The Last Straw.. (Nineth grade history term-test. )

[Lousiana]

Well, hello!

In the 9th grade, I got a 6, which is equal to the english A+ in.. English!

I wonder how the story is, for others then my teachers and me.

Spoiler

The Last Straw

A girl sits lonely at an hill filled with soft and warm grass, the sky got a gentle blue color all over it, not a cloud to be seen.
«Finally the world has come to peace, finally.. Its all going to end..» The girl thought to herself, She layed down into the grass, giving a relieved sigh away.
«Finally.. Its over.» She said, and a tear appeared in her eye, it slowly slides down her face before eventually dripping down into the grass.
The girl breathed slowly and relaxed as she looked up into the beautiful sky.

Her hair had a darker brown color, while her eyes had to color of the brightest star that twinkled.
Her lips was tender and filled, and her body curves was a brilliant work.
And she had a name, and that name was «Sheila Redwood».
She was all alone, not even a bird was singing.
Sheila felt the breeze as it touched her pale skin.
In her left hand she had a flower, a blue one.
The clothes she was wearing were an old night gown that her mother gave her, before she passed away.
In the other hand, she had a Dagger, and the dagger was made of the finest steel covered with the greatest pelt as a sheath, though she had the dagger unsheathed..
Blood was dripping from it.
She looked around herself, and sat up sheathing the dagger.

Sheila didn't know what to do, she didn't know much about «War» and «Plagues».

You see, the war wasn't about a country or any type or kind of Resource.. It was about surviving.
It was an enormous explotion in a scientist lab, that made people go insane. The plage was called, before the bi-effects.. «No feel.», since it disabled every emotion and feeling a human had.
But after it.. Its called, «Tricking» and those affected to it, were called «Tricklings.».


Sheila was alone now, she was the youngest in her family, but they are gone. They are dead. Slain by the dagger she is holding herself.
She looked over the houses, the same house she lived in.
The same place the grew up in, the only place she and her family called «Home».
She smiled at it and tried to remember the old and good times.
The good times, with her family.
The years of happiness and the days of joy.
But her smile slowly turned into a sad frown as she saw smoke coming from one of them.
Her home.
Sheila ran upwards the hill, the fastest she could.
As she ran Sheila took her dagger out from the sheath, ripping the lower part of the Night Gown of, «Easier to run without this interfering», her thoughts went by.

After running a while, Sheila knew she was to late, as the smoke turned into a burst of fire that danced through her home.
The sparks from the fire ignited the Barn next to it.
Sheila ran even faster, since she knew that the animals still were inside the barn.
The horses and the cows shouted and screeched in pain, as the fire got more intensive.
Sheila loved her animals, and the animals trusted her.
Every living creature inside of the barn screamed of the pain..
Moments later Sheila had finally reached the barn only to see death, burned meat and dead horses was on the floor.
The cows was burned down to the insides and just the smell could kill a person, but she entered the blazing heat.
She looked for any surviving living creature when she saw something terrible..
A horse that had ripped itself out of the cabin it lived inside.
Out of fright it ran right inside the little room with Tools, or the «Tool Shed»..
The walls was weakened and fragile because of the Fire that a blazed around and inside of it.
The tools had pierced the horse, with nails from the wall stomped into its body, and a saw that was halfly through the leg. Screwdrivers that penetrated the skin of the horse, only the handle could be seen..
The knives left cuts and stabs all over the horse, some chain curled around it and fire slowly burning into its skin.
The worst part is..

It was crying.. To much in pain to make a sound..
As Sheila went over to it, to gently pat its head, it closed its eyes..
And finally died, relieved from its pain.
Sheila couldn't take this horrible sight and ran outside, patting some lonely sparks on her night gown with a flat hand.
She burst into tears when she thought of the pain and the sorrow, everything that her poor animals lived through the last moment of their lives.
But she were the unlucky one..
Her family picked each others to die, by straws..
Sheila picked.. The shortest straw..
Sheila nodded and accepted that she would be the one to live..
And in the same hour, she ran out to grassy fields.
And took her own life, with the same dagger that killed.. Her family.
She, at last.. The Last Straw..

Somethings ain't good I know. But remember English ain't my major language. AND It was clearly hard for me, I was writing this from a picture. A black and white one too.

 

[candle]

I'm sorry, but I can't read this. It is just a wall of text. Maybe a little formatting would help? I'm sure you didn't hand this story to your teacher like this. There's no way any self-respecting teacher would give a student more than an 0 for a wall of text.

 

[Lousiana]

Sorry, copied right from the document at school. It sucks.

Fixed it now.

 

[Venetia]

Firstly hon, your poll is totally unnecessary. I only know of one English teacher on the forum who regularly grades 9th grade papers, and even then there's no way anyone'd be able to establish a grade for someone who doesn't even speak this language. Secondly, assigning letter grades is a poor practice of critique and it really doesn't tell you much.

Next ... Quotation marks are " and ", not « or ». Ellipses are "...", not ". ."

Your grammar is pretty spotty but I'll try to ignore most of it since you don't natively speak English. Suffice to say, there's a lot to work on as far as grammar goes.

What stands out the most right away is that you don't need to say things like "her hair had a darker brown color". That implies that it didn't have one before, or that it was a brown color, and was darker brown than that at some other point. Or that the sky "got a gentle blue color", because that implies that it wasn't blue before, and had just become blue. You also use incorrect plural tenses (i.e. "the cows was burned down"). In this case it'd be "the cows were".

Your timeframe changes, too: in the beginning, you say "a girl sits lonely", but then later, it's changed to past tense. Which is it, present tense or past tense? Is it happening NOW or did it happen in the past?

Looking at the story itself, it's very dark. Unnecessarily dark. Taking a step back, to summarize: There is a girl named Sheila, sitting placidly on a hill. She seems happy, until there is a little blurb about war and plague. It's difficult to construe at first, but I suppose her family had become zombies and she had to kill them? So she was reflecting upon killing her family, when she sees the barn going up in flames for some reason. The animals are dying very horribly, and she's kinda powerless about it. Then she sees a horse that's suffering and slaughters it. Then, for mostly unknown reasons (perhaps because she's depressed about all the death? There's no realization or thought process here), she kills herself.

It's fine to be deep or dark, but you have to be careful to stray from heavy melodrama. If you want the reader to support your main character, or see things from her perspective, you have to provide at least a little insight into their decisions. I mean, Shiela seemed like a pretty strong girl, doing all that on her own, so why would she just take her own life? And why, after killing a horse? Why not after killing her family? And how does a young girl kill her entire family with only a dagger? I could overpower a young girl pretty easily by myself. If they weren't zombies, then why would she destroy them just because they were ill? Was there a reason why she just didn't let the disease take them?

These are all rhetorical questions, you don't have to answer them. What I'm saying is that you need to provide some more depth into the actions behind what your character does. You don't need to lay everything out on the table for the reader, but you have to provide some foundation of reasoning for the actions your characters take (unless they're sociopathic, which I don't think was the case here).

Anyway for a 14/15 year old I'd say you're doing fine, and keep writing .

 

[candle]

I agree with Ven. It is a fairly decent story, if a little over melodramatic. I can overlook most of your grammar errors because English isn't your native tongue, but you have too many words capitalized or in quotations. Typically, you only capitalize names, titles, and the first word of a sentence. Also, you don't put single words in quotations unless you absolutely need to emphasize them. Still, there are better ways. A common way to emphasize a word in writing is to italicize it. Note, I will still quote emphasized words when writing on paper, but almost never when typing. Another thing I want to pick on is your choice of names for the "Plague" (note: I used the quotation marks here just as I would if I were talking to you in person, only then I would be hooking my fingers). Maybe in your native tongue, those words seemed good, but in English, they just seem ridiculous. No feel and Tricking do not sound like plagues, they sound like pranks.

As for the melodrama. I think you could do a bit better if you went through and thought about each line as if you were the girl. It's good to be dark, but melodrama just makes you comical. When you read a dark story that is comical unintentionally, it just doesn't seem as dark anymore.

Thank you for reformatting, it is much easier to read, now. Typically, though, a sentence doesn't take up an entire line. Normally, you put two spaces between words and a line between paragraphs if not indenting them. It can be hard to indent paragraphs on the internet, so you should just leave an empty line between them like you have.

I also want to say that in your first large paragraph, you have a lot of sentences that could easily be stringed together via a quick rewrite or the use of the semicolon (i.e. ";"). All in all, it is a fairly decent story, and I don't think you should give up writing. Personally, if I were you, I would come back to this story and give it a complete rewrite, maybe adding in some back-story. Who knows, maybe if you did, you could find the story going on much longer. I would certainly like to see more.

@Venetia: I don't think the girl killed her family. From what I read, they drew straws, and the shortest straw lived the longest to make sure everyone else died. I think they committed suicide, all with the same dagger.

 

[oboys]

I'm not quite following, was it a history or writing assignment? For a history class, I don't think the story is very good. You make some references to the plague and a war, but I don't think it is clear that the writer has a good understanding of the topic. It does not seem to be a representative situation of the time. As a writing assignment, I think it's very good for a ninth grader. Interesting title. To improve your skills, I think it would be wise to reflect on Venetia and Darkfire's suggestions and post the improved version as well.

 

[Venetia]

@Venetia: I don't think the girl killed her family. From what I read, they drew straws, and the shortest straw lived the longest to make sure everyone else died. I think they committed suicide, all with the same dagger.

Ohhh that makes more sense than her killing them. Aaand now the title makes sense, too. I had missed the "Her family picked each others to die, by straws.." line. Haha what a line to miss :P

But it seems to me that you'd be the absolute shittiest parents in the world to leave that kind of burden on your child ...