Regret But No Repentence

I loved this! The whole concept is very interesting and I was immediately drawn into the story. I already feel for the characters. I would love to know more. Would you ever consider writing more to this? I leave the story feeling unsatisfied, needing more. If you do, I will be highly anticipating it!

That being said, there were a few things I think you could improve upon.
I believe you have great descriptions, and I can visualize everything. Which is great, but sometimes there is too much description, just slightly. Just by a hair.
It really isn't that big of a deal, but still.

There is way more good to the story than bad, and it's very difficult to critique without looking extremely extremely closely.

I can feel the guilt of the brother who killed himself. That's good.

I don't truly feel the pain of the man still alive. I read it, and I see it, but I don't feel it. Do you understand what I'm saying? I hope so.

Anyways, you are a good writer and have great potential!
Keep up the great work!
- Cody

PassionateReader,
I love the idea of basing the story off of a sentence. I liked the fact that your story was very descriptive and that you made everything very dramatic because it made the story so much more intriguing. I LOVE the sentence "Two soft tears rolled down his cheeks, producing a soft sigh." I also really like the line "Quiet sobs echoed through the rafters of the attic and a new stream of tears began to wet the page." It is so descriptive and I love the vivid vocabulary. At the beginning of you story, you said "Dust slid off the books leather cover as he lifted it from the box in the attic." You forgot to add the apostrophe in "book's leather cover" to show possession. Also, instead of "lifted it from the box in the attic", I think it would make more sense to say "lifted it out of the box in the attic." or something similar. Then, I think you should say what he blew the dust off of in the second sentence, even though the readers probably assume that you mean the book. So, I would probably say "He blew the remaining dust off of the book" instead. The rest of that paragraph is really good. In the writing that the main character was reading, I think it would make more sense to say "If I am dead, good riddance, I will be free from the nightmare that awaits me" because no one has found the book yet, so "the nightmare" hasn't yet happened. It would still be fine the way it is though, so it depends on your opinion. At some point, you said "But I did not care about the rank. So I vanished" Try not to start a sentence with "but" and "so I vanished" is a really short sentence, so I would reccomend combining it into something like "However, I did not care about my rank, so I ran away and vanished from the society." Later you used "cannot", but I would use "cannot" as two separate words like "can not" Then you said "I have nothing and noone to blame but myself" To me, it makes sense to take out "nothing and" and leave in "noone, but myself. Also, remember to use a comma before " but". You can probably use noone as two separate words. I absolutely adored your story and I think it is very intriguing. In conclusion, I really liked your description and vivid writing style, think that you could work on the wordings of some of the writing, and feel that you could work a little bit on the grammer when it comes to combining sentences. I really enjoyed reading your story and I hope this helps!
~21gmu

Hi there I'm Ash and I am here for a review! I hope all is well and I am happy to review!
Okay let's get started!

Overall I liked this story!I liked the plot and such. The detail made me very pleased to read this!

But sadly, there are some mistakes.Alright I really don't understand some stuff.Like is the guy reading the journal, the brother? Or? Please don't tell the reader it next tme, but like hint atm it, you know? But don't be too subtle. Oh my goodness no. Also, the journal says 1908, nice. But like wh does Martha still have a slave? That's odd. Unless you mean like a person treated like a slave (someone mentioned it in the comments), that just wasn't paid well? Cause slaves were owned by someone and did not get paid at all. Yeah.

Please put in more details that help the reader understand what exactly is going on. Other than that, this was a delightful read. And i think I might try a random sentence and branch out from there, short story sometime!
Bye Bye!

Hello, there, racket here to review this short!
Well, I really liked this, though it was a bit confusing in some parts. Not what you actually wrote, but we're missing some background here. The letter was dated 1908, and the last paragraph reads 'His brother was dead now;'. Is the man reading the dusty journal the brother of the guy writing the journal? Does this take place in the early 1900's? If these two guys are brothers, I can understand why the one is crying, but if they're not, and the guy reading is from the 2000's, why would he be crying? This is really the only confusing part, the date this story takes place, and the relationship between the writer and the reader. You also imply that there is a lot of dust on the book, which would imply it had been lying around longer than the five months indicated in the first paragraph.
Okay, so I love me some good historical fiction! Especially the early 1900's; that's one of my favorite times in history. If this whole short is written then, the language needs to be a bit more period. Maybe a bit of slang, mixed with some proper English? This is directed mainly at the letter, as I don't know what period the rest of this story is placed in.
The letter does a good job of portraying the writer's guilt and emotions, but it's not rushed enough. It seems like he's running from himself, and that he's trying to get out his story so he can leave it behind for good, so longer, more rushed sentences with more proper and slang language in there to fit the period and the mood.
Also in this letter, the story itself is a bit too confusing and complex. There are three girls mentioned. He did not want to marry Cornelia, so he ran off and eloped with Martha, taking the family fortune with him. I think he married Martha? Here it gets confusing; he was seduced by her slave? And then Martha left him taking the money and leaving him ruined. He can't even remember the slave's name? I would think if she ruined his marriage he would remember her name. Also, slaves were not around anymore in 1908. Now, people were often treated as slaves, but it was illegal and they were often just not paid very much, or at all, but they were not owned as they were when slavery was around.
I'm also a bit confused as to why the reader is crying?
Okay, those are the plot holes I see. Now, there's just a few grammar or sentence problems you could fix.
'Dust slid off the books leather...'
'books' is possessive to the book, so an apostrophe is necessary here. 'book's'
'...rolled down his cheek, producing a soft sigh.'
The tears themselves did not produce the sigh. 'and he sighed' might work better here. But I don't think he would sigh here; he's crying and bracing himself for something emotionally scarring. So maybe he would 'take a shuddering breath.'
'Two fresh tears sprung to his eyes and rolled down his cheek, producing a soft sigh.'
Also, the tears wouldn't spring 'to' his eyes, they would spring 'from' the eyes.
"Two fresh tears sprung from his eyes and rolled down his cheek; he took a shuddering breath.'
Towards the middle of the letter, he starts speaking in past tense in some spots where he could speak from the present. Here's one:
'But I did not care about rank.'
'But I do not about rank.' May sound a bit smoother, though 'did not' is fine, 'do' just works a bit better.
The sentences in the letter are very choppy, and not connected, which makes it harder to read, and harder to believe that this man rushing to explain his terrible mistakes would write. Scared, rushing, and guilty people tend to talk in one long breath to explain themselves, and the same happens when they write. They want you to see what justified their actions as soon as possible so that you don't judge them.
' he had killed himself from the guilt.'
The 'the' should be taken out here; just a smoother transition.
'a new stream of tears began to wet the page.'
Maybe ' a fresh stream of tears splashed against the page.' Just a suggestion; yours works as well.
Well, that's it! Only a bit confusing in your history and setting, and the occasional grammar issue and confusing sentence. This is very good, despite how I may have sounded. I tend to look into every aspect of a story and leave long reviews, even if the work is very good. Thank you for writing, I really enjoyed reading and reviewing this! Keep it up!
~racket

Hello PassionateReader,
Myjaspercat here for a review...

So, I really like the idea of having to choose a sentence and then making it into a story. It's very clever. I have one question for you though; what made you choose the sentence you did? Anyways onwards...

Dust slid off the book's leather cover as he lifted it from the box in the attic. this sounds a little weird to me. Do you mean that he took the box from the attic and is now looking at it or do you mean that he is looking at the book in the attic? It would help if it was just a little clearer. Slowly, he blew the remaining dust off how do you blow dust off slowly? and sat down on a nearby box. try not to repeat the same words that aren't 'super common' within only a few sentences. Two fresh tears sprung to his eyes and rolled down his cheek, producing a soft sigh. ok, two things here; one I wouldn't really think of tears 'springy' into an eye and two has to do with the sigh. The way you wrote it made it sound like the tear produced the sigh, though I feel like you actually meant that it was the guy who produced the sigh. It had been five months and he still could not couldn't <- just sounds a little better hold back his grief. After many moments of still silence, he gathered his courage, unbuckled the latch of the journal, and opened to the first page. so this beginning is ok. I really liked how it started off but not really how it ended. I like the idea of this book, but when it gets to the mans emotions evolving the book, I feel like you rushed it a little. It would be nice if you elaborated on it more, gave us something even stronger to grip onto. It read as follows:

Ok so this diary entry is interesting. I feel like you could really expand on this more, and make it even better. However I do have a few complaints; one, the sentences used are very simplistic and boring. The ones before the entry were a little more complex. That being said, the entry feels (to me) like a child wrote it. However according to the events that have happened in the entry itself gives me the illusion that this man is probably an older man; so the language doesn't really fit. Second, I feel like you need to give your reader a little more background.

He stopped reading in the middle of the sentence. His brother was dead now; he had killed himself from the guilt. Quiet sobs echoed through the rafters of the attic and a new stream of tears began to wet the page. His hand trembled as he closed the book.