quote:

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She pulled her long hair back away from her face as she intensely examined the foggy canvas she had created.

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I don't feel 'intensely' is needed. It just dulled the sentence down for me, personally. Usually when you examine something, you do it with a certain intensity. If you feel the need to emphasize, I would recommend a more powerful verb instead of the adverb + verb combination. (Sorry, I'm an adverb nazi)

I think it might read better if you remove the bolded 'away' from the sentence, as well. If you're pulling your hair back from your face, its already implied that you're pulling it away.
See what others say though, I could be wrong.

quote:

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She drew a medieval landscape, with a castle tower, rudimentary dragon, and herself as a princess with a heavily jeweled crown all drawn in stick figure style with her fingers.

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I don't feel 'heavily jeweled' is the best way to describe the crown. I think jeweled alone is enough -- but if you feel the need to emphasize, I feel a stronger verb, or an adjective, would work better than the adverb.

I think if the first comma was cut, it would read a little smoother.

Instead of 'stick figure style' I recommend 'as stick figures', or something else. Stick figure style doesn't really sound like something a little girl would say.

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A clean silver sedan pulled up into the driveway next to a red, rusty Oldsmobile.

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I think perhaps "pulled up into the driveway next to a red and rusty Oldsmobile" might read a little bit cleaner. See what others say, though.

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She whispered, “Mom’s home,” and jumped off her bed.

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I think it would read a little bit better if the 'She whispered' came after the "Mom's home". Could be personal preference, see what others say.

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She darted down the stairs and abandoned the evaporating art on the window. She got to the doorway of the family room, where her brother sat in front of the television, when the car door slammed.

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Three sentences in a row start with 'She', I would recommend changing the structure up a bit, so that it reads a bit more varied. (The other 'she' is the "She whispered" in the previous sentence.

Hope this helps. Keep it up. And again, take it with a grain of salt, and see what others say.

[This message has been edited by Gan (edited November 03, 2009).]

My main thought when reading is that it is all description, for a first 13. I have no sense of conflict and really have no insight at the POV character. I really couldnt begin to answer what she might be thinking during any stage of it.

Here are the parts slowing me down.

(Persephone's breath fogged the window pane chilled by the night air.) Could this be broken into two sentences somehow without losing the description? Or maybe a comma after the word pane.

(as she intensely examined the foggy) The word intensely draws me away from the story and feels redundant.

(She drew a medieval landscape) Maybe some different wording would work better for me... even tying this into the previous sentence would work.

(A clean silver sedan pulled up into the driveway next to a red, rusty Oldsmobile. She whispered, “Mom’s home,” and jumped off her bed.) I like this, its well written and flows nicely for me. Gives me a good visual too.

(She darted down the stairs and abandoned the evaporating art on the window) some more description or even a little rewording to give it more of an actiony feel. Instead of "she darted" the story could use just the word "darting" with some additional changes to the sentence structure.

(She got to the doorway) Need more showing instead of telling, I.E. "reaching the doorway, her chest heaving....' or some such stuff.

To reiterate, I like it... I'm not quite hooked but the story has my attention. I get the sense of foreboding with the car door slamming and my curiosity is definitely peaked.

"pulled her long hair back away from her face" I agree that it should either be "pulled her hair back" (away from her face implied) or "pulled her hair away from her face" but not both "back" and "away".

"drawn in stick figure style with her fingers" I would leave off "with her fingers". This is obvious since she's drawing in window fog.

"A clean silver sedan... a rusty red " I don't know if this is correct, but I feel like she should tag these as "Mom's clean silver sedan" and "Dad's rusty red Olds" since she knows who they belong to.