Young Writers Society

I really want critique on this, I want to know if you like the idea. If you find spelling and grammar mistakes don't hesitate to tell me, I don't know whether I should keep writing, please tell me everything you are think, hate it or love it?






His face was streaked with blood, crimson and dry on his cheek. His jaw was flecked with freckles, his blue eyes sparkled with exhilaration. He bit his bottom lip, tasting the blood on his tongue. He swallowed, trying to rid the lump from his throat.

‘You know,’ A voice whispered from behind making Gage press his hands to his face and try to hide the blood. ‘It’s not life or death Gage, it’s just a sandwich.’

‘Dash, you frightened me,’

‘That would be a first,’ He whispered before raising his eyebrows ‘Where did that blood come from?’ He looked down at the sandwich on the ground. ‘Lunch doesn’t usually bleed.’

‘It was his.’ He held up a wallet, Dash squinted at the drivers license.

‘Cooper Thomas’

Dash rolled his eyes, he pressed his fingers to his temples. Rubbing and muttering incoherently.

‘Jesus, Gage, you’re what fourteen?’

‘Twelve.’

‘Twelve!’ He threw his hands at the sky. ‘Jesus Christ, can you just not murder someone for at least a week?’

‘No’ He smiled, showing his jagged teeth, the scar on his cheek made a dent in the blood.

Dash pulled on Gage’s shirt.

‘Get in the car, kid.’

‘I’m not a kid, Dash.’

‘Whatever’

Gage opened his eyes wide. ’I’ll kill you, Dash, I’m not sure how well your wife would take it though.’

‘For fuck sake Gage, if you killed me you would have no one to stop Mae from telling the cops, or killing you herself.’

‘I doubt that.’

‘I wouldn’t fucking doubt it, now get in the car and pick that damn sandwich up, I’m hungry.’

The car was black with leather interior and when he breathed the smell of blood filled his lungs.

Dash sighed.

‘He’s in the trunk, isn’t he?’

‘Where else?’

‘I shouldn’t answer that question, should I Gage?’

‘Not really.’

There was a pause, the air was arid. The stench clung to the inside of Dash’s nose.

‘How old was he?’

‘Thirty one, with two children, Aubin and Darcy. His wife’s name was Addison Thomas and he owned a cat, Kibbles.’

‘Kibbles,’ He muttered. ‘Real original.’

Gage nodded.

‘I wonder if his kids will miss him, his wife even.’ Dash felt chagrin run through him, he creased his eyebrows.

‘He hits Aubin and Addison, not Darcy though because Darcy looks like him and when he hurts Darcy he is reminded of what his own father used to do, I’m sure they won’t miss him.’

‘How do you know?’

‘He told me.’

Dash bit his lip and nodded his head.

‘It’s true.’ Gage said, while shrugging his shoulders.

‘I have no reason to doubt you.’

Gage grinned, the scar on his cheek still making a dent in the blood.

‘Drive, Dash.’ Gage ordered, almost growling. ‘I’ve never been caught and I don’t want to start now.’

Dash quickly put his hands on the steering wheel. Gage pulled his smile to one side of his face and scrunched his noise.

‘I scared you, didn’t I Dash?’

Dash didn’t reply, he pushed his black hair away from his thin face. His nose was pointed at the end. His skin stuck to his collarbone, screening it’s every dent and crevice. His bare stomach was ashen and dark jeans clung to his legs.

Gage tapped his shoulder.

‘Hurry, Ace won’t be happy if we’re late and stop at a,’ He hesitated, cringing at the word. ’public toilet. I need to wash the blood from my face.’

‘Sure Gage.’

Gage rested against the seat. He flicked his russet hair over his forehead and closed his eyes. His nose was littered in freckles, as well as his jaw line.

When the car stopped Gage stumbled out into the toilet, besieged the walls. He stared in the mirror, standing on his toes. Smiling at the blood that covered his face.

Without glancing away he turned the tap. Water rushed out, spraying on his shirt. He drenched his face, grimacing as the last of the blood was washed away. Gage pulled his shirt from his gaunt body and threw it over his shoulder. He could hear whispering outside but the Dash pressed the car horn and Gage burst out into the night.

He staggered into the car.

‘Drive.’

‘Okay, sleep Gage.’

‘I think I’ll take up your offer.’


***


Gage stretched his body out, his stomach bare. His shoulders were covered in freckles and the cigarette in his hand made signals in the air.

Dash raised his eyebrows at the boy.

‘Where’s your mother?’ He raised his chin.

‘Dead.’ Gage bit his lip and put the cigarette in his mouth, when he took it out again, blood stained it and Gage smiled.

‘Oh, right, father?’ Dash whispered.

‘Dead.’

‘How’d they die, Gage?’

‘I killed them.’

‘Right.’ He nodded his head,

There was a pause, smoke hung in the air. He could feel the blood trickling down his chin. His eyes are dull blue, gleaming with resentment in the light hanging loosely from the ceiling.


***


Droplets clung to his body, like dew at dawn. He traced his contours with his gaunt fingers. The evening light shone through his window, casting shadows on his walls. Gage frowned at his reflection, everyday he was looking more like his father. His long flat lips pressed on his face, soon he would have stubble on his chin and tiny hairs would grow around his nipples.

He leant his hand on a desk, his fingers traced the plastic white. There were two dates carved into the plastic, one with two names next to it. He grimaced when his fingertips felt the crevices.

‘Adalyn and Gaspard.’ He whispered his parents names and the date that he had murdered them.

After that he paused for a moment before whispering a name that had been dying to leap from his lips. It was carved further from his parent’s because every day of his life he regretted sinking his teeth into her throat and ripping her apart.

‘Javier’

He remembered her eyes like sunsets, green and gold glittering in the light. Her hair hung down her back, brown streaked with blonde. He nose was wide and freckles cluttered her cheekbones.

He opened his eyes as Ace’s voice rung through the hall. Her Dutch accent could slightly be heard through her words.

‘Gage, darling, breakfast is ready.’

He groaned and threw on his jeans, black and loose around his ankles. He smiled at himself in the mirror as he pulled on his shirt, with Iron Maiden written in letters bigger than he remember from last time he’d worn it. He open the door, and smiled at the short haired lady standing with the top of her head just above his. She had a freckle on her cheek and her lips were thin but she twisted them into a smile, ruining their beautiful intricacy.

She pressed her tiny hands against Gage’s face.

‘You are growing so tall my little Gage,’ She whispered before she pressed her lips against his forehead. ‘You look like your father, everyday you are more beautiful.’

There was silence, were he was positive she would smell the smoke floating from the crack in door. He pulled his arms around her neck and liked fire burned within him, he kissed the bridge of her nose.

‘I am extremely lucky that you have never left me.’ He smiled.

‘What would I be if I left you when your mother asked me to stay?’

‘Thank you, nanny.’

She watched his face and when he smiled the scar on his cheek deepened.


***

Gage can hear her screams echo inside his head. His teeth sink into her flesh. Her eyes are squeezed shut. The pain burns into her, like hot metal on raw skin. The pale night turns to morning as her crimson blood makes every hair on his neck stand on end. Gage can feel the static inside him as her blood reaches his, like ice travelling through his veins. He kisses her chest, pressing his lips against her collarbone.

Every strand of her hair is stuck to another with thickets of blood.

Her name is Chester. He has done his research, he has stared into her brown eyes before now. He has pressed his own skin against hers, she has trusted him.

She is soaked with her own blood when he kisses her lips.

His fingers trace her cheek.

‘We will meet again soon.’

His footsteps ricochet through her.

‘Wait,’ She screams, wiping the blood from her face. ’What am I?’

‘You are what I am,’ He paused, biting his lip. ’A monster.’

She whispers now, her voice is rough, it breaks the morning air.

‘Vampire,’

But Gage is gone, nodding his head as he walks.

Hey!
Okay, so there's a lot of stories out there about vampires nowadays ... this is clichéd, just for being about vampires, I think. It seems more like a snippet from the middle of a story than a beginning, if you know what I mean, and it has basically zero substance. What you have here is as insubstantial as thistledown and as easily blown away.

I think the biggest problem here is the lack of information. You never reveal where the characters are except for being in a car and a public bathroom. You barely scratch the surface on the thoughts of the characters; the reader has no idea who they are and we do not get a feel for who they are as people, or vampires, or whatever. They're cardboard -- you need to elaborate on their personalities, let us into their heads so we can begin to care about them and their lives. Now I feel like I'm watching this happen through a pane of smoky, clouded glass -- I can barely make out anything, I'm a stranger watching someone else's life unfold without any interest -- and what you want as an author is for me to feel like I'm there with your characters. I want to feel scared when they're scared, I want to know what they think and feel.

Moving on, now ... the grammar isn't terrible, but it could use some work. I don't have time to comb through this and correct every error, so I'll just show you some basic mistakes that you made a lot throughout the piece:

‘Dash, you frightened me,’

Two things:
The comma after 'me' should be a period. I'm pretty sure you put a comma where there should be a period several times, so you might want to go through your story and fix it.
And secondly, you use 'these' for dialogue instead of "these". I don't know if there's a rule or anything, but I'm 99% sure that you have to use "" in dialogue.

‘Cooper Thomas’

‘Whatever’

‘Javier’

Those are some places where you forgot to put a period after your sentence (or in these cases, word).

Gage can hear her screams echo inside his head. His teeth sink into her flesh. Her eyes are squeezed shut. The pain burns into her, like hot metal on raw skin.

You kind of switch perspectives here. It's like, you tell us what Gage is hearing, and then suddenly you tell us that she's feeling pain. You should stick to Gage's perspective since it's confusing to switch around like that when you write, but you can still let us know that she's in pain. Maybe try something like: "Gage knows that by now the pain will be burning into her, scalding like hot metal on raw skin."

----

Another problem with this is that the dialogue is quite unrealistic. If Chester's in so much pain, how does she scream "Wait, what am I?" If someone had just been turned into a vampire, what do you think they would do, really?
The thing about fantasy is that none of it has actually happened, so there's no really realistic way to react to things like being turned into a vampire or whatever. You get to use your imagine. But still, you've got to be reasonable.

The whole story has an unrealistic, just-skimming-the-surface feel to it. You should take the time to develop the relationships between the characters; for example, how to Dash and Gage know each other? Who are they, exactly? Think about it.

Clichés ... it's a too-used theme: a teen/preteen with a dark past (it was obvious that he would regret killing someone that he knew; I expected the part about the girl Javier) and an appetite for violence. The fact that he's a vampire only makes this problem worse.
I don't really know what you can do to fix this besides starting over, really. Maybe you can find a way to reverse the clichés later on in the story.

Finally, this whole story is bland and quite frankly, uninteresting. There is a serious lack of imagery here; try using the five senses to create a mental image for the reader. You'd be surprised how much more interesting a story can become when you add some sensory description for the reader.

Overall, this is okay ... I don't like it, but I think that with some serious work, it could be interesting. You can PM me any time, and be sure to let me know if you do a rewrite!

Hope this helped somewhat,
- Camille <3

Hey saves! JFW here. I was just browsing through the forums, and saw that this had no comments, so I decided to review it! (Well… it had no comments when I started. But I stopped to go decorate my Christmas tree, so… )

Anyways, I started out doing a line critique, but you make the same mistakes way too many times, so it's really just a waste of both of our time. I see that Wolf gave you a quick lesson, so sorry if I sound repetitive.

Grammar

This was your biggest mistake. It doesn't seem like you're being lazy though, as you made the same mistakes throughout the whole piece, so I guess you just don't understand? So I'll try to explain.

‘That would be a first,’ He whispered before raising his eyebrows ‘Where did that blood come from?’

There are several things grammatically wrong with this sentence.

1. 'He' should be lowercase. When you're describing how the character is saying something, like 'whispered', then you use a comma after the dialogue, as you did, and a lowercase letter following that, unless it's a pronoun (I, a name, etc.)

2. There should be a period at the end of 'eyebrows'. A lot of people say it should be a comma, and then continue the dialogue, but since the two bits of dialogue can be two separate sentences – you wouldn't split them like that if they couldn't – so I think it looks better with a period.

3. Quotation marks! I know you have artistic license and all, but unless you can prepare a very good argument as to why you're using apostrophes instead, don't use them. Just hit the shift button; it's not that hard.

So if you do all of those things, it should end up looking like this:

"That would be a first," he whispered before raising his eyebrows. "Where did that blood come from?"

Also, here you do a period rather than a comma:

‘It’s true.’ Gage said, while shrugging his shoulders.

Change the period after 'true' to a comma. Also, the comma after 'said' should be ditched, making it read:

‘It’s true,’ Gage said while shrugging his shoulders.

Here's an article by me on all of that: here.

‘Jesus, Gage, you’re what fourteen?

You seem to do this a lot: rush. Slow down your writing a bit. Add a comma after 'what' here. Read it out loud to yourself – do you naturally pause?

Dash pulled on Gage’s shirt.

‘Get in the car, kid.’

You do this very often too. Because you're so reliant on dialogue – which is fine – you have many short paragraph. But then you do things like this, when you don't need such a short one!

Combine the paragraphs together here. Besides making it look less choppy, it helps the reader know who's speaking – the person who did the action.

You have tons of areas like this where you can combine several paragraphs – search for them.

‘Whatever’

I think you were getting a little lazy here. Make sure you have periods! Since there's nothing after the dialogue, just slip a period after 'whatever.'

He smiled, showing his jagged teeth, the scar on his cheek made a dent in the blood.

Here's an instance where you don't use your punctuation correctly. You tend to use commas for everything, when you sometimes should use dashes, or semi-colons, or periods. For example, this one should read:

He smiled, showing his jagged teeth. The scar on his cheek made a dent in the blood.

Dash felt chagrin run through him, he creased his eyebrows.

Here, you should have had a semi-colon, rather than a comma.

Here's an article by JabberHut about all of this: here.

His eyes are dull blue, gleaming with resentment in the light hanging loosely from the ceiling.

Here you did a tense change – 'are' should be 'were a'. Also, the last section was all in present tense, and seemingly for no reason – switch it to past.

‘Thank you, nanny.’

'Nanny' should be capitalized as it is the name he is calling her.

‘Wait,’ She screams, wiping the blood from her face.

Here you can use an exclamation point. Change it so it reads:

"Wait!" she screams, wiping the blood from her face.

There are many repeats of these mistakes, so I hope I've explained these aspects thoroughly enough for you to find them on your own.

Style

Now just for some things where I thought it would sound better another way.

His jaw was flecked with freckles, his blue eyes sparkled with exhilaration.

His nose was littered in freckles, as well as his jaw line.

His shoulders were covered in freckles

These three sentences really bothered me – they had way too much description. They're useless. Some description is fine – the blood on his face at the beginning, the fact that he's shirtless. Things that aren't common or help move along the plot are what you should tell us. But honestly? I don't care if he has freckles. Not at all.

Dash raised his eyebrows at the boy.

‘Where’s your mother?’ He raised his chin.

Ditch the 'he raised his chin'. You already had him raise one thing and it sounds weird.

He bit his bottom lip, tasting the blood on his tongue.

Why does he taste the blood on his tongue as he bites his lip…?

‘You know,’ A voice whispered from behind making Gage press his hands to his face and try to hide the blood.

I'd reword that a bit. The 'press his hands to his head.' That sounds like he's… pushing or something, when he's just covering it up.

Gage opened his eyes wide. ’I’ll kill you, Dash, I’m not sure how well your wife would take it though.’

Why'd he randomly say this? And open up his eyes? Characters have to have reasons for everything they do, but this just feels… random.

‘Okay, sleep Gage.’

‘I think I’ll take up your offer.’

I'd ditch these last two paragraphs. They're boring and kinda useless, and ending on 'drive' sounds a lot better.

But Gage is gone, nodding his head as he walks.

I'd ditch the nodding part. We know it's true, and it'd be a more effective ending if he just left.

The part about the dent in his cheek wasn't the best wording, yet you repeated it three times. I'd work on that a bit.

Also, the part when he admits he killed his parents is strange. It sounded like they were good friends, but Dash doesn't know this yet?

The end part with the desk needs a lot of work. Description is your friend! Let us feel like we're there. The rest is a lot better in that sense, though you can always add a bit more. Is it night? Are people around? Let us hear owls, or people talking. Is it cold? Let a breeze come through. Things like that to let us feel like we're there.

I think you actually can save this from being cliché, so long as you're careful. Don't give up yet.

PM me for anything!

~JFW1415