I liked it. The dialogue feels very organic. I enjoyed the idea that they’d been in the shelter watching movies for so long they were kind of losing it. I’m imagining the last series I binge watched on Netflix and I’m multiplying that by a couple years. Plus they put “Friends” down there what sadistic organization would put “friends” episodes in a bomb-shelter. Also I like the chemistry between the couple.
Ok, now here are some of my suggestions/observations. Please feel free to ignore any or all of it. My reviews can sound a little nit-picky but it’s because when I do one I try to find any way I can to help improve the piece. I’m not trying to insult you in anyway. I wouldn’t have left a review unless I thought it had merit.
“Because of those Friends reruns, h—baby. And you kept count? Ever since the bomb dropped?”
Nothing technically wrong with this, and I know exposition is really hard in dialogue only. You have to tell us why their hiding down here, but it feels a little forced here. Putting myself in these characters shoes when he says “You kept count?” the “ever since the bomb” is already understood by her. I don’t think he’d say it. If you think about two people trapped in a bomb shelter for years “the bomb” is the defining point of their lives if anything would be understood without mentioning it would be that. However I don’t have any suggestion as to where it would fit in smoother. Obviously you’re also pretty limited by the word-count. Maybe just read through it and make sure you like It there, or maybe there’s a way to mention the bomb indirectly. I don’t know.
“Oh, very funny! Can anyone hear us out there! We got us a regular Steve Harvey in here!”
Second sentence needs a question mark. I’d keep the exclamation mark as well.
“I don’t think whoever designed these suits had it in mind that the wearers may or may not be wearing danglers.”
Again nothing technically wrong. This sentence just reads a little a rough. I think you could make this into a simpler sentence and get the same message across.
“We’ve all seen it in the movies.”
First of all if you remove “it in” from this sentence it would become a lot stronger. “It” is a vague and therefore in my opinion a weak direct object. Also and this is really nit-picky but I believe there’s only the two of them in the shelter right? After years with only one other person. I’m not sure "we’ve" would still be used instinctively. Wouldn’t “You’ve” feel more natural for that character.
That’s all I got. And, like I said most of these are really, really minor. Good luck in the contest.
NOTE: My reviews have a tendency to seem critical, that’s because I try to write the kind of reviews that help me. Please don’t think I’m trying to be discouraging. If I didn’t think your writing had merit I wouldn’t bother writing a critique of your story. If you disagree with any of my advice I suggest you ignore it. You’re the author and it’s your story.
What I liked: The premise is successfully creepy. All in all I liked the idea of the story. I’m a big fan of ‘haunted woods’ stories.
What I think needs work:
You wrote :Shey had been eleven the summer that she first ventured into the woods behind the house after dark.
What you have chosen to focus on is fine, but you add on two bits of information at the end that make it drag on. Bare in mind this is the first impression your readers will have of your forest and right from the begging you want to let them know it’s a creepy place. I’m not saying give away the secret of it right then, give the reader a hint of what’s coming so he can worry about it.
I’m very hard on opening sentences, because an otherwise good story can lose its reader if the first line doesn’t grab them. There is nothing really wrong with your sentence, anywhere else in your story I probably wouldn’t mention it, but here it feels awkward.
They could still hear the giggling of the young voices in and around the trees, sometimes sounding as if it were right beside them. Dark clouds shifted slowly across the night sky, blocking the moon’s light from the forest below. Complete blackness surrounded them. Before the clouds had moved in they were able to see somewhat by the silvery light of the moon, now they were blind. Nervously they each called each other’s names and extended arms in front of them trying to find one another. Carol didn’t respond to any of them. Shey, Jeanne and Kayla had all answered and found one another immediately.
This is your central encounter, and while I understand what’s going on, it had little feeling because you break from the view-point character into a sort of generic third person. Notice your ‘they’ here, and not she. I understand you need to explain what the other characters are doing but it needs to be explained from the POV character if you want the reader to feel the tension of the situation. She should be nervously calling out the other girl’s names. Can she hear the other girls doing the same? If she can’t see her friends is she stumbling into trees and thorns? This is where you make us fear your forest.
Also I really don’t like immediately here. A. no one has ever had anything happen to them ‘immediately’ it’s impossible so you reader can’t imagine it thus the visual image is broken. You never want the visual image broken especially in a horror a mood driven genre.
B. finding your companions quickly isn’t scary,
Jeanne had never talked to Shey again after that night. Her parents had come straight out to the house to take her home. She didn’t speak to anyone for three full days. Shey would pass her in the halls at school after that and Jeanne wouldn’t even lift her head to look at her. Once Shey had physically stopped her to ask her why she wouldn’t acknowledge her and Jeanne had gone berserk, screaming and scratching at Shey’s face until a nearby teacher pulled her off of her.
This scene is creepy and that sense I like it. However it’s confusing because I think it needs more description of her motive. Why is she so mad at her friend? I think I get what’s going on, but you don’t want me guessing.
And now here she stood, twenty-eight years later, back in Nebraska to sign off on the papers finalizing the sale of her childhood home. She had driven out to the property to have one final look at the old place. Melanie, her daughter, had travelled with her from San Diego. She had run off into the woods, chasing after a fleeting spot of light she had spotted just beyond the tree line. It was getting dark. The haunting, wispy sounds of young girls giggling wrapped in and around the trees and drifted out beyond the line to her mother’s ears.
I don’t like this ending. It’s a new story with a brand new character and it’s a paragraph long. Did her daughter just disappear? I think that’s what just happened, but I’m not getting the panic that should be coming off a parent whose child just vanished, and in one paragraph you’re going to be hard pressed to put it there. I would rework this scene. Her selling the house if fine, but losing a child is just too big an event to throw in at the end with only a few words.
Off topic-
If you like ‘magical / spooky forest’ stories and are looking for something to read I recommend Mythago Woods my Robert Holdstock. I suggest the book all the time because its one of my favorites, a fun read and a great example of writing mood.
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