Young Writers Society

My name is Jack Grandcolas, a 46 year old man, but I’m not normal. When I was 28 years old I married the woman of my dreams. We wanted a child and she got pregnant many times but none worked out. In the late summer of 2001 the news came! She was pregnant. In September if she still had the baby we would officially announce it. September 11, 2001 was the day my wife was to come home from a funeral. I was excited as I got up that morning but something in my head told me something was wrong. I turned on the news as I ate breakfast and nearly choked on my food; two commercial airplanes had crashed into the twin towers. Naturally, I panicked knowing my wife was on a plane. She would be fine, I told myself. She wasn’t on those planes, but… no, I wouldn’t think about that.

I went on with my day but Lauren never went out of my head as I heard that a third plane had crashed. I hoped she would be careful, but careful of what? To that I had no answer. When I got home, I reached for the phone and had one new message. The message read: “Hi Sweetie. There’s a little problem on the plane. I’m totally fine, just a little problem and I want you to know how much I love you, know that. I am fine and comfortable… for now. I love you more than anything, just know that. It’s just a little problem. Tell my family I love them as well. I love you.” Beee-

I hung up the phone, shaking uncontrollably. I tried to sit down but I couldn’t move. In that moment my dreams were crushed. I would never see my newborn baby, never have a fiftieth anniversary, I would never give my daughter away at her wedding, my wife would never come home. That’s when it got hard to breathe. I’d never realized that a house built for a family could be so lonely without one. For the weeks afterward the basics were hard to remember. I couldn’t eat, sleep. I would wake up crying. I had forgotten how to breathe naturally. After that I began to realize I was depressed. There was no other word for it. I knew that, so I began to heal.

After the depression came the longing. The longing to be with Lauren. By October, I’d lost 30 pounds. The sympathy notes kept piling in, so I answered as many as I could. I started working part time in November and full time in January. I organized some organizations and went to media interviews. It got easier to think of her. But the best years of my life were the fifteen I spent with Lauren Grandcolas.

Hai! I see from your joining date that, technically, you're not really new, but I haven't seen you around and I don't often get to say this so, "Welcome to YWS!"

Are you sure this belongs in Historical Fiction? It's rather recent for that, I'm thinking. Anyway. Your writing is good, but the main problem I had with this was the pace. You never got into the story, you just skimmed along the top. You're like one of those water-skater-bug-things, they poise along the top of the water and never go under. I want to go under, I want to know what the water's like, if there's weed and tiny dancing fish, if there's shiny things hidden in the mud.

Hey, cool metaphor. Go me.

You had the character, Jack Grandcolas (what's up with that surname? It makes me think of king-size fizzy drinks), but I didn't get to know him. I don't really know anything about him. I don't know anything that makes him unique, that makes him him. He had a wife who got pregnant, which he's happy about. Big deal, most everybody would be. She dies and the unborn baby die. He's upset. So what, so would everyone else be. You see what I'm getting at? There's nothing here that makes your character real. You have generic emotions, generic reactions. Nothing human.

The same applies to the rest of the story. It's all telling. It's "this happened, this happened, this happened, this happened, this happened". There's no spark that brings it to life, no emotion that makes me pause, no description to make me think, 'Oh yeah, cool, I get you'. It's flat.

You could try focusing on just one scene, maybe, and pour all the emotion and all into that, so it's short and punchy. You write well, you do, it's just your handling of the pace and character that could be better. From reading this, I get that feeling that this could be very powerful and colourful and emotional, but right now it's lacking all that.

PM me if you have any questions!

-Twit

Okay, I agree with Twit here: You've only skimmed the top of the story.

I think that the story should have more depth and character. Since at the moment, the characters don't really have much
character. We don't know what makes them unique and the way they are so. The things we know are: He's Jack Grandcolas, 46-year-old and lost a very dear wife. And that's cool, but with characters, I like to give them something that marks them as they're own being, something that makes them them and not the person next door. Something that give them depth and personality.

And yes, once again I have to agree with Twit, the story's a tad flat. However, I think that you could fix that up by giving the story and character more depth and personality.

But, to talk about something else, the style in which you wrote the story is superb. I liked it. Infact, I liked the whole story, it just needs a bit more depth written into it.

Any changes I make (suggest) are in blue


My name is Jack Grandcolas, I'm 46 year old man, but I’m not normal. When I was 28 years old I married the woman of my dreams. We wanted a child like a flower wants water. [color=#0040FF][color=#0040FF]My wife[/color][/color] got pregnant many times but none worked out. In the late summer of 2001 the news came! She was pregnant. In September if she still had the baby we would officially announce it. September 11, 2001 was the day my wife was to come home from a funeral. I was excited as I got up that morning, but [color=#0040FF]my[/color] head told me something was wrong. I turned on the news as I ate breakfast and nearly choked on my food; two commercial airplanes had crashed into the Twin towers in NY. Naturally, I panicked knowing my wife was on a plane. She would be fine, I told myself. She wasn’t on those planes, but… no, I wouldn’t think about that.

I went on with my day but Lauren never went out of my head as I heard that a third plane had crashed. I hoped she would be careful, but careful of what? To that I had no answer. When I got home, I reached for the phone and had one new message. The message read: “Hi Sweetie. There’s a little problem on the plane. I’m totally fine, just a little problem and I want you to know how much I love you, know that. I am fine and comfortable… for now. I love you more than anything, just know that. It’s just a little problem. Tell my family I love them as well. I love you.” Beee-

I hung up the phone, shaking uncontrollably. I tried to sit down but I couldn’t move. In that moment my dreams were crushed. I would never see my newborn baby, never have a fiftieth anniversary. I would never give my daughter away at her wedding or teach my son to play football. My wife would never come home. That’s when it got hard to breathe. I’d never realized that a house built for a family could be so lonely without one. For the weeks afterward the basics were hard to remember. I couldn’t eat, sleep or think. I would wake up crying. I had forgotten how to breathe naturally. After that I began to realize I was depressed. There was no other word for it. I knew that, so I began to heal.

After the depression came the longing. The longing to be with Lauren. By October, I’d lost 30 pounds. The sympathy notes kept piling in, so I answered as many as I could. I started working part time in November and full time in January. I organized some organizations and went to media interviews. It got easier to think of her. But the best years of my life were the fifteen I spent with Lauren Grandcolas.