Grim Reaper

Moi moi moi! Nyt mulla on viimein aikaa tehdä tää. Toivottavasti on ees jotain apua

Lord Anzius wrote: RIPPER

PROLOUGE (It's spelt "prologue" )

A dark form on a horse rode in the village;(Awkwardly phrased, try rewriting) a man looked in fear from a window as the figure rode by the guards.(The two "rode"s make this sound repetitive) The man started locking his door and piling things before it so that it would not open. He closed the curtains, and lit a small candle, so that he could see in the dark. (Again, repetitive. "So that", "so that") The man sat his back facing the wall behind him. (Huh?) He heard footsteps from the corridor; he snatched his rifle from the floor. Watch the repetition! There are two "he"s.
Whump. He heard a sound.(This line doesn't have any feeling to it, it's a little vague. What about "he heard an ominous sound" or something?) He saw a black cloak before his eyes, he forced himself to look up. He was already trembling with fear. (Too blank a description. "Trembling with fear" isn't very unique...)
“Sam Goolding?” asked the figure. The man dropped his rifle, as the figure lifted its weapon; a shiny steel scythe. The man could just, and only just ("Merely" would be a better word choice.) see the scythes dark and sharp edge in the dim light of the candle.
“Sam Goolding!?” it demanded. (Why not "it repeated"? )
The man nodded (Period and a start of a new line)“Death?” Sam asked.
“If I were death you would not be here right now.” (This seems odd. I thought the creature was some kind of an un-human? Then why it's talking so casually? Doesn't fit the scene.)
Sam stood upcomma still trembling to and fro.Start a new line. “Wellcomma who are you then?” Sam asked now facing a white skull. The skull had eyes so black that you could feel how you were sucked into them. (Plainly awkward. Rephrase. Consider replacing the "you" with someone else.)
“I am Grim Reaper at your service,("I am" is redundant) you may call me Jack, if you like.” said the Reaper.
“Why Jack?” asked Samcomma who was starting to tremble a bit less. (You're constantly talking about trembling. Isn't there anything else for Sam to do? How else can you describe fear?)
“Never heard of Jack the Ripper?”
“I thought you were dead!” [s]S[/s]said Sam in shock. “I thought you had died five years ago." (Excuse me, but what?! How can he know?)
“Wellcomma technically I did die five years ago."
Sam was starting to get his courage backperiod "Technically?" Sam asked.
"Um, yes. the Reaper looked confused (wellcomma as confused as a skeleton can lookcomma at least)
"Let me tell you the whole story, from the beginning to the end. Then you may (italics rather than bold) understand”
"Very well"comma said Samcomma who felt like he was in control. (Why did he feel that? You're keeping things from us!)[/b[


The grim figure sat down on one of Sam’s chairs and started speaking[b]period.

Alrighty, then. I highly recommend proofreading before posting, so you'll notice the missing commas, periods etc. At the moment it doesn't seem you're doing it, just to let you know. The plot of the story doesn't seem very unique to me, but maybe you'll develop that further.

We don't really know anything about Sam except that he tends to tremble when scared. That's not uncommon, a lot of people do that, and it'd be great to know more, even though this is only the prologue.

So good luck with the writing, ja tiedät mitä tehdä jos tarviit lisää reviewejä!

On niin ihanaa puhua suomea kun kukaan muu ei tajua mitään


Demeter xxx

Hello Lord Anzius.

Firstly, it’s ‘Prologue’ and ‘Reaper’ rather than ‘Prolouge’ and ‘Reapper.’

Now to start with, I don’t actually see a reason why you shouldn’t be able to use Sam’s name from the start. It would make it less confusing about which character you are taking about at various parts.

The premise of the story, like other sections of stories I’ve read of yours, seems to be dark, foreboding, and dangerous. It isn’t long, however, before a comical aspect appears. I wanted to point this out in case it wasn’t intentional.
If it wasn’t: then the name of Jack the Ripper should probably not make an appearance, even if it means making drastic changes to the plot, and neither should the Reaper act confused (as much as he, a skull, can look confused).
If it was: I would try to bring that out throughout the entire piece. Describe Sam’s attempts at defending his home, in a humorous way, allow us to laugh at his fear, and at the Reaper’s attempts (or what should be merely attempts if this is to be comical) to seem formidable.

In the last paragraph I mentioned description. I didn’t see any cases of this here, but I know it happens a lot, so I just wanted to warn you about being redundant. In general it isn’t necessary to describe the same thing twice, especially if you’re describing the very same aspect, in the very same way.
One thing I did notice though is that when you’re describing the Reaper’s scythe, in one sentence you describe it as “shiny.” In the next sentence, though, you say that it is difficult for Sam to see its “dark edges.” Make sure you're consistant.

I have to find it interesting that the Reaper decides to show up at this house—he must have a reason—and decides to tell his life’s story to this man, at random, after telling him to call him Jack, as though he will have a longer opportunity to speak to him.
I see a couple problems with this. First of all, if he’s agreeing to spill the beans, so to speak, to this man, does that mean he tells the story to every curious human he comes across? That’s a lot of time spent storytelling, for no apparent reason. A brief explanation would do in most cases, especially when he must have had other plans when he showed up. He needs a better reason for deciding to give him the story.
Now the second problem is that the Reaper hardly seems to have a reason for coming in the first place, if it’s put aside to easily. Either that or he has trouble keeping his attention on something. Besides which, Sam doesn’t seem in the least bit curious either. Perhaps he assumes that, it being the Grim Reaper, he’s going to meet his death and is perfectly willing to stall. But the Reaper seemed to imply that his immediate plans didn’t include Sam’s death. “If I were death you would not be here right now.” Then what exactly does he want?

Now, the character of Sam. In the beginning he strikes me as the jump type. He’s watching out his windows, something he must do a lot if he happens to catch this strange stranger. And, it being dark, he would have a hard time telling just how strange this person is. He had to have seen a person on a horse before. All the same, he takes immediate precautions.
Once the Reaper is in his house, however, he loses his fear seemingly in the blink of an eye. The Reaper didn’t seem to do anything particularly assuring or comforting, and certainly didn’t give the appearance of being harmless, despite is quirky introduction. You make no mention if the scythe turning out to be a plastic toy, so I’m assuming it’s a genuine, sharp weapon just as you describe, and this person has no flesh on his skull like an ordinary human. Unless this kind of event is common (I think that’s unlikely; if it’s meant to be, however, you should mention that), I have a feeling he would still be scared out of his mind, and behaving accordingly.

This is not the most attention-grabbing prologue I’ve read. In fact, I have to admit that I was relieved at it’s short length.
On the other hand, the key to making it more interesting may be in increasing the length. I know there will be more details in the further chapters, but I’m assuming those will be the Reaper’s story. So there are plenty of areas where you could add more detail in the prologue. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to add more description; however, if you do that, it cannot be merely description of the setting, the room Sam is in, etc. At this point, what you need is more action, meaning description of that action; more exciting details. You need to add more meat to the story, more conflict. Even it is small details like, what Sam was doing before he looked out the window? How did the guards react to the horse and rider? In what manner the Reaper made his appearance (did he flourish his cape? Did he skulk and slouch into the room? Did he stomp and glare? Did he creep in, sticking to the shadows? Did he lunge at Sam?) Did Sam cower on the ground, trip and fall down, attempt to stand tall despite his fear, set himself accidentally on fire? Perhaps he would attempt to defend himself?

One more thing I’d like to add. At this point, we’re barely into the story, so there’s one question you need to ask yourself: Why should we, your readers, care what the Reaper’s story is? He insists on telling us yes, but unlike Sam, we’re not trapped in a room with him. We’re perfectly free to stop reading… unless there’s something about the Reaper that intrigues us, makes us curious, makes us feel we should pity him, or perhaps disgusted with him and we’d like to know why. As of right now, he inspires no emotion, and no interest. You need us to need to know.
You need to ask yourself that question, come up with an answer, and implement it in the story.


You should make sure you’ve punctuated all of your dialogue correctly. At the moment there are a few spots with mistakes.
There were also spots missing commas, or even periods, and where certain kinds of punctuation need replacement with another kind. I’d like to suggest reviewing the rules about the use of commas.
You may have already edited for punctuation, but I know it’s not easy to catch all the errors the first, or even second time, so it’s usually a good idea to check a 3rd time.


I hope you found this (very long) review helpful. I will gladly take a look at this again in the future, if you’d like. Or if you’d like to PM me to arrange a time when you can beat me with a stick, I’ll check when I’m free.

Jack the Ripper...the serial killer that went after young unmarried women. I have heard of him, yess...
This is going to be interesting.

First off, you build up the scene to be frightening, and then Jack is all like, "sit down and I'll tell you the story of my life." Not very realistic. Not for jack the ripper anyways. I think its kinda of a let down taht he don't charge in like the pyschopath he is and maybe torture the guy a little before he goes on to rave and brag on his life.(Like thats anything to brag about.) I acn't wait to see where you take this however.

Your grammar was okay, I didn't see any major ones. But there might be a few minor things in there that I looked over. Basically though, we know nothing about the MC of their feelings. I think that you should humanize them a bit more.

But thats about all. Good job and keep writing.