Young Writers Society

Something wet and fuzzy was on my forehead. Gross. I couldn't find the rest of my body, but it was here somewhere. I just had to keep looking. But I was too lazy to search for it. Who needs a body anyway? Grumbling quietly to myself, I wondered if I should call out into the darkness. Somebody's gotta be there. I tried calling out Lauren's name, but it came out as a mumble. This sucks. I'm gonna be a blubbering head for the rest of my life. Maybe I really do need a body...possibly. I tried calling out again, a little louder, and this time I got an answer.
"Arnold?" Lauren's voice broke through the darkness and I saw a light. No Arnold, DON"T GO INTO THE LIGHT! Attempting to avoid this catastrophy was not simple, being just a head and all. How does a head move? Rolling? Bouncing? Neither succeeded. It only seemed to draw me even closer to the light. Oh well. Just let it come, Arnold. Maybe heaven will have orange soda fountains and unlimited pizza buffets. Thinking this over I smiled at the thought and welcomed death with open arms. Suddenly, feeling came back to my shoulders. No. It traveled down through my arms. No. I had found my body. NO! Early retirement was of course too good to be true. I gloomily watched the light vanish, then wandered about the darkness, kicking invisible rocks. Having my body back did feel great, but I was really looking forward to the unlimited pizza buffets. Sigh.
Moments later, I was covered with an eerie red glow. Strange... Was heaven coming back for me? No... this light was red. I slowly craned my neck up and saw a large mass of swirling red and black clouds. No WAY. I haven't been a bad kid! Well, there was that one time when I started a food fight in the cafeteria, but Mathew dared me to do it! The death clouds zoomed toward me at an incredible speed. I stared in horror and attempted to run away, but my feet were glued to the ground. Panic didn't even describe the feelings hurricaning inside me. The clouds were an inch above me when they stopped. I relaxed and felt myself getting really heavy, falling through the darkness and into a soft bed. Wait. What?
My eyelids sluggishly lifted open, got a taste of light, then flapped shut again.
"Ugh," I moaned pitifully. All the memories came flooding back. Was...was Lauren OK? I slowly got up but someone pushed me back down.
"Easy, easy." My mother's voice came to me through the gloom.
"What happened?" I sputtered. Someone took the wet washcloth off my head and dunked it into a bucket of ice water.
"Lauren!" I shouted, bolting up again. She pushed me back down with freezing hands and replaced the washcloth on my forehead, giving me one of her small smiles.
"How...How...How'd you get away?"
"Easy. Another foot sweep and I went racing after you."
"So I wasn't being chased by one of Charlie's goons?" I needed reassurance.
Lauren giggled,"No."
"But...I heard a loud bang...and..."
Lauren sat confused, then her face lit up."You ran into a street lamp Arnold!"
I ran into a pole? Geez that's rough... My hands crept up towards my head and felt an enormous, swollen bump the size of a golf ball. I must've made a weird face because the girls both cracked up with laughter.
Once it ceased, my mom continued the story. "She carried you all the way home Arnold. Then she helped me set you in bed, told the entire story, and insisted she stay until you woke up." She smiled respectfully at Lauren, making her face turn pink.
"It was nothing." Then the kettle went off.
"Oh! Excuse me." Mom rose and hurried to the kitchen, giving Lauren and I some time to say goodbye.
"So what does your mom do?" Lauren asked.
"Uh, she works at the Starbucks down the street." I adverted my eyes.
Lauren replied with a simple, "Oh."
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
"Hey is that a crow?" Lauren made her way across the room to George's perch and stroked his beak. "How did you get a crow?"
Now that was a story I wanted to tell. I propped up on my elbows. "Actually, it's a raven and his name is George Harrison, the most intelligent bird in the world."
"Really?"
"I guarantee it." I soaked in the astonished look on her face then continued. "He appeared on my window sill one day and almost broke a hole in the glass." I gestured to the cracks in the window pane, the spot where George had pecked in desperation to get to shelter. "It was raining. All this lightning and thunder. He was starving."
Lauren looked at George with a different light in her eyes.
"Mom let him in because she couldn't stand looking at the poor scrawny bird. She loves animals. Paints them all the time. She loves art, my mom." I paused.
"Does she sell her work?" Lauren asked.
"Oh ya. She sells it for a few extra bucks. Trying to save for my collage. I tell her to give it up. It ain't gonna happen. She doesn't listen." Sigh. "So we let George in, fed him some Goldfish, and he's been living here ever since."
"You haven't told me why he's the most intelligent bird in the world yet."
"He's special. You can tell from the look in his eyes. And he seems to understand what I say."
"Hm... I'm gonna give that a test." Lauren looked into George's beady eyes and asked him to fly over to me and land on my head. Lovely. Following orders, he flew over to me and plopped on my head. I smiled smugly.
"Told ya."
Lauren started to laugh with disbelief. "Wow!"
"He even knows his name. Watch." I took George off my head and said,"Whats your name, Georgy?"
And he screeched: "GGGGGGGRRRRRROOOOOGGGGGG"
"Closest you can get when you have a beak and when you're a raven." I reached for the bedside table and grabbed the bag of Goldfish. George knew what that meant and waddled over eagerly. I began to feed him the crackers one by one until he got full and flew up to my head and rested.
"I guess I should be going now. Mom will be looking for me." Lauren lifted her backpack to her shoulder and made her way over to me. "I might visit tomorrow. We could go for a walk with George."
"Sounds good. He needs some people time."
"Hopefully you'll be well enough to go to the dance."
"Ya."
Lauren kissed my cheek (the one that wasn't swollen) and made for the door.
"Bye Arnold, bye George" A few moments later I heard the front door close.
I was still frozen. Lauren Rivera kissed me. I will cherish my right cheek for the rest of my life. I looked up at George and saw he was staring at me. Looking closer I saw he was smiling.
"What?" I asked.
"AAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWW!"

Who needs a body anyway?

That was a good one

Five minutes later, I was covered with an eerie red glow.

Unnecessary details. Maybe you should try "Soon, I was covered..."? 'Cause details like 'five minutes later' are childish and they slow down the action when the reader starts wondering: "What did I need THAT for?"

Mathew dared

I'm not English, so I might be wrong, but I always thought Matthew was spelled with two 't's.

I needed reasurance

Missing period, and I'm entirely sure it's spelled 'reaSSurance'.

"So we let George in, fed him some goldfish, and he's been living here ever since."

Okay, main advice: do your homework.
Crows are really, really small birds and if they fed him a fish, there's a big chance he wouldn't live any longer. Crows' menu is very varied, but fish aren't there. Quoting my bird book: "Food: insects, earthworms, mice, eggs and nestlings, fruits, seeds, scraps from dumpsters etc." Crows are way, way to small to go for something bigger than a shrew.
Things are a bit different if you meant a raven--now those are big birds. Another quote from my bird book, on ravens now: "Food: insects, earthworms, apmphibians, reptiles, small mammals, bird eggs, seeds etc." Fish? Not there. None of the Corvidae can eat fish, they're digestive systems aren't made for digesting fish scales.
Certainly, having a pet crow (or raven, for that matter) must be really awesome, but if you write about it, you should at least consult Lord Google, seriously. Though the best choice is some kind of bird guide. Anything.
I also highly doubt that any crow would seek shelter INSIDE a human house. Unless it's rabid. Crows are wild animals. They spend their whole lives in the woods, or generally outside. Believe me or not, but there's no way they would be scared of a thunderstorm. And if they seeked shelter from the rain, they would rather hide under a roof than peck to the human windows.

And he screeched: "GGGGGGGRRRRRROOOOOGGGGGG AAARRRRRR IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII (that sounded like nails on a chalk board) SSSSSSSSSSS (Strange hissing noise)OOOOOOOOO (and a yawn) NNN"

No. Just no. Crows rather don't screech, don't hiss and most certainly don't yawn. They caw. And only caw. And you also shouldn't have added those comments in the brackets. They're unnecessary and they just look bad.

Looking closer I saw he was smiling.

No, he wasn't.

Okay. First thing: Corvidae are really, really smart birds, but don't go into extremities. No animal understands human speech. Maybe some apes, maybe, but they have to be taught it. They don't take those words from air. Pet animals can be only taught to memorize that certain chains of sounds mean their master wants them to do something. When you say "Sit", your dog does not know it means "to sit", he just knows that 's', 'i' and 't' put together mean you want him to put his tail on the floor.
Also, no animal can make articulated sounds, knowing their meaning. No. Animal. Parrots can mimic most of the sounds they hear, but they can't speak on their own. They can repeat words or phrases they heard or were taught, but that's all. Crows--they're called intelligent (btw. that's how you spell the word) because they can think and imagine abstractly enough to find a solution to a problem. Just like rats. Or cats.

My advice: more research. More proof-reading. There are several interpuntion and spelling mistakes that you'd probably find yourself if you read this twice. More dictionaries. Less details. Also, don't procrastinate, when it comes to chapter titles. If you find the titles hard to think up, there are two ways: either skip chapter titles at all, it's not like they're very important, or write longer chapters with more concrete content inside.


Generally, it's so-so. I love the puns and jokes you threw in from time to time. The action flows pretty well, but there's no need to go into so many details--you don't have to describe every movement the character makes. There are some spelling mistakes you should attend. I'm repelled by the major neglect when it comes to the crow. You should really pay more attention to stuff like that. If you introduce a new character, make sure they're consistent. Especially with animals. Checking out their diet or habits is really easy.

PS. I'm terribly sorry if I was too harsh, that wasn't my intention. I just get easily upset when it comes to biological correctness. I set my whole life on animals and I couldn't help shuddering at the very thought of the diseases that goldfish would bring upon a poor crow.

Hey when I said goldfish I ment goldfish crackers. You know the little orange fish? "The snack that smiles back"? And I might change it to a raven because I imagined George to be larger. So George is now a raven. And George is special. He's connected to some future event I have yet to make up. So like, thanks for the review and stuff You helped me bunches.
Oh and I know a Mathew with only one t.

I have no idea what those crackers are, but as I suppose, they're made of some kind of corn, so it's cool

Glad I could help. About Mathew, that's why I only suggested it could be a typo. I don't know a lot of things about that kind of stuff. <3

its all good:) and where do u live where Goldfish crackers don't exist? Lol

Poland

oohhhhhhh. You should try em Found in AMERICA yahoo. They r like, cheese crackers shaped like fishes. They come in a bunch of flavors too. like pizza and motzerella and pretzel and I think there's chocolate ones but i haven't tried them yet. :B

First of all, chocolate goldfish? Ew. But my dog eats goldfish!
Oh, yeah...chapter. Right.

Something wet and fuzzy was on my forehead.

"Was" is a very weak "be" verb. Try making this an action verb. Does the wet and fuzzy something drip down his forehead? How does he feel it? Put some action in there! *does a cheerleading routine with imaginary pom-poms*

I couldn't find the rest of my body, but it was here somewhere. I just had to keep looking. But I was too lazy to search for it. Who needs a body anyway? Grumbling quietly to myself, I wondered if I should call out into the darkness. Somebody's gotta be there. Maybe...hm... This isn't really necessaryI tried calling out Lauren's name, but it came out as a mumble. This sucks. I'm gonna be a blubbering head for the rest of my life. Maybe I really do need a body...possibly.

HAHAHA! (please excuse the all caps, but they were necessary just this once)

No Arnold, DON'T GO INTO THE LIGHT!

I would use italics instead of caps.

Just let it come, Arnold.

By the way, I really like the whole stream of consciousness you've got going here.

chased by one of Charlie's goons?" I needed reasurance.

Innocent typo.

Once it ceased, Mom continued the story.

"Uh, she works at the starbucks down the street." I was always a bit embaressed about that.

The second sentence is too tell-y. Either go into more depth about why he's embarrassed or describe him blushing, averting his eyes, etc.

She giggled.

I think I've seen the word "giggled" at least two times earlier. Try using some other words, or describe their actions rather than their laughter.

She loves art, my mom.

Sigh.

Normally, using words like "sigh" as a sentence is really informal, but since you're writing from Arnold's point of view, I don't mind it as much. However, every time you do it, I would suggest italics.

fed him some goldfish,

Because Goldfish is a brand name, it should be capitalized.

"Whats your name, Georgy?"

"GGGGGGGRRRRRROOOOOGGGGGG AAARRRRRR IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII (that sounded like nails on a chalk board) SSSSSSSSSSS (Strange hissing noise)OOOOOOOOO (and a yawn) NNN"

This was a little hard to read, and it broke the flow for me.

I reached for the bedside table and grabbed the bag of Goldfish. George knew what that meant and waddledNice word choice. over eagerly.

I will cherish my right cheek for the rest of my life.

This sentence cracked me up.

Looking closer I saw he was smiling.
"What?" I asked.
"AAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWW!"

Okay, that's adorable.
General Critiques:
Ellipsis: You use it a lot. Generally, it's better to find some other way to show a pause, like a dash or rewording.
If you want to use the word "hmm," don't drag it out by adding so many "m"s. It's a little too - um - informal, I guess? It almost seems more like computer talk or something. I can't really put my finger on it.
Now, I don't have much room to talk because I have the exact same problem, but your characters laugh a lot. It's better to let the reader supply the laughter, than to show them by example what mood you were trying to convey. Find something else to describe about reactions or people. But again, it's something I'm really trying to work on right now.
You use a lot of exclamation points. When you use too many, they lose their power. Their like doughnuts. Everyone wants a doughnut because most people don't get them very often. If you had a doughnut every day for every meal, you would get very sick of them.

Personally, I think you have every right to creative license. If you want a talking crow, stick one in there! Especially if you have him in mind for a major plot point, I say go for it! Writing is all about creating our own realities, and we can limit ourselves to this one.

I love your humor and the style of Arnold's storytelling. I look forward to reading more! Happy writing!

-Sea-