The 13.

The rising sun poured through the kitchen window of the minute eighteenth floor apartment as a petite young woman with long auburn hair, the unit’s most recent inhabitant, filled a small saucepan with water and set it to heat for her morning coffee. Her sleepless grey eyes lingered on the counter just behind the stainless steel sink gathering precious vitality from the greenery that basked in the morning light. She had worked long, meticulous hours trying to transform this mass produced housing unit into a home, her first home.
This room had been modeled on Melissa’s memories of cooking with her grandmother. She remembered standing, her chin barely level with the counter, washing dishes with a kindergartener’s precision, simply because her grandmother had

quote:

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The rising sun poured through the kitchen window of the minute eighteenth floor apartment as a petite young woman with long auburn hair, the unit’s most recent inhabitant, filled a small saucepan with water and set it to heat for her morning coffee.(1)
Her sleepless grey eyes lingered on the counter just behind the stainless steel sink gathering precious vitality from the greenery that basked in the morning light.(2) She had worked long, meticulous hours trying to transform this mass produced housing unit into a home, her first home.(3)
This room had been modeled on Melissa’s memories of cooking with her grandmother.(4) She remembered standing, her chin barely level with the counter, washing dishes with a kindergartener’s precision, simply because her grandmother had asked. If she closed her eyes, she could still summon the images of the large leafy flowers that had always surrounded that kitchen sink.(5) Where those flowers had abounded,(6) Melissa grew the aromatic herbs she adored; basil, cilantro, rosemary, mint and lavender. In their midst another memory from her grandmother’s vibrant kitchen, a pale blue vase, held a single white rose.(7)

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The critique:

1. This is a very long, awkward first sentence in which nothing interesting happens. As it stands, this story starts out with a meandering yawn rather than a bang.

2. Ineffective purple prose that paints a confused image; the sink is gathering vitality for the plants? Her eyes are gathering vitality from seeing the plants? I don't know what's happening here.

3. This should be your first sentence. Here, at last, is a sense of story, and possibly conflict.

4. Good! Character fleshing out, history hinted at. This perks my interest.

5. This might be a good point to leap to what the sink looks like now, and the state of the greenery there, rather than having a flat description at the beginning.

6. This reads awkwardly... Could you rephrase it?

7. In their midst was another memory from her grandmother’s vibrant kitchen: a pale blue vase, holding a single white rose.

Overall thoughts:

I think you're trying to put too many specifics in each sentence. For example, squeezing in both a description of the 18th floor apartment as being small and a description of the petite woman with auburn hair who happens to be the most recent inhabitant...*gasp*. And then the counter and the sink (stainless steel!) and basking greenery... I can sense you have a very clear, vivid image of what you want the reader to imagine in this first paragraph.
But your prose needs to breathe. I used to fall into an outpouring of adjectives and descriptors in long sentences myself. I like what you're trying to paint here, but it needs to be reworked to be effective. Can you maintain the poetic tone and make it a little clearer? Or go for a different tone and make it more plainspoken?

For me, things start in the second paragraph. I get the sense of a woman who's worked hard to recreate the memory of her grandmother's kitchen. I want to know more about her sentimentality, what her life has been since childhood to now that's led her to reach so far into the past.

Before your 13, you said that the story is about the memory of a vase. As it stands now, if you hadn't said that, I would assume that the vase is only a very small piece of the entire story, a story that focuses mainly on the woman. If after the posted 13 the story focuses most intently on the vase, you might consider bringing it in a little sooner, or re-title the work to offer the reader a bigger clue that the vase is the star, if indeed it is.

I won't repeat his comments - I'll just add a few things I noticed, words, plausibility points, etc.

First sentence - you use minute and petite close together. This felt repetitive to me, maybe because the word "minute" in that instance required a mental double-take to make sure it was pronounced correctly (as in diminutive, not a unit of time...) and that made the similarity in pronunciation with petite stand out too.

If you're going to stick with so many descriptors, you should consider breaking up the sentences with commas, or breaking them into more short sentences.

Being the proud parent of a recent kindergarten graduate, I can say there is very little of "kindergartener's precision" - particularly as it relates to household tasks. There can be plenty of enthusiasm, enjoyment, willingness to help. Precision? Not so much.

Middle of second paragraph - again a slight repetitive feel to summon and surround located close. Another nit - large, leafy flowers? Generally flowers have petals, which make up the flowering part. The leaves are below the petals, and are (gross generalization here) typically smaller than the petals/flowerhead. So large leafy flowers made me do another mental double-take, start inventorying my garden for examples, and well...that's where you lost me. I'm busy figuring out which bed needs mulch the worst now instead of reading your story.

I think the idea of a single white rose in her grandmother's kitchen has some interesting elements, but it just took entirely too long to get there, and now that I'm there, I still don't really know why I should care.

Take that as a challenge, not as a knock. Make me care. I love flowers and grandmas, it's not going to be very hard (unless you use the flower to kill the grandma - I'm not so into blood, guts, and gore. LOL)

I wonder if the story really is about "the memory of a vase." So far, it seems like the memory of your grandmother is the story, which to me seems far more interesting. Even if the vase is a significant artifact in your memories relating to your grandmother, you should decide whether you're writing about your grandmother or a symbol of her (the vase); otherwise, the story may stray.

The vase can still be used as an important literary device, for example, to show parallel events affecting the vase and the grandmother. But always keep in mind who is the star of the story.

quote:

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The rising sun poured through the kitchen window of the minute eighteenth floor apartment as a petite young woman with long auburn hair this feels heavy so far. I think there are too many modifiers: minute, eighteenth floor, petite, young, long auburn , the unit’s most recent inhabitant, filled a small saucepan with water and set it to heat for her morning coffee. That was a long sentence. Her sleepless grey eyes more adjectives. I'm wondering why is she sleepless? This sounds important. Is this taking place in Seattle? lingered on the counter just behind the stainless steel sink gathering precious vitality from the greenery that basked in the morning light. She had worked long, meticulous hours trying to transform this mass produced housing unit into a home, her first home.

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At this point, I'm wondering why I should care. You've introduced a character, though there is no name (your choice). You've introduced a setting, which is also good. I'm looking for a hook, because the writing hasn't yet drawn me into the story.

quote:

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This room had been modeled on Melissa’s memories of cooking with her grandmother. good. She remembered standing, her chin barely level with the counter, washing dishes with a kindergartener’s precision, simply because her grandmother had asked. still good, but the last phrase didn't work as well for me. If she closed her eyes, she could still summon the images of the large leafy flowers that had always surrounded that kitchen sink. Where those flowers had abounded, Melissa grew the aromatic herbs she adored; basil, cilantro, rosemary, mint and lavender specific detail always helps lend to believability. In their midst another memory from her grandmother’s vibrant kitchen, a pale blue vase, held a single white rose. A bit awkward of a sentence there

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