Halp

Would /book/ mind helping me out with a story I'm writing? It isn't finished, although I have an ending in mind, I just don't know how I'm going to get there. It's pretty shit, so the harsher the better. Also, I need a last name for one character.


    She hooked the strap of the apron over the nail on the back of the closet door and was almost outside before calling over her shoulder, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr. Harp.” The night was chilly, but her trip was short. Emily jaywalked across the empty street in the light of the yellow streetlamps, and stepped into a stout apartment building, ignoring the elevator and going up the stairs, taking them two at a time. The wilted floral wallpaper welcomed her as she stepped out on the second floor and walked down to the plain beige door at the end of the hall.
    She didn’t take notice of the garish, motion activated Santa Claus adorning her neighbors’ door, which sang a medley of Jingle Bells, White Christmas, and Deck the Halls, although normally, it would have made her cringe. Emily dug into the pocket of her jacket for keys, only to find them… not there. A hand plunged into the other pocket, to no avail. Her head met the wall. Kate wouldn’t be here for three hours, until eight, and Emily had a good five hours of work for school tomorrow. She sat on the floor, having nothing better to do, with the super, and therefore the master keys, on vacation.
    On the other side of that oatmeal-colored (but thankfully not textured) door sat, among many other things common in an apartment, Emily’s backpack, taunting her. It was the kind of bag that got you kicked out of the elevator; huge and an acceptable substitute for dwarves during dwarf tossing. Although she wasn’t a freshman, Emily had never really gotten her work load under control. She marveled at fellow juniors that carried around tiny canvas bags and were finished with their homework by the time they got off the subway. The job at the grocery didn’t help, it meant she didn’t get home until five on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but Emily knew her and her mom needed it. Not that they were starving or anything – Emily hated pathetic little stories like that, with a destitute single mother raising a child that, out of the goodness of his or her heart, acquires a job, only to donate all of their income to the family’s cause, and would hate for me to make her story into one. No, Emily worked, but only half of the money went to her mother. The other half was spent on CDs.
    She had everything from jazz to hip-hop to alt. rock to reggae, and her music collection grew each month. Buddy Rich, Frank Sinatra, Glen Miller, Duke Ellington, Bing Crosby, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus. The Beatles, Pseudo Slang, Queen, The Temptations, The Strokes, The Klezmatics, Mouse on the Keys, K’naan, Mos Def, Matisyahu. Reel Big Fish, The Skatalites, Modest Mouse, The Police, Sleater-Kinney, Devo, Aretha Franklin, Rasputina, and Priscilla Ahn. She couldn’t decide on a favorite, and she long ago stopped trying.
    Back outside the apartment, Emily had fallen asleep. She dreamed pleasant dreams; dreams of flying a saffron kite in a field of grass drenched in liquid gold, gliding on silver cutlery over a plate of frosty glass, and slowly and methodically sticking thumbtacks into the eyes of her physics teacher. She had a tendency to both drool and snore while sleeping, and was doing both of these by now.
    This is why, when little boy and father stepped out of the elevator around the corner, they were confronted with a strange noise.
    “Is that snoring?” the boy asked.
    “Um… I don’t know, Eric. Maybe it’s a boat or a train. Like Thomas the Tank Engine.”
    “It sounds like you when you sleep, Daddy.”
    Eric and his father walked down the hallway to investigate, and saw Emily asleep outside her door. “Oh,” said Eric. The father, whose name I will now disclose to you as not to have to call him “father” throughout this story, his name was Jim, although he preferred Mr. _________, tentatively bent down and shook her shoulder.
    “Uh, um, Emily, are you locked out? You could stay with us for a bit if you wanted.” Eric was eyeing her inquisitively as his father talked.
Wiping the saliva off her face, Emily gazed bleary-eyed up at Mr. ________. “No thank you,” she said, “My mom will be home in a few minutes.” An outright lie. Emily felt uncomfortable around strangers, and even though the ______s were next-door neighbors, she barely knew them.
    “O-okay. Well, if you need anything, just knock.”
    “Thank you.”
    Eric and his father then walked up to the carol-singing door and went inside.
No longer very tired, Emily looked in her pocket for entertainment, and came up with nothing but a rather worse-for-wear stick of gum. She stuck it in her mouth anyway, and amused herself with bubbles until the flavor had disappeared.


The ______’s door opened and out popped a curious head. After staring at her for a fair amount of time, Eric opened the door and audaciously marched right up to Emily’s feet.
    “Are you hungry?”
    “Oh, no thank you.”
    “Are you sure? I could make you a peanut butter and jelly sammich.”
    “No thanks, really. I’m not hungry, Eric.”
    “What kind of jelly do you like?”
    “I-”
    “Grape? Grape jelly? Or strabewwy?
    “Eric-”
    “Strabewwy.”
At this, Mr. _____ appeared in the door frame and knelt down to be at the same level as the child. “Eric, she doesn’t want anything,” he cooed at him. Reluctantly, Eric shuffled back into his apartment, and Jim closed the door.



My idea for the end is is that falls asleep again and wakes up to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. However, just immediately skipping to this would be rather dull.

Thank you for reading this far.

*she falls asleep

I'm guessing this is a short story because there's not much going on. First off, I would avoid referring to yourself as writing the story, that sort of pseudo-Victorian fourth wall breaking like

"The father, whose name I will now disclose to you as not to have to call him “father” throughout this story..."

The only time I can see that as being a viable narrative method would be if the story were being told by a separate character who's writing down the events or something like that.

It looks like you're going for thematic color use, I see a lot of "beige" "yellow" "saffron" and the like scattered around. That's fine, but it seems pretty obtuse at the moment, considering the density of color references in such a small amount of text so far.

A few times you're using too many adjectives and it's not necessary, it's just padding the text like too much frosting on a cake.

"Eric opened the door and audaciously marched right up to Emily’s feet."

For instance, we really need to know that he's marching audaciously? You should be able to assume that he's pretty audacious already, being a small child and heading out of his apartment by himself to offer a near-stranger a sandwich.

Another note about Eric, you have to be careful when writing child characters like this. I'm not sure how old he's supposed to be exactly except 'young', and you seem to have tried to give him a sort of childish speech impediment which combined with how proper/complex his sentence structure reads, doesn't quite mesh.

I hope that helps you some. Good luck writing more.

>>3
Thank you, I will take all of these things into consideration. Ironically, I'm a huge "less is more" advocate, I'm just not good at executing it. Eric was based on my actual neighbor, who quite a bright little boy but has a speech impediment. I think I'll try to make his sentences less "proper," though, since the reader isn't going to know that.

Bump, I'd love to have as many opinions as possible.

I finished the story and did some revisions. I know there's still a whole bunch that's messed up, though, so could someone take a look?

    She hooked the strap of her apron over the nail on the back of the closet door and was almost outside before calling over her shoulder, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr. Harp.” The night was chilly, but her trip was short. Emily jaywalked across the empty street in the light of the yellow streetlamps, and stepped into  apartment building, ignoring the elevator and going up the stairs, taking them two at a time. The wilted floral wallpaper welcomed her as she stepped out on the second floor and walked to the door at the end of the hall.
    She didn’t take notice of the garish, motion-activated Santa Claus adorning her neighbors’ door – which sang a medley of Jingle Bells, White Christmas, and Deck the Halls – although normally, it would have made her cringe. Approaching her door, Emily dug into the pocket of her jacket for keys, only to find them… not there. A hand plunged into the other pocket, to no avail. Her head met the wall. Her mother wouldn’t be home for three hours, until eight, and Emily had a good five hours of work for school tomorrow. She sat down and leaned her back against the door, having nothing better to do, with the super, and therefore the master keys, on vacation.
    On the other side of that door sat, among the rest of the mess in the apartment, Emily’s backpack, taunting her. It was the kind of bag that got you kicked out of the elevator; huge and an acceptable substitute for the dwarves during dwarf tossing. Although she wasn’t a freshman, Emily had never really gotten her work load under control. She marveled at fellow juniors that carried around tiny canvas bags and were finished with their homework by the time they got off the subway. The job at the grocery, her mother’s idea, didn’t help; it meant she didn’t get home until five on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Emily owed Mr. Harp, though, a kindly man that was an old friend of her grandfather, and plus, her mom said it was good for her and built character. Emily wasn’t sure that sleeping four hours a night regularly was character building. However, the good thing about working was money, which she used to supply her growing CD collection. She had everything from jazz to hip-hop to alt. rock to reggae, and her music collection grew each month. She couldn’t decide on a favorite, and she had long ago stopped trying.
    Back outside the apartment, Emily had fallen asleep. She dreamed pleasant dreams; dreams of flying a saffron kite in a field of grass drenched in liquid gold, gliding on silver cutlery over a plate of frosty glass, and slowly and methodically sticking thumbtacks into the eyes of her physics teacher. She had a tendency to both drool and snore while sleeping, and was doing both of these by now.
    This is why, when little boy and father stepped out of the elevator around the corner, they were confronted with a strange noise.
    “S'that snoring?” the boy asked.
    “Um… I don’t know, Eric. Maybe it’s a boat or a train. Like Thomas the Tank Engine.”
    “Sounds like you sleeping, Daddy.”
    Eric and his father walked down the hallway to investigate, and saw Emily asleep outside her door. “Oh,” said Eric. The father, whose name was Jim Teitel, although he preferred just Jim, tentatively bent down and shook her shoulder.
    “Uh, um, Emily, are you locked out? You could stay with us for a bit if you wanted.” Eric was eyeing her inquisitively as his father talked.
Wiping the saliva off her face, Emily gazed bleary-eyed up at Jim. “No thank you,” she said, “My mom will be home in a few minutes.” An outright lie. Emily felt uncomfortable around strangers, and even though the Teitel’s were next-door neighbors, she barely knew them.
    “Y-you can call me Jim, Emily.”
“Okay.”
“Well, if you need anything, just knock.”
    “Thanks”
    Eric and his father then walked up to the carol-singing door and went inside.
No longer very tired, Emily looked in her pocket for entertainment, and came up with nothing but a rather worse-for-wear stick of gum. She stuck it in her mouth anyway, and amused herself with bubbles until the flavor had disappeared.


The Teitel’s door opened and out popped a curious head. After staring at her for a fair amount of time, Eric marched right up to Emily’s feet.
    “You hungry?”
    “Oh, no thank you.”
    “Shuah? You want a peanut butter and jelly sammich?”
    “No thanks, really. I’m not hungry, Eric.”
    “What jelly do you like?”
    “I-”
    “Grape? Grape jelly? Or strabewwy?
    “Eric-”
    “Eh, strabewwy.”
At this, Jim appeared in the door frame and knelt down to be at the same level as the child. “Eric, she doesn’t want anything,” he cooed at him. Eric shuffled back into the apartment, and Jim closed the door.
Emily went back to waiting. And waiting. Oh how boring waiting was. I promise that if my mom comes home early today, she thought, I’ll clean my room before she even asks. I’ll wake up before my alarm clock goes off and… I’ll finish my homework in less than two hours every day. I’ll… I’ll never forget my keys again. Please, whoever has power over these things, as Tim Gunn would say, make it work. Pretty please. With an extra-special magical cherry on top. And thank you. I said the magic words, right? Ugh, I wish I at least had something to do. Having sat there for a while now, Emily decided to take a walk around the block to stretch her legs.
When she arrived back on the second floor, she saw that there was something outside her door. Stepping closer, she saw that it was a neatly put together peanut butter and jelly sandwich, on a plastic Spongebob plate. Hesitantly, Emily sat, and downed the sandwich in a few bites.

....and then a skeleton popped out!