You know that feeling when you go down on a fast elevator and your stomach does flips? I had that. Except I wasn’t in an elevator, I was laying on hard cold pavement. My breath was heavy, but not quiet loud enough to overpower the cacophony of clanking of shoes, purring motors and pedestrian crossings. I opened my eyes to see hundreds of shoe soles filling the concrete slabs.
I scattered to my feet like a baby deer on ice and glared up at the colossal grey buildings. The traffic bickered back and forth, shouting with their horns and some not so pretty gestures. The air was thick as a quilt with smoke and fumes. Suddenly my throat closed up and my heart thumped like the hooves of bulls. My diplopic vision finally came to a stop and I was able to distinguish one skyscraper from another. The streets were filled with a phalanx of frenzied workers, desperate to get to work on time. I felt like if I moved an Inch I’d be trampled down into the cement. Suddenly I had a penchant for understanding, but the only way I’d get this would be to ask someone. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a figure settled on a bench nearby.
He slouched with his arms draped over the back of the bench. His hair was as greasy as a McDonald’s double bacon burger. He gave his matted red beard a scratch before pulling out what looked like a piece of old muesli and a bit of ham stuck together. He threw it is mouth, looking rather unfazed at the fact he just golloped down remains of meals from two weeks earlier. He started to open his mouth almost as wide as his head and leant back, he hesitated… before letting out a roaring sneeze that even startled nearby birds. He wiggled his nose from side to side and wiped his running nose on his sleeve which was already pockmarked with colourful stains.
He plonked his grubby hands on his beer gut and swung his legs to the side of the bench. His stubby fingers reached into his pocket to pull out a half-eaten, (and half decomposed) beef and mayo sandwich, who he had kindly shared with a mixture of insects including maggots and fruit flies. He took out a great chunk with his yellow stained teeth that took resemblance to a picket fence. However only a quarter of it ended up in his mouth. Most got flung onto his shirt, and even onto the nose of an unhappy groundskeeper.
It was only after a few steps towards him that I suddenly drowned in a vulgar stench. It was something between rotten eggs and old boots. I gagged and threw my hands up to my nose. More steps forward and I could now hear the buzz of the fruit flies, hovering above his head.
“Um... excuse me sir- uh, do you know where we are?”
Silence.
“Sir? Sir?”
I walked round to in front of the bench. His eye’s suddenly widened. He jumped three feet into the air like a startled bear confronted with headlights.
“Ahh!” he started to roar, “- oh, oh god darn it, why’d you have to scare me like that lassie?”
“I uh- sorry I was just going to ask-“
“What? Speak louder lassie”
Suddenly I saw what was preventing him of hearing. A foul thick yellow paste filled his ears, in one ear it was overflowing down to his neck. I felt myself about to run, but held my ground.
“Do you know where we are?” I screeched, turning heads of the rushing crowds.
He let out a throaty laugh, like the puttering of a monster truck.
“You would know more than me lassie, I ‘aint ever know where I am. Why would it matter?”
“Would you happen to know where to find out?”
“Well that might help,” He lifted up his stumpy finger and pointed to something behind me. I flicked my head around to see a blinding flashing sign as big as four skyscrapers.
It read: Welcome to New York.
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125,024 Literary Works • 672,762 Reviews
This seems very interesting. I liked the description of the hobo, he actually reminds me of one of my old teachers. I liked it so far and would really love to see more.
Oh gosh, I wouldn't want to be in your class then! And thankyou, I might work more on it soon.
Okay, I am gonna get the nit picky stuff out of the way first.
"I was laying on hard cold pavement."
Switch hard and cold around, it flows better. weather thats just because it does or because thats how its always done i don't know, but out of order like that it jars people out of the story because they think they misread it and then back track to it to read it a second and maybe even third time.
Also, where is she from? I can already tell you want to make it a mystery of how she got to Newyork,which is a fantastic idea, but its a big city and people get lost there all the time so why should we care about this lost girl.
Those are my only two nitpicks. Now the things I liked.
Your imagery was more then fantastic.
"His hair was as greasy as a McDonald’s double bacon burger." & "A foul thick yellow paste filled his ears, in one ear it was overflowing down to his neck." were a couple of my favorite lines. Also your description of the sandwich was disgustingly fantastic.
Your word choice was also really good.
"...the cacophony of clanking of shoes, purring motors...", "...filled with a phalanx of frenzied workers,"
Your setting was also really well done. Waking up on a busy newyork street only having a disgusting bum from whom to ask help. I loved it. I hope you post more of this story, I would be interested to see how it all ends up
Hi there!
This was a nice descriptive work and I liked it. Your describing skills are excellent. There seems to be a balance, keeping the entire thing from going over to boring.
I'm not so sure about the title, though. I think you should change it because it really seems to give away the ending, which seems to be the entire point of the story. Something else, relevant to the story but maybe not so revealing?
'Filling' doesn't sound right to me for some reason. It seems to send an entirely different image to my head than what you are going for; something like tiny feet filling the cracks in the concrete slabs. This might be my mind alone, but I think it'd be better if you changed it. 'Walking on' or 'covering' maybe?
Also, you have used a variety of words during your narrative. Some of them, like cacophony, diplopic, phalanx etc. really irked me. Considering you're writing in first person and you've begun with a rather casual narrative, these words seemed out of place, not something you would use naturally while narrating a piece. Something simpler, but that coveys your meaning. For example, 'diplopic' can be changed to 'double' or something like that. It's your choice.
I really really like this sentence. You've conveyed your meaning perfectly (no doubt because of your amazing descriptive skills) and most of all, I can relate to it. I understand exactly what you mean and have absolutely no trouble imagining that character, standing in the middle of a busy street, feeling it. It's great.
As you can see, you've started at least nine sentences with the same (or similar) word/s. This sort of repetition creates this sort of monotony, a drag which loses the concentration of the reader. It's always good to start consequent sentences with different words to keep the reader going. You can do this while maintaining the meaning of the text. Maybe start with 'The old man' or change the order of the sentence. I think the former is better and probably more effective. Again, it's your choice. You can even ignore this part of the review. It's your story. All of this is just my opinion and you can disagree with it all you like.
I really liked this too. It's a nice simile, rather different and original. You've used stuff like this through out the story and it's really effective.
The old man: You've succeeded in grossing me out with him. He was original and most of all, realistic. You can't say his appearance is unbelievable- it's just realistic. He's definitely no Gary Sue. What I most liked about him, or rather you writing, was the speech. He seems to speak naturally and suited to his appearance and character. Dialog is often difficult but you seemed to have pulled it off rather nicely.
There are a lot of unanswered questions in the story. I don't know whether this is the entire story or just an excerpt but I rather liked those question. Why was he/she lying flat on the ground in the beginning of the story? Who is this he/she? Why doesn't he/she know where he/she is? And the ending: What is he/she's reaction to being in New York? Again, there's nothing wrong with leaving few unanswered questions in a story. It makes the reader think for a bit.
Anyways this was a great piece and I enjoyed reading it. Good work and keep writing!
Angel
*your
Thanks for the review and the compliments! I've got lots of new things to work on now, oh and I'm glad you told me about liking those sentences. I was about to cut them out!
Hey! Pix here to review as requested! I'm going to make this nice and easy.
I loved that! You prefectly described the homeless guy...*Shudders* I was grossed out. But you probrably wanted us to be. More detail. *Nods.*
Alright. So I am going to start out with the things you are good at.
DESCRIPTIVENESS.
You sounded like you were enjoying writing this by the way you had. Very good job with that! I love it! The best thing a writer could do is make it feel more comfortable with writing what they are. It would've enjoyed writing that too....
It was awesome how you left us with a cliff hanger. What's gonna happen next! I muct know! And in the beginning...When you described stuff about the person laying on the concrete, and how he was feeling while doing that, was amazing as well.
Overall, this was very good. I didn't see one thing wrong with it. Keep writing!
~ PixieStix
Thankyou for the review!
Hi! This is my first review, so I hope it's okay...
I liked this. You have good descriptive skills. I was getting a little grossed out by the homeless guy, which is probably what you were going for, so yay!
However, sometimes it felt like you were trying a little too hard to be descriptive. Specifically, some of the vocabulary didn't fit with the rest of the piece. Examples would be "diplopic," "phalanx," and "penchant." Actually, it was mostly just that one section that had that problem. You see, you chose to use first person narration and you started off in a conversational tone. You should stick with that. I don't mean first person narrators can't use big words, it just has to fit their personalities. I hope that makes sense.
Also, it doesn't really feel like a completed short story to me, because you don't resolve the issue of why she wakes up on a sidewalk in New York. The only thing that happens is she finds out she's in New York. And the reader already knew that, because of your title! You might want to consider changing the title, since it gives away the ending.
This was good! I hope you keep working on it!
Thankyou so much, I thought they stuck out too, I'll change them around a little. And yes, it's actually an excerpt so it's deffinately not the full short story, I thought I wrote that but I must have forgotten, the titles also just a random name I thought of to post it so yeah I'll be changing it!
I felt that this was a very descriptive work overall. However, at some points, such as the first paragraph, there seemed to be one too many metaphors/similes. Besides that, your imagery was incredibly vivid, especially when you described the city. I have never been to New York, yet I felt myself standing in the crowds.
Also, when you introduced the old man character, you went above and beyond! I know this because I felt myself cringe whilst reading about his appearance and behavior.
I really hope that you choose to add on to this. Possibly make another chapter! Have the main character tell us more about himself. One of the minuscule problems of this work was that you didn't take very much time to explain the protagonist's emotions. That is really important in a work where you are speaking in first person.
A really fantastic work you have here. Keep writing.
Thankyou very much for the review! I agree with the first paragraph, I guess I'll be revising that! Yes, I will be going on with it I forgot to mention it before. Thanks for the tips!