Young Writers Society

It's a rainy day again. I tilt my head up to the sky and let my tongue peek out from my lips. I haven't tasted water as clean as this, not until I was washed ashore in this God-forsaken atoll. I got my cup made from bamboo and placed it below the small gutter that I also made from bamboo too, letting it collect the rain drops as I walk back to my shelter with the roof made from long and wide banana leaves as I lay down on my bed made from palm fronds.

I took a nap for about 2-3 hours in this cold and rainy afternoon then I woke up because I was hungry, I got my machete and climbed a coconut tree nearby my shed. When I was a little girl, I was afraid of heights, but now I'm not, because I got used to climbing this coconut tree's towering height, that's probably why they said it was the "tree of life" since it kept me alive for years. It wasn't such a windy day, so the tree had a great chance not to bend over, not letting me fall off. I slowly climb the tree, looking carefully for the shallow crevices that I placed with my machete. When I got to the top, I swung my machete at the coconuts, letting them fall to the ground below.

You would think it's easy to break a coconut, but it's not. Have you seen how killers swing their deadly weapons on horror thrillers? Yea, you would need THAT kind of energy just to break through the coconut's skull, the same energy it takes to break through a human's skull, but I'm not saying I killed someone to know that. When you get through the coconut's skull, you're greeted by the coconut's white fleshy filling and its sweet milky fluids inside, that's when you know you did a great job.

Did I mention I have a friend? His name is Ted, he has brown and hard skin and he's pretty much quiet at all times, I even haven't heard him say anything. When I got to this island, I saw him beneath the coconut tree. He's a really nice person, always cheering me up with his nice smile on his face. He likes sitting in one place everyday though, he's pretty dependent on me, but he's still pretty optimistic smiling person. He wouldn't finish what he's eating, he really doesn't have a large appetite when eating so I have to finish what he ate.

When it's dusk, I grab my spear made from my multi-purpose swiss knife being taped to a long and thin wooden stick and go to the shallow waters of the atoll. I slowly and stealthily walk into the shallow water carefully not disturbing the fish with any low thud I can make with my feet as I look for fish and crabs to prey on. Reaching farther into the shallow waters, I find myself a good catch: an adult grouper and 2 medium-sized red crabs. It was now getting dark, I slowly make my way back to the silhouette of the island as vivid colors of yellow, red and orange stretched on from the sky with criss-crossing lines of cirrus clouds as they are being reflected on the shallow water.

Night came, me and Ted started cooking for the feast we're going to have. First of all, I got the salt that I left to dry on the warm sun all day and sprinkled it all over the fresh water that I collected from the rain. Then I poured the salty water to a short and stout bamboo as I place it over the campfire. I then add some coconut milk that I got from the coconut to the soup. Lastly, I place the 2 red crabs inside, letting the soup soak inside them as I wait for it to boil for about 30 minutes while checking on the fish that I'm exposing on the fire.

After preparing the food, we then start to eat, laughing and having merriment. Although Ted's always quiet, he hasn't even said even a word, he's still smiling though. After we got full and satisfied of our feast, we head back to the shed and sleep, Ted always insists to stand guard all night.

It's morning now, my sleep was cut short because of a low bass sound that came from afar, it was a ship! Adrenaline rushed into my veins as I decide what I should do. I then run to a small peninsula in the tip of the atoll where my raft made out of light coconut lumber and some bamboo is hidden. It was a hard choice, the boat was 5 miles away but it didn't seem to be moving for a while, so this seems to be a great chance. Ted and I set sail on our ramp for the ship, rowing enthusiastically to the ship. An hour passes and my arms are now getting sore, Ted, like the dependent person he is, wouldn't row and won't even stop smiling. I stop rowing for a while as I notice the sky is getting cloudy and the waves of the ocean seem to roar in front of us. But Ted's smile never seemed to tell me not to give up, so I didn't. I started rowing more as the ship was getting closer. But then a wave hit us, we were hurled from the ramp as it was destroyed by the unforgiving waves.

Surfacing from the water quickly, my attention came to Ted were his head was the only thing visible,I shouted to him to see if he was still conscious but he wouldn't say a thing, so I swam to him and embraced him as I cried for help on the ship just beside us, but the roaring sea devoured us once more and everything went out when a bamboo from the ramp hit me in the head.

I wake up to the sound of beeping, my forehead is now covered with bandage while lying on a soft, white bed. A girl with a red cross as an insignia on her cap said to me "You'll be fine ma'am" as she gives me a cheerful smile while checking my condition. I was relieved. When I turn my head on the side, Ted was there, still smiling while sitting on the chair.

Hi there. I saw you'd posted something and thought to myself "self, I think you should review this" so here I am.

I haven't tasted water as clean as this, not until I was washed ashore in this God-forsaken atoll.

I think you mean to say "since" not "until", but I might be misunderstanding what you're trying to say.

I got my cup made from bamboo and placed it below the small gutter that I also made from bamboo too, letting it collect the rain drops as I walk back to my shelter with the roof made from long and wide banana leaves as I lay down on my bed made from palm fronds.

Eep! That's a long sentence. O.o First of all, you don't need "also" AND "too" (red). Second of all, having multiple "as"s in one sentence makes things awkward (blue). Third of all, you need to be consistent with your tenses! Let me suggest a rephrase: "I get my bamboo cup and placed it below the small gutter that I also made from bamboo, letting it collect the rain drops as I walk back to my shelter with the roof made from long and wide banana leaves and lie down on my bed made from palm fronds."

When it's dusk, I grab my spear made from my multi-purpose swiss knife being taped to a long and thin wooden stick and go to the shallow waters of the atoll. I slowly and stealthily walk into the shallow water carefully not disturbing the fish with any low thud I can make with my feet as I look for fish and crabs to prey on. Reaching farther into the shallow waters, I find myself a good catch: an adult grouper and 2 medium-sized red crabs.

For one thing, you repeat "shallow water(s)" (red) and for another thing, there are too many adverbs in that second sentence (blue)! I'd suggest something more like: "When it's dusk, I grab my spear which is made from my multi-purpose swiss knife being taped to a long and thin wooden stick. I slowly and stealthily walk into the shallow water, careful not disturbing the fish with any low thud I can make with my feet as I look for fish and crabs to prey on. Reaching farther into the waters, I find myself a good catch: an adult grouper and 2 medium-sized red crabs."

Then I poured the salty water to a short and stout bamboo as I place it over the campfire.

Do you mean "bamboo stalk"?

Although Ted's always quiet, he hasn't even said even a word, he's still smiling though.

Red: you don't need both "although" and "though" since they're pretty much the same word.
Blue: only one "even" would do the job. You don't need two of them! ^_^

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Nice job, overall! I really like the idea of this piece--it's sweet and cute, but also a little disturbing and it really makes me pity your main character, who's obviously more than a little bit crazy. Nice concept. I also like the way you've described Ted. You did an excellent job of portraying how the girl really thinks of him as real. I love the part where they're in the boat and he is inspiring her to keep going just by being there and "smiling." Good job!

Your first language isn't English, right? I have a huge amount of respect for you for writing something like this even though it's not in your mother tongue. Really, I think it's amazing that you can speak more than one language so well. It's really impressive. But something that makes it rather obvious that you're not comfortable in English is your use of tenses. During this whole piece, you are switching back and forth between past tense and present tense. I'm not even sure which one you meant the story to be in, because literally every sentence is different--sometimes you even switch back and forth in one sentence! Let me give you an example:

I wake up to the sound of beeping, my forehead is now covered with bandage while lying on a soft, white bed. A girl with a red cross as an insignia on her cap said to me "You'll be fine ma'am" as she gives me a cheerful smile while checking my condition. I was relieved. When I turn my head on the side, Ted was there, still smiling while sitting on the chair.

I've made the verbs that are in present tense be red and the ones in past be blue. See how much you switch? You need to have it all be present or all be past. Let me show you. If you had it all in past tense, it would look like this:
I woke up to the sound of beeping, my forehead was now covered with bandage while lying on a soft, white bed. A girl with a red cross as an insignia on her cap said to me "You'll be fine ma'am" as she gave me a cheerful smile while checking my condition. I was relieved. When I turned my head on the side, Ted was there, still smiling while sitting on the chair.
And if you had it all in present tense, it would look like this:
I wake up to the sound of beeping, my forehead is now covered with bandage while lying on a soft, white bed. A girl with a red cross as an insignia on her cap says to me "You'll be fine ma'am" as she gives me a cheerful smile while checking my condition. I am relieved. When I turn my head on the side, Ted is there, still smiling while sitting on the chair.

There are a lot of places throughout the piece where you switch tenses, and I can't really point all of them out because that would take a really long time--but I strongly suggest you decide on one tense and make it consistent throughout the piece.

Also, I really don't think you should have that spoiler at the end. It gives away the surprise! Why not just let the reader guess? I think that would be more fun. :]

Let me know if you have any questions or if you want to talk about anything I've said!

a

I have to say, Azila's review was mighty intimidating when I first saw it. I hope my review doesn't seem so feeble looking posted beneath it. D:

I can say that this story here reminded me a lot of "Castaway". Except for the simple difference that you had an inanimate coconut instead of a vollyball as the main character's companion. And although the vollyball was much cuter, I think you did an okay job with Ted. ^-^

I feel this story may have been lacking a certain amount of depth to it. I mean, it seemed too simply written for a stranded island type of story. As I've said, it reminded me a little of "Castaway". The idea of being stuck on an island can have so many different ways of unfolding the story. I think you could have added a few more elements that would have made it a lot more interesting.

For example, say she had a friend that was with her on the island, and he died maybe. Causing the main character to go into that weird state of mind where she befriends a coconut of all things. Maybe she could've had a friend who died as he was trying to obtain coconuts, and that's how Ted first appeared. I mean you did make it a point in the story how difficult it is to obtain coconuts. But this is all just a random thought that popped up into my head as an example of what you could have done with the story --to make it more interesting to read.

Not to say that this wasn't interesting. I feel the story held quite a bit of potential to it. Which is why I make these points.

One thing I didn't so much like in the way you wrote this was the tense. I'm not always a fan of that whole present tense style. Mostly because it can be a pretty challenging one to pull off by having it sound smooth and un-flawed in flow. I think that if you had just written it in the traditional style it would have made everything sound a whole lot smoother in places.

But anyway, I hope my review in some way helps. I think you did a good job here. I would just keep in mind a few of the things I've mentioned in the length of my review. As well as the corrections and comments Azila made in her's. Keep up the great work!

-Smylin'

Mmm, gonna echo SmylinG and Azila a bit here, but I'll try to bring up my own points too.

This really did feel a lot like Castaway and the problem was there wasn't much of a plot to distract us from the differences. If there had been some different conflict, perhaps we could have been distracted from the fact that it was so similar (down to the inanimate friend), but as is... it was the first thing I noticed and really the only thing I could think about.

As is, there isn't a whole lot of a conflict. She doesn't seem to be actively trying to get off the island. Just kind of getting by. And while getting by is very important for her, it's not terribly interesting to read about. Sure, reading about her daily routine is intriguing at first, seeing how she gets by, but there isn't much to get emotionally invested in. We don't really care about the woman as a person, just sort of as an interesting subject to watch as she lives on this island.

I would have liked to have seen maybe Tom playing a bigger role. We see him here and we see that she thinks of him as real, but I'm with SmylinG in that I would have liked to see how he came about. How did she reach a point where she decided that she would think about a coconut as a real person? Does she ever stop to consider that he looks just like the other coconuts she's trying to eat? Has she ever looked at him as food, then stopped in horror at what she's contemplated. Methinks that dual way of looking at him could be quite interesting, maybe even setting up some conflict as she wonders if she is really losing it.

All in all, this was interesting, but it could use a little more "oomph".

Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions!

~GryphonFledgling