Young Writers Society

Not sure of a title so I'll call it, memories. I wrote this in 15 minutes so it's not a masterpeice but I think It's ok.


I sometimes sit and gaze into the murky ravine while sitting in the dilapidated shack, riverside.
This was our secret place.
Garlands of fluffy clouds are wrapped round the gold horizon in peachy hues. The scent of evergreen pierces my nostrils and leaves them tingling, the dark trees in a cloak around me. I always ask myself why you left, I thought you would care the most about this enchanting place, even without the memories, the beauty of it makes me ache, convulse.
I can feel your touch now, delicate and caring, it swirls round me, brushes my skin and makes me shiver. I do not care that this is only the breeze; I relish it and close my eyes.
I take a cigarette, carefully from the packet and light it, the tip glowing amber. The drag makes me exhale everything, all the memories that leave me restless and pierce my heart. I inhale the bitter smoke, knowing that my lungs are swiftly turning black.
I hope my heart is too, if it is I won’t get hurt again.
My cigarette is finished; I drop it on the veranda and pick a fresh one, my head facing the searing stars, shining like white fire, as I breathe in.

Here’s to new beginnings.

The word "pierces" on the third line I think doesn't fit, you have all these nice words and the suddenly something violent, try something a little less powerful.

It was a basic story, so I guess you were either doing it to let some emotion out or just do some writing practise; either way, I can't really critique it so thoroughly.

First of all, never EVER post a poll that says, "Is this good?" with only two options. If you do, there's only going to be two thoughts that go through your mind when you read the results. One thought may be, "I'm a terrible writer." Or sometimes, maybe the thought will be, "I'm the greatest writer of all time!!!" Both results are equally bad. It's better to just let the work be critiqued. There's good and bad to every story. Especially when the story is written quickly.

For some strange reason, I don't like adjectives or adverbs that much. I think they're useful, but you have to be careful when you do use them. Think of nouns and verbs as being big strong pillars in an ancient Greek temple. Now adjectives and adverbs are just there to make it look pretty, to garnish it. If you have strong pillars, your work is going to hold up, even without the use of adjectives. Let's see what happens if we take out the added on adjectives!

I sometimes sit and gaze into the ravine while sitting in the shack, riverside.
This was our place.
Garlands of clouds are wrapped round the horizon in hues. The scent of evergreen pierces my nostrils and leaves them tingling, the trees in a cloak around me. I always ask myself why you left, I thought you would care the most about this place, even without the memories, the beauty of it makes me ache, convulse.
I can feel your touch now, it swirls round me, brushes my skin and makes me shiver. I do not care that this is only the breeze; I relish it and close my eyes.
I take a cigarette, from the packet and light it, the tip glowing amber. The drag makes me exhale everything, all the memories that leave me restless and pierce my heart. I inhale the bitter smoke, knowing that my lungs are turning black.
I hope my heart is too, if it is I won’t get hurt again.
My cigarette is finished; I drop it on the veranda and pick [another] one, my head facing the stars, shining like fire, as I breathe in.

Here’s to beginnings.

Obviously, this isn't going to be used in the story. After all, adjectives and adverbs are your friends! Even so, look at this version carefully. Do you notice anything about the story now?

The first thing I notice, once the adjectives are all gone, is that there are some misplaced commas. Sometimes after an adjective, you put a comma where there shouldn't have been one. And I also notice another thing: the verbs.

A flowy piece of work is nice and everything, but it often has obtuse words that litter the piece. Or, if that isn't the case, it ends up using showy words every couple of sentences. Like Firestarter noticed, "pierce" was a rather dramatic word that didn't seem to fit. There are many dramatic verbs that don't fit either and just seem to be there to be "showy." Now, some of these words are okay. Being showy is not necessarily a bad thing. But when a showy word is in almost every sentence, there is a problem.

Oh yes... I love simplicity.

Okay, moving on! Sentences.

Sentences are tough to write, and I only just started to understand how to write sentences when I was about... 13 years old I think. Your age! So you're right on schedule.

Another aspect of writing sketches like these is that sometimes you either 1) make a run on sentence, or 2) do the horrible comma splice. This sentence that you wrote particularly stands out: "The scent of evergreen pierces my nostrils and leaves them tingling, the dark trees in a cloak around me."

It is a run on sentence with a comma splice error. What are you trying to say? In the first part of the sentence, you smell the evergreen trees, in the second part of the sentence, you write about your nostrils, and in the third part of the sentence you talk about the trees wrapping around you. But wait! The first two parts have to do with smells. The next part doesn't. The first and third part have to do with trees, but the second part doesn't. You have to either make each part of the sentence agree with each other, or split them up, either with a new sentence, or a semicolon.

Also, with this particular sentence about the cloak and the trees, you may want to expand that idea further to give a better feeling of what this peaceful place is like.

Now read this version of your story, with adjectives, but with no run on sentences or comma splice errors. What do you notice about it?

I sometimes sit and gaze into the murky ravine while sitting in the dilapidated shack, riverside.
This was our secret place.
Garlands of fluffy clouds are wrapped round the gold horizon in peachy hues. The scent of evergreen pierces my nostrils and leaves them tingling. The dark trees cloak around me. I always ask myself why you left; I thought you would care the most about this enchanting place. Even without the memories, the beauty of it makes me ache, convulse.
I can feel your touch now, delicate and caring. It swirls round me, brushes my skin and makes me shiver. I do not care that this is only the breeze; I relish it and close my eyes.
I take a cigarette carefully from the packet and light it, the tip glowing amber. The drag makes me exhale everything, all the memories that leave me restless and pierce my heart. I inhale the bitter smoke, knowing that my lungs are swiftly turning black.
I hope my heart is too; if it is I won’t get hurt again.
My cigarette is finished; I drop it on the veranda and pick a fresh one, my head facing the searing stars, shining like white fire, as I breathe in.

Here’s to new beginnings.

I think that's correct, although I'm sure I missed something...

Okay, and there you go! Hopefully, you are not a nervous wreck or anything... that would be extremely bad. Anyway, as always, if you have a question, just ask and I'll try to expand on it as much as I can. ^_^

thanks to your short story ( or whatever you may call it, i';m not sure, but i'll call it a story for now, because it feels like one) you have inspired me to write a poem. thank you, it's my first one in a while, i've been going through a dry spell. kudos!!! :-*

I sometimes sit and gaze into the murky ravine while sitting in the dilapidated shack, riverside.
I thought that this line could be a bit more powerful. It is the beginning of the piece and is supposed to really grab at you. Instead, it kind of confused me and I had to re-read it. It seemed to be too crowded.

The scent of evergreen pierces my nostrils and leaves them tingling, the dark trees in a cloak around me. I always ask myself why you left, I thought you would care the most about this enchanting place, even without the memories, the beauty of it makes me ache, convulse.
I liked the use of pierce in the first sentence. I though it was very accurate to the "feeling" of the smell (I'm not sure if that made any sense). The next sentence seems to drone on. It's full of so much information and it takes forever to end.
[/b]