# The color of the Soul (472 words)



## Birb (Nov 8, 2017)

So, I wrote this to a prompt "The color of the soul/Emotions" I had about half an hour to write this, but I did edit it afterwards (and recently used Grammarly to fix a bunch of mistakes) what do you think?

Ever since I was young, I knew was different. I could always see through people, see their thoughts, their emotions, their very souls as colors. When I got to high school the halls were always kaleidoscopes of emotion. Blazing reds as two students started to fight, a warm yellow as a girl skipped happily down the hall. Of course, because of this, I wasn’t very popular with others. I always would hear girls surrounded by a nervous brown cloud.
 “He creeps me out, He always stares at people.”
 I always smiled and walked on, they’d stare too if they could see what I did. High school went on as it did, but over time something changed. My fascination with the colors that surrounded everyone was beginning to fade. It was normal now, just another daily occurrence. That’s when it happened. The best and worst day of my life. 
 On the way home there is a busy intersection bordering the school. Alongside the intersection, there are several Mom[/FONT] and Pop shops where students usually congregate for lunch. Among the sea of colors, I saw a new color, standing out among the others. A homeless looking man surrounded by a black haze stumbled through the crowd. He had an odd on his face. Suddenly, he stumbled, and fell straight into traffic. I remember every moment in vivid detail, I remember vomiting on the side of the curb afterwards, and the frantic swarm of color that followed. Strangely enough, I also felt a strange new feeling. It was the guilty, giddy satisfaction of a dirty secret. Black must have meant the person would soon die. It was odd, but I didn’t question it. It was new, and it was very interesting. I was up all night thinking about it, that and the feeling of dark pleasure knowing a person will die in advance.
 The next day I was a mess, a strange mix of tiredness and excitement. Dreamily, I sat down, and I began to take out my supplies for class. Suddenly, I notice the girl sitting in front of me glowed a cruel black. A mix of excitement, curiosity, and worry filled me. What would happen to this girl? I jumped as I heard a crash from the doorway, and my head whipped around so fast that it hurt. Quickly, I realized that it was just a student who tripped on the door frame. I almost turned my head away, save for the same black glow as the girl. I stood up quickly, looking around. It wasn’t just those two, everyone in the class had the same black glow. Panicked, I looked out to the window. My heart froze as in the window my reflection showed the same cruel haze my class did. Suddenly, I heard the door close and the click of a lock.
 “Hello Class”
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## Pluralized (Nov 8, 2017)

Hey Birb! Best forum handle ever.

Creepy story, I dug it. This concept of seeing the emotions as colors, or the disposition of people's energy in different hues, is a neat idea. Glad you shared this. 

Honestly I think it deserves a bit more work if you want to polish it up to full potential. I am not equipped to go through line by line and tell you every glitch, but overall I would suggest looking at two general issues with how this is written. 

First, there are many instances of "I *verb*" which get a bit repetitive. The tone of the narrative is fairly consistent, and I think shows some promise, but take a look at where this happens and see if you can imbue a different way of structuring the same information. Little tweaks. For instance, where we say "I stood up quickly, looking around," you might find it more useful to couple this action with something that helps move the story along like, "The black glow shrouded my feet as I rose," or something in your own words that gives us the same info but folds it into the narrative. That's the goal, right, is to portray the story through the eyes of the narrator, without telling us every little movement that the narrator's physical presence makes in the story. Hope I'm making sense here, I'm probably long-winded.

Second, there are some crutches apparent to me when I see the words "suddenly" and "quickly" used as often as they appear. Take a good hard look at every sentence and see if they are all pulling their weight. Like this one: 



> Quickly, I realized that it was just a student who tripped on the door frame.



At the bare minimum, we don't need the word "Quickly" in this passage, as it's counterproductive. Calls attention to itself. Also "I realized" is one of those aforementioned filtering glitches that I believe would best be reviewed to see if there's a cleaner way to present the information. Also maybe take that opportunity to inflect the narrative. Take some chances. "Through the doorway stumbled some kid, covered in black fog..." just throwing lame suggestions out but the takeaway is to try and eliminate the stage direction.

Hope this helps and sorry for the rambling reply here. This was a fun read and I would encourage you to revamp and share so we can see how this develops. Cheers![FONT=&Verdana]


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## SueC (Nov 8, 2017)

This is an interesting idea, but I was pretty distracted by the missing words and formatting. That made it really hard to read. Try reading the work out loud and you should be able to see what I am talking about. Your explanations as to why these things are happening to this girl - seeing people in colors - seem to be missing. For example, you say that she was not popular in high school because she could see colors, but how is that the reason? I mean, you don't give any examples of interaction between girls which explain why she is not popular. I also don't understand why the "worst and the best day of" her life was when she saw black surrounding a homeless man who was going to die.

I just feel that more work could be done with this. Maybe flesh it out a little more. Thanks for putting this out there - keep writing.


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## VonBradstein (Nov 10, 2017)

Birb said:


> So, I wrote this to a prompt "The color of the soul/Emotions" I had about half an hour to write this, but I did edit it afterwards (and recently used Grammarly to fix a bunch of mistakes) what do you think?
> 
> Ever since I was young, I knew was different. I could always see through people, see their thoughts, their emotions, their very souls as colors. When I got to high school the halls were always kaleidoscopes of emotion. Blazing reds as two students started to fight, a warm yellow as a girl skipped happily down the hall. Of course, because of this, I wasn’t very popular with others. I always would hear girls surrounded by a nervous brown cloud.
> “He creeps me out, He always stares at people.”
> ...



Hey Birb,

I usually stay well clear of the 'This is telling and you need to show' line, but I think its warranted here. 

I am always distrustful of people (and characters) who feel the need to tell me How Different They Are. If you are different then (1) How are you different and (2) Why are you telling me. In this piece you start with that as your opening - so something very vague - and then compound it with telling me how you can 'see through people'. That's fine, but I'm not given a clear idea as to whether that is meant literally (you can literally see through them) or figuratively (you can see what they're thinking, their true nature, etc). This is part of the problem of trying to explain the inexplicable. 

Almost half way through the piece is where you begin the story (That's when it happened...) which is just not workable in my view. Imagine sitting through a 2 hour movie and the first hour is somebody telling you about the characters. Would you want to see that movie? I suspect the answer is no. I realize this is a much, much shorter piece but the principle is the same - people still expect a story to be close to 100% story and for the set up to be minimal. On a piece of this length you want absolutely no more than a sentence. If that.

Your response to this, probably quite extreme sounding advice, is probably going to be 'yes but I need to explain the character first'. My response to that would be 'why?"

Consider this piece for a moment with everything up to "That's when it happened" removed:

_*"On the way home there is a busy intersection bordering the school.

 Alongside the intersection, there are several Mom and Pop shops where students usually congregate for lunch. Among the sea of colors, I saw a new color, standing out among the others. 

A homeless looking man surrounded by a black haze stumbled through the crowd. He had an odd on his face. Suddenly, he stumbled, and fell straight into traffic. I remember every moment in vivid detail, I remember vomiting on the side of the curb afterwards, and the frantic swarm of color that followed. Strangely enough, I also felt a strange new feeling. It was the guilty, giddy satisfaction of a dirty secret. Black must have meant the person would soon die. It was odd, but I didn’t question it. It was new, and it was very interesting. I was up all night thinking about it. 

That and the feeling of dark pleasure knowing a person will die in advance.
*_
_*The next day I was a mess, a strange mix of tiredness and excitement. Dreamily, I sat down, and I began to take out my supplies for class. Suddenly, I notice the girl sitting in front of me glowed a cruel black. A mix of excitement, curiosity, and worry filled me. 

What would happen to this girl?

 I jumped as I heard a crash from the doorway, and my head whipped around so fast that it hurt. Quickly, I realized that it was just a student who tripped on the door frame. I almost turned my head away, save for the same black glow as the girl. I stood up quickly, looking around. It wasn’t just those two, everyone in the class had the same black glow. Panicked, I looked out to the window. My heart froze as in the window my reflection showed the same cruel haze my class did. 

Suddenly, I heard the door close and the click of a lock. 

*__*“Hello Class”

*_^I know this may sound counter intuitive but by removing the first half of your story your piece actually loses nothing and gains a lot more imapct. It may seem like you lose depth-of-character but I would argue that is not the case. If you consider what is actually communicated in the exposition at the beginning its really just (1) That this is a high school kid (2) That this kid has some kind of hidden ability to do with seeing invisible colors. That's really all that you are trying to say (feel free to point out if there's some other crucial info hidden in there because I don't see it) and it is communicated indirectly in the second half by making clear the setting and by showing what happens. So essentially you are burying the fun part beneath a layer of pedestrian exposition that does nothing but up the word count.

By the length of this, this is flash fiction, so do not worry about explaining things. Readers are smart.

The only other thing I would say is that if you ran this through grammerly already there are still a ton of mistakes needing looked at. Specifically to do with punctuation (or absence of) and certain words not making sense. It is, for instance, impossible to have a 'black glow'. Black cannot glow. If it glows its not black.

Best of luck


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## Birb (Nov 11, 2017)

No, You're right VonBradstein. That was very good advice, thanks for taking the time to reply. I'm still new, so it might take me awhile to start getting into the mindset to think of all the stuff the three of you pointed out, but all of the critiques/advice is incredibly helpful. Thanks again!


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## Jack of all trades (Nov 11, 2017)

If you do as has been suggested, and remove the first half of the story, then the reader would have absolutely no idea what's going on!!

The opening about seeing the colors needs a bit of work, but it is vital in setting up the ending.


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## TuesdayEve (Nov 11, 2017)

I loved it .....as someone who occasionally sees colors, never tho as you've described, but the story kept my interest as I could relate to it and had me wanting more... it also had an old Twilight Zone series feel to it as well... nice ending.


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## bdcharles (Nov 11, 2017)

If you can work in the backstory about seeing the colours in alongside the events ongoing in the character's "present time", that could work, eg: you could start the story when the homeless man falls into the road, as that is a noteworthy event that also introduces us to a load of setup.


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## Birb (Nov 11, 2017)

Hello, So I decided that I was going to rewrite the story and see if I could do better the second try. I am taking into account all of these and trying to fix them:

VonBradstein/bdcharles- Moving story around to not be as describe-y, starting with the homeless man's death, and making it much less tell-y

Pluralized- Trying to cut down on I verbs and not using the crutches you identified.

SeuC- Work with the formatting and sentence structure to make it a bit less choppy

Again, thank you for all of your criticism and comments. (I wish I was as good at criticism so I could be a bit more useful here t- t) The story is a little bit longer, but idk if that's good or bad or not. I also apologize if the text is really large (Haven't posted it yet so I wouldn't know) for some reason as I went to finish the post I was randomly kicked out of the "Reply to Thread" and had to copy/paste from a text to speech thing I was using.Fixed itself when posted, ignore the underlined bit Well, I hope you enjoy.

I still remember every detail of yesterday, the best and worst day of my life. Our district is small and closely knit, the majority of students walk to and from school. On the way home, there is a busy road lined with a couple of Mom and Pop shops, where the students usually congregate for lunch. I saw a homeless-looking man about ten or so feet away, followed by a dark, menacing haze stumbling along the street.His eyes were glazed over and he had a strange, disconcerted look on his face. A girl, orange with worry, approached the man.

"Hello? Are you okay?" The man's head jerked towards the girl, staring at her. Several awkward moments passed when he suddenly jerked away in surprise, even at my distance I could see the wild, fearful look on his face as he tumbled straight into traffic. From that point on everything is a blur, my vomiting onto the sidewalk, the sound of screeching tires, a crash, the sounds of sirens mixing with voices and all of the colors mixing together. Brown filled my gaze as I trudged past a group of girls.

"He looks worse than u-" One began, stopping as my gaze rested on her with a slight shriek. I had spent all night thinking about what I had seen. Black, that must have meant someone was going to die soon. Exhaustion, guilty excitement, and confusion battled each other as I wondered what this meant. Why would I start seeing black now? Could I always see it, but just haven't been around and close to death? A shout rang out and a flash of red filled my vision as two students started grappling, slamming into lockers, trash cans, and other students as they tore down the hall. Narrowly I avoided them as the collapsed into a tangled heap. I saw more red glows as two teachers saw the fighting and began running down the hall. This would be a normal day for me, a boring day.

Today, however, was different. Yesterday's events still fresh in my mind, I walked into class and took my seat and began to take out my supplies. I, as usual, was first. I didn't have people to speak to in the halls like everyone else, but I didn't mind. Dreamily I sat for what seemed like forever, though as I glanced at the clock only a few minutes had passed. Students were beginning to file in now, but as usual, I ignored them and returned to my daydreams. I stared straight forward, and a girl slid into the seat in front of me. For almost a minute I stared at the girl as if nothing was wrong, my brain still muddled by my daydreams, when I noticed...She was surrounded by the same black haze as the man yesterday. A burst of worry and excitement filled me. What would happen to this girl? Would it be in school? A crash came from the doorway, and my head whipped around so quickly that my neck hurt. Was it what would kill the girl? Was it something interesting? To my disappointment, it was just a boy who had tripped over the doorframe. I almost dismissed it as boring, until I noticed that he too shared the cruel black cloud. I could feel my heart hammering as I looked to each and every student, and at the students walking in to see that they all shared a black film. I rushed over to the window, and faintly I saw that I too had black dancing around me.

There was a soft click behind me as the door shut, and the telltale sound of a key tuning in a lock.

"Hello, Class."​


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## VonBradstein (Nov 11, 2017)

Jack of all trades said:


> If you do as has been suggested, and remove the first half of the story, then the reader would have absolutely no idea what's going on!!
> 
> The opening about seeing the colors needs a bit of work, but it is vital in setting up the ending.



Disagree. Yes there would likely need to be a little tiny bit more added to the second part to bring to the fore, but it would largely be a question of adding in a word or a phrase here or there. My example was just to show the higher potential for impact when the setup was removed and was by no means intended as the final product. I didn't even touch the numerous SPAG errors nor the apparent flaws in the narrative. My intent is to try to demonstrate to the OP the importance of economy. By cutting out all that beginning druff not only is the impact heightened but he also bought himself some extra words to use to tell his story if he decides to keep this as a flash piece.

Ultimately yes it would be a little more challenging to interpret but often the best flash fiction requires some figuring out or re reading to extract the message - that's part of the attraction for me. I am not saying it permits free rein to write incoherently or poorly, but there is more leeway allowed as far as establishing background. Many FF pieces offer very little beyond the bare bones of a background or context - these things are instead hinted at indirectly. An example would be referring to a cafeteria or locker to indicate it is a school and portraying the kind of language and discourse typical of schoolchildren. If these things are done well, you save yourself the need to write something like "when he was at school he..." and thus a lot can be said in under a thousand words.

 The main point is that fifty percent of this story has only a tenuous link with the second and reads more like a blurb.


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## Jack of all trades (Nov 11, 2017)

Birb said:


> Hello, So I decided that I was going to rewrite the story and see if I could do better the second try. I am taking into account all of these and trying to fix them:
> 
> VonBradstein/bdcharles- Moving story around to not be as describe-y, starting with the homeless man's death, and making it much less tell-y
> 
> ...



I think the first version had more promise.

There are two ways to go. You can cut it, as you tried, and turn it into flash. My opinion is it got weaker.

The other way is to expand the beginning, have the MC struggle with the ability and how it sets him apart from everyone, and just when he gets comfortable with it, he's facing death.


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## Jack of all trades (Nov 11, 2017)

VonBradstein said:


> Disagree. Yes there would likely need to be a little tiny bit more added to the second part to bring to the fore, but it would largely be a question of adding in a word or a phrase here or there. My example was just to show the higher potential for impact when the setup was removed and was by no means intended as the final product. I didn't even touch the numerous SPAG errors nor the apparent flaws in the narrative. My intent is to try to demonstrate to the OP the importance of economy. By cutting out all that beginning druff not only is the impact heightened but he also bought himself some extra words to use to tell his story if he decides to keep this as a flash piece.
> 
> Ultimately yes it would be a little more challenging to interpret but often the best flash fiction requires some figuring out or re reading to extract the message - that's part of the attraction for me. I am not saying it permits free rein to write incoherently or poorly, but there is more leeway allowed as far as establishing background. Many FF pieces offer very little beyond the bare bones of a background or context - these things are instead hinted at indirectly. An example would be referring to a cafeteria or locker to indicate it is a school and portraying the kind of language and discourse typical of schoolchildren. If these things are done well, you save yourself the need to write something like "when he was at school he..." and thus a lot can be said in under a thousand words.
> 
> The main point is that fifty percent of this story has only a tenuous link with the second and reads more like a blurb.



I disagree. It requires more than adding a word here and there. It's like the punchline of a joke without the buildup. Flat.


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## VonBradstein (Nov 11, 2017)

Birb,


Your rewrite is ten-times better! 


I really dig this line "A girl, orange with worry, approached the man." and how it provides an early, subtle hint of the kid's powers.


It still needs more editing for SPAG and you especially need to pay more attention to formatting. Try breaking it out into more paragraphs to avoid the 'text block'. I do really quite like the story as a kind of abstract-psychedelic-horror-suspense thing. I think it works well as flash fiction and should probably stay that way, however I could also see it being developed into a longer piece.

I'm not hugely sold on the last line "Hello Class". This is, at its heart, a suspense story and I'm not sure what the relevance of the teacher entering the room. Perhaps if it wasn't the teacher? Perhaps if you were able to insert an antagonist figure, some kind of villain-of-colors ("Mr. Rainbow"?) who the kid sees in visions throughout the story who ends up appearing at the end in the guise of a teacher? I don't know. That's probably a big ask for a short piece, but ideas are fun. The main thing is your last line needs to contain some kind of revelation and closure that draws the whole thing into sense. It doesn't have to revolve around an antagonist, a teacher or anything else, but in order to reach the level of profundity a story needs to end with a certain finesse. Hello Class is okay, but in this story it reads more like a new line of dialogue than an ending.


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## VonBradstein (Nov 11, 2017)

Jack of all trades said:


> I disagree. It requires more than adding a word here and there. It's like the punchline of a joke without the buildup. Flat.



I go back to what I said in my critique about the movie. 

This story is (or was, as it has been since edited) 475 words long, of which 148 - so about one third, or thirty-three percent - is straight up "let me tell you about my powers, guys". That does not work. If the first hour of a three hour movie was a character talking generally about their supernatural abilities before any real story begins, that would be boring. A minute or two? That is no problem. Five minutes? Fine. But an hour? No way. Nobody would watch that.

 It's a question of proportion more than it is number of words. About a third of a haiku is one out of three lines and that makes or breaks it specifically because the length of the poem is so minimal you cant afford filler. The fewer words you have, the more of a drag it is.  The OP's build up would not be a problem IF the story was longer and more elaborate. If this was, say, a four thousand word story I would have zero issue with 175 words being spent on a rambling opening monologue (so long as its good). In my last finished novel, which was about 104,000 words long, I spent approximately three thousand words of it on a background prologue. That was less than fifteen percent of the novel's total word count, but even that felt kind of long.

 So just to be clear its not a matter of "oh you only need a couple words to explain your story" as it is "if you are writing a super short piece you have to be economical across the board". If I am going to read something that is 475 words long I want every word, and certainly every sentence, to hit with a lot of weight.


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## Jack of all trades (Nov 11, 2017)

VonBradstein said:


> I go back to what I said in my critique about the movie.
> 
> This story is (or was, as it has been since edited) 475 words long, of which 148 - so about one third, or thirty-three percent - is straight up "let me tell you about my powers, guys". That does not work. If the first hour of a three hour movie was a character talking generally about their supernatural abilities before any real story begins, that would be boring. A minute or two? That is no problem. Five minutes? Fine. But an hour? No way. Nobody would watch that.
> 
> ...



As I said in my other post, expanding it is also an option. My opinion expanding would make it better.

Your earlier post suggested adding a word or two. Now you're changing your position.

Going with your movie analogy, 1978 Superman, starring Christopher Reeve. It made $7.5 million the opening weekend, according to IMDB.


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## VonBradstein (Nov 12, 2017)

Jack of all trades said:


> As I said in my other post, expanding it is also an option. My opinion expanding would make it better.
> 
> Your earlier post suggested adding a word or two. Now you're changing your position.
> 
> Going with your movie analogy, 1978 Superman, starring Christopher Reeve. It made $7.5 million the opening weekend, according to IMDB.



It WOULD be a word or two in this piece if I️ was writing it. I️ would even be happy to spend some time to demonstrate that if the OP (which is not you) asked me to. However I️ am not writing it, so I’m not going to state absolutes about what is or is not needed nor interfere in the story without invitation. So no, sorry, but I️ have no changed my position, I️ have clarified it.

Expanding it is a good option, however I️ am not going to push the op that way. I️ am going to recommend ways of improvement with more or less what he has, which is flash fiction.

No idea what you’re talking about with Superman. I️ remember that movie and I️ don’t recall Reeve monologuing about his superpowers and how they impact his life for an hour before the story began. But perhaps you were watching a more intellectual version.


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## Jack of all trades (Nov 12, 2017)

VonBradstein said:


> It WOULD be a word or two in this piece if I️ was writing it. I️ would even be happy to spend some time to demonstrate that if the OP (which is not you) asked me to. However I️ am not writing it, so I’m not going to state absolutes about what is or is not needed nor interfere in the story without invitation. So no, sorry, but I️ have no changed my position, I️ have clarified it.
> 
> Expanding it is a good option, however I️ am not going to push the op that way. I️ am going to recommend ways of improvement with more or less what he has, which is flash fiction.
> 
> No idea what you’re talking about with Superman. I️ remember that movie and I️ don’t recall Reeve monologuing about his superpowers and how they impact his life for an hour before the story began. But perhaps you were watching a more intellectual version.



Of course you could do it. Anyone can claim anything on the internet.

The first Superman movie was three quarters establishing where he came from, how he got to Earth, and what super powers he had. Then one quarter, or less, was the point of the movie -- defeating Lex Luther. No, it was not a monologue. It was a movie, not a book or story in writing. But it was the same effect.

I doubt you would ever push anyone to do anything I suggest. At least you admit to pushing. Oh, wait! I sense a "clarification" coming.


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## VonBradstein (Nov 12, 2017)

Jack of all trades said:


> Of course you could do it. Anyone can claim anything on the internet.
> 
> The first Superman movie was three quarters establishing where he came from, how he got to Earth, and what super powers he had. Then one quarter, or less, was the point of the movie -- defeating Lex Luther. No, it was not a monologue. It was a movie, not a book or story in writing. But it was the same effect.
> 
> I doubt you would ever push anyone to do anything I suggest. At least you admit to pushing. Oh, wait! I sense a "clarification" coming.



Oh please. 

Enough now, this is not your thread for baiting with. Enjoy watching Superman.


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## escorial (Nov 12, 2017)

Reminded me of a forum member who has a condition similar to this...an that is outside the writing but still important to me if someone's words sets me of on another train of thought..the writing was light and open an had a very lucid approach to the topic but kept enough descriptive words to give the writing depth as well..I enjoyed it for both reasons...


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## Jack of all trades (Nov 12, 2017)

VonBradstein said:


> Oh please.
> 
> Enough now, this is not your thread for baiting with. Enjoy watching Superman.



You do like getting the last word.


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## Birb (Nov 12, 2017)

Now, as much as it gives me a bit of guilty pleasure that people are arguing over my work, it's a little pointless. I have had a series of replies (I went off the site because I was curious which people enjoyed more) saying that they've liked both the first and the second iteration. That shouldn't be surprising because writing and enjoyment of reading are both things that are heavily shaped off of opinion. One person may think one style is a mortal flaw while the other might think it's a decent strategy. Let's all agree to disagree and stop


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## escorial (Nov 12, 2017)

Spank me


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## Roac (Nov 14, 2017)

I like the concept of the story but I think both versions could use some work. The beginning of the first version gives a nice bit of background about the condition of the MC. While, with the second version starting with the traffic accident enters at a point of revelation that feeds into the rest of the story. I would look at combining the two versions a bit more. 

A couple of things stood out for me.




Birb said:


> I still remember every detail of yesterday, the best and worst day of my life. Our district is small and closely knit, the majority of students walk to and from school. On the way home, there is a busy road lined with a couple of Mom and Pop shops, where the students usually congregate for lunch. I saw a homeless-looking man about ten or so feet away, followed by a dark, menacing haze  (I thought the people were surrounded by the haze, not followed) stumbling along the street.His eyes were glazed over and he had a strange, disconcerted look on his face. A girl, orange with worry, approached the man. (This sounded odd to me. Maybe if there was a bit of background, then I would understand better why she is orange)
> 
> "Hello? Are you okay?" The man's head jerked towards the girl, staring at her. Several awkward moments passed when he suddenly jerked away in surprise, even at my distance I could see the wild, fearful look on his face as he tumbled straight into traffic. From that point on everything is a blur, my vomiting onto the sidewalk, the sound of screeching tires, a crash, the sounds of sirens mixing with voices and all of the colors mixing together. Brown filled my gaze as I trudged past a group of girls.
> 
> ...


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## kaminoshiyo (Nov 19, 2017)

I felt I liked the first one better. You don't need so much backstory for a short story like this and the attempt felt like needless filler. 

The first try had a light-heartedness to it- and air of fun and wonder. The second one seems more dreary, analytical, and burdened with superfluous detail. Also, I felt an important feature of the first one was the pacing. Light and swift, it got to the point quickly and matched the short, effective twist of the story. In my opinion, the second one's pace is much slower and the twists' impact is diminished because of it.

Lastly, I think you go out of your way to _tell_ more in the second draft than in the first. I'd stick with the first, but this is maybe more a sense of taste than anything. Because of some things you mentioned in the first, explanations were needed. But instead of adding this, just remove the parts that demanded explaining. Keep it simple. 

I did like the story, however. I liked how you used the color thing to bring about the twist. The only thing I was confused about was the part (in the first) where you mentioned the black haze around the girl. The adjectives seemed to be describing the girls emotions which originally made me believe she was going to be the instigator of whatever was coming. However, you then introduce an unknown character who says "Hello class" in the end. 

I thought this was _genius_. Because first, it's not stated what is going to happen or who or what is going to be the instigator. Is it the girl or the person that just entered the room? Second, I don't know whether the person is the teacher or another student. Third, I don't know if either...or both...of those two are the suspects, or if _all_ the people in that story are going to be victims of something bigger- like the entire building, or a section of the school being blown up. Another slick bit was the fact that you neglected to tell what the color of the person coming in at the end was, this leaving that person a total mystery. I even toyed with the idea that the boy narrating this was actually already dead and might have been the instigator reliving the moment- which is why the person at the end would remain a mystery. I'm not sure if this was intentional, but this was a fun thing to think about at the end. 

However (I'm sorry I keep hopping...) the thing that was confusing was how the colors were interpreted and what they meant. For instance, the "cruel" black haze around the girl in the class. It was only in the second story that it seemed you meant this to be more a tell of what was going to happen _to_ the girl. However, in the first part of the first story, the colors are more indicators of how the person actually feels. The first hang up is that this shift changes the nature of the ability from seeing people's emotions to seeing peoples destinies. The second, consequently, is that I thought the girl was going to be the instigator because I thought the black represented how she _felt_, not what was going to happen to her. 

Overall, I don't think I had this much fun with such a story in a while. I thank you for this from the bottom of me wee heart, lol. 

Keep writing


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## jakuper (Nov 24, 2017)

The new vesion of the story is good enough. What I would like to see, a short explanation or something like this about colors.
For example,
I never thought about myself as somebody with any special abilities. But two weeks ago I began to see other people differently, like they were moving in colourful cloud. Atthe beginning I felt that people had a clour shadow near them, But later in time, the shadow became a cloud surrounding people's head."
Something like this, short enough not to disturb in story building, yet intriguing enough to continue to read.

By the way, It is very interesting to read reviews - in a way I get a feeling of being in Academy - many different oppinions, all of them with legitimate explanations for being right. Here you can see a  proof that even if you are not too clever, you can feel like such when between other clever people.


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## Itachi (Jan 2, 2018)

After reading your re-write this is much better. You get tothe point and all the important facts are imbedded in the text. 
The only thing I would say is the use of ‘as usual’, maybe changeit the second time around – but this could be a personal choice.
Otherwise this is much clearer and punchier, the endingreally leaves a lot to be imagined.


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## TheFuhrer02 (Jan 21, 2018)

What the actual fuck?! That was exhilarating! The implications of that final quote, too. Had me a few questions in my head after I read the thing. "Was their teacher a mass shooter?" ran through my head there. Good, fast-paced read, this.


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## topcol (Jan 22, 2018)

Hi, Birb. I'm still not much good at critiquing but I'll do my best.

First, I read right to the end without wanting to stop halfway. I even thought there was more after "Hello, class." Bit disappointing to be left hanging like that, it was good imaginative writing.

Sure, there are a few omitted words and letters but you'll find them easily enough with a careful proofread. Incidentally, can you have a 'black glow'?

I'm not expert enough to offer you any worthwhile suggestions on the structure of your story but one of the critiques I received was failing to put returns between paragraphs. 

 I enjoyed your story, so will others.

topcol


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