Lara

This is the first time I have posted something here. After a marked hiatus I have tried to start writing again. This story is different from the way I usually write. Any advice/ criticism would be greatly appreciated. I was originally going to put the name of the characters above the part where they spoke but I didn't want to do this. I will only post a part of what I have done so far. This is a very rough draft.


- Lara.


I walked quickly to the restaurant at the corner of Livingstone Street. It was winter. It felt like it had always been winter. The bitter cold had a tenacious grip on our town. As I breathed in, the freezing air caught my breath. I tucked my mouth behind my thick black scarf and looked down at the pavement where patches of ice were already beginning to form. People swirled around me chattering excitedly. From their incoherent babble I assumed they were talking about their plans for the Christmas holidays. I watched them, laden with bags, rushing into shops along the street. They were probably buying more gifts. It was like watching a scene from one of those Christmas films, you know, the ones that are supposed to fill us with wonder and awe and a feeling that everything can be perfect at Christmas time. As I entered the restaurant a welcome wave of coffee and warm air greeted me. I looked around and found him sitting at the table in the corner.

Aimee sat down heavily in the seat facing me. Her cheeks were flushed and her wavy chestnut hair framed her face. She always wore her hair down. She hated her ears. Even though she would always deny it, she was beautiful. I know people wondered why she was with me. It was the way they looked at us. They pitied her. They knew she could do better. I’m sure she thought that too sometimes.
Maggie, the owner and permanent fixture of the restaurant brought over my drink. She told us she would bring the rest of our order in a few minutes. Our order never varied. We’d spent so many evenings here she didn’t even ask what we wanted anymore. As she hurried back to her counter Aimee started to talk.

“How’s your day been?” I asked him.
“Fine” he muttered. He reached across and lifted the sugar from the centre of the table. He had his bottom lip tucked in, he looked like a child, concentrating hard.
“They are giving me a month off work” he continued. “I can take a long break due to the circumstances.”
The circumstances. I hated the way he referred to her death like that. He was cold. He never lingered on the subject and never allowed me the opportunity to talk to him about it.
“I thought we could go away for a few days. Maybe visit your sister. You said you would like to see her before the baby is born” he said as he tugged at the sleeve of his jumper. He wasn’t big enough for that jumper. As I watched him pull the sleeve over his hand I was suddenly reminded of winters at home as a child. I always wore my mother’s huge jumpers, their long arms trailing by my knees. I loved how warm they felt. I knew it was not by accident that one of them had found itself in my suitcase when I moved away. The truth was I was glad she had given it to me. I still wore that jumper, usually in bed during the winter.
“Yeah, it would be good to see her. I could look after her, she needs more rest now. I’ve missed her. I know she would enjoy some company. She hates being alone during the day. I’ll phone her tomorrow and ask if we could stay for a few days.”
“Alright” he muttered without looking up. He was watching a storm in his coffee cup.

I watched Maggie place a cup on the table and bustle over to greet more customers. She obviously loved Christmas. She had a band of tinsel precariously perched on her fluffy platinum head and was now affectionately kissing a round middle aged man on the cheek. It was definitely her brother. I smiled. As I turned around Aimee began to light a cigarette.
“Why” she began to ask. Smoke and tar filled the gap between us. “Why, do we always come here?” She looked around. A bored expression on her face. Maybe it wasn’t this place she was bored of. Perhaps she was tired of me. As I watched her eyes lazily drift across the room I tried to think of an answer. I didn’t know why we always came here. It was habit. Our routine.
“Maybe we could go somewhere else, why don’t we leave here. Let’s do something different, you know, be spontaneous.” she pressed. I didn’t know if she was serious. She was annoyed even though her impassive tone didn‘t suggest it. Orange lights were being furiously tossed into the ashtray at the edge of the table.
“Let’s do something different then, what would you like to do?”
She stared at me. The silence then was deafening.

His grey eyes reminded me of steel. The colour of the skyscrapers we had seen on our trip to New York. His face lacked emotion. Deep lines had formed from the corner of his eyes. I thought they had appeared there as a result of him trying to maintain his blank stare. He was trying hard to keep me out. He didn’t reveal anything to me anymore. He had changed. That much was certain. I thought that if we left the familiar surroundings he would speak to me. As I glanced around at the merry customers the pain of missing home hit me like a heavy hand across my chest. His indifference angered me. I felt a stone in my throat. He returned to staring into his empty cup. I knew he couldn’t bear to look at me.

DawnMorningStar

Hi Lara!

This is my first ever review on these forums, so please bear with me.

This was actually very well written. I can see what you're trying to do with the varying perspectives, but I think it gets just a bit confusing. I don't know what the rest of the story is going to be like, obviously, but I would suggest maybe doing one character's point of view for a chapter, and then switching it in the next one if you want to change perspectives. Or perhaps you can use something to show that the perspective has now switched (a different font perhaps? I'm not really sure).

This just sounds a bit awkward to me. Perhaps try something more along the lines of: He captured his bottom lip between his teeth. It made him look like a child who was concentrating hard on his task. Not the best example, I know.

This reads just a tad awkwardly. I would suggest something along the lines of: "I thought we could go away for a few days," he said as he tugged at the sleeve of his jumper. "Maybe visit your sister. You said you would like to see her before the baby is born."

I think that should be "Alright," he muttered... And...I'm not quite sure what you mean by the storm in his coffee cup. Do you mean that he's gazing intently into his coffee? If so, maybe you should say something a bit more along those lines, because it's a tad confusing.

Again, a comma after the first 'why' would be better, and you can remove the comma from the second 'why'.

You can make that all one sentence: She looked around, a bored expression on her face.

I think I would split that up into two sentences: "Maybe we could to somewhere else. Why don't we leave here?"

Maybe change 'from' to 'in'

I understand that you left the paragraph breaks solely for showing when the perspective shifts, but as I said above, maybe you can find a different way of showing those changes in views so that you can add in the paragraph breaks. It's just all-around easier to read that way.

Anyway...all of this is basically just really nit-picky things. I think you did a great job of getting into the character's heads (which is always important) and in the dialogue between the two. You already have me interested about who this woman is who died - his mother? A sister? An ex-lover? And it will be interesting to see where their conversation takes them now.