The Spider Queen: Chapter One

Chapter One: Taken By Storm

A night as black as the Abyss itself. The moon, full, eyes wide open. It watched the world below as what looked like fog came upon the small town on ChanceHall. It seemed to get thicker, until the whole town was no longer visible. It started to swallow the town. House's disappearing from sight. The dog's barking, soon swallowed by a buzzing sound. More like a quick Bzz. Bzz. Bzz. Bzz. The fog went into all houses. House 1567, The Hamilton's. House 1560, The Smith resident. And my own house, 1550. It started to smother me, my arms and legs forced down. I felt like something was being spun around me, like a cocoon. I felt something crawling up and down my legs, like insects. It tickled, but in a bad way. I felt a pinching feeling on the side of my arm. Blackness.
I jolted awake, sweating a cold sweat. It dripped, burning my eyes. I couldn't remember a time I had such a nightmare. I tried to life my arm up to wipe my forehead, but couldn't. I tried again. Nope. My vision started to come again when I saw I was in this tiny space. I felt myself pinned to a wall. I was wrapped in some stick web. A spider's web.
"Help! Is anyone there?! Help Me!!!" I heard the familiar childish tone of Tommy Hamilton. "Tommy? Is that you?" I yelled, trying to squirm free. "Carmen? What's going on?" He sounded like he was going to cry. He was obviously right next to me, or close. "I don't know, but I'll get you out. Somehow." I comforted him. Being seven, Tommy was not taking this well. At all.
I struggled even harder, but I would not budge. I relaxed, and took a deep breathe. Okay Carmen. Think. I felt some cold air push it's way into my little cocoon. Wait! Air! I looked around frantically, and saw a small hole in the top. I reached into my pants pocket. It was late last night, but I had been to a party and wore jeans, and a purple t-shirt with a tiger on it. Plus sneakers. I found what I was looking for. A pocket Knife. My father had given it to me a long time ago. Age ten. Now I'M SIXTEEN.
I cut the stick web-like material, and jumped down. I used my phone to give off light. I was amazed. I saw a large cave, rocks, and stalagmites all around. Water dripping from the top. And there were millions of cocoons and millions of voices started to scream and cry. I remembered Tommy.
"Tommy!" I called out, hands cupped by my mouth. "Carmen!" I heard him from my right. Frantically, I cut him out. I saw some of his blond hair again and then scared blue eyes. He looked around. "What?" He whispered. I heard yet another familiar voice in the direction. "Hello will someone get me out of here?" I cut their cocoon out and saw Samantha Smith. She brushed off her pink Pajama top, and pants, and looked at me."Ew, it Car Man!" She said with disgust. I looked at her. "Listen, Help me get everyone free." I handed her a pen, and Tommy grabbed a rock.
Once we were sure everyone was free, I Sat down. All of the kids were screaming or crying or talking. I shouted as loud a I could. "QUIET!!!" All eyes on me. "NOW LISTEN! QUIT YOUR WHINING AND CRYING! WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!!! LET'S GO....." I Stopped. Turning my head towards the familiar Bzz noise. Everyone started to stare as we felt rumbling. My eyes widened at the sight.

At least over a hundred thousand million giant spiders came through the dark tunnel, headed towards us.

Hey AleixaAnn! Thought I'd review this.

A night as black as the Abyss itself. The moon, full, eyes wide open.

That whole bit just sounds wrong. Very weird. What is the "Abyss"? It has to be rephrased.

House's disappearing from sight. The dog's barking, soon swallowed by a buzzing sound.

No apostrophe in houses. It should really be "Houses disappeared from sight" though. And I'd put a "was" between the comma and the word "soon". Also, the apostrophe in "dog's" should be "dogs'", to signify multiple dogs.

I tried to life my arm up to wipe my forehead, but couldn't.

Lift not life.

"Help! Is anyone there?! Help Me!!!"

Ack. In writing, only use one sentence ending. ?! and !!! are big no-no's.

It was late last night, but I had been to a party and wore jeans, and a purple t-shirt with a tiger on it.

Why do we need to know this? If you want to describe her clothes, try other ways. Like "I felt a tug on my purple T-shirt".

Now I'M SIXTEEN.

Capitals AREN'T NECESSARY.

I cut the stick web-like material,

Why are you describing the web as stick? You mean thick? Or sticky?

I used my phone to give off light. I was amazed. I saw a large cave, rocks, and stalagmites all around. Water dripping from the top. And there were millions of cocoons and millions of voices started to scream and cry. I remembered Tommy.

How does she see all that with just the light from a phone?

Once we were sure everyone was free, I Sat down. All of the kids were screaming or crying or talking. I shouted as loud a I could. "QUIET!!!" All eyes on me. "NOW LISTEN! QUIT YOUR WHINING AND CRYING! WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!!! LET'S GO....." I Stopped

"Sat" shouldn't be capitalized. And capital letters and multiple exclamation points are no-no's.

Turning my head towards the familiar Bzz noise.

Bzz should be "buzzing". Also, spiders don't really make a buzzing noise. Probably more of a clacking. Watch Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Skip to the Aragog scene if you hate HP.

At least over a hundred thousand million giant spiders came through the dark tunnel, headed towards us.

Sorry, but... HAHAHA. That is not a good way to end a chapter. The sentence tries to be scary, but fails miserably. A hundred thousand million just sounds like a five year-old is saying it. It also means 100,000,000,000 (100 billion). That's a lot of spiders. And you say "At least" and "over" (you only really need one), so imply there are more. That line of spiders is going to stretch on for miles.

I would rephrase it to "Thousands of giant spiders came through the tunnel, heading toward us."

Also, try to build up more suspense. That buzzing/clacking should be audible long before you see the spiders.

Now, I apologize if I came off as too harsh, and I may have seemed like I hated it. But I didn't. It was good. You could try to develop on the characters a bit more, but your main issues were prose, not characters or plot.

Are you sure this should be in Action/Adventure and not in Fantasy? It seems like fantasy to me. Anyway, I see you're a newbie, so welcome to the site! I'm Jetpack, as is obvious, and here goes a review.

I didn't understand the beginning. You mention an Abyss? Do you mean Hell?

House's disappearing from sight. The dog's barking, soon swallowed by a buzzing sound.

This should be "houses", because the disappearing doesn't belong to the house. Also, why on earth do spiders buzz in your story? I have never heard a spider buzz. Giant wasps, maybe, but spiders?

It tickled, but in a bad way.

That's a terrible way to describe something like this. "Tickle" cannot be a bad word. There is just nothing bad about being tickled. I think the word you're looking for is "itched".

Now I'M SIXTEEN.

Why is this capitalised? There's no reason for it. You seem to have a bit of a problem with over-expressing some lines. Don't write things in all caps, since you really don't need to with all the punctuation going around. Never use more than two exclamation points either, and even two is seriously pushing it. It has to be life or death before I use two exclamation marks. Same goes for italics. Use all these forms of emphasis sparingly and consequently, you get more emphasis when you do use them.

."Ew, it Car Man!" She said with disgust.

This should be "it's Car Man" and the "she" should not be capitalised, because you don't capitalise speech tags like "she said". And also, would this girl really be annoyed even after she'd been cut free? It seems unlikely.

I shouted as loud a I could. "QUIET!!!" All eyes on me. "NOW LISTEN! QUIT YOUR WHINING AND CRYING! WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!!! LET'S GO....." I Stopped.

Again, there's no reason for all caps or an excessive amount of exclamation marks. There's also an "a" in here which should be an "as" and a random capital on "Stopped" which shouldn't be there at all. There's more than a few of those completely random capitals. Is that your computer, or just you?

At least over a hundred thousand million giant spiders came through the dark tunnel, headed towards us.

That's just ridiculous, and like the other reviewer said, makes the reader laugh.

There are a lot of issues with this piece. There's no emotion, everything's a bit clichéd, you overdo the punctuation and capitalise almost everything. Why? Is this supposed to be scary? It's not in the least bit. I know this is harsh, but it's true.

First, sit down and think about your plot and your characters. They're quite clichéd: the bossy girl who hates the MC, and the MC who comes into her own even though she'd been so normal and geeky before. It's just been done. Equally, giant spiders? I remember a Doctor Who episode of the same premise, and that's not high on my list of good Doctor Who eps. Then again, Doctor Who doesn't try to take itself seriously, and from this narrative, I think you have. So sit down and think, do I really want to continue with this story?

Anyway, as for what you can do to make this better, if you're sure you want to go on with it. I'd say scrap this, but use it as a base for your rewrite. Find out what is so scary about spiders, and use that as a basis for your horror. You need to tap into everyone's fear here if you really want this to work. Also, look at your characters and try to give them a bit of originality. Make them real and make them scared. Don't just randomly spring us into hell, but bring us into it slowly. And most importantly, work through the issues with punctuation and spelling.

In terms of your writing, I would personally think of moving away from this. Horror's quite hard to pull off, I think, because you have to have a great understanding of people and their reactions to induce real horror. Not necessarily for a film, but certainly for writing. People react differently, and I think that's the secret to it. As it is, this reminds me of something Darren Shan would write, and you only have to search YWS for his name to find that he's not particularly well appreciated, shall we say. Darren Shan gets away with it because he has lots of gore - for a kid's book, that is; everything's slightly grotesque; there's magic involved, and it's very easy to read. If you want to do that, then go for it, but if you want to write something of substance, step back and think about a different genre. Fantasy, maybe, since you obviously have a good imagination.

This has been a harsh review, but I want you to see my point. Spiders scare me, but I wasn't scared about this, because of the way you wrote it. Writing horror isn't about thinking of the scariest thing and just telling us about it, which is essentially what Darren Shan does. Equally, in order to write well you have to learn to punctuate properly and to earn respect, make sure you have checked through before you post it here. Even if your computer sucks, there are online spell checks that will work through this for you. It saves reviewers from picking through, as I think Merlin has done, to try and sort out what should already be sorted.

Please, go and write some more. I'll give you a crit ticket for your next piece, as long as it isn't poetry - I don't do poetry - which means I'll critique it for you when you post it. If not that, then if/when you edit this, PM me, and I'll check it out. I apologise for being so harsh, and realise that this must have been a lot to sit through. I cried when I got my first harsh crit. Even so, once I took a break from the piece I realise the reviewer was exactly right. So that's another thing to do: take a break and move on, and then come back and you can work to improve with your experience. Honestly, I wish you very good luck.

- Jetpack.

Yeah. My friend wanted to write a story so I let her....She wants to continue but...I don't know. She doesn't even read so why does she like writing? She said yesterday that, "Writing is a waste of time!" I think she is just a book hating type of person. I have a feeling she did this to make me look bad...sorry for the crap! and I told her to fix that stuff and she said, "Um I think I know what i'm doing!"