Young Writers Society

[deleted]

very nice. i love it. good job! "tears thick like blood..." i like it!

Hey Thorned! Here as requested.

The wind howled, sending items overboard into the billowing black ocean.

This is weird. It promotes an image where the wind is so strong it literally picks up cargo and flings it into the ocean. xD
Maybe the rocking of the ship tosses things into the sea? It makes more sense.
Also, this is a bit boring for an opening line. It's not very exciting.

black ocean. Waves crashed upon the deck, creating cracks in the wood planks and making them a darker shade of brown. The sky was a deep brown, etched with streaks of yellow lighting.

Too much color description, and all sound unnatural.All this description is too fast. It's very choppy.

Tears, which felt thick like blood,

Can tears really have the consistency of blood?

After everything that I had gone through in my life, after all that had escaped, I did not wanted to end like this.

Fairly generic here, sorry.

Overall
Right now it's just your basic storm scene. It reads like an outline... all you do is describe what is happening. Have some fun! Why should I care about your character? What makes this ship and storm unique?

Good luck,
Antigone

Antigone Cadmus picked up on nearly everything I saw, but I'll still give it a shot xD

ThornedRose wrote:The wind howled, sending items overboard into the billowing black ocean.

"Sending" doesn't seem to work well in this kind of sentence, where I expect you want to evoke some kind of excitement in the reader. I love the phrase "Show not Tell", and to me, "sending" seems like a tell-y word.

Also, I'm curious. What are these items? If you can work descriptions of these items into the story, it would make it seem more visual. As long as the descriptions aren't over done, that is.

ThornedRose wrote:Waves crashed upon the deck, creating cracks in the wood planks and making them a darker shade of brown.

Just like "Sending" in the last sentence, the words "Creating" and "Making" seem too tell-y. You might be wondering why I'm attacking little word choices like this; it's because poor word choices tend to throw Readers out of the story, or even worse might keep them from even coming in.

I had to read this a few times. When I saw the word waves, even though it was paired with the word "crashed", I still thought of those little tiny ones that kids stick their feet into on the beach, and I was like "Wait, I don't get it..." (of course, that could just be my slowness when it comes to catching on to things...). It may help to describe the force or strength of these waves.

Also, take a look at the two ideas in this sentence: cracking the wood planks and turning them a dark brown. When you say that waves are destroying the planks, Reader goes "GASP" and waits for more excitement, something bigger and better and more dangerous. But not only are the waves destroying the ship, but they are making the the wood dark! It doesn't live up to Reader's expectations.

ThornedRose wrote:The strongest of our men were up on deck with me, helping to find a way out. Some were at their sailing stations, some were working repairing the holes in the vessel. I was standing by the wheel.

Again, remember "Show not Tell", because this portion could use a healthy dosage.

ThornedRose wrote:My hair was matted like a rope that had too many knots, dirty, for I had not washed in ages. My body was drenched in rainwater. Tears, which felt thick like blood, flew down my face as I tried to keep my calm.

Yay, description! My favorite is the first sentence, because it plants a firm picture in my brain, which I what I like stories to do.

To say that "tears flew down my face" seems a bit contrived. Maybe "flowed" or something along those lines, but not "flew".

ThornedRose wrote:After everything that I had gone through in my life, after all that had escaped, I did not wanted to end like this.

Should this be "after all that I had escaped?

Hmm...I wonder what kinds of things you've gone through. Which is a good thing. It means you've managed to capture my tiny attention span. But I don't quite feel the sympathy I should for this character, because really, I don't know much about him/her.

Hope you find this review useful!

Um, well, since this is, you know, deleted, I'll lock it...

*LOCKED*