Young Writers Society

Hey nick~
Sorry for the wait.

I really think your imagery is beautiful. I love the picture you paint in my head of a boy and a man standing on a cliff watching a sunset.

I agree with a lot of what Hannah said. Sometimes, especially your dialogue, can be a little eyeroll worthy. I think that language is a bit harsh, and I'm sorry, but I'm not sure how else to put it. What I mean is stuff like:

"We are young. And yet, we are life."

The old man gazed deeply into the painting that the fading sun mused,

Where as the boy looked at his aged father in a calm curiosity.

'Like two little specs of black that silhouetted the setting sun' - 'specs' should be 'specks'.

'Where as the boy looked' - 'whereas' is one word.

'What caused the look to occur was this,' - Technically this comma should be a colon but since it's quite poetic and poets tend to break grammar, it probably doesn't matter.

'and only his head to to boy.' - the second 'to' should be 'the'.

The boy closed his eyes lightly then opened them.

He could feel himself grow old as he did this.

Hello! i really liked this story and how it defied a lot of common stereotypes and archetypes in writing. you didnt make the kid naive and innocent you gave him a deeper understanding of the world and more powered. make the father try to hide and protect him, you let him experience the world. i really liked the common theme of age and wiseness. very good story, hope to see more!

From the beginning, I knew this poem was going to be a beautiful story. Of course, it's the ocean, and just the setting itself. Secondly, I just never know how a simple question can become a life's mystery. Then, we get to the second half of the poem, I believe, and the father just vanishes into thin air. I swear that if the boy didn't start crying, I would. The last part of the poem broke me down completely. I just love this poem so much. I can read this all night if I wanted to. Keep writing

Hey there, Nickstark!

So, my first though while reading through this was that you definitely don't have to have the line breaks. You mention that it's a short story with poetic elements (or something like that), but you know what? That's a short story with your particular style of writing! You can present your prose as prose and don't try to fit your poetic writing into a poetic form. No reason to do so! Line breaks serve specific purposes, but using them in this piece makes me feel like you're trying to make prose that is not a poem look like a poem. Does that make sense?! D:

Next, I really like the last two lines. They are gorgeous and a reassuring after the craziness that is the rest of the poem. Which, I dunno. Could be a good thing if you're exactly sure that's what you want, or could be something you'll want to work on. What I mean is that it felt like the writing was being purposefully vague just to sound mysterious and everlasting.

There's a difference between being profound and just putting strange words about strange happenings that are kind of random and confusing hoping that the reader doesn't know the difference between feeling confused and feeling enlightened. >_< MAYBE other readers understand every single reference and allusion that you've written, but I honestly have no idea what the short story I just read is about. Something about age, a father disappearing, being with the sun, but it is too vague for me, and so the impression I get from it won't last.

I know it's hard to work from vague to concrete because you probably don't want to give TOO many hints and then have it be obvious what you meant to write, but see if you can't write a few versions of this same story, show it to different people, and see which people understand and which people are confused. That might work!

Anyway, I hope these thoughts are helpful to you!
Good luck and keep writing!

Hannah

This is truly a calm and majestic piece. Without even getting into the story here, which is quite dreamy and seemingly very metaphorical, your language use is really interesting. You use the oxymoron nicely, like when you said "He stood together on the cliff." The last line explains that it was the sun that was with him, but saying that he stood together really joins the ideas of loneliness and company here. The boy misses his father, and is somewhat lonely, but he is never really alone, as the vivid memories of the father are with him.

"Now, here they stood on the cliff at night's rise." - this is my favorite line. I expect to read of the sun rising, not the night - another nicely worded irony that really makes me glad I stopped by this poetic story. This style of writing can really take you a far way. Keep at it.