The Butterfly Catcher

just the beginning of an idea I thought I'd share. ...

The Butterfly Catcher

By

Jennifer Marie

 

 

 

 

I saw her face. Her doubtful glance towards me then back down to the kitchen floor. The way her hand trembled and her brows furrowed as she held the phone. I knew. I knew that everything was not alright like everyone had promised me and so I ran. I ran out the door, down the porch steps, across the field and felt nothing and everything at the same time. I pushed passed the branches of trees, twigs scratching my arms, thorns across my legs, but I kept going. All that surrounded me was a blur; the whole world smudged through tears and lightheadedness until I reached the edge of the land where the river meets the grass and fell to my knees, palms in my face,

“But they’re not dead yet, the butterflies aren’t dead.”  I muttered breathing in frantic gulps of air. “Damn you, damn you Haven.” I said rocking back and forth now hugging my waist as if to hold my insides in.

 

I could see my fretted face in the water and in my misery thought if I just fell in, if I just let the river rush me away and the waterfall swallow me then this would all be over and I wouldn’t have to feel anymore. I wouldn’t have to remember the day our paths crossed a million miles from home.

 

I heard footsteps and my sisters voice yelling for me, “Em, EMILY, EMILY!”

 

But I didn’t move. She arrived abruptly and wrapped her arms around me, pulled my shoulders and head towards her chest and I cried.

 

“Tell me he’s alive. Tell me. Tell me everything is going to be alright.” I needed to hear it, but she would never say those words to me. She would just stay with me, holding me for hours.

 

Reviews

[Patricia Wedel]

dear Jennifer... Butterflies have so much meaning
in life and also pollinate our flowers along with bees.
I felt the terror of a world without butterflies. Perhaps.
Haven knew he didn't have long to live and he wanted to
be where he could still migrate with the
butterflies. You are destined to write a
Novel that is captivating. truly... Pat

[JenniferMarie]

thanks so much Patricia. Means so much to me. Writing is such a special part of my life. I hope to grow as a writer everyday.

You are a writer too so you understand the heart of a writer :) Thank you again for your comment.

[Clayton Bardwell]

Nice hook, well written. I can't tell what genre just yet.

[JenniferMarie]

Thank you for your comment. I started writing a bit more. I need to get to work on it.

Happy writing,
Jennifer

[Clayton Bardwell]

I look forward to it. Please let me know when you're ready.

[JenniferMarie]

genre is always love, romance ... :-/ want to write about something more edgy but it always turns out that way ...

[Clayton Bardwell]

Funny how the story has a way of telling itself. Even when I start out writing something light and happy it turns out dark and creepy. I don't see myself that way but I must have a dark chocolate layer.

[JenniferMarie]

Very true. I, too, sometimes tend to the mysterious in my stories. I think it's a great layer to explore. Lately, love :) look forward to reading more if your work.

[JenniferMarie]

I meant of

[Zachary_James]

Wow I love this idea, tears are welting in my eyes. The conflict in the story is so well thought out, and leaves me wondering more. You are so talented, I would love to see more of this, and your writing.
Great job.

[JenniferMarie]

Thank you Zachary. Comments like yours keep me motivated. I look forward to reading your writing as well.

Best regards,
Jennifer

[Clara]

Wow, I loved this.
Breathtaking indeed.
Great write.

[JenniferMarie]

Thank you Lola. I really appreciate it.

[Will Neill]

I'm anxious to read some more, a bit raw but you have me hooked.
Will

[JenniferMarie]

Thank you Will. I've started writing a bit more. Trying to make time to. I should post more soon. Thanks so much for your comment and I look forward to reading your work.

[Will Neill]

My best time for writing is really early in the morning when things are still and quiet. Take your time it will all come out. My stories are there when you are ready, I hope you enjoy them.
Keep well.
Will

[Samuel Jack]

Wow this was rather sad, very mysterious and then it comes down to a ( I think) a moment of great loss. I don't think I've ever seen a review as large as story workers! I can't compete with that haha

[JenniferMarie]

Thank you :) Yes, she gave me some great tips! As a beginning writer I'm up for all the advice I can get :) thank you for taking time to read and review it's helpful.

[Samuel Dickens]

Another splendid few paragraphs. Displaying both imagination and writing skill, I think you're a natural at this. Now, invite your muse to come sit beside you, close your eyes and follow these characters around. They'll show you what comes next.

[JenniferMarie]

Thank you! what a wonderful comment. I will follow these characters around and see where they go. Writing is such fun! :)

[Debbie_Philly]

This is brilliant.... you are very talented.... your words just flow effortlessly.... I want to read more... your descriptive words are right on point.... not one boring moment .... very enjoyable and I felt the feeling in the story :)

[JenniferMarie]

Thank you very much Debbie. I have always loved writing and just strive to be a better writer. It's so cool this site. To get and give reviews from fellow writers. It's important for us to improve I think so thank you. I hope to add more soon. :)

[Debbie_Philly]

I agree.. its a great site... its good to have a site just for writing... ;)

[Storyworker]

Wow, if this is just the beginning of the idea, what’s the rest of it like?

So immediately in the story we have conflict. It starts in the second sentence where the slight amount of mystery appears to catch the reader as they wonder why the person holding the phone gives a “doubtful glance”. Of course we figure out quickly that someone has died, but that initial conflict is what really draws a reader in. Conflict is important to have so that the reader is interested. You wrote conflict into the story almost perfectly, and did so in a way that wasn’t extremely blatant. You eased the reader into it and that was cool. Honestly, I would put the beginning of that conflict right in the first sentence instead of the second. Oftentimes a reader will read a first sentence and move on if it’s cliché or boring, so you want to make yours really effective. There are anthologies made and sold with first lines from famous literature just because they’re so perfect. Make sure you make your first sentence one of the best of your story.

A little note about the third sentence, it seems a bit switched around. Her hand trembled as she held the phone and her brows furrowed. I would put the fact that her hands are trembling and the fact that her brows furrowed before you say “as she held the phone”. The result might be something like, “The way her hand trembled and her brows furrowed as she held the phone”. Also, “furrowed” is kind of a tricky word to work with because it gives off a feeling/image to the reader. To me it seems sort of like a rough word. It makes the sentence I wrote sort of feel off to myself. It might be because the word just feels so out of place among all of the less sensational words that surround it. Try finding a way for that word to blend in, or find another word or description that might work with the story a bit better.

From there on through the paragraph I was pretty captivated by the writing. Your repetition was really interesting. “So I ran. I ran out the door…” “I knew. I knew that everything….”. I tried skipping these repetitious moments in one of my read-throughs just to see how the story read without them, and it just wasn’t the same. The repetition adds a certain amount off drama to the story and I really love that. It gives off emotion. You also use that repetition throughout the story which makes the style consistent. Great work on that. I often see writers use repetition in ways that are useless or inconsistent, but you’ve actually made it part of your style, adding appeal to the writing.

There’s also a really good balance between description and action throughout the story. In the first paragraph, you had the character running, but also thinking. These moments were balanced perfectly. There wasn’t too much or too little of the character’s thoughts, and there wasn’t too much or too little of what was actually happening in the story.

Of course, I couldn’t quite understand the first line of dialogue: “the butterflies aren’t dead.”. I’m sure, since this is only the “beginning of an idea”, that this would be explained later, but I want to point out that mystery is a tricky tactic. This line of dialogue makes the reader wonder why the character is saying this. Later, you have the character saying that the person they’ve lost was met “a million miles from home.” This further makes the reader wonder about the story, but it can also irritate the reader. One thing that always frustrates people (especially me) is seeing multiple writers writing using the same style over and over again. It is very common for writers to add mystery into the first couple paragraphs or pages of their story. The cliché comes when that entirety of the book’s mystery is set up immediately in an attempt to draw in the reader. Yes, it is good to draw in the reader, but in this case the sheer overuse of this style might make the reader move on regardless of the mystery because they’ve seen the style before so many times. Writers often do this in prologues, using cliffhanger-like styles. Instead, like many other things, ease the reader in. This can be done in a lot of ways. You can make the mystery encompass the entire portion of the story instead of setting the mystery up with a single line. You can also explain the mystery later and draw the reader in with other tactics. There are many different ways to figure this out, and you’ll have to experiment with your writing to decide what to do about this.

The third paragraph sort of threw me. It becomes a whole new section on its own and strays from the combination of thoughts and actions relying instead on complete thought. This makes this paragraph seem out of place, and slows down the story a lot. I would take a look at this to make sure that the story flows through this paragraph perfectly. You also want to make sure that the paragraph matters. Is it needed in the story? Will the story suffer without it? In fact, this is something that you almost want to do with every sentence in everything you write. Currently, this paragraph’s usefulness seems questionable. Sure, the last sentence might be important, but the rest of it seems unnecessary.

So the next thing I noticed were the footsteps, and I’d just like to know what the footsteps sound like. Footsteps of course, but are the feet that are making them walking on leaves or crunching sticks? Describe this a bit more. That’s just a little thing I’d suggest. Also in this paragraph, I noticed your use of dialogue. “Em, EMILY, EMILY!”. I usually don’t find words in all capital letters to be effective, and I find them out of place often, but you manage to work it in well here. If you’ve ever read a book by John Green, especially “The Fault in Our Stars”, you can see great examples of using all caps to make the dialogue more effective. You successfully did this as well. Just don’t get carried away with it. Even John Green uses this technique rarely. If you do it too much, the all caps technique becomes less and less of a special occasion, like when you ride a roller coaster over and over again and find it boring after a while.

“She arrived abruptly and wrapped her arms around me, pulled my shoulders and head towards her chest and I cried.” Rephrase this. I don’t think it’s grammatically correct. The two ands are out of place. There should really only be one and the sentence should instead sound something like, “She arrived abruptly and wrapped her arms around me, pulling my shoulders and head towards her as I cried.” This is another thing that you want to do. You want to make sure that every sentence you have is not only important, but that it is structured perfectly as well. Make sure that everything flows. That is extremely important. It’s also extremely boring to work on, but the writing becomes amazing after being really picky about flow. Just do this as you write each sentence and it’s much more fun, because the story shapes up so well and you really get that feeling that you’re forming something great.

The last paragraph seems pretty perfect to me. The dialogue seems realistic, and the last two sentences are heartbreaking. The only thing I’d say is that the last sentence should be drawn out a bit more. “holding me for hours” is too quick of a read. Pace the writing to add a bit of a dramatic feeling to what is happening, and make the writing flow in a way that makes the reader follow the way you think it should be read.

Now that I’m done going through chronologically, I’ll just point out a few other things that I didn’t talk about before.

First off, this story does stand well on its own, without any more information. It shows the emotional toll that losing someone takes on a person, and it does so really well. If you want, you could take out the parts that allude to mystery, and a further story, and it would be a freestanding piece that appeals to everyone who has experienced the death of someone they love, whether they’ve lost a grandparent, parent, sibling, friend, etc. It would almost be like poetry, honestly. It’s written in such a way that it seems to hold the meaning of poetry, but the look and style of a story. I don’t know how you did that, but it’s impressive.

Another thing I noticed is that the first character we’re introduced to, that isn’t the main character, is the person on the phone. Who is she though? A mother? A babysitter? This is never answered. Of course it could be the main character’s sister since she’s the one who ran after Emily, but we can’t know without a hint. This also brings to mind the age of the characters. How old are Emily, the sister, and the person on the phone? I pictured Emily as a little girl, but I can’t know for sure. We need at least a hint at this somewhere in the story, or the reader will become confused.

Well, this has to be one of the longer reviews I’ve done so far, which is funny because this is such a short story! I couldn’t help myself though. The story is great, and if I can help in any way to polish it to perfection, I will. Take my suggestions as you will though. Take only the ones you think are for the good of the story, and feel free to disregard the ones you disagree with. Great work. I’d definitely like to read more of your writing in the future, and thanks for asking me to review this.

-Storyworker

[JenniferMarie]

Wow, what a wonderful and helpful review. I agree with you what you've said here and plan to edit some things right away.

It was her sister on the phone, but I do need to mention this. Emily is the main character. I picture her as in her early twenties, but the butterflies make her seem younger. I will work on this.

You have no idea how much you have helped me and for this I am grateful. I plan to add more soon.


Jennifer

[JenniferMarie]

I meant that the mention of butterflies I think has made it seem like Em is younger. Thank you!

[JenniferMarie]

I plan to read "The Fault in Our Stars."

[lee von cleef]

the eighteen wheels of horse van drove through the stable gate, shinny, Red and yellow stripe , Bold block letters Hull N Smith, Two stalls bedded deep in long stemmed "Amish" wheat, walls clean with the air of disinfectant wash, The two had flown from Florida, to LA. then Vanned back to Sante Fe. I could see. His house there on the pinion, juniper, Abiqu speckled Mesa. Him cloud painter. Him M mining founder.Yes him he could call me. Me I call a layer in Sante Fe, He calls a lawyer in New York, then unwind they call the chain back to ..Me. Yes I can see his house, now his Horses the Van pass their spot ready, and air brakes wooosh, They unload into the leading trainers barn. Not mine. Then home that night I do your run or more a walk into the alfalfa field sunset.Sit and cry...why? no answer? just a beautiful sky, and the fresh air a field or casino can pump into your lungs shares my tears.