Published March 2, 2009
I was thirteen when I got my first Micheal Kors watch. Fourteen when I got my first Dolce & Gabbana bug-glasses. Fifteen: Burberry purse. Yes, I come from a rather healthy family, per se. Pops is a lawyer; Momsy is a lingerie franchise owner. In their spare time, they own an Italian restaurant. Let’s just say my retirement money is covered as of right now.
I’ve always loved malls, stores, boutiques. You know that feeling you get when you see a cute guy on the street, and he sees you, and smiles; the butterfly feeling? That’s the feeling I get when I see a kiosk for designer things.
High-end malls have always been my calling. Mondays are my designated shopping days. I arrive at the mall at fifteen minutes to eleven, and wait for Nordstrom’s to open, and then meander through, buying a few Fendi’s, trickles of Tommy Hilfiger, and pickings of Prada.
I’ve never thought twice about paper, once about coins. Plastic is the way to go—plus, it’s eco-friendly, right? My apartment has a piggy bank at home, holding bills and coins to be cashed into my account. But life at home is a different story. It may be a bit dysfunctional, but that’s not my biggest worry. They’ll be around a while, you know.
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First-Class, not Coach
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It was Monday. Nordstrom’s bags in hand, my Jimmy Choo heels clicked on the linoleum floors; this is one of the low-end high-end malls, if you know what I mean. Looking left to right, scanning the walls of stores; some child/baby or teeny-bopper stores were there, but so were some of my babies.
There was Coach, the first store on the way towards a designer explosion. I suppose the blinding white lights reflecting on the modern marble floor was beckoning my soul, so I was pulled like gravity into the store. It’s a bit low-class designer, and I would only wear certain earrings from this wannabe Gucci.
I searched through the bags (amateur!) the sunglasses (pathetic...) and accessories (self-explanatory). At the back of the store, I was over-whelmed at how badly designed these pieces were. Where did they get the inspiration from, trash dumps? I could do so much better.
I pranced up to the counter and tapped my acrylics on the faux-granite, “Uhm, excuse me?” A red-head looked up at me with dazzling green eyes, “Hello; Welcome to Coach, is there anything...” “Yes!” I snapped, “Yes, there is something you can do, okay? Learn how to design! Use inspiration from Haratchi Rabamu, Tarren Downey, Allen Styler—not trash. Thank you.” And I stomped out, fanning myself, mumbling, “I need Gucci, I need Prada.”
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140,783 Literary Works • 673,688 Reviews
It was nice.
I saw the movie and read "Confessions of a Shopaholic," and there was a line just like that in it. Be careful not to make your book too simliar to that. Make it more original because the first part sounded a lot like it.
Hope that wasn't too harsh. Keep it up!
Hey, Carly!
This piece has a lot of potential. But you really, really need to work on your grammar. The most glaring mistake I noticed was your dialogue problems.
Whenever a different person speaks, start a new paragraph.
For example...
Incorrect (this is how you write):
"Hey, John!" squealed Richard. "Go away, Richard!" John shouted.
The correct version would be
"Hey, John!" squealed Richard.
"Go away, Richard!" shouted John.
So, you NEED, NEED, NEED to memorize your dialogue rules.
Fix this and your writing will improve a lot.
Hope this helped,
Sakura
Hehehehe I would have smacked you if you said that to my face. =]
Anyways, I really did love that. It was amazing and definately unique.
Um....Yeah.
I didn't like it. I felt it was a little rushed. You went into pretty much no detail about who she is. I mean what's her name? and the stuff about her parents is so skim I don't get why you even bothered if you were gonna give us so little.
Tell us who she is, why does she love shopping so much because that butterfly phrase isn't gonna cut it. I feel like you were rushing to get to the designers and didn't spend enough time forming your heroine. and another little thing if your telling this story from her point of view, why is it she thinks the counter girl's eyes are dazzling? I don't get that. If I think someone is useless the last thing that runs through my mind is how dazzling their eyes are, it just seems out of place to have her say something like that.
And one last thing and then I'll leave you alone. I think that if your character is gonna be so smug when it comes to the actual act of shopping, she should probably be a bit sweeter to people atleast. The way she describes the stuff in the store and then goes off on the counter girl to me she just seems like a huge spoiled b***h.
Thanks to the three of you.
Jay-- I find your post motivating, heart-warming.
Flute-- Also, I find it motivating to continue writing.
Pen-- THANK YOU. Critique is what I've been needing. Your post helped a lot. Would you mind reviewing my other story, IM waiting...?
Hey there. Welcome to YWS. I'm a nitpick this, so comments are in bold, 'kay?
Okay, so my deal with this? It's pretty well-written, but a bit too consumer-shopaholic-expensive-richy-rich for me. Not that it's bad; I think you picked a certain audience to appeal to, and said audience would eat this story up. That's a good thing. You had an angle and you went with it. Pro-writers do that. It's great if you want to be published and are looking for trends in the field, you know? Like when Marly and Me was a big hit, all these dog books started coming out. And so now with that movie - what's it called? - Confessions of a shopaholic? Yeah. With all the hype about that movie, you'd really be hitting it big with the target audience. So great job with that.
Hope I didn't confuse you too much.
Nice job on this! Small nitpick here :
There shouldn't be a comma between rather and healthy...and as Jay said, the expression is "per se"
This was an interesting concept to explore and I liked how in the beginning you refer to her parents as "pops" and "momsy"...It develops the character of the spoilt rich kid really well. I would delete the lines that you put in the middle, as I think they are unnecessary. They seem to break up the flow of the story, but that might just be me. Instead of capitalizing once and twice in the beginning, I would italicize them, since italics are a better way of placing emphasis on a word. Similarly I would italicize "learn how to design", instead of capitalizing it. Otherwise great job on this. This would be a great piece of work to continue.......
PM me if you have any questions! Oh, and welcome to YWS!
fluteluvr77<3
Hi! I really enjoyed reading this-it's funny, distinctive and engaging. You have a natural fluency and style with writing.
The dialogue at the end should be broken up-start a new line each time someone says something, and when the person says, "is there anything...", the three dots should be replaced by a dash like this '-'. Also, 'per say' should be 'per se'.
Good luck with the rest of this story-I look forward to reading more!