Nice story. I noticed a few things while reading it--many of them are merely SUGGESTIONS, and so I'd recommend you take them with a grain of salt (and/or get a second opinion on some of them) before making changes.
This is a high-tension scene, with lots of intense emotion, which is good. That's what you want. Or at least what I want. Not in my real life of course, but I'll take plenty of it in my reading & my writing. You're clearly pretty talented as a writer, & I like your style overall.
One of the things you might want to think about is dividing up some (not all) of the sentences a little differently. For example, you wrote:
"So far, today was a good day, and I wasn’t going to let my own insecurities get in the way of enjoying the sun and laughter filled day on the playground as my sister, Keta, and I chased Bryden, our barely three-year-old cousin of whom our mother had custody."
Personally, I'd go with:
"So far, today was a good day [PERIOD]. I wasn’t going to let my own insecurities get in the way of enjoying the sun and laughter filled day on the playground as my sister, Keta, and I chased Bryden, our barely three-year-old cousin of whom our mother had custody."
Also in that sentence, I'd take out "sun and laughter filled," it feels a little repetitive because you've already mentioned the sun and laughter in the previous sentences.
"I knew once we were separated, the darkness would come back," --> I knew [THAT] once we were separated...?
Also, I might say, "I knew that once we were separated, the darkness would RETURN" because the next part of that sentence is: "but I couldn’t move BACK in with my sister and mother." (So if you use "RETURN," you avoid using "BACK" twice in the same sentence.)
"Education was my only way out of poverty,"
-->You mention "poverty"--it leaves me wondering what this means to her exactly. I might flesh this out a bit with a couple of quick but specific examples (some people might say don't bother, because it doesn't affect the plot of the story overall, but personally I'd go ahead and try anyway, not overdoing it, but really quick, to paint a picture of the emotional stakes involved)--> "It was my way out of the rathole apartments I had always lived in, with crack dealers for neighbors, eating popcorn for dinner that we purchased with food-stamps..."
"My ruminations were interrupted as Bryden’s laugh echoed across the trampoline bridge we were on, [I WOULD PUT A PERIOD HERE, AND THEN START A NEW SENTENCE, BUT THAT'S ME] h[H]is gait and hands [WERE] unsure, gripping the wooden rail just barely low enough for him to reach, but he continued to grin up at me with delight.
"I didn’t have to force the smile on my face, feeling happy and content to the very depths of my soul."
-->Personally, I try to avoid using "SOUL," in the interest of being as specific as possible, because while "soul" might be there, what does it look like? I'd at least use "heart" instead, because it's a similar idea, but there's also an object, a part of your body, that you can visualize, so it seems more effective. Or maybe you could think about coming up with a metaphor, or another image entirely, to convey what you're trying to say here. Darkness vs. light seems to be a theme of the story--maybe you could say something like, "...feeling happy, as if my heart was awash in light." Or something like that. Just an idea...
"With a controlled effort, I lowered myself to my knees, wrapping my pale hand around his smaller darker one, gripping Bryden tighter, [AGAIN, I WOULD PUT A PERIOD HERE, AFTER "TIGHTER," AND THEN START A NEW SENTENCE] glancing quickly over my shoulder to see Samuel, their father, glaring at us, though he quickly tried to hide it when he saw me looking."
"...lost custody two years..." -->WORD MISSING?
"...feeling like it was [ABOUT TO] shatter..." ?
"...and we refused to loose Bryden also." {JUST A MISSPELLING-->LOOSE SHOULD BE "LOSE"}
"solution to fix this..." --> I'D SAY, "SOLUTION" or, "SOLUTION TO THIS," OR "WAY TO FIX THIS." "SOLUTION TO FIX" feels a little redundant.
"...drove out [OF] the parking lot..."
there's one place where "breathes" should be "BREATHS"
I like how this character has some serious personal demons, and this interior problem of hers becomes conflated when a challenging situation arises in the outside world. That's very cool. Maybe you could play that up even a little more-- intertwine the two of them, mention a little something about the "darkness" she is dealing with once or twice in the middle of where the action is going on. Just an idea... |
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