z

Young Writers Society


E - Everyone

Walk to the Pet Store

by brod22, Maggie, Sarah, rachel


The Walk to the Pet Store

A yelp came from her mouth, as the car swerved out of her way, brushing her side as it passed. Last year in August, a horrific accident almost happened. My friend Rachel and I decided to go walk to Pieology, a pizza restaurant by my house, and then after that we would walk to the pet store.

Once we were done eating our scrumptious pizza; we started our long, tedious, journey to the pet store. It was quite hot that day. The sun was beating down on us. We had the thought of turning back, but we were already too far. We tried to get our minds off the sun, but it was burning outside. I felt like my skin was going to catch on fire. We trudged on trying not to think about the heat.

The walk felt like it would never end, but we could finally see the khaki paint, and the evergreen sign. It was only a couple blocks away, until air conditioning. We crossed the first sidewalk unprepared on what was going to happen next. A car started to turn, not noticing Rachel and I walking across the street. The car started to merge out farther and closer to us. We thought we were gonners. We tried to dodge the car, but it seemed like there was no escaping it. The man paid no attention to us, but only to his broken air conditioning. As Rachel was trying to avoid getting smashed, like a bug on a windshield, she lost my birkenstock, and it was now under the car’s wheel. The car kept coming at us, and at the last second Rachel let out a loud yelp and he looked up. He swerved out of the way and stepped on the breaks and with a screech the car was finally at a stop. The man, with a terrorized face, looked up. The man apologized and was sympathetic. He drove away, and we retrieved my birkenstock, not damaged, but it had a black imprint of the wheel, going from one side to the other side of the shoe. As we walked on, we talked about what if Rachel did not scream, we would have been most likely be dead or badly injured. We babbled on about what would people do if we died. Would they be sad? Would they cry? Would they cancel school? We laughed about the thought of them cancelling school. We knew that we were not that important. We gossiped on, and soon we reached the pet store.

I learned from this experience to always pay attention to your surroundings, and while driving it is better to wait until home, or at your destination to fix something or text. It is best to do this so you can pay attention to the road and that so you do not hit a pedestrian, or another car.








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279 Reviews


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Thu Mar 03, 2016 2:04 pm
Steggy wrote a review...



Hallo!

First, I like to say welcome to YWS. c:

You have a nice story here that seems to be based off of how an event changed your life. As the reviewer said below me, I feel like you could've added more. Describe how everyone was affected by one little incident. Also, in the beginning, you seem to backtrack to how you came into this situation. I feel you should've started out with the backstory (the past) then slowly drift in the accident (the present). That way when the reader is reading through they can understand the actions that lead up to it. You also seem to have unnecessary info- even though it is nice to know the sun was beating down on you, I don't think it's of an importance to the story (despite it describing the setting).
The action (accident part) seems a bit rushed. It doesn't built up the suspense that can make the reader go "what's going to happen next?" In any case, read over what you've written. Think about how you might describe the scene to somebody who wasn't there. Also, I feel that this "story" would be used for a blog post or something.

Towards the end, there is just a giant space. In my opinion, I think you should remove it. What purpose does it have; none. The middle part of this story seems to be expanding like a puddle- it doesn't seem to have an end until you actually start to break it apart. In other words, try singling the middle to a few paragraphs to make more of a sense to the reader (when or if they read this).

The sun was beating down on us. We had the thought of turning back, but we were already too far. We tried to get our minds off the sun, but it was burning outside. I felt like my skin was going to catch on fire. We trudged on trying not to think about the heat.


This little bit seems to be repetitive. Stick to one central idea and just continue on. Another thing is describe more of your surroundings than just the temperature. What did the city look like? Was it crowded?

Overall, I enjoyed this piece. I remember once I was crossing the street to go to school, and almost got ran over. Quite something for a five year old. :P

Steggy




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Thu Mar 03, 2016 1:10 am
Craz wrote a review...



Heya, I'm here with a review~

Grammatical Errors:

"Once we were done eating our scrumptious pizza; we started our long, tedious, journey to the pet store."
~ I would change the semicolon to just a comma, and the comma after "tedious" isn't necessary.

"We tried to get our minds off the sun, but it was burning outside."
~ This sentence (mainly the second half) is redundant. I know it may not seem like it, but it repeats "it was quite hot that day" in that they both are phrased as the initial statement saying that it is hot. If that makes sense :)

"I learned from this experience to always pay attention to your surroundings, and while driving it is better to wait until home, or at your destination to fix something or text."
~ The comma is misplaced.


The Review:

I enjoyed this. Your writing and vocabulary flows nicely, and I can appeal and relate to you and your friend (the only thing that my school would close for is snow; school system seems to be deathly afraid of cold white stuff). The only major problem that I see is that your fourth paragraph definitely needs to be broken down. It's like a huge, hulking rock in the middle of pebbles; very distracting and winding to read through.

Also, I think you need to add more. This could easily take in a lot more suspense - does the friend live? Are you or her injured? What happens to the man? Also, letting the reader in on your conversation would add in some empathy. Nothing adds more than relating to a character (in this case, an actual person) and then having their lives be suddenly thrown on the line. Very dramatic.

I hoped my review helped!





Don't gobblefunk around with words.
— Roald Dahl