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Jellyfish

3 years ago

                Here is a short story that I wrote when I was board. Can you post feedback down below please? I would like to improve my writing so all criticism is appreciated. Also, I know my spelling and grammar probably isn't great, I would like to get better at that too. 

                The Jellyfish floated in the water, pulsing, like a heartbeat. It was almost mesmerizing the way they pulsed, like dancers to an unheard tune. She watched as they bobbed, and for a moment she became one. As they bobbed she breathed. As they floated in the water, letting the currents drift them away, she could almost feel the cool water around her, and the calm of the rhythm. Up, down. In, out. She lost herself in the world of jellyfish. 

                 Someone tapped her shoulder. She jumped, snapping out of her trance. Milma looked at her oddly. "I called your name three times and you didn't respond, is everything alright?" Milma asked. "Yeah." She said quickly, "Everything's fine." No I'm not okay! She wanted to scream. Everything's not okay, everything's awful! She wanted to say, but she didn't, she couldn't. She didn't want to admit it, that things had gone wrong. She didn't want to admit that it was real, this was real to herself. Saying that it wasn't okay, she wasn't okay, would be like having it happen all over again. 

                    She couldn't bear it, the emptiness in her heart, the constant ache for something she could never have, something that was so precious to her, so- Stop it! She told herself. it didn't do her good to wish. Her wishes never came true, in fact, they always backfired. After all, it was one of her wishes that killed her. Her. Mom. Olivia Smith. Even thinking the name brought the dull ache to a pounding pain, for a moment she couldn't breath, couldn't think. then the moment was over and everything was back to normal. 

                 Except for a pang of longing in her crippled heart. Except for the fact that normal had changed, normal had become an empty house, awkward silences, pity, anger, and that all too familiar ache in her heart. 

                She longed to return to the world of jellyfish, a world where nothing mattered, a world where everything was prefect, no anger, no ache, and no dead mom. But they were already walking away to the next exhibit, something about dolphins or sharks. She cast one last regretful look at the jellyfish tank, and rounded the corner, leaving them behind forever. 

       

Jellyfish

3 years ago

I like it. One thing that could do with being changed though. "Her. Mom. Olivia Smith." Why the fullstops? I get that you want to emphasize the words, but full stops do not put emphasis on a word, they indicate the end of a sentence. "Her." is not a sentence. The correct way would be, "Her mom, Olivia Smith." If you still wanted to use full stops to signify the importance of the words then you could go with, "Her mom. Olivia Smith." But "Her. Mom. Olivia Smith." just doesn't work because it separates the "her" from the "mom", meaning you're not talking about "her mom" anymore, you're talking about "her" and then "mom"... Other than that though, it was good. ^_^

Jellyfish

3 years ago

Thanks for the feedback! Like I said at the beginning, I am not the best at grammar so thanks for the tip. I will remember that next time I write something where I want to put emphasis on the words. 

Jellyfish

3 years ago

I just realized that I had a lowercase letter at the beginning of a sentence, something I learned not to do long ago. Oh well, guess it's too late to change that now. 

Jellyfish

3 years ago
It's good. Really well done. Third paragraph could use a bit more efficiency. It was a bit too much in my opinion. You could match the sentence structure of positive in negative expression to get a starker contrast.