weak sauce

Hey everyone, I'm new here. I've been lurking around for a couple of weeks, and I finally decided to register. From what I've seen, this seems like a nice little community for writers giving each other advice. This is a short story I just wrote a couple of hours ago, out of no where. It's pretty much my first attempt at a short story, so please pardon the punctuation and format mistakes, or better yet please show me the proper way!

Please don't be afraid to criticize this piece, I know I'm FAR FAR away from being a good writer, so I'll take any criticism anyone is willing to offer. I don't mind if you talk shit, as long as you can offer me advice on anything I can do to improve on my writing (besides quiting).

Well thats about it, thanks! Here it is with no excuses:

The old lady stood alone in the empty room. Her thoughts were random and without importance. As the talk radio in the back round spat out sounds of war and debt, she gleamed over her nails, admiring their sparkle-ness and how fast they’d grown. Her fascination abruptly ended by a loud shrieking bell; she was not startled at the precisely timed nuisance. From only a few meters away she could hear a stampede of running, shuffling and dragging feet, the roar of multiple conversations drowning each other out through the echoing halls. The loud and plentiful laughter grew louder and closer. The energy of youth was an entity of its own. She despised it.
“Shshst”. She would say, every time a body entered the classroom. The final bell rang; the sea-storm of noise now more like the middle of a desert. The old lady stood in front of the class, her posture perfectly erect and her mouth spread unusually wide from side to side, slightly open and exposing her chops. Her disgust and hate disguised by a colorful display of red lipstick and yellow teeth.
“Hello Class. My name is Ms. Bayer. In my class you will not talk while I talk and while I talk you will listen attentively. The things I have to say are always of importance and as much as you would like to think you know more than I, you will learn in my class that you are greatly mistaken”.
A girl sitting in the front row, with a new backpack, binder, and 2 sharpened pencils placed on the front of her desk, raised her hand high.
With a shocked look on the old lady’s face she said annoyingly,
“Yes? What is it?”
She spoke in a cheeringly way, “Hi Ms Buyer! I was just wondering if were going to read-“
The old lady cut her off and said in a rather rude tone,
“It’s Bay-ER. Oh my, this is an English class and we should start by at least getting my name pronounced correctly!” Her laughter shared with no one fueled her elation. Her laugh was loud and sinister; her eyes were dark and wide.
The young girl now red-faced and feeling embarrassed looked shamefully down at her desk.
“Well what is it little girl? Tell me what’s so important?”
The girl, didn’t make a peep, she sat still with her entire head of hair covering her face.
“Speak little girl!” the old lady did not shout, but spoke with a sting.
The room loomed with quietness and a sense of fear.
“BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIINNNG”
The bell rang, everybody except the old lady looked up with relief. In an instant the halls were ringing with a happy buzz, and the old lady and her room were empty once again.

Crow

Weak Sauce, there are number of glaring deficiencies in your story. I'll just go through some of the more obvious ones and if anyone else wants to point out any others, god speed.

1.) Show, don't tell. If you've been lurking on this board for even a small length of time, you've no doubt come across it at some point. I've used it probably twice or so in my short tenure here so far.

The above all are examples of places you can show us something happening instead of telling us. Don't tell us the old lady despises something. Show us her grinding her nails into her palms until they bleed. Show us her eyes becoming bloodshot when those kids come clomping into her classroom with their heavy boots, smacking their Bubblelicious gum, clicking their cell phones, etc. In text vernacular, give us the deets, man.

2.) Use words and phrases that make sense.

The last time I saw words like these they were being used in a TV commercial for My Little Pony. Also:

This sentence is awkward on many levels. First, the exclamation point kinda tells me she might be raising her voice, then you tell me she's laughing? Second, why would you need to tell us that no one is laughing with her if she is indeed laughing? Of course no one's laughing with her because she's acting like an old bitch. Third, "laughter shared with no one" can be condensed down to "solitary laughter" or something similar.

3.) Use paragraph breaks. You're not helping your readers by mashing everything into one incoherent blob.

4.) I have a question: How long is this class? Based on the encounter between the old lady and the girl it appears the class lasts all of a minute or so. I wish all my classes had been that short!

Finally, I offer you two pieces of advice based on what Stephen King wrote in On Writing. Read a lot, write a lot. It's the only way you'll get better, or at least be able to produce stories that don't induce headaches. Do stick around the forums though, and learn.

__________________

Truth-Teller

Instead of looking through the teacher's eyes, I think it would better (for you) to look through the eyes of the student. You can relate to the character much better.

weak sauce

Thank you for the replies!

Crow thanks for taking the time to write down all that advice, I appreciate it greatly. Even though the errors in this piece are the product of ignorance and inexperience, I think I was too excited to get input on my first piece. I probably could have polished it just a little more.

As for the 'one-minute' class lol, I did write that her little speech went on for and hour and a half, but as I was fixing it up , I guess I not only erased it but forgot about it as well. I can't believe I left that out.

I'm here to stay and learn, and be expecting some more headache inducing pieces from me, I'll give you a warning to take some Tylenol before you go on reading them.

Thanks again

weak sauce