Candy Land
James
“Sorry James” Mrs. Ricord had said for the millionth time “We haven’t gotten any candy for a while.” She smiles and ruffles my black hair “We’ll try our best to get some” Her words played in my head like a broken record. “Why could this be happening? I thought “We’ve always had candy especially living in New York. How Cou-” Just then a black tom (or was that dirt) lunged at a mouse and quickly ended its life. I quickly look away and hurried on to my apartment.
The familiar emptiness greets me when I open the door. I glance around and my eyes rest on a note, no surprise, it reads:
Sorry James. I have to work all day. Would you please go to the grocery store and buy some milk. You know where the money is. Make a cake with the extra things would you. I now you would like it.
Love, Your caring mother
A sadness grips me, then loosens up to anger.
“She doesn’t care. If Dad were here we wouldn’t be in this” I thought as a tear rolls down my cheek.
I reached under the fridge, grabbed five dollars and hurried out the door. Orange and pink streaked the sky. I hurried back to the store and walked in.
“How many times do I have to tell ya, we ain’t got no candy?” Mr. Ricord bared his yellow teeth, which went just right with his wrinkled face. The smell of cigarette smoke wafted out to meet me. I gagged.
“I’m just here to buy some milk” I walked off leaving the man to himself. “How can such a nice lady marry him” I thought as I rounded the corner to the milk aisle and ran face to face with Annabeth.
Now, she and I has been friends for the longest I could remember. But last year at the spring dance all of that changed. The flowers in her hair matched perfectly with her sparkling blue eyes. I smelled the springtime in the air around her, as if she had come directly from it. It was perfect, she was perfect.
“Hey James, what’s up” She whipped a strand of her curly, dark brown hair out of her face. Her dark jeans held smudges as if she’s been in the painting houses with her dad.
“Just the usual, doing slave work.” She laughed. I grabbed a jug of milk and started walking to the counter “There hasn’t been much candy lately.”
“Yep, there probably some candy catastrophe going on” She acted out a fight.
“What is it with you and games?” she shrugged. I paid for the milk and stepped out into the dark streets. “I’ll stay at your house tonight… My dad won’t notice” she added, a tiny bit of sadness in her voice.I pulled up my sleeve as a slight breeze began to blow. It would be a long walk home.
“So” I begin a bit teasingly, trying to break the silence “I hear the boy in your science class, Clain, likes you” A pause. My stomach tightens into a million knots as I see her face turn red. “Yeah and?” She flings her hair back and glares at me.
“Just asking.” I say quickly. I can tell that there’s embarrassment behind her anger, but why? Then it hits me. She said yes I mumble to myself. My heart falls. After all this time, me thinking I had a chance with her. I shake my head. We’re just friends, and that’s all Well ever be.
“Did you see that” Annabeth’s voice interrupted the peaceful night. It sounded like the anger was gone.
“See what” I looked around, suddenly becoming tense. A pair of shadows come in to view. Two men in black suits and identical pulled out guns and pointed them at us. We couldn’t run now. They silently walked towards us, I look at Annabeth and knew not to even try.
“What do you want?” I asked as they led us into an apartment. It was brightly lit with fresh walls and the amazing smell of cake wafted through the house.
“We need your help” the smaller twin said “a world different than this is in great danger” We look at him with a quizzical stare.
“We don’t even know who you are. You two just acted like psychos. I don’t think we can trust you guys.” Annabeth retorted
“Young lady, we’re the governors of Candy Land. Are queen has been stolen by every candies enemy, Air.”
“Air, you must be joking it’s not April fool’s day”
“Air makes candy stale. A plague of wind is taking our people by the hundreds and you are the only ones who can save us”
“Who said it was our job, where we selected out of a draw contest!” she was angered to see how selfish they were. Just to take us by force and tell us some silly comic book story. I rested my hand on her shoulder.
“Just listen to their story” she nodded. They continued. “That’s why there is no candy in your world.”
“What does that have to do with us?”
“Humans will lose there… humanness” The oven beeped, the bigger twin took the cake out and cut it. He handed us each a slice with a cup of milk.
“We’ll help” I said. Annabeth nodded. But I could still see the skepticism in her face. “What do we have to do” The small twin went into a small room and came out with a mirror. The sides looked like pure gold as it sat on the rug beside him. It started to glow.
“Come” They jump in. I looked at Annabeth.
“Here goes nothing” She jumped in with me right behind her.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hi, excellent story! I loved how you used lots of imagery and dialogue to accurately depict what is happening in each scene. From a reader's perspective I would add more of a introduction. The introduction would prepare the reader for what is to come.
Additionally, when writing a fictional story like this, I would always make sure to have a terse exposition. Remember, the intro needn't be lengthy; just short, crisp and concise.
Hi, excellent story! I loved how you used lots of imagery and dialogue to accurately depict what is happening in each scene. From a reader's perspective I would add more of a introduction. The introduction would prepare the reader for what is to come.
Additionally, when writing a fictional story like this, I would always make sure to have a terse exposition. Remember, the intro needn't be lengthy; just short, crisp and concise.
LOVE IT! Especially that you but effort in mixing two opposite emotions together! you started off with placing loneliness into James's heart, and later on when he meets Annabeth, everything becomes happy and flowers start to pop around him. I love the twilight zone effect you especially put into this piece of literature and you seriously used amazing imagery. For some feed back you have a little bit of grammars there that you have to correct, but else than that, i incredibly enjoyed reading this short story. I would love to see what happens next and now a lot more about all these amazing characters. I hope this message was not too long. Thanks for reading!
-HUA
Hey Poseidon~
I'm here as you requested. I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to get to your work, so I'm going to review all the chapters you have so far. I skimmed through the reviews, but I'm sorry if I repeat anything.
Okay, the main thing you need to work on is pacing. Everything goes so fast. I'll use the introduction of characters in the beginning as an example.
You've got James and Mrs. Ricord in the first three words. We don't know anything about James as the narrator. His mom is introduced in the third paragraph, Mr. Ricord in the sixth, and Annabeth in the seventh! In all of that busy-ness Mr. Ricord gets the best characterization, and he's only in that one paragraph!
By paragraph seven I'm confused and don't know what's going on, and we haven't even gotten to the really weird stuff yet! Slow down. Describe things. Go into James' emotions. Break down a scene until you and the reader gets a solid feel for what's going on. Keep in mind that this story has been living in your head for a while. Everything may be clear to you, but the reader needs some explanation. Lead them by the hand.
Linked to pacing is how fast the kids agreed to help find the candy queen. These people sound crazy! Why don't they ask for proof? Why does Annabeth change her mind so fast? This is another part of the scene that you just need to stretch out until the reactions are more realistic. As an exercise, I would just overdescribe everything. Mention everything that goes on in that scene. Freeze a moment and spend a page writing about it.
Now, what you're doing right. The fun part!
You've got a great idea here. It sounds like a cute children's book. This could be molded into something marketable, I think. You just need to work on pacing and characterization. I can't wait to read the next chapter!
If you have any questions or concerns, lemme know,
Megs~
This sounds like a kickass story and can't wait to read more.
Darn you air always ticking people off.
Haha Thanks. Cant wait to read yours too.
Hey Poseidon!
~ Thoughts are clearest when they're italicized, without quotation marks. Same thing with the letter the Mom left. Centering it and italicizing it is the generally accepted way.I'm sorry this took me so bleeding long to get to. My reviewing has fallen to a shameful pace. But I'm finally here to review your edited version, as promised. To be perfectly honest I don't remember many of the details of your original draft, so this is going to be less of a comparison as it is an entirely new review of the story I now see here.
~ This was a mega info-dump. I think I would recommend a bitter "If Dad were here comment" and maybe a tear, as foreshadowing-- but don't just supply all this now. Maybe have it come up later, in a dream or something? Flashbacks and dreams can be quite helpful in revealing back story.
~ Maybe try something like "I couldn't remember a time before we were friends. I hadn't noticed how pretty she was until the previous year, though. During the spring dance, when she had flowers braided into her hair, and her eyes sparkled like...blah, blah, blah" You see what I did? Take away the really super conversational tone, and add more description about what made the change from just friends to pet crush.
~ You, obviously, know your characters better than I do-- but would he really cry in front of his crush? Personally, I know that it would be absolutely crushing to me if I found out that the boy I like told me he likes someone else. But I wouldn't cry in front of him. If I cried at all it would be well after I'd found a nice place to hide.
~ Ehh, they're being held at gunpoint. Wouldn't she be at least slightly more tactful?
~ c:
~ This sentence isn't very clear.
~ ~ ~
Okay! So, like I said at the beginning of the review, I don't remember the original draft overly well-- but this one was much better. I remember with the first draft I struggled with some of the mechanics you chose. This draft still had some hiccups, but it was definitely much easier to understand than the first draft. Well done there.
You've got an interesting plot, too. It's definitely very original, and I think it's got potential. Just be careful with your characterization. In stories like this, which are a bit unrealistic anyway, you've got to be very careful to give your characters realistic motivation and dialogue. Like, I like the idea of the boy getting a crush on his childhood friend, and romances seem to be fairly standard with stories-- but just be sure that you're giving realistic emotions.
And they went from gunpoint, to being pleaded with, to willingly going with guys who held them at gunpoint in just a few lines. Maybe slow things down a bit and give more reasoning? Like, why do they care about the queen or the air or the candy. I get you said it was affecting candy on earth-- but still. I wouldn't be going with the twins unless I had much more of a reason than they got.
Overall, it's a very decent story, though. Please keep me updated when you edit or post new chapters. It very well might take me a shameful amount of time to get to (I'm again very sorry this took so long) but I do want to read more of your work.
Keep writing and let me know if there's anything else I can do to help!
~Shady
Thank you so much. The second xhater is also edited.
Hey Poseidon!
~ Okay, so, I suppose it's time to warn you (if you haven't noticed it in my sig yet), I have been dubbed YWS' Supreme Grammar of Nazi, and I earned that title through my reviews. Can you guess what I'm getting at? Yeah, so, bear with me...Shady here to be less of a bad mentor, and review your story.
Grammar Help
Hated but necessary...
Spoiler
I've been advised against using the word "had" in stories, if it's at all possible to cut them out. I don't remember the exact reasoning behind that, something to do with pacing, I believe, but the fewer "had"s you have, the smoother your text reads. Besides, as William Strunk said in his wonderful book The Elements of Style, "Omit needless words." Also, you should have punctuation before your next quotation marks. In some instances you could use another comma, in this situation I advise a period.
~ Contraction, so you need an apostrophe. Then the end punctuation, again. What I said ^ up there about punctuation inside of quotation marks need applied to all your dialogue in this story; I'm not going to keep pointing it out. c:
~ Final nitpick for this section: thoughts should be italicized, as a way of indicating to your readers exactly what is character thoughts, and what is just the in-text descriptions.
~ Letters included within stories should also be italicized. Plus I fixed the punctuation of the letter.
~ I'm not entirely sure what this means... perhaps an edit "Our queen has been stolen by every candy's enemy -- Air." would be in order? c:
~ I believe a bit of a punctuation change would make this clearer...
~
Okay!
So, grammatical nitpicks out of the way, I liked the start of your story. When I first started reading, I was a bit confused why the title of your story was "Candy Land" and was baffled by the war on Candy-- but that just made me want to read more, and you satisfied that curiosity by the end of the chapter. So, that was very well done. You set up a mystery for us, but then didn't leave us hanging.
I also like how this is such a short piece. Short starts to stories tend to encourage readers, since people don't look at it and go "oh, great, this thing is huuuuge" and pass by it. However, since it is so short, you could totally add in more descriptions and character development-- which I think you should go for!
Like, James seems to be an interesting character, and I really want to know more about his relationship with Annabeth, as well as others in your story. Who is Mrs. Ricord? Where does his Mom work? Why doesn't Annabeth's dad care if she spends the night with James? How old are these characters, anyway? Why does Mr. Ricord snarl at James as soon as he comes in the store? Has he made a habit of being a pest and annoying Mr. Ricord when he comes in?
You set up so much curiosity in just these few short paragraphs!
I also would love to see more description and development for these mysterious agents that pop up out of no where. You tell us how they're dressed, but you don't give many details otherwise-- are they tall or short? Black hair? Sunglasses? If you don't tell us, I swear I'm going to envision them as people off the Matrix... so, unless that's what you're going for, tell me otherwise.
Okay, I think that's about all I had to say about this. You've got a very interesting plot so far, you mostly just need to clean up the grammar and usage, and add in even more details to round the characters and plot out!
Keep writing, and if you have any questions about what I've said in this review, don't hesitate to ask! I'm here to help!
~Shady
Hey Thanks everyone who reviewed. I didn't edit this one and since this is my first publishing I wanted to get it out there. The second chapter everything will be better. The gun part was just imagination, total imagination sorry. I'm adding Annabeth's perspective as well so it will be way more interesting.
Thanks again!
Overall, I enjoyed the plot although at times found myself reading over parts again to make sure I followed the story line however as this is a short story it isn't a huge problem. Was it to be developed then it may be a prevalent issue but not for now.
The plot is very imaginative, a candy war and bar the title nothing in the story gives that information away which I like, as it comes out of nowhere except the clerk at the counter telling the protagonist that there is no candy as soon as he 'bursts' through the door.
Parts could be developed more in places to give more description and give the reader more to imagine and picture in their own head therefore they really get a feel for the character and what surrounds them.
Final thing is the obvious punctuation errors however these can be easily dealt with if work is checked over by you and someone else, possibly an adult or more appropriate to the work itself your English teacher or someone in a similar position.
Bar these two minor issues I enjoyed the read and am pleased I have taken the time to read it.
Best of luck.
First off I would like to tell you how great a story this has been so far, the idea of a "Candy War" is completely absurd and unheard of, maybe that's the reason I enjoyed this story very much, the original concept of a land with candy as its inhabitants that have been attacked by "Air" makes for an interesting story that can be quickly expanded with twists and turns.
Now for the tough part, although I really enjoyed this story I couldn't help but notice that there are a significant amount of spelling and grammar mistakes that if corrected would make this story an almost flawless read. Punctuation wise I have to agree with wisegirl22 that you do need work on your punctuation's, the missing periods, question marks or exclamation marks at the end of some characters lines just seemed so unusual to me, sometimes the punctuation was wrong such as the case of this line “How many times do I have to tell ya, we ain’t got no candy?”. This line confused me heavily and had me wondering for a while what you were meaning to say. I highly recommend that you fix those errors on future stories so you do not make a habit out of them.
On a different note lets talk a little but about the story particularly near the end. The way that the governors of candy land handled the situation shocked me, first they point a gun at two defenseless teenagers and force them into an apartment where they give them homemade cake and reveal the truth about their true identities after which they ask that the teenagers help them save their captured queen, it just seemed off to me, but hey that's just my opinion.
To conclude this review this story kept me on the edge, it got me guessing every outcome only to be proven wrong and I have to emphasize the fact that this is a great story that needs just a little more work on your part to make it an even better one.
Best of Luck.. Your friend Judeea.
The plot of this story is quite imaginative. I wouldn't think that air is the mortal enemy of candy. Conceptually, you have an interesting thing going here. Personally, I would enjoy more imagery to help define the setting. I can't help but wonder, "What is going on in the background?" or "Where are they now?" I would agree to what wisegirl22 said. Punctuation would make the structure clear and concise. Also, adding more dialogue tags would help readers figure out who said what. There are a few lines untagged such as, “Air, you must be joking it’s not April fool’s day”. Who said this is unclear. Overall, a fun read. Keep improving!
Hello, Poseidon, whatssup? Hehe. Did you borrow your friend's name from Percy Jackson?
I'll start out with all the little nitpicks.
Punctuation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"“Sorry James.” Mrs. Ricord had said for the millionth time. “We haven’t gotten any candy for a while. We'll try our best to get some." Why is this happening? I wonder, as I walk along the grimy streets of New York. My apartment door squeaks open, the familiar emptiness greets me.
A note on the table doesn’t surprise me, it reads:
Sorry James. I have to work all day, would you please go to the grocery store and buy some milk? You know where the money is.
Love,
Your caring mother"
That was all the little errors. The edited version of your piece is above. Please note what is wrong and try to correct these things in the future. Later...
"I reach under the fridge and pull out a five dollar bill, walking out the door. Orange tinted the sky; if I didn’t hurry I would be consumed by the darkness. The store door burst open; I came in panting like a mad dog; the clerk looked at me in disgust.
“How many times do I have to tell ya, we ain’t got no candy?” Mr. Ricord bared his yellow teeth. That went just right with his wrinkled face.
“I’m just here to buy some milk.” I walked off, leaving the man to himself. I rounded the corner to the milk aisle and ran face to face with Annabeth. Her and I have been friends for the longest I could remember.
“Hey James, what’s up?" She wiped her sweat on her jean. Her shirt read: Powered by Redstone. Yep, she’s a Minecraft freak.
“Just the usual, doing slave work.” She laughed. I grabbed a jug of milk and started walking to the counter. "There hasn’t been much candy lately.”
“Yep, there's probably some candy war going on.” She acted out a fight.
“What is it with you and games?” she shrugged. I paid for the milk and stepped out into the dark streets. “I’ll stay at your house tonight…my dad won’t notice.” she added, a tiny bit of sadness in her voice. I pulled up my sleeve as a slight breeze began to blow. It would be a long walk home."
Again, edited version. Fix errors in future. Same old, same old.
“Did you see that?” Annabeth interrupted the peaceful night.
“See what?” I looked around, suddenly becoming tense. A pair of shadows come in to view. Two men in identical black suits pulled out guns and pointed them at us. We couldn’t run now. They silently walked towards us; I look at Annabeth and knew not to even try.
“What do you want?” I asked as they led us into an apartment. It was brightly lit with freshly painted walls and the amazing smell of cake wafted through the house.
“We need your help," the smaller twin said. "a world different than this is in great danger.” We look at him with a quizzical stare.
“We don’t even know who you are!” Annabeth retorted
“We’re the governors of Candy Land. Are queen has been stolen by every candies' enemy, Air.”
“Air, you must be joking it’s not April fool’s day yet!”
“Air makes candy stale. A plague of wind is taking our people by the hundreds and you are the only ones who can save us.”
“Who said it was our job, were we selected out of a draw contest?!” she was angered to see how selfish they were. Just to take us by force and tell us some silly comic book story. I rested my hand on her shoulder.
“Just listen to their story.” she nodded. They continued. “That’s why there is no candy in your world.”
“What does that have to do with us?”
“Humans will lose their...humanness.” The oven beeped; the bigger twin took the cake out and cut it. He handed us each a slice with a cup of milk.
“We’ll help." I said. Annabeth nodded in agreement. “What do we have to do?"
The small twin went into a small room and came out with a mirror. The sides looked like pure gold as it sat on the rug beside him. It started to glow.
“Come," They say as they jump in. I looked at Annabeth.
“Here goes nothing." She jumped in with me right behind her."
Why would someone point a gun at people, then offer them cake and milk? Wrong man, just wrong. Welp, that's all we have. G'bye!
-wisegirl22
Thanks ill work on that next time
Yep! You should be! Answer this: did you get your character's name from Percy Jackson? Annabeth?
Hi, great story! I loved how you used lots of imagery and dialouge to accurately depict what is happening in each scene. From a reader's perspective I would add more of a introduction. When writing a fictional story like this, I would always make sure to have a terse exposition. Remember, the intro needn't be legnthy; just short, crisp and concise.
Thank you