To Infinity and Beyond
Shout out to felistia for fixing all the mistakes.
Near an old, rickety fence stood a little girl with trembling hands and her head held high. Her eyes were narrowed at the rusted, white gate that swung freely open. The air had grown still at the tilt of the girl's head. She looked behind her towards her grandparents' farm house, her teeth gnawed on her lower lip and her fingers twitched. Her eyes darted to each of the windows, she scanned them closely, she turned back around and her chestnut hair flicked in front of her eyes. She brushed her hair to the side, pulled back her shoulders and with a level head grinned from ear to ear and took a step beyond the gate.
She did not look once more as a goodbye gesture to her home but instead took another step beyond the gate. She stepped forward again which was closely followed by another which subsequently turned into a run. Her feet trembled along the green grass, her mouth opened wide and her high pitched giggling filled the area. Birds of multiple colours were chased and then a soft buzzing sound was heard.
The girl momentarily stopped her running and laughing which allowed a small, black and dreadfully accurate at aim bug to fly into her mouth. Her eyes widened and the girl screamed, the flock of birds dispersed into a rainbow in the sky. The girl heard no further sound and her face scrunched up as began to couch, hack and wheeze bent on the ground. Drool coated her chin and out dribbled the black bug , ceasing her coughing fit and replaced it with a yawn. She stretched and curled her body facing away from the sun and in the direction of the rusted, white gate. Her eyes drifted shut, her breathing swallowed, her body relaxed and she rarely twitched.
The full moon hung high in the sky when her brown eyes flickered open. She spread her body wide across the meadow and above her she saw an indiscernible amount of bright, little stars. Her pupils diluted, her lips parted and a rush of air left her mouth, leaving her breathless. The stars were bare, hidden by nothing having an open space to form artworks upon the dark canvas for the girl to find. The sound of something rustling against the grass floated to the girls ears when suddenly two arms grabbed her outstretched arms, hurling her into the sky. She squealed, her mouth widened and her eyes shut, she quickly landed safely in big, strong arms, the distinct scent of a fireplace filled her nose. She clutched him tightly, he held her on his hip, they looked to the stars with the little girls resting her head on his shoulder. The man's eyes slowly drifted to the little girl and he brushed his lips upon her forehead. He began to retreat back behind the gate and towards home.
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 • 672,857 Reviews
Greetings person! I, Holographic Ladybug, am here to review you!
You have described your story super fluidly and with such an artistic flare. I felt like I was right there, even giggling a little during the bug part. You have just made everything feel so real that I wanted to read more. (But can't because short stories can only be so long!) Anyway, your story was the perfect length so that it didn't make this feel too long and boring.
I've got a couple of nitpicks, though:
I feel like you have used 'she' too much. That is probably just me and would be impossible to fix because you haven't revealed the girl's name. (Which is fine.)
Finally, at the beginning, you have:
'The air had grown still at the tilt of the girl's head. She looked behind her towards her grandparents farm house,'
Here, the word I am picking on (sorry!) is 'grandparents'. If there is one of them, it should be " grandparent's ". But if there are more than one (which is probably the case), " grandparents' " should be written.
Gold star for you! I loved your story and can't wait to hear more from you!
~Holographic Ladybug
.P.S. Welcome to YWS! (Even if you joined three days ago.)
Thanks for the review.
It was mentioned in another comment about the clauses (she) overuse and basically I explained it was mostly due to me not being bothered to use different phrases to begin as it was only homework for school. If you look back you will be able to see I fixed a grandparent sentence in the short story.
Hi there!
I really like the title . It makes me think of Toy Story, which in turn brings up so many thoughts about growing up. Then reading this and seeing it's focused on a little girl just fit so well.
**Disclaimer: I'm typing this out on my phone so please ignore any typos where auto correct thought I meant to say something totally unrelated and strange xD
The first thing I noticed about this piece after reading through is that there doesn't seem to be a point to it. What is it that we're supposed to take away from this story? From reading between the lines I can assume that this is a story that focuses on the innocence of a child and how someone is always there to protect them. However, I don't quite get that feeling from this. There are some aspects missing.
What's so important about this area beyond the gate? At first I thought it was a metaphor for death, that the girl choked on the bug and the man picking her up at the end was God, but now it seems more like her grandfather taking her back home. What is it that this girl is trying to accomplish though? We don't get to see her motivation.
The scene with the bug flying into her mouth reads a bit comical. I found myself wanting to laugh, even though I knew that's not what was intended of the scene. There are a lot of options laid out for you as soon as that girl crossed through the gate. Countless dangers are presented to her. She could twist an ankle, get stuck up a tree, get attacked by an animal. Getting a bug stuck in your throat isn't exactly as dramatic as it sounds in this piece. She'd probably just cough a couple of times and be fine.
I want to talk about your descriptions here for a second. They're written very well and I can definitely tell you put a lot of time into them. There's so much going on in the first couple of paragraphs and we can see it all vividly. However, I feel like they are a bit overdone. There doesn't need to be image after image after image for a story to be affective. Sometimes it's those images that are created half through our imagination that make the story work. Let's look at your first paragraph.
The beginning is nice with the focus and description of the fence, but the we're pulled away from that to focus on the girl. There are so many emotions going through her, like the nervousness from her gnawed lower lip and twitching fingers, to cautiously checking for her grandparents watching, to being overjoyed with the big grin as she steps beyond the gate. From what I understand from this story, this girl isn't very old, maybe around five or six. That's a lot of emotions for such a young child to be going through all at once. Their emotional ranges aren't quite to that point yet. What's the one emotion that she'd be experiencing? Excitement. She's finally getting to go beyond the gate. Bring that out more instead of the nerves. Sure she's nervous about getting caught, but at that age getting in trouble is in the back of their mind.
I feel like there's so much more beyond this gate than what you've shown us. Take the opportunity to really show us what's out there. There are birds and green grass and bugs and the sun. But what else? What's so appealing about this place that she wants to be out there? At the moment she has no motivation. She must've been looking for something out there. I can understand your want for little back story in order to create some mystery, but we're a bit lost in this. Give us just that little push in the right direction.
There's a ton of potential in this piece. I really do see it. I'm a huge fan of writing short, powerful pieces like this and I love reading them even more. With just a few tweaks you can have an amazing story here. Focusing on a single scene in this girl's life is what makes it work. If there had been much else distraction I'm not sure it would be as powerful. Good job with this!
Keep writing!
**Noelle**
Thanks for the review.
The point in time I wrote this was for homework at school. We were given a task on what was discovered beyond the gate so I purely wrote to answer that question. It was more an experimentation with describing things as to gain the best marks in her opinion is to go into detail with description. I will however explore into my characters motivations in later pieces if I feel it will help progress the story.
Thanks for all your tips.
Hi! Welcome to YWS!
Duncan here for a review.
Throughout your story I can see that you have used a lot of 'she's to start a sentence. While this is very common and hard to resist perhaps you should consider giving your sentences more variations in terms of structure. It is a good idea to begin with clauses or phrases sometimes rather than simply beginning them with the subject.
The birds do not really play a huge part in the story and mentioning them twice is more than enough. I think you may want to describe some other parts of the meadow so that the detail would not distract your readers from the main plot.
Moreover, I think 'She screamed with her eyes widened, and...' could serve better here. Just a suggestion though.
Here are some overall comments.
I like your descriptions here as they are concrete and they create a realistic image for the readers. I love how detailed you describe the hug at the end of the story and while it may be quite subtle, it created a beautiful scene to wrap this story up.
Something I would suggest is to provide some background story for the young girl. Right now it isn't really clear to me why the girl was like leaving the house. Perhaps elaborating more about that could give us a clearer picture of what's actually happening, and it gives more emotions to the ending.
So I think that's all for now. Keep writing!
-DT
Hi thanks for all the suggestions I will be sure to take them into consideration for my next writing piece. I mostly didn't go into the girls background as it was for homework and we had to write a short story of what was beyond the gate. I chose to make mine more subtle.
Thanks for everything and I might come back to it at a later date and add more to it in the areas you suggested if I have the inspiration.
Okay I will just rewrite the story and fix the mistakes. I think that will be easier for both of us.
Near an old, rickety fence stood a little girl with trembling hands and her head held high. Her eyes were narrowed at the rusted, white gate that swung freely open. The air had grown still at the tilt of the girl's head. She looked behind her towards her grandparents farm house, her teeth gnawed on her lower lip and her fingers twitched. Her eyes darted to each of the windows, she scanned them closely, she turned back around and her chestnut hair flicked in front of her eyes. She brushed her hair to the side, pulled back her shoulders and with a level head grinned from ear to ear and took a step beyond the gate.
She did not look once more as a goodbye gesture to her home but instead took another step beyond the gate. She stepped forward again which was closely followed by another which subsequently turned into a run. Her feet trembled along the green grass, her mouth opened wide and her high pitched giggling filled the area. Birds of multiple colours were chased and then a soft buzzing sound was heard.
The girl momentarily stopped her running and laughing which allowed a small, black and dreadfully accurate at aim bug to fly into her mouth. Her eyes widened and the girl screamed, the flock of birds dispersed into a rainbow in the sky. The girl heard no further sound and her face scrunched up as began to couch, hack and wheeze bent on the ground. Drool coated her chin and out dribbled the black bug , ceasing her coughing fit and replaced it with a yawn. She stretched and curled her body facing away from the sun and in the direction of the rusted, white gate. Her eyes drifted shut, her breathing swallowed, her body relaxed and she rarely twitched.
The full moon hung high in the sky when her brown eyes flickered open. She spread her body wide across the meadow and above her she saw an indiscernible amount of bright, little stars. Her pupils diluted, her lips parted and a rush of air left her mouth, leaving her breathless. The stars were bare, hidden by nothing having an open space to form artworks upon the dark canvas for the girl to find. The sound of something rustling against the grass floated to the girls ears when suddenly two arms grabbed her outstretched arms, hurling her into the sky. She squealed, her mouth widened and her eyes shut, she quickly landed safely in big, strong arms, the distinct scent of a fireplace filled her nose. She clutched him tightly, he held her on his hip, they looked to the stars with the little girls resting her head on his shoulder. The man's eyes slowly drifted to the little girl and he brushed his lips upon her forehead. He began to retreat back behind the gate and towards home.
Okay I think I got everything. Hope it helps.
I do not know how you were bothered, but thank you so much and let me know if there is something I can do for you besides giving you points through reviewing my work. Seriously you are amzing and yes you are just wow. Ever thought aout editing? Besides that thank you so much and I will just edit this work. You are just truly amazing.
Thank you. I am not very good at editing on the whole. It would be great if you could have a look at me Search for the Ruby of Fire series. It is a fantasy\ action adventure story about dragons. If your interested I can send you the link.
It's okay I found it myself, I will be sure to leave review once I've read it.
Hi Sigyn, Felistia here with a short review on your story.
Firstly welcome to YWS and congratulations on your first work.
I really liked this short story. The description pretty much drives the story and I like how you told it from the perspective of a little girl.
There is quite a few spelling errors though. Just tell me if you want me to point them out to you, because the is quite a lot mostly in the last paragraph. There are a few punctuation problems to.
Other than that though, it was an enjoyable read, thank you. I look forward to more of your work and hope you have a great day\night.
Sorry about the mistakes, didn't even realise as I was typing from my written work onto the area. If you can you tell me any mistakes I have missed and I will fix them asap. Some might also just be where I from as I am going by Australian spelling.
Anway thanks for the review.
this is sooo interesting. the description is fantastic. i love how you told the story from the young girl's point of view; it offered a really unique take on an excerpt that otherwise may not have been as interesting. I think the innocent image of the young girl also provides an interesting look at childhood that may be nostalgic to some of the members here. i love this!
Thank you so much
I gave this in for homework at school and my teacher was just like "I like it." So that really means alot to me.
well, your teacher surely didn't do you justice:)