Young Writers Society

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I've already said that I didn't really understand the overall idea behind this as I was reading it - and I have read it several times - but I'll admit that this could be my own fault in not reading properly. So, I'll do a para by para review instead in the hope that I can figure it out as I go along.

Just before I start though, here's a bit of the obvious: mystery is great and hooks the reader in, but if sustained for too long, it is just confusing and puts the reader off. I know you know this already. So...a balance is needed. Hopefully, I might also be able to pinpoint a section in this where I think things should definitely have been clearer. Do note that I have not fully read the second piece (so I don't have a 'full' idea of what it's about) - but I sort of didn't see the point since I didn't understand this.

So...here we go:

“Aleksandrina, you must promise me that you will keep an eye on your watch,” says Mariam, tugging at her friend’s arm. Later, Aleksanda feels the band of red plastic pressing against her skin and it is as if Mariam still holds her. She keeps her eyes forward, but still the feeling calls to her, begs her to look down and check the time.

The name obviously hints at the foreign setting immediately. In a way, it also turns away people from that genre of writing simulatneously - Aleksandrina is a humungous mouthful of a name, and so I wondered if the writing would be similarly difficult to digest in one go. At this point in time, I assume Mariam is a person - although I did get confused later on. And what I know here so far is this: the story will be about Aleksandra (check spelling?), and time is somehow important, and Mariam has something to do with the time issue.

Not too confusing, but not comforting, either. And I like the idea of beginning with dialogue - perhaps make it less cryptic, maybe; less en media res? The figurative descriptions 'as if Mariam still holds her' is lovely, and when I read further on, I was delighted to find that the strange and interesting imagery was a characteristic even in your stories .

“My face is kind, Aleksandrina” (it even uses the pet name, the secret name) “and I will be objective with you. I will tell you a kind truth that soon will not matter.”

“Kir,” she says. The words line out of her mouth with fear on their backs, and Kir can sense the strain in her voice. He touches her on the shoulder.

Okay, I'll say first that there is nothing wrong with the way you are writing in terms of 'action,' 'reflection, ' description' balance etc. - it's all fine. What bothers me is the rate at which we're being made aware of what is going on. I have little idea of who's who and what's what.

I'll try to hypothesise as I go along: from the dialogue, I assume it's Mariam that Aleks is speaking to. But since she's just said she's looking at her watch, and, waht's more, the word 'face' is used, I have this weird idea that Mariam is the watch that's talking. I may be really off the mark here, but that's just what I assumed - please save me from further embarrassment and tell me what's going on! So...Mariam and Aleks are intimate in some way - 'pet name' - and there is some kind of 'objective truth that does not matter' to be revealed.

So...alongside Aleks and Mariam, we have Kir spinning into view. I felt that he was introduced a little too quickly - like I hadn't had enough time to digest and figure out what or who Mariam was before he sauntered along. And 'words with fear on their backs,' as beautiful as it is in a poem, felt a little too contrived.

Fine. But at this point in time, there are too many questions that need resolving and I reckon this is too difficult for people to take in in one go. I'd say this is the point where someone will decide if they want to keep reading or not - and so, things should be clearer here.

Questions: where are we exactly (country, place - on a street)? Who or what is Mariam? What has time and watches got to do with anything - why are they important? What is the relationship between Mariam and A. and why? Who is Kir and where did he come from? Why is there a sense of fear and tension?

“Do you know the time—don’t tell me! But do you know the time?”

“We should hurry, Aleksandra.”

“I need a drink.”

“There is no time.”

“There is time.”

“Aleksandra, it’s too late,” he says, and grips her shoulder tighter.

I actually didn't know who the first speaker in this was - I guess it's Kir from a reread. But the speakers in this bit need to be made clearer - I can see you know exactly who is talking, but I really had to think and work it out - this disrupted the flow. I don't get it - what is going on, exactly? Aleks wants to know the time - the time (that something imp happens??), or just the current time? Things are very vague - why is it too late? What's ging on? What's up with the drink (I assume this links in to your title).

Again, too many new questions and not enough old ones addressed.

She will run if he does not hold on to her, and there is work to be done. Aleksandra knows so, and so she does not try to run, but inside she melts into a pool and her eyes turn into dirty marbles and roll down the sidewalk ahead of her, peeking around the corner at the clock tower. It stares back at the marbles and says “nine thirty-six” and they take the whispered tragedy back over the concrete to Aleksandra.

She clutches the paper in her pocket and whispers back a plea for the world to stop and give her time to sit in the street and think, instead of walking on toward the end.

“Have faith, Aleksandra,” says the woman at Kir’s side.

“What use is faith when Miriam is not here with her silver spurs to prod the faith into goodness?” says Aleksandra, but she does not voice the doubt aloud. Instead, she nods and purses her lips: a straight, pink line in a world of curves and grays and bursts of orange.

That's a funny way to describe Aleks looking at the clocktower. I liked it - but it did give the whole story a really surreal feeling to it - like there's something unbeleivably bizarre going on. So - obviously time is some kind of motif here. Seems like sh'e walking to her death - but why is everyone helping her walk there? And I'm again confused about who Mariam is. I loved the way you described her lips, but I was too distracted by my own curiosity and confusion to pause on that darling nugget of detail for very long.

“I need a drink.” So Kir turns to answer the ringing in his pocket, and Katia takes his place at Aleksandra’s shoulder, leading her toward a convenience store where they can take off their mittens. If they were already late, what did it matter if they were later? Surely they can warm their hands and wet their throats. Kir nods to Katia and looks through the windows nervously as the women wind their way through the aisles, leaving trails of tattered shoelaces and missed appointments, looking for a suitable drink.

Where did Katia come from? Who is she? I'm pretty sure I haven't seen her anywhere before. What are they late for? Why is A so thirsty? Why can't it wait? Now all of these questions are annoying me.

“This drink will die on my lips,” says Aleksandra to her wrist. Mariam responds:
“Mine was the tea we had in the room before, when from the chattering of the stacked teasaucers I withdrew a pure note of China. Do you remember when we went there in the fall?”

This is where I began assuming that M was the watch. But then why do you say that 'what use is faith when Mariam is not here?' when M IS there? Kind of. Unless M used to be a person and got turned into a watch, which is an incredibly complicated idea that I only got after the sixth or seventh time reading. And why is the watch talking - is this a fantasy story as well? The mixture of genres in so short a space is too sudden. Why will the drink 'die on her lips'? Is it poisoned? Does everyone in this place undergo some kind of 'change' where they drink something and it kills them, or turns them into something un-human, like a watch? (This is what I assume from 'Mine was the tea...')

Yes, when all the Chinese girls faces looked nearly the same as my little students, and I wondered if they studied just as hard or whether everything was as easy and relaxing in that country.”
“And mine was the tea that was from the fields that stretched on forever under skies where clouds danced in white like old orthodox brides.”
“Should mine be tea?” says Aleksandra.
“What do you mean?” asks Katia, turning from the cooler of glass and plastic bottles that lines the back wall of the store. Aleksandra shakes her head and puts her hand behind her back. Katia shrugs and takes a bottle of water.

Sounds an awful lot like A is trying to decide if THE drink (to kill her, maybe?) is to be tea. What have the Chinese got to do with anything? And clearly M is a big secret, since A is hiding the watch in public (I've decided M IS a watch). I like fantasy, but this is really too bizarre - kind of like cloaking an actually semi-magical piece with normality (newspapers, a drink, tea, studious Chinese people, clocktower - sort of 'real' things, no?).

Aleksandra looks at the old man who leans on the checkout counter. He turns the page of his newspaper and the words spill out of the page in a waterfall of straps and buckles in black. She can hear the words as they hit the floor – “bombs shatter Moscow peace” “she lived, but she did not die” “41 dead in Moscow metro” – all with a constant rush of water and a waterfall of time in the background. She looks up as Katia puts her bottle on the counter and the man closes his newspaper. She feels the air from the movement on her cheek.
“Do you have any change?” asks Katia. Aleksandra puts her hand into her purse and feels three loose batteries and a small fabric bag. She pulls it out and gives it to Katia, then walks out to wait with Kir. The man behind the counter looks after her. Katia leaves the bag and takes the water and follows Aleksandra.

I wonder how much this contributes to the overall storyline. Of course, it tells us we're in Moscow during the huge bombing of the metro. Other than that, it raises more irritating questions than it answers.

“Are you going to do this?” Kir asks.
“How can I not do this?”
“We can take the train to France. All of us.” He nods to Katia and she sips her water. Aleksandra hears it slosh back and forth and feels her face grow hot and the space behind her eyeballs grow hot as Katia breathes in through her nostrils. How dare she breathe through such a small space when she has a much more important place to breathe? She has a mouth and working lungs and she denies them? Aleksandra knocks the bottle from Katia’s hand and walks into the street.
“What is wrong with you?” shouts Katia after her.
“Aleksandra, I don’t want to do this,” says Kir.
“Then don’t do it,” she calls back from the other side of the street. Cars and angry traffic, belching the time they thought they wasted, move between Kir and Aleksandra and she feels her stomach ache for him and feels her hands peculiarly empty. If only Kir had been the one who faked, if only he had taken the time to lie to her and love her. But the cars do not mangle his words:
“We’re going on the train to France. Come with us.”

Please don't strangle me for saying this - but I'm confused again. What's A going to do? (Is she going to undergo some kind of weird transformation, or die? Does the watch REALLY talk to her, or is she deranged and Mariam is the person who died, and she is now conjuring M up in the form of the watch? Is it like she's talking to a memory of M?)Why the tension btw A and Katia? What's Kir's relationship to her? Why is Katia there? Why are they escaping to France - some kind of terrorist threat, or civil war, maybe?

Katia looks across at Aleksandra and her face is empty, then she looks down at the sidewalk where the water is still spilling from cement to asphalt. Aleksandra doesn’t want to see her empty eyes again. She doesn’t want to feel the pricks from Kir’s sad lips as they sprint across the road and fling themselves at her cheeks and at her neck.

I again wonder the genre of this piece. Historical? Fantasy? Real-life, just told in a bizarre way? The line: 'She doesn’t want to feel the pricks from Kir’s sad lips as they sprint across the road and fling themselves at her cheeks and at her neck' - this is gorgeous, but I wonder if it belongs here. It suits your style perfectly, but it also confused me more.

She turns and walks down the stairs into the metro, hoping that she will disappear before Katia looks up again and calls her a fool.

I have not read the second bit properly, since I didn't feel I could, not after having completely missed the idea behind the first one. Like I said - you know what you're doing when writing, and the flow is reasonably good, and there is a good balance of most elements there. Just the mystery thing that is totally destroying the beauty of the piece - it needs to be addressed. Put in more details at well-spaced out intervals. Give us more clues to help us figure out what's going on. Leave us hanging, but not falling straight off.

I am insanely curious about this, as I am about anything I don't immeidately understand. So - please, please answer my questions (which, I'll admit, were more just my thoughts written out for you to see) by incorporating a clearer story in this; I get the feeling you know exactly what you're writing about, so the story is strong, just not clear.

Good luck for the contest. What's the article you're using?

Hey Hannah!

I agree with Navita... this is very hard to understand! I know you're trying to just throw us into the scene and draw us in that way, but we have no background of the characters, setting, or conflict, so it's simply just muddling the whole story. Slow down! Explain a little about either the setting, character, or conflict so we have an idea of what's happening.

And make the conflict clearer... right now, we just know that she's dreading something. What? Sometimes, being explicit can be a good thing!

Good luck with revision!

Hi Hannah!

So, like Navita and Snoink, I found this really confusing. I think you've got a promising start with good characters, but it goes by way too quickly and there's little time for the reader to stop and understand.

Let's take a look at your main character. First, I'm not quite sure if her name is Aleksandra or Aleksandrina. She's Aleksandrina at the very beginning and Aleksandra for the rest of the story. Even if they sound similar, they're different names and you should probably stick with one. Second, when it comes to the actual character, I found her somewhat dull. Okay, so we know she's one of the bombers and that she's scared. So? I want to know a little bit more about her past and her motivations. If we do, we'll understand the way she acts and then will unlock many of the locked doors in this story. I understand that you may be trying to shroud her in mystery and add charm, but we should at least know a little.

When it comes to story, I agree with Navita. I understand what you're trying to do, but it all just comes out as a muddled mess. For the "Jump in" affect, as I like to call it, to work, we need to know at least a little bit about what happened before the story. Why does Aleksandra want to bomb the subway? Are they independent, or part of some terrorist organization?

Okay, so I understand that you probably don't and shouldn't give this all away at the beginning, but you don't have to! Introduce these things little by little, only when they're really needed. A few paragraphs in, you could talk about their affiliation. You could save her motives until the very end.

Another thing that I think needed a little bit of work was your scene transitions. I like the voice that you have in this piece, but sometimes it was so vague I couldn't really understand what was going on. The first couple of paragraphs were okay, but once I got to the "There is time," line, it was all a jumbled mess. You have Aleksandra talking to the woman about how Mariam isn't here, but then she shows up, without any note how or that she came in.

That's pretty much all I had, but there was one more thing-is Mariam a girl or a boy? At the beginning of the story, you refer to Mariam as a guy, but later on, as a girl. Although the name is usually a girl's one, you never really know.

Anyway, I'll be looking forward to reading/critiquing the second installment, so keep your eyes peeled! Good luck revising this, and PM me if you have any questions.

-Elinor xo

I'm working on revisions, but it would be helpful if you would remember that though I have to split this story into two parts for easy YWS reading, the meaning is held in ALL of the story, and not just the first part, and you might find it at least somewhat helpful to understanding a little more.

I know, I know, it took me forever to get here and I fail as a CBF. I express profound amounts of sorrow and implore forgiveness! But it does look as if you've gotten some advice already.

As you've pointed out, this is meant to be read as a whole piece and not installments, so I'm doing my critiques right after each other.

“Aleksandrina, you must promise me that you will keep an eye on your watch,” says Mariam, tugging at her friend’s arm. Later, Aleksanda feels [will feel] the band of red plastic pressing against her skin and it is as if Mariam still holds her. She keeps her eyes forward, but still the feeling calls to her, begs her to look down and check the time.

“My face is kind, Aleksandrina” (it even uses the pet name, the secret name) “and I will be objective with you. I will tell you a kind truth that soon will not matter.”

The bold "it" refers back to the face of the watch, correct? That's what I inferred. I like the personification here, but your pronouns and subjects are getting jumbled. For example, "the feeling"? What feeling? A feeling symbolizes an emotion, but no emotion is expressed in that first paragraph-- the physical feel of the watch on her wrist, but I think that's different.

I point out these nit-picks and little things early because I think these sorts of ambiguous word choices and jumbled pronouns are what make the story confusing throughout the entire thing. Make sure all of your images, metaphors, and personification refer back to something tangible, something readers can trace.

The next problem for me is that our view of this scene keeps enlarging. First, there's Miriam and Aleksandra. And then you reveal the street. And then you reveal Kir. And then you reveal the woman beside Kir, who is, I guess, Katia? And then the convenience store...which suddenly makes everything feel kind of pseudo-modern. I think you need to set the scene (especially the characters) with either (a) more warning, or (b) at the same time. Otherwise our mind's eye keeps having to shift focus as we're reading to accommodate for another unexpected element. Erm. >_> Not sure if I'm making sense.

Okay! So I just finished reading the first part for the second time, and I'm about to move onto the second. It seems as if Aleksandra is being led to her death by Kir and Katia, who don't need to die and are offering to run off to France with her, but Aleksandra wants to "do it" anyway, which I presume means die anyway, even though she has other options? And then Miriam-- is she a ghost? She doesn't feel real. And then she mentions her last drink, which require her to be dead already. Dunno! We'll see, I suppose!

I'm telling you my mental breakdown of the piece so that you can see whether or not the right points are coming across, and if readers are getting your meaning at all as they go along.

Onto part two, which will have more overall notes

~Evi

Hi Hannah! Sorry for the very late review; West Point has eaten my life this summer, but here I am at last, as promised.

I hate to just agree with what has already been said, but I had the same issues with this piece as did your other readers. I re-read a few sections, but I never felt like I had a decent grasp on what was going on. I love dialogue being thrown back and forth, but then there has to be some type of accompanying explanation or clear understanding from the reader, and I couldn't get either.

Even with me not knowing what was going on, I still really liked some of your descriptions and phrasings, and you really conveyed an overall atmosphere of urgency very well. But, with characters popping up seemingly out of nowhere, I was pretty lost. I love the title you've chosen, so I'm curious to see how it will ultimately tie in. I feel like you've done a bit of the setup for it here in part one, and will finish up in part two (at least, I hope so!).

So that's my two cents. Good luck with your revisions!

Couldn't really grasp on it. It had great style to it though don't get me wrong, but even after readin the second piece to it still had difficulties. It just needs a little bit of revision.

Hey People! Don't be so hard on her!
I agree it is a bit hard to understand, but I'm sure that Hannah knows what she is trying to get through in her story. I think it was well written, and better if I could understand it. Try writing a lifelike story!! I'd love to read more of your stories so don't be downhearted by what others say. Its good but has the potential to be ALOT BETTER!!!!Keep writing and PM me when you have written another story-I'd love to read it.
Kakagirl ( the nice one Just kidding ) X X