Young Writers Society

Annabelle
I up thrust my head soaringly, with morose, while looking through the myriad of boxes of the new bibles in my refined parlor. Pouting about needing to make bookmarks for them all, procrastinating, I strode my aging body over to the kitchen and try to find a chore. I thrust the crank in my left hand to grind the coffee, looking in the mere glass jug holding it all. I noticed my chocolate colored hair graying at the sides .Hot tempered with Pastor Bentley’s discourteous assuming manner, I glimpsed out the window of the clement afternoon.
I observed Anne and Dr. Acres walking arm in arm on Down’s lane, the lane composed of timber planks and jagged clay. The couple paused at the white cambered door way of wood, beset with lilies. They pecked each other on their flushed cheeks, elevated with a smile, like a clad little girl on Christmas day. Dr. Acres fled, with Anne waving goodbyes late of him. Anne plodded up her lane and onto the porch of blushing plum and ivory colors with the gingerbread style cuts of wood and shutters, in a leisurely pace.
I sulked again about my love life. I promptly arranged a yellow cake and peppermint tea into a rattan basket and trudged out my front door and out onto the lawn of flourishing thick grass. Seeing alluring Anne seated herself in a rocking chair upon her portico constructing a crown of daisies, I quickly snapped at her.
“You’re wasting your time! You might as well be cleaning up after the Hirsch’s animals.”
“Oh Annabelle, what a pristine day it is outside! Anne uttered
“Pristine? Oh Anne I came just in time!”
“For what?” Anne queried
“For tea, you need my peppermint tea! Come on inside Anne!”
Anne immediately obeyed blissfully, dawdling into the front door and down the lengthy hallway to the kitchen on my behalf. Within a few minutes, I poured boiling water into two of the alluring china cups, decorated with the traditional Swedish blue and white, but with gold décor slung to the edges.
By means of Anne sipping the prominent peppermint tea, I queried, “Feel better?”
“About what?” posed Anne
“You’re so in love that you forgot your senses. Oh forget it, you probably don’t remember.” I uttered chuckling.
“I’m not in love,” declared Anne, “I was just helping Dr. Acres in his office.”
Really,” I said sarcastically, “Well keep drinking Anne, that tea will stop you from wanting to help in Dr. Acres office.”
Anne gulped the last bit of it down her throat with an astonished expression. “This tea is probably why you aren’t married yet. And you continuously drink it any day and everyday and subsequently mope until you receive the consideration of all the other ladies!”
“Goodness Anne, you love jumping to conclusions. My, the children play so quietly up stairs; I haven’t even seen them out on the lawn all day? I thought they just loved the croquet set they received for Christmas.”
“Oh, there not even here, school started today and stop pretending to care about them!”Anne declared
“Well they need some motherly love; they seem to become sadder each and every day.”
“Well you’re wrong; they seem to become more content as time passes. They don’t need your motherly love; Mr. Laval is hiring a nanny from the states. She’ll be at Divine Orchards here at noon tomorrow.
“A nanny?!” I bellowed aghast
“Yes, Jane Langley will be here tomorrow at noon.”
“You must be kidding; frankly I don’t think Charles would hire the such.”
“Sure he would.”Anne grinned
“The children don’t need a nanny, they seem perfectly fine.”
“I agree, but I was hired maid and yet I haven’t one mess to clean up for the past year. But this house is very special to them I plan to run it.”
“Whatever suites you’re fancy.”I said

Hi, it's Jet here. First review! Usually, with a piece this short, I'd nitpick, but I think you'd benefit more if I went over a few general points with you. I want to get this clear straight off, though. I'm not trying to put you off. I've pointed out what you need to work on, and I hope you accept that this is a crit, and not necessarily complimentary. If I have to say it, I guess I will: we only learn from our mistakes.

Not every noun needs an adjective. Not every verb needs an adverb. These are two very important rules of writing that teachers sometimes neglect to mention in the early years of English class, when an expanding vocabulary is everything, but here, you're not trying to score points on a test. We're reading your work, as we would a novel in our spare time, and to a reader, an excessive amount of adverbs and adjectives sticks out like a sore thumb.

Now, I'll give you a short exercise to do, taken from lilymoore's article on keeping writing simple. Highlight all the adjectives in this piece with a red, orange, or blue font - something bright, basically, and watch as your entire page begins to fill up with adjectives. Then, go through and delete some, but not all, of these adjectives, especially where you have two in a row. You don't need them! Using adjectives with every noun detracts from the noun itself, as if you're saying that the noun can't quite stand on its own.

Adverbs, especially the ones that end in "-ly" are a bit of a pet hate of some critiquers. I don't include myself in that category, but the amount of adverbs you use in this story is obvious to any reviewer. I've tried to help you out here, and copied over some advice from another website, which in turn quotes several different writers.

William Zinsser, On Writing Well (5th Edition) wrote:Most adverbs are unnecessary. You will clutter your sentence and annoy the reader if you choose a verb that has a specific meaning and then add an adverb that carries the same meaning. Don't tell us that the radio blared loudly - "blare" connotes loudness. Don't write that someone clenched his teeth tightly - there's no other way to clench teeth. Again and again in careless writing, strong verbs are weakened by redundant adverbs.

That pretty much sums it up. Mostly, the verb will stand for itself. So, I recommend that after you do the adjective count, go back through and highlight the adverbs in a different colour. This time, you can cut all of them. Okay, so maybe in usual circumstances you'd keep a few, but I think it'll help you as a writer to cut them all and realise that you really didn't need them.

It applies to dialogue too. Hardly any dialogue tags need an adverb, but that's bringing me on to my next point.

Dialogue tags: there's nothing wrong with "said"!. Okay, this is similar to the point above, but I still need to go over it. Once again, relying on primary education leaves young writers a little bit confused as they get older; when can we use said? I was taught that it was a simple word to use in writing, and that I should drop it in favour of let's say, your favourite, "uttered". That one irritates me a lot, personally, but I'll try to explain to you that "said" really isn't so bad.

Again, I'll quote an outside source that sums up my points.

In most cases, the word "said" would work just fine, and using said bookisms [synonyms for "said"] detracts from the dialogue. Avoid drowning your dialogue in phrases such as exclaimed, murmured, shouted, whimpered, asserted, inquired, demanded, queried, thundered, whispered, and muttered. These words make it sound as if you have fallen in love with your thesaurus. If the dialogue is strong enough, "she said" and "he said" will do. If the dialogue is not strong enough, rewrite the dialogue instead of using said bookisms to bolster it.

Most readers barely notice simple dialogue tags like "said" and "asked", and I personally have no problem with "whispered" or "muttered" either. It's when you start dropping in "queried", "questioned", "uttered", "declared", "bellowed" and so on that I begin to worry. They draw my attention, so much so that I lost interest in the dialogue completely towards the end of your story.

"Said" is your best friend. Trust him and stop kicking him out of your stories in favour of bookisms that only drag your writing down.

Please punctuate dialogue correctly. Snoink has a good article on it right here on YWS, complete with the basic rules of dialogue grammar/punctuation. Click here to view that article, and memorise the rules it provides. They're simple.

Okay, that's about it from me. I got distracted by your grammar and writing itself, so I can't really comment too much on the actual storyline. Please don't be discouraged by everything I've said; I wouldn't have bothered to write all this if I didn't think you could take it and get better. That's what reviews are for: getting better. If you find it hard to take, leave the computer, remember that as far as you're concerned I'm just words on a screen, come back and read it again. If it's still hard, leave this for a few weeks and come back to it when you're ready.

Good luck.

This is a very nice piece. Is this just the first chapter, or is it supposed to be a stand alone story? Just curious.

So, I have to agree with Jetpack. All of the adjectives were distracting. We don't need extreme detail on every little thing, but we do need some more description on your characters, I think. All I know about Annabelle is that she's pretty bitter about love. Then there's no description of Anne either.

Also, some of your sentences really didn't make sense to me.

I up thrust my head soaringly, with morose, while looking through the myriad of boxes of the new bibles in my refined parlor.

I didn't understand what this sentence was trying to say, especially the "I up thrust my head soaringly" part. I'm not quite sure how you'd change it. Maybe something like "I thrust my head up, looking through the myriad of boxes . . . etc."

But I really like your characters, love-sick Anne and bitter Annabelle, although their names are kind of similar and it is kind of confusing. I think this has the potential to turn into a really great story. For sure, keep working on it. I'm excited to see where you take it.

Thank you JetPack so much. I know the names are similar of anne and annabel but I am still trying to pick the perfect name for Annabele so I just randomlt picked it. I also agree with I my needing to use the word said, but I have to turn this in to my writing teacher and I'll get ALOT of points taken off if I use said and some of those other overused words(Pretty, Ugly, get, went, hard,etc.) BUt thank you sooo much I'll definatley delete some of those adjectives. Anyway here is story writen without them.


Annabelle
I up thrust my head, with morose, while looking through the myriad of boxes of the new bibles in my parlor. Pouting about needing to make bookmarks for them all, procrastinating, I strode my body over to the kitchen and trying to find a chore. I thrust the crank in my left hand to grind the coffee beans, looking in the mere glass jug holding it all. I noticed my chocolate colored hair graying at the sides .Hot tempered with Pastor Bentley’s discourteous assuming manner, I glimpsed out the window of the clement afternoon.
I observed Anne and Dr. Acres walking arm in arm on Down’s lane, the lane composed of timber planks and jagged clay. The couple paused at the white cambered door way of wood, beset with lilies. They pecked each other on their flushed cheeks, elevated with a smile, like a clad little girl on Christmas day. Dr. Acres fled, with Anne waving goodbyes late of him. Anne plodded up her lane and onto the porch of blushing plum and ivory colors with the gingerbread style cuts of wood and shutters, in a leisurely pace.
I sulked again about my love life. I promptly arranged a cake and peppermint tea into a rattan basket and trudged out my front door and out onto the lawn of flourishing thick grass. Seeing alluring Anne seated herself in a rocking chair upon her portico constructing a crown of daisies, I quickly snapped at her.
“You’re wasting your time! You might as well be cleaning up after the Hirsch’s animals.”
“Oh Annabelle, what a pristine day it is outside! Anne uttered
“Pristine? Oh Anne I came just in time!”
“For what?” Anne queried
“For tea, you need my peppermint tea! Come on inside Anne!”
Anne immediately obeyed blissfully, dawdling into the front door and down the lengthy hallway to the kitchen on my behalf. Within a few minutes, I poured boiling water into two of the alluring china cups, decorated with the traditional Swedish blue and white, but with gold décor slung to the edges.
By means of Anne sipping the prominent peppermint tea, I queried, “Feel better?”
“About what?” posed Anne
“You’re so in love that you forgot your senses. Oh forget it, you probably don’t remember.” I uttered chuckling.
“I’m not in love,” declared Anne, “I was just helping Dr. Acres in his office.”
Really,” I said sarcastically, “Well keep drinking Anne, that tea will stop you from wanting to help in Dr. Acres office.”
Anne gulped the last bit of it down her throat with an astonished expression. “This tea is probably why you aren’t married yet. And you continuously drink it any day and everyday and subsequently mope until you receive the consideration of all the other ladies!”
“Goodness Anne, you love jumping to conclusions. My, the children play so quietly up stairs; I haven’t even seen them out on the lawn all day? I thought they just loved the croquet set they received for Christmas.”
“Oh, there not even here, school started today and stop pretending to care about them!”Anne declared
“Well they need some motherly love; they seem to become sadder each and every day.”
“Well you’re wrong; they seem to become more content as time passes. They don’t need your motherly love; Mr. Laval is hiring a nanny from the states. She’ll be at Divine Orchards at noon tomorrow.
“A nanny?!” I bellowed aghast
“Yes, Jane Langley will be here tomorrow at noon.”
“You must be kidding; frankly I don’t think Charles would hire the such.”
“Sure he would.”Anne grinned
“The children don’t need a nanny, they seem perfectly fine.”
“I agree, but I was hired maid and yet I haven’t one mess to clean up for the past year. But this house is very special to them I plan to run it.”

Hey Hannah! So I'm going to critique the edited version you posted- remember you can edit the original post if you'd like, just click edit and replace it!

Anyway, hi, if we haven't met, I'm Stella!

I. NITPICKS

I up thrust my head, with morose, while looking through the myriad of boxes of the new bibles in my parlor.

with morose? And why is she thrusting her head up anyway?

and trying to find a chore.

tried.

The couple paused at the white cambered door way of wood, beset with lilies.

doorway, also, maybe wooden doorway rather than doorway of wood?

like a clad little girl on Christmas day.

glad, maybe?

“Oh Annabelle, what a pristine day it is outside! Anne uttered

outside!" Anne uttered.

“For what?” Anne queried

Anne queried.

of the alluring china cups,

alluring teacups? Really?

“About what?” posed Anne

Full stop at the end. Be careful not to leave these off.

don’t remember.” I uttered chuckling.

remember," I uttered.

Really,” I said sarcastically,

"Really," I said sarcastically.

“Oh, there not even here,

they're.

from the states.

States.

“A nanny?!” I bellowed aghast

Again, the full stop.

Okay...

II. PROOFREADING

I can't stress the importance of this- please be careful about proofreading. You're leaving off the punctuation at the end of lines and things, it just makes things look messy. Proofreading won't take long, but I advise it wholly to catch all those little mistakes.

Also, just on punctuation: topic44898.html You seem a bit off with the dialogue punctuation- this article's great to help you understand that.

III. WORDINESS

At the moment, no offence, but your story does sound a little like a thesaurus. I know Jetpack advised you against using too many plain words, but honestly, sentences don't need as many big ones as you're putting in. Relax. Simple vocab is just as effective as the fancy stuff. Also be careful with putting in too many adjectives and especially adverbs- they can make your prose sound very purple. An example:

Anne immediately obeyed blissfully, dawdling into the front door and down the lengthy hallway to the kitchen on my behalf.

That's two adverbs in the first clause. Even maybe if you have to use more words or break it up, it'll sound better. For instance:

Anne immediately obeyed. She came, dawdling, through the front door and down the long hall to the kitchen.

It seems clearer and more inviting to the reader.

IV. OVERALL

I'm wondering where this is going. Your dialogue seems a little forced, but it can do that to anyone, dialogue comes with practice. This just needs a little polishing and it'll be good!

Hope I helped, drop me a note if you need anything!

-Stella x

Here is my story rewritten and some parts added. After reading can somebpdy answer my questions below? thanks!

Annabelle September 27, 1901
I crossed my arms with glum, while looking through the myriad of boxes of the new bibles in my parlor. Pouting about needing to make bookmarks for them all, I strode over to the kitchen and tried to find a chore. I thrust the crank in my left hand to drudge the coffee, which was doubtlessly the direst task to do for my stiff wrist and fingers. Looking in the mere glass jug holding it all, I noticed through the reflection that my hair was almost grayed. Fuming with Pastor Bentley’s discourteous assuming manner, I glimpsed out the window of the clement afternoon.
I observed Lane and Dr. Petit walking arm in arm on Down’s lane, the lane composed of timber planks and jagged clay. The negligent wagons had razed the roads and the town was heedless of replacing the planks, so thus it was mixture of loose planks over dirt and muck over molded wood. It was the country side needless to say, but the outskirts of what where the country begun and ended and where the town begun and ended still needed proper mind.
The couple paused at the white cambered wood door way, beset with lilies. They pecked each other on their flushed cheeks, elevated with a smile, like a clad young girl on Christmas day. Dr. Petit fled, with Lane waving goodbyes late of him. She plodded up her lane and onto the porch of blushing plum and ivory, in a leisurely pace.
I sulked again about my years; of how much gossip and waiting was wasted. I could have lived in town and owned a sewing shop, or I could have had a family and lived in the rolling fields as a farmer or maybe own an orchard like the Roux’s, and then I could have retired in over in Denamark or maybe the states, maybe if I was fond of them. I promptly arranged peppermint tea into a rattan basket and trudged out my door to the clusters of dull flowers of the garden with raveled weeds. Seeing alluring Lane seated herself in a rocking chair upon her portico constructing a crown of daisies, I quickly snapped at her.
“You’re wasting your time! You might as well be cleaning up after the Babine’s animals.”
“Oh Annabelle, what a pristine day it is outside!” Lane uttered
“Pristine? Oh Lane I came just in time!”
“For what?” Lane queried
“For tea, you need my peppermint tea! Come on inside Lane!”
Lane immediately obeyed blissfully, dawdling into the front door and down the lengthy hallway to the kitchen. Within a minority of minutes, I poured torrid water into two of the china cups.
By means of Lane sipping my prominent tea, I queried, “Feel better?”
“About what?” posed Lane
“You’re so in love that you forgot your senses. Oh forget it, you probably don’t remember.” I uttered chuckling.
“I’m not in love,” declared Lane, “I was just helping Dr.Petit in his office.”
“Really,” I said sarcastically, “Well keep drinking Lane, that tea will stop you from wanting to help in Dr. Petit’s office.”
Lane gulped the last bit of it down her throat with an astonished expression. “This tea is probably why you aren’t married yet. And you continuously drink it every day and subsequently mope until you receive the consideration of all the others!”
“Goodness Lane, you love jumping to conclusions. My, the children play so quietly up stairs; I haven’t even seen them out on the lawn all day? I thought they just loved the croquet set they received for Christmas.”
“Oh, there not even here, school started last week, and-and-and stop pretending to care about them!”Lane declared
“Well they need some motherly love; they seem to become sadder each and every day.”
“Well you’re wrong; they seem to become more content as time passes. They don’t need your motherly love; Mr. Roux is hiring a governess from the states. She’ll be here at noon tomorrow.”
“A governess?!” I bellowed aghast
“Yes, Mildred Aldridge will be at Divine Orchards at noon tomorrow.”
“You must be kidding; frankly I don’t think Carson would hire such.”
“Sure he would.”Lane grinned
“The children don’t need a governess, they seem perfectly fine.”
“I agree, but I was hired housekeeper. It’s none of my business and, well your just a neighbor it’s more of my business the yours.”
“What about your brother, is it more his affair or just yours?”
“I’m not saying its anybodies, but I’m cued housekeeper as well as hostess. I direct my brother as caretaker, the cooking, the cleaning, the parties, and care for the girls. Candidly, I run the household so I should be in most consideration of Mildred. The governess will be the perfect thing for this house. Did you know Carson came home in the middle of supper last night?”

“Well,” said Annabelle
“He came in and went straight up stairs; he didn’t even come to greet his children. He couldn’t have been tired; he came home for dinner and left late this morning, didn’t talk to his children didn’t look at his children, he was in and out. He gives better attention to his dog then to his own brood. Thank goodness they’re in school. I don’t even have to take care of Cora; she is passed to other mothers as a babysitting guild with church.”


Lane September 28, 1901
Cedrick and I lingered around the Windsor and Annapolis Valley railway waiting for Ms. Mildred through the depth of the fog and haze. We couldn’t tell if the passenger trains were swaying in or the apple trains. Despite the fact that the light house was awake a few miles away, the fog would not engoul it. The wind was rather intense blowing hats off of mens heads and hair in womens faces. Now that would be a good reason for young girls to wear bonnets and women to wear heavy hats with flowers and lace according to the season and time of day to fit the appropriate occasion. When the train came in the crowds became heavier and as hours passed they condensed. In the meantime I was looking for a red haired, green eyed elder woman. How hard was it to find an Irish woman out of all Swedes and Danes, and Brits? After the crowds left with heir robust carriages down the fields and shops, the only people around the station were my brother, a young lady assembled in one of the crooked benches in the corner, the ticket master leaning against his desk asleep, and myself.
I strode over to the man’s desk and attempted to wake him up. I scrutinized him, finding that he had a bulky nose, fine enough to make a noisy snore. I swung my purse to shatter his sleep. With many attempts, the man awoke looking starry eyed at me and his surroundings.
“We closed!” he howled, “Cum back the mornin!”
“Pronounce your words accurately. And we’re not here to buy, I’m trying to find a Mildred Aldridge, she arrived this morning on the nine AM train?” I asked
“No miss. Not a Mildred but there is a Jane around the corner. She been here since last night, arrived on the nine PM train. Says she sposse to be a nanny or somptin. Uh for the Roux’s.” he stated
Without a thank you, Lane left the ticket master to close the office and turned to the girl scrawled on the bench.
“Miss. Jane?” I alleged
“Yes,” uttered the lady as she perked up from her stillness, “Jane DuPont.”
“Huh, well gather your things you’ll come home with us until we can settle this arrangement.”
“Are you the Roux’s?” Jane mumbled under her breath
“No, we work for the Roux’s but we were to get a Ms. Mildred Langley, mind the Ms. Part do you.” I said
“Oh Lane,” cried Cedrick, “you got a sensible governess. She may not be elder but she is still help.”
“She’s not going to stay to be our nanny. We are getting Mildred Langley through thick or thin.” exclaimed Lane.
“Oh please no!” cried Jane as we gathered in the carriage, “My mother is sick and I have a four year old sister at home. My father has died and so have my two brothers. I’m the only one well, and yet the farm is going downhill and we barely eat. As you can see I’m too bony as it is.”
“Well if your conclusions are correct then who is taking care of your mother and sister, they will surely die within days without your help.”
“Oh Bonny is under the wing of the minister’s wife for a while and mother is being taken care of at the clinic until Aunt Vivian can come join them. The awful idea though is that Aunt Vivian is half way across the world, and I’m not certain that she could be dead. But in the meantime I must work to pay of the wasted harvest, infirmary bills, meals and church. Please, please don’t rid me.”

Thankyou jetpack and stell so much, your critisiim really helped me. I just hope that the characters are in depth enoGh, if not there will be much more of it in ch. 2.
I took out a-lot of adgectives so i'm wondering if i need to take out more or not?

“I’m not in love,” declared Lane, “I was just helping Dr.Petit in his office.”
“Really,” I said sarcastically, “Well keep drinking Lane, that tea will stop you from wanting to help in Dr. Petit’s office.”

I need help on rewriting the quote above, I don't want it to sound like they had s*x or anything, just a visit on which it was a date.
I'll be writting ch. 2 soon so please read and review that to!