Young Writers Society

This was originally a story for my English teacher. I wanted to post it because I liked it. This was an assignment after we read the short story called "A Story of an Hour. If you want to read that you can find it here:http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/webtexts/hour/


A slow, quiet knock on the thin, wooden door is never a good sign. When the tentative sound comes from the close friend of your husband's who normally would walk in the large smiles and loud laughter everything gets much, much worse. 
Victoria Jackson had a toddler clinging to her skirts, and a baby on the way. She opened the door to the journalist and immediately stopped her chores "Hello, David..." She studied her guest's face minutely for any sign of the reason for her unexpected visit. 

"Sit, Victoria." 

Being told to sit in her own house made her nervous, for it is also a bad sign. 

She obeyed and picked up the little girl with her father's blue eyes and dimples. 

"Victoria... I got a telegraph," he sighed and ran a large hand through his thick brown hair. He looked up at the ceiling and closed his eyes. "Adam is dead."  

She frowned as if she didn't comprehend and set her daughter down. "What?"
 
David began pacing and replied softly, "There was an accident on the railways. He didn't make it." He waited for tears and denial. He waited for hysterical sobbing... but nothing came. He watched her blank face go from confusion to surprise and felt a nervousness flutter in his stomach. Was Adam nothing to her?

Victoria sat in eerie silence and studied her calloused hands. Hands that had once been delicate and smooth. 
Hands that were ruined with the work of a household. 

For a moment she was filled with surprise, and she was hit with brief sorrow.

She had been young when she had first met him. Young and stupid. So stupid.

He was charming and handsome. He could talk, and she would melt. Soon they were meeting each other when her parents were asleep and he was off of work at the factory.

She got pregnant, and he got mad. Never had she in her seventeen young years seen such cold anger. As if he didn't know what came of his actions.

They got married. He got mean. He got drunk. He got lazy, and she worked and worked and worked.

Never again, never again would she have to clean a shirt that smelled of perfume she could not afford. Not another minute of her day would be wasted ironing a shirt that would wind up wrinkled. How she hated that smell, that too sweet smell of another woman! 

Joy filled her. No, not joy. Joy was saved for the birth of a child, the winning of a war. This was... freedom. She was free of the hateful words and the heavy fist. Free. Free. Free.

A kick from the being within her brought her back to reality, the seriousness of this tragedy.
 
"How will we survive?" she whispered. Without a man's salary she couldn't feed herself not to mention two growing children. She had no money saved up. She had no living relatives.

She listened to her daughter sing childish nonsense and felt a wave of despair wash over her. "I can't work and watch Abby and take care of a baby." 

David stopped his pacing and sat in the chair across from her suddenly. If only she had known years ago, if only Adam hadn't been so skilled at the art of wooing a woman. He could have swooped in and taken this woman for himself. He was friendly with the lowly factory worker for Victoria, to be close, to be ready when she was. Now was his chance to take the only woman he had ever loved for himself. "We both know Adam wasn't faithful... I was thinking... if you see fit, of course, maybe... you would join me in marriage."
 
Victoria blinked but took it in the stoic way she received all information since her marriage. She felt that freedom die as soon as it heard the word. [i]Marriage.[i] What else could it mean than slavery?

To give her life yet again to a man seemed unfair. To pledge yet again to wash perfume from a man's shirts and iron them only to find them in the same sickly sweet smelling pile seemed to be a jail sentence.
 
No rested on her lips.

Abby sang softly in another room with the beautiful ignorance of a young child, and the unborn babe without the stains of the world moved inside of Victoria.
 
No disappeared as her two beloved children came to the foreground of her mind. "Will you love my babies?" she asked.


So I might do a follow up story on David and Victoria if I get the right reviews now that I've edited it.

Hey Megsug! I thought this short story was very good! It was surprising when the wife didn't feel any pain for her husband's death and I loved it. Even though the writing was not very descriptive or lengthy I really felt the emotions you were trying to convey. Good job!

When the tentative sound comes from the close friend of your husband's who normally would walk in the large smiles and loud laughter everything gets much, much worse.

Ack! Run-on sentence! Break it up!

hournalist

I assume you mean journalist? Unless there really is such thing as a hournalist xD.

I don't have time to do more. Loved the story!

Hi,

Before I begin the review, I just wanted to mention something minor about grammar. Make sure you run a spell check through your work before posting it! I noticed quite a few words that were misspelled as well as some other grammar mistakes. Another thing that really helps is reading your work aloud before you post it; you catch a lot more orally then you do just by looking at something. Also, the constant uses of your ellipses get a bit annoying, especially since all of them could really be commas. If you brush up on those things, it will make the story look so much cleaner and more proffesional.

As for the story, it's alright. It's definitely not bad, and it does even have a few nice parts to it. But my main problem with this story is that it feels too vague, like an outline, almost. It's so short that you don't really get a chance to dive into the characters when I can tell that this is supposed to be a very character driven piece. I like David; I think you develop him well. It's Victoria that I have a problem with.

I don't really buy her feelings toward Adam's death. Despite the fact that he did cheat on her, there's got to be some underlying sadness, right? If there isn't, does this surprise her? I'd go more into depth with her memories and show us those mixed feelings; that she loves him but doesn't really feel like she's good enough. Really dive into her perspective (yes, this can be done in third person!) and show us how she's feeling right now. I'd mention her concern toward her children earlier then the last line, though.

Overall, this is short, simple, and sweet, but just needs a little bit of revision. Hope this helps! PM me if you have any questions.

-Elinor x

This was fairly short and simple, which was interesting.
You do have some grammar mistakes, that are simple to find if you go back and reread it.

Now, emotions?
her emotions concerning her husbands death seem fake. Wait, hold on before you start cussing me out, I'll explain.
I think there might be a tear or two for her husband, even though he was a cheater, and maybe a little bit of shock or surpise, when he proposes.
And his propal seems a little out-of-place. Formal mourning times for a husband were good couple of years back then (Assuming yours is set before the 21st century, because it's 'historical') Women would stay single for that long

Anyway, keep writing
~WickedWonder

Hello! First, would like to mention to you that I really enjoyed this piece. As others have already noted, it is best to run spell-check before posting. There were just minor problems.
Anyway, even though this was very short, you get the jist. I just wish that you had put more detail and descprition within the story. You could describe how your MC looks, the house, the man, her husband...etc.
I really enjoy the plot line and that the husband has had affairs. It adds to the story.
I hope you continue this. I would love to read more.
~Ballerina

Hey there megsug! I'm WD and it's lovely to meet you. I'm glad I stumbled across this story!

So, a lot of the things I had to point out have already been mentioned, but I just wanted to emphasize a few points and help you as you revise. Your writing style is working pretty well here. Some of the grammar still needs tweaking, but, all in all, the writing isn't bad. What is not working, however, is the successions of events themselves.

The most obvious part that didn't work for me was David's proposal--even if Victoria is desperate to have somebody to provide for her family, why would David pick that moment to propose? That puts Victoria in a very vulnerable spot, and he hardly seems any kind of rescuer or even remotely nice as the dialogue makes it out to be when he's proposing to Victoria so fast. Second, Victoria's reaction. I can understand if she's not overwhelmed with sadness, but her panic seems muted. She tells us what's at stake now that her husband is dead, but we get very little of her physical reaction. Does she feel dread? Does she feel nauseous? Does her mind scramble to try and think of ways she's going to provide for her family? Right now her reaction isn't simply not-sad; it's dreadfully stoic, and it's muting the emotion.

I also did not understand this section:

She frowned. "What?" She squeezed her daughter until the child squirmed.

"Mommy hurt me," she cried and escaped but all of this went on unnoticed.

Maybe the child is being hurt by the mother's squeezing, but the child saying "Mommy hurt me" suggests to me some sort of abusive relationship, which is not what you are going for here, I think. Really think about the believability, motivations and implications the reactions of your characters have on the audience. And don't be afraid to slow down! Not everything in this story has to happen so fast--you can give Victoria some time to mourn before David proposes to her. You can detail her reaction to Adam's death, detail what their life was like before. Details like this will make this story a whole lot more powerful, and I think you have an interesting base here; it just needs some expanding.

I hope this helps! Keep writing! If you have any questions, feel free to PM me!

Thanks for the all the reviews.

I get what you're saying about the emotions, but I kind of wanted to portray her being trapped in the relationship. I'll try to fix it up.

I realize that the "proper" mourning time in that period was long, but she hasn't ever had a job. She doesn't have any money saved. She wouldn't last a few years. And yes, I do know that I probably should have added some of these facts into the story. I had a page to write this on during the assignment and I just copied it over so I was trying to wrap it up.

I'll try to make it so his proposal isn't so random. Sorry about that. It all made sense in my head.

I've edited this since these reviews so anyone who wants to add something, please do.

You need to work on grammar, contstruction of your train of thought (pun intended) and your intended meaning.