Published May 1, 2010
The field was a pale green with butterflies insects and searching around for their food. The sun rose out from a cluster of pine trees, reflecting the tiny water droplets, and creating enough light for a small young woman to be seen. From far away anyone could have sworn it was just an overgrown patch of grass with a few branches, but as you grew closer you could see a figure. She had an olive green dress draping over her knees, exposing her bare legs. Ebony hair covered her face and shielded her from the mosquitoes, and gnats picking at the delicate features .Her dark brown skin seemed to glow; her eyelashes batted against her eyes. And her faint red lips began to slowly move as if she were trying to speak.
And if you watched closely you could see her body began to turn towards the sun now peaking over the top of the trees, and letting everything admire its red-orange glow. Unexpectedly she opened her fiery ash-gray eyes, and a sharp inhale was heard from her mouth.
The skies then began to change color, and the trees turn to every color on the spectrum changing alternately, and the critters once by her flying away with an increasing wind speed. Gradually her once fiery eyes began to calm, and she disappeared like a whistle in the wind.
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140,831 Literary Works • 673,694 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
Anyway let's get right to it,
This is off to an intriguing start here, its a very relaxed start here because the scene that we're slowly being inserted to her seems quite calm and nothing really seems to be causing any disturbances here. It makes for a generally relaxed vibe which matches quite well with how you're slowly describing this curious figure here. This does give things just the tiniest air of mystery as you wonder what this figure could possible mean but for the most part, it just seems to be trying to gently showcase this one place here.
Ooooh now this is a rather interesting moment here. The start of this bit of description continues along with that somewhat more relaxed tone that we have had since the beginning of this piece but then we circle towards the end of things here and there's a very interesting sort of shift there to end on. It seems like this moment of the eyes opening is somehow very significant and it seems almost like it's going to be a bit of a transition into something a lot more mysterious...because right now this is going me a bit of a jump scare type vibe here with what we've got going on.
Well that did in fact dramatically as I expected, although perhaps not exactly the way I though it would go. So there was a nice twist that did genuinely catch me by surprise and I think it makes for a very intriguing and very nicely done ending there because it leaves you in so much suspense as to what on Earth just happened and I think that's really nicely done here. Overall, this is a pretty solid piece right here and I think you've done really good job bringing across this story.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Unlocked by request!
This is really good and has a lot of detail. This may sound weird but, I love the way you explain her eyes.
Spoiler
Okay, so this was short. There isn't much to say, but I will try to pick some things out:
1)Plot - What's going on? I have no idea. This story is unknown. I don't know what happened or what will happen, so I don't want to continue reading. You have to give your readers something to latch onto, otherwise they won't give you the time of day.
2)Telling - This was your major problem. You basically told us what was happening the entire story. That's not good. You have to show the readers what you want them to know. Here are some articles from this site that I think may help you.
http://www.youngwriterssociety.com/topic41426.html
And this one I don't know who wrote it, but I think it was Snoink
Spoiler
1. The "I don't have to listen to that rule, it's stupid and old and all the best writers don't listen to it" group.
2. The "My goodness I am not following that rule one bit and I should be" group
3. The "I love the rule, but it certainly has its limits" group.
Whatever you do, avoid, with all your might, that first group. Those are the people who become so arrogant over their writing that they profess to know everything there is to know about the writing world, yet for some strange twist of fate they have yet to be published, or haven't even submitted to anything. The latter is more often than not reality.
Now, some of you might be thinking that I'm one of those people since I'm writing the tips section of the TW Blog. Here's the difference: I don't know everything. I don't, ever claim to know everything, and never will know everything. No great writer can honestly sit there and say they know everything there is to know about writing. Those that have talked to me about anything I've written, aside from poetry, which is a whole different ballpark, will have recognized that I'm actually rather humble about my writing, so much so that I like irritate people from time to time. You should be humble about your writing. Don't proclaim that you have written the next best novel. Why? Because unless it's published and hailed as the next best novel, it isn't anything but an unpublished novel. Perhaps this sounds really negative, but to put this all into perspective some of the greatest writers of our time were very much like you or me, or worse. Take Stephen King, who spent much of his early writing career broke, humble, and stuck in a rut where no short story publishers would take his work and no publishing houses would give him a second look. Now look where he is.
"Show, don't tell" is the golden rule for a reason--because it is almost always connected to every problem you will find within your own writing, or that someone else finds.
So what exactly is Showing and Telling?
Telling
We'll start with this first because, well, it is the root of almost evil. Telling is when you attempt to convey information to the reader in an info-dump or in such a way that doesn't actually 'show' the reader that information. This is a flexible rule, but we'll get back to that later. Here's an example of what I mean:
John was a rude man who always picked his ears with an old rotten toothpick.
Now, what exactly is wrong with this sentence? In some ways, there isn't anything wrong with the sentence. But in the most important ways it is wrong. What is the sentence doing? It's telling you something. It's not showing you anything.
Showing
Showing is far different from Telling, for very specific reasons. When you are showing something you are actually giving the reader a visual about what is going on. This could be through dialogue, character action or interaction, or in description. Here is an example of what the above scene might look like if you were trying to show that information:
"John, please leave Mrs. Marx alone," Abby said.
"Why? She's just an old cow anyway," John said, retrieving a moldy toothpick from his pocket and depositing it in his ear.
She cringed. "Do you always have to do that in public?"
He grinned, pulled the toothpick from his ear and deposited the fresh orange glob that came with it into his mouth.
She rolled her eyes in disgust. "You need help..."
Can you see the difference? Here we learn a little about who John is through his interaction with Abby. It's showing us him using the toothpick, being rude, etc.
Flexibility
Now, like with all rules, the "Show, don't tell" rule has some flexibility. It has to because if you were to show every single little thing in your work it would be so convoluted. Many of us have read those older works from the 1700's, 1800's, and early 1900's, where things are described in ridiculous detail to the point where you just don't care anymore. The opposite of this is also true. You don't want to simply tell us everything about something either. Have you ever read one of those paragraphs where the author describes the entire history of a chair that has no importance to the story?
So when it comes down to it, what exactly gives this rule flexibility? Often times it's length. In novels it is acceptable to have occasions of telling. In fact some of the best authors do tell all the time in novels. You might not notice it because it doesn't hurt the flow of the story. They've learned how to bend the rule and get away with it. Almost any sentence with "was" or "had" in it is telling, but it's okay to actually use those. You have to be selective in what you tell. If something is very important to a character--perhaps an action that defines the character--you should be showing it to the reader. But if it isn't really important, maybe a bit of character history that otherwise cannot be done with showing, then some telling is okay.
What about short stories? This is where the rule really gets tricky. Can you tell? Yes, but very little or none at all. Short stories do not have the luxury of length and character development as novels. Telling should be kept to a very minimum in short stories, but you can still have a little bit of telling. Again, just be selective.
So, now that you know the Golden Rule what are you going to do about your writing?
3)POV - Are you writing in second person? If you are, I wouldn't suggest that you continue to. Even the most expierenced writers can find it difficult, and you still have a lot to learn.
Okay, so I can't really say I disliked this, because there was nothing plot-wise to dislike. I have no idea what's going on. I don't know what you plan to do with this, but it definitely needs work. Don't be discouraged though. I was once, and still am in some ways, a lot like you. You improve, it just takes time. Keep Writing!