Reacting to My Old Writing

I was inspired by Jenna's post  a few weeks ago, where she shared snippets from her old writing and provided golden commentary on its quality. If you haven't read her post, I 100% recommend you do!

Anywho, I figured I'd go scrounge through my old notebooks and find something to mock. 

Didn't take me long. I decided to go through the first few chapters of an old jewel entitled Mystery at Cena Cave. I remember being so proud of it (and I guess I should have been, as I also stretched my artistic abilities by creating a map and a drawing of a passport for it). 

A little backstory: Jules and I used to write a lot of horse stories, both together and separately. We both created little horse herds/worlds and had them exist in the same universe. Some of the horses could talk (and some could even consume pork BBQ). It was crazy. This particular story is about one of my herds, mostly about the kids of the leaders of this herd.

The original content will be in normal text (completely unedited, for your laughing pleasures) and my commentary will be in bold. 

Chapter One

A scream echoed through the mountains. Ominous start

~~~

20 years later another scream called out. Oh wow. Terrifying. 

"Jewel, Jack, get over here now!" yelled Violet.

"Violet, what is going....what is that?!" Asked Jewel. This was well before I knew how to format dialogue. A pity because that's 90% of what I wrote back then. I say this as if it's not 90% of what I write now.

"It's a skeleton." wimpered Violet.

"What's 'a skeleton?'" Asked Jack. You dummy.

"That." said Violet.

"Where are we?" asked Jewel.

"It's called Cena Cave. And don't ask me why." said Violet. Knowing well that cena ment dinner. *facedesk* No, I knew that cena meant dinner and was flexing on my Latin skills. My character had no way of knowing this.

"We need to tell mom and Dad!" What's with the capitalizing of "dad"? Actually, I think I know the answer to this one. I'm pretty sure it's because I never could remember which way the d faced, so I always capitalized b and d in order to not get them confused. 

"Your right." This must have been before dad drilled into me your and you're. Thanks dad!

~~~

"What! A skeleton!" Shouted Star. Oh boy, the horse mom is #shooketh as if skeletons are a rarity on a farm.

"Yup." said Violet.

"You better not go there." said Rough. I'm gonna give myself an A+ on my naming skills. 

"Okay. I've had enough of that place" said Jewel.

"Good. Uh can we eat now?" asked Star.

"Yup" said Violet

"Could you stop saying that" said Star.

"Okay" said Violet. 

Wow. Zero amount of conflict there. Like, someone could have at least argued or complained or something!

~~~~

The next Day three girls came to ride. Love that there's no explanation of who these three girls are. I mean, I know who they were supposed to be, but there is no way the reader would know. Jewel was, of course, picked first. Because #undisclosedreasons Jack was, of course, not picked because of his temper. Apparently, he has a temper no one knows about? Clearly favorites aren't being picked here. The other two were Star and Rough. Violet was not picked. Oh, boo-hoo. Violet and Jack asked if they could goo back to the cave.

"Okay but at the first sign of danger run back." said Rough. "Okay." Wow! A complete 180 from your previous position! What's with the sudden change?

"Okay." they said.

Chapter Two

Hold onto your hats, folks. It's about to get crazy up in here!

"Now why do they call it mortas trail?" asked Jack What's the mortus trail? Is it where you are right now? Or something else? Like, a little description of the surroundings and the characters' movements would be nice. 

"I don't know." replied Violet

"I don't think I want to know." said Jack knowing mortus ment death. Again, apparently I couldn't spell "meant" or format dialogue, but it's okay because I knew what mortus meant.

"me neither." said Violet. Your formatting sucks, younger me. 

"well here we are" said Jack.

"Yup." said Violet.

"I thought mom said stop saying that?" said Jack.

"She did." replied Violet.

"Then why are you saying it?" Jack Jack what? What did Jack do? I guess this is one mystery that'll never be solved.

"I don't know" said Violet. It's 'cause you're a brat, Violet. That's why.

"Lets stop Arguing and find clues" said Jack. I propose a drinking game: take a shot every time you see the word "said"! You'll wind up completely wasted and maybe, just maybe, you won't remember you read this! (I'm totally joking, of course. Please don't get yourself drunk)

"All right" said Violet

"I think it was a horse." said Jack Why? What gives it away? A little more description would be fantastic. 

"Me too." said Violet 

"Thats sad." said Jack I guess I had no concept of apostrophes. Or periods in the correct places.

"Yup" said Violet 

"STOP SAYING THAT!" said Jack 

"all right, all ready."

"Lets see

1: horse skeleton. Oh, a list! I love lists!

Thats all we know?" said Jack. *facedesk*

"I guess so." said Violet 

"No knife?" said Jack Why would you think there would be a knife lying around? Are there stab wounds evident in the skeleton?

"Well lets see. wait a minute. There is a knife." said Violet How convenient. 

so the list has 

1: horse skeleton

2: knife

on it. The Plot (unlike your hair) thickens. Sorry, I had to do it for my fellow Psychos. 

Also, the counter for the amount of times the word "said" was used is 28, by my count.

Well, that was embarrassing hilarious. I hope you at least got some entertainment out of that cringefest. 

To be honest, that wasn't the worst story I could have picked. There were several other juicy ones that would have been wayyyy worse. 

Onto y'all. What sorts of hilarious errors did you used to make? What sorts of stories did you write when you first started? Also, if you enjoyed this and want me to react to other old stories (or the continuation of this story as, sadly, there is more), let me know down in the comments!

And on a completely unrelated note, who here is disappointed with the new Psych movie? Gripe with me in the comments!