I'm looking for anyone to rate me, or give me some constructive criticism on this post. My native language is French, but I've been taking English classes for about four years. I'm only almost ten though, so I know that I do need a lot of work, but I have time for it. My major problems are where to put commas, and the difference between than and then. If you guys could give me some help, I would really appreciate it.

The stiff leaves crunched under Braysin's feet, but the thoughts that were echoing inside of his head were much louder. He had stopped trying to shake the images, the sounds and the smells about an hour ago; now he was more focused on just walking. Walking to where, he wasn't sure, but he knew he had to get out of the town, and maybe move towards New York City.

Although he wasn't sure of the exact time, Braysin could say he had been walking for atleast three hours, and it was probably nearing two in the morning. He kept a steady pace, and made sure that as he walked through the tight woods, he was always able to hear the faint honk of a car horn, or see light from one of the street lights, or a headlight. Braysin knew it wasn't safe to walk deep in the woods at night, but it wasn't the best to be walking on a road while it was dark either.

"Shut up! Don't you put me down infront of my children, don't you do it!" Braysin's father had screamed at his wife's face, although she was only standing a few inches away. Her body was pressed against the white walls, and her right fist was clenched, holding rosary beads. The cheeks that were normally red and rosy were now white, besides the two bruises on her left cheek. Even from Braysin's spot at the top of the stairs, he could see his mother's body shaking. He needed to help her, but more so, he needed to help himself and his younger sister, Kayleen.

"What? You won't answer me now? You seemed to have a mouth load of shit to say to my son when I wasn't home!" His voice echoed off of the high ceilings, and Braysin knew that if he waited any longer, Kayleen would wake up crying from all of the yelling. They needed to leave before their father moved on to them.

A mumbled "help" brought Braysin out of the flashback, and he looked down at the six-year-old, who's tiny body was curled up in his arms. Kayleen seemed to be only having a nightmare, because her blue eyes were still closed, and her fragile body was fairly still. Braysin's arm extended, as he rubbed her dirty blonde hair lightly. He glanced around, not able to see much more than what was a foot ahead of him. The forest was thick, but Braysin was keeping a steady pace on the edge of it, so that he was able to see the highway, and use the street lights as a guide. He wasn't sure where this road was leading him, or even what road he was walking on. He hoped that it brought him towards a major city, or as far away from home as possible. Braysin didn't want anyone being able to recognize himself, or Kayleen. After he dropped her off at a police station, he wanted her to be able to be put up for adoption and start a new life. Even if he didn't survive on the streets, Kayleen was going to make it. She was going to have a good life without the abuse that Braysin and his mother had recieved at the hands of his father.

Your grammar is better than mine and i've lived in america all my life. I have to say if you were gonna write a book with that as the beginning i would totally read it. You are a really good writer, no joke. That was an amazing post and i still can't believe english is not your native tongue.

The only other thing i have to say to you is bravo. Well done my friend. : )

I'm just going to go through once and edit for grammar, highlighting where I make changes. Purple is definitely wrong; blue is technically OK, but weird sounding, and my change may not be the only/best way to fix it; that funny beige is stuff I'm pretty sure is wrong, but I'm not sure; and orange is stuff that was grammatically right, but awkwardly worded, or is more of a stylistic change.

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The stiff leaves crunched under Braysin's feet, but the thoughts that filled his head were much louder. He had stopped trying to shake the images, the sounds, and the smells about an hour ago; now he only focused on walking. Walking to where, he wasn't sure, but he knew he had to get out of the town.

"Shut up! Don't you put me down in front of my children, don't you do it!" Braysin's father screamed at his wife's face, although she was only standing a few inches away. Her body was pressed against the white walls, and her right fist was clenched, holding rosary beads. The cheeks that were normally red and rosy were now white, aside from the two bruises on her left cheek. Even from Braysin's spot at the top of the stairs, he could see his mother's body shaking. He needed to help her, but more so, he needed to help himself and his younger sister, Kayleen.

"What? You won't answer me now? You seemed to have a mouth load of s*** to say earlier to my son when I wasn't home!" His voice echoed off of the high ceilings, and Braysin knew that if he waited any longer, Kayleen would wake up crying from all of the yelling. They needed to leave before their father moved on to them.

A mumbled "help" brought Braysin out of the flashback, and he looked down at the six-year-old whose tiny body was curled up in his arms. Kayleen seemed to be only having a nightmare, because her blue eyes were still sealed shut. Braysin's arm extended, as he rubbed her dirty blonde hair lightly. His sister was too young to have to put up with the abuse he and his mother had gotten received, and Braysin only hoped that someday she would understand why he had taken her away from this place. No matter what happened to him, Braysin wanted the child to have a good life.

---

I'm not entirely sure what you mean with "Don't you put me down in front of my children." I believe he's telling her not to talk trash about him to his kids, who I assume are Braysin and Kayleen. If so, I get the feeling he'd be using stronger language. On the subject of strong language; I find censored swear words in writing to be kind of awkward. If you're uncomfortable including swear words, or you don't think they're appropriate, I'd just find some other way to express your character's anger/emotion/whatever. Still, that's only my opinion, and you're free to ignore if you want.

Also, I take it the second and third paragraphs are describing something that happened in the past, rather than now. It's clear as it is, but I figure you could make it even more clear if you put it in the past perfect tense, so instead of saying "Braysin's father screamed at his wife's face," you'd say "Braysin's father had screamed at his wife's face." Although this is also optional.

On "still sealed shut:" I marked that off because when I first read it, it made me think that her eyes were actually sealed, like with glue. On "he and his mother had gotten:" I marked that off because "gotten" is, honestly, a little baby's word. It technically works, but I think "received" there would work better. "Received at the hands of Braysin's father," I think, would be even better. Or perhaps "suffered at the hands of Braysin's father." Or, if you want it to be more concise, you could replace the entire half of the sentence with "His sister was too young to have to suffer as he and his mother had."

On "before their father moved onto them:" Since "onto" usually implies that the subject moves in a manner that puts it on top of the object, I assume you want "moved on" as its own thing, meaning "progressed," which would then be paired with "to" on its own.

As for the composition itself---it's lovely. The first paragraph sets up the (mini-)story well, and the second paragraph does what many good writers neglect to do; it describes the setting. Without going into a long description of the room/house, little hints in the second paragraph give the reader the idea of where the characters are in relation to each other, and what the room is shaped like. Some more descriptive bits in the first and last paragraphs would be nice, just so the reader knows what's going on in the present.

First of all, thank you writergirl24 =D.
__

DCLXVI wrote:I'm just going to go through once and edit for grammar, highlighting where I make changes. Purple is definitely wrong; blue is technically OK, but weird sounding, and my change may not be the only/best way to fix it; that funny beige is stuff I'm pretty sure is wrong, but I'm not sure; and orange is stuff that was grammatically right, but awkwardly worded, or is more of a stylistic change.

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The stiff leaves crunched under Braysin's feet, but the thoughts that filled his head were much louder. He had stopped trying to shake the images, the sounds, and the smells about an hour ago; now he only focused on walking. Walking to where, he wasn't sure, but he knew he had to get out of the town.

"Shut up! Don't you put me down in front of my children, don't you do it!" Braysin's father screamed at his wife's face, although she was only standing a few inches away. Her body was pressed against the white walls, and her right fist was clenched, holding rosary beads. The cheeks that were normally red and rosy were now white, aside from the two bruises on her left cheek. Even from Braysin's spot at the top of the stairs, he could see his mother's body shaking. He needed to help her, but more so, he needed to help himself and his younger sister, Kayleen.

"What? You won't answer me now? You seemed to have a mouth load of s*** to say earlier to my son when I wasn't home!" His voice echoed off of the high ceilings, and Braysin knew that if he waited any longer, Kayleen would wake up crying from all of the yelling. They needed to leave before their father moved on to them.

A mumbled "help" brought Braysin out of the flashback, and he looked down at the six-year-old whose tiny body was curled up in his arms. Kayleen seemed to be only having a nightmare, because her blue eyes were still sealed shut. Braysin's arm extended, as he rubbed her dirty blonde hair lightly. His sister was too young to have to put up with the abuse he and his mother had gotten received, and Braysin only hoped that someday she would understand why he had taken her away from this place. No matter what happened to him, Braysin wanted the child to have a good life.

---

I'm not entirely sure what you mean with "Don't you put me down in front of my children." I believe he's telling her not to talk trash about him to his kids, who I assume are Braysin and Kayleen. If so, I get the feeling he'd be using stronger language. On the subject of strong language; I find censored swear words in writing to be kind of awkward. If you're uncomfortable including swear words, or you don't think they're appropriate, I'd just find some other way to express your character's anger/emotion/whatever. Still, that's only my opinion, and you're free to ignore if you want.

Also, I take it the second and third paragraphs are describing something that happened in the past, rather than now. It's clear as it is, but I figure you could make it even more clear if you put it in the past perfect tense, so instead of saying "Braysin's father screamed at his wife's face," you'd say "Braysin's father had screamed at his wife's face." Although this is also optional.

On "still sealed shut:" I marked that off because when I first read it, it made me think that her eyes were actually sealed, like with glue. On "he and his mother had gotten:" I marked that off because "gotten" is, honestly, a little baby's word. It technically works, but I think "received" there would work better. "Received at the hands of Braysin's father," I think, would be even better. Or perhaps "suffered at the hands of Braysin's father." Or, if you want it to be more concise, you could replace the entire half of the sentence with "His sister was too young to have to suffer as he and his mother had."

On "before their father moved onto them:" Since "onto" usually implies that the subject moves in a manner that puts it on top of the object, I assume you want "moved on" as its own thing, meaning "progressed," which would then be paired with "to" on its own.

As for the composition itself---it's lovely. The first paragraph sets up the (mini-)story well, and the second paragraph does what many good writers neglect to do; it describes the setting. Without going into a long description of the room/house, little hints in the second paragraph give the reader the idea of where the characters are in relation to each other, and what the room is shaped like. Some more descriptive bits in the first and last paragraphs would be nice, just so the reader knows what's going on in the present.

Wow, thank you gor taking the time to go through all of this and help me out. I'm definitely going to edit where you told me to, so I hope you don't mind if I use the phrases that you gave me to replace the ones that I have written in myself. The only question I have is, what is ";" that used for? I've really never known, so I have no idea when or where to use it in my writing.

A semicolon is what you use when you want a comma splice, but you can't do that because comma splices are illegal. If you say "Bob finished his dinner quickly, he hadn't eaten all day" (which is a crummy sentence to use a semicolon in, but whatever), you've technically got two independent clauses. One is "Bob finished his dinner quickly," and one is "he hadn't eaten all day." Putting them together with just a comma in the middle is called a comma splice; it's one of the most common mistakes I see in RPing, and it's really annoying to read if you know it's wrong. If you don't know it's wrong, however, it tends to make sentences cooler, make them flow better, make them sound less awkward, or just make them more interesting to read. So, naturally, English (being the crazy insane language that it is) gives writers a loophole: the semicolon. Just stick in a semicolon where you had the comma before, and boom! Correct sentence.

There are, of course, other ways to fix comma splices. Your original sentence, "He had stopped trying to shake the images, the sounds and the smells about an hour ago, and now he was more focused on just walking," was not a comma splice, because you use "and" after the comma. You could also make them separate sentences, but sometimes they're too closely linked for that to work. My example with Bob, for instance, could be "Bob finished his dinner quickly, because he hadn't eaten all day," or "Bob finished his dinner quickly. He hadn't eaten all day." Personally, I like "Bob finished his dinner quickly; he hadn't eaten all day," better.

EDIT: Semicolons are also used to separate items in a list that have commas within them. Like if you say "I invited Bob, the butcher; Mary, his wife; George, the baker; Emily, his oldest daughter; and Steve, her husband." If all those semicolons were commas, it would seem like I was inviting ten people, instead of five. (Or maybe only nine, because the "and" comes before Steve is listed, so the reader could assume that "Steve, her husband" was all one person.)

Yeah, I see what you're saying and I agree. The semicolon really does make the sentence flow better; I like it much better. (Was that right?) Anyway, I edited my original post and I think I included everything that you mentioned. I edited the last paragraph a lot, so if you have any free time, would you mind reading that over for me?

Yes, that was right. You're sharp... And you're ten? And you've only been learning English for four years? That's madness. I mean, if I had been learning French for four years, I don't think I'd be able to write anything coherent, let alone as good as this is. I mean, I've been learning Japanese for two years, and I can barely hold a conversation.

Where you say "he wasn't sure where this road was leading him, or what road he was even walking next to," I'd end that with "or even what road it was." When I first read it, I thought there were two roads involved, the road that was leading him and the one he was walking next to. Also, you fall into the "even" misplacement trap, another bothersome error, which I don't think is technically wrong, but it does make the sentence seem funny. If you've got a sentence like that one, you can look at it like "he wasn't sure [STUFF], or even [STUFF]," with the "even" separate from the stuff. That's how I do it anyway... I'm not sure if it's actually the correct way to do it, but I know it's a correct way.

Well, I've only been taking English classes for four years in school, but I travel to The Bahamas every winter, so I've picked up some phrases there. When I go on holiday to England, I've found myself learning some new things too. I've been taking writing classes out of school ever since I was five, though, so that adds to it I suppose.

Wow, Japanese must be an extremely challenging language to grasp. Do they write in those symbols, or is that Chinese? I really want to learn the Mandarin language after I finish Spanish.

Thank you for that correction! I'll edit now!

Japanese actually has three "alphabets," hirigana, katakana, and kanji. Kanji are characters taken from Chinese, sometimes having the same meaning (六百六十六, for instance, means 666 in Japanese and Chinese, but 手紙 means "letter" in Japanese and "toilet paper" in Chinese---I think) but are almost always pronounced differently. The three are used in concert in everyday Japanese, with kanji used for words with a definite meaning (adjectives, nouns, verbs) and hirigana used for conjugation, prepositions, and other grammar junk. In 行きます, for instance, which means "go" or "will go," the first character is a kanji and the other three are hirigana. The kanji stays the same when it becomes "went," 行きました; or "to go," 行く; or "please go," 行って下さい. So in a sentence like 「私は悪魔で執事ですから。」 (which, incidentally, means "because I am a demon and a butler"), you've got kanji and hirigana working together. Katakana is used for words stolen from English or other languages, onomatopoeia, and to draw attention to something. So the Japanese word for "France" would be "furansu," spelled in katakana as フランス.

So let me get this straight... you're trilingual? Like you speak French, English, and Spanish? And you're ten? *wags finger* You're making me feel like a Stupid American here, I can only speak plain old boring English. If I had tried to learn a second language at five, I would have given up within a week... And here you are, going on perfectly quickly in English that is, as writergirl touched on, better than a lot of people who speak only English. Mind, that might be because you're putting more effort into it, but w/e.

Oh gosh, there is no way that I would be able to take on something like Japanese. Just that took me four times of reading it over to understand what all of the strange words mean. I don't get it though, do they write "furansu" or フランス? I mean, I'm sure Japanese is a language that is widely spoken though, so it is probably useful to learn it. Just wondering, but why did you decide to study the language?

No, I don't consider myself trilingual, because I'm not the best at Spanish. I know the common phrases, vocabulary, questions, conjugation [sp?] of words and all of that stuff, but I'm horrible at keeping up conversations. I've been to Spain once or twice, and they spoke way too quickly for me. Trust me, I may seem good with the English language, but when I speak it, especially to Americans, I struggle. I've been to the states only once, and it was to Florida, but the accents really threw me off! Words sounded so much different in the states than they do when I'm talking to people in England.

Fantastic writing, especially for a ten year old. Is this a roleplaying excerpt or from a story?

Thank you, Bandit. It's not really from a story or from roleplaying. I kind of just wrote it a few weeks ago, but I am planning on moving forward to make it part of a story. I'm not sure yet thouh, because I was also thinking of just turning that part into an open roleplay.

I must say for a ten-year-old just learning the language you write exceptionally well. Now you originally asked two questions. Your first question was regarding than and then. This is really only a common difficulty for people to grasp because they look and sound similar when used phonetically.

Than is used in comparisons. John wanted to go to the market more than he wanted to go to the bookstore.
Rather than going to the bookstore, John went to the market.

Then is used when in reference to placement and time. First you beat the eggs, then you add the flower.
"So I was totally talking to Jane and then a comet came flying out of nowhere. Then this crazy girl came running through the crowd screaming."

Than and then are used really differently, just don't let phonetics confuse you. Than is comparisons. Then is time and placement.

As for comma's, it's really a lot easier for you to look at a grammar book and learn those. A real, written book by an author will not give you good insight. Author's use something called style where they start to warp the realities of grammar to make things look nicer. I have been told constantly throughout college that when you start creative writing to know the backbones of grammar and then learn how you can twist it to make things "look nicer".

Semi-colons simply separate two independent clauses, which a comma cannot do. It isn't exactly necessary to use semi-colons. It just makes things flow better and look nicer.