________The Rebellious Confucian________
Hello, my name is Shang Shou. I live in imperial china. I was born into a Confucian Family. My big brother, Feng, is a little bossy.
“Go and get me some rice”, he demanded.
“But, why?”, I asked.
“Dad says that you have to do what I say because I’m older than you”.
That was the last straw, I was fed up with this. He has bossed me around my entire life. I ran outside and started protesting,”We want full equality, for all ages”, I chanted. I got a total amount of six people to join my protest. As night fell we made a plan. Starting tomorrow we were going to start a rebellion. We are going to disrespect everyone we are supposed to respect.
Finally that day has come. I woke up, ate my breakfast, pushing through my brother to get it.
“What was that for!” he yelled.
“Should have gotten you own rice”, I replied with a smirk. That was so much fun, I thought to myself. Then I went over to an artisan, kicked all of her paint to the ground, and ran away laughing. I continued doing stuff like that for about a week, until I got a little carried away. I snuck into the emperor’spalace, and I stole the emperor’s crown. I had almost gotten away with it but a guard spotted me. I bolted towards the exit, only to be met by more guards. Then I saw a couple of of my protest buddies, Chow and Juan. I tossed them the crown, Juan caught it and ran away with it. After quite a while I finally shook off the guards that decided to keep chasing me. After a while Chow, Juan, and I met up and decided what to do with the crown. We decided we should put it up for ransom.
Then when the guards weren’t looking the slipped the ransom note into the palace, and went to hide in a place where we could watch entrance to the palace. About 30 seconds later the guards picked up the ransom note. They immediaely rushed off to show the emperor.
“There is only one person that would do such a thing”, said Emperor Ping, ”Bring me….. Shang Shou.”, he said. ”He is to be hanged at dawn”.
“Stop! Where are you taking me?” I demanded, as the palace guards dragged me out of my own home.
“You have the right to be silent” one of the guards replied.
“You can’t do this”, I screamed, “I learned the 5 virtues, ren, yi, zhi, xin, and lee. I know them all.” But they just ignored my protests. They put the rope around my neck, as they asked me if I worked alone. I of course, did not betray them. Then they hanged me.
THE END
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140,308 Literary Works • 673,081 Reviews
What an exciting start to the story!
I liked the way the story describes the rebellious feelings of Shang Shou towards his elder brother.
Although the story is not explicit about this, Shang Shou and his brother appear to be school children. That's accentuated by his stealing the emperor's crown by sneaking into the palace so naughtily.
The ending though could be a little less abrupt and a little more believable.
Surely, the emperor would be a little more mature and come to some conclusion after enquiry and discussion with his ministers.
I can't believe an emperor would hang a child to death for being naughty. Please consider reworking the ending.
In short, an exciting story which can be made more believable!
Dear Bryce
,
Your story was very good I really enjoyed it. I like your story line a lot and how you wrote your story (in first person). I did notice a few errors, sometimes you needed to add some commas or the word and, like you wrote:
I live in imperial china. I was born into a Confucian Family.
Maybe you could write it like this next time:
I live in imperial china and was born into a Confucian Family.
Maybe something like that, overall your story was good!
Hi Bryce. I thought your story was very fast paced so it was a little hard to understand. Why would he disrespect people just because his brother was mean to him. There were some spelling mistakes but you had good grammar throughout the story. I also liked the picture I thought it was a nice touch for the middle of the story. Some things to work on but nice job.
From,
Ryan
Your story was really good the only thing i would try to fix is the beginning sentence because i fell that you need a good hook so you can grave the readers attention. One thing I liked was that you really showed how the charters felt. One thing i wonder is why in your writing you wrote out the number 5 instead of spelling it in story's you have to write them out not just write the number. I also like how you included the image in the middle of the story because it helps see it in your head. i also like how you ended the story with ''Then they hanged me''. Overall you had a very well written story good job!
I like how you had made the story make sense by showing that the characters feelings and what they did
I wonder if you could fix a few grammar mistakes
AMAZING STORY THOUGH =)
I like how you had made the story make sense by showing that the characters feelings and what they did
I wonder if you could fix a few grammar mistakes
AMAZING STORY THOUGH =)
Hi and welcome to YWS! I'm here for a review!
~Nit-Picks~
In writing, when writing numbers, you are supposed to write them in word format. I've noticed that you have 5 and 30 in your story that should become five and thirty. Of course, if you have an extremely huge number (like 3728912827819827777778), you can probably just do it with the letters. But hen again, you might not need to make the numbers that precise. Ok, sorry, getting a little carried away.
The rules of dialogue apply. There should be a new paragraph for the dialogue, there should be a period after "protesting", there shouldn't be a comma after "equality" (because it is an unnecessary pause), and the comma at the end of the dialogue needs to be before the parenthesis. Actually, because your character is chanting something, his line should probably end with an exclamation point.
Ok, I notice that you have a problem with putting your commas at the end of your dialogue after the parenthesis ("), which should not happen. The comma/exclamation point/question mark needs to happen before the parenthesis.
You also seem to slip into present tense sometimes while the rest of your story is in past. Be careful of your tenses. Stick with one and only change it unless you need to. A few read-overs could probably fix your problem. And for future writings, make sure to stay constant and pay attention for when you slip.
You can only think to yourself, so the "to myself" part is redundant. Unless you suddenly develop telepathy, you can't think to other people. Just sticking with "I thought" is enough.
~Other Bits~
While I find this story overall enjoyable, I see that there are some things that you are missing that can really push this story a step further. My rants are numerous and most likely to be lengthy , so just bear with me.
Show and do not tell. Super important. I see very little showing in this story. Let's start with the very thing that begins this story: Sheng's bossy brother. Please DO NOT tell us that he has been bossing Shang around since forever. We want you to show us.
Before I get too carried away, here is an example of showing versus telling:
Telling
Daniel was sad.
Showing
Daniel tried to stop the tears from coming, but they kept dribbling down his face. His breath was shaky and his knees felt week. One part of his mind was yelling at him to run and never look back, to run away from all of the pain. Meanwhile, the other side wanted him to spit in the doctor's face and refuse to accept the awful truth.
See how much more you get from the second example than the first? There's more detail and excitement than the first. We also get to know more on Daniel's character as well as some hints on what happened and his surroundings. "Daniel was sad" tells us barely anything, other than that he was sad. What's more is that we don't even know how sad he is. With the second example, we get more of the story. We even feel more emotion or pity for him for the second example than the first.
The same basic elements apply to your own story. Going back to the first paragraph, don't tell us the conflict between Shang and his brother. We want to experience the conflict. The way you have it, there's none of that and it's a bit like a list of events.
Before I move on, I would like to point out how your story goes a bit too fast and you really need to slow it down a bit. You can do this by adding emotion, details, and being more "in the moment". I'll get onto more in a moment. However, if you'd like more info, see here. I talk about some of the same things in that review and you might find something that I missed here.
Still sticking to the first paragraph, try starting when Shang first wakes up. His brother would then tell him what to do. Shang hastily complies and, after he is finished, his brother yells at him. Shang mutters something under his breath and his brother (who heard him) threatens Shang. After some more argumentations, Shang does as he is told and thinks about punishing his brother. Then, a while later, his brother bosses him around again. Then, Shang stands up to him, continuing on with the rest of the story.
Of course, you're going to need more detail than that and make sure that the readers are in the moment with out (what I have typed is a summary of how I picture the events happening). If you're going to go through with what I'm saying, make sure to apply this with the rest of your story as well. Also, take your time and don't rush it. Enjoy writing your piece.
There are a few last things I want to mention.
One thing that bugs me is how the emperor just knew that Shang was to blame. It really doesn't make much sense. Ping is the high and powerful ruler of all of China, while Shang is just a lowly villager. I can't imagine that they have met. But even if they had, a lowly villager would be nothing to an emperor and so there would be no chance in Shang being remembered. You need to make sure that the emperor has a reason for accusing Shang. Maybe he saw him with the crown or something?
Ok, for my last point, keep in mind that I haven't studied that much on long-ago-China, so this point might be a bit....not the best. When Shang was yelling that he knew the five virtues, I don't know what weight it carries. Why would it matter to the guards? Why would he be shouting it? Why does it matter in general? This could be because I haven't been educated in this area yet, but maybe you could make it so that the five virtues don't carry as much weight. What I mean is making it so that a reader who doesn't know anything about it could just skim over that part without being confused. Maybe how you can do this is by have him shout that he knows the virtues and then maybe a few other things that he might use to stop the guards. Maybe something along the lines of: "You can't do this! I'm a Chinese citizen! I know all of the five virtues! I'm innocent! You can't do this! No!"
(But please don't copy me. This is my example.)
Well, that's it from me! I'm sorry if I have sounded rude or harsh in any way. That was nowhere near my intention. I'm only here to help and give you critical feedback. If you have any questions for me, don't hesitate to ask. I'd love to answer.
Signing off,
~Holographic Ladybug
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Wow this is good story, but I wonder if you could have gone in to detail a little bit more.-jack
Hi Bryce,
The way your story has a funny plot makes the story seem more exiting. How your story ends with a twist made me laugh. I wonder if you could show not tell. If you hadn't put the picture in your story it would seem more professional. The way you added information seemed kind of like you were trying to list facts, so maybe you could try not to list to many facts.
I thought it was interesting that you used show not tell in your story when the Shang Shou was stealing the emperor's crown. I like that the story has facts about China including how the younger brother had to do what the older brother wanted, the five virtues, and that the emperor could hang/ kill anyone without a trial.
I wonder why the emperor thought that Shang Shou was the person who stole the crown when there were other people who were being disrespectful to the elders as well as Shang Shou.
The emperor knew it was Shang Shou because he had noticed all of the previous disrespects that Shang Shou was doing.