Young Writers Society

I was hanging onto my life by a literal thread. I hung onto one of the ropes from the plane. As the only survivor of a tragic plane accident, I was waiting for the authorities to come and help me.

Great opening. It's a good way to quickly grab someone's attention and make them wonder: What's happening here?

One of the paramedics dropped a ladder and started climbing down. The ladder didn’t quite reach me.

Why are they climbing down a ladder to reach her? Where is the plane? What's the situation?
I think when writing scenes it's important to remember that others don't see what you do, and you might need to walk them through what's going on a little bit.

I think it's a good story, but missing some filler. No one likes too much of that, but this story is short and jumps from scenario to scenario without preamble.

My grip suddenly slipped, and I went down a little farther on the rope.

My hands slipped again, this time, a little bit further. I was at the end of the rope.

Maybe expound on this a little bit. Talk about her aching hands and arms, how she's tired and hurting, and trying so hard to hang on until they can reach her. Show us how she's feeling, what's going on in her mind.

And at the end, I agree with Zoom. Either take out the "supposedly" or the "But somehow, I survived," or even both. You'll still have a hook at the end, and your meaning won't get lost, because you titled the work "Back from the Dead."

People would still ask themselves, "So does she survive?" or "Does she die and come back somehow?"


Overall:
I'm excited to read more, I think this could be a very fun story and I like where you're going with this. Just perhaps go into more detail in places. Sometimes it's the little things, like what's on her face? Is it scratched or cut? Are her clothes torn? Are any other people nearby, living or dead? Stuff like that.

There's a sense of urgency in this story. I think while I like a little more detail in my scenes, you did a great job with that. We knew she was running out of time and felt the need for the paramedics to get there faster!

Hi ViaLia ^_^

I was hanging onto my life by a literal thread. I hung onto one of the ropes from the plane. As the only survivor of a tragic plane accident, I was waiting for the authorities to come and help me.

This is a pretty interesting way to begin a story. At first, I was thinking, “well, surely you can’t mean a literal thread” but then lo and behold, you certainly meant literal. Although this is awesome, I think it's also a tad confusing, especially when I read further on. I would like to know more about the position of the plane, exactly what she is holding on to etc, because I can’t quite imagine this.

So much blood was pouring out from the wound in my leg.

There’s a lot more you could have done with this, visually. I see you graded this story ‘E’ so you might not want to use too much gore, however the warmth of the blood or the way it stains her clothes etc could be a nice detail to throw in. It could actually be a sneaky way to implement her clothes naturally into the story.

I quickly reached out my right hand to grab his hand, but my left hand slipped, and I missed his hand. I fell, supposedly, to my death.
But, somehow, I survived.

I don’t think you really need this last sentence, or even the word “supposedly” in the one preceding it. The mere fact that this is written in first person automatically tells us that she survived, along with the fact that this is chapter one and there wouldn’t be much of a story if she was already dead haha.

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Overall comments:

There isn’t a great deal to comment on because of the length, obviously, however I do have a few suggestions that might help.

First, your protagonist is in a very precarious position, she seems to be hanging from a rope following a plane crash. I really cannot imagine how someone could find themselves in such a predicament, so you will need to spend a bit more time describing what this scene looks like. Because when you started talking about the rescuers using a ladder etc, I was lost.

Second, I’m not sure if this was on purpose or not, but you barely touch on the physical exertion this must be causing your protagonist. I would expect a lot more throbbing muscles, burning hands etc but the absence of these descriptions really made me struggle to put myself in her shoes.

Third, the paramedics seemed like bodiless entities. I get that your protagonist obviously couldn’t look them up and down and provide a list of descriptions for us, but if you could find some attribute that would distinguish them, such as the texture of their voice or something, then this would help them seem a bit more real. Or maybe when one of them reaches the bottom of the ladder and reaches out to grab her hand, you could mention his expression or clothes or just a small detail like that, really.

With all of this said, something I liked a lot was that you didn’t let anything bog the scene down, such as exposition or introspection. Instead of explaining how the plane went down, or having the protagonist ramble on about their situation, you let it play out and take shape on its own, which added a nice sense of urgency. It was simply about the rescue, about your character hanging on for dear life, nothing more, nothing less. I like a writer that can work with this level of simplicity.

Thanks for sharing, tag me if there’s more to come.

-Zoom