Young Writers Society

RRRRRRRR! The motor of our cruise ship started chucking water into the air.
"Come on, Robert! Come on, George! Let's get onto the boat." My dad shouted toward the docks.
My little seven year old brother is Robert. He was adopted from Guatemala. My family really likes travelling, so one year when we went to Guatemala my dad just fell in love with him. I'm George. I am turning sixteen today and that's why we're here, at Loch Ness. I really like history and mysteries. My mom came to Scotland for a business trip when I was only two and never came back. That's why I chose to come to Loch Ness for my birthday. It was so beautiful. The rolling hills went on for miles and the every-day fog added to the mystery.
"Come on George!" My dad called out for probably the fourth time.
My mind came back to the present and I saw Robert and Dad already on the small boat. I ran across the dock and stopped at the steps onto the boat.
My dad said, "Don't forget the picnic basket."
I looked back to our parked car and saw the basket leaning up against a tire. I let out a loud sigh and jogged across the docks to the car. After I leaned down to pick up the basket I looked up and saw something through the trees. It was a lumpy green animal with a long neck and a banana sized head on the top.
It was the Loch Ness Monster! No, there were two! It was probably a whole herd...pod thing of monsters! I dropped the picnic basket and walked slowly closer to get a better look. I realized they weren't moving. Then I realized they were statues! It was just a part of the gift shop!
Once I got back on the boat I handed out ham and cheese sandwiches to Robert and my dad. I took out a sandwich out for myself too. The cruise ship driver picked up a microphone and started steering.
"Welcome to The Nessie Hunter everybody," she said.
I looked around and saw that we were on the boat with a bunch of Italian tourists.
"If you look to your right you'll see Urquhart Castle. It is more of a ruin now though. The water around the castle is a very popular spot for Loch Ness Monster or 'Nessie' sightings."
"Look! It's the Loch Ness Monster!" I heard my little brother shout all of a sudden.
I quickly turned around towards my brother's voice and saw Robert holding a piece of Muenster cheese from his sandwich in the air. He dipped it in the water and shook it around while laughing hysterically.
"HA! The Loch Ness... Muenster! HA! HA! HA!" Robert said again.
I groaned and sat back down on the bench turning away from my annoying little brother. I heard him pull out his Game Boy and start clicking away as if nothing had happened.
I didn't look up at the water for the rest of the ride.
After we got off of the boat the family and I went to an old hotel right next to the loch. We all shared a room with two small beds, a sofa, and a tiny television. Robert and I slept on the beds and Dad slept on the sofa. The hotel was really old and a little bit creepy. I liked it!
A while after I had settled in my dad asked me if I wanted to go to a gift shop nearby with Robert and himself.
"No," I replied softly since I was still a little embarrassed about the cheese incident.
"Okay," my dad said sadly. "We'll try to find something for you. Bye!"
I didn't say goodbye, I just turned on the TV and watched the weather channel until Dad got back.
SLAP! My dad plopped a thick paperback book on my bed as he and Robert walked in. Robert was holding a stuffed Loch Ness Monster. It looked just like one of those underwater dinosaurs. It's called a paleontologist or something like that.
"Look what I got, Georgie! I named her Nessie!" my brother said while holding up the toy to my face.
I tried to be nice and said, "That's great, Robby!" but it came out sounding sarcastic.
Robert frowned and waddled over to his bed silently.
"It was Robert's idea to get you that book. He really cares about you and thinks that you're so brave and responsible." my dad whispered into my ear.
I felt like saying, "Yeah right!" but quietly said, "I know."
After my dad and brother had fallen asleep I pulled out the book from the gift shop and grabbed my flashlight. I dove under the bed covers and turned on the flashlight. The book's cover had a picture of the castle by Loch Ness and a long curved neck coming out of the water beneath it. In the night clouds there were words that said "The Mystery of the Monster of Loch Ness". I opened the book and started reading.
The book had all sorts of information like when and where the first sighting of the monster was. There was also funny facts like that people flew over the loch in a hot air balloon and threw bacon down into the water to try to get Nessie to come up out of the dark depths.
I must have read chapters and chapters and when I was near the end of the book something pulled my sheets off of my head and I slammed the book shut. I looked up. It was Robert.
"What do you want, Robert?" I asked with a yawn.
"I just remembered. I left my Game Boy on the boat." he started crying. "I was playing it and... and when we got off, I didn't bring it with me!"
I sighed and then thought about it.
"Okay, let’s go get it."
Robert looked up from his bawling and whispered, "Really?"
"Yeah, let's go." I replied.
My little brother ran over to his bed happily and grabbed his stuffed Nessie. I grabbed my flip flops and checked that I had my flashlight. My dad moved in his sleep and I flinched. He was still asleep. That's good. It was around two in the morning and he's a really early riser.
Robert opened our door and I flinched again. He went out the door cautiously with me right behind. We went down the hotel's stairs and across the lobby. Nobody was out of their rooms, so it was very creepy. The door to the outdoors was right in front of us, but I stopped. What if an alarm went off when we opened it or it might just be locked somehow. I reached out a shaking hand to the door handle and clasped it. It was amazingly cold so I quickly turned it and pushed. The door opened. Robert and I smiled while walking outside and closing it behind us. The Scottish night air was really cold. I should have brought a sweatshirt or jacket. Robert was shivering even more then I was.
"Come on, Robert," I said encouragingly. "Let's get this over with!"
When we got down to the dock that we were at yesterday I looked around. I couldn't spot the boat we were on. All of the tiny cruise boats looked the same. I pulled out my flashlight and pointed it at the boats. What was the name of the boat? Was it The Monster Finder or Nessie Finder? Maybe it was The Nessie Hunter. The light from my flashlight slid onto a boat’s name: The Nessie Hunter. This must be it. I ran to that boat and looked back at Robert.
“This is the boat, Robert. Let’s try to find a way on.” I whispered.
I started walking around the boat and searching the docks. The boat was tied to the dock tightly so we could probably crawl across the rope and get onto the small cruise ship. I turned back to my brother again and saw him put his toy on the ground and pull some bread out of his pocket and sprinkle some of the crumbs on the ground.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m putting bread crumbs on the ground so that we don’t get lost,” he said happily. “Just like Hansel and Gretel!”
I smiled and said, “Okay. I think I know how to get onto the boat. Follow me.”
I carefully got on my hands and knees and got a hold on the rope. Then I started shimmying toward the boat. In just about two seconds I was already on the deck of the boat and encouraging Robert to do the same thing I did. He did it slowly because he had his Nessie in one hand and the bread in the other. He carefully placed crumbs on the rope behind him and I groaned.
“Now where did you leave your video game?” I questioned while Robert hopped onto the tiny boat.
“On one of the benches near the back,” he said already on his way there.
Robert set his toy on the side of the boat and the bread on top. We both started looking around the benches.
“Here it is!” I shouted, holding up the Game Boy.
Robert rushed over to me and grabbed the game.
“Oh thank you, George. I’m so…” Robert stopped talking. “Why are we moving?” He said after pausing.
I looked around and saw that we were moving! The boat was drifting away from the dock and quickly out towards the center of the loch. I ran to the rope. It hadn’t become undone. It looked as if it snapped… or was cut. A flash of lightning lit up the night sky and rain came pouring down.
I rushed back to Robert and said, “We’ve got to find a way to steer this boat! I’ll go to the steering wheel and you can search for something to use as oars.”
When I got to my spot I tried to turn the small wooden wheel. It wouldn’t budge. We needed the keys! I looked all over the captain’s area. There were cabinets with food, life jackets, and other emergency things. There was no emergency key though!
“George, there’s nothing to use as boars!” my brother shouted sounding panicked.
“I said ‘oars’! Oh, it doesn’t matter now anyway. It’s so dark and stormy I can’t even tell which way we came from.” I sat down on the floor hopelessly.
“Hey, where’s Nessie?” Robert said while looking under the benches.
“Didn’t you put it on the side of the boat?” I replied quietly.
Robert sprinted to the edge of our lost cruise ship and peered down.
“There! Nessie’s right there.” He said excitedly.
I looked down at what Robert was pointing to. His toy was floating in the water next to the small boat. I started to walk away, but then I noticed something.
“Why is he all torn up? All the stuffing’s coming out!” my little brother asked.
“He probably just got caught in the motor,” I told him reassuringly. The only problem was… the motor wasn’t moving.
All of a sudden the boat violently rocked to one side and came back down. Robert almost fell off and shrieked loudly. It rocked to the other side and Robert clutched to the side of the boat. I ran into the captain’s cabin so I wouldn’t fall of the ship. I sighed. Then I gasped. Robert was still out there! I had to go get him. The boat rocked again and I waited. When the boat became flat again I rushed to Robert and pulled him off the boat. The small cruise ship rocked to the other side and Robert and I slammed into a bench. The boat eventually became flat and I sprinted into the cabin.
My little brother fell from my arms and shouted, “What’s rocking the boat?!”
“It’s probably just one of those big eels that live in Loch Ness,” I replied. It was supposed to sound confident but it came out sounding scared.
The boat rocked for probably the tenth time and came back to normal.
CRASH! All of a sudden the cabin windows broke and the ceiling and walls crashed down. Robert and I both screamed. I pushed away the rubble and tried to see what was going on. A flash of lightning streaked across the sky long enough to let me see a long thick neck with a football-sized head on top coming out of the water. It was a head with small, slit eyeballs and sharp teeth like daggers.
“That’s not an eel,” I said to myself.
The monster leaned down towards me and roared like a lion. Robert popped out of the rubble next to me and the monster twitched his head in that direction. It sniffed the air and then drove his head at my brother. The monster picked up the screaming Robert from the boat and shook him around. I panicked and my mind finally clicked. The monster attacked Robert because it likes bread. Robert smelled like bread just like the rope and the toy. The monster was the one who nibbled on those two things. Now he was going to nibble on my little brother! I had to think of something! There was another flash of lightning and I saw a loaf of bread in a colorful plastic bag from the emergency cabinet under some glass. I limped through the glass to the bread. I picked it up and waved it in the air.
“Hey Loch Ness Monster, look over here!” I shouted over Robert’s shrieking.
The monster looked over toward the noise and sniffed the air again. I threw the whole loaf of bread as far as I could away from the cruise ship. The monster gently put down Robert and quickly swam to the floating bread. I rushed over to Robert and loudly gasped.
“Where did that come from?” I shouted.
He held up the disposable camera he was taking pictures with and said, “What, this? I just found it on the ground.”
Of course, it was from the emergency cabinet!
“We’re going to be rich!” I whispered.
My brother and I started laughing together. We laughed all through the night until we drifted into land.
Robert and I eventually became the richest kids in the world due to those few pictures we sold to everybody. We started a search for the Loch Ness Monster. It was very successful and scientists found out a lot. They never found that elusive Nessie, though. (They did find Robert’s stuffed one.)We also started a search for our mother. We finally found her a year later! Now we’re one big happy family of Dad, Mom, little brother, and me. We still go on big vacations every summer, but we never went back to Loch Ness.

"Come on, Robert! Come on, George! Let's get onto the boat." My dad shouted toward the docks.
My little seven year old brother is Robert. He was adopted from Guatemala. My family really likes travelling, so one year when we went to Guatemala my dad just fell in love with him. I'm George. I am turning sixteen today and that's why we're here, at Loch Ness. I really like history and mysteries. My mom came to Scotland for a business trip when I was only two and never came back. That's why I chose to come to Loch Ness for my birthday. It was so beautiful. The rolling hills went on for miles and the every-day fog added to the mystery.

Holy monstrous info dumps, batman! This is a problem a lot of people have. They put too much information in one spot. You did it here to introduce your characters, which I know is what you should do, but not in this way. You need to spread out what you tell the reader so they aren't bored to bits.

My mind came back to the present and saw Robert and Dad already on the small boat.

The way you phrase this makes it seem like his mind is what sees Robert and his Dad. just put 'I' after 'and'.

My dad said, "Don't forget the picnic basket."

As a quick note, you can increase your fluidity if you refer to 'my dad' as simply 'dad' as if it's his real name. It just works better.

I dropped the picnic basket and walked slowly closer to get a better look.

Swap the spots of 'walked' and 'slowly'.

It's called a paleontologist or something like that.

If this is a joke, I wouldn't use it unless it's used in dialogue and the person is corrected. It could just confuse people if it's in the writing otherwise. But if you seriously think the dinosaur was a 'paleontologist' then you may want to correct that.

Robert opened our door and I flinched again.

Why did he flinch? Did it make a noise? You have to tell us.

What if an alarm went off when we opened it or it might just be locked somehow.

Hotel doors don't give off an alarm at night. They may lock on your way out, but I'm almost sure the main entrance is always open

I smiled and said, “Okay. I think I know how to get onto the boat. Follow me.”
I carefully got on my hands and knees and got a hold on the rope. Then I started shimmying toward the boat.

He's a really crappy brother if he let a kid that young follow him that way onto the boat. To be realistic, he'd make him stay until he returned.

“Here it is!” I shouted, holding up the Game Boy.

Use something different from 'shouted' because no one just shouts in the middle of the night.

A flash of lightning streaked across the sky long enough to let me see a long thick neck with a football-sized head on top coming out of the water.

That head sounds a little small for the infamous Nessie.

The monster leaned down towards me and roared like a lion.

That sounds a little unrealistic. This creature has a thin, long neck, and definitely wouldn't have similar vocal cords to a lion. To make this more realistic don't compare it to a lion roar.

I panicked and my mind finally clicked. The monster attacked Robert because it likes bread. Robert smelled like bread just like the rope and the toy.

What? He figured that out while in a panic? When someone panics they don't even figure out simple things, let alone something as far fetched as 'he likes bread'.

Also, underwater creatures don't always have the greatest sense of smell since most can't use it underwater. Even best case scenario with Nessie having a great sense of smell, how would it smell a few crumbs on the rope? That would be extremely hard to do since cold bread doesn't even give off much smell (Although I can buy the fact it could smell the entire loaf). Also, why would Nessie like bread? If it had dagger-like teeth, like you said, it wouldn't be a herbivore or omnivore since sharp teeth like that are built for tearing meat. For example, omnivores like us have sharp teeth and flat teeth, which we use for cutting tough stuff like meats and grinding things like leaves and vegetables.

I limped through the glass to the bread.

You're saying he passed right through it? You may want to rephrase this to make sense.

Okay, this was a decent enough story, but there are a few other problems.
1) It went to fast.
2) You rarely described the surroundings that well. You've got to learn to show us what's happening instead of telling us.
3) There were a good few lapses in logic.
4) The ending was a little odd. First off I can't see the reason a disposable camera would be in the emergency cabinet. Second, I highly doubt a seven year old, after the boat starts rocking and Nessie comes out of the water, still is brave enough to find and pick up a disposable camera and take pictures of the monster that is whipping him around in its mouth. He'd even have to go through the trouble of clicking the flash button and waiting for it to charge. Lastly, there wasn't any light on the boat, so how would they even be able to see any of this?

Overall this could be a good story, but it still needs a little work. If you can get rid of these lapses in logic and describe what happens more, this story will become immensely better. I will say, though, that since I've always liked Nessie, I found this entertaining. I do now think, though, that the past you made for the family was a little bit extreme for a short story that wasn't affected whatsoever by Robert being adopted and their mom having disappeared. They could just be people living in Scotland that wanted to go see loch ness. Having such a complex character past just isn't worth it in a short story like this. Anyway, good luck if you plan on revising it.

What if an alarm went off when we opened it or it might just be locked somehow.

This should be a question!

As mikedb1492 said, there are several things that don't make sense. Most of the grammatical stuff was ok, though. Keep it up!

There are quite a lot of info dumps in this story and sometimes that can be a bonus but here it just clogged up the storyline. Also, how big is the toy? Nessie's teeth should probably have ripped it to shreds. The bit about Nessie roaring also seems a bit far-fetched. What would a sea monster have vocal chords for and would he actually be able to roar since he is, essentially, a water monster.

UUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Enough, people!

This. Is. A. Fantasy! Anything can happen! Who said it was a water creature? It could be a water horse or kelpie! It can roar and smell all it wants!!!!!!!!!!! Sheesh.

Well, it helps a fantasy story to be (somewhat) grounded in reality. Otherwise, you just read it and it's like "Okay, that would never happen." If it is grounded in reality, it's like "Oh cool! I wish that would really happen!" and you have dreams about it and stuff.

I guess but mikedb1492 commented on every little thing and it doesn't have to be completely realistic. If it was then it would be realistic fiction.

Right, but still, it helps to know what you could change to make it more real if you so choose.

You're right. Never mind.

This conversation has now officially ended!

To be a writer you have to take criticism patiently and politely, Bookmarker. Critiquing isn't always going to be compliments. And mikedb1492 is a reader, giving you tips and opinions that he'd like to see change; readers are generally more important to your piece than a few general ideas and statements. You want every little thing to be remarked upon- it improves your writing, you, and the story.

I am not picking a fight here, nor saying this offensively in any way. I am simply advising you to keep peace and your frustration to yourself, to avoid conflicts with other members. No one should dislike any one here.

Anyway, I did enjoy this. You don't often see stories about Nessie that aren't all scientific and/or text-book-type novels. It was cute, and I laughed at the Nessie liking bread part. It was very unexpected and unique.

As was previously stated, it did go rather fast. Try to give more descriptions, and perhaps explain the whole mother-disappearing-thing a bit better- it seemed a bit unemotional. Like the narrator doesn't really care about it.

Also-

My mom went to Scotland...

That's all for me ^ ^. Write some more!
~Doctor

Thanks so much!