Claudia Yount is a broken, shambled, bitter mess of a woman. But she wasn’t always that way. Once upon a time she was known as Alice Cavery, one of the most popular seniors in lycée, and the greatest young singer her suburban community in France ever knew, her voice wonderful and melodic in a way that melted hearts and humbled minds. "La voix d'un ange," her mother would say with a smile. The voice of an angel.
Destiny was hers to grab, yet it was never hers to be.
Tragedy exploded into her life the near moment high school came to an end. “Aidez-moi!” she shouted. “Aidez-moi!” Help! Help!
Her mother had gone down at the dinner table, clutching her chest, strong smelling blood dripping from her nose and saliva gurgling out of her lips. Her father called 112, and she began CPR, but it was no good. Her mother had passed away from a heart attack, the same night as her high school graduation.
Things would not get better soon. Her father died in a horrible car accident six months later. Alice took up a part time job in a gas station to pay rent for a small apartment, but didn’t resume her singing career until a year later. She released two albums, but they were both dramatic flops; her singing voice that was once considered wonderful and melodic was now considered mortifying and disgraceful. At one point, she sang out of the raw desire to impress her parents. Now that they were gone, she sung without purpose, without meaning. Once compared to those outside of her hometown, her natural voice was not as impressive, either. It broke her heart and brought tremendous pain to her mind.
And the deaths of her parents were merely the beginning of the tragedies that would tremor her world. She met a man named Denis Bernard, a handsomely suave raven-haired native who always dressed sharp and talked smoothly. They met during a recording audition, and fell in love almost overnight. They were perfect for each other. Loved the same soul-infused, jazzy music. Enjoyed the same creamy foods. They never fought, they never spat. When she needed someone to hold her hand, he was always there for her. When he felt lost in the dark, cold world as he so often did, she was there for him.
Then he died. Overwhelmed by his severe depression, he ended his own life at the tender age of twenty-four. Alice was the one who found his cold, pale body, hanging upside down from his bedroom window. His eyes were still wide open.
She ran to her apartment and jumped on her bed, kicking and screaming and crying heavy tears into her rigid pillow. “Pourquoi est-ce toujours le cas pour moi!” she cried out to the heavens. “S'il vous plait, Dieu! Pourquoi est-ce toujours tu moi!”
Please, God, why does this always happen to me!
The next day, she’d decided she couldn’t live in France anymore. The land she once loved, the home that once brought her great feelings of love and harmony and pride and strength, now brought her nothing but pain, grief, and miserable misery.
A midnight balaclava covering her face, she darted into a bank and sweating heavily, raised a fake pistol in the air.
Three months and one stolen identity later, Alice Cavery was now Claudia Yount. Underneath her new name, she illegally immigrated into the United States in humble search of a new life.
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125,006 Literary Works • 672,809 Reviews
Hello there. I saw following part of this work of yours in the green room and decided to follow it from the veri beginning as it needs to be done, right?
So, here I am checking the first past of this story. I really thoughts we will be talking about angels and demons. You know, heaven versus hell, or something similar to that.
Despite that, this story's main idea did not disappointed me. It was full of tragedies and sad moments, so, overall only negatives things that may happen in life. I think her talent to sing is the only bright light I could feel in your story around all the darkness in it. Of course, I did not mean it in the bad way. There always is needed a bit of light in the darkness if no, you can not recognise the darkness. Back to the things I wanted to say, I really love the beginning (the whole first part) and I hope to see the following parts released soon.
The thing I do not like is that you put too much the attention over the lover of hers in the axpect of the appearance. I think the main, the singer, deserves a bit more details around her.
'Strong smelling' needs to be 'strong-smelling'.
'the same night as her high school'
So, her high school passed away as her mother?
Of course, I understand what you meant there.
You can still change it to better.
Her mother had passed away from heart that the same night as her hight school graduation came/ended/ whatever you want.
This is still optional.
I think you do not need comma before 'but'.
This is still a question, right?
Leave a question mark.
If we do not talk about edits like grammat or punctuation, I want to say that the part in which you tell us about her and her pillow. Pillow can be soft,but hard?
Well, I do not know. Though I had slept on kind of 'hard' pillows.
Good job and keep on writing. I can not talk about the French parts because I know no French. XD
Hi there tigeraye!
I must admit that I did expect something a little different from the title and was a little surprised! That being said, I'm sure the later instalments will make more sense for the title. I do think that you have a good idea for a story and it's definitely intriguing as the ending leaves the reader with little information about how Claudia/Alice's future will play out. The cliffhanger does make us want to read more
Nevertheless, there are always a few things to improve on. I think that the biggest thing here is that this is mostly all expository. There is not really any action happening because it feels as if you're summarizing a series of events that have obviously taken place over the course of a few years. This is a shame, particularly because the events are so central to the development of Alice/Claudia's character development. It feels almost as if you have just swiped these crucial elements of her life to the side in order to get to what you feel is the more exciting part - her new, recreated life in the United States. I understand that this is where most of your story is supposed to take place, but if you rush things in the beginning, the reader might not be able to adequately understand the reasons for a lot of Alice/Claudia's motives or even understand how important the earlier events were to her development. For example, you make it clear that her singing is a very important part of her life, but we cannot really understand how important if you just skim over the details in a few sentences. Of course, you have included a lot of important information in this chapter. It might be better to instead pull a different angle on the delivery of the information, and start with a scene where Alice is Claudia in the USA and perhaps she is triggered to the bad times in France. In this way, the reader gets a more thorough, personal glance on Alice/Claudia's life and reasons for how she is living now without too much of the objective info-dump that is sort of found here right now. At the same time, your character is already in the United States, so it's like a win-win situation.
The other thing is to make sure your foreign language is as clear and precise as possible. That includes grammar and comprehension in that language. There was not a whole lot of French in this chapter, but there was a part that had me a little confused:
I do understand what you're trying to get at and the profanity definitely took me by surprise, but the sentence is not entirely comprehensible. Consider revising and, if you need help, I would be willing and I know a few other people on YWS who are good at French (if not fluent), as well.
Below you will find a few smaller nitpicks:
First of all, (and this is more of a societal nit-pick) beauty does not equate success. Some food for thought perhaps? Second of all, the French education system does not use the freshman/sophomore/junior/senior system, so it seems bizarre to use this terminology. Also, if you want to go for more believable and realistic, I suggest you replace the term "high school" with "lycée", which is the French equivalent.
Why? Why would her voice change from being really good to being really bad just because of some horrible things that happened her life? Usually, being naturally talented at something does not change even in the face of horrible tragedy. Generally, she might be less technical because she is out of practice, but even so, her voice would still be naturally beautiful.
Whoa, this guy is getting a lot of descriptors! It feels as if you could not decide what to use so you just used all of them. It is a bit of overkill, though, so I would encourage you to lay off a little. Choose one or two very strong descriptors and that way the effect will actually be much better. Less is more, right? Furthermore, what do you mean by "native"? Native of what? Be mindful that there is really no such thing as an indigenous French person and also keep in mind that the use of "native" can be interpreted as politically incorrect. If you mean it in the sense of an indigenous person, say so or be more specific. Either way, they do not exist in France.
It is a bit weird that her pillow would be hard? A pillow is soft, unless it is wood or stone or something. Then, in that case, it is not a pillow but a block of wood or a boulder.
A ski mask sounds so domestic and not menacing. Consider "balaclava".
Overall, the idea is interesting, but I strongly encourage you to give your ideas more time so that the plot and development of all sorts does not feel rushed. Spending time describing things, thus permitting them an important role in the story, will help your reader relate better and actually also make writing things later much easier. I know it can be tedious when you just want to skip a lot of the background information, but in this case the background does not feel like background info because there is so much of it. In fact, they are important developments in Alice/Claudia's character and motivations, so fleshing out these aspects would only make your story much better!
Thanks for the read!
Best,
Lav
thanks so much for your feedback!!! i made some edits based on your suggestions
Hey! O U T S T A N D I N G work! Seriously, I'm not just saying it! There were a couple of times where I think you may have stumbled over your words a bit, but everything else totally made up for that
Capitalization, punctuation, makes complete sense, you nailed it! It was a teeny tiny bit hard to follow and a bit jumpy when you were trying to explain it, but again, just a teeny bit, not much.
Keep up the AMAZING work, keep writing, be nice to people
Waffle~