Young Writers Society

This is my first story. i was inspired by WWII soldiers and decided to write this.
CHAPTER ONE

Krak-Boom! “Must be a storm coming.” I said. One of the Commanding Officers just laughed
“That’s just the sound of the shells coming from them destroyers.”
Just then I saw what the officer was talking about. Before me stood the large destroyers, supply ships, and smoldering wreckage of dozens of other ships preyed on by Japanese Kamikazes and artillery shells.
We started drifting slowly toward shore when I said, “When do we …. Bluuuuuggh,” Apparently I haven’t gotten used to the bumpy seas so I threw up, “…get off at beaches?”
“WE’LL GET OFF AT THE SHORES BUT BE CAREFUL FOR THE MACHNE GUNS, THEY’LL TAKE YOUR ARMS AND YOUR LEGS!” The driver shouted back over the engine noise. I decided to take time to pray and clean my Standard Issue M1 Carbine which isn’t as good in the salty air.
Suddenly the driver shouted, “EVERYBODY UP AND ON THE BEACH!” This was the exciting part, not the happy kind of exciting civvies refer to but the soldier type the mix of anger and fear.
It all happened in a second I piled onto the beach. All I heard was screams and gunfire as I ran to a tank barrier. My Commander instructed us to move to a hill of sand. I sprinted to the hill and then I ran to natural wall of rock the Japanese dug into. As it went into the night the sky was lit up shells. We finally gained ground and got past the wall. We were split into groups of four and put into foxholes. The Commanding Officer told us, “Better get to know these men, ‘cause they’ll be your family for the next few days.” These foxholes were crammed with the four of us. In my foxhole, I was with Srg. Rosenthal, Briggs, and Prvt. Henderson. Henderson was a rookie sniper from Kansas who went to camp with me. Briggs or Corporal Briggs was in the infantry like me. Srg. Rosenthal or Rosie by his friends has been in the U.S. Army ever since Pearl Harbor.

CHAPTER TWO

Let me introduce myself, I’m Prvt. Elijah Hawkwood of the 2nd infantry division. I grew up in a small town in Minnesota where the war didn’t reach us. In High School it was one of the few places the war did get. That is where most of my friends decided to enlist. It was a hard decision, but I thought it was a good idea to enlist. It was even harder to tell my mom; but she said, although she despised the idea, it was my choice, but that I would have to write every week and tell her I was alright. I was seventeen and my mom said she wasn’t going to be the one to sign my enlisting papers. That problem involved me to talk to dad. At first he said the same thing as mom that he hated the idea, but after awhile he loved it, and said it would teach me discipline, so he signed for me.


CHAPTER THREE

I signed up to fight for my country not to suffer at boot camp, so it came as a surprise that we were treated so horribly at camp. The first day started out meeting our Drill Instructor; then bunk and locker assignments and evening drills. The Instructor was literally loud and clear about our schedule of the drills. The lay-out of the camp was a mess hall; then down a hallway to a left was the barracks; then off to the side were the bathrooms. The bathrooms were the worst, there was ten toilets, five sinks, and three medium sized mirrors all shared by two hundred fifty men.
In the morning we woke up at 4:00 and all huddled into the bathroom. After getting ready we walked in the dark to the mess hall. We all ate silently and tiredly, then prepared for drills. We started off doing simple things, like jumping jacks and push ups. Then we took a five-mile hike in full dress carrying a forty lbs. pack. The only fun part about boot camp was the obstacle course, which started as a wall that you had to climb over then under a wall of barbed wire in enough time, or you had to do it again, while carrying a testing rifle.
The first day of the last week we were assigned rifles, grenades, and helmets. I thought it was going to be great having a gun, I mean rifle, but learned that we had to take apart and reassemble our rifles over and over again blindfolded. We were taken down to the target range and practiced there every day then on the second to last day we went down to the range to take our shooting test. I checked off as a junior sharpshooter.
The last day we shipped off to California, then on a troop ship we set off to Pearl Harbor. We spent a week or so there and we were given money to spend on necessities such as cigarettes or boots.
After our week in Hawaii, we were put on another ship, and sent to an island southeast of Japan where we would see combat for the first time.

Hello TheStorm! I'll be your reviewer for today!

Okay, so I didn't find all that many nitpicks. And me, having my grandfather fight in WWII I really felt something. I mean he was in the airforce, but still. Anyways, it was really great. Except for one thing. I think you should add more emotion and detail. I mean, how would you be feeling? Describe the surroundings more. You're telling me what happened. Try and SHOW me what happened. It was really great though. Can't wait to see more!

~Forest

Hai! I see you've only done one review that's showed up on your profile. Try and do more; it's fairer that way, and also means that more people know you so you can ask them to review your work in return.

We started drifting slowly toward shore when I said, “When do we …. Bluuuuuggh,” Apparently I haven’t gotten used to the bumpy seas so I threw up, “…get off at beaches?”

If he’s going to throw up, he would have been feeling sick for a while beforehand, especially if he’s seasick. If he’s seasick, he’s not really going to interested in details about when they get off at the beaches. If you’re seasick, you’re more interested in curling up into a ball with your eyes shut and your teeth clenched just hoping that you aren’t going to hurl, and if you do that it won’t be messy.

“WE’LL GET OFF AT THE SHORES BUT BE CAREFUL FOR THE MACHNE GUNS, THEY’LL TAKE YOUR ARMS AND YOUR LEGS!” The driver shouted back over the engine noise.

Don’t write stuff out in capitals as it looks kind of messy. Just saying that the driver shouted back over the engine noise is enough to show us that he’s talking loudly.

It all happened in a second I piled onto the beach. All I heard was screams and gunfire as I ran to a tank barrier. My Commander instructed us to move to a hill of sand. I sprinted to the hill and then I ran to natural wall of rock the Japanese dug into. As it went into the night the sky was lit up shells. We finally gained ground and got past the wall. We were split into groups of four and put into foxholes.

A few sentences before, you say that this is going to be the good part, the exciting soldier part, but you skim over it with just a few words. I want to know everything; the fear, the anger, the numbness, the sounds, the smells, the sights, the odd things that don’t make any sense but are all part of it. Stuff that makes writing interesting, because it helps the reader visualise what’s happening. All you’ve got here is some bland “We did this, then this, then this, then it was all over.”

Let me introduce myself, I’m Prvt. Elijah Hawkwood of the 2nd infantry division.

Which 2nd Infantry Division? I'd write out Private, as it's narrative, not a list of despatches.

I was seventeen and my mom said she wasn’t going to be the one to sign my enlisting papers.

Wasn’t eighteen the standard conscription age?

~

Hai!

Story-wise, this was a little flat. It’s all telling, and no showing. I haven’t got a clear impression of the character – in fact I don’t know anything about him. I don’t know whether he’s a pessimist or an optimist, whether he likes Marmite or Vegemite, what he thinks about killing people and the whole soldier-thing, whether he thinks about death, whether he likes the crusts on his bread, if he has a girl back home, or if he hasn’t does he wish he had. There’s so many things that make up a person, and as the writer, you’ve got to show your readers what type of person your character’s like.

The same applies to your narrative. There was no description. Slow down and describe the scene to us! Remember, we only know as much as you tell us; you’re the window that we see the scene through, and if you don’t pull back the curtains and shine up the glass, we’re not going to see anything. Hey cool, I made a metaphor.

Anywho, keep writing, and PM me if you have any questions!

I like your story, one of my favourite bits was about the father who said joining the army would teach him discipline, he's like the grumpy old guy saying " back in my day we would never have got a way with doing that"
At the beginning when you were saying about the Japanese shells sounding like a storm. I felt as if the character was on the beach hiding, you could fix that by saying " As the boat rocked in the waves, I heard...."
But other than that I enjoyed it.

“Must be a storm coming,” I said.

"Must be a storm coming," I said. One of the commanding officers just laughed. “That’s just the sound of the shells coming from them destroyers.”

Elijah would have to be a complete retard to mix the sound of shells with the sound of thunder. Although this is good for making us realize that Elijah has never been in the actual war before, it also makes him seem to be very ignorant. After all, he has been trained to know when to be ready for battle.

preyed on by Japanese Kamikazes and artillery shells.

Mentioning the Japanese Kamikazes gives us some setting, but I don't really think that Kamikazes played all that big of a part in the war. I mean, they were a total waste of supplies. (kamikazes were suicide missions in which Japanese flew airplanes into American ships and stuff, in case you don't already know). It seems kinda unrealistic for Elijah to mention them as a major problem for American ships.

We started drifting slowly toward shore

Aren't they already going in towards the shore?

“When do we …. Bluuuuuggh,” Apparently I haven’t hadn't gotten used to the bumpy seas so I threw up, “…get off at beaches?”

Elijah would never address him commanding officer like this. He would simply wait for instructions. It seems as though Elijah missed out on basic training... Also, you messed up your verb tenses.

“WE’LL GET OFF AT THE SHORES BUT BE CAREFUL FOR THE MACHNE GUNS, THEY’LL TAKE YOUR ARMS AND YOUR LEGS!”

I doubt that the commanding officer would say this. Isn't it kind of assumed that machine guns can shoot off your arms?

The driver shouted back over the engine noise.

What! why would the driver shout this???

I decided to take time to pray and clean my Standard Issue M1 Carbine which isn’t as good in the salty air.

Does salty air really affect the way your rifle shoots? And I don't think he'd have enough time to do either of those things.

Suddenly the driver shouted, “EVERYBODY UP AND ON THE BEACH!”

The driver wouldn't be giving orders.

This was the exciting part, not the happy kind of exciting civvies refer to but the soldier type the mix of anger and fear.

this is not a very good description of the way a soldier feels. Read "All quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque. It has like 150 pages of describing that same feeling, only with better language.

It all happened in a second I piled onto the beach. All I heard was screams and gunfire as I ran to a tank barrier. My Commander instructed us to move to a hill of sand. I sprinted to the hill and then I ran to natural wall of rock the Japanese dug into. As it went into the night the sky was lit up shells. We finally gained ground and got past the wall. We were split into groups of four and put into foxholes. The Commanding Officer told us, “Better get to know these men, ‘cause they’ll be your family for the next few days.” These foxholes were crammed with the four of us. In my foxhole, I was with Srg. Rosenthal, Briggs, and Prvt. Henderson. Henderson was a rookie sniper from Kansas who went to camp with me. Briggs or Corporal Briggs was in the infantry like me. Srg. Rosenthal or Rosie by his friends has been in the U.S. Army ever since Pearl Harbor.

This entire initial scene seems to be taken from the movie "Saving Private Ryan," in the opening scene. Except the opening scene in the movie is about 35+ minutes long, and in your story it seems to only take about 6-7 minutes. Describe more. Make it last longer. Show some more people dying.

Let me introduce myself,

So cliche...

I’m Prvt. Elijah Hawkwood of the 2nd infantry division.

I don't know anything about infantry divisions, but make sure the one you picked is historically accurate.

I grew up in a small town in Minnesota where the war didn’t reach us.

Physically, the war only reached Hawaii, Texas, and the Oregon Coast.

In High School it was one of the few places the war did get. That is where most of my friends decided to enlist. It was a hard decision, but I thought it was a good idea to enlist. It was even harder to tell my mom; but she said, although she despised the idea, it was my choice, but that I would have to write every week and tell her I was alright. I was seventeen and my mom said she wasn’t going to be the one to sign my enlisting papers. That problem involved me to talk to dad. At first he said the same thing as mom that he hated the idea, but after awhile he loved it, and said it would teach me discipline, so he signed for me.

You need to go into more detail of this. Show an actual scene of him just signing up. The way you have written this is clunky, not interesting, and hard to follow.

I signed up to fight for my country not to suffer at boot camp, so it came as a surprise that we were treated so horribly at camp.

Everybody knows that camp is horrible. And this sentence makes Elijah sound like he is still against the authority, although boot camp would have broken him out of this.

This entire chapter, again, is an info-dump, where you tell us about the boy's entire career in only a couple paragraphs. Maybe you should start the story a little earlier? Start it when he signs up, finish with him returning home, forever changed by the horrors of the war.

Oh, and have them fight on some of the southeast-asian islands instead of just in Japan. It seems that people forget that most of the battle with the Japanese was out in the Islands, because both the Americans and the Japanese wanted control of the said Islands. I think.

Hope I helped,
Lena