The Time Capsule By River Shields

Okay, I only skimmed this, as I haven't much time. Anyway, I was confused about the times. In the beginning, you say it began "twelve years ago." Then, at the end, you say you are ninety-seven years old. ??????? That would mean you buried the capsule when you were 85! Haha. Plus, he really shouldn't be able to walk when he's 97.

Also, I agree that you have issues with showing us your character. I don't feel for your character at all, and none of my emotion is evoked by this piece. I honestly don't get why he cares so much about finding the X location on the map. It isn't that cool, for me at least. And when he was a teenager, when he was using the map, he cries?! This again doesn't seem realistic, it isn't that emotional of a scene.

The last problem I have is with your language. Have you read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley? If so, please don't, because it really isn't as good of a book as it's cracked up to be. Anyway, your language reminds me of a less vocabulary-rich version of Shelley's in that book. All your language is too flowery, and the paragraphs are too big, which is a big ole turn-off to the reader.

Hope I helped you out,
Lena

Hey, River! Coco here for your first review. Hope this helps!

Rivercool99 wrote:The Time Capsule 
By River Shields
 
It did not begin today but twelve years ago; it began with the ticking of an old watch and the gleam of a golden cylinder #FF0000 ">[nice opening line]. The cylinder was my life and in my early age of 5 my life was not much. What was my life I put inside the cylinder, and then with a small red toy shovel I began to dig #FF0000 ">[the second two sentences both sound odd]. With my small muscles and my feeble body I dug slowly. By the end of the first day of digging I had barely made a dent in the ground. My father coming home from work asked if I wanted him to dig the hole, "No offense little buddy but your not making much progress", he said in his cheerful voice. But I knew that this wasn't right somewhere inside of me I knew that I had to dig the hole #FF0000 ">[this sentence needs commas]. The hole meant so much to me although it wasn't anymore than that, a hole #FF0000 ">[this sentence sounds odd]. It took me two weeks to dig the hole sipping on sour apricot juice in the summer heat. Then one day I took the cylinder in my hand and guided it into the hole, it fit perfect#FF0000 ">[ly] with around a foot of space above it. I buried it and then set to work on the map, I originally thought that the map would be simply a white piece of copy paper with crayon drawings that showed the location of the cylinder. But the map turned out to be so much more. My Mom showed me how to dip paper in tea and burn the edges until it looked old and soiled. Then she gave me her special pen, not a normal pen, but one with fine grooves and a quill like ending. She held my hand and helped me trace the lines and the X. Then I went on my childish expedition. I explored around my house, I lived in #FF0000 ">[a] dense forested area, which I imagined was infested with magical creatures and monsters. I went around naming locations; the pile of slightly skull shaped rocks was “The Dead Man Pile”. A tree that had stretching limbs I named “Ogre Man”. I would go back to my mother and told #FF0000 ">[tell not told. you need to be consistent with your tenses] her the names; she wrote them down and drew pictures. I loved doing such things and I still do. At the High school I go to I take an Orienteering class in which I can make and navigate maps. 

When the map was finished I curled up the paper and tied it with a scratchy twine. I took my pirates hat that I had always treasured and cut open the siding of it. I carefully slid my precious map into it and stowed it away at the back of my closet. 
 
                                                    *             *             *
 
As everyone knows times change easily and my closet was soon filled with other knickknacks and pieces of junk. The pirate hat was squashed to the very back of the closet. While the closet changed I changed with it #FF0000 ">[there should be a full stop here, not a comma] I completed elementary school, middle school #FF0000 ">[take away 'passed'] without a thought to the hat in my closet, and now in high school I remember nothing of a dark black hat sitting in the back of my closet #FF0000 ">[your repeating about the pirate hat. i think you should mention it in 2 sentences only and not exceed beyond that amount]. Today I am tall, and thin. I have night black hair that matches the color of the hat #FF0000 ">[again with the hat]. I am not like the child I was and the child I am now has no interest in what is in the back of the closet. 
 
But still things that are meant to happen will happen one way or another. The day I decided to clean my room was perhaps the most fateful moment of my life. I now believe that fate had called me although I doubt fate would call a person to clean their room #FF0000 ">[awkward sentence]. I had cleaned half of my room before deciding to start on the closet. I dug through the clothes, the books, the music CDs, and everything else that was stuffed in there. I was pondering at how much fit in the closet when I came across a tattered hat full of dust and #FF0000 ">[was] lightened with age. I was about to throw it in the trashcan when I felt the powerful force of a memory hold my hand still. I remember caressing the soft fabric and crying as I…as I did something to it. I searched the outside and finding nothing I looked on the inside, I found a small clean slit. Feeling around the lining I felt something hard. I pulled it out; it was a large piece of paper that looked old. But as I looked closer it looked old in a fake way as if someone had burned it and soaked it in tea. 
 
I unrolled the piece of paper and looked at it, I was surprised to see what looked to be a treasure map. At first I was excited, thinking that I had found buried treasure. But then another unseemly memory calmed my mind; I remembered something from when I was younger, something special. I looked closer at the map, it had twenty strange locations on it all with mysterious names, and I also saw that the beginning point was our house. Someone had named it "The Old Shack". I felt something inside my heart something like longing or maybe hope. Although following this map would probably lead to nothing, indeed it would be absurd and childish but something told me that I must.
 
#FF0000 ">[why is there an indent here?]  I felt the sharp cold as I walked out of my door, doing a three sixty, looking around at the tall trees. I glanced at the map and estimated the direction I was supposed to go in. I started walking, enjoying myself, I liked the mystery and the strangeness of this whole thing. I was so engrossed in my thoughts that I almost ran into a huge standing stone in front of me. It took a minute to register but then the memories came, memories rich with sugary happiness and delicious sadness for even the terrible memories attached to this rock, my dog dying, my parents divorce were all beautiful to me #FF0000 ">[awkward sentence and confusing. how can the memory of his dog dying and his parents divorce bring rich memories, sugary happiness and beautiful?]. I looked closer at the rock and saw the rough cave drawings I had made on its stone. I had drawn monsters attacking me and me bravely rushing to battle them with sword in hand. I saw drawings of the beasts in the forest as they sat down to feast on an elephant. All these drawings were rough and crude; I barely could identify them as shapes. Overcome by the memories that took hold of me I fell to the ground crying my eyes out, not with sadness but happiness #FF0000 ">[again, i'm confused]. Suddenly I realized what I had found, something beautiful that no one else had in the whole world. This was a walk of memories, a sanctuary for me when life had hurt me #FF0000 ">[why is your character hurt? if you don't want to mention it all now you should drop a few hints here and there so the reader has an idea of the mind-set of your character]. I realized that I had to span all twenty locations on the map throughout my life and I would save the very last location, the X for when I was old and felt death creeping up on me.
                                              *         *         *
 
          So then the years past slowly and some years I decided I would visit the old house and walk down my trail of memories. Once when my parents had died in a terrible car accident #FF0000 ">[so first your MC's character's died, then they got divorced and now they died in a car crash? firstly, this is really fragmented, i don't know if your doing this on purpose, like a time line kind of thing, if you aren't, then you really need to give these events a lot more prominance because these are quite significant events in your character's life, yet we as readers aren't really getting his feelings about them. secondly, these events are huge bombs that your dropping one by one on your reader which is quite oerwhelming, if this is a diary-like thing then you still need to break the news down in gentler ways] I walked down the trail after the funeral and I let the memories comfort me even, during my terrible pain. Once when I got married #FF0000 ">[again, another bomb], I did not feel death but the power of life pulling me toward it. I took my kids to the trail #FF0000 ">[after the funeral? or some time before the funeral, you have to be specific] and showed them some of the locations; they showed no interest but acted scared when I burst into tears at the feel of the memories.

Now I am here today. I am 97 years old today #FF0000 ">[you should've mentioned this earlier] and I only have the X left on the map. At my old age I feel death creeping up on me and I want to get to the X before death finds to me. I look at the map and then look at the ground I faintly see the outline of an X made by large rocks. With my wrinkled hands I push them aside and realizing that I had no shovel dug with my bare hands. I felt the pain of my arthritis but it did not stop me. I felt like I was a child again and I was loving it. Finally I hurt my fingernail on a hard object. I pulled up a rusted brown cylinder with some faint patches of gold showing through. I grabbed a stick near me and I stuck it in a faint crack and pried it open. I gasped at was what inside. I had never felt as many memories as I did in that cylinder, for after all, I had stuck my whole 5 year old life in that cylinder and now I had released it. I pulled out my old stuffed bear that I had fallen asleep with every night, then I pulled out my lucky rabbits foot which I got in a gift shop in Arizona on the way to Los Angeles, California. I remembered the long car ride from Texas to California. I remembered the small gift shop that sat right next to an ostrich farm. I recalled seeing the rabbits foot and knowing that it was really lucky and that I must have it. Then I pulled out the stopwatch. This was the best of all because it had the most memories attached to it; I had found it when we had visited my Great Grandmothers house after she had died. I fell in love with it and knowing that if I asked my parents if I could have it they would say no but I knew that my Great Grandmother would want me to have it #FF0000 ">[awakward sentence]. I had taken the only thing I had ever taken in my long, honest life #FF0000 ">[again, awkward]. Every night I wound it before I went to bed and I would listen to it tick quietly. I held it to my ear and I heard something amazing and impossible: I heard the watch tick the rhythm of 97 years underground in a golden time capsule.