A story in the sunset

[downing]

Er...this is a work of mine. What do you think of it?





A story in the sunset

In the lovely light of sunset, the sound of the nightingales was heard through the back-garden of an old house from a silent city, somewhere in Devonshire. The time of twilight was approaching, and, from the garden of the house, the going-down sun could be seen in its most beautiful appearance. Its beams sent towards the large windows of the house revealed the interior of it: there were a very old piano and a large sofa; marvellous pictures on the walls showed wonderful landscapes. One of the paintings was different from the others, showing a splendid house with wide-opened windows, framed by a brown stripe. The house was situated on a plain and, in the distance you could see a magnificent maple wood and a big blue lake.
Amanda was the girl who lived in the house from England and she was 20 years old- a very beautiful young girl who loved nature and arts. Amada had brown eyes which inspired love to anyone looking at her. She was admiring the splendid house from the picture which throned in the living-room for years. Amanda turned the picture; on the back of it the following words were written with a pencil the: “1911, Arthur’’. Amanda knew that most of the pictures were her grandmother’s who had been a very wealthy person. Arthur, her grandfather had been a doctor and a very handsome man. He had died in the First World War and had been buried somewhere in Austria. Amanda had never met him. She had only seen a photo of him, sitting in the living-room of their house in England.
‘Arthur’, said her grandmother, ‘was a wonderful young man. He was from Virginia, coming from a very rich family. They had a prosper business with coffee and they were part from the high society of Virginia. He was an excellent horse-rider and he could also play the piano. That piano from our living-room , is his from Virginia. I first met him at a party on a ship, on the Atlantic. He was about 20 years old, your age, as you may see’, the old lady said to Amanda, smiling. Then she gave a sigh and stopped talking for a moment… She looked out of the window and put her wrinkled hands on it: ‘Whenever I wake up, I take a look at the street and I see him coming towards me…I can see his blue eyes looking at me…He has flowers in his hands and he is almost running towards our home… Then, if I close my eyes and open them again, he isn’t there anymore. But I still have his image in my memory and … Arthur represented my whole life. I was on a rich ship when he came towards me and said: ‘Would you like to dance with me?’ I said ‘yes’, and with it, I accepted my whole life from then on, I accepted your father, yourself and everything that will ever come to this family. That picture you ask me about was painted by him, in 1911, during our honey-moon, in Derwentwater. Three years after that, the First World War began. One evening when I was staying in the living-room, he came to me and said: ‘Anna, I think that the war will start if it hasn’t already… I have to go.’’
He was a brave and faithful man. I just said: ‘God may help you!’ and he left. Three months after that, I received a letter informing me that Arthur Williams had died, in a shell fire and that he was buried somewhere in Austria. It’s been 60 years since then… I loved him every day of my existence, since the moment I met him. I still love him with the same passion and I will for the rest of my life. Arthur Williams made me happy and I thank him every day for this. I never regretted anything and I wish you should do so too, Amanda. People give too much importance to the end. We should concentrate on life.’
Amanda let her grandmother rest. That night, Anna Williams died. The next day, Amanda took the picture with the house from her grandmother’s bed and wanted to put it at its place, in the living-room. She turned it and saw some words written with a pencil: ’’God, thank you for everything you gave me! Anna. ’’ Amanda put the picture on the wall and went outside, admiring the sunset, while the sound of the nightingales was heard through the back-garden of the old house from a silent city, somewhere in Devonshire…

[Xamonas Chegwe]

It's a sweet story. But there are a couple of factual errors that get in the way of it.

First - there is no such county in England as Devonshire - it's just Devon. And I am not aware of any maple woods - there is a native maple in England, but it is a fairly small tree - mainly found in hedgerows or on the fringes of woods, not forming a forest by itself. Oak or Beech would have been better choices here.

Second - unless her Grandfather was fighting for the Central Powers (ie. Germany) he would not have been buried in Austria. There were no battles in Austria in which allied forces were involved in 1914, The Austro-Hungarians were mainly preoccupied with fighting in Serbia and Italy in that year and certainly not on their own soil - Belgium or France would be more convincing.

These may seem like small points - and they are - but it is this kind of thing that jars with people that have knowledge of the things / places that you write about and can detract from a good story. A little more research is needed if you are going to base your story around real places or events.

Having said all of that, it's not a bad effort - there are a few spelling and grammar mistakes which need tidying up, but it's got a nice structure. Your profile gives no clues about your age or nationality, but I suspect that you are fairly young and not English.

Don't be discouraged. You seem to have a decent amount of skill, it's just that good writing is nowhere near as easy as people seem to think; you need to practice a lot and research much more (the internet makes this easy - anything you are in any doubt about factually - google!). It also helps to set the story somewhere that you know, rather than somewhere that sounds interesting - remember that a place that seems ordinary and boring to you can seem just as exotic to people that have never been there as Devonshire seems to you - you just need to write it interesting.

Please take this as constructive criticism and feel free to post any other stories here.