The House!

[Nossa]

This is a little short story that I wrote last night..
I'm sorry in advance for any spelling, grammar or punctuation mistakes. I tried as much as I could not to make any.
Waiting for your comments, just keep in mind it's like my second time or so to write a short story...don't be too harsh :lol:

[Virgil]

Nossa, I read the story and I would divide it into two parts.

First it was an outstanding beginning. Here it's not too long to quote.

In the little quite street, Nadia parked her car in front of the house, and made her way, on foot, through the narrow, dirty and full of fallen leaves doorway. As she proceeded in her walking, she was rather disgusted than shocked of how the place became a mere dirty wreck. How the doorway was so dusty and dirty that she couldn't see the ground. How the trees were all dead, and the house was hanging by a thread. Having spent the past decade away, in a different country, she didn't know, and didn't care to know, about what happened to the house. The one she once lived in with her little family.
"I shouldn't have worn these clothes here" She mummered to herself, while trying as much as she could to avoid stepping on anything that might ruin her expensive Gucci shoes. , or touching anything that might spoil her elegant Armani suit. She looked up at the house, and could see the broken window of what was once her room. The little balcony of her mother's kitchen and the little hanger, she used to put the wet laundry on. She coughed twice, because of the dusty air and the not-so-clean surrounding. Her lungs could no longer take this kind of pollution. She looked in her bag searching for the mask she wore the minute she stepped in the airport, to protect her sensitive lungs from the polluted air.
"I don't know how I could live in this place before" she said in resentment, as she took out the keys to get into the house.
You captured the mood, the setting, the central conflict, and the character in such a few words, that I'm impressed and I definitely as a reader was captured and curious to read on.

And you handle the next paragraph really well too.

As she walked in, flashes of memories started coming back to her. The big mirror in the hall, where she used to put on her make-up, when she was late, the living room in which she used to sit with her father, talking about her day, the broken stairs that once lead to her own little room as a child and a teenager. She tried going up on them, but they were broken, that she'd fall if she tried. She looked up at the upper floor, hoping to get a quick look at what was once her entire world.
Through her memory you add a past, and the small details (I really liked having her recall how she put her make-up on there) add the the tangibility of the whole scene. The first prority a fiction writer must do is to make it believable, make the reader think it is real, and small details like that make it very real. And you do that for another paragraph or so nicely.

But after that the story disintegrates. You jump to a conclusion before you fully develop the story. It's too abbreviated. Especially for an emotional ending. In order to reach that ending, you have to earn the emotion. I hope you understand that. Emotion all by itself comes out as pure expression and readers don't engage to pure expression. There's a reason why stories are 20 ages long. The more emotional a climax or situation, the more the writer has to earn it. He has to build and support it. Am I making sense? Also I'm not a big fan of ending stories with a quote. I would prefer to take a key line out of that quote and make it a subtitle or even the title of the story.

But let me say, I think this story has a lot of potential. I'm engaged with the character and situation. I think you just need to think the story through some more. Other characters coming into conflict with the young lady or obstacles she must overcome, and that will lead to her epiphany. I hope I helped.

[Nossa]

Thank you SO much for your review..it means a lot to me.
I fully understood what you said, and when I thought about it, I think you are quite right too...I have to make the reader engage in the same emotions that I have and that I'm trying to deliver..and I didn't do this, cuz the story was short.
I'm really thankful for all the positive things you pointed out..and I'll keep in mind the point you said about the quotes. I actually got the idea of putting the whole poem, cuz I read a short story by Ray Bradbury that has the same thing...but he used it as the title of the story (the point you said) and he didn't end the story with it, it was in the middle of it to be accurate. I'm def. not comparing myself to Bradbury here of course :lol:
I'm glad that you think it's a good start...as I told you, it's probably the first time that I really write a short story...I'm glad you liked it :D
And thank you so much again for taking the time to read it. :D

[Virgil]

My pleasure Nossa. I can tell you're a literature student. Does your college off any creative writing classes? The problem you encountered are usually encountered by literature students who are trying to write rathe than creative writing students. Both types of students approach it differently, There is a different perspective for a writer than a reader. A creative writing class or two will orient you to approach writing from a writer's point of view rather than a literature student. I wound up taking a number of creative writing classes while I was in college and not only did it help me write but it also gave me a different perspective on literature. After all the writer you are analysing as a lit student was in the frame of mind of a creative writer, not someone to be under a microscope for lit professors.

[Nossa]

Actually, this summer three of our professors teamed up and decided to make a reading/writing class for us. It's a great idea. We started last week, and we'll meet up once in a week. We'll be reading certain literatry works of our choice (by voting) and discuss them together. And there's a whole session for creative work. We'll write, discuss and learn more about the techniques of writing, the mistakes that are usually made in writing (things like what you pointed out above). And I know that being a lit. student makes me more...I don't know the right word, but maybe makes me just follow certain things that I learned, and I end up making a mistake that the original author whom I'm trying to imitate didn't make...did that make sense?! lol
Well..anyways, I know I'm not gonna be a writer someday, and even if I am, it's not any time sooner. T.S. Eliot said that a writer is who continues writing after the age of 25...I don't even know if I'll still be alive till I get to 25 :lol:
But thank you SO much...this really helped me. And I'll keep in mind everything you said here, it'll def. help me a lot in future writings :D

[PrinceMyshkin]

Agree absolutely with the points Virgil made. I enjoyed reading this as far as it went and felt comfortable that I was in the hands of an intelligent narrator BUT if there was a story here I missed it! And I couldn't connect that particular poem with what I'd read so far. But if there is more to this I will certainly be looking for it.

[Nossa]

Agree absolutely with the points Virgil made. I enjoyed reading this as far as it went and felt comfortable that I was in the hands of an intelligent narrator BUT if there was a story here I missed it! And I couldn't connect that particular poem with what I'd read so far. But if there is more to this I will certainly be looking for it.

Thank you so much PrinceMyshkin for your feedback :D
Actually, the part about the poem was indeed a little ambiguous, and I got that comment more than once, so in future writings, I'll make sure I quote something more understandable.
I'm glad you liked the narrating...and about the story line, well, I meant the story to be a look at a scene, which would tell the reader, through its details, about the life of the character involved...I'm not sure now if I was successful at all in this...lol
But thank you so much for taking time to read and comment on it :)

[Night Closet]

Hi Nossa....Actually your story makes me wonder ....Who you will be after 5 or 6 years by God willing ???? but my brain answers that for me ......"You will be a great writer...believe me if you continue like that with more developement ....you are going to be one of those we memorize their names;) .
Regarding the story:

I found my self involved in the story although it contains no actions...but the same feeling she felt sneaked into my heart and made me imagine " what if i take this house to stand for my beloved country??? i imagine how is the feeling of anyone who left Egypt from 20 years or something and came back to find it as this house...he is alienated in his own country"house"......i'm sorry if my apple has fallen very far from your tree but i'm just telling what actually your story engages me with .......yours
The Night Closet