All the Pretty Pictures (comments welcome!)

I'm in the process of writing a short story regarding a class of people who will likely perceive the world quite differently from ourselves. Here's the first portion, as the story comes along I'll be posting it here (I'll try to remember to!) and on my blog.

All the Pretty Pictures (Part I)

All of them, they emphasized, were normal. Adverbs like “absolutely” and “completely” were often added ostensibly in view of comforting the children, but these only served to feed that nagging something in little Johnny.

It was not the school, not really. The children’s teachers were some of the most pleasant individuals Johnny had ever encountered. There was a patience in each of their voices (that bordered on condescension, although Johnny didn’t mind) and a certain smell about them that had Johnny dreaming daily of the little swerves and turns his parents’ car would make on the way to school.

It may have been his life at home. His parents and neighbours acted inexplicably at times: there was the time when his parents had a loud argument with Jane next door about, variously, reining in those kids of their or having some compassion for this kid of ours. Unbeknownst to them Johnny did enjoy the sounds of fun and laughter by the other kids at the playground, although he never understood why he as being teased; neither did his parents ever understand why his interest in it waned sharply after the argument.

So a feeling of disjointness between the spheres of his life, and a slight confusion about people’s behaviour, stuck with Little Johnny for several years. Young Johnny became, in fact, almost used to an idea that life was just inexplicable, until Sandy.

I can see what you are trying to do here. But it lacks clarity. You need to go carefully through it again, Try reading it out aloud. That 3rd paragraph is confused, its last line nonsensical . Think what you're trying to say and say it simply. Cut out words like "unbeknownst"

The biggining of a story is important, and worth taking trouble over.

Mmmm thanks for the advice! I have this problem with trying too hard to be mysterious...

I know. You need a hook to whet the appetite of the reader. Its a difficult balance to achieve; mysterious\informative.

just a quick suggestion, in would lose the 'little' in this sentence: 'but these only served to feed that nagging something in little Johnny' becuase it makes him sound like tiny tim and i think you already do a good job of conveying his age through out the section.

The story is intriguing and i think if you simplified it a bit and added some concrete detail it would be very readable