Waking up, how was Sally suppose to close her eyes and except that the past thirty years of her life were just a dream. She felt every touch, ate the food, which makes her slightly over weight, she slept and met characters beyond her wildest dreams. She couldn’t have been dreaming, that she believed just couldn’t be possible.
Looking at her self in the mirror she asked, “What happened to me?”
Tears flowing around her cheeks, the image in the mirror just wouldn’t speak, in stead it kept standing there staring at her like a beaten dog waiting to be fed. Sniffing in what escapes from her nose, she just couldn’t understand how she became the image in the mirror.
“Look at me I’m fat, over grown and lifeless.” She whispered those words, whipping tears of her face. She had no one to call family and the people at work can’t be called friends. They are the reason why she spends her days on the side walks looking for work. She can’t ever remember being loved like the way she was loved in her dreams. People it that Danville listened to her fears and obeyed their hopes making every day one that was worth living. She looks around her in her empty apartment building, picking up peaces of clothing scattered around she finds an old sandwich under her favorite top. It expired three weeks ago and being an egg, cheese and cold slop sandwich, it must have been the source to the great smell she had to live with. It was a mark of failure always present, but now she has removed it. This was progress; she had organized her whole apartment by her self, saving two hundred rand she would have spent at the cleaners. She didn’t have to borrow money from the man next door. He always insists that she keeps any change she finds on his table. This was always profitable for her, he left change when ever her simple drawers were empty.
“Today it stops.” She thought. Forgetting she was in the nood, she barged in next door like she always did after ten, when the man of the flat wasn’t home. They never spoke much and after seven years, she knows he can afford to buy a place of his own. As a lawyer he manages to pay for her bills, sometimes paying three months in advance. It was something that had to stop for her plan to work.
After she showered, she wrote on a piece of paper: “Get a job. Be free and happy.”
She stopped, thought for a while, scratched it out and replaced it with the words: Who am I kidding. Nobody hires dropouts.” Throwing that piece of paper away she pulled another piece of paper out. On this one she wrote: “Go see your father before he dies.” She immediately scratched it out before filling in the full stop. She replaced them with the words: “Grow up, he’ll never speak. He only shouts.” She turned this piece of paper around and there she tried again: “Give to get what you want.” She scratched it out and replaced it with the word: “What do I want?” She stared out the window. See the blue sky inspired her. She smiled happily, jumping up and down for joy, she had found her answer and returning back to her seat she wrote with unmixable pride: “Tomorrow is another day.”
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,856 Reviews
Hello.
I'm having a very hard time finding a point to this story. It's the basic of a plot: have a goal for your character in mind and work towards that goal. Every scene, every paragraph, should work towards that goal, and help build a character in the reader's minds. Elinor gave you some good advice, and I'm just going to add my two cents:
I'd learn the basics of plot before attempting to rewrite this. You're basically giving a hodgepodge of character details with no cohesiveness, and even in character-driven stories, plot is what holds those character details together.
Plot is your goal for the work, and as I mentioned before you need that sort of goal for the story. Plot, even if it's just a very small plot for a short story, is what makes the character go along a part of their life and drive them towards making some sort of change.
Take a look at your story. Like, really take a look. How many ideas do you see in there? Here's what I came up with:
~The past is a dream
~The character hates the present
~She keeps borrowing money from the neighbour next door
~He's rich, yet apparently is not
~She wants to shape up yet doesn't do any changing herself, only tells the rich/not rich guy next door to change
See what I mean about you need a focus in this story? Each of these ideas could be their own story. They could be in the same story, so long as you link these threads together in a comprehensible plot.
I'd suggest reading this article on writing short stories. It gives a good outline for how to write one.
Hope this helps. PM me if you have any questions.
~Rosey
Hi Rulani!
I didn't enjoy this piece. It didn't flat out suck, as the scene with the paper was amusing and entertaining. However, I just found your narrative confusing and your character development minimal-the things that can often times make or break a piece.
I remember reading in a review (not on YWS) that if there is going to be one character in a story, she should warrant all the time that we are going to spend with her. This is very true-but I don't think Sally warrants my time, as short of a piece as it is. We know so little about what's wrong with her and how her life is otherwise; when you come across throwing random traits of hers at us, it's like, 'what'? All we know for sure is that she's thirty and she's got some kind of mental illness. And that she wants a sandwich. Okay, so? If you really want this character to work, thus unlocking your story, you should consider a few things.
-> Sympathy
Are we supposed to sympathize with this character or be repulsed by her actions, telling ourselves that she got herself into the situation that she's in right now? Right now it's not very clear, so doing so would help a ton. This is because if the readers of your story are all on the same page, it'll make your characters and thus the story a lot more organized.
-> Actions
You never really tell us what she did to herself to get in the situation she's in. I know that you mention that she was a dropout, but regarding that I have two comments: first, you barely, barely even skim over it, thus making the reader believe that it's not very important. Go into a bit more detail. When exactly did she drop out, and why? How did her parents react? If you do so, it'll help cement what our views in the character should be.
My second comment is that just dropping out of school could never be the full cause of why she is the way she is. The sandwich thing is just...weird. How could she not have noticed it before? The fact that the man gives her money just seems a bit unrealistic. I can understand being generous and allowing her to have a one-time donation, but constantly allowing her to have bits of chance after bits of chance is something that I know I'd never do. Basically? Just keep in mind that no one hates for now reason, and you've given us an idea that there's something wrong with Sally, so the reader just feels cheated that you aren't expanding upon that.
Here is a good article for you to read if you need some additional help with character work! Now, the plot of this. A lot of my comments that I made earlier would help the plot tremendously and make it less confusing. However, I have a specific comment that I want to add to this section.
You need to be coherent. Right now, this doesn't really resemble a plot but rather a mish-mash of random events. She wakes up. She thinks about an old sandwich. You insert broken details about her back-story. Then she has a battle with herself on a piece of paper. Yeah, so? Where's the conflict, the exciting scenes that will keep us hooked? Most importantly of all, why should we care about your character and the struggles that she's going through?
Right now, this reads like a third-person diary. We write about insignificant, but out of the ordinary things that happen in our diary, but does that really mean that they are interesting enough to put into print? I think Sally's illness calls for an interesting premise that you aren't fully taking advantage of. Refer to my comments above as well as this article, and I'll bet you'll be able to craft something really good. While you're at it, browse around the Writing Tutorials (where the articles came from) a bit. You'll find a lot of really helpful advice about characters, plot, beginnings, hooks-everything that makes a story. Good luck with this, and PM me if you have any questions.
-Elinor xo