Young Writers Society

when I was a kid, I used to watch from afar a disabled man in his red chair sitting with his fellow friends in the neighborhood. He looked ugly, bald headed, long faced with stained teeth. I feared him more than death itself, he frightened me so much that I would immediately run home or sometimes change my route on my way to school.

What was the cause of this deep fear? Why was i scared staring at his face? Amazingly as it may sound I thought he was God!



The mystery to me was how I perceived him as the deity. If he truly was, why did i fear him?

As I grew older I recalled events of my childhood, when my mother would depict the true nature of God.

She was portraying the Providence as a terrifying, hair-raising being, continuously reciting stories that described the Almighty as a punishing, torturing creature.



Those tales inflicted fear into my innocent heart. She would say for instance " God will grab you by your eyebrows."

Only then was I able to grasp the essence of my fears. At last I found out the reasons behind my dismay towards the poor paralyzed soul. As a result, whenever I looked at the physically impaired in his bloody scarlet cathedral* I would return back home in great haste breathlessly whispering " God is coming.....God is coming !!! "



* the seat or throne of a bishop in the principal church of a diocese

I’m Emaly, and I suck at review introductions. Let’s get on with this shall we?

Nit picks:

when I was a kid...

Always start a sentence with a capital letter.

He looked ugly, bald headed, long faced with stained teeth.

'Was' seems to fit here better than 'looked'. It just looks, and flows better.

Why was i scared staring at his face?

I’s are proper nouns, they also get capitalized. Also: Scared of staring at his face.

" God is coming.....God is coming !!! "

There is no space between the quotation marks and the words, and when using ellipses ‘Three is a crowd.’ Meaning: Only use three or they look crowded.

Over all:

It’s cute, something many little kids would think of scary looking old men. You should work on your descriptive writing skills (you and me both) because it seems like more of a 'tell' then a 'show'. You have to show us what's going on, just telling us why the kid was scared of the old man isn't very entertaining.

Very insightful memoir. What amazes me the most is how such an on the surface story has so much more meaning in it than it directly implies. For instance, how everyone sees God in their own way. In your case you found Him in an elderly man of rather frightening physical form. How your mother put the fear of God into your soul as a child seems like a common situation among meany religious households.

Maybe adults do it so that we are scared of getting in trouble with The Man Upstairs, like suffering for our sins of stealing from the cookie jar or breaking a window with a baseball. Or adults may simply be that religious. But it's rare that the most obvious reasons that lie on the surface are the truth that we seek. My point is that I want you to seriously turn this childhood memoir into something of greater meaning of what you can find behind it. What you have here is something that you can really build on and turn into something magnificent! Great job, and keep up the good work!

I agree with the previous reviews: this is a great start with a lot of potential.

Some things you could work on to improve your "showing not telling":

It seems like the description of the old man is pretty key to this whole piece. I think you want to give him more than a quick sentence. What was his disability? How could you tell he was disabled? Tell more about the long face and bald head. Tell what color the teeth were. Was his skin wrinkly or smooth, tanned or pale or jaundiced? What was his chair like? What was his house like? Were the friends he sat with similarly old/ugly? Were the friends men, women, or a mix? What did he sound like? Were there any particular smells you associated with him or with the area near his house? (It's good to incorporate multiple senses in a description piece if you can.) Once you've answered these questions, use metaphor and simile on some of them to give even more specific ideas of what he looked like and to add color and interest to the writing.

I think you should also put more into your description of your reaction to him. What did it feel like when you had to pass him? What's it like to be a child walking up the street, knowing that each step brings you closer to the house of an almighty punishing terror, and that this terror just might be sitting outside to watch you go past? Did your pulse get faster or your stomach feel like it had butterflies in it? Did the nerves and fear build up as you got closer and closer, then reach a breaking point at which you couldn't help but run? Or was the fear more constant and had you running long before you were within his sights? How inconvenient were the alternate routes you would take? You might take this part as a more narrative section with maybe a story of a specific time you had to walk past. If you can't remember a specific day clearly enough, you can always make one up to give the overall idea of a typical encounter.

I love the detail about coming home "breathlessly whispering 'God is coming...'" but I think it might make more sense to have it earlier on (certainly not as the last thing). Maybe when you first start talking about how you thought he was God, or maybe when you're initially talking about your reaction to him and having to run home past his house, as a transition between that section and the section about your idea of him as God.

Also, it wasn't clear to me how this guy might have gotten connected with God in your mind. Was it just that your mom's terrifying descriptions of God latched on to the most terrifying person you knew, which happened to be this man? And did you ever learn his name? This can work well without ever giving him a name, but it could also work well if you do.

So I think that's all I've got. Hope I didn't overwhelm you with too many questions; like I said, this is a great start!