Young Writers Society

Author's Note:

Galen

Those icy blue eyes were unsettling. Piercing and unwavering.

I remember reaching for my mother’s skirt, tugging lightly at the folds and shrinking closer to her. The girl gradually seemed to lose interest in me, and returned her attention to the tower of dirty blocks she had supposedly constructed. As I watched with curiosity, she surveyed the blocks and carefully pulled a block out one by one from various parts of the tower, which swayed dangerously but did not collapse.

“Play with me, play with me!” Her small hand grasping onto my wrist, another orphan flashed me a toothy smile and held out a plastic cooking pan to me. I grinned at her and pretended to eat the plastic omelette sitting in the pan. Squealing in protest, she then ran away giggling and the sound of her laughter incited a rampage of other chefs eager to feed me, save for the girl with the eyes that made me uncomfortable.

As I feasted on a variety of inedible products, I heard my mother’s gentle voice behind me. “Well Galen?”
I looked at my exuberant playmates and saw the tentative hope in their eyes. Knowing we couldn’t adopt them all, I cringed and took a step back from them. Raising my head to my mother, she accordingly leaned down to let me whisper in her ear. “They’re all so nice, mommy. Except that creepy girl…”

“Nonsense, there’s no creepy girl here.”

Discreetly, I pointed my finger at the girl with the unsettling blue eyes. She looked up at me, as if sensing my fear. I hid behind my mother.

“Oh, she’s just shy, Galen! And what a beautiful pair of eyes she has!” My heart skittered as my mother walked towards the girl, who watched her approach with a blank face. Awed by her bravery, I hesitantly trailed behind my mother.

Crouching down, my mother’s pooled on the floor in an orange bloom. “What is your name, dear?”

Silence. My mother and the creepy girl engaged in a brief staring contest.

“My name is Karen, and this-”, gesturing to me, “is Galen.”

Noting that I had not uttered a sound, my mother turned to face me expectantly. I squirmed and fidgeted, but my mother’s expression was insistent. Fearing the revoking of my sugary privileges again, I mumbled a soft hello, looking at her hair in an attempt to avoid her eyes. The straight black strands reminded me of the starless night last winter.

The stout caretaker stepped forward to clarify, “Her name is-”

“Sophia.”

Startled, my mother and I swung our heads around to face the girl who spoke. My jaw dropped.

She was smiling sweetly at my mother, the kind of charm I would use on my mother when asking for a toy that I particularly wanted. It was the nuclear bomb of a child’s persuasion arsenal. The feeling of horror crept up on me as I recognised signs of the rapid melting of my mother’s heart.

The creepy girl was going to be my sister!

A wave of dread washed over me and my panic swelled to a fever pitch as the girl launched and burrowed herself into the embrace of my smitten mother. I knew it was all over for me when my mother followed the caretaker down the hallway flanked by peeling wallpaper.

I was sure that fear was written all over my face, but my mother merely instructed me to take care of my new sister and left me with her as she followed the caretaker.

The other orphans seemed to vanish with her presence and I wished I could disappear too. I sat down in a corner, my back to the girl but I heard her footsteps get louder as she advanced towards me. I could feel the coolness of her stare on my back.

Edging herself into my view, the creepy girl held out a small piece of candy in her palm: a peace offering; a friendly gesture; a fragment of hope.

Peering up at her through my fringe, suddenly she wasn’t a creepy girl anymore.

Taking the candy, my fingertips tingled in recognition as it brushed her palm. The gesture of acceptance caused her cheeks to suffuse with a crimson blush and a smile tugged at her lips, cautious but brimming with unspoken hope. Her eyes no longer seemed inclined to spear me and I felt a surge of brotherly affection for her.
That was around the time I decided that blue was my favourite colour.
~~~~~

Sophia

I was really hoping to make a friend that day.

Awh, I could clearly picture little Sophia, even though you only gave us little details about her. When I first started reading I was sure that this was going to turn out to be a horror, it made me think of the movie The Orphan. Then I got to the end and my heart warmed. :) I really like the mother and Galen too, especially Galen. She has a lot of personality and actually reacts to the things around her. I just spent hours reading someone else's story on a different website; it was good but the characters are flat — the main character is a Mary Sue. But your characters are interesting and pop off the screen. Your writing style is amazing and easy to read c': Beautiful.

Just thought I'd let you know how good of a writer you are <3 Awesome!

*Didn't spot any grammatical errors*

Thank you very much ^^
I intended for her to seem unsettling, but I won't put horror in a romantic novel xD

Hi Meep. So I found this very good. I like your characters so far and your grammar is fairly good so it wasn't difficult to read. Actually the only grammar complaint I noticed before getting sucked up in the story was in the first sentence and the first fragment:

Those icy blue eyes were unsettling. Piercing and unwavering.

I know you must have done this to add affect, and I am guilty of doing that myself sometimes. But I've learned that it is better to just follow the grammar rules or else fragments become a habit. So this really should be:

Those icy blue eyes were unsettling, piercing, and unwavering.

Besides that my biggest complaint was that you seemed to use the same words a lot. I know sometimes it can be hard to get a complex vocabulary when you are writing from the point of view of a small child, but your word choice gets very repetitive sometimes. So I think should try to minimize your use of certain words. For example in your first paragraph:

I remember reaching for my mother’s skirt, tugging lightly at the folds and shrinking closer to her. The girl gradually seemed to lose interest in me, and returned her attention to the tower of dirty blocks she had supposedly constructed. As I watched with curiosity, she surveyed the blocks and carefully pulled a block out one by one from various parts of the tower, which swayed dangerously but did not collapse.

You use 'block' and 'tower' a lot in this paragraph. You could replace 'tower' with stack or structure. You get the idea. That example actually wasn't so bad, what I am really concerned about your use of 'creepy'. You use it plenty, and there are lots of words that mean similar or more specific things like: spooky, weird, odd, and more. Those are just off the top of my head, but if you want to get more ideas here is an online thesaurus.

Besides that I like everything you have done so far. Here are two more nitpicks:

1.

“Play with me, play with me!” Her small hand grasping onto my wrist, another orphan flashed me a toothy smile and held out a plastic cooking pan to me.

I didn't realize that the little girl wasn't Sophia. Maybe you could rephrase this, because I can't be alone in my confusion. Can I?

2. Sophia's part that is her point of view is so short in this chapter. It seems cut short or something. It also doesn't really match her 'different' vibe. You know? Make it a little longer. Show us more of her real character.

Anyway, I hope I helped. If you have any questions just P.M. me.

Thanks,

Calli