Wanted: Constructive criticism

Soñador

Soñador

New member
First off, to explain: I'm homeschooled, and I enjoy writing. However my parents will be the first to admit that they aren't the best of writing teachers. They can correct bad spelling and grammar, but other than that, they can't offer me much in the way of advising me on how to improve. They, and a few other individuals, tell me that I have a talent for writing, but I honestly would like to have a second opinion on my work (or multiple, as the case may be).

I'm going to post a tale that I wrote for a school assignment; I've already completed the assignment, so I wouldn't be using any suggestions toward getting a better grade. I was wondering if several of the more experienced writers here could look it over and give me some constructive criticism on how and where I could improve in my writing? I would really appreciate it :)


Here is the first part of the tale; it's short, but I'll break it up into smaller sections to post:

“Pop, who invented math?” Ten-year-old Tom slouched on the edge of the porch that sat on the front of the old white farm house. He lazily drug his bare toe back and forth in the dirt, raising little clouds of dust that coated his denim over-alls. His grandpa, or ‘Pop’, sat nearby in his high-backed chair, peeling potatoes.
“They don’t teach you about that in that fancy new school you go to? Boy, when I was your age I probly woulda killed to go to a school like that, with a room for ev’ry grade.” He paused dreamily. “And they don’t even teach ya where math came from.” He shook his head. When Pop was young, he had walked several miles every day to learn in an old one-room schoolhouse.
“I asked my teacher and she said she didn’t know. If I was her and had to do that stuff all the time I sure would wanna know how it came to be.”
“Well I guess I’ll hafta tell ya.” Pop reached for another potato.
Tom swung his dusty feet onto the porch and looked at Pop expectantly. Pop cleared his throat.

“Well it all started with two sheep farmers way back in the days –"
“Sheep farmers? Ain’t they called shepherds?” Tom interrupted.
“They are now, but back then they hadn’t come up with that name yet. In fact it was so long ago that people didn’t even have real money.”
“No money?!”
“Yup. They traded each other for the things they needed. Could ya quit interruptin’ s’much?”
“Sorry Pop.”
“Anyways, these two fellows each had a hill that they grazed their sheep on day after day fo’ many years. Always the same hill, same sheep, same ev’rythin’. You can imagine how boring that musta been. One day the first farmer stood up an’ says: “I can’t take it anymore! I’m so tired of seein’ the same sight ev’ry day, I think I’m gonna go loony! Maybe the sheep farmer on that other hill would be willin’ to trade places wid’ me for a spell.” So he goes off to see the other farmer an’ leaves his son Bill to watch the sheep.
 
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“Now at the same time that this was happinin’ the second farmer was sittin’ on his hill thinkin’ the same thing. He suddenly jumps up an’ says: “Eureka!” His daughter Sue looks at him an’ says: “What does that mean?” And o’ course he had no idea; that poor farmer always thought he was a whole lot smarter than he really was.” Pop chuckled.
“So he goes on: “You know how I’ve been so sick of sitting on this same hill every day and doing the same old thing? Well I just had a brilliant idea! I’m going to go now and ask that other farmer on that hill over there if we could trade spots with him, you stay with the sheep.” Poor Sue was kinda frustrated ‘cause she’d had that very same idea long ago. She was a good deal smarter than her Pa.
“Well the two farmers ran into each other about halfway between their two hills and for a good while they didn’t get very far ‘cause they both tried to tell their idea at the same time, not knowin’ that they were both thinkin’ the same thing. Then they was quiet for a spell, and then they’d both start up again; they finally worked things out and rushed off to round up their sheep. However they was in such a hurry that they forgot somethin’: their sheep looked exactly alike. When they met each other at halfway across their sheep got all scrambled together. They tried to separate them as quick as they could, but they couldn’t tell them apart!”
“This is a great story Pop, but…”
“What son?”
“What does this have to do with math?”
Pop chuckled. “You’ll see soon enough.”

“Back to the story. Now the farmers were in a real pickle. They couldn’t figure out what to do, so they called Bill over to see what he thought ‘bout the whole thing. “I’m thinkin’ we both had similar amounts of sheep before we started, why don’t we just split them half?” This took ‘em awhile, but they got those sheep into two groups. They had just started movin’ along again when the second farmer thought of somethin’. “How do I know you don’t have a few more sheep in your herd than I do in mine?” He hollered. So Bill an’ the two farmers puts their heads together again to try an’ come up wid’ a solution. The only idea they thought of was to ask Sue. She came along mumblin’ under her breath about how it was about time they asked her opinion.
“They explained everything to her (even though they didn’t need to), an’ she right away spits out her plan to all of them. “We should come up with a way to keep track of exactly how many sheep there are. We would give each amount of sheep a name; a sheep all by itself could be ‘one sheep’, and when we put another one-sheep with it we would call them ‘two sheep’, and so on.”
“Of course they still had to make up all of the numbers before they could commence wid’ countin’ their sheep, so they sat down and had lunch while they was at it, to save time ya know. When they was finished, Sue showed them all what to do. Her father was goin’ to keep all of the sheep in one group while the first farmer counted the sheep off into two herds that she an’ Bill would keep separate.”

“Wait a minute; don’t you count sheep to fall asleep?” Said Tom
“Yup.” Said Pop, as he started to peel his last potato. The bowl in his lap was nearly filled with peelings.
“Uh-oh.”
Pop laughed, “You’re right about that. It worked well until the first farmer started gettin’ drowsy. He tried to keep goin’ but he lost count an’ they had to start all over again. This time it was even worse, he actually fell asleep! So the second farmer tries it, and then Bill, an’ they both has the same problem too! ‘o course they all look at Sue to go next, but she refused. “I don’t think it would do any good.” She said.
“You jus’ don’t wanna embarrass yourself.” Scoffed Bill. An’ Sue jus’ tosses her head and pretends to ignore him.”

“Jus’ like a girl.” Muttered Tom.
Pop cleared his throat.
“Sorry.”
 
That was a riot! I loved it! No criticisms come to mind, except for little typo things. Near the end of the first section, for instance, you wrote "Anways" where you meant to say "Anyways."
 
Copper said it all. That was one of the funniest things i've read in a looong time. I strained, and strained, and the bit of criticsm i could come up with was this:

When Pop was young, he had walked a mile every day to learn in an old one-room schoolhouse.

From what i've gathered, one mile wasn't much at all. If you wanted to make it more realistic, i'd say like 4 miles or 6 or something.

Great writing. :D
 
WOw, thank you all. :)

LD, thanks; I'll change that place and keep that thought in mind for future writing ;)


Believe it or not, the inspiration for this story came from a joke between Gaby(queen-of-narnia) and I :D


I had to run off for dinner ealier, so I didn't get the ending posted right away; here it is now:

“They all tried to figure out what went wrong. Bill thought they all got sleepy because they just had lunch. Sue ruled that one out. “They all look so alike. If they was people, it would be a whole lot easier.” Says the first farmer.
“That’s it!” Says Bill. “We’ll go to the village an’ get some people; we’ll put one person with each sheep, an’ then you could count the people instead!” The farmers jus’ loved this idea, an’ they ran off to the village, leaving Sue an’ Bill to watch the sheep. Sue was in a sour mood because Bill had come up with a good idea before she did. Silly girl.” Pop laughed to himself and shook his head. He put the bowl of peelings on the porch floor and leaned forward to look Tom in the eye as he continued.
“It wasn’t long before the farmers were back, dragging along a group of cranky villagers fter awhile they got ‘em all calmed down and were able to get down to business. They explained their plan an’ the villagers cooperated without too much fuss. They got all of their sheep counted by suppertime, an’ went off to their hills, almost too tired to eat their dinner.” Tom laughed with Pop. “If I was them, I’d be tuckered out too!” he said. “So what happened to them? Is that the end of the story?”
“Well, after awhile the story got out, an’ people started thinkin’ that this whole countin’ thing might be real handy. Folks started comin’ from other villages an’ cities, all wantin’ those sheep farmers to teach them how to count. Finally they got so busy that they jus’ up an’ sold their sheep an’ spent the rest of their lives teachin’ people from all over how to count. That was how math got started, ya see. After they invented countin’ other people jus’ added on to it, ‘till we had addin’ an’ subtractin’ an’ dividin’ an’ everythin’ else.
“See there,” said Pop, getting up from his chair, “I know somethin’ your teacher don’t.” He moseyed to the front door on his way to leave the peeled potatoes in the kitchen with Tom’s mother.
“Hey Pop.” Tom called after him.
“What son?”
“Is that a true story?”
Pop winked. “What do you think?”

The End :)
 
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I love this story. I´ts very well written and one thing I really love is how descrpitive you are. That´s something I have sort of a tough time with ^^; The grammar is very good I think and also what a wonderful idea about the sheep. Plase post more cause you got wuite a knack for writing :D
 
Thank you Anna ;)

There isn't any more of this story to post, but I may consider starting another story thread after awhile; life has me hopping right now, and I wouldn't be able to post very often.

I was very surprised that you all didn't find much to pick on, but maybe I underestimate myself. Although I really didn't know my story was that funny. hhmmm. :)
 
There were a few small things, but i wouldn't be able to say what they were or why i thought they were wrong. Maybe the pace was a bit messed up. Like i said, small stuff. bird feed.
I hope you do post a story sometimes when you get the chance. That was really, really funny :)
 
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