Table of Contents You may submit any of your writing to be critiqued by a panel of peer critics by emailing it to littleal87@aol.com with "To Critique" in the subject line. This may even include college essays for any high school seniors. Critiques provided by a panel of peer editors: I boarded the train at Malta and had the compartment to myself till If you have not previously done so, please send your DOB/gender/location to littleal87@aol.com. This helps to create a picture of the demographics of the club and your birthday will be featured in the newsletter!
The Write Stories
The Write Poetry
Critique of the Month
Learn From the Masters
The Write "Stuff"
THE WRITE STORIES
[xkelly_@hotmail.com]
"Disgusting. Absolutely revolting," Ashley says loudly, failing to make even the slightest effort to conceal her repulsion as a pair of preteen girls flounce by in clothing so sparse I would not even wear it to a private pool at night. Her eyes jump to a group of girls older than the first two but still not our age, who appear to be trying to sell themselves to some men by the fountain. No, they're flirting. The naked eye can't tell the difference.
"Look at this, we're turning out a generation of hookers. Every one of them."
"A dime a dozen... quite literally," she jokes weakly.
We wander the mall in silence for several minutes, looking for a store we haven't yet scoured for decent apparel. Wordlessly, we both halt in front of an Abercrombie and Fitch storefront.
"Have we sunk this low?" she wonders. I take a moment to listen to the bubblegum pop wafting lazily from the ceiling speakers, wrinkling up my nose.
"I hope not. I really, really hope not."
"Let's just go in. Maybe it'll make us appreciate some other store, and who knows? We might even find something cool. I mean, it's not like we've ever set foot in one of these to know that we hate it anyway," she reasons after several thoughtful seconds. I sigh and agree, trudging inside.
I dont know where to start. Just by glancing around at the piles of clothes, I know that anything I buy here will drift to the back of my closet and eventually be dumped in the charity box, but I make myself flip through the racks anyway. Nothing even catches my eye.
"Oh for the love of all things good and holy," mutters Ashley from the other side of the rack, appalled. I plod slowly around to see what is bothering her. "Look," she commands, holding up the price tag on a pair of jeans, "sixty-five dollars for a pair of faded, torn jeans that don't even look good. This is absurd, I'm leaving."
We storm out of the store, and I, for one, am relieved. The rest of the mall spreads out around us, filled with both purposeful shoppers and drifters. I don't know where we fit into the scheme. Perhaps we don't. We look around blankly, trying to spot a store we haven't yet perused.
"Hey, American Eagle. We haven't been in there yet," I point out. She nods, and we stumble through the crowds to the door, where an overly perky employee asks us how we are today. I can't do anything other than glare, but Ashley manages an unenthusiastic "Good." The same scene unfolds in this store, as well as the next, and the next. Finally, half an hour later, we find a place both of us can stand to spend some moneyOrange Julius.
"What are we doing here again?" Ashley asks as she collapses into a chair with her strawberry smoothie. I fall equally hard onto one of those strange loveseat sort of things, sprawling out across the length of it.
"Shopping," I respond dully.
"Why?"
"Because all our clothes are getting threadbare and we happen to be at a mall twice a year."
"Oh. Right." She pauses for a long time, and I think she's finished talking until she suggests, "Let's just become nudists and forget all of this pesky clothing nonsense."
"Okay," I agree, laughing. She grins and bites her straw, pulling it up and down in the plastic lid to make it squeak. My laughter turns quickly to mock sobs. "Do you realise we've been wandering this cursed mall for three hours and haven't bought a single thing?"
"I know. It's terrible," she admits. I drop my head off the side of the couch and the world turns upside down. People walking on the ceiling, plastic helicopters plummeting towards the earth, fountains being sucked into the sky. I blink and wait until all the blood has rushed into my head before standing up, making myself dizzy.
"Well that was fun," I mumble, faltering as my equilibrium struggles to right itself. Ashley tears herself out of the chair, and we start walking with no particular destination in mind. "Let's just go to Hot Topic," I suggest. "At least the clerk there was hot."
As predicted, the hot checker is still hot and the music is decentsomething by Machine Head from the sounds of it. Some poor lobotomy victim is complaining about the preppies who have been glaring at and making fun of her all day.
"You're into depression because it matches your eyes," I quote to Ashley, who giggles and agrees.
The girl whips around, and I realise immediately that my comment was a mistake. "Oh my god, do you like Deftones too? I absolutely love them, they are gods to me, I even met Chino once at a party"
I look helplessly at Ashley, who is backing slowly away as the girl continues jabbering away at a mile a minute, staring me down (or up, rather, as I'm six inches taller). Ashley puts her hands up helplessly, as if to say, "Hey, you got yourself into this."
"it sucks that they're so famous now. I'm glad that the guys have got radio play and the attention they deserve, but now there's all these stupid preppies who are liking the band and totally ruining it for us real fans when we're the ones who have been in it since the beginning and the only CD these trendies have is 'White Pony' and that wasn't even their best CD, I thought 'Around the Fur' was better because it was their first and it was so much more real and"
"Uh-huh, Deftones rock," I finally manage to interject, cutting her off mid-sentence. I don't choose to tell her that "Adrenaline" came first, if only to avoid an encounter-extending argument; I can feel her draining even more of my intelligence and will to live as I stand there staring at her. I turn tail and run out of the store, grabbing Ashley's hand on the way by.
"Bloody hell, what is the world coming to?" I shout at the not-so-innocent bystanders. No one even turns around. Ashley pats my shoulder reassuringly, and we find another set of chairs to die in, since that's the only thing I feel like doing when I think of the fact that I still have to find some clothes. We lay exhausted in the chairs for several minutes, unthinking and unmoving.
"I think the only way to save ourselves now is to string ourselves up on that sign," Ashley says finally, pointing to the food court sign hanging from the ceiling and squinting with one eye. I nod in agreement.
"Okay, let's do it."
"We need to get rope, and that would require movement."
"Damnit, that's right. Forget it."
"Yeah. My feet hurt," she complains bitterly.
"I'll bet we've walked six miles around this utterly hellish mall."
"I'll bet more than that."
"Yeah." I grunt and close my eyes for several minutes, lacking the will to get up and keep going when all my efforts are clearly in vain. "Is there one of those superstore things around here?"
"I don't know. Why?" Ashley asks, almost seeming sentient as a result of her confusion.
"I need a bottle of bleach."
"To drink?"
"Yeah."
"Would you mind sharing?" she asks hopefully.
"Not with you," I answer, grinning.
"All right then. Bottoms up." The two of us stop speaking again and listen to the mindless but happy chatter of the drones wandering around us. "How can people possibly enjoy shopping?" Ashley questions aloud. I shrug.
"I don't know, but somehow we've got to find out and do it, because we have to buy something to make the trip worthwhile."
"You're right," she sighs, but she doesn't make any effort to move. I have to be the one to get up.
"All right, we're going full circle. All the stores we went in this morning and didn't come out of feeling like we'd been raped," I decide.
"That would be none of them," Ashley points out.
"Just shut up and come with me."
In the first store, I give up all morals and simply grab anything that looks even remotely appealing to me. I take the loot into the dressing room and try it on, finding myself more and more sickened by every article.
"I'm not a damn billboard," I declare in exasperation, throwing all the clothes vehemently onto the floor of the dressing room. "I'm not going to be a slave to you capitalist bastards or your major corporations!" I shout at the clothes. "I'm not going to support your stupid sexism, putting only stupid slutty sayings or cartoon characters or pink glitter on all your clothes because you think that's all we girls can wear! And it's all got to be skintight so the old men who thought up these stupid ideas can get off to the models when they're looking at the initial designs, or when they're sitting in the park playing fetch with the dog they keep penned up all day when it should be allowed to be free! I hate you all, all you stupid companies who will do anything at all to make a quick buck. I won't stand for it!"
"Emmie, open the damn door!" Ashley demands, pounding on the other side. Obediently, I unlock it, my rant over for the time being. "Deep breaths," she recommends, "deep breaths."
"I'm done."
"Are you sure you didn't see anything you liked?" she asks with forced calm in her voice. I shake my head. "Look again, pick them all up and look at them."
I do so and end up finding two shirts I can tolerate. Ashley tries on some shorts and a shirt, then we take our purchases to the register and pay. I feel like I should be getting the money for selling my soul, which is what it takes to actually buy these things.
We stagger from store to store like zombies, picking up the occasional shirt or pair of pants. Three hours, seven stores, and four hundred dollars later, the trip almost seems worthwhile. We buy more Orange Julius smoothies, reasoning that we not only worked off the extra calories walking today, but we deserve them for actually buying some things.
"Besides," Ashley rationalises, "life's too short for self-hatred and celery sticks."
"Damn right," I say as we walk across the sizzling parking lot to her car. We dump our bags in the trunk and climb into the front seats, leaving all the doors open to cool down the oven her car became in our absence. The seats are back, and we watch the deep blue thunderheads roll in from the mountains through the windshield. After several moments spent deep in thought, Ashley starts the car and we get on the highway to head home. According to the thermometer, the air is already cooling down, and before I've finished my second smoothie of the day, rain is sprinkling onto the pavement around us.
"I'm pulling over at the next green thing I see," Ashley declares, moving on to explain, "because we're going to go and run around in the rain."
"Oh goodie," I smile with earnest anticipation. We find a large park and get off the highway, parking underneath a tremendous old elm tree. I get out and run across the parking lot to the grass.
"Wait for me!" Ashley shouts, struggling to get her car locked. I tilt my face to the sky and let the raindrops pour over my closed eyes while she runs to catch up, then the two of us skip across the field and spin in circles until we fall over, laughing and panting. I lay in the wet grass, my mouth open to catch the raindrops, and note how strange it is that one rainstorm can make an entire week seem worthwhile.
THE WRITE POETRY
Teach Me
Teach me
Lead me to a perfect oblivion
I want the truth
Every feeling
Hurt
Laughter
Satisfaction
Thanks
Emotion
Convict me of lack of interest
Tell me I'm not learning enough
Force me to learn more
Teach me
Today I found a friend,
Who knew everything I felt.
She knew my every weakness,
And the problems I've been dealt.
She understood my wonders,
And listened to my dreams.
She listened to how I felt about life and love,
And knew what it all means.
Not once did she interrupt me,
Or tell me I was wrong.
She understood what I was going through,
And promised she'd stay long
I reached out to this friend
To show her that I care
To pull her close and let her know
How much I need her there
I went to hold her hand
To pull her a bit nearer
And realized that this perfect friend I found
Was nothing I'm ever going to lose
--Glitt36695
Alone
[sphinxmagic@yahoo.com]
Silence befriends the empty soul,
A strange calm,
A brewing storm,
Regret thunders hard in the cityscape,
A cracked oak,
A fainted squirrel,
Sorrow falls hastily into the earth,
A false cloud,
A spoiled sea,
Suspicion reflects vainly in the moon,
A rotten path,
A fading shadow,
And not a friendly smile for me.
CRITIQUE OF THE MONTH
Christopher The Red, 23
Therissa
Allison, high school senior
THE JOURNEY
[scot_bridge@yahoo.com]
"Hello! I'm Shantanu from Kolkata ."
"Hi ! I'm Meghna from Sutli ." (Oh, Sutli's a PLACE.)
"Your parents stay at Sutli ? "
"Yes ! My Dad's posted here." (So excited to meet each other! Quite a few exclamations!)
"Where does your father work ? "
"He is an engineer in Coal India Ltd.Are you also in service ?"
"No, I'm an architect and I am in business. (This tells a lot but it doesn't flow very well.) I was in Mumbai for the past three months because of a project and am now returning home."
"Oh! (How) how nice for you ! I'm in my final year of graduation and am returning back after my summer vacations."
"Which college do you study in (at)?"
"Scottish Church College. " (It doesn't just have to be stark dialogue-- we don't know what's going on while they're talking. Does she adjust her hat, make a little O with her mouth, widen her eyes...?) (Who's saying what?)
She then took out a novel from her handbag and settled down to reading it.
At the next station, Ballipur (comma should be inserted here) a young couple boarded our compartment.(There's a lot of these lacks of space between period and the next sentence)(There were also spaces in the wrong places earlier, like before an exclamation point or question mark.) They had a lot of luggage and they looked quite flustered.(Anything unusual or interesting about them?)They heaved a sigh of relief when the train finally pulled out of the station.Their seat was adjacent to Meghna's (Meghana? I thought we were in first person! Very jolting.) and after sometime they struck up a conversation with her.
"Where are you from ?" asked Mrs Kumar (How do you know her name?)
"Malti" (comma before end quote) replied Meghna smiling back.
"Are you travelling (traveling) alone ?"
"Yes" (punctuation)
"Where are you going ?"
"Kolkata" (punctuation)
"Oh! We are also headed there.Do you have relatives staying there ?"
"No I'm in college"(Just always watch your punctuation, I'm going to stop saying it.)
"What are you studying ?"
"I'm in my Final year of Graduation " (Final and Graduation shouldn't be capitalised)(punctuation)
"That's nice.Which subject ?" (note the inappropriate space I was talking about)
"English"
By overhearing their (further) conversation I learnt (learned) that Meghna had topped in her University and was supposed to get married after her exams.However I could not help noticing that whenever Meghna asked the Kumars any personal questions they gave very vague answers. (Show this rather than tell us)
((Here is more of the same. A lot of information handed to me like newspaper headlines being read in one breath. Perhaps it is your style, but it is hard to get a mental picture of the scene. The dialogue feels stiff, with very direct questions answers in matter-of-fact ways. Slow it down. Offer more visuals. And show that the Kumars gave vague answers, don't just tell us.)) (So much of this plain dialogue. Some of those nitty gritties you can tell us without showing every excruciating detail--"What's your name?" "My name is Bob. What's your name?" "My name is Sally." You could just say that he said his name was Bob. Meanwhile, you're telling too much without showing anything at the very end. Tell us what they're doing, show us that the Kumars are being vague, give us something to remember them as CHARACTERS instead of random names and facts that are thrown at us. You can tell us briefly their names and where they're from but then show us who they are as people, let us see them interact when it comes to more interesting info.)
After lunch (Huh? She brought lunch?) Meghna sat down with her novel again and the Kumars decided to take a little nap .I followed Meghna's example.(You brought a book, too?)(Give us a reason to care. What does this have to do with anything? Does it add to the personalities of the characters?) After the hustle and bustle since morning time, everything was very quiet all of a sudden.At 4.30 pm our train stopped at the next station, Maine(,) and the passengers were happy to get down on the station to stretch their legs and have tea. (Tea? That's a little random...but if they're going to have tea, let's at least see our characters interacting over it. Tell us if the steam plays on their features. What do they even look like? What do they talk about?)
At dinnertime I found the Kumars insisting that Meghna (wait a second, I thought you were Meghana. I guess you're Shantanu?) should share their home cooked (home-cooked) dinner with them. We were supposed to reach our destination early the next morning and I fervently hoped that the train would not be late as I prepared to settle down for the night.(Did we ever find out why you're going where you're going?)I woke up at 6.00am the next morning and was glad to know that the train was running only half an hour late,that (late; that) meant we would reach our destination in another 45 mins.(Don't abbreviate.) The Kumars were also up and getting ready (How? Everything's too vague...) but Meghna was surprisingly still asleep.(Why surprisingly? It's six-thirty in the morning.) I was thinking of waking her when I saw Mrs Kumar wake her.She sat up groggily and stood up but sat down again immediately and complained that she felt dizzy.The Kumars helped her to get her things together.When the train stopped the Kumars got down and they also helped Meghna down,who was not quite steady on her feet.I wished her the best and bade her goodbye before I made my way out of the station.
((Obviously, we are supposed to feel suspicious of the Kumars. But why? And are they supposed to be these shady, seedy people? They seem pre-packaged, and Meghna comes off like a cookie-cutter victim. I'm still not invested. What about these characters are worth caring about? It's your job to make me feel emotionally attached to at least one of the personalities.))(it would help if we had a little more information on the Kumars..Do they watch Meghna for awhile and decided that she is vunerable?)
I hardly spared Meghna any more thought and was happy to be back home after a gruelling three months. (What did you do? This is important to the story. We don't know who you are.) (Oh! You're going back home? Where were you? What were you doing there? Who do you live with?) After a day I was shocked to find an article in the newspaper that a young girl had been found murdered at Kolkata station and attached to it was a small photograph and to my further shock I reognised it to be Meghna's. (Awkward sentence. Describe how you found the newspaper; you dive straight to the point like there's no tomorrow) I could not believe my eyes and could not fathom how such a thing could have happened ...... she had seemed so happy on the train.(What? That doesn't have anything to do with it... it's not like she committed suicide) Unfortunately to my disappointment no details (about what? There are details below) were given and all that I learnt (learned) was her decomposed body had been recovered from one of the rest rooms in the station reserved for railway personnel.(You're saying this so impersonally! Weren't you friends with the girl? Even though we didn't feel close to her or like we knew her, didn't you? Why didn't you guys exchange numbers to keep in touch afterwards?) The vendors there had alerted the railway authorities about the stench coming from the room and the door had been broken open to discover Meghna's body.On investigating all that the police had been able to gather was that 2 days ago a man had carried a half -conscious girl into the room and had locked the door from outside and had requested a nearby tea-seller for some milk saying he needed it for his sister who was unwell ((no details? These are details)).It was also reported that investigation regarding the girl's mysterious murder was on. (Tell us your reaction! How do you feel? What are your suspicions?)
After a week I found another article in the newspaper which said that the investigation had revealed that Mr Kumar had carried half conscious Meghna into the room and had locked her up and gone away.Then he had returned and had raped her and then had tried to force her into prostitution. He had even sold her to a pimp . (That does go hand in hand with prostitution)When Meghna refused to cooperate he had threatened her with a gun but she had not backed down, instead she had tried to wrest the gun from Mr Kumar and while they were struggling the gun had accidentally gone off killing her instantly.(How do you know these specific details? Did Mr. Kumar tell them every detail of what happened? Otherwise how would they know?)The police had arrested the Kumars and it was also revealed that both the culprits were involved with a criminal gang that specialised in forcing unsuspecting girls into prostitution and were also involved in trading of girls. (Isn't there some investigation? This is a little blah...you're not involved personally at all. Why don't you share with us some of the details of the investigation?) They had found Meghna to be an easy target since she was travelling all by herself. ((all of this occured in a railway restroom? From being locked in the room, wrestling for a gun, being raped, forced into prostitution, and being sold to a pimp all occured in a railway restroom? It's a huge dramatic plunge, and hits us like a wad of old gum. It was expected, it is typical fiction violence, and to begin with, I didn't know enough about any of the characters to be affected either way. I'm sorry, but this had the emotional pull of a 5 y/o repeating a story he heard on CNN. It was fast-paced, but not exciting, violent but not shocking, and simple but not true-to-life))(Slow down here. It's a lot to digest, everything happens at once and is predictable)
I mourned the loss of an innocent life.I could not help remembering her infectious smile, her vivacity......((I wish we knew that side of her, but we were never properly introduced. To most readers, she was just another fiction cliche.))(It would be more helpful if we had more information on Meghna. More development with her character.)
(This whole thing is too patchy. There are, first of all, no descriptions of YOU; are you a guy? Probably, but how are we to know? WHY do you find her so enthralling? Are you secretly attracted to her, but she's too young for you? Does this make you feel guilty when she's found dead? And there's no description of her, really, at all, other than stuff like "pleasant". We don't end up knowing any more from her than we would from an obituary. Actually, the obituary you describe is rather unrealistic; the only set of accounts is Mr. Kumar's; who's to say he didn't shoot her in cold blood? Basically, just find a point to be writing about. The whole thing lumps around how she's pretty and you don't know her and then you find out she's dead. Make it more lifelike. Add more conversation that's not so PC... I dunno. Read Banana Yoshimoto. She's good at stuff like that.)
(In the end I'm left with the question of why that was a story instead of a newspaper article. There was nothing that makes me associate with the characters. I don't really care that Meghana's dead. Perhaps it would be better if you worked on showing us who the characters are, developing the story further so that there's more of a plot, getting us into the scenes so we feel like we're there with you. What's the point of the setting, also? I'm thinking it's set in India? Where are these places and what's the point of making it exotic? If you're going to take us to a place where we've never been before, describe it to us. Make it a part of your story.)
LEARN FROM THE MASTERS
Submitted by stupot_y2k@hotmail.com:
I'm a bit of a fantasist, what can I say? As much as I love our world, I
love to imagine new worlds with bigger creatures and real magic because
let's face it, it's ten times more fun than Earth.
It really all started with a book called "Northern Lights" by Philip Pullman (you may know the book as The Golden Compass, which I can't believe they've done; it'll always be Northern Lights to me). This is the story of a girl called Lyra who, as far as she's aware, has no parents. She has been brought up by scholars in what is the equivalent of our Oxford but in a completely different dimension. She has an inquisitive nature and the story starts off with her hiding in a cupboard with her companion who is actually her soul that can take the form of a variety of animals depending on the mood and intentions of Lyra herself. She also inherits a device full of symbols that she begins to understand after a lot of time and patience. It is known as the Alethiometer (or golden compass for some of you) and happens to be a means ofasking the truth behind certain questions that no man can truly answer.
She learns a lot in the first chapter and embarks on a journey that will eventually take her into another world. Here begins Book II, "The Subtle Knife," where she finds herself in a world which to her is completely different, but in fact is very much like the world you and I know. She meets a boy called Will who has spent his entire childhood looking after his mentally unstable mother. His and Lyra's fates are bound to each other's and Will finds himself in possession of a knife that (when the user is in the right frame of mind) can cut doors in the very fabric of space and time into more new worlds for the children to explore.
In the third and final part of the trilogy, "The Amber Spyglass," the reader meets a scientist from a world uninhabited by humans (but kept stable by an intelligent race called the Mulefa), who, rather than feet or hooves, travels by wheel. These natural wheels come from a special seed pod from a special tree only found on this world. The lady scientist, Dr. Mary Malone, creates a device called the Amber Spyglass, which detects an otherwise invisible substance known as Dust, or Dark matter. This Dark matter is leaving the world of the Mulefa through various tears in the space time continuum and draining the trees of the energy needed to support this race and their seed pod wheels.
This final installment also ties up the growing relationship between Lyra and Will, whose trust and friendship for each other has grown into something more beautiful--it has turned into an adult love for each other that must end to save the universes. It's all very heartbreaking and so beautifully written that I wish I were a character from the books just so I could have met Lyra. She's such a dynamic young lady with an intelligent wit brought about by her upbringing and desire for knowledge. You will love her too.
Now I can't stop reading fantasy. I'm a big fan of Raymond E. Feist and I am trying to complete his back catalogue as swiftly as possible before buying his latest release.
The "His Dark Materials" trilogy is:
Northern Lights (The Golden Compass)
The Subtle Knife
The Amber Spyglass
Written beautifully by Phillip Pullman
THE WRITE "STUFF"
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