Young Writers Society

Michael Antonini stood in the midst of sunflowers with a gun to his temple. The night sky was black, and only a single thick cloud lit grey from a faint glow of a pale moon. Michael's life was similar. One that was in total darkness but only a glimpse of light could be seen. That ray of light, unfortunatley, died out when he lost his wife Evangeline, and daughter Haile, one week ago in a store bombing he felt responsible for. Weak from emotional burden and ceaseless weeping, suicide was his only solution. His only hope. The light at the end of his tunnel. A sweaty palm held the pistol in place as a bony thumb cocked it feverishly. A stream of tears poured out of squinted eyes, as beads of sweat slid out of black wavy hair. Finger on the trigger, a shot lay in the offing, when something peculiar caught his attention. It was enormus.

A blazing twister of glistening, white fire whirled through the flower-feild, consuming the air and filling up the feild's width. An unimaginable light blotted out the darkness. It reeled closer to Michael at a rapid pace, sending sunflowers into the air, with hundreds of petals raining down. A vicious wind filled Michaels thin shirt and weak knees sent him to the ground. The immense glory sparkled in his narrow, watery eyes. Michael sheilded his face from the light and dived into the dirt as the storm drew closer. Not too long after, Michael's body was swallowed up into the swirling stampede of diamond light and his morbid soul lapsed into a trance.

Silence. Darkness. Nothing remained of the extra-ordinary twister, nor Michael. All that was left was ruin and mess of the sunflower farm. No, Michael hadn't died, but that night, he had seen the light.

...TO BE CONTINUED...

'Michael Antonini stood in the midst of sunflowers with a gun to his temple.' Great introduction, I love the way you've instantly gave the main character a name, situation, and scene. The contrast of sunflowers and gun work really well together.

'That ray of light... a week ago,' (1st par, 3rd line) this sentence could do with a few less clauses. Maybe you could try; 'That ray of light, unfortunatley, died out when he lost his wife Evangeline, and daughter Haile, one week ago in a store bombing he felt responsible for'

'Feild' should be 'field'.

The second sentence could also be rephrased as your use of the word 'but' is slightly confusing.

This is a brilliant start, I can't wait to read the next part. Keep up the good work. Kudos.

Awesome, you were able to grab the attention of the reader right away, and were were able to hold it. Nice job.
You did a nice job with the scenery, and your description of the tornado of light was able to reveal some emotion, paint a picture in your mind, and build suspense. Awesome job can't wait to see what happens next.





[quote]"The strong take from the weak, but the smart take from the strong."
-"The Rule of Four."

hi

this is really good. you can really feel the emotions of Michael. the torando is described strongly too.

the only thing I think you could have improved is the bit about the bombing. it seems a bit rushed. maybe you could explain it a bit more (unless that is what you were going to do later on).

Can't wait to read more

Wow, this was a great opening. Some great imagery there, very well written. Can't wait to read more.

The first sentence is great, drawing the reader in and whatnot, but the second sentence fails. I'm not entirely sure what you meant say there, but simply replacing the "and" with a "with" should fix it up (despite the fact that "lit grey from a faint glow of a pale moon" sounds really weird). Pretty much the same for the comparison with his life; it really isn't worded very well. Instead of "...but only a glimpse of light..." try something like "with only the faintest light remaining" or "lit only by the barest glimpse of light."

The fact that you summed up the entirety of Michael's grief and suffering in one sentence is definitely the major problem with this. Especially with the his feelings of guilt just tacked on at the end there. Just because you don't want to write the actual bombing doesn't mean that you should cram it all into one half-hearted sentence. Don't tell us that he's a sad, broken man; show us. Show us how he sees his daughter running through the flowers, how he hears his wife's voice, how he sees their accusing faces when he closes his eyes, and how he dreams of screaming children and burning mannequins.

The sentence where he's about to pull the trigger has entirely too many adjectives, I think. Maybe take out "feverishly" and change "cocked it" to "slowly pulled back the hammer" or something. The sweat sliding from his hair is strange, and it seems slightly superfluous. "A shot lay in the offing" is probably the strangest wording you could have used there, so I suggest you change it. You also spelled "enormous" wrong (enormus)--I would change "it was enormous" to "something enormous," just so it has that parallelism with the sentence before it.

The first thing I would change about the "twister" paragraph is the word "twister" itself. Change it to cyclone, or whirlwind, or something that sounds more biblical than twister. After that, get rid of the comma after "glistening;" that shouldn't be there. You're consistently spelling "field" wrong (feild), which needs to be changed. You also happen to use it twice in the same sentence, and the repetition is kind of jarring.

You're missing an apostrophe in Michael's when talking about his shirt, and there should be a comma after that--it sounds like the wind filled his shirt and his knees.

"Dived" should be "dove." Apparently, "dived" is actually a word, but it still sounds ridiculous (like fishes). The "not too long after" isn't much better, either. Really, this could stand to be merged with the sentence before it; "Michale shielded his face...storm grew closer, only to be swallowed up..."

Extraordinary is one word, no need for a hyphen. You're missing a "the" somewhere around "ruin" or "mess," it doesn't matter which. The last line, declaring that Michael isn't dead, really isn't necessary. It's better to let the reader discover this on their own, I think.

In conclusion, some major things; you need to use more pronouns. The constant repetition of "Michael" is more than slightly annoying. He's only the character; you don't need to remind us of his name constantly. You also tend to use a lot of very short fragments to get across a point that a single, longer, sentence could have expressed. Maybe it's a stylistic choice, but it makes for too much stop-and-go in the reading.

The night sky was black, and only a single thick cloud lit grey from a faint glow of a pale moon.

The night sky was black, and only a single thich cloud lit grey by the faint glow of a pale moon. (alternatively you could say "the pale moon")

Question: "and only a single cloud..." What? What is the cloud doing? Obviously we can assume it's in the sky but you left us hanging without describing what the cloud is doing.

Michael's life was similar.It was one that was in total darkness where only a glimpse of light could be seen. That ray of light, unfortunatley, died out when he lost his wife Evangeline, and daughter Haile, one week ago in a store bombing he felt responsible for.

I agree with Clarence, you definitely need to flesh out his loss. You just drop it into our laps and since I don't get the whole suicide thing normally I need you to make me feel that he can't go on, that they were all he had. Other thing, I can't precise where, but the tenses of your verbs when you describe how dark his life is seems to be off somewhere. Maybe because you say "only a glimpse of light could be seen" and it seems to be present tense but then afterwards you make us realize it's gone. Was his life always dark? If so you can expand on that to make us see why losing his family was so devastating.

Hope this helps!

You've got a nice story here, just add a bit more detail to build up who Micheal is and you're set. Hope to see more. ^_^