z

Young Writers Society


12+

Cupid

by lostthought


Author's note- I decided to do one of those writings where it is all dialogue. First time at doing this so wish me luck!

"She called herself Cupid. She had red hair and tan skin. Her teeth were like small knives, her fingers like claws. I don't know why she started attacking why she did. None knows actually. Before she came, I saw a vision outside my bus window."

"What was this vision, dear?"

"I saw a dead girl, her hair ripped out of her skull. Blood rain down her body like small tears. Her arms were spread from her body in the shape of a 't'. Her eyes were gouged out so all that was there were gaping holes of blackness."

"Oh dear, that's bad."

"It was not bad. It was horrible. The terror on the girl's face, well, it would've gave me nightmares."

"Why didn't it give you nightmares?"

"Because I was use to strange visions such as this. Can you let me talk about the demon Cupid?"

"Of course, continue."

"Like I said, she called herself Cupid. The first attack came while I was on the bus. As I passed by the playground, I saw an ambulance there. Its doors were open and some medics were hauling two bodies into the back. Only later did I discover that the bodies were of the school's favorite lovers. Those two were so kind to everyone. Even I didn't expect murder! Alas, our nativity is how so many were killed later on."

"Would you like a break?"

"No, I'm fine. I need to get this out before I forget again."

"Go on."

"The next attack I actually watched as the self-proclaimed 'Cupid' attacked again. This time though, she only killed the boy. They were leaning in for the kiss, and she came. I predicted it, that's why I was there. I pushed him out of the way, and she just barely swiped his arm. I yelled at the boy to run. He did run, but his curiosity got the best of him, and he stopped long enough for Cupid to get him. He died instantly after she tore out his throat with her teeth. Her long, spiked tongue lapped up the extra blood, and she literally flew away."

"I must insist on you taking a break."

"I DON'T WANT A BREAK!"

"Fine, finish your tale."

"Thank you. If you interrupt, I'll personally take off your head. Like I was saying, she flew away. The attacks grew more frequent. After all the attacks, those who remained went to the gym, I included. The lights grew dim while we were there. All the talking stopped as Cupid showed up. She clapped her hands together with a large smile. Every single tooth was shown, even the ones that were stained in recent blood. You could see her crimson wings flapping behind her rapidly, as if she was about to take flight and leave. She said that if we hated humans, we sit on her right. If we love humans, we sit on her left. She told us this is with a enchanted voice, so of course we obeyed. I was on the side that hated humans. She told us something, but I don't remember it. It all goes black and I wake up in the hospital. I was told I was the only survivor. Scars ran down my body, chunks of my arms and stomach gone."

"I'm sorry."

"No, no you're not. You see me as weak. You consider me a victim, but you assume I will recover eventually."

"No I do-"

"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! GET OUT OF HERE!"

"I'll leave you be. I only have one question."

"Go ahead. Then get out."

"I was told you received amnesia. What brought your memory back."

"Writing. When I was brought my bag, I looked through my writing notebook. I recognized my stories and my handwriting. My memory came back with the stories, even though the memories were unwanted."

"Thank you for your time."

"Doubtful."


Note: You are not logged in, but you can still leave a comment or review. Before it shows up, a moderator will need to approve your comment (this is only a safeguard against spambots). Leave your email if you would like to be notified when your message is approved.







Is this a review?


  

Comments



User avatar
624 Reviews


Points: 3571
Reviews: 624

Donate
Thu Sep 14, 2017 9:42 am
Casanova wrote a review...



Heya, Lost! GooseLuck here to do a review for you! So let's take flight, shalll we?

You know whenever I said I wanted to see dialogue in your work, the entire work being dialogue isn't exactly what I was talking about, but okay, let's play around with this.

I think your dialogue can benefit from a couple of things.

1) Better connecting pieces
2) Diverse punctuation with connectors
3) Less dialogue

Anyway, let's go into detail about this.

The first thing is better connecting pieces. What I mean by this is describe the person's emotion and such when speaking, even actions. This gives us a better feel of what the person would sound like, even as little as a shaky breath is better than just saying he saidd she asked or they yelled. Use things like he croaked she sobbed they screeched or something to that effect if you're not going to go full out and describe it every now and again.

The second one is simple- just don't use a comma for everything, nor a period. Show some emotion and be a human.

The third one basically tells itself.

Anyway, no overall grammar, punctuation, or capitalization mistakes so I give you props on that.

I think that's all I have to say on this one and I hope it helped.

Keep on doing what you're doing and keep on keeping on.

Sincerely, GooseLuck




User avatar
66 Reviews


Points: 569
Reviews: 66

Donate
Sun Mar 22, 2015 4:10 pm
RainbowPowerPonies wrote a review...



OH MY GOD! Hi, I'm RainbowPowerPonies to review your short story,
Okay, this is amazing! Is this your first dialogue story? Because if it is CONGRATULATIONS! You did extremely well and I'm proud of you lost!
Anyway, you did extremely well and I didn't see any grammatical errors. The spelling is good and I'm overall just amazed, this is great! I think you did a phenomenal job with this and I hope to read more. I suggest making this into a full blown story in the long run because I was enthralled by just this small section of your work. Thank you. Keep writing, I'll be reading!
~RainbowPowerPonies




User avatar
132 Reviews


Points: 669
Reviews: 132

Donate
Sat Apr 19, 2014 4:39 am
Legibletext wrote a review...



Hey, I really liked this piece. I'll admit, I was a bit nervous for you when you said it was all dialogue, but you pulled it off :).

I really liked the piece, it was a bit scary haha, and disturbing, and you were smart to still use a lot of nice description to. If you hadn't done that, the story would not have worked, considering it was all dialogue.


Just a heads up; there are some spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, so go back and correct them. Well, where should I end this review? Hmmm, I guess I'll just conclude with a well done and a keep writing.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story.




User avatar
1260 Reviews


Points: 1630
Reviews: 1260

Donate
Fri Apr 18, 2014 9:32 pm
Elinor wrote a review...



Hi lostthought!

So, I thought that was an interesting piece. It's certainly and original, creative idea, and you had my attention throughout. I also wanted to commend you on making this a compelling story with only dialogue - I wrote a story like that once, and it's not an easy task! But as a whole you did a good job with that, and I had two main comments.

The first is the setting and characters. Since this story contains only dialogue, the setting and characters should be established within. And I don't know who these people are, where they are, what their present relationship is or why they're telling this story. The second is that I was a little confused on the characterization of the monster. Are they actually Cupid? Are they called Cupid when they're really something else? That wasn't entirely clear to me.

Nice work, though - feel free to give me a shout if you have any questions!




User avatar
9 Reviews


Points: 813
Reviews: 9

Donate
Fri Apr 18, 2014 9:13 pm
RedVines wrote a review...



Hello, RedVines here,
Kudos for trying something new! Just so you know in my reviews I write them while reading so you can see what a reader is thinking as they go through your piece, then I summarize.

At the beginning I can't tell if she's supposed to be pretty or not. I'd assume she is since her name is cupid, but red hair and tan skin don't usually look good and sharp teeth and claws aren't typically attractive. You could add something to show if Cupid is attractive, ugly, or neither. Or leave it if this was your intention.

The dialogue seems pretty smooth, I didn't have any complaints until you said, "Only later did I discover that the bodies were of the school's favorite lovers. Those two were so kind to everyone. Even I didn't expect murder! Alas, our nativity is how so many were killed later on." I was really confused because you said ambulance, which is modern, but said "lovers" and "alas" which seem really old fashioned ways of talking. Also, I think you meant to say naïvety. If you meant nativity I have no idea what you're talking about :)

When you write "for Cupid to get him," you should switch get for another verb.

When you write, , "I'll personally take off your head," I got confused because I thought the person talking was a student but that seemed like something a demon would say so I thought maybe they were another demon like Cupid.

"I was on the side that hated humans." This was when i realized the speaker wasn't human so I thought maybe it was a demon school.

Overall, it was a little confusing not having context but that's to be expected with all dialogue. It was interesting to see the progression of the story and the conversation between the interrogator and the storyteller. Good job! I hope you'll take into consideration what I've said, and I hope i've helped. Have a nice day!




User avatar
384 Reviews


Points: 14918
Reviews: 384

Donate
Fri Apr 18, 2014 3:42 pm
eldEr wrote a review...



Hey there, Isha here for a review.

This piece is... interesting, but I can't fairly judge how entertaining it is, because I've never been a fan of horror. As far as I can see, it's pretty original as far as the genre goes.

Now, experimenting when you write ends up being a lot of trial and error, and here you said that you wanted to try just dialogue. That's really hard to pull of when you're writing a horror story, and for your first time (I'm assuming it's your first time, anyway), you didn't do too bad at all! So, props to you for that. The dialogue was, however, kind of unrealistic. One part that really bothered me was:

Alas, our nativity is how so many were killed later on."


"Alas." Really? If we're in a time period where she's riding a bus and running around in gym class (unless "she" is "he," but I could be wrong), we shouldn't be using 'alas,' unless they're using it in a sarcastic context or a comedic way.

You litter the dialogue with weird, simile-infested imagery, which isn't how people talk. Your main character... doesn't not have a voice, but they don't really have one either. Most of the "voice" contribution is more adding fancy words for dramatic effect, but in my opinion, that just takes away from the story and the personality of the MC. So ditch the fancy imagery, and make it real dialogue, with stumbles and words like "like" and "so" and "well" and repeat words ("really, really bad", for example), and make it sound like real dialogue.

Sweet idea, but things got lost with the fancy dialogue, I think.

Good job and keep writing,
~Ish




lostthought says...


Well, technically, I really do talk with a lot of imagery. I imagined her tone to be spiteful and impatient.



Isha says...


Even if you do talk with a lot of imagery, the way you speak is different than the way you'd type it (I guarantee it). Also, you imagined her tone as spiteful and impatient, which is pretty obvious, but it's not portrayed in an interesting or realistic way.



Isha says...


You can tell a lot about a character from the way they speak, if the dialogue is good quality. You need to think about their speech patterns. Words that they use frequently. The stumbles and the "uhs" and "like"s. Even the best orators have them.



Isha says...


The only reason dialogue is this important in this piece is because the piece is all dialogue. You don't have narration to fall back on and grab interest, and the dialogue was really quite dry. I gave you suggestions of how to make it better, so whether or not you take those is up to you.



Isha says...


And sorry for the multiple responses. YWS eats them if they're too long. :(




"Come quickly, I am drinking the stars!"
— Dom Pérignon