United Kingdom • 61 y/oReviews Given
Considering how young you are, you evoke nostalga very well.
I think Holmes would be assessing the potential spy in more detail. What about this for an inner monalogue.
I did not stare back as I wanted him to think I had not noticed him. Instead I looked out across the street several times, but never for long and always pretending something or someone else had caught my attention. How I hoped that he would move and give something about himself away. If he moved with the ease of a younger man that would indicate a disguise. Perhaps some other clue would emerge. To my frustration he did nothing that might give anything away.
You start well, evoking sound as well as sight. Let me make a suggestion about the ending.
If they nearly get trapped in the house but break out with difficulty it adds to the tension, If the door was jammed and couldn't be opened but they broke through with an effort or scrambled out through a window, that would add excitement. You say 'receding into the forest.' If someone else is watching you leave you're receding from their point of view. From your own point of view you're pushing through the forest.
I hope this helps and you continue writing. You'll improve with practice and advice.
Short though it is, a lot of people will relate to it.
You have some vivid metephores and the final sentence is certainly true.
Honest and with a good punchline at the end. I like stories about wildlife. Thanks for sharing this.
The wave metaphore is a good one.
Most people are going through big changes at eighteen, whether its university or your first job. Its understandable to feel worried about that. Just because things are rough now it doesn't mean they always will be. If one plan or ambition doesn't work out then another one might. The pandemic is making things hard now, but sooner or later society will come to terms with it. it may not be easy but if people couldn't get past crisis our species would've gone extinct long before now.
There was a recession when I was a teenager. Sometimes it seemed it would never end but it did. I was unemployed for a time but I found a good job, even though it took me years.
Elaine's feelings are plausible and you convey them very well. I might have described the dining hall in more detail but the character's dilemmas are more important.