This is the first piece I've uploaded to YWS - I wrote it today in the space of 20 minutes. Feel free to be as harsh as you like, because I'm not quite satisfied with this and not sure how I could make it better. Any feedback or suggestions you may have would be greatly appreciated!
The Professor had been hidden away in the attic all day. His mother had knocked on the door with a cup of tea, and he had sent her away; the paperboy had pushed a large and noisy package through the letterbox, and he had ignored it; a pioneering neighbour’s chimneypot had exploded through too much experimentation and not enough caution (sending three brass pipes, a gasket and a large amount of soot straight through an upstairs window) and he had taken no notice. The only thing that mattered was currently standing in the middle of the room, concealed by a dusty sheet and a thin layer of cobwebs. His creation.
The Professor bent over his workbench, muttering distractedly to himself as he flicked through the crumbling, yellowed pages of RW Smith’s Guide To Automata. His work was almost complete, but he could see from the blueprints that something was still missing. A vital component which he knew had to be around somewhere…
After much rummaging, he finally located it in one of the wooden crates under his table. A quick twist of a screw, a quick rub on the bottom of his waistcoat to remove the grease (oh, how his mother would tell him off if she was in the room now!) and the key was ready. There remained only one thing he had to do.
The Professor stood up, the sun illuminating his grey hairs as he passed under the skylight, and whipped off the protective shroud with a magician's flourish. He’d seen her so many times before (how could he not, considering he’d pieced her together from every spare part and scrap of metal he’d managed to track down?) but still, the result was something truly spectacular.
Alice.
His grey eyes misted behind his spectacles as they gazed upon her. She truly was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen. Her eyes were round and chocolate brown, framed by thick eyelashes. Her hair – admittedly that of some poor wretch who’d been forced to sell hers in order to make ends meet – curled in delicate ringlets which reached to just past her shoulders. Her lips were smooth and pink, as if they’d been made from pearl, and her skin was pale and fragile-looking. Her outer covering was porcelain, but her insides were made of sterner stuff – cogs and gears and springs. A strong woman, he thought with a wry smile.
He couldn’t put into words the emotion he felt, looking at his creation. Alice wasn’t like any woman he’d ever met. Not only was she beautiful, but she would be kind, forgiving, the woman of his dreams, the woman who would make him happy.
She was perfect.
And as his creation, as his unthinking, robotic creation, whose heart was made of brass and whose soul and dreams were that of the man wistfully turning the key, she would love him and none other.
Wiping away a lone tear, the Professor gently turned Alice around on her pedestal. She complied, docile and unprotesting as he unlaced the back of her corset. Halfway down her back was a slit of half an inch wide and four inches long, the end of the façade. Here he could see past the china shell, the assortment of workings and mechanisms that for all their craftsmanship would never stir her robotic heart. Waiting for one final component.
Taking a deep breath, the Professor inserted the key, twisting his screwdriver this way and that to make sure it was securely attached. Somewhere within Alice, he heard the whirring of her inner mechanisms as he began to wind the clockwork girl.
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125,008 Literary Works • 672,833 Reviews
Hey there, steamy. So many reviews on your wonderful piece already, thought I'd join the party.
This short story definitely stirred up a few feelings. An amazing work of art, one that is certain to stick around in my tiny memory.
The Professor was a good character, we discover about him just enough to know what is going on, but not too much to keep a sense of mystery. The dusty attic is a perfect setting, tells a lot about the Professor. He does not have any professional quarters, like a laboratory, so we can assume that he constructed Alice without any help whatsoever, and in less than optimal conditions.
He obviously wants the perfect female companion, and it is clear that the moments of her being turned on are extremely emotional for him. Great descriptions and vocabulary, and I could not help but notice Alice's steampunk characteristics.
I like it that you do not let us see how Alice behaves after she is on, and that you leave it open to interpretation.
Amazing story, can't believe I didn't read it sooner.
Aw, thank you so much for reviewing! I never thought I'd ever get another review on this, so you made my day.
Wow, this is pretty cool read! I could see how the love for his perfect creation turned into a bit of an obsession, instead of finding the perfect girl he built her instead. Locking himself away in his dream, like I'm sure quite a few people do, so in my mind it made him a bit more relatable as a person. To throw away your whole life for a single dream is empowering yet tragic as it builds and takes from your future that can leave you fulfilled yet empty from accomplish it. I'll admit though that I thought the key hole was going to be at her heart though, you know like key to her heart but literally, I'm so cheesy. Anyway this was really nice and keep on going with writing, it will carry you far.
Thank you! I should really revisit this... haha.
I loved your work,Dear steampowered!!!!!!!!!I appreciate that you wrote this in such a hurry.I really appreciate your work.
It was fantasic and FABULOUS work I have ever read.
I am really amazed by your"like clockwork".I really like your like clockwork!!!........I want you to write more stuff......A A A A A BUT ONLY YOU ARE FREE FROM THESE HATEFUL EXAMS.....
HATS OFF TO YOUR FANTACY WORK.....
Aww! Thank you so much.
I'll write some more stuff after exams are over, don't worry.
And a konban wa to you, tomodachi!
Anyways, see you soon, and happy writing!
Jen here to read your story and give you a few points on how to improve.
But first off, let me recount some of the stuffz that I enjoyed about your short story. Your title is brilliant. It is short-- only two words!-- yet descriptive, elegant and cold-seeming, easy to understand yet very catchy, and immediately sets up a mood for the story. I can instantly tell that this story will be one of emotions (and lack of), building up (and breaking down), things running smoothly (and things malfunctioning), and tragedies (with, perhaps, a bittersweet tang). An endless list of praises can be concocted for your title alone. Please treat yourself to a cookie for such an awesome title.
Another thing is your style itself. The approach you've taken in writing this story speaks reveals as much detail as your descriptions do. Your style for this particular piece is mature-sounding, slightly colder, strangely fascinating, and filled with the emotion of the Professor, yet somehow not sentimental at all. It gives a nice feeling of long years of labor, collected layers of dust, and things already faded gray. It's a nice complement to the topic of the story.
However (as many other reviewers have already suggested), you should pay more attention to your punctuation, and take care to not let your sentences run wild. Try taming some of your more dependent-clause-infested lines, like:
"His mother had knocked on the door with a cup of tea, and he had sent her away; the paperboy had pushed a large and noisy package through the letterbox, and he had ignored it; a pioneering neighbour’s chimneypot had exploded through too much experimentation and not enough caution (sending three brass pipes, a gasket and a large amount of soot straight through an upstairs window) and he had taken no notice."
Woah! That sentence can make a small paragraph all on its own. For a lot of lists, going by that format is fine, and even adds to the atmosphere. However, in this case, it is simply too long, especially the part about the pioneering neighbor. Because you inserted parenthesis, it may confuse readers since there's just too many things to take in at once. As some of the other reviewers have suggested, you should split up the sentence into many small, simple sentences. Or, if you prefer to keep it in list format, you can do that, and try moving the part in parenthesis to another sentence.
(I've also noticed that in my reviews about sentences that are too long. I use so many dependent clauses it drives me insane once I go back and read them. Um. I need to try harder Q_Q.)
Other than that, you might want to include more details in the setting. One problem that I've noticed about a lot of writers (myself included) is that a lot of the times, they neglect to describe the setting in detail. Without ample detail, their world(s) will forever remain 2D, and that's a no no in writing. If making the setting a mystery is what you are going for, and you will elaborate in other chapters (wait... will you upload more chapters? Or is this a one-shot? D: ), then by all means, go for it.
That's about it, I'm sure the other reviewers have caught all the minor details with individual sentences, so I shall leave it at that. Please tell me this will become a multi-chapter story. I want to read more...
Thank you so much for reviewing this! It was just meant to be a standalone thing, but I may revisit it one day.
Hi Steampowered!
I have been meaning to get around to reading this when I could! I especially wanted to review it for you because you always leave such valuable reviews on my own novel, Tainted Skies and I would like to return the favour! My apologies if this turns out being a bit short though, because I know that a lot of people commented on this before, and well, frankly I don't have too much to say. We don't get a lot of information here in this beginning, but we can understand two of the characters I think might be important to the story and learn about this professor who made this clockwork girl. And I love the idea of that, and there are so many future possibilities for this novel, so make sure you keep me updated because I am curious to know where it will go!
I am always picky when it comes to the first line of a novel because I want it to be intriguing to me, and draw me more into the story. But for this one, I wasn't too interested after reading that. But, this chapter does consist of lots of things that would be interesting for me to read about. For example, I loved the follow on about how he had continued working through all those different things. So instead of stating the obvious for us that you later go on to explain in more detail, how about you start by saying something like: Even when this and this happened, and even when this and this happened, the professor wouldn't be distracted. He kept himself hidden away in the attic. If that is your first line I will automatically be curious in wanting to know more about what he could be so focused on that he ignored all those previous distractions.
In the first paragraph, you also use the word had an awful lot where that is unnecessary. Instead of saying this had happened, rephrase the sentence so it sounds like 'when this happened instead. In that case we get rid of an unnecessary word, avoid repetition and set the story in a nicer tone. An example would be: When his mother had knocked on the door with a cup of tea, he sent her away; or as the paperboy pushed a large and noisy package through the letterbox, and he ignored it;
I felt like we could've had more description of the attic at some point to show how he had really made this his own work place and lived in it for a very time, to show his dedication and the amount of time it had taken to get Alice just right. But that would be a very small detail that is up to you about adding.
The rest of this first chapter as fab <3 You should really keep writing this, especially as I know it has been a while since you posted! You've got a lot of open oppurtunities that this story can take ^.^
Deanie x
Thank you so much for reviewing this! I know I haven't been writing much recently, but I'll start uploading more when my exams are over.
As for the story, this is actually just a standalone short story - I get very attached to the few long stories I write, and don't really like the idea of uploading them having just written them for myself and my own amusement. But I may one day turn this into something longer if I get more ideas and inspiration.
Thanks again!
Hi steam!
So I guess I'll go over the story itself then... Well.
).
Nice little story you have here, I really enjoyed reading it. As for it
apparentlybeing your first post... Wha-? Why?This is usually where I'd start going over the grammatical errors I noticed but I didn't really see any... Great job!
I sort of felt bad for the Professor when he was looking at Alice, thinking about how she'd love him. It sounded as though no one else liked him (except for his mother, possibly, but she's his mother... different kind of liking
Then it got a little weird when:
I had no idea what was going on and for a moment I thought that I had walked into a weird robot-on-human... erm...
"bonding time"XDBut I soon saw that this was not the case... hopefully.
All-in-all a great bit of flash fiction, definitely bringing in the steampunk feel. Awesome job, steam!
Keep writing (and please post more)!
-Jules
Thanks for reviewing!
Hello, steampowered! Before I start, I have a quick question. You do not have to answer it if you do not have the time, but I wanted to ask if you were into steampunk? Your name and the story contributes to this thought, so I was just wondering. Anyway, on to the review!
This is a rather piece but I'm going to write about it now since it is review day and this is a lovely piece. I couldn't find anything wrong with it except for the fact I was questioning how old the guy was considering he still lives with his mother. I liked the way you kind of unintentionally (or maybe it was intentional?) stirred up the question as to if a machine can actually match that of a person, and if it is possible to actually love a machine if they truly cannot think or operate without assistance. Perhaps next time you write a story like this, you can give more clear imagery. I love imagery and it's something I don't use enough of in my own writing, and I think with the locations you chose you could give a nice detailed description of everything.
To wrap it up, this piece was close to being flawless. I want to see you write more, and improve too! ~Prez. T
Hi, and thank you for the review!
I didn't really have an age for the guy in mind, but he's probably at least thirty. The idea of him still living with his mother was meant to show how unsuccessful he is with women, but maybe that didn't come across strongly enough in my writing.
Yes, I am into steampunk - feel free to check out my profile.
This was so amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love the last sentencce!!!! please make another post continuing the story!! Maybe we could collaborate on it or something!!
I know you wanted a review, review,,,, but this was too good of a stoy for me to find anything negative!!!!!!!!!!
Congrats!!!!!!! (Its really hard for me to write a review ike this becuase i am a harh reviewer!!)
Thank you for reviewing!
welcome
you are an AMAZING writer! Can't tell you that enoguh times!
First, it's a good idea. I find it strange that his mother knocked a cup of tea against the door, but thats probably just my interpretation. A more clear way could be: "His mother knocked on the door with a cup of tea for him in her other hand, but he sent her away;". I always triple check spelling and grammar, so don't forget
.
Thanks! I've realised that bit was a little confusing, so I'll try and think of a clearer way I could word it.
It's pretty interesting how history has a habit of writing stories where people fall in love with humanoid inanimate objects. This, in itself, piques my interest. But I also enjoy the fact that it never really shows how Alice acts. There's just no need. The point of the story is about the scientist and his quest for perfection. This also just reminds me of the Vocaloid series, cuz of the Clockwork Doll. That, in itself, was half the reason why I decided to read. And I thought it was quite good, even though the grammar isn't perfect.
Hi, therichalder!
As you commented on the grammar, would it be possible to know what grammar mistakes you noticed and how I could improve them? But thank you for reviewing!
Actually, as I look back at it, you're only missing a few commas here and there, or adding too many.
This story is nice. I like reading it. It amazing on how you write it for only 20 minutes. Good job.
Thanks!
Hey there.
First of all, I want to tell you how much I loved reading this. I would have never guessed that this only took you 20 minutes to write if you hadn't added that note.
This is a little silly sounding, but I'm somewhat reminded me of one of my favorite Tim Burton characters, Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas (even though she's stitched together and stuffed with leaves!) I love the idea of a "constructed" person!
I have no complaints, and no advice. Honestly, I should probably be the one asking you for advice!
I think you're a very talented writer. I hope you post more; I would love to read more of your work.
Thank you for reviewing!
The detail is nice, and it's impressive that you wrote this within 20 minutes.
One thing I might do is change some of the 'and's in the first paragraph to 'but's to add some contrast, and maybe pick a different person rather than paperboy. It sort of sounds like the letterbox is in the attic door. A good rewording would do the trick, I think.
Your character reminds me of another character in another story, and the first paragraph brought me a sense of deja vu. The story's name eludes me right now.
Anyway, it was a good piece, and I hope you continue writing!
Thank you so much for reviewing!
Heya steam, so even though I see that you have a lot of reviewers here, I promised you,dear friend, that I would review your work too. This was such a well-written piece that I can only do nitpicks
So shall we begin?
This has only one period on the end of it!
Also, just a minor nitpick, but chimney pot is two separate words!
Another thing is that, the letterbox is not placed in the attic door but by the front door, so how did the professor know that the boy did that? You kind of wanted him to seem ignorant to all of the surrondings, but he had to somehow know that the package got her. Do you see what I mean?
Tell him off
You repeated yourself here,dearie. I would just cut out the first phrase, because even though I understand that you want to emphasize this, it really just isn't necessary.
I would personally merge the two last phrases and write something like: "the woman of his dreams who would make him happy." I think that flows better and looks better than the two separate ones.
Umm, dearie, why did you say: this way and that ?
Dearie, isn't that kind of obvious? Of course she will only love him, she is a clockwork girl
Also I think that you cold develop the professor character a little bit more. What type of person is he? What are his likes and dislikes? Where did he get the metal scraps from? Also I was wondering about this sentence:
Since his creation was concealed by dust, did he pause it or leave it for awhile? Why would he stop building it? Did he even work on it recently?
That is all from me, I hope that I didn't do any repeats
Hello, pretzel, and thank you so much for reviewing my story!
I thought about the long sentence you mentioned in your review, but while your suggestion would be equally grammatically correct, I kind of like the long, literary flow to the one I had before. I can see why you weren't sure about it, though.
Hmm, I'm surprised by the chimneypot thing. Microsoft Word said it was fine, but I've come to the conclusion it's trying to mess up my life haha! Chimneypot is indeed generally written as two words, so thank you for pointing that out.
I'm not totally sure what you meant by "telling him to get out" because it would completely change the meaning. She would tell him off, not to get out, so I'm... slightly confused?
As for the repetition, I personally like it, but I accept my writing style isn't everyone's cup of tea. Backstory, the bit about the screwdriver and the dusty sheet, I totally agree with you on. To be honest I hadn't given this a huge amount of thought when I sat down to write it, and maybe that shows.
Once again, thank you for the feedback. It has been tremendously helpful, and I will bear your points in mind when I write future stories!
i dont see a reason to nit-pick.. just say there was nothing wrong with it.. aas there was nothing wrong with it
Hey steam hey!
I just had to stop by and comment because I really enjoyed the way you wrote this short piece. To me, it is a great example of working with sentence length, tension, atmosphere etc. I liked the style a lot, and I would LOVE to see you work further on this.
Moving on to some point which stuck out to me as I read it:
"His mother had knocked on the door with a cup of tea, "
This maybe my ESL coming through, but the way you had phrased made me immediately think of the mom knocking with a tea cup. Which would be rather weird, I suppose.
Hmm, so when youtalk about how his creation was covered with dust - it implies that he is returning to this project after a long time. I'm curious to know why?
"somewhere..." While ellipses are cool to signal conversation lulls, I find them a bit lazy in actual narrative. It would be more formal and nicer to have a full stop and other description to justify a whiff of time.
I do agree with Gold's comments on the paranthetical junctures.
But overall, thank you for a great read - I would love to come back to it, if you add in some more detail, giving us more hints into the Prof's character and mannerism.
Cheers,
L
Thank you so much for the review - this has been incredibly helpful! I will bear all of your comments in mind.
Heya! I've been having reviewer's block recently, so I might return and add things. Just tell me if I'm unclear anywhere. ^_^
I'll start with all the petty stuff:
It's best to avoid redundancy and unintentional rhyming, especially as the opening paragraph is your reader's first impression of the piece.
I love fragments--they're a stylistic device, a tool for crafting atmosphere, and a meaning enhancer all rolled into one--but because of their intense effect, it's good using them in moderation. This fragment just kind of jars. It contrasts too weirdly with the long sentences preceding it, and where it's placed, the tone you've been building up until this point collapses. Now the reader's left with an impression of melodrama.
It's not really serving much purpose, either. We can infer the object's his creation by reading the following paragraph. If anything, the fragment detracts from the suspense.
Don't capitalize prepositions in titles: Guide to Automata.
This just felt like a bit of a clumsy way to convey his age--maybe if you add some sensory detail, or omit the word grey entirely, it'd be smoother. The three ideas going on in the sentence made it difficult to process.
At this point, the parenthetical comments just felt unnecessary and obstacles in the flow; also take into account the fact that they're used to strengthen the narrator's voice. You can check what they're contributing by removing them or replacing the parentheses with M-dashes.
Parenthetical comments are also usually associated with humor and the first-person POV.
I guess you could hyphenate "chocolate brown," depending on how you're using the phrase. It just makes me more comfortable with a dash.
This description also rings cliche. Try refraining from using common imagery; describe the shape of the eyelashes, maybe, or the irises' reflective quality. Just avoid "frame," "round," and "chocolate brown."
There are loads of other things that are smooth and pink, like the interiors of conch shells, rose petals, pebbles from the beach--and pearl's typically associated with white, so I'd recommend justifying why the narrator chose pearl specifically.
"Made" also sounds like a bit of a meh verb. Try exchanging it for sculpted or carved, maybe.
So we're looking at an Edward-Scissorhands-Frankenstein-Pygmalion-type piece. It's not an original idea--a lonely scientist (or artist, in Pygmalion's case) creates a human substitute in a quest for someone who understands him--and really the only things that make these types of stories original are characterization and writing style.
Characterization: We didn't receive much of the Professor's backstory, but we can infer he's lonely from the fact that he still lives with his mother. There's also some air of hesitation and guiltiness about him. The parenthetical comments, the single-sentence paragraphs, and how he takes a breath before winding her.
Pretty great, overall. I'd just try digging a little deeper into his character, so that we exit that zone of cliches.
Writing style: I could gush endlessly about this. The pace, the atmosphere, sentence variation, the voice, were all solid. Paragraphs were broken at the right places. The narrator possessed this sort of melancholy, detached tone that perfectly suited the piece. Your description was impeccable. Everything flowed, so I never had to stop while I was reading and glare at an unnecessary adverb. Just an amazing job. (The story really couldn't have ended at a better place.)
I guess I wouldn't say it's original. It definitely demonstrates writing talent, though. I'd love to see this rewritten with more of the character's backstory and more of his personality--maybe even lowering his age, making him more relatable.
Can't wait to read more of your work!
~Flame
Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a detailed and in-depth review. Reading this has been really helpful to me, and I will bear all your tips in mind when I come to write future stories or edit this one. I didn't realise about the rhyming (my bad for not reading this out loud first!) With regards to the hyphenation, I wrote this story on Word first (where it autocorrects) and it didn't translate when I copied and pasted it. If the bit about not leaving spaces is true (I tend to model my typing around what I see written in the books I read) then I have been doing it wrong for a very long time, so thank you for pointing that out.
I wasn't sure about the pearl either, but it was one thing I forgot to change on an edit. I'll see if I can find a better simile.
I'm aware the concept was a bit cliched, but this writing was more an exercise than anything else (my creative juices have been running dry recently and I was trying to get back into writing) However, I will probably choose something more original next time.
Once again, thank you for this review! It has helped a lot, and I would be happy to review any of your work in return.
No problem! It was an enjoyable read.
Ah, yeah, Word can really be a writer's enemy. It usually corrects hyphens that are surrounded with spaces to N-dashes, but it doesn't seem to be able to distinguish them from M-dashes. I guess I just kind of rely on Google for these grammar-y things. XD
I'm still amazed you wrote this in twenty minutes. If this was just a freewrite, I'm scared about what will happen when you post a story you've been pouring a lot of dedication into, haha.
Congrats on making the Spotlight, btw! It definitely deserved it.
@GoldFlame all of the problems ou metioned seemed to be nit-picky things to me! How is it that 3 people find NOTHING wrong with it, but you manage to find 5?
Hello! Flash here for a quick review.
When I saw this I noticed it had a good amount of likes and only one review. I wondered why, then I read some and realized why...
It's so good, you can't find any errors.
I didn't find any mistakes here. Good job with that! Someone else may find issues but I didn't see any at all.
So onto the story itself. I really, really liked this work! I'm highly interested in steampunk, but I don't know anything about it. The way you described everything made it easy for a non-steampunk-y person to understand.
Overall amazing story and excellent job! And wait, it took you 20 minutes to write this?! GIVE US TALENT. XD Just kidding!
Seriously though, wow. Keep writing!
-Flash
Thank you for the review! The time frame is probably a bit misleading; it took me 20 minutes to write a first draft but I polished it up a bit before uploading.
No problem!
That's still impressive though! (At least for someone who takes days to write first drafts)
exaclty what i sid @AttackOfTheFlash i couldn't find any errors!
Heey its me Urba...i see its your first story here...it was good I must say...but sorry...just good
I like the title...and at first the story was flowing very nicely...
You said alice was the most beautiful creation in the world...OMG...her features are a bit similar with mine...i have chocolate brown eyes and thick eyelashes and my lips are pink also...though im not beautiful at all...
Now back to the point...would a professor really think like this...and he created a robot just for himself???...i wanna be a scientist in my later life(a professor or what you call it) so this kind of thing...kind of...you know like...bothers my feelings...
But i have no doubt in your good writing skill...it can be very good...just put a little more care on your subject...congratulations on your first upload...friend...
Bye...have a good day...Steam...
Urba...
well, some professors do things like this.. this is normal..
Thank you for taking the time to read this and write a comment. I did intend to show through my writing that the Professor is lonely and desperate for a companion - so he creates his own because no woman has ever shown interest in him. But maybe that bit needs some work.
Youre welcome...creepy connection...the like link is not showing...
Like...
The vividness of your descriptions left me speechless. I feel like I was actually there in the room with the Professor. I almost think that you could turn this into more than a short story if you wanted to.
I also like the complexity of your character you've created within this short space. The fact that he has a career and still lives with his mother (or does his mother live with him), creates a curious thought about whether or not the Professor was sane or not. And then we saw that he was simply lonely and so craving the comforts of love that he created someone to love him.
This was a spectacular piece.
You should write more
Thank you so much for the review!