Please Read this, and tell me what you think??

Its been here before, but I didn't get enough criticism for it.





Be HONEST.. compliments are really not any help Please note that this is not the beginning, but the second small chunk. Search for my other questions if you want to read the beginning. It's not crucial.


Read part of a story, and tell me what you think.?


Be HONEST.. compliments are really not any help Please note that this is not the beginning, but the second small chunk. Search for my other questions if you want to read the beginning. It's not crucial.








Rose hung up without properly saying goodbye. It was something the sisters had dispensed with once they moved away from the house, Virginia to Cornell and Beth to… well, away. Away meant as far from stuffy old Boston as she could get. A stint abroad, several waitressing jobs which paid abysmally, a (very) brief stay in a commune, and one quite serious boyfriend with whom she had lived in an apartment which had seemed romantically Spartan at first and turned out to be just plain old small and dirty. And now, she lived in California. That was what her parents told their friends when anyone asked what Rose did for a living. “She lives in California now,” her parents would say, and everyone would exchange knowing looks. Rose didn’t care in the least, which was what distinguished her from Virginia and their two brothers. Rose was in fact happier than she’d ever been, working at a Waldorf day-care center and even occasionally seeling a painting or two. She was paying the bills with even a little to spare for luxuries like shampoo and fresh fruit.


Rose looked at the clock the floor beside her bed, did some quick math and decided to call her brother Jim in New York. His full name was James Joyce Llewellyn, and their second brother’s name was Thomas Jefferson Llewellyn. The three oldest were all named after various people the Llewellyn’s admired, and then there was Rose, the baby. Just plain old Rose. The child of her parents’ middle age and diminished brain cells. Virginia, the oldest, had always introduced herself first, and someone, thinking themselves clever, would invariably turn to Rose and say, “and I suppose you’re Georgia,” Rose usually said, no, she was New Jersey. Sometimes she was Delaware. It depended on the day.


She got up and put on a pot of coffee, as there was little chance she was going back to sleep. Virginia had awakened her, but also given her much too much to think about to sleep. She punched in Jim’s number and waited as a phone two and half thousand miles away rang.


Jim answered, groggy from sleep.


“What are you doing home?” demanded Rose as soon as he picked up, again skipping niceties.


“What?” Jim said foggily.


“I said what are you doing home? Don’t you have classes? It’s a Wednesday.”


“Thanks for the update.”


“You didn’t answer my question. You sound like ****. You sound hungover.”


“I do not. I mean I am not. I mean I am, but I don’t sound it. Whatever. It’s what, four-thirty out there? Who died?”


“Nobody, but I’ve got something to spill.”


“Well, okay. Dish.”


“Dad’s got a new girlfriend, a young one, young enough to be our sister- that’s verbatim from Ginny- and he’s bringing her to the wedding.”


“Well, good for him, the old dog. Why is this waking-someone-out-of-a-sound-... news?”


“You just don’t get it, do you?”


“Get what?”


“He’s bringing her to the wedding. To meet all of us, and mom, and all our relatives, and all of Ginny and David’s friends. He’s bringing her to the wedding, Jim.”


“Yeah. And?”


“God, you are such a man. Don’t you have any loyalty for Mom?”


“Well, I guess, but it’s not like they’re getting back together. Irreconcilable differences.”


“Yeah, but she’s like nineteen,”


“You’re exaggerating. You think that the wedding is going to be an opportunity for you to pull some kind of a Parent Trap maneuver, but trust me, it’s not. They can’t stand each other. End of story.”


“I wouldn’t care if…” Rose trailed off.


“You’d care no matter what. I’m not saying I don’t care too, but he’s fifty-seven years old. We can’t tell him what to do.”


“Why do you have to be so goddamn rational? Why can’t you just be on my side, on mom’s side?”


“I’m not on anybody’s side, I just-“


Rose dropped the phone back onto the cradle with a clatter of plastic and metal.


Jim tossed the portable phone across the bedspread and scowled fiercely at the sunlight streaming through his uncurtained windows. Stacks of books glowered at him disapprovingly from the dresser. He pushed a hand through his dark hair and pulled his Fordham sweatshirt on over his head, and shoved his glasses up over his nose. He looked at his watch, and decided there was no way he was making it to Contract Law at nine-thirty. Instead he dialed his brother Tom’s number in Boston.


Tom was having the worst morning of all the Llewellyn siblings. He’d awoken to find the half of the bed which belonging to his girlfriend Claire cool and unrumpled. Alarmed, he’d run to the bathroom to find that her toothbrush was gone, and linen closet emptied of exactly half their towels. She’d taken the coffee, the peanut butter, two apples, a banana, the Saltines, and half the loaf of bread.. She’d been nothing if not democratic in the way she’d wrecked everything, thought Tom as he absorbed the state of the apartment which they’d shared until four-thirty six that morning. And so Tom was sitting dazedly at the kitchen table, staring at nothing in a particular, when the phone rang


“Guess what?” demanded Jim


Tom sighed.


“What?”


“Dad’s having a full-out, clichéd midlife crisis, complete with a nubile Playmate, who is reportedly young enough to be our sister, ”


“Well, that’s just Fantastic, isn’t it.”


“You’re sunny this morning. What’s the matter?”


“Nothing. Everything is perfect.”


“How’s your lovely, leggy graduate student doing?”


“Claire is fine. Claire is perfect.”


“Okay. If you say so. I hear that Dad’s bringing this new girl to the wedding, and believe me, Virginia and Rose are about ready to-“


“Look, I really have to go. I’m about an hour late,”


“Well, so am I,”


“Well, at least I’m not paying forty-five thousand a year to get drunk and over sleep.”


“Don’t be so-“


“So what? Responsible?”


“So uptight. So, anyway, I was wondering if maybe I could have your plus-one for the wedding. I’ve been seeing this girl for a couple months now, and I was just thinking that since-“


“No, Jim, I—“


He was going to say “I need it,” and remembered that he didn’t, not anymore. Instead, he hung up and got dressed for work.


It is easy to forget, when one is upset, that other people cannot intuit your every thought, nor see the elephant which is occupying your headspace. And so it wasn’t until he was pulling out of the tight parking spot which he’d fought tooth and nail for that Tom realized he hadn’t said a word to his brother about what had happened with Claire

Please Read this, and tell me what you think??
I went back and read the first paragraph you submitted, but there were still a couple of wholes. The first: who are dot and beth?


The second: If it's 430 in California, why would it be too late (except for sheer laziness) for Jim to get to a class in 2 hours.


The third: If dad is 57 and Melinda is 36, he is old enough to be father (earlier you said not old enough)


Basically, watch for continuity errors. Try to tighten some of the information. The ages for the children also seem to be a little off.
Reply:well one thing that i noticed is that you dont use the rule where you put two spaces after a period








good luck! :)
Reply:Shorter paragraphs, dialogue intermixed with background on characters as the story unfolds, and how what the background on the characters relates to the dialogue.
Reply:it is very good althought i havent read the begining.


it is ok that you give the characters sonething the readers can imagine and create them. and i thing that have a great spirit in them but somehow u mix it up. first u give total view on them and then you hide their feelings.


its like you want to show them but you dont. thats interesting and quite new. havet heard of a writer doing that. it may pass the readers.


globaly it is great. u should publish it ! can u send me the first part on my email merry.fiser@yahoo.com to read it. i promce i will wirte u back with an opinion ! thanks ! and good luck !
Reply:If you want as blunt non-complementary answer I will say that I did not like the way you switched settings abruptly from the sister’s location to the brother’s location and also it “seemed” like you trying to show the setting and surroundings of the characters to much. I could not really feel any emotional content.