Horror

It was a cold winter's night in the village of Nokly Bokly. Loud moans rang out from Mystery Terrace, deep in the marshes, and a glowing, yellow mist curled around its walls. Down in the gloomy church yard, Joanne Flint was digging graves. She shivered when she heard the moans, but she kept on digging. For a moment, Joanne wished she was home in bed. Then she remembered her nightmares. Almost every night, Joanne dreamed a savage wolf was chasing her. She stopped digging and nervously looked up. She had the feeling someone was watching her now. Joanne wiped her sweaty face with a cloth. Then, gripping her shovel tightly, she began to dig even faster. A few minutes later, Joanne heard a noise. She turned around slowly... to see a dark shape springing out of the bushes at her. Joanne let out a piercing shriek. Her worst nightmare had just come true.[/img]

It could be scarier...

She turned around slowly... to see a dark shape springing out of the bushes at her.

In a horror/suspense story, you want to slow things down to create suspense, but you also want to make sure the action doesn't happen too slow, otherwise it sounds bad. The '...'s slow down the action here, and are kind of unneeded.

It's really short, leaving no room to actually scare the reader. It had a good vibe but it wasn't scary and the plot was very, very thin.

Why was she digging a grave? Does she rob graves? Why is she scared of wolves? Why does she dream of wolves? Why did her dream come true? Why didn't you tell us how the wolf attacked her? That could have been the scariest part, thickly going through and describing her horror, and the gore, or being attacked by a wolf, your worst fear.

I suppose this could become something powerful, but as it is, it's just very short almost like a sketch of a longer short story or novella even. The title, too, is kind of bland. Horror is more like the genre, not the title...

EDIT: I found some web sites that might have something of use to you, and this short story.

Horror Factor
Horror Writers Resources (Has a bunch of links to pages of research, and tips.)
No Bones About it I
No Bones About it II
No Bones About it III

I hope those help! You can also find a lot more just by googling 'writing horror fiction' or other things like that.

Good luck!

I agree with Clau, its too short to really scare the reader, and i think you can do this more effecitvly.

Meevs

I couldn't have said it better than Claudette myself. There's no depth to the character or the setting, and not as interesting as I think you're probably capable of deep down.

does anyone like it, though?

You could extend it out, give the character some depth. Just tell us why she's doing what she's doing. There's a scene rather like it in Pet Sematary, by Stephen King. Maybe you should read that to try and see if you can take any inspiration from that.

i read pet sematary and i'm 11 years old...
any way the stroy isn't finished :@

"i read pet sematary and i'm 11 years old..." -really, your profile says you're 20.

As for the story, if it isn't finished yet then finish it before expecting full critiques. It has promise but there isn't enough substance to make a decent judgement.