Mmhm..I caught a few of those after I posted it, aha. Oh well. As you said, I can always clean up later.
Thanks for reviewing, though!
Young Adult / Framed in Blood; chapter two. (Analysis)
“Mirja, did you take your medicine?” Possessing no curiosity, I had chose to stare out the window as my therapist drowned me with waves of empty words. I stopped listening after the fourth visit; this was now approximately my fifteenth. I had quickly realized that either what she said could never help me, or I just didn’t want the help. Habouring a sigh, I forced myself to look at her.
”Yeah, I did,” I replied uninterestedly, instantly returning my gaze to the falling snow. I could feel her glare; the sharp heat of it hurt the side of my head. I heard the blood rushing heatedly through her temples, her disgruntled thoughts, mostly pertaining me, frantically race through her mind.
”You know lying about it won’t get you anywhere, and procrastinating won’t help, either.” She replied, growing irritated with my lack of assiduousness.
I watched as she scribbled notes on her clipboard, paying me no heed. I stared at the aging lines on her face, the deep creases in her skin that mine would never obtain.
”I know, I know. And I did, I feel better than ever.” I let what I hoped to be convincing words stumble from my lips. Her and I both knew I never took my medicine; I hated it. It did nothing for me anyways, except sometimes make me more exasperated.
I kicked my feet lightly above the floor, my restless hands fumbling with the buttons on my coat. The carpet below me was the ugliest shade of yellow I’d ever seen, it looked almost brown. I let out a bored sigh just as the little timer sitting on her desk went off.
”Please, Mirjami, take your medication. I’ll see you next week.” She muttered, knowing I’d just ignore her, as she pushed her glasses up her nose. I gritted my teeth as I stood, I hated when people called me by my full name.
”Yeah, I will, don’t worry about it.” I spat out as I walked out the door. The hall was long and creaky as I walked down it, leading me to a waiting room where two others sat waiting and a secretary typing furiously at her desk.
I reached for the doorknob, my energy inflating now that I finally could move about freely. The metal knob was frigid, cooling my hot skin as I touched it. Pulling the stiff door open, the caustic snow greeted me. The cement steps were nearly sleeted with ice as I set my foot on them; the thin fabric of my sneakers leaking in cold air. I tried to tighten my long coat around me as I briskly walked down the street. I kept my head down from keeping the bitter wind from stinging my eyes.
Unable to see where I was going, I bumped into someone; the unexpected collision caused me to stumble backwards into the snowy sidewalk. Freezing powdery snow fell on my face, instantly numbing my cheeks.
”Sorry, love.” I heard a deep voice mumble as a hand reached out, sheathed in a black fingerless glove. Somewhat hesitant, I let my fingers slip in the warm palm, the leather soft as it stuck to my flesh. Once I had regained my balance, I lifted my gaze to meet my assailant.
”Again, I apologize,” he said, watching as I dusted myself off. I had dirty snow clinging to my coat, turning into blotches of wet as it quickly melted from my body’s warmth.
My perpetrator had jet-black hair, just barely reaching the top of his shoulders. He wore nothing but black; a band shirt sticking out of a leather jacket, his eyes rimmed by two black pieces of reflecting plastic. His legs were covered in dark jeans with various chains clinging into the oversized belt loops.
”Accidents happen,” I shrugged as I finished wiping the snow off my pants. I had forgotten my gloves, so my fingertips had turned a pale red and stung from the cold. I imagined the tip of my nose matched the flattering colour, the red an excellent contrast to my milky-white skin.
”Well, thanks,” I murmured, allowing a small wave before pulling my soaked shoes from the snow bank and began walking away.
I didn’t have to look behind me; I could feel his eyes still watching me hurry down the street. I had the urge to look at him once more before he disappeared into the streets of Helsinki, but I resisted and walked on.
The longer I walked, the harder the snow fell and the more ludicrous I felt trying to plow myself through the snow. My nearly all-black attire had been covered in a thin sheet of white snow, melting into the once-warm fabric and gaining a layer of fresh, powdery snow.
Once I made it up the snow-covered steps of the building, I rested against the door. The added weight of the freezing ice had exhausted me. After a moment, I built up the energy to open the door and head inside.
The stale warmth of the building instantly permeated me, making my hands sting in pain as it unfroze the blood in my veins. I kicked clumps of snow from my shoes as I headed towards the elevator. It was one of those old fashioned ones, black and creaky; rusted in spots that would never work again. It often broke, leaving me puzzled as to why no one bothered replacing it.
I pressed the elevators up button several times before I realized yet again it wasn’t working. Hissing curses under my breath, I turned around and started walking up the three flights of stairs.
”Karri?” I called as I opened the door. By the time I had reached the top, I had lost all the breath in my lungs. I stepped into the dimly lit apartment expecting my roommate to be in there, sitting in darkness watching the television. No response came, and I slid the rest of my body through the small crack I had made.
”Karri,” I called again, my voice louder in hopes shed hear. I switched the light on, hastily eradicating the darkness, enabling my eyesight to work. Once adjusted to the recently acquired light, I found there was a note taped to the usually bare refrigerator.
Karri was going to be late tonight, as she could be quite notorious for, so I’d be better off not waiting for her arrival. After skimming her scrawled handwriting, I crumpled the paper up and tossed it in the trash.
The entire apartment was barely light, but then again we often both basked in darkness. I curled up on the couch not bothering to remove my coat, falling asleep the moment my head hit the pillow.
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rsaioxkreual reviewed Version 1 -
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LexiLane reviewed Version 1 -
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Louminator reviewed Version 1 -
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First of all, let me tell you what I tell everyone else. If you select Publishable – Overall for a ranking, you don’t need more publish categories rated; it’s redundant. At least you didn’t find eight of them and stuck them all on here, so it’s not that big a deal. But keep this in mind for future submissions. As a reviewer, I don’t care to rate the same thing repeatedly, and if I see a long list of items, I’ll just skip their work entirely. Now about this piece…
I realize this is only a small portion of the larger work, but let’s leave that out of the equation for now. What is it you are trying to give the reader with this tiny bit? It’s obviously important enough to write about, but it must have a specific purpose in the bigger picture. When your writing a story, every scene must do one of two things: it must either advance the story, or tell us something more about the characters. You’ve done a little of both with this, but I don’t feel that either was objective was done strongly enough.
You build the tension between the main character and her(?) psychiatrist(?), which creates conflict. This is good. But you let it fade away as the two of them go through the motions of pretending to care about their session, and everything just continues as always. Expand on this. We can see that Mirja isn’t taking her medicine, but why should we care if she doesn’t and her psychiatrist doesn’t either? I mean, it seems like she cares, but aside from gnashing her teeth a bit, she just lets Mirja walk out the door instead of making a bigger deal about it. As a reader, that just tells me the medicine isn’t really that important to the psychiatrist, which makes it less important to the story. Play it up. Build the conflict. Give us a sense that the medicine is important to at least one person and that we should worry about what will happen if Mirja does or doesn’t take it. That gives us suspense, which will keep us reading on instead of wanting to walk out the door with her like it didn’t matter.
The next part introduces the stranger that she bumps into. Obviously, this is an important character and we get the sense that we will find out more about him soon enough. But again, the suspense is crushed when Mirja goes on without much thought after the incident. If it doesn’t leave a lasting impression with her, then it won’t leave a lasting impression with the reader, either. The main character is a vessel for everything that happens in the story, and if that vessel is empty, then the reader is not going to stay on for very long.
Other than that, the writing is very good. Solid. A few things to watch for is avoid using passive voice (i.e. “I had chose to stare out the window” is passive. “I stared out the window” is active.), and overuse of large, fancy words that seem out of place (i.e. “exasperated” doesn’t sound right, especially at the end of a sentence. The last word in a sentence always carries the strongest emphasis, and an uncommonly used word like ‘exasperated’ carries a lot of emphasis on its own).
You’ve got the right idea, but its not quite there yet. Dig in and punch it home. Don’t be afraid to make it stick with your reader. Keep writing.
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ckbailey reviewed Version 1 -
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Lin reviewed Version 1 -
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As you noted in your introduction ‘it all sort of drones on.’ I agree. My best suggestion is to leave it lie for a week or two & then read it through aloud on to a tape & listen to what you’ve written. From there you’ll know where to prune & where to elaborate. Good Luck.
metaphoricalsimile reviewed Version 1 -
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The relatively large amount of text between the therapist’s first question and the protagonists answer made it so I actually had to look back to remember the question. Considering your protagonist’s disinterest with what the therapist has to say, that might actually be purposeful.
Using the phrase “My perpetrator” to describe the guy that the protagonist ran into seemed a little clunky, like it was really quite the right word to use there. I know you’d called him an “assailant” earlier in a sarcastic tone, which worked, but the second iteration of that idea didn’t work as well.
In the last part, you mention that the protagonist expected her room-mate to be there, but then said that she was notorious for being out late. The two statements seem slightly contradictory.
Overall, although this is well written, and introduces a potentially interesting character, not much actually happens to her. There are several minor conflicts that don’t really reach any resolution. Normally a short story has a central conflict and some sort of resolution to that conflict.
FireflyDreams reviewed Version 1 -
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This has definite potential! I really liked it over all. It could use some more detail when describing the places: they psychiatrists office and the apartment especially. You could have decribed everything from the front door, wether or not it was a locked apartment building to the way the lobby looked, to her entry door, the kitchen, you left out a lot of detail! You also said towards the end that she laid down on a couch but that she was asleep the minute her head touched the pillow. Which makes me think of a more bedroom type setting. Maybe some rewording would be nice there as well. Above everything though, the story drew me in and despite the gramatical errors and lack of detail it kept me reading and wanting more; it is worth the effort to make this piece exceptional! Keep writing!
thesnoopyone reviewed Version 1 -
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I felt like i was missing something in reading that—-The only thing I got from that was the character has mental health problems. The rest of the story seemed vague to me and I did get much maybe you could have expanded on your meeting with the stranger more.
Wrath reviewed Version 1 -
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I like your story, I didnt read it all (sorry, parents going crazy in the back ground) but im gonna read the rest later, I think you are very creative when it comes to the details, and it also seems like a plot that will keep me reading till the end. Good writing, keep it up
ashkrafton reviewed Version 1 -
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Some grammatical pointers:
had chose—chosen, or chose with no had
Habouring a sigh—harboring? Unsure of the word.
pertaining me—to me
assiduousness—awkward
Her and I both knew—her should be she (she knew, not her knew)
Then after page 1, I read for the enjoyment of it. Intriguing story. The tech stuff can be edited fairly easily; better to write as the muse strikes and clean up after she’s gone. Good start. Keep going!
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