Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-27612790-20160412000717

Hello, all! This is a rewrite of a fairly mediocre story I wrote awhile back. I haven't finished it yet, but I'd like to get some feedback on what I have so far.

The day that my friend James died was like any other day. It was a saturday in May, school had just ended. Despite it being the beginning of the summer, the weather was reasonably gloomy. The skies were grey, like someone had wrung the color out of the sky. Wind came from the east, carrying the dead fish smell from the river and the acidic taste of rain.



I lived in Iowa at the time, within spitting distance of the Mississippi River. The town, like most medium sized Midwestern towns, was slowly dying, being cruelly kept alive by the large factory that provided jobs to 300 of its citizens. The town had little to nothing to do, a small downtown with a few shops, some fast food joints, and a helluva lot of residential area. Oddly enough, the town had the honor of being the first location in Flava Flav’s failed fried chicken restaurant. None of this mattered to me, because I lived in the rural North-End of the town.



I was 14 years old at the time, in eighth grade. I lived in a fairly standard sized ranch-style home, deep in suburbia. My parents both worked and I was fairly well-off. Rich or not, this was 2004. There was only so many shitty message boards to browse through on the shitty broadband internet. So, to relieve the boredom, my friends and I had been planning a camping trip for months. In my town, there was a large park, which I won’t name for anonymity’s sake. The park sat on the edge of a bluff, with limestone cliffs and shoddy trails. We decided to set up our camping gear in a clearing near the bottom of the cliffs. The edge of the clearing was a stone’s throw away from a set of railroad tracks, which were seldom used. For your information, if you decide to go seek out this town and camp at our campsite, good luck. The whole area was recently shut down, due to the natural dangers associated with kids and high cliffs.

 It was a Wednesday,





 That's all folks! So far, at any rate. Assuming this gets decent reviews, I'll finish it by the 20th at the latest.  