- Nag Champa -

- Nag Champa -

Her left hand sliding down the stone wall for support, Brooke
takes her steps lightly and with care. Her white dress rests
just at her wobbling knees as her thin legs tremble
slightly during her descent down the dark stairwell.
struggling for a moment to pull the front door open, she
gives it her strength and steps out into the setting sun
atmosphere, with night falling into place and a shift in
general as regards passing faces. Eyes trailing the street
rest for a moment on her blushing face, which she returns
with nervous glances darting in all sorts of directions.
Standing on 4th by the corner of South she looks down towards
Lombard and it looks to be light on people, compared with
the gathering window shoppers and tourists swelling up
behind her. Going to her left she puts her right hand to
her short brown hair and pulls at it, but tears force
themselves out from behind her eyes and drop down her cheeks,
into her mouth. Biting her bottom lip and covering her
face with her hands, she continues walking faster towards
the growing darkness of the unlit alleyway which seems
to stretch out to forever in front of her. Her vision begins
to blur her surroundings into a single mess of dull colors
and neon trails while she accidently walks directly into
people, bumping and pushing her way though the crowd headed
out to the nightlife scene. One man attempts to hold her
when she falls into him but she shoves his hands away,
making haste towards the safety of the space between two
brick apartment buildings. Clutching her chest, Brooke
wraps her arms around each other and stumbles into the alley.
Her back hits the wall first, then she turns completley
and trips over her own feet, sliding to ground. Leaning
against the wall with her knees bent straight up, legs
laid out clumsly in front of her, she burries her face in
her hands as tears now flood out in streams. The leather
sandals fall off her bare feet, and she pulls her head
up to lay back against the wall, looking straight out
into the thick crowd passing by. Pain surges up through
every nerve in her body, strangling the life breath left
pouring lightly out from her slightly parted lips. Giving
one more smile to the gross state of the human race,
her green eyes blurr out into black and her head falls
forward again, hands grabbing the rocks, finally at
peace and forever at rest. Brooke's body remained
unnoticed here in this way until dawn climbed the sky

 

You certainly can write, but certain parts of this story feel forced. Often times I feel you're "trying" to write the story, and as a result try to jam as many descriptive pieces of information as possible into a place without a direction.

This makes it hard to see the overall point of the story, what are you getting at here?

Is this part of a larger work?

Some examples of what I mean:

setting sun and night falling into place? Is there another option during a setting sun? Likewise is there another option as night falls into place? Picking one would make this flow much more naturally.

Why the "sorts"? It doesn't really match the diction of the rest of the story.

"Looks" used twice makes this seem cluttered. This is an exmaple of LOTS of detail in one place. Perhaps this would be better as two sentences each focusing on the information you're trying to relay.

"her" is used 10 times in two sentences. Again, so many details... but to what end?

An exmaple of an unnecessary adjective. If she's wearing sandals of course her feet are bare. Typically this wouldn't make a difference at all. But because there is so much detail present already in the story everytime a detail is mentioned or a discriptive adjective is used it stands out. The reason for this is because the intention of all these isn't clear... what should I, the reader, be focusing on, which are important to the story? Even upon reaching the end I don't feel I understand what you're trying to convey.

 

Thanks Floydian
This is the best I could manage to write while
remaining on the phone trying to broker freight,
give directions, and talk to my coworkers at
the same time.
It is EXTREMELY foreced lol.
I definitley plan on touching it up, and thank you
for the tips.

btw, some people wear socks with sandals, just
pointing that out. -

 

hehe I was thinking about that when I wrote the comment...

I just figured based on character development and story title she'd be barefoot.

Definitely post up the revisions!

 

Yea, it was very very rushed and I could just barely
even remember each sentence I wrote as I moved
forward.
Here is my revision ideas though.
1. Start off the story with a slight reference to her
in some way as having shot up a lil too much dope,
2. As she is dying ,the crowd is rioting in the street
rather than going shopping, and she is oblvious
to the fact.
3. Use of the word her no more than 10 times throughout lol.

 

See, because with a riot going on in South Philly, now
that would just be an awesome time to die from a drug
overdose. I know philly, I know the drug, I know the
girl Brooke, and her stories (since you asked if its part
of something bigger, which it is actually!) typically
involve much surreal and dreamy situations, and this,
I think, would just be perfect, and also better explain
why no one found her body until the morning. I dont know,
what do you think? Good idea? I will try and write it
properly tonight
*One more thing, I omitted a part where she came upon
two black muslims who address each other and speak in
some Arabic, and they were selling Nag Champa outside
of a overprice clothing store as a front to selling cocaine,
(which is something that really happened to me, once) and
this was were the title came from. But other than the
arabic, i couldnt force any dialouge so I omitted it completley
for now. But Im thinking I would like the story to be
totally void of any conversation, so I will leave this out
still but Im going to let the title alone, at least for now.

 

I think that story sounds pretty interesting. Just make sure to get it across and not get too wrapped up in the small picture.

 

I def. liked this one

 

Great job Relayer. I figured out the end (about the OD) without you using another reference. I thought this fact was great because it makes the reader think and draw a conclusion on his or her own. Again great writing and keep up the good work. Peace be with you!!!

 

i wouldn't explain that she is ODing. i think it's pretty obvious at the end, or if not, it's more exciting to think about what it could have been rather than being told what it is.

sometimes when i write, i leave out certain details that could be important for that effect. i like the premise of somebody ODing in an alley, though. cool stuff john