imagination to figure out what he threw in. I am guessing you mean the briefcase but it would be nice if you could clarify it up.

2.) About the character, if he is a 'boy' then I don't think that he would be old enough to be working in an office. Most of the time when someone uses the word 'boy' they would normally think of someone under the age of 15 (or around that age) so instead of using 'boy' I think that it would be better if you used the word 'man' there for showing your readers he is old enough to work in the office. About the setting, if he is in a office then why would his desk be fake? As well, how is a desk fake, isn't a desk just a desk?

Section 3
1.) "The young girl sighed as she walked into the crowd of gray towards her destination, hoping to find it before it rained."
--- You have not given any clues as it was to rain, instead of throwing it in there then maybe you could describe the sky. Saying something like 'the clouds overhead grew
ominous and rather freighting, as if the sky above could break open any minute and start 'crying'' could really draw your reader and it could do a lot for the story.

2.) "The suitcase the girl was holding seemed to grow heavier and heavier as she took steps and even tried switching hands to get comfortable"
---Between 'took' and 'step' add 'each'. Before the word 'even' in the next half of the sentence add the word 'she' and lastly cut out 'get' and change it to 'make it'.

Section 4:
Overall doesn't make sense and the transition is to fast.

Sorry, (if you read this far into my review since it is long) I tried but I cant review this entire piece by section as I hoped. It isn't because of the length more of the content. There doesn't seem to be nearly enough transition between thoughts, actions, and sections. The story is just flowing by so fast it is confusing. Making it worse is the lack of imagery. THERE IS NONE.

Have you ever heard of the concept showing vs. telling. Well you need that here, There is barely any descriptive details here and the places were there are, they're not used properly or well. Yes you describe the solemnness of the city and its inhabitants and the brightness of the girl but the way you do it is boring and lacks oomph. I don't care about her hair color unless maybe you said 'she had hair the color of the sun, which brought light to this dreary place' instead of just saying 'she had yellow hair'. Yes you can use adjectives, good for you but twist them to your advantage.

Instead of describing the building as 'dull' and 'close together' show me how they are 'dull'. What do they look like? Are the painted and the paint is peeling off? Are there water stains and cracks in the foundation? There are so many questions that your entire scenery leaves in my mind. I want to know more, and not in the good way. DETAILS, DETAILS, DETAILS.

As well, your sentence structure lacks, well, everything. You are writing this very simplistically and it reads terribly. You need to write better, somewhat longer, and more detailed sentences. I hope the few examples I threw in helped but in case you didn't catch those I am going to give another.

FROM THE BEGINNING OF YOUR STORY: "There she was; a girl with blonde hair- unlike the darken colored hair people- wearing bright clothes. He mentally shook his head as if he was dreaming but the girl still was there, holding a suitcase in her hand. She look different among the dark clouds that walked the streets, their heads hung low at the ground but this girl she had her head high up as if to show off her proud as a outsider."

WHAT I WOULD WRITE: "There she was, the girl with sunlight hair -which stood out amongst the darker sulkier haired people- wearing clothes that reminded him of the spring flowers. He shook his head, thinking he was just dreaming, but the girl, she remained standing there, holding a suitcase in her hand. She was different, a splash of vibrant paint thrown on to the canvas of the dark world that surrounded her. Instead of looking down, at the cracked sidewalk, she looked up, ahead, as if she was proud she was different."

I hope you see what I mean now, when I say you need imagery. It just makes your writing pop more. (I am not saying you will or that you have to, but if you want to use the paragraph I wrote you can/ just saying incase you want to, people wont say you are stealing or anything.)

Overall I think that this has great potential, hope I wasn't harsh and that I helped. Good Luck and Continue Writing. --Myjaspercat

OneThousandDrums says...

Thank you!! I think this review would top all reviews I have ever seen in my life since no one really looks at my work but anyway... you were never harsh just helping someone out who needs help on a story that took her 5 months to write but that's life so...

myjaspercat says...

again, i wasnt trying to be mean or anything, but when I see something that needs work I will speak my mind. Sorry if i hurt your feelings, that wasnt my intent

OneThousandDrums says...

you didn't..

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Sun Jan 25, 2015 1:58 am

niteowl wrote a review...

Hi there OneThousandDrums and welcome to YWS! Niteowl here to review for Team Blue Moon.

Okay, so I'm in agreement with Burrow...this is very long. Typically a good-sized chunk on here is about 2000-3000 words. That said, I did start reviewing, but in the interest of time, I only did the first part. I wrote down comments as I read.

She sat among a dark room; she was the only lit person in that room. Her yellow hair pressed against the dull subway wall, her nose into a dinty old book. Her green-blue eyes that wondered from word-to-word, creating scenes in her head.

Okay so my first impression is that the grammar here is kind of odd, and I can’t tell if it’s a stylistic choice or not. The first sentence seemed strange because “lit” is also a slang term for someone who’s high on drugs (which doesn’t appear to be the case). I think the sentence could be reworded to flow more smoothly. Maybe “She was the only person illuminated in the dark subway station.” The second sentence is also kind of awkward since you don’t repeat the verb. I also think “dingy” is the word you’re looking for there. I might use a different verb to describe the hair so you can use “pressed” for the nose. The third sentence is fine, although I think “wandered” makes more sense.

I really like the imagery of the storm clouds. You have some really interesting descriptions.

The girl was not used to this before; the town she came from seemed friendly yet hostile with clear, blue skies with secrets of the town below.

Another sentence that is not very clear to me. I’m not even sure if she’s referring to this town, a previous town, or both.

His feet felt like jello in his black business shoes and his long, skinny arm seemed to feel unboned to the rest of his long,skinny body.

This sentence starts out okay, but the “unboned” description made little sense to me and thus threw me out of the story.

He noticed the same people, wearing the same stuff while doing the same things; he grew sick of it and he wanted something- a new person - to come to this city but who would no one wants to come to a city like this....

This sentence is way too long. I would split this into at least three sentences.

The negro-haired man smiled to himself as he walked towards the girl.

Um…I would rethink the use of the word “negro”. In English, it’s an old-fashioned term for black people that is (I believe) considered racist. In fact, I think it’s okay to keep using a simple word like “black” instead of struggling to find new synonyms every time.

I find it odd that the characters introduce themselves by their first and last names. I don’t usually see that happening in a casual setting.

I also find it very weird that a young woman travelling by herself would go home with a strange man. That is basically a recipe for disaster and it seems like she’d be savvy enough to know that. Might I suggest that they do something more casual first? Like maybe he offers to buy her coffee or something.

Well this is an interesting world setup you’ve got here. I’m not sure how realistic these people playing keep-away with the oxygen is, but it’s good to think about.

So Eddie’s twenty, huh? I was picturing someone who lived on his own and was a little older, but the scene with his mother showed his immature side.

Cindy had an urge to hug him to make him feel better but before she could think twice, Cindy jumped off the bed and gave him a hug.

There’s quite a few places like this in the story where you’re missing a word. May want to look over it again.

Overall, I think you have an interesting story and characters. I would work on more natural sentence structures and think about how this world actually works. Welcome again and keep writing!