It happened like this: I looked away. In an instant’s inattention, he disappeared without a ripple. The world should have stopped. Instead, it would be years before I knew he was gone.

My fourteenth summer was the beginning. It was the best week of the year: summer camp. Sarah, Summer, Autumn and Skye hugged me like sisters as we dropped our bags and headed for our favorite hangout. We sprawled on the picnic table under the mimosa trees and wove friendship bracelets or painted our toenails while Autumn strummed her guitar. The cloudless heat made the mimosa blossoms fall like tiny parasols, and we breathed their scent as we lay there, carving our names into the graffiti twenty years of campers had left behind. The week played out like every summer before, except this time, on the last day of camp, I met someone. I met Brian.

1st Revised version (Included by request)

It happened like this: I looked away. In an instant’s inattention, he was gone, but it would be years before I knew.

My fourteenth summer was the beginning. I didn’t know it then. It was the best week of they year: summer camp. The five of us embraced like sisters and sprawled on the picnick tables weaving friendship bracelets and painting our toenails under the shade of mimosa trees. The cloudless heat made flowers fall like tiny parasols, and we breathed their scent as we lay there, carving our names into the scrawl twenty years of campers had left behind, listening as Autumn strummed her guitar. The week sprawled out like every summer before, except this time, on the last day of camp, I met someone. His name was Brian.

[This message has been edited by Amy Treadwell (edited April 18, 2007).]

[This message has been edited by Amy Treadwell (edited April 18, 2007).]

quote:

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It happened like this: I looked away and he fell. In an instant’s inattention, he fell into emptiness where I couldn’t touch him. He was gone, and I would not know it for years.[What does this mean? Where'd he fall from. Who is "HE"? Can an instant have an attention?]

My fourteenth summer was the real one.[You lost me HERE] I didn’t know[What?] it then. I laughed and [swum<--?swam? and chattered and gossiped with my friends. We were living the best week of they year: summer camp. Between times our lives were linked through letters. Memories hop-scotched over the months between.

---

The second paragraph tells me that you were in summer camp when you were 14, but I'm still not sure what's happening or why I should care.

I noticed that your first 13 isn't 13 lines at all - it is only 8 lines (9 if you incude the blank line). You have left out a third of what you could have shown us in words - perhaps there is more info in the missing 5 lines to help us with the second paragraph?

For me, this 13 is a bit of both.

quote:

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It what? The Evil Robot Monkey take over of the world happened like this: I looked away and he who? - the Zoo Keeper fell Where - into the pen . In an instant’s inattention, he fell into emptiness where I couldn’t touch him hu? What emptiness? . He was gone, and I would not know it for years. How is this possible unless the "emptiness" is some sort of mental stage/condition like insanity?

My fourteenth why do I care she's 14 summer was the real one unlike the others which were created by a virtual reality computer . I didn’t know it then. Please just kill that line or finally tell me what IT is. I laughed and swum and chattered and gossiped with my friends Who are they and how do "they" relate to "he." . We were living the best week of the year: summer camp Yea, now we are getting details . Between times our lives were linked through letters. oops, my hope was shattered. Now we are jumping back over time Memories hop-scotched over the months between. It's a pretty line but doesn't mean anything to me. What is happening? Where's the story?

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Trust us. If the details are compelling we'll read. Don't tease.

Editied to fix HTML tags

I love sf. I love writing it. I love reading it. But right now I feel like crawling under a rock and I'm afraid people have already branded me as a bad writer. I don't even know how to delete this post.

Someone once told me that when we write, it is like we are coughing up a bit of our souls up there on the screen, and then we watch it being picked slowly apart, and sometimes it is hard not to take it personally.

My worst crit I ever recieved was from an author who had a current story in the Year's Best. It was also the best crit I ever received, I should have it framed. And from it, the gem that was buried within my clunky prose was revealed.

The scorch marks fade over time. Believe me, I know, and in time the distance from the story in my head to the computer screen, will lessen.

Keep on writing!

Sometimes we forget that not everyone is ready for as much feedback as we can give them.

Amy, I suspect that you received so much feedback because your opening is good enough, artistic enough, that people here thought you were more experienced and able to handle deep feedback.

These posts were not attacking your story (which only you can see because it's in your head). They were trying to help you to get your text (which is the only thing the rest of us can see) to do a better job of recreating your story in your readers' heads.

They were trying to tell you what the text you posted was creating in their heads, so you'd have a better idea of how to get the text to recreate the story the way you want readers to have it in their heads.

I hope this helps you understand how the feedback you've received might help you convey your story.

Now get back to writing and give 'em he11.

I hope some of this is helpful. Meanwhile, here's my feedback on your revised 13:
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The first line feels too vague to me. I see that you're painting out a mystery, but I feel uncomfortable not even having a name for the "he" who was gone. I also, maybe because I'm a mom, jumped to the conclusion that "in an instant's inattention" was a mom or babysitter looking away from a child and, as a result, the child was injured or killed.

Plausibility point - is summer camp only one week? Where I live (midwest) there are daycamps that last a week, but most sleepaway camps last several weeks. You refer to it as "the best week of the (note the extra "y" in your sentence there) year" so I'm guessing you're talking about a single week. This is a minor point, but I noticed it, it's worth mentioning.

Embraced like sisters is a nice visual, but embraced like sisters and sprawled sounds like a Cirque du Soleil act.

Be cautious of the sentence structure of an "ed" verb followed by a clause with an "ing" verb. I recently read the book "Self Editing for Fiction Writers" which was recommended to me here, and which I highly recommend. They mention this type of sentence structure as one that can be problematic if overused. I don't think it's overused yet, it's only 13 lines after all, LOL, but I just mention it because previous to reading that book, I hadn't been conscious of that as a sentence structure.

Normally I suggest breaking up long sentences into shorter ones, however, the sentence "The cloudless heat..." with all its commas does a good job of conveying the driftlessness of kids in the summer.

Random nit - the word "sprawled" is repeated twice in this fragment. That is enough to draw attention to it. I noticed it because the word "scrawl" sounds/looks similar to me. It wasn't until I was trying to find a way to explain why scrawl seemed repetitive that I noticed it isn't scrawl that is repetitive at all, but sprawl. I'm sure there's a synonym that would be appropriate in one of those places. Not sure what, but I'm sure one exists!

Lastly - any idea how long the finished version is/will be? Are you looking for readers for the whole story, a larger fragment, nothing just yet? How about the genre - what kind of story? Some of us prefer to read certain types, others are omnivores.

My fourteenth summer was the beginning. [The beginning of what?] I didn’t know it then.[Didn’t know what?] It was the best week of they year: summer camp. The five of us embraced like sisters and sprawled on the picnick tables weaving friendship bracelets and painting our toenails under the shade of mimosa trees. The cloudless heat made flowers fall like tiny parasols, and we breathed their scent as we lay there, carving our names into the scrawl twenty years of campers had left behind [I like this], listening as Autumn strummed her guitar[Autumn is the name of a girl, not the season coming around the bend, right?]. The week sprawled out like every summer before, except this time, on the last day of camp, I met someone. [Just a nit. MC knows several girls, so perhaps she met a boy, not just ‘someone’. That or my age is showing. Ahem, carry on.] His name was Brian.

Your voice is nice and I think your revisions will advance this piece nicely. You have descriptive language that is not annoying (seriously, some people have really irritating metaphors), and I would be willing to read your story if you are willing to share.
Let’s see what I have determined from the previous lines.
A fourteen year-old at summer camp spends time with four friends and met a boy named Brian. Something happens in a vague number of 'years’ later, but I don’t know what or why or how, or even when so I don’t really have any evidence that it’s important. In other words, I think I either need more information or less.
My wish list:
1. Put your actions and story in high-definition, just like you do with your description. You’re going to have to tell us anyway, so just do it without the vague foreshadowing.
2. Keep writing and don’t climb under a rock. Or else I’ll have to sing, and you won’t like it when I sing-- You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make my haaaaaaapyyyyyyyy…….

Edited to say: I had bold in the paragraph where my comments are placed, but they didn't come thru. You will have to read and find the brackets.

I think that you lost my attention somewhere in the second paragraph. I liked the frist one that told me he had "disappeared" and you didn't know it. But about half way through the second paragraph I was feeling like I was reading something other scifi. This might come from the fact that the summer camps that I went to were nightmares to me (friends with broken legs, and because I was small and younger than most, being tortured by the older kids.) So I do not look back on these times fondly so when I read things that do even movies that do, my suspension of disbelief is totally gone. Again this is just a personal thing, I am sure there are tons of folks out there that read your first 13 and it brought back wonderful memories. For me only pain, so I was torn thinking is this going to be a scifi or a horror?

One other comment, I find the description a bit distracting, I found myslef skipping over it to find out what happened to, "him." but because it is the first 13 there was no over to go to. Also because this is a short story I would suggest keeping the description to a minimum.

You have a good start going, and I believe that you have something good going here, keep at it.

As a personal note, if I didn't think it had potential I wouldn't have commented. The first time I put my baby up here I had the same "what the $^%$#^" are you talking about reaction which gave way to "Oh they could be right. I stink at this." It's all part of the growing pains. Writing because you love it is the best reason to do so. If you keep at it and take what you can from the (sometimes brutally) honest comments, you'll move from good writing closer to publishable writing.

I always found the "your withholding" comment too vague so I go through and show where you can IMHO add detail and how much. Take a breath. Don't lose faith or hope. And keep writing.

Okay, on to the new 13.

First person is hard because it limits what you can tell. That being said: the first paragraph was better although I'd still like some sense of what you mean by "gone."

IMHO you can lose everything in the second paragraph except "His name was Brian" or at least reverse the order.

The images are nice but not enough to hook me.In fact because you slow the pace down so much the curiousity I had from the first paragraph is lost. Watch your spelling and sentance construction.

With some reordering and cutting you have a second paragraph like this:

On the last day of camp, I met Brian. (I was sitting at the picnic table with my five best friends) and weaving friendship bracelets. Under the mimosa trees the heat made flowers fall like tiny parasols.

NOW I know who's around, where she is, who the "he" is and can settle into the story.

This sentance needs to be broken down.

The cloudless heat made flowers fall like tiny parasols, and we breathed their scent as we lay there, carving our names into the scrawl twenty years of campers had left behind, listening as Autumn strummed her guitar.

There are four discrete things happening in it. Also, what was the "scrawl" on?

In the same instant the girls are: hugging, sprawling, weaving friendship bracelets, painting toe nails, craving thier names into something and Autumn is also playing a guitar.

Pick an action to set the scene and move on. Trust us to add the "perfect summer day" details without your telling us every one of them.

I'm sorry you felt that way. It tells me a little about you, though: you are very passionate. I understand THAT. My passions constantly threaten to consume me.

Let me tell you a little story -- nonfiction:

I could barely contain my excitement, as I tentatively typed my first 13 lines. It was my first time, and I didn't really know what to expect. Everyone who'd read any of my prose complimented it. I had begun to feel that I was good, maybe even better than the average bear. When I was done, and I had read what I had written, I smiled as I hit enter.

Ten times, in the first hour, I checked for replies.

Nothing.

I was beginning to feel that either no one was interested, or that I wasn't known well enough for people to comment. I couldn't make myself walk away.

Then the posts came in.

I was overjoyed that people were responding. Then I started getting the gist of what they were saying: they were tearing me to pieces. I walked away. There was one poster -- SURVIVOR -- that let me know that he understood me. Through his comments, and those of BRIGGS, I was really able to decipher that the intent wasn't to tear my story down, it was to help me write in a clearer, more concise manner.

I don't know if it worked or not. I'm still learning through my critiquing what I need to look for in my own work. The last time I had two people critique a story, they tore it to pieces from two totally different angles. When they were through, there was maybe two sentences left untouched. I felt like I was destined to remain only a reader. But, then I thought, to hell with that. A publisher; editor; agent is going to verbally abuse me with less explanation: I better get used to rejection right now.

Now, my comments on your revised version:

quote:

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It happened like this: I looked away. In an instant’s inattention, he was gone, but it would be years before I knew.

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I still don't know who HE is, or really what happened to him. How is he "...gone..."? Mentally, I assume. Is he emotionally dead? You really need to elaborate on this. It's your hook. And, in a short story, you have much less time to hook me.

quote:

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My fourteenth summer was the beginning. [OF WHAT?] I didn’t know it then.[<--You don't need this line. I'll assume that you didn't know it then, unless you tell me that you DID.] It was the best week of they year: summer camp. The five of us[in example: , Trudy, Jane, Eliza, May and I,] embraced like sisters[. We] sprawled on the picnic[typo:k] tables weaving friendship bracelets and painting our toenails under the shade of mimosa trees. The cloudless heat made flowers fall like tiny parasols, and we breathed their scent as we lay there, carving our names into the scrawl twenty years of campers had left behind, listening as Autumn strummed her guitar. [<--Very long sentence. I think it would add something to break it down. You can't "listen" to "air guitar". You can "watch/egg on".] The week sprawled out like every summer before, except [needed?--> this time], on the last day of camp, I met someone. His name was Brian.

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This second paragraph was written better, but it does nothing for the hook. If you could clear a little up, in the first paragraph, the hook would already be set. I liked this much better.

quote:

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It happened like this: I looked away. In an instant’s inattention, he disappeared without a ripple. The world should have stopped. Instead, it would be years before I knew he was gone.

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This is more confusing than interesting. Without it, this:

quote:

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The week sprawled out like every summer before, except this time, on the last day of camp, I met someone.

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...is your hook.