Young Writers Society

Despair

A vast desert, dunes, thousands of miles of sand. Closer and closer. You can see
individual mounds of sand now, and, what’s this? There’s a smudge down there. It’s probably
just another pile of rocks. No…no, it’s moving. Maybe someone’s dog got out again. That
happens every once in a while. Let’s go take a look. Oh, that’s not a dog that’s a boy! He’s
talking to himself.
“How could I have been so stupid? I know not to ever leave the edge! But that pile of rocks was so cool… It looked so close…”
Ah yes. This is a common occurrence in stories. Someone is walking along the edge of the desert and sees something interesting just a little ways in. They start to walk towards it. They don’t think they will get lost, but eventually, they do. The boy is talking again.
“This sun is so hot. No surprise there. Ugh, why am I talking to myself? I must be going crazy.”
There it is, the classic lost in the desert line. Couldn't’t narrate the story without it!
The boy is getting a drink now. He doesn’t appear to have much water left.
“This water is so hot that it’s burning my throat. Uh, you’d think that the desert would be quiet, without anything around, but it sizzles and pops. And all the scents, too. Like a kitchen without the food. Oh, why did I mention food! Wait, what’s that? Something green, something green on the horizon! I’ve found the edge!”
Poor boy. I wish I could help him. But the narrator isn’t supposed to get involved in the story. I wish I could write a message in the sand telling him that he is going the wrong way.
And most of all, I wish that I could tell him that he is running straight towards a cactus.

Hello there! Lupis, here to review today.

Now... nitpicks first? I only have a few more general ones.

1. Weird spacing. In the first paragraph, there are lots of places where there's a return and there shouldn't be. This is an easy fix. Here are a couple of examples:

Closer and closer. You can see

individual mounds of sand now, and, what’s this? There’s a smudge down there. It’s probably

just another pile of rocks. No…no, it’s moving.

2. Your title is misspelled. ;D You may want to fix that.

3. Nitpicky nitpicks:

Couldn't’t

"couldn't"

A vast desert, dunes, thousands of miles of sand. Closer and closer.

These are incomplete sentences-----not necessarily incorrect (lots of authors use them) but two in a row sounded awkward to me. Closer and Closer to what? Who's moving closer?


Overall:

Personally, I reeeeeally don't like stories where the narrator talks to the reader. It's been done lots of times, and rarely well. Plus, it's just annoying! I want to be inside the story, and when another voice keeps talking to be, it's very distracting. I understand that this is supposed to be a comedic piece, right? So (this is just an idea) maybe you could make the beginning very serious and dramatic, and then the ending could be more of a surprise?

You can keep the narration, but I would strongly suggest toning it down a bit, especially towards the beginning: the lines "ah, this happens often in stories" etc. are very distracting/annoying.

Also, length: I like that this is very short--the punch line requires it not to drag on forever. But. The words you do use should matter--the prose could be much tighter here.

Hope I helped! Good luck with editing. If you ever need a review, let me know!

Lupis

Hello.

I'm not really sure what to make of this story. To be completely blunt, it doesn't sound very much like a story to me. A story, in order to be successful, has conflict to it. This story currently has no conflict to it, just the narrator's voice which gets a bit grating after awhile. I kept waiting for something to happen in the story, yet the only thing that happened was at the end with the narrator wanting to warn the character he was going towards a cactus. And that doesn't really hold much conflict either, as the narrator doesn't really think about not telling him. That's just "the rule" that narrators don't talk to the characters.

In order to make this some sort of story, put something that creates tension and conflict in here. This article has some pointers on creating conflict, and I'd suggest you read it. It would make this story flow along better, instead of having readers wonder when the "clever" asides would end and the story begins.

As for your characters, we're not told enough about the boy or the narrator to really form any sort of connection with them. In order to make this better, and the narrator's dialogue to himself more bearable, I'd suggest creating some sort of relationship or sympathetic quality to either the narrator or the boy in the desert. The Writing Tutorials section of the Knowledge Base has several articles on the topic of characters, as well as on creating plot/conflict (past the one I linked before).

Hope this helps! PM me if you have any questions or comments.

~Rosey

I think this is what they call a vignette; more like a sketch of a "somewhat-funny-but-bordering-on-pathetic" situation/scene/incident. There's no dramatic conflict as what the last poster has pointed out. And to me, reading a story without any dramatic conflict is like eating a hamburger without the patty. However, I do believe that with a few tweaks on the narrative, a little adding of this and a little subtracting of that would help in appending the adjective 'good' in this uh... story(?).

there really isn't much to get out of reading this. It was pretty short but i still had to kind of force my way through it.

I thought it was good but didn't really feel the title of the story fitted the actually story! It should have been Lost or I don't know Dessert.. Aas far as I can see anyway,the boy didn't seem like he was upset or in dispair that much?!
Anyway I did enjoy reading it, it was short but well written..
yours,
kakagirl X X

Sorry guys, I forgot to mention, this is an assignment from my writing teacher. I was supposed to write in a scene where the reader was "zooming in" on something. I really don't like this one too much myself, like I said it was just an assingnment. Thank you for the reviews though!

Sage