Young Writers Society

Yo Fortis, you have a good few constructive comments on this already, so I'm gonna try and keep it brief.

I like what you've got going here, the image is of a place that's alien to me and anything I've seen before, yet I can still picture it pretty well.

There are a few times I found myself stumbling, or catching on certain phrases as one might a thorn on a rose. It's still nice, but you can tell there's something amiss.

There are a number of repetative phrases that I think you could easily salve and make smooth, such as:

It's riddled with potholes, so much so that the potholes are more frequent than the unbroken road.

Dust has worked itself into every crack, but dust wasn't the only thing that floated through the air.

The dirty concrete jungle was her jungle gym

Her shoes were like the road-- more hole than shoe

The tree was gone. Something inside the girl broke, like the walls, or the road, or the people who lived there. She curled up on a desperate piece of grass and cried, not caring that beneath her head was a broken bottle.

It's so tempting to just tell us what the story is about, isn't it. I mean you do all the hard work, slowly building it up and in a few lines you undo it all. The exposition at the end simply has to go.

You must always resist that temptation, it is better to under explain and come off as some literary enigma, than it is to over explain and come off as a literary hack. That's probably the biggest issue with this.

You have good control over the language you use. I found the writing itself was strong enough to keep me reading, even if the story itself didn't necessarily grip me.

Other than that, I think the other reviewers have done a good job. The only other thing that struck me was the diction level. It seemed at times inconsistent. You open it like it's a tale, you keep everything somewhat formal and at an arms length. The narrator, that is to say, has no great bearing on the telling of the story.

On the north-west side of the city of Albuquerque is a street where every building is cracked and all the people are too: they have hard lines on their faces, but they aren't laugh lines. The road itself is just as crumbled.

when she couldn't move her jaw even a little bit,

when the time came that her jaw became too stiff to move,

Well, *insert swearword here.* That was not how I was expecting that to go.

Anyway, the only thing I have to add to the other reviews is about the end. I feel like it would pack more punch if you didn't state the lesson you were going for. Like, right now you have this:

But she could still feel the bottle cutting into her ear. Why?

Because there is no magic: the little girl knew that for herself. The seeds she dropped were wither crushed by the cars' wheels, or ended up in stony soil, or were infertile themselves, or were mowed down before they could grow, or were beaten out by other plants, or rotted in the rain.

This little girl had learned long ago that there are no fairies at the hard end of Albuquerque, even if the cottonwood seeds look like them. She learned that if you expect fairies at the end of a story, you need to open your eyes, breathe in the dust, and earn the cracks on your face.

But she could still feel the bottle cutting into her ear. The seeds she dropped were wither crushed by the cars' wheels, or ended up in stony soil, or were infertile themselves, or were mowed down before they could grow, or were beaten out by other plants, or rotted in the rain.

Hey there! Just going to leave my interpretation here, if that's alright.

I see this as a "Loss of Innocence/ Growing up" themed piece. A happy, smiling, little girl lives in a rundown city like a candle in the dark. Eventually the candle is burnt out. Or maybe she just wanted to find some color in the bleak city. Either way, lovely piece, my friend. I couldn't help but crack a smile when the girl started to play with the cottonwood seeds. I began to worry when she stepped on the screw and when her heart broke when she saw the missing tree, I think a bit of mine broke, too. You've conveyed emotion so well in this piece. Keep up the awesome work!

Yours Truly,
-Rascal

Hey! This is just a comment -because I really have nothing to critique- but I thought this piece was beautiful. It made me incredibly sad, but it was so well put together and the language and flow were fantastic. I also loved the way you ended it all off, with the reference to the soft pillow, but then the reasons why it couldn't really be so. It was very real. I look forward to reading more of your work!
Keep writing

Hi phage!
<3
So, I've been thinking about this. It's a nice sad, but also, kind of left me feeling expectant of some emotion wave to hit; which never did. I am not sure how to critique this - but I'll try to put in my head's commentary while reading through.

On the north-west side of the city of Albuquerque is a street where every building is cracked and all the people are too: they have hard lines on their faces, but they aren't laugh lines. The road itself is just as crumbled. It's riddled with potholes, so much so that the potholes are more frequent than the unbroken road. The sky is perpetually gray, but it never rains. Dust has worked itself into every crack, but dust wasn't the only thing that floated through the air.
This gives me the image of a little town, with lots of old people and a dry summer/desert like area. I like the initial painting of the stage. Gives it some nice flavour.
On this particular street, the oldest tree in Albuquerque used to grow. It was a cottonwood tree, and its fairy-like seeds seemed like the only thing of beauty on this street... them, and the little girl with dark skin and a pink coat.
I really dislike the use of ellipsis here. I'm not sure why you want to mention the girl as an errant afterthought, or to show emphasis? I think it would read better without.

She often wandered outside: she had little else to go. The dirty concrete jungle was her jungle gym, and her dolls were things out of horror movies. Her unwavering optimism and bright smile sometimes provoked attacks from desperate people thinking she was a lost daughter of some wealthy stranger. They only let her go when they realized she was truly alone. The truth was, everything she owned was third-hand, through Goodwill. Everything that is, except the cottonwood seeds.
In my head, little else to go seems awkwardly phrased. Not sure if it's something I'm not used to, but I first read it as little else to do; and go just didn't seem to work in my head. I love the idea of people taking the opportunity of her being a wealthy kid. Works in with the setting, yet there's a weird conflicting note in my head which initially thought of this as a small town with not so many well-off people, so this image may be an oddity?

No one doubted they were hers. She'd spend hours picking them up and letting them float down again. She collected them in plastic shopping bags that floated by in the wind that promised a storm but never came through with that promise. She called the bags "city tumbleweeds." She would collect the seeds until the bag puffed out with all the fluff inside. Then the girl would climb up onto unused railway tracks, onto the bridge that hung over Interstate 40. All the cars and trucks zoomed beneath her, some going over 80 miles per hour. She would watch them for a while, counting every yellow one until her eyes ached from all the rushing.
City tumbleweeds! I like that; and it seems like you do too, and enjoyed using it there?

They all had someplace to be. Why couldn't they just stay where they were? The girl had stayed where she was all her life. She could never understand where they were rushing off to, just that it would be far away. So she let the seeds fly.
I see whre you're going with the last sentence, but it seems oddly disconnected to the rest of the sentences. Maybe try tying it in better? Like, you have this mild disconnected yet nicely coherent set of sentences sort of vibe going on and this sentence broke the flow for me.

Handful by handful, she emptied the bag, sending the seeds floating down to the road below. She imagined each one attaching to someplace on the car, like the tires or the windshield wipers. The seed would go wherever the car went. This one will go to the Rocky Mountains! This one will go to California! This one will make it all the way to Canada! She imagined a life for all the little cottonwood trees she had set free.
Love how you capture her spirit in this!

One day she stepped on a rusty screw.Her shoes were like the road-- more hole than shoe-- so the the metal bit right into her skin without any resistance. What a terrible way to go. She tried to fight against the muscle stiffness, the headaches, the fevers, but she didn't have the care she needed. Towards the end, her perpetual smile was still there, but now it was a strange-looking grin caused from the muscle spasms in her face.

One night, her last night, when she couldn't move her jaw even a little bit, she ran away. Whether in a bout of high fever or one of extreme clarity, we'll never know, but she stumbled her way to the old cotton-wood tree. Or she tried to. When she got to where it should have stood, there was a Waffle House in its place, already looking worn out.

The tree was gone. Something inside the girl broke, like the walls, or the road, or the people who lived there. She curled up on a desperate piece of grass and cried, not caring that beneath her head was a broken bottle.

The wind that pushed dust into everything-- even into lines on people's faces-- took pity on the girl in the little pink jacket. It blew cottonwood seeds from all the trees that had grown because of the little girl's game on the railroad tracks. It blew them all together to make a pillow to keep their girl's head of of the jagged glass.
This paints a lovely scene in my head. :`) Also, it should be off of. Little typo there.


But she could still feel the bottle cutting into her ear. Why?
I think you could do without the why here. Makes the narrative more consistent

Because there is no magic: the little girl knew that for herself. The seeds she dropped were wither crushed by the cars' wheels, or ended up in stony soil, or were infertile themselves, or were mowed down before they could grow, or were beaten out by other plants, or rotted in the rain.

This little girl had learned long ago that there are no fairies at the hard end of Albuquerque, even if the cottonwood seeds look like them. She learned that if you expect fairies at the end of a story, you need to open your eyes, breathe in the dust, and earn the cracks on your face.

Nice end. Sort of punches, yet, kind of making me turn around for another punch. heh.

Heya! I'm heeere!!! :3

I really like this story! It is sad, like you said. But it's a good kind of sad. It's one of those stories where you're not entirely sure what happened, but you're pretty sure it was cool. Or interesting. The moral of this is: It made me think.

There were a few grammar mistakes, or typos. You should be able to catch most of them if you re-read it with an unforgiving eye.
Also, where you have colons, I think they should be semi-colons instead. He's an example:

She often wandered outside: she had little else to go.