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Undone stuff: The Great Carnage

6 years ago

Greetings. My name's Martin Gonzalez, from persia. I've been studying english for several years and thanks to my friend Maya who suggested me to join the choose your story comunity. I did some writing works in the past, but they were quite awful. I know I really suck at writing, so please feel free to yell at me if you want. :)
The story involves around a guy who's a warrior in the battle between Persia and Iraq. Didn't want to cause headaches for you guys with my bad writing skills, but I sincerely want to improve it.
Thanks in advance!

*Contains strong language

 


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The Great Carnage
Rummaging through the abandoned basement, I heled my flashlight up as the sun settled down. The truck had to pick me up by 8. Astonished by the engine uproar, I turned around to see the large truck at the distance. “Sup big boy?” The squad commander beckoned me as he jumped down the truck with his light machine gun mounted on shoulders.
Tall and thin, His name was SAM. He was the first guy I knew of who got over 20 Iraqi armed personnel with bare hands without taking any damage. The tough son of a bitch!
“Not Much”. I pocketed the flashlight and got into the truck. Two other soldiers had already got off the truck to bring in the packages I found in the basement.
“Any news?” I asked as SAM crumbled into the truck with a paper.
“What’s this?” He asked, ignoring my question.
“Don’t know, maybe some sort of paper some assholes left on the ground.” I answered.
He got a seat farthest away from me, Eyes fixed on it.
“Looks like some CB channel codes.” Switching the Walky-talky on, he started turning the hand knobs around.
“So any news?” I asked again, frowning.
“Umm, well We found some stuff.” The guy behind the driver seat answered, exhaling a cloud of smoke.
His name was HAMID. He always carried around a pack of cigarette. He lost his wife and two children at a bombing attempt in capital. He later joined  the army to work as a volunteer force. Fat and beard, with wounds and bruises all over his face.
SAM nodded him to stay quiet.
Soon the two other guys walked off the basement holding big packages.
I soon recognized one of them. JAMSHID was a short, thin guy. He joined the army after the Iraqi army slaughtered his family in KHORAMSHAHR. He had a little bit of south accent and he often used to drink alcohol. He was a colonel before the revolution but was later demoted to sergeant as he was found one night drunk at the camp, strolling.
The other two stuffed the packages in the back and got in.
The other guy shacked hands with me.
“my name’s AMIR,” he said smiling.
“I was in backup team, but general MAHMUDI told me to join the frontline. I have some experience working with heavy mounted guns.”
“Yeah. He almost shot one of his teammates when he was configuring the RPG.” JAMSHID said grinning.
“Told you that was an accident. I could done it better if that guy didn’t jump in the way.”
“Oh yeah? And I could have three more children if I could spend another two years with NASRIN.” HAMID roared, puffing another cloud of smoke from his nostrils.
He bended forward and turned the ignition on. The engine kicked off with a loud bang.
“Don’t look at the gifted horse in the mouth. MAHMUDI could give us no replacement for MAJID.” SAM said, still messing with the hand knobs.
“And did any one of you even went looking for him at all?” I said angrily. MAJID was my twin brother. We used to work together ever since we voluntarily joined the army. But he was killed in a mission. I was on guard duties that night.
“Ugh, just shut your mouth JABER.” SAM snarled.
“At least if one of you stayed off for a minute helping him he’d might be alive. But you three didn’t have bawls to do it. All of you were busy looking after your own asses.”
“I said, shut the fuck up. We’re not going through that shit again!”
“Hey what’s the story?” AMIR asked puzzled. Nobody answered.
“so is that it? You backstab your own men just to keep yourself alive for a few goddamn days longer?” I was now enraged.
SAM let alone the Walky-talky and turned to me.
“If you just, say another word, I’ll shoot your knees and will leave you alone to play fucks. You know better that the Iraqis will arrive soon.”
I zipped up. Messing with Iraqi forces without any backups was something I never wanted to taste.
“So what’s the story?” AMIR asked again, this time looking intimidated.
“He blames us for killing his twin brother.” JAMSHID said yawning.
“So what exactly you guys were doing?”
SAM nodded at JAMSHID and started talking.
“We were at a mission one night. I told him (pointing to me) to stand at his guard post because the camp had only 2 night watchers.”
“So what happened?” AMIR asked, interrupting his speech.
“We were betrothed. A guy called ALI came with us. He was an ingenious guy. He was only 17 and he could build and defuse explosives. He exploded our tank and drove the enemy troupes right on our ass. MAJID was shot in the leg twice. We couldn’t save him. Those bastards kept shooting simultaneously. We quickly ran out of ammo. We had no other choice.”
He finished talking and stared upwards. He seemed to be fighting with his conscience.
AMIR nodded.
“I’m so sorry for this tragedy JABER. I’m sure your brother is safe now.”
I did nothing. There was a long silence after that.

 

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Undone stuff: The Great Carnage

6 years ago
Welcome to the site :) I can do a full review later, but for now I'd reccommend only capitalizing the first letter of every name, not the entire name.

Undone stuff: The Great Carnage

6 years ago
Hey Martin, welcome to CYS! I'm glad you joined us. Now there's one more blind person I can add to my blindy army ... erm, ignore that. I'll give you a more detailed review later, and I hope some more skilled members help out too, but for now just a few things.

You are writing dialogue incorrectly. Please check this link.

You are writing names incorrectly, too. Remember, just the first letter is capitalized. I'm not sure why you're even doing this; you wrote your name and my name correctly, and then started screwing it up in the story. There's also plenty of strange wording, but as I said, I'll point that out later, probably sometime tomorrow.

Undone stuff: The Great Carnage

6 years ago

Greetings. I won't yell at you but you still suck at English grammar. You don't suck at writing per se though, because this excerpt - once deciphered - could make an interesting opening in a story. The setting is one most of us are unfamiliar with, so that would surely spark some curiosity and attract readers. I also like the conflict you chose to create between the protagonist and his comrades, and the reason behind it. Letting the soldiers explain it to a new member while arguing with Jaber was also a good way to avoid an info dump.

Those were the positives (well basically the whole plot is the positive), now with the things that are not alright:

Grammar. You misused some words and expressions ('bawls' instead of 'balls', 'astonished by the engine uproar', 'nodded him to stay quiet', 'crumbled into the truck' etc), had a couple problems with punctuation (i.e. 'The tough son of a bitch!' sounds strange to me) and for some strange reason decided to write the names in all caps. There are also other errors that I haven't listed here, but I just wanted you to understand where you have to improve (namely, in the English language).

I'm an ESL myself and I've found that reading English things (books, articles, forum threads) really is the best method to improve your writing skills in this language, because it teaches you how those grammar rules you learned are used by native speakers, and you can see the language in action. This actually applies to all languages, not just to English. I can't imagine how difficult it is to switch from Persian to English, but I'm sure you can improve.

Out of curiosity: do all Iranians still refer to Iran as Persia? I'm honestly interested.

Edit: I've apparently beaten both Leora and Mayana to it, where's my medal wait for their reviews because they'll probably be more detailed and helpful.

Undone stuff: The Great Carnage

6 years ago
Whoa, Mayana has a friend?

I can't give this a detailed look right now but it seems like Undr's got you covered. I will say though that while grammar, spelling and punctuation and the like need work (although you're still need at English than a lot of native English speakers we've seen...) you have a talent for telling the actual story. Events and even the dialogue flow pretty naturally, so I think your stuff has a lot of potential once you get the technical stuff down.