I liked how you go to know the characters named and ages before the story.I liked how it started with action in the beginning.You have some tense errors in some areas. I liked the detail. Overall it's a good story with a few errors.
Dylan Hoang
Wizard/ Pickett
English/ World Studies
23 February 2016
The Story of My Father
Shuwan: Sister, 16
Bao: Younger sister, 9
Trinh: Mother, 43
Angou: Older brother, 16
Cheung: Younger brother, 13
Telling the story from Angou’s point of view
My eyes flash open to my brother sobbing next to my bed. He is crying tears of pain like someone has stabbed him, although I cannot see any marks on his body, which is trembling in fear. Right when he looks at me I know something is missing. Cheung didn’t go to mother to cry because mother was not here.
I dash to mother’s room as if I am a cheetah hunting it’s prey . I am as pale as a ghost. I search mother’s bed yet only find mud tracks on the ground that lead from her window to her bed. What can I do? Where is mother? Why did she leave? Why were there footprints?. Questions spin in my head as I decide to make the most risk-taking decision of my life.
I have two sisters, Shuwan and Bao. Shuwan is 16 and Bao is nine. I also have a brother Cheung who is 13 and, I myself am 17. Shuwan is a schoolgirl along with me and the rest of my siblings. Our mother works the fields and takes care of our home and all of us. Mother had a husband when we moved to Beijing from Hong Kong, but soon after he left to war and never came back. Our mother, Trinh Zhang had always been secretive about most topics about our father. We miss very dearly, he is loved just as much as mother is. Mother is as sweet as honey and father is as tough as a bear, both of them young and bold.
Shuwan and Bao awaken in a sudden movement, breathing heavily while sniffling loudly. I hear cries from Bao yelling “MA! MA!” I run from room to room gathering my brother and sisters in my room like a mother gathering her children for story time.
I am going to take the risk. I will travel with my brother and sisters to search China for our mother who has gone missing like an escaped criminal.
Father has been gone for exactly 7 years to this day, mother is now gone just as if the wind has blown both of them away.
I have settled every one of my siblings down; now they are sleeping like gentle hummingbirds flying from tree to tree. Moments later I hear thunder crack through the night sky waking the children. Quietly, after I put them back to sleep, I find a brochure with tickets for the next boat headed Hong Kong in the morning. We have to leave tomorrow morning for Hong Kong. I pack quickly and fall into a deep sleep soon after.
The next morning, I find clues about where mother has gone-some already in my suitcase and more all around the house. She is headed for Hong Kong, the place where her and father met. She leaves things we need all around my room and the kitchen. I feel butterflies in my empty stomach. We quickly get on the ship and arrive at Hong Kong. There, I throw everything out of my bag looking for the map on the brochure there I find an arrow pointing to an “X” on The Great Wall of China. Something in my gut tells me to go there. We travel longer all the way to the Great Wall of China. When we all get there, I get a jittery feeling. I want to go home and go to sleep, telling myself this was all a dream.
I keep walking, ignoring the adrenalized feeling going on in my stomach. I find something that catches my eye. A yellow flag with rice balls, crackers, dumplings, fish, grapes and mandarin oranges next to it. The meal is still hot which means someone must have left it not long before. I see writing on paper that looks wet with a little blood. The blood looks filled with mud which brings me back to footprints in mother’s room. I find a note reading,
Dear Angou, Shuwan, Cheung, and Bao,
I have come very far here to Beijing. I am happy you have decided to follow. I have a surprise here but you will have to find me to know. I am nervous with many butterflies. Come find me, for I have been taken by someone here. I am joyful and jittery waiting for you to come find me. Eat the food I have made you with your heart, mind and soul. I miss you all very much. Please meet me at the halfway point for I have missed you all very dearly.
X. Trinh Zhang
Shuwan, Cheung and Bao and I all eat the scrumptious food that has been left for us. It smells like a familiar scent, like mother. I keep eating and taste seaweed that has been bought a day ago fresh from the sea. I also taste meat that has been flavored with sea salt- strong yet tasty.
We keep walking and get closer and closer to the halfway point. Step after step, it gets harder and harder to move my legs. It is painful walking far distances for I feel as if there are nails being stuck into my feet. A little while later, I am leaning against the thick wall of concrete that is bumpy and cold to the touch. I feel a shadow over my face and look up to my mother shining as bright as the sun. Mother has never looked happier. Then I see a man next to her wearing a kimono. He smiles just as bright as mother and pulls me close. He tells us, “Everything is going to be alright, I am here for you now, as a father.”
I have questions whirling around in my brain but he says something before I have a chance to choose one to ask him, “ I will explain later, but for now, just enjoy this beautiful day with the ones you love most.” This is not the end, for it is the beginning to a new start.
I liked how you go to know the characters named and ages before the story.I liked how it started with action in the beginning.You have some tense errors in some areas. I liked the detail. Overall it's a good story with a few errors.
Hey there, ddialoverofr5! I'm Caterpickle, and I'm here to review your story.
So, I'm pretty sure the first eleven lines you wrote were a mix of school requirements and minimal character descriptions. This would be fine, but I'm also pretty sure you got Angou's age wrong in the little synopsis. You put that he was 16 at the top, but in the third paragraph of the story itself, you wrote that he was 17. This was a bit confusing, and probably needs some sort of clarification.
The first paragraph of the story was pretty engaging. Some more descriptions would be nice. You could have written something about the younger brother standing with his bare feet curled in on themselves on the cold stone floor, or Angou throwing his covers off him, and dashing so fast to his mother's room, that the thin blankets didn't have time to fully settle on top of the yellowing mattress. The only thing I didn't love about the second paragraph was the last sentence. "...the most risk-taking decision of my life." Maybe you could change that word to risky, or dangerous, or something that flows better than "risk-taking".
In the third paragraph, I liked that you transitioned nicely to a little backstory piece. However, if you are going to put "sixteen", "thirteen", and "seventeen" in numeric format, then you should really put "nine" in the same format, for consistency. It threw me off. "Shuwan is a schoolgirl along with me and the rest of my siblings." This sentence kind of implies that all of the siblings are schoolgirls, even the boys. You could have said that she went to school, like him and his other siblings, or something similar.
The next few paragraphs are a little patchy. First, the sisters wake, screaming for their mother, as if they know she's gone from the second they wake. How could they? You should consider writing something in there about Angou gathering them and explaining the situation, or them walking into the mother's room, and seeing for themselves. Then, all of the sudden, Angou just decides to drag his younger siblings across China to "search" for their disappeared mother? That seemed like a rash decision, the way you wrote it. Some internal conflict, or arguing with his siblings about it would help the readers out a lot. I really liked the suddenness of the little paragraph about how the father has been gone for seven years, but maybe you could place it right after the little backstory paragraph. That would flow better.
The next paragraph about the siblings sleeping, seems entirely unnecessary. Just my opinion.
So...he just decides that maybe he should go the the Great Wall of China? Seems a little sketchy that he just conjured up that idea, and it just so happens that the mom left a crapload of food there, and no hungry peasants took it. Also, about the note. You said that it was written in blood. Who's blood? Their mother's? That whole section was confusing. I understand that you may have been trying to be mysterious, but, I don't know. It just felt wrong.
Ahh, the ending. I was incredibly confused. You said that there was a man with their mother, who said he was there for them now, "as a father". What does that mean? As their father, or just a replacement father figure? Some explanations would be refreshing. It seemed like a happy ending, so...the blood and the footprints didn't really get brought up. They were just kind of dead ends, hoping to be forgotten. Did he kidnap her, or did she go with him willingly?
The amount of questions I have is too much for this to be considered a properly puzzling mystery. It is the bad kind of confusion. The plot had good potential, and I'm sure that some editing and elaboration would revive the readers' excitement. I hope this review helped you out!
~Caterpickle
I like this because it shows what a family would go through to do to find a member of the family, it goes a bit fast paced which is good and bad, the good part is that it gets right to the point and tells you what's happening in the story the bad thing about it though is that you have no time for a good introduction of the characters, i think this is why you put the character's name and age at the beginning, over all this is a good story and id'e love to know what happens.
Hello, here for a short review!
Alrighty, in the beginning, with your name and the character, I don't think you would need that on a site much like this. You know, internet problems. The sorts. Anyway. Your beginning seems a bit fast paced, which in some cases is good with a subtle reason behind it. For example, the narrator's brother is crying. Point blank. Yet I'm wondering why is he crying- the narrator doesn't even think twice that perhaps somebody in his family had died but rather if he was stabbed. I think that pretty much sums up his love for his brother.
He is crying tears of pain like someone has stabbed him, although I cannot see any marks on his body, which is trembling in fear.
This story was very interesting and had a unique plot, there were just a few problems I found:
I don't quite understand the analogy here,"I dash to mother’s room as if I am a cheetah hunting it’s prey." because a cheetah hunting has ill intent, where I pictured the main character more as worried. Though the rest of your analogies were very good.
In this sentence, "Shuwan is 16 and Bao is nine." both ages should be written as numbers, not just one.
Where you said, "I decide to make the most risk-taking decision of my life." it was a little confusing because you didn't explain said decision after he thought that and instead explained his family.
I don't really understand why the mom left them in the middle of the night, or was taken in the middle of the night. If the person taking her was good, or she knew she would be leaving, why not bring her kids with her?
Again, good story, and keep writing! 
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