Into Thin Air~ Chapter 1 | Teen Ink

Into Thin Air~ Chapter 1

October 21, 2010
By NeverFallTooHard PLATINUM, Hartford, Wisconsin
NeverFallTooHard PLATINUM, Hartford, Wisconsin
24 articles 5 photos 98 comments

Favorite Quote:
Reason is powerless in the expression of Love.~ Rumi
Realisim, in painting, is what one wants to see, not what they really see. ~ Janet Fish


Ann Marie looked up into the sky, which stood a content black with speckles of bright white stars covered by an errie layer of clouds. The moon was full and an ominous feeling flooded over her as a the crisp fall air penetrated her stripped black and grey hoodie. Her fine black-brown hair blew around her face, which was dusted with light freckles. Ann Marie's face stayed content, her amber eyes tired and drooping with deep purple wrinkles.

"You should come in," A sweet as honey but troubled voice called from behind her. Ann Marie turned around, to see her mother's young face look older, tearstained and exasperated. Black steaks lined her thin, almost see-through cheeks. Bruises covered her arms. Her father was drunk, and angry.

"I don't want to." Anne Marie muttered, turning around to face the city lights once more. She could feel her mother's boney hands wrap around her own thin shoulders and smile lightly, meekly.

"I think you should come in. He's asleep now. You're fine." she soothed, fondling her as she sat down on the ledge next to her. Her mother's lanky legs hung over the side of the ledge, barely brushing the tops of the trees lining the west side of their house.

"He's hurt you," Anee Marie frowned, seeing her mother's tattered face in the glowering moonlight shown what damage he'd acctually done to her. Emotional more than anything.

Her father may be drunk more often than he was sober, but he wasn't stupid. If he hit her in the face, people would suspect something. But if he hit her where clothing wuld cover, and someone happened to see, she'd admit she was clumsy, which used to be hard to belive.

Her mother, Akaiya, was full Eyptian, used to be that perfect fit between thin and too thin, had all the curves in the right places, a perfectly porpotrioned mother of three. She had an olive skin tone, long, fine black hair that drapped to the sides of her face and frammed her now meager cheeks. now, she was just this thin, depressed-looking woman who'd looked more like 60 than 32.

Ann Marie's freckles came from her father, who was a small percent Irish, mostly American, and little Viatnamese. He was muscular, not to the extreme but he was fit, with blonde greasy curls matted to the top of his head, usually covered by a hard-hat or basebal cap, and had dark brown eyes. His name had been Adam, but he changed it to Samuel a few years backbecause that was his favorite type of beer. He drank all the time, passed out on the couch with an envelope containing just enough for rent and groceries, and left for the next week or so. Not that Ann Marie cared. Her older brother Nicholas had been more a father than him.

Nicholas had taken her to and from school since he got his temps, fed her dinner and helped her with homework and even took her out to eat on her birthday. He'd always tellAnn Marie she was pretty and special, but also that she needed to work harder in school. And so she did, just to please him, and now was a staight A student. She could remeber waht he said as soon as she brought home the all the A's on the repot card she got, "Good job, sis. I knew you could do it. Congratulations." She smiled so big that she thought her cheeks might burst.

He was gorgeous, there was no way in denying it. He had curly black hair, emerald green eyes that shown beautifully in any type of light, a fit structure and was that perfect hight where you barely had to use your tip-toes if you wanted to kiss. His skin was paler than most, but not sickly like Ann Marie's, who'd been called Gothy so many times she got used to responding to the name.

Ann Maire sighed, "Okay. Fine. How much did he leave us?" She asked, looking into her mother's deep blue eyes. At least they still looked pretty. They looked tormented, distressed and harassed, but still in-tact.

A frown formed at the corner of her pale pink lips, "none. he's kicking us out. Me, you, and Nicholas."

Ann Marie stood up imediately, "What!" She screamed, outraged by her father's rash decision, "He-He can't do that! Mom! You have to-"

"Sweetheart, you know I can't do anything. His name is on the deed, pays for the rent, it's his house." She sighed, quivering slightly.

Ann Marie exhaled and sat back down, her eyes still wide in fear. "We're going to be homeless," she breated so quiet, it was almost as if nothing had been said, "Homless and stuck with him. he'll still come by, won't he," It was more of a saddened statment that a question.

"Yes." He mother said, bitting her bottom lip.

"Akaia!" Her father raged from the kitchen. A glass broke against a wall.

Ann Marie flipped open her cellphone, the one her father hadn't convinscated. "I'll call the police."

"Please do. Comming, Samuel!" she called out, taking a deep, collective sigh and kissing Ann Marie's head. "I love you," she mouthed, before rushing downstairs.

Ann Marie took a good look at the phone and dialed the first didget, 9. She took a sharp breathe in and typed the rest and waited. The first step was always the hardest and worst, but in this case, hearing the lady's voice say, "Hello, this is Mariann from St. Claire's Hospital, what's your emergency?" brought comfort to her for the first time in years.


The author's comments:
My new story. Comment and rate, please!

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This article has 3 comments.


on Dec. 15 2010 at 8:22 am
OfficialApprover PLATINUM, Orefield, Pennsylvania
48 articles 0 photos 1752 comments

Favorite Quote:
Grab life by the balls. -Slobberknocker
We cannot change the cards we're dealt just how we play the hand
Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted
It's pretty easy to be smart when you're parroting smart people
-Randy Pausch

Alright, so I admit it, I'm lazy.  This is the first thing that popped up in your name search, so it's what I'm reviewing.

 

Now just remember: any harshness is not anything personal, I'm just trying to help writers improve;D

 

Okay.  First sentences are a big whammy.  They need to pop out at the reader, make them think I WANT TO READ ON.  Yours doesn't really do that.  It's not bad; I've certainly seen worse.  But there's nothing about it that makes me think I should continue.  Try to spice it up a bit.

 

'Nother thing: This isn't  just a matter of choice, many writers have said this, but....MC's with a double-word name are a bit of a no-no, unless they always go by the one.  Or if it's in first.  But third person with a double name--the reader gets reeeallly tired of seeing it again, and again, and again.  Perhaps see if she can be referred to as just "Ann" unless the name has specific importance.

 

Aside from the first sentence, there's the first paragraph.  It's nice that you describe things, and well, but too much description is a problem.  It's called purple prose.  You don't have that yet, but the first paragraph gets close.  Cut down on some of the descriptions and details there.

 

Diiiiiialogue punctuation.  Watch out for this, dear.  Your dialogue itself is pretty good, not a lot of awkward phrases, but the punctuation is a bit eh-eh.  Sometimes after a comma at the end of the dialogue you'll capitalize the next word out of the quotes, or after a period the next word out won't be capitalized, etc.  Watch out for these.

 

Giving the characters name. This can be a problem for those writing third person--I know I myself struggle with it.  You don't know how many times to name them and how many times to use the pronoun.  But I'll say this: you name her way too much.  'Ann Marie' popped up about fifteen times in less than a thousand words. This isn't good.  Don't be afraid of the pronouns--they're  your friends, to a certain extent.  Just don't overuse them, either.

 

'Show, don't tell.'  This is an important rule of writing.  Show us what's happening, don't just tell us straight out.  You tell us, out of nowhere, her mother's exact appearance, her dad's exact appearance, her appearance, and her brother's appearance.  For one, we don't need to be told all of these things.  We don't want to be told all of these things.  Place this information in context throughout the story.  For another, it's best not to put descriptions in big clunky paragraphs.  Again, space it throughout the story at appropriate parts.

 

Maybe this is just me, but I've never heard a girl refer to or even think of her brother as 'gorgeous', no matter how true it is. o__O

 

Interesting hook you've got--that they're going to get kicked out, she's calling 911.  But here's the problem--if this was abuse was a regular thing, why didn't they call 911 before?  Neither she nor her mother seem to have any qualms about doing it, so why didn't they do it before?

 

As far as chapter endings go, it wasn't bad, but it didn't really sum up the chapter, or leave the reader dying to know what's happening--perhaps cut it off before the lady picks up, with her dialing.

 

Overall: Like I put in the thread, I was pretty harsh.  But that doesn't mean this doesn't have potential.  It's good base writing, and a good plot, from what I see of it so far.  With some sharpening, this could become an excellent book.


on Nov. 4 2010 at 1:11 am
TanazMasaba GOLD, Dhaka, Other
16 articles 10 photos 214 comments

Favorite Quote:
"You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's Heaven on Earth."













---William W. Purkey

i love dis..it s really interesting..keeps u wantin 4 me n i do ido i do i do want more and more and more of this story!! nice endin 4 chap1 btw

on Oct. 30 2010 at 8:42 am
MyConstRuctd_IdentiTy SILVER, Chardon, Ohio
7 articles 56 photos 356 comments

Favorite Quote:
"One heartbeat."

"Our scars remind us of where we've been; they don't dictate where we're going."
-SSA David Rossi, Criminal Minds

So far, this is a pretty good beginning to a story. However, you have tons of grammar and spelling errors. Maybe you could re-edit it and then re-submit it toTeenInk. You can have them take off the old one. I've done that plenty of times.

 

Other than that, keep up the writing! :)