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 Review #4767790 |
  Hi, PoeticPieces! First off, I thank you because the moment I read "hamburger wrapper" in your opening paragraph, I realized I was starving. I now have food on the way.  ~~~ This was a wonderful short story about a girl who is dragged along with her friends to a real haunted house. The tone was a little frightening and nerve-wracking, which worked very well given the storyline. Your dialogue was well-written, and included a lot of details in what the characters were doing during their speaking. I enjoyed this a lot, and the relationships between the friends were well-constructed for such a short piece. I really liked the character development of Hannah. Though her actual name, Hannah, was only mentioned in the very first sentence. I was having trouble remembering her name towards the end of the story. ~~~ Your plot and conflict was easy to understand. The conflict of the friends vs. the trapped soul inside a haunted house fit nicely with the resolution of discovering the ghost's body. I do think the story could have used a bit more "showing" rather than "telling" your readers what was occurring, particularly in the beginning. I think you did a great job at portraying the ghost's presence, for example, by "showing" the readers the coldness of the room, the frigid winds, etc. But I would have liked to see more emotions from the other characters, especially in the beginning when you're establishing their relationships. You did a great job foreshadowing the ghost's existence by downplaying the likelihood of it. The old, "you're not afraid of ghosts, are you?" worked well and made me think there was defintiely going to be a ghost. I did feel that the ending was a little strange. The ghost directed them with the pendant to the fallen tree, and it mentions the sun setting on a skull. So I assumed that they discovered the ghost's body with the sheriff. However, if that were the case, wouldn't Hannah and her friends be reacting a bit more rattled? It sounds like this is a group of teenagers, and to find a dead body outside of a haunted home would make me extremely scared, but Hannah seemed to not be bothered by it. Perhaps she has a special connection to the afterlife, but that could have been given more details as well. The majority of this piece reads extremely well. I like how you used non-complete sentences to represent what Hannah was thinking but still read as part of the storyline. There were a few run-on sentences, but other than that, it was a smooth reading process. As far as the "magic words" go, you used them well. I especially liked when Hannah wrote she "fervidly believed" that one could communicate with ghosts. That was an interesting way to use the word and I think it worked really greatly. Using this word here also helped foreshadow Hannah's beliefs and connections to ghosts. Though, I would also recommend to be cautious of overusing adverbs as there are often better, more descriptive ways to describe something. But in this case, it worked really well. I would recommend adding some line breaks in this story. That's where, in a book, there would be a gap and the story would continue. But this shows that we've entered a new scene of the book. There wasn't much a transition between the friends hanging out with each other in the beginning, to then being at the haunted house. Same with the sheriff. Adding a line break can account for the time that it took for the sheriff to arrive at the house. As it reads now, it's almost like the sheriff magically appeared moments after Hannah's friends went to get him. ~~~ He never let any of it get to him though, he was just the same down-to-earth guy I’d grown up with always hanging out in his parents’ basement when we were bored. This sentence above  is one of the run-on sentences mentioned before. It's just bit lengthy, so I'd recommend trimming it down a bit. I think you could easily make it into two sentences, even by simply adding a period after "...grown up with," and starting a new sentence with "We would always hang out..." I wasn’t sure which was more draining, the heat or the boredom, and I found myself sleepy even in the relatively early hour of 1am. This sentence read kind of odd to me. I'd consider rewording it, and changing where "the heat or the boredom" is structured into the sentence. Something like, "Unsure whether the heat or the boredom was more draining, I found myself sleepy..."Our flashlights cut through the night haphazardly as we stumbled out of the car and into the tall grass surrounding the small, one story house. Be careful with commas between adjectives. The way I remember is if you can insert an "and" between the two adjectives and it still reads properly, then the comma is correct. You wouldn't say "the small and one story house," therefore the comma is unnecessary because "small" is actually being used to describe the "one story" house, and those two adjectives relate to one another.It stood with faded and peeling paint that we only knew was light blue from memory. This sentence is similar to my last statement. "faded" and "peeling" are too adjectives that describe the paint, but they are not related to each other's description. Just as it sounds okay to write, "faded and peeling paint," you could omit the "and" and simply write, "faded, peeling paint."~~~ Overall, this piece had a great flow to the storyline and moved along at a nice pace. I enjoyed reading it and was on the edge of my seat as to what was going on with the ghost. I like stories like this that portray ghosts and souls in a positive and kind way, rather than all ghosts being scary and demonic. Your character development was pretty spot on, and I think adding more emotions to your characters in the beginning of the story would make the development flawless. As it is though, it leaves a lot up for the reader to decide as far as how the friends reacted to this experience. Were they scarred for life? Who knows. These kinds of questions that are never answered work well with horror/ghost stories, so well done. Thanks for sharing, and good luck in the contest!  A Review from: "Positive Hearts Reviews Group"   My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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