Published December 1, 2007
Alone in Paradise
My eyes open. And it’s the first I time I remember opening them and seeing…looking. When had they opened before? Seen anything…like I was seeing now. The soft sand that comforts me like a soft blanket against my skin on the beach. The sand I see is bleached into a glow by the sun in the sky that beats down on me in fury that makes me sweat.
What is my name….I’m laying on my right arm and it begins to loose circulation. Sitting up I see my surroundings the ocean to my right and a beach that extends until it reaches a forest I’ve never seen before.
The sea starts off like a blue virgin soft and calm until its gets deeper and in its debauchery it gets darker and becomes swift in its movements , each wave like a monster threatening me with its big arms and caws waiting to destroy me and laugh…I realize I am scared of this ocean. This vast of water that as I look to the vast distance my eyes can allow I still see nothing but ocean. It’s like an eye ball of a monster, the blue water the white of its eye. And this island…it’s a part of the iris…a green wild eye is the forest.
I stood to look at this forest its leaves pointing out of its dark shadows as if daring me to come nearer. If I looked away from the forest I see a path on a beach that’s curves into somewhere unknown. I know I have to choice a path but which one?
I am on a island and I don’t know my name did I ever have one? How did I get here and why am I alone….
Crash, a accident something must have happened. And I must have been with others but maybe we were separated. Could they be on the island?
I take a step toward the beach path, if I go in the forest I’ll get lost and may never come back. This way on the path maybe I could find footsteps and maybe see any fires that light in the forest. But that must wait till night. In the day I can inspect the beach and set up a camp. Today I have to survive.
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140,913 Literary Works • 673,731 Reviews
I quite liked it. Your descriptions were good, but your plot, well, no. Not so much.
Your thoughts on the ocean were... profound. I liked that. As an exersize for practising descriptions, this is good. As a story, it needs work, but it's the former. Your concept could be turned into a short story, though, if you wanted.
Well, this is pretty good. I understand that it's just an exorcise for descriptions, so I won't hassle you about the fact that it's just description and nothing else.
The descriptions were very good, so I think that this fulfilled it's duty as an exercise, but I wouldn't call it a piece of art.
There are lost of grammatical mistakes, which our lovely Ayra already pointed out, so I won't restate them.
The descriptions are very good --I'd love to see them worked into a real piece!
~Azila~
P.S. Ayra and Gwen: try not to clutter up the thread with private conversations! (it gets kind of annoying... not to be mean or anything).
No.. I mean to say that you should have put your last post under your first.
XD Don't worry your reviewing is fine!
And why is that?
Is there something wrong with the critique and advice I posted?
I think you should have just edited your last post Ayra.
I dono...
Here's an example where you showed:
We know that it's daytime, but you never told us that directly. You just said that the sun was hot. See, you do show!
This is actually one of the only example of telling that I could find. You said directly that she was on an island--how about saying:
Sand sand curves along the woodlands for as far as I can see; a smooth shoreline, bordering against the heaving azure sea.
Then we would know that she's on an island without you actually saying it outright.
I am so sorry...
But that was not very good.
Well it lost my attention by the second paragraph and all your descriptions are choppy and they don't really flow.
I think you need to work on it.
Genevieve
Ah, thanks! That was actually helpful and I can see where I need to improve. Most people tell me that in my stories I tell but I don't show...Something like that.
Thanks for taking the time to show me where I can improve its good to get more insight!
p.s.- I wonder what this character should look like...
I don't like how you used 'soft' twice...maybe try something like this:
The soft sand that comforts me like a downy blanket.
Or something like that. There are plenty of synonyms for 'soft'.
There should be a semi-colon after 'surroundings' and a coma after 'up'. So it would be:
Sitting up, I see my surroundings; the ocean to my right and a beach that extends until it reaches a forest I've never seen before.
Well, that sentence goes on forever. You should chop it up into separate phrases.
Also, I don't understand your simile comparing the sea to a virgin. Maybe I'm just not understanding...but then again, I am only twelve years old.
I noticed a couple of grammatical/spelling errors too:
'Caws' should be 'claws'.
I won't bother pointing out every single mistake I noticed--below I have typed up what these sentences would look like if they were grammatically correct:
The sea starts off like a blue virgin; soft and calm until it gets deeper in it's debauchery, getting darker and becoming swift in it's movements. Waves roll over each other, each white crest like a monster threatening me with big arms and claws, waiting to destroy me. I laugh, realizing that I am scared of this ocean.
This sentence does not make sense...
The body of water is so vast that as I look into the great distance my eyes can allow, I still see nothing but ocean.
I love that description, but you need to fix it up a bit. Something like this:
It's like an eye ball of a monster; the blue water the white of it's eye, the forested island the wild green iris.
That isn't exactly grammatically correct either. I've re-worded it below:
I stand to look at this forest, taking in everything; cobwebs glittering with fresh dew, leaves pointing out of the shadows as if daring me to come nearer. If I look away from the forest I see a path on a beach that curves into somewhere unknown. I know I have to choose a path, but which one?
I take a step towards the beach path; if I go into the forest it's likely I'll become lost and never return. This way, on the path, maybe I can find footprints and look for signs of other human life; fires in the forest, perhaps?
But that must wait till night. Today I have to survive.
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Despite all the errors, I really liked this. The imagery was great and I don't know...it just had something alluring about it.
However, there are things to need to work on. You kept switching from past to present tense, but I fixed that in my re-wordings.
Another thing; we don't know what the main character looks like. Maybe include a sentence like this somewhere:
My rich tawny hair splayed out behind me, bright against the sepia pale of the sand.
Notice that I said her hair was tawny--I just used that as an example.
But with a bit of work, this could be spectacular!
Keep writing,
Ayra
P•S•- PM me if you want me to review the rest of this, if you're going to post it.