Flames [Short Story]

First time, posting in this forum.

I've noticed before, only just recently thought of putting something up.

Be kind #-o

Short Story I had to write for English Class.

Flames

The little girl sat on the side of the road clutching her teddy bear tightly as if it were a long lost friend. The gravel was cold under her and the wind chilled her to the bone. In front of her was a burning house, shoots of red, orange and yellow licked at the house engulfing it in a sea of flames. The smell of burning flesh and smoldering skin filled her nostrils. Fine ash and soot billowed from the house.

Emily was accustomed to these kinds of happenings; in fact every home that she had been sent to had something go wrong. In every case she was the only one that had survived. The townspeople thought she had a guardian angel.

She hoped she did.

She stared intently at the flames as she heard the sound of a car approaching, the tires making odd popping noises as it drew closer.

Two of her neighbors ran briskly to the remains of her house

My god , its too late

You should phone the brigade

Already have

Quick! See if anyone survived, you take the back and Ill go around to the sides

No use

Soon an elderly lady arrived, a family friend of sorts. She sympathised with Emily and Emily liked her ever since they met.

Slowly Ms. Norrington spoke.Are you O.K Emily?

She simply nodded.

Mrs. Norringtons voice was dry and cracked.You poor girl, Ill have to find someone to house you up for the night.

It wasnt the first time.

Emily now began to remember of her previous foster family and her brother Eric.

Eric was irritated, he is breaking things, agitated, and he is making a mess of her room.

Eric began pouding the table with vehment anger and shouted with alarm, Augh! I dont want to help her, she so clumsy

Please Eric behave, we all have to help her, her mother understands, but still, she cannot force her words.

I dont want a [developmentally delayed] for sister!, tears start steaming.

Emily starts to remember more. She remembers that she gets picked on at school, the girls giggle when they see Emily.

Why cant she speak properly? Why does everyone tease her? Why does her body always ache? Why? Why? Why?

Emily starts to remember it all; its all come flooding back. She remembers her family her father was an abusive drunkard who terrorized her. He beat her mercilessly, she had swollen cheeks and puffed lips for days, and she was ashamed to show ever her face.

Her brother hated her. Eric too, was a model of his father. Pulling her hair, tearing her clothes in objectable places. One thing that she could remember was when Eric, while play fighting cut her, with the kitchen knife.

But most of all she remembers her mother. Her mother was gentle and considerate. She would always talk to Emily when she needed help, she would love her no matter what.

Emily looks at the firefighters spraying the last remains of the house; all the other parts have been reduced to glowing embers. The house was a silhouette - an eerie reddish glow against the pitch-black night sky. She remembers Eric sitting on the sofa playing some video game. No doubt the firefighters would have discovered him by now, or at least his charred remains. He wouldnt be remembered much; neither would have been her father. Her mother yes, it was unfortunate that she also went away, however she felt no real remorse and the incident was, like the embers of the house, all but doused and forgotten.

Slowly Ms.Norrington made her way again through the jam of police cars and concerned onlookers to Emily.

I have some good news Emily, Ive found someone to take care of you

for tonight. This is Brian, said Ms. Norrington, with obvious pain in her voice.

Emily didnt look up, instead she simply nodded her head in quiet agreement, not that there was anything to agree about.

Shes obviously quite shaken from the fire no doubt, but shes a tough

girl, arent you Emily

Quitely, she nodded again.

Brian took her hand and led her away from the street and into his car. His hand felt comforting and warm in hers. She looked deeply into the eyes of her teddy. He had endured her beyond any other and she was grateful for it. Slowly Emily unzipped the sides. Within the small pouch were an old photo, a bottle of pills and a box of matches.

Maybe she would see flames again.

Edited for punctuation and grammar.

that was awesome!

you can certainly write better story's than i can

I'm glad you thought so.

Thanks for the feedback.

~Adrenal

I liked reading this :

8 kitties of out 10.

8.5/10

I liked the intro with the burning house; but the drunkard for a father and a gentle mother is kinda cliche imo. But still good. :thumbup:

Great ending though (:

8.5/10

 

 

 

I liked the intro with the burning house; but the drunkard for a father and a gentle mother is kinda cliche imo. But still good. :thumbup:

 

 

 

Great ending though (:

Yeah, what was I thinking #-o ?

Maybe be a switch-a-roo is in order. Usually the mother is the positive role model.

Thanks for the rate and comments guys and gals !

~ Adrenal

Eric is irritated; he is smashing things all about and making a mess of her room.

Should be "Eric was irritated".

Yeah, I thought that initally, but it is a flashback, and she is remebering it as it happens.

Thanks though.

Rate me ?

8.9/10, but now i think about it switch around the mother/farther thing and ill give it 9.2/10

I thought it was really good, very short but that's nice in a way :) I would say though if you want to improve it the dialogue could be more effective. You don't need a space between the speech marks and the next words, ie 'Are you ok, Emily?'

I love the last line... it just suits the story perfectly...

Storyline and the writing is very good for the most part. A few grammatical errors. If you were to go back and edit this, it could become much better with very little effort.

7/10

Storyline and the writing is very good for the most part. A few grammatical errors. If you were to go back and edit this, it could become much better with very little effort.

 

 

 

7/10

You should list his grammatical errors for him and where he needs to work on.

Thanks for all the feedback guys.

You're really great !

You should list his grammatical errors for him and where he needs to work on.

But I won't

Honestly though, most of them are very noticeable mistakes that anyone would catch if they read through it. It's his story, he can fix them himself. I merely pointed them out as a reason for my rating.

As far as how he could improve...

The first set of dialogue is confusing. State who is saying it, even if only "some random guys standing nearby". The sudden transition to dialogue is just to quick. Having dialogue with no description of who is saying it leaves the reader without anything to create a clear picture with.

Also, in the line immediately before the first dialogue, "the tires making odd popping noises as it drew closer."

Change "the" to "its".

Be more descriptive with the characters. They all feel so bland and cliche, especially the "kind and caring" elderly.

Eric is irritated; he is smashing things all about and making a mess of her room.

You suddenly change to the present tense. Big no no.

"coming flooding"

two -ing words in a row, ugh. Change coming to comes and the its to it. Then remove the "it all" from the previous clause. The sentence directly after that is a run-on. The last sentence in that paragraph is also a run-on. Commas are not the same as periods, so don't use them that way. If you would be more descriptive you wouldn't need to combine sentences together to make them seem longer.

Take out the "last" before the "remains". It is just unnecessary and sounds awful. Again with the run-ons and incorrect punctuation in this paragraph. Believe it or not, punctuation and sentence structure is very important.

In the next paragraph, you make it seem like Norrington is walking through the crowd alone, then she says "this is brian". Where the hell did he come from? You should probably also describe Brian a little better.

Most importantly, check your punctuation and sentence structure. Then add much more description. The story is great, it just lacks description.

Thanks for all the feedback guys.

 

 

 

You're really great !

Looking forward to more pieces from you.

:P Fine, if you won't, I will.

Some errors to consider

- was a burning house; (instead of 'was a burning house,')

- Soon an elderly lady (instead of 'a elderly lady')

- Emily liked her ever since they had met. (maybe)

- "She is/she's so clumsy" (instead of she so clumsy)

- Emily watches the firefighters (instead of 'Emily looks at the firefighters')

- Some of the sentences are too simple; eg She remembers her family her father was an abusive drunkard who terrorized her and her brother hated her.

You could possibly add more description to how he abused her etc.

And maybe if you want emphasis on the flashback, try using italics when she is having a flashback, or else people (like llamster) will think the "is" in the flashback is incorrect, but to be honest, it sounds better if you put it in past tense.

or else people (like llamster) will think the "is" in the flashback is incorrect,

It has nothing to do with misunderstanding. It is a grammatical error. It is wrong and should be changed. I mean even with your explanation in mind, it just doesn't sound right (probably because it isn't). The dialogue afterward should list the speakers and have more description of the actions in it. That whole paragraph is just really bland and isn't good.

Now that I took a closer look at this particular paragraph, I have come to the conclusion that your main problem is dialogue. You tend to just list the lines. First and foremost, you should almost always state the speaker. There are a few times when it is ok and even better to leave out that information, but only sometimes. Second, sometimes its a good idea to break up the dialogue with descriptions of the actions. You tend to keep all the dialogue together in large groups rather than breaking it apart.

Get rid of the ellipses in the first chunk of dialogue. They're annoying and out of place.

Use some kind of word processor to help you catch all the grammar mistakes, because there are quite a lot and it's tiring for me or anyone else to have to go through and list them.

Direct quotes should be like this: "Insert quote here." I don't know why you're doing it like ' this ' , but that's wrong. Double quotation marks, quote, punctuation, end quote with another set of ".

Honestly just go over some basic grammar rules before you write a story. You can't write something that has dialogue when you don't know how to use it. And like I said, use a word processor. It will help.

Ok, will edit and change.

Truth be told I CCCV'd (copy and pasted) from my desktop, couldnt be bothered to type it up again.

Again, thanks.

EDIT:

At Nom, please don't treat me like I'm an idiot.

I know how to use them, and I do use quotation marks.

Again, I do have grammar sense, this is the draft copy, and the hard copy has all the errors corrected.

Your feedback is helpful, your tone isn't

Why would you post something up here for everyone to read if you already knew it had a ton of errors in it? I don't mean to be a complete [wagon], but that is stupid.

Why would you post something up here for everyone to read if you already knew it had a ton of errors in it? I don't mean to be a complete [wagon], but that is stupid.

Lets not make this thread into a flame war, but yes I agree. If you look at the edits, I was gradually correcting it.

Lets stop this now. :cry:

Well then, don't complain when people show you your errors. Thats all Nom was trying to do and you got upset. :shame:

At Nom, please don't treat me like I'm an idiot.

 

I know how to use them, and I do use quotation marks.

 

Again, I do have grammar sense, this is the draft copy, and the hard copy has all the errors corrected.

 

 

 

Your feedback is helpful, your tone isn't

I'm not treating you like an idiot. You provided none of those explanations at the time so I critiqued what was there. You'd be surprised how many people who post in the VL have no clue how to use simple grammar structures.

If you had a better copy you should have posted that, or at least let everyone know. Don't hold anything back :)

OK Great.

Edited and checked, tell me what you think.

You should only ever use the ellipsis sparingly.

Otherwise you run the risk of sounding like a hack fanfiction writer.

So, Zonorhc,

Rate me and comment on the story(...) <- Haha, Ironic.

Thanks.