This is my very first time actually posting in the Art, Music, and Writing section. So, yeah... I don't really know what is allowed allowed here or not. ----------------------------------------------
Mysterious Killer on Halloween It was Halloween in a small town called Arixo. Many young children are out Trick or Treating. A kid walks to a red house with blood marks, skulls on the ground and dead bodies. This kid was named Jake. Jake was 8 years old and loved to explore places. Now, Jake thought all of the stuff around the house were props. But they weren't. As he knocked on the door, a spider went on him. He threw it off. The door opened, but there was nobody there. He called out "Hello?" Nobody answered. He takes one step in. He is dragged inside by someone and then the door locks. Jake's parents wondered where he was. 2 hours after Jake was dragged inside the house, his parents find him dead in front of a red house. The same red house from before. The next day, it was on the news. Everybody in town was told to look out for anybody suspicious. 1 hour later, a 32 year old man named Lucas, visits the hospital. He went to the bathroom. He heard noises. Lucas ignored them. Then, he sees a large man in a dirty coat with blood stains on them. He was wielding a knife. Lucas was thrown across the room by the large man. Then, he was stabbed right through the head. The large man dragged his body to his red house. He left Lucas' body on his lawn. The next day, it was on the news. Police have no idea what is happening. The police are ordered to search in a red house for any information. It passes 2 days. They haven't come back. Their corpses are left on the roof of the red house. The population of this town has been decreased by 7. There are only 23 people left. After weeks, many people are slaughtered by the large man in the coat. The only one left was a young lady. Her name was May. She was in the public restroom at the park. The door was kicked open and then the large man in a coat appeared. He gave a sad face to May. He started to cry. He lowered his knife and spared May. He took his knife and stabbed his heart. And fell to the ground. The man in the coat was actually May's long lost father. Now May happily lives in Florida. But she still remembers that moment... -------------------------------------------------------
It isn't very mysterious who the killer is, since you tell us about half way through. Sentence structure was annoying; all of your sentences were short and some were actually fragments. Try expanding your sentences,don't be afraid to use conjuctions and commas. Character development was rather shallow, one minute it is about Jake, then May. I would of told the tale from the prespective of May, introducing her at the last second makes the plot twist at the end rather irrelevent because we had no time to connect with her.
Anyway, I hope you keep writing, and hope you liked my crticism. You can feel free to punch me if you like
It reminds me of old folks tales, the way the sentences are very abrupt and more like it is being told instead of read. Hmm, something like this instead:
It was Halloween in a small town called Arixo. Many young children are out Trick or Treating. A kid walks to a red house with blood marks, skulls on the ground and dead bodies. This kid was named Jake. Jake was 8 years old and loved to explore places. Now, Jake thought all of the stuff around the house were props. But they weren't.
It was Halloween's evening. In the little town Arixo many young children are trick or treating in the streets. Most are in groups, but walking up to a red house a lone kid is seen. His name is Jake, he is 8 years old, and has always loved to explore places, especially empty houses like this one. He stares fascinated at the decor; bloody marks, dead bodies and skulls are lying on the front lawn and standing in the windows. Jake smiles a bit, the decorations are not scaring him at all. He reaches out and knocks on the door that has fake spiders hanging on it. Something fuzzy touches his neck and he jumps back and screams when the giant spider crawls onto his face.
/Blah. Story telling rather than... Blocking, I guess. It would also have been nice to see some paragraphs instead of one massive wall'o'text.
I did not say that, because you got to start somewhere, and the actual plot isn't bad. I just got the impression that you felt you had to rush it and get it on here. Trust me, I know that feeling, I got a hundred stories in my head and I just want to right them down, but they usually come out looking rushed. So for your next one, take your time, and only post it when you feel like it is ready. A tip for that is to read it over and over again, that is what I do.
And I came across as being a meanie in my post, sorry. Cen gave some good advice, and he did it without being mean *punches self*
Cen gave some good advice, and he did it without being mean
Naw, I even tried...
Anyway, for default advice that is nice to have in the back of your head: Variation. You do not want to use the same words over and over again. (Look, see, glare, gaze) It makes the story more interesting. Depending on what you write, you might want to work a bit with the characters. As Bronze mentioned earlier, having the focus on one character all the way makes the story easier to follow and can be used to build up the mystery (Example: May hear about these murders, and on each of the crime scenes, there is a little flower on the dead body. The certain kind of flower is making her remember something but it is quite faded. In some moments she might even think she is the murderer (especially if combined with lying unconscious and cannot remember what she did an hour ago) and so on). And last thing: Keep the names to the main characters. Unless a character is a part of the cast for some time, a name is not really needed. Knowing that Jake is Jake and Lucas is Lucas is not as important as knowing May is May. Keep the focus on what is important.
Okay. Nice advice. I like making stories but I can never think of one. >.> I can only think of it when I'm given a specific category. ---------------------------------------------------------------
My second try at a story
Traveling in Arizona - Part 1 A 19 year old boy named Dave from Las Vegas is going on a camping trip to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. He packs his backpack with 4 bottles of water, 3 cheese flavored chips, 1 map of the Grand Canyon, 2 pairs of shorts, 1 extra white shirt, and 3 extra pairs of shoes.
As he zips up his backpack, he goes down stairs to eat some breakfast. He notices that it is already 9:00 AM. After he finishes breakfast, he gets in his jeep and starts heading for the Grand Canyon.
After an hour of driving, he gets there. It is extremely hot. Dave starts to get out one of his bottles of water. When he drinks, he sees something down a small hill. He jumps down and finds a Diamondback Rattlesnake. They both glare at each other. Dave runs before anything happens. The rattlesnake chases him. Dave runs out of breath and takes a break. The snake bites him on his left leg. He screams loudly as the snake slowly slithers away. The pain is excruciating.
Dave needs to find help or he will die. To be continued... ----------------------------------------------------------------
I will put more parts later 'cause I'm a little tired.
Traveling in Arizona - Part 2 As Dave tries to limp back to his jeep, he gets lost. He only has his backpack with him. It is at least 104 degrees Fahrenheit. He lies down under a rock and drinks his water. He finds a path up a hill. He stumbles up the hill. He stands up and sees the Colorado River. It seems so close but so far.
It is too hot for Dave to survive. He drinks 2 of his water bottles. He only has one water bottle left. Dave screams towards the river. He thinks he might die here. He follows a trail leading towards a canyon. The Grand Canyon. He drinks his last water bottle.
The pain in his left leg gets worse. He drops his map of the Grand Canyon. A tarantula crawls on him. He throws it, having no idea where it went. He gets lost again, finding himself on a cliff. He screams "NO!!!!!!!" He starts crying and throws away all his extra clothes. The only things he has left are some bags of chips.
He squints into the sky and sees an airplane. He hollers out to the plane. But it's like the plane wasn't even there. Dave is starting to get delusional. He's suffering a heat stroke. He finds a small cave near the place he saw the plane. He faints, with no protection.
To be continued... ---------------------------------------------
Traveling in Arizona - Part 3 After fainting, Dave wakes up. It is 4:19 PM. It is still fairly bright outside. He opens a bag of chips. After only 5 minutes, he eats all of his chips. He is out in the Grand Canyon without food, water, or shelter.
He hears water rushing nearby. Dave thinks it's the Colorado River. He follows the sound of the water for 2 hours. It's 6:20 PM. He finally finds a lake at the end. He goes in. The lake is cold so it cools him off a bit. He drinks some water and goes swimming. He spots a Military Base Camp. He runs towards it, thinking the soldiers will save him. As he starts running, it disappears. It was just an illusion.
Dave lies down in the lake, with no hope of surviving. A helicopter hovers over him. Dave is relieved. He climbs a ladder and gets into the helicopter. He gets back home, with a story to tell.
You have tense problems. Focus on past tense or present tense, please. HJunping around in one paragraph isn't creative, it's annoying.
Also, your sentence structuring needs major work. It doesn't matter that you used fragments, just that all your sentences sounded the same, just with different words. That's mucho on the bad-type-badness scale.
Hmmmmmm, it's a nice simple story, the Arizona one I mean, but as Alt said, there are a couple points that make it a 'bad read' =(. I'm no writer but I can give you simple advice, maybe?
Detail! Detail is very important and it makes your writings sound far more interesting and complex, even if it's just a simple drive to the grocery store. Describing things, even though, yes, most people know what a bag of Potato Chips looks like, can make it sound more 'real'. Diversity! My teachers in Elementary school always yelled at me for starting numerous sentences in my essays with [the], [he], and [she]. They always said that you should try to make every sentence in the paragraph start with a unique word. So if you use [the] to start one sentence, wait to use [the] again until the next paragraph. While it may sound like it will hinder you and restrict your writing, it might actually help out a lot in making each paragraph more creative and unique, giving it a less, fragment-ish, feel. Tense! While it doesn't both me personally, because I have trouble sometimes when I write small things staying in the tense I chose [I can never decide!], but it would probably be best to stick with one. I personally like writing in present tense [He is walking, she runs away.], but I think the normal, standard stuff is past [He was walking, she ran away.], or that's what I normally see, at least. Perhaps it is easier to write like that.
Sorry it is long, it's actually not much information but I'm absolutely horrible at condensing information just in case you're wondering why I practically wrote a book giving my novice advice.
Maybe I should tell a mod to lock this. :/
You don't have to, as you have every right to write stories if you enjoy doing it, no matter how much critique you get =o.
You don't have to, as you have every right to write stories if you enjoy doing it, no matter how much critique you get =o.
Writing stories that people say are bad in any way, makes me feel like an idiot. It makes me wanna punch them. But I can't 'cause I don't know where they live!
Seriously, I feel like an idiot. I'm not very good at writing stories...
