I try so hard not to hear but they’re so loud. Their piercing sounds fill my ears leaving me in doubt. The only goal is to keep this family from falling. With no love left how can we be saved, from this aching loneliness that comes our way? They don’t understand what it’s doing to us. They carry on for hours while my brother and I starve. I try to put him to sleep and tell him “everything will be fine”; though I know he is much smarter than he looks. Yet he forces himself to believe me and pretends he doesn’t know what’s going on; whilst I lay there in silence remembering the good times.
Everything now silent I only hear cries. I stand still in wonder. The front door slams shut, with a sound like thunder.
Hello, TeleTubbiez.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this. Your writing seems very confident and precise. I think you characterize the two kids really well; I can understand the narrator’s desire not to hear the rows, and I completely believe that the brother would force himself to believe something which he knows in his heart to be false. Well done. I think that, if this piece had been longer, you could have explored these emotions more fully. In a way, though, it’s quite poignant to get just a brief glimpse into the life of a family.
Separating the last two lines from the body of the piece makes them stand out, and seem quite powerful. One thing I’d say, though, is that things are not silent if the narrator can hear cries! Silence is of course the absence of all sound. Maybe you could change it to ‘Everything now quiet, I hear only cries.’ That pretty much keeps your original rhythm in tact. What do you think?
Anyway, good job! Keep writing.
Helen
That was definitely quality over quantity.I really enjoyed reading your little piece.I really liked the way you wrote something story and yet it gave the reader so much of an insight of what was going on.
ReplyDeletewell done
Your final sentence is especially powerful, and I like the economy of the rest of the piece (i.e. you distill the whole scene into a relatively short description). However, that said, I think a longer piece would have given you the chance to develop everything - character, plot, setting etc. - that little bit further. Quality is always more important that quantity - but quantity still counts...
ReplyDeleteThanks 4the good comments and i've taken on board everything you've all said and the line suggestion from helen, i agree with it too
ReplyDelete:D
hi tele!
ReplyDeleteonly just got round to looking at this, sorry for the delay...yeah, agree with Helen really - this is kind of like a prose peom, a difficult form to work with, though it has a power precisely because of its brevity.
If you want to expand it, all you'd have to do would be to think more carefully, perhaps, about who the characters are, where they are, why they are in this situation, and all that other stuff about what tehy look like, and how thy feel about each other, what their names are. It's not even necessary then to include all that stuff (it's often better if you don't!), but if you know it, then it helps the writing to be fuller.
Loved the use of the picture too!
More please,
Chris