The Mansion chapter 8 part 1

FANGS

I woke up from the darkness of unconsciousness. It was throbbing through the whole of my body starting from my ribs and migrating straight to my brain. I opened my eyes. The first thing I noticed was that I was a man standing over me, he was looking at my ribs, and the second thing was the sudden sting of hellish pain in my ribs, it was like fire eating my nerves. I gasped loudly for the feeling was unbearable.
The man looked at me and grinned. “Well, well, look who’s awake.”
The man flicked his shoulder length, black hair away from his coal coloured eyes. He had a warm smile. The young man wore what looked like a black version of the normal doctor’s clothes, he looked quite young, maybe twenty-something years old -not much younger than me, but this warm and friendly image was little more than destroyed by the bloody needle in his hands. I gasped a breath and tilted my head so that I could see my ribs; there appeared to be a major wound, but it had been sewn closed with a thin thread. I glanced back to the doctor, who was still smiling, and then turned my head to my left. I saw Melody sitting on a chair.
Oh my God. I thought, I was saved by a girl! She looked up at me and smiled, she had a beautiful smile... I met her gaze and the blood rushed to my cheeks, I shook my head in startled embarrassment. “How are you?” She asked, her expression was set in a worried but warm smile it might have had some traces of relieve. I tried to smile to her but managed to scowl instead.
“A bit of pain here and there, nothing too bad,” I lied while trying to fight down a sob. Melody gave me a skeptic stare. I let my eyes drift around the room; it was quite big. It had a few lockers lined up by the walls on my left and right, there were a few office tables here and there, and on top of every one of them was, either a pile of paper, or hospital equipment. This oddly enough was not the most unorthodox thing about the room, but instead the oddest thing in the room was that it had been painted black.
The walls were black and the ceiling was black, even the floor was black, in a normal situation I would have found this most unsettling, but taking to consideration that this day I had descended into a world of various different fantasy creatures that should not even exist I chose to ignore it.
“Where are we?” I asked taking a painful breath after every word.
The man in black was washing his hands in a sink in the further most corner on my left when he answered, “This is my office,” he closed the tab and walked to me extending his hand to me “My name is Vasile Băutor al Sânge,” he greeted cheerily.
I looked at the hand and then at Vasile “Sorry I can’t really use my hands right now,” I apologized, “Jacques Middleton. My friends call me Jack,” I greeted him back.
“Jacques… French isn’t it?”
“My Mother was French,” I answered.
“Was?”
“She died ten years ago,” I said in a grim, monotonic tone.
“My condolences,”
“I’m over it already,” I gave a sad little smile. I felt tears on my eyes but blinked them away. I was over it. I had to be, and crying about it wouldn't help the matter. I forced the tears away, and stomped the memories and wounds into some forsaken corner of my mind.

Something struck me. I stared at Vasile intently. He saw my gaze and answered with a confused frown.
“What is it?” he asked; Melody had already stood up from her chair and was walking to one of the cupboards.
“Vasile… What happened to the blood on your suit?”
He turned to Melody, “You didn’t tell him?”
Melody had produced a cup of room temperature milk from the cupboard; I frowned in distaste: I didn’t like warm milk.
Melody looked irritated when she spoke back to Vasile “He was half dead when I was bringing him here… How could I have told him?”
“Told me what?” I snapped.
Vasile ignored me, and instead he made a false offended expression. “You could have told him about me before you got into trouble,” he said.
“Told me what!” I bellowed. I was starting to get agitated, and very, very annoyed.
“It’s not really worth bragging about,” Melody answered to Vasile.
“What is not worth bragging about?!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, which wasn’t too loud considering the situation…. And it hurt like hell.
Even though my best efforts I was still ignored.
If they don’t listen I won’t even try to speak. Was the thought in my head.
This time Vasile was really offended, this meaning that he hadn’t faked it this time.
“Not worth bragging? What have I ever done to deserve that comment?” his posture had almost disappeared, and he seemed to be sucked in some kind of self-pity state of sulking.
I drew a breath and calmed down. “Vasile, who are you?”
He seemed happy to change the subject “I beg your pardon,” he enquired.
“I mean… how to say this? Vasile, what are you?”
He smiled broadly.

Hey, Lord Anzius.

Hmm, well even though you didn't follow my rules in my thread, I'll review this anyway. In my rules, I stated that I didn't like to review middle chapters unless I was given a summary of the story. ^_^

The pain was like fire eating through my nerves when I woke up from the darkness of unconsciousness. The pain was throbbing through the whole of my body starting from my ribs and migrating to my brain. I opened my eyes. The first thing I noticed was that I was lying on my back, the next thing was that I saw a man standing over me, he was looking at my ribs, the third thing was the sudden pain in my ribs. I gasped loudly for the pain was unbearable.

There are a couple things in this paragraph that I'm not a fan of.

Okay, you use the word "pain" four times in this paragraph. That doesn't seem like a lot, but it isn't needed. You repeat information a lot. You mention that he is waking up because of pain once, you don't need to mention in two other times.

I don't like the way you listed the things he saw. First of all, it's a lot of "telling" and now showing. It gives the reader no description and isn't very interesting. It is very easy to "show" in a scene like this. For example, you don't need to tell us that your MC is on his back if you mention that he is staring up at the man.

You say his waking up from pain, but then you say the pain is sudden. That seems like a contradiction.

Here is an example of how I would re-write this paragraph:

My mind began to clear as I dragged myself out of unconsciousness. I gasped as the dull pain throbbing from my ribs suddenly exploded into what felt like fire eating through my nerves. My eyes blurred with tears, and I could vaguely make out the shape of a man looming above me. His dark hair brushed gently across my perspiring face....

Or something like that. ^_^

The man looked at me and smiled “Well, well look who’s awake.”

Period after smiled.

Comma after the second well.

The man had black hair and black eyes, he smiled warmly, he wore what looked like a black version of the normal doctors clothes, he looked quite young maybe twenty-something years old not much younger than me,

Instead of staring every clause of this sentence with "he", take out he so it flows better: The man had dark black eyes that matched his greasy (or whatever description you want) hair. He wore what looked like a black version of the normal doctor's clothes over his young body... etc.

Apostrophe in doctor's.

"A black version of normal doctor's clothes"? Pretend your reader doesn't know what that means. Describe the clothes more.

bloody needle

I personally think that a needle would be too small to visibly see blood on.

I grasped a breath and tilted my head so that I could see my ribs, there appeared to be a major wound, but it had been sewn closed with a thin thread.

Grasped a breath? Did you mean gasped?

instead of a comma after ribs, use a semi-colon.

This review shall be posted in two parts. Sorry, I've been awfully busy lately.

Hope this helped,
Sakura

Also: There are quite a few grammatical errors. Run this through a grammar check on your computer and tweak it a bit. There are so many errors that it is hard to point them all out.

Part Deux

Hey again, Anzius! Back for part two of my review.

he looked quite young maybe twenty-something years old not much younger than me,

Comma before maybe.

Semi-colon or hyphen (--) before "not much younger than me."

I glanced back to the doctor, who was smiling,

You mention the doctor smiling several times. It becomes repetitive. My suggestion is to either get rid of the references all together, or vary your vocabulary. A "smile" could become a "grin." Or you could describe a smile.

"He looked down at me with a warm, paternal smile."
"A tight grin stretched across his face, yet his eyes remained cold and unyielding."

See? Just by adding description, you can completely change the doctor's character. Just a few simple words bring us into the personality of the doctor. In sentence one, you can see that the doctor genuinely cares for Jacques. In sentence two, we can tell that he isn't exactly Jacques' best friend.

saw melody sitting on a chair she looked up at me and smiled, “How are you?” She asked,

Whoa. This sentence has quite a few grammar errors. Let's talk about them one at a time:

Capitalize Melody.

This is three sentences: "...saw Melody sitting on a chair. She looked at me and smiled. "How are you, she asked."

I would recommend you check out the "Dialogue Rules" in the knowledge base. It tells you when to add commas or periods before or after a line of speaking.

“A bit of pain here and there, nothing too bad,”

A bit of pain? Didn't he just say there was "hellish fire eating his nerves"? That seems like it would be pretty darn painful.

I let my eyes drift around the room, it was quite big.

This is two sentences. Therefore you need a semi-colon, not a simple comma.

and on top of everyone was either a pile of paper or a pile of hospital equipment.

On top of everyone? That implies that the papers are stacked on top of people. I think you meant, "on top of everything."

You don't need to say "a pile of" twice. It doesn't flow well. Instead, say, "...and on top of everything were piles of papers and medical equipment."

but instead the probably oddest thing

Hmm. This simply doesn't flow well. Too many words are used to describe something that only needs a few. You could say, "The oddest thing about the room, however, was..."

“I looked at the hand and then at Vasile

Remove the quotation marks before "I looked..."

blood on your suite

Suite = fancy hotel room

suit = clothing

Melody had produced a cup of, room temperature, milk from the cupboard; I frowned in distaste: I didn’t like warm milk.

Remove the commas before and after of and temperature.

Why on earth is the milk in a cupboard? Milk is refrigerated so it doesn't spoil.

“I mean… how to say this? Vasile, what are you?”

There wasn't really any evidence that suggest Vasile wasn't human... I think you need to make it more obvious.

Overall

You really, really need to go over your basic knowledge of commas. Check the knowledge base for help.

A lot of your sentences are run ons that should be several sentences. Read your work out-loud to see if sentences flow like they should.

There wasn't much description in this. You also use the same words over and over: smile, pain, etc. Try to liven up your vocabulary some.

Maybe I'm simply confused because this is chapter eight, but I was wondering why Jack wasn't asking what happened and why he was in the hospital.

Hope this helped,
Sakura

Anzius!

*cowers in shame*

I is a terrible person. So sorry that it took me so darn long to get to this! 'Tis my fault entirely-- bug me for another review, so that I can make this atrocious delay up to you.

Now, I see this is already chapte eight? Since I said nothing about requesting from the middle of stories, Im perfectly happy to critique this for you, although I might be a bit slow because I don't know exactly what's happened thus far. Just, be prepared.

The man flicked [s]the[/s] his shoulder length, black hair away from his coal coloured eyes.

I changed this for three reasons: it sounds better, is easier to understand, and you've already used 'his' in the part about his eyes.

Before we go on any further, I think you should pay attention to many of Sakura's corrections with your grammar. Here is a Knowledge Base article on semi-colons and one on punctuation within dialogue:

Semi-Colons
Punctuation w/ Dialogue

I'd give you one on commas, but I don't see one that really includes what you need to brush up on. Perhaps I should get to writing one, eh? Anyway, check this out (it's by yours truly, of course) and ask me if you have any grammar questions.

there appeared to be a major wound, but it had been sewn closed with a thin thread.

Well, does it hurt? If it was major, isn't it bound to hurt at least a bit, even if it has been sewn back together? Don't overlook the little details, dear.

I saw melody sitting on a chair she looked up at me and smiled, “How are you?” She asked, I tried to smile to her but managed to scowl instead.

Many problems here, Anzius. So sorry. Shall I now dissect this sentence?

melody = Melody. If it's a name, as I believe it is, capitalize. It's the difference between life or death. Err...or, the difference between being grammatically correct or not being grammatically correct. Take your pick.

You need a semi-colon or a period between 'chair' and 'she'. Check out the tutorial, again. It will enlighten you tremendously.

The sentences should be written:

I saw Melody sitting on a chair. She looked up at me and smiled. "How are you?" she asked; I tried to smile to her, but managed to scowl instead.

Now, I'm going to show you my re-write of this excerpt. Note the difference.

I saw Melody sitting on a chair in the corner, her cheeks flushed and her hands entwined on her lap. What was she doing here? For a brief moment, I was suspicious, but then she looked up at me, smiling. That smile melted my heart; how could I ever doubt her intentions?

"How are you?" she asked softly, cocking her head slightly. With her in the room, it was almost as if there wasn't actually a crazy doctor standing above me with a bloody needle.

Almost.

I tried to return the smile, but my lips weren't responding as I wished. Somehow, I managed to scowl at her from across the room.

Alright, I'm not saying that this is the exact best way to expand those sentences, but can't you see the difference? I've included a description of the girl, reactions from the main character, emotions, sarcasm/comedy, and just more. You could do so much more with this entire story. Just from the above little re-write, you can tell that the MC is in love with Melody. You can beef this whole scene up so much more, especially when it comes to your main character's emotions and reactions. What is he thinking throughout all of this?

“My name is Vasile Băutor al Sânge,” he greeted cheerily.
“I looked at the hand and then at Vasile “Sorry I can’t really use my hands right now,” I apologized, “Jacques Middleton. My friends call me Jack,” I greeted him back.

Your quotations have become a bit funky here. Just get rid of the one after 'greeted cheerily'.

“I’m over it already,” I smiled with a little more success than the first time.

I don't really like this; it makes Jack seem heartless, almost. His mother died, and he says he's over it, and even says it with a smile? What about:

"Don't worry. It's getting easier," I said.

Lie. Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.

I smiled with a little more success than the first attempt.

See? This indicates that the above statement is, in fact, just Jack trying to convince himself that he's healing. Or, if he really is over it:

"It's fine," I said, smiling with more success than the first time, "I've gotten over it." He had, actually. What other choice was there? Moping around was not an option, and, after all, it was over. Done. Gone. She wasn't coming back, and there was no need to dwell on pain.


Again, see how I've expanded it? You're flashing by everything so quickly that I can hardly keep up, much less really enjoy the moment. This is dialogue that offers the opputunity for so much emotion! Seize the chance, I tell thee! Make use of it! Entertain us, make us cry, make us FEEL your characters with the emotion of a thousand burning suns.

I draw a breath and calmed down. “Vasile, who are you?”
He seemed happy to change the subject “I beg your pardon,” he enquired.
“I mean… how to say this? Vasile, what are you?”
He smiled broadly.

I thought it was quite clever how you mentioned the blood, and then added this part above *points up*, without ever actually saying the word: vampire. The readers can clearly know what you're talking about, but you do it so subtley that we can enjoy the fact, like our own private little secret with Vasile. Lovely touch, not going out and actually saying it. I'd like to see you keep this up. It would be incredibly impressive if you could just slightly shy around the actual word while still fully getting your point across in the story for as long as possible.

Characters:

I actually like the characters (Vasile, mainly) although I don't know near enough about them, just from this chapter. I'll be brief, because I haven't read the first seven, but I still think Jack can be developed a lot more; namely by you letting us into his head a bit more, letting us feel his reactions and letting his emotions pour over. When does his blood run cold? When does his heart-rate accelerate? You tell us, Anzius, and we'll enjoy his adventure's much more thoroughly.

Also, Melody seems interesting. Really explore her relationship with Jack and with Vasile. I like the way she talks, just make sure to characterize her even more. Even if you don't use the things you learn about her in the actual story, it will only be for the better if you know what she likes, dislikes, hates, loves, is allergic to, and etc.

Plot

So, you're treading on dangerous ground-- vampires. With all of the Twilight hatred floating around out there at the moment, you'll want to make your vampires distinctly different, special, and interesting. I'm not sure where you're going right now with this, but I think it can be interesting as long as you go carefully. Remember-- not all humans are good, and not all are evil. Not all vampires are good, and not all are evil. Not all squirrels are good, for Pete's sake, and remember that they aren't all evil either. There can be oodles of conflict inside of species/races as well as outside. Keep that in mind.

So! Ta! Thank you for being patient!

~Evi

Sorry I took so long! I've been competing against my friend in ScriptFrenzy this month, and the page count I have to get to to beat her requires me to write six pages a day. *faints*. Okay, sorry, onto your review.
P.S. if anything sounds mean, please take no offense to it, because I don't mean to sound mean, and my left arm kind of hurts. Remember you don't have to take all (or any) or my advice!

Lord Anzius wrote:The pain was like fire eating through my nerves when I woke up from the darkness of unconsciousness. It was throbbing through the whole of my body starting from my ribs and migrating straight to my brain. I opened my eyes. The first thing I noticed was that I was a man standing over me, he was looking at my ribs, and the second thing was the sudden sting of hellish pain in my ribs. I gasped loudly for the feeling was unbearable.

Wow. I've got a lot to comment on for this. The part in bold is what mainly bothers me, really. "The first thing I noted..." was truly not the first thing that he thought of or realized. He thought of the pain first. So, adding to that, was that not only were you repetitive about the pain in his ribs, but you also repeated ribs (just in case you decide to keep it that way, I thought I'd point it out to you.)

The man looked at me and grinned. “Well, well, look who’s awake.”

I'm not sure of what to think of this man. At first you make him sound sinister with the black doctors outfit, bloody needle, and to me, what he first said when your main character woke up seemed a little evil too. Then, I found out he saved his life (apparently). I'm very suspicious about him. I'm not sure if he put something into him while he was saving his life or something. I don't know if you intended to do this, but if you didn't then you might want to clear it up, because I'm very confused.

“A bit of pain here and there, nothing too bad,” I lied while trying to fight down the sob created by the pain.

Here is me definitely being a nit pick. The ending part of this sentence, after the dialogue, is phrased...oddly.
My rewrite:
"A bit of pain here and there. Nothing too bad," I lied and tried to fight down a sob that was coming up, no doubt, from the wound on my ribs.
Not really the best example, but 'while trying to' and 'created by the pain' seemed off. I'm not sure how to describe it, really.

Melody gave me a skeptic glare.

Struck me as odd that she would glare, when he had only lied about pain. If this is her character (I haven't read all of this story, so I don't know), then its okay, but if it isn't her character then I'm kind of confused about why so. (Sorry, nitpick question, I guess).

I let my eyes drift around the room; it was quite big. It had a few lockers lined up by the walls on my left and right, there were a few office tables here and there, and on top of every one of them was, either a pile of paper, or hospital equipment. This oddly enough was not the most unorthodox thing about the room, but instead the oddest thing in the room was that it had been painted black.
The walls were black and the ceiling was black, even the floor was black, in a normal situation I would have found this most unsettling, but taking to consideration that this day I had descended into a world of various different fantasy creatures that should not even exist I chose to ignore it.
“Where are we?” I asked taking a painful breath after every word.
The man in black was washing his hands in a sink in the further most corner on my left when he answered, “This is my office,” he closed the tab and walked to me extending his hand to me “My name is Vasile Băutor al Sânge,” he greeted cheerily.
...
“I’m over it already,” I gave a sad little smile. I felt tears on my eyes but blinked them away. I was over it. I had to be, and crying about it wouldn't help the matter. I forced the tears away, and stomped the memories and wounds into some forsaken corner of my mind.

I really like this entire area a lot. Especially the description and the part about his mother. I absolutely LOVE how he's still sad about it.

I liked everything about the last paragraph,too (but I didn't feel like quoting it,) I get his some information about him, many hints about Vasile, a few weak spots about him, and a cliffhanger. How I [s]hate[/s] Love cliffhangers.
Cliffhangers
Since I was just on the subject, I feel obligated to point out how wonderfully you did on this. Seriously, I loved your cliffhanger! Sometimes people will try doing a cliffhanger, and it doesn't turn out well. So when I come to it I think "Hey, a perfect stopping place." (no sarcasm) instead of "What the crap? Wait..no! They can't just leave it there! No, I will not go to bed, I don't care if its three in the morning! I want to see what happened!" Thankfully, you achieved the second one, and I was actually really really sad that I had to stop reading this. Seriously. Amazing.

Characters
Your characters skills are a bit iffy. No, I'm not saying they're bad. Just iffy. Mainly, I think this because of Vasile, because he seems like he's supposed to be a very dark character, but he is actually very nice. It just confuses me, and, somehow, intrigue me at the same time. I don't get Melody much (though maybe will/was described in future/past chapters. She seems almost 2D to the point where I wonder if she's a sketch on the wall. Jaques is my second favorite character (Vasile is my favorite, even though I'm confused with him). I like how you have a few things in there that no one really pays attention to, and that you gave him soft spots so he's not one of those annoying all might characters.

Plot
I can't say much about plot, because I kind of jumped into it, but I liked it from your summary. Interesting idea, in my opinion. Sorry I can't put much detail into this little section right here.
~~
Hit me with a virtual book or something. Throw an extra review at me. I feel guilty for being so incredibly late with your review. Again, my apologies.
Feel free to PM me with any questions or comments,
~MV

Moi, Anzius. Et varmaan ees muista, mut pyysit mua reviewaamaan tän joskus pari kuukautta sitten jo, enkä silloin muistanut/saanut aikaseks, oon pahoillani siitä. Toivottavasti tästä on kuitenkin apua vaikka tuleekin näin myöhässä.

So. Since I haven't read the other chapters, I'll only focus on the grammar and such things now, if that's okay. You did give a brief summary of what's happened in the story, but it may be that I'm still a bit clueless. Heh. So. Let's see.

I woke up from the darkness of unconsciousness. It was throbbing through the whole of my body starting from my ribs and migrating straight to my brain. I opened my eyes. The first thing I noticed was that I was a man standing over me, he was looking at my ribs, and the second thing was the sudden sting of hellish pain in my ribs, it was like fire eating my nerves. I gasped loudly for the feeling was unbearable.

Think about the underlined parts; don't you think it sounds a bit repetitive when you have two words ending in "-ness" / two "my ribs" so close to each other? Maybe you could replace the first one with something like "the shadows of unconsciousness" to avoid the repetition, because at least I tend to be very disturbed by things like that. And the "in my ribs" could be replaced with "in my side", or something?

And the bolded part – you didn't mean it to be like that, did you? "I" should be "there", shouldn't it? Also, end the sentence after "over me." The sentence shall begin with "He was looking..."

The young man wore what looked like a black version of the normal doctor’s clothes, he looked quite young, maybe twenty-something years old -not much younger than me, but this warm and friendly image was little more than destroyed by the bloody needle in his hands.

Notice how this is all just one sentence and therefore rather jumbly? You should divide this in at least two sentences, maybe even three.

“My Mother was French,” I answered.

Technically, since you have a possessive pronoun in here, you don't need to capitalize "mother." You either have "My mother" or "Mother", since in the latter case it's considered a proper noun, and thus gets naturally capitalized.

Melody had produced a cup of room temperature milk from the cupboard; I frowned in distaste: I didn’t like warm milk.

The semi-colon and colon together make the sentence a bit crowded. Division is the word of today, it seems.

I drew a breath and calmed down. “Vasile, who are you?”

xD I was really expecting an "I am your father" moment here. [/useless info]

**


So. As I said, this being the 8th chapter from a story I haven't read before, it's a bit harder for me to review properly, since I can't focus on any character development etcetera. I still hope this was even a little helpful to you. =)

The thing I think you need to pay attention to is the sentences that get overlengthy at places. Also, before you post, read through the piece so you won't have those annoying accidentally-comma-when-should-have-full-stop places.

Also, I haven't seen you or any other fellow countryman in a long time. What's hangin'?

See you around,


Demeter
xxx