Nightly Terrors

Working title. Help on it please?

EDIT: New version that hopefully makes more sense.
EDIT TWO: I like this a lot better. =]

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The only sound in the room is my harsh, rapid breathing. I clutch the blankets up to my chin, squeezing my eyes shut, trying to block him out. He’s here. Only a whisper of a shadow right now, but he’s slowly growing stronger, his breathing taking over the room, enveloping mine until it doesn’t exist anymore.

In and out. In and out. In and out.

I whimper softly in my bed, my entire body shaking, a cold sweat settled over my skin. Hearing her weak cry he lets out a sharp laugh. My eyes turn to the foot of the bed, where I heard him, where I feel him, but in an instant he’s gone. He hovers by the window. A sliver of light fights its way in under the door, but it dies before it reaches him, leaving him invisible. He’s stronger than it; his presence fills the room, cancelling out all signs of reality.

The breathing steadily continues.

Slowly, I count to myself, try to stop my mind from thinking of anything, but I can’t slow my pounding heart. It beats against my chest, thumping, pulsating, straining to break free.

He’s sitting in my desk chair, only three feet from the edge of my bed. If I were to reach out with my foot, I could touch him.

For a minute, I consider doing just that. My mind takes over, and I imagine reaching out, stretching my toes through the darkness ‘til they reached his oily skin…

No. I squeeze my legs tight together. No. It’s not safe – he’s not safe.

I want the light. In the darkness I can’t see him, have no chance, but with light I can make him leave. Adrenaline rushes through my veins and my entire body shakes. I feel his eyes following my movements as I reach for my bedside lamp, calculating.

The light fills my room with a flick of the switch, and my eyes dart around frantically. Nothing.

I sigh deeply, letting myself fall back against my pillow, the fabric cool against my burning skin. Relief sweeps over me, but the fear is still there, lingering, squeezing my chest gently.

I take one more look at the empty desk chair, then turn off the light.

He’s back.

“Please…” I whisper, my voice shaking, my throat tight. The gentle squeeze of my heart grows stronger and pain shoots through me. My mouth is dry. The only breaths I can force past my lips are shallow, unhelping. The fear he’s instilled in me has taken over my entire body, left me begging. “Please… just leave me alone.”

He doesn’t say anything, just sits there and watches.

Hey Jen! I'll try going through this for you, since you asked, darling. Let's get started then, 'kay?

Beneath my feet I feel him.

This is annoying me so much or some reason. Not sure why it's so annoying, but it is.
Comma between feet and I, please.

I guess he struggled, because when I woke up, I had scratches all over my body, and dead skin was deep beneath my nails.

This particular line is bothering me, especially the last part of it. Dead skin? Is it his dead skin? Is it her dead skin?

Just confusing me there a bit, darling.

His body was gone, so I knew it had to be here.

Here? Where is here?
Instead, make it more suspenseful. Put something like, I knew exactly where it would be.
Or something like that. Just saying, "Here" sounds kinda blank and there. And a bit confusing.

You got it, darling.

Language and emotion I love the emotion here. It is great! You can tell that she is freaked out about it sorta, and just confused. Good job!!

I also love the way you build the excitement in the italized part. Good job!

Characters I really like what you have here, but I feel the part about what happened to the girl could be cleared up a little better. Like, add more clues or make it more seen. I'm still confused about it, so just a little bit more would be great.

Title I admit too, I don't like the title. It just sounds weird, to me. Maybe something with secret in it....


Overall, I really liked this, Jen. Good job!

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions or comments.

*Lin

Thanks! I know, it was confusing. It's supposed to be about a girl with anxiety - none of this really happens. I edited it though, so hopefully it's better?

More opinions?

~JFW1415

Wow! I'm not editing. I just wanted to say that when I read your piece I could feel the fear. That's good. Wow.

Lemme see what I can do here...

Relief: After so much fear, well described fear, the relief section felt a bit quick and thin. Since that's our only breath of fresh air before "he's back," I find it would be better if there was more of a pause, more relaxation, would be a good thing to put in.

Light: Just to quickly mention that you never mention reaching for the switch.

Hmm, now that I think about it, there could be some more expansion of light and how it plays into the fear. You have a little mention, but it feels a bit unfinished. It seems to follow the same philosophy as kids turning on the light to check for monsters, but that's not mentioned. I do think that the work would be richer if you added that mention in. ^_^

Overall: A heart-pounding flash here Jen! Nice work!

Questions? Drop me a line.

~Rosey

Ah, vivid description, tense mood, and fears that we all can identify with. Such vignettes are always fun.

Well, as far as actual problems with this work, I'd say the last poster had it pretty well. The turning on the light is rather sudden and confusing. Did she have to cross the room to turn on the light, or is her bed by the switch? Wouldn't she be scared of provoking the shadow into action with her movement? I know that whenever I have the urge to turn on the light in the middle of the night, I'm scared my movement will be noticed.

Um.

This really is a very easily empathized with piece.

Thanks for writing it!

Hey =]

I saw that you'd posted something and didn't hesitate to take a closer look

It was so nice to read something of yours after you've given such great reviews on my work.

I'm afraid that there's not much to say at all. Negative things anyway. I couldn't find any grammatical mistakes so well done there

It was a really enjoyable read and I could feel the MC's fear right from the get go.

The only thing that I would change, if I were being super nit-piky, is this;

It beats against my chest, banging, pulsating, straining to break free. - I liked this sentence but I dont think that 'banging' fits here. Maybe something like 'thumping' instead. It's up to you though

So, it was nice to read something of yours and I have to say that it was wonderfully written.

Great job and thanks for the read!

xDudettex

Hi dear! Music, here as requested!


Grammar & Line-by-line Comments:

I whimper softly in my bed, my entire body shaking[s],[/s]; a cold sweat settled [settles?] over my skin. Hearing her (<---This part confuses me. Maybe you should change it to 'my'?) weak cry, he lets out a sharp laugh. My eyes turn to the foot of the bed, where I hear[s]d[/s] him, where I feel him, but in an instant, he’s gone. He hovers by the window. A sliver of light fights its way in under the door, but it dies before it reaches him, leaving him invisible. He’s stronger than it; his presence fills the room, [s]cancelling[/s]canceling out all signs of reality.

He doesn’t say anything, just sits there and watches.
I really like this last line. ^^

Language Usage & Writing Style: Jen! I loved this! I felt the tense atmosphere, the fear of your MC. The one thing that bothered me? Your tense changes. Maybe it was intentional, to show that her fear left her fumbling, but I didn't like these slips to past tense. Be careful to avoid them, because they didn't help the story for me.


Imagery & Emotion: Geez, Jen! You did well! You managed to capture a lot of emotion in a very little piece! I have one [or more?] suggestion[s? ], though. Firstly, while I do realize that shaking is a very big part of anxiety, I feel you could have included a few more physical things that were different. [Rocking, quivering, goosebumps, maybe? They revolve around the same point, but that way you don't sound too repetitive.]
Also, I'd like to know if he smells like anything to her. I know he's not real, but her imagination can get to her, no? She describes his "skin" as oily, so perhaps she remembers (I'm assuming) him as dirty?
She says that it's dark and she can't see him, yet she knows exactly where he is. Why not hint as to why? Is it that breathing that she can hear? Does she see a faint shadow? Do his 'eyes' glisten? Does he have an 'odor', as I mentioned above? I'd like to know why she knows his exact location. *nods*
Overall, you did really well in this department, I think I'd just like to see more!


Characters: I liked your MC, and I agree with Lin in that I want to have hints as to why she imagines this man in her room every night. I have my assumptions (a bad part of her past that she remembers very realistically) but I could be wrong. Maybe you'd mention she was afraid he'd attack her again, or whatever he did to her? Maybe it was a fear of the unknown, a fear she just has of someone coming to get her, even though it's never happened before? I think the reader has a right to know, or at least get a few more hints!


Storyline: I really liked this. This is the kind of stuff I go for, some of the stuff I write. Don't hesitate to ask for a review of anything like this, dear- if you want to, of course. ^^


Overall, I really enjoyed the piece! It was a fast read that was packed with action and great atmosphere/emotion. *high fives and gives gold star*

Questions? PM me.

Love,
Music

Hey! Summer Night at you're service!
Well, first I just wanted to say that this was very interesting to read.
Second, I wanted to bring to attention this particular line:
~Hearing her weak cry he lets out a sharp laugh.~
At first that made me think that He was hurting someone else inside the room with you. You may want to change the her to my if you are talking about yourself, or, the main character.

Well thats all bye!!


And by the way I love the way you wrote this story ^^

Hullo, there! Here as requested. I'm going to go through the nitpicky things first and then talk about one or two (or maybe just one) of the issues I had overall with the story.

But I want to preface all of that by saying that you have a strong writing style and a wonderful sense of creating atmosphere, and it really shows in this story. You also have a great understanding of tension, and again, it's absolutely invaluable to this story. I've never read anything of yours till now, and I'm quite liking it. : )

I also really love that there's minimal grammar problems with this, which means I get to focus on other technical/overarching aspects of the story more.

Okay! Onward.

. I clutch the blankets up to my chin, squeezing my eyes shut, trying to block him out.

You really don't need the "up". When your character clutches the blankets to her chin, it's quite apparent that she's moving them up, and the word just clutters your sentence needlessly.

Only a whisper of a shadow right now, but he’s slowly growing stronger, his breathing taking over the room, enveloping mine until it doesn’t exist anymore.

I would suggest taking out the word "slowly"; again, the words growing stronger already suggest a gradual change, and "slowly" is kind of a weak adverb as far as adverbs go. It doesn't really add anything to your sentence except, again, clutter. Without it, the sentence still works, and I would say that it works even better.

I whimper softly in my bed, my entire body shaking, a cold sweat settled over my skin.

"Settled" here is awkward. "Settles"?

Hearing her weak cry he lets out a sharp laugh.

I'm not sure if this POV change was intentional or not, but if it is intentional, I'm not really sure why you decided to change POV at this specific instant. Particularly when there are better moments (for example, towards the end of the story) that you might want to do this. And particularly because, if this is all in her head as you say in the comments below, then it seems bizarre that you would switch to his POV, because he doesn't really exist.

Which is a very long-winded way of saying that I think you did this unintentionally, so don't forget to change it, and if you did it intentionally, it seems a bit wonky.

My eyes turn to the foot of the bed, where I heard him, where I feel him, but in an instant he’s gone. He hovers by the window.

"Where I heard him" = "Where I hear him". Tense switch!

A sliver of light fights its way in under the door, but it dies before it reaches him, leaving him invisible.

Not a fan of "leaving him invisible", and I'd suggest cutting it out. Because all of the rest of the sentence already establishes that, making this "leaving him invisible" bit kind of redundant. The two parts of the sentence kind of work against each other; the first part of the sentence becomes a bit weaker because you abandon the pretty imagery and hammer in the point with "leaving him invisible". And the second part of the sentence, which isn't particularly strong to start with, just becomes distracting and cluttery.

“Please…” I whisper, my voice shaking, my throat tight.

I don't know that you need the ellipsis, because the "I whisper" already establishes the tone of what she is saying, and because ellipsis are designed to create the trailing off of someone's thought process, they kind of make her plea a little weaker. I'd suggest putting a comma there instead.

The gentle squeeze of my heart grows stronger and pain shoots through me.

I don't know that "grows stronger" is the best you can do here, particularly because you've proved throughout the rest of this piece that you're great at making things vivid, and particularly because we've already got the image of a "gentle squeeze" goin' on with the heart. I don't know about you, but a gentle squeeze growing stronger doesn't really do a lot for me because at the end of the day, the gentle squeeze is still gentle. Does that make sense? What I'm really trying to say here is that I would suggest replacing "grows stronger" with "grows into [insert something that is not-so-gentle here]". As it is right now, "grows stronger" is definitely the least of your abilities and it doesn't help create a particularly vivid mental image here.

The fear he’s instilled in me has taken over my entire body, left me begging.

I'm not a huge fan of this sentence. I can deal with "the fear he's instilled in me has taken over my entire body", but the "left me begging" part is pretty redundant because we've already established that with her "please" (and will re-establish it with her second "please"). If anything, it just undermines the sentence after it because it makes it less potent.

And without the "left me begging", the first part of the sentence isn't particularly strong, especially as one of the last sentences in the story. What I would suggest is that you dig into your wonderful writerly brain and swapping "the fear he's instilled in me has taken over my entire body" with something more imaginative and interesting and less wooden. By this I mean that the content of the sentence — she's completely racked in fear — is pretty powerful stuff, but the way it's presented is so casual and so devoid of vividness that we don't even see that. So I'd suggest fine-tuning this sentence into something a little bit better. : )

And those are the nitpicky things!

In terms of the actual story, the only real criticism is that you say (in the comments) that he's not there, that she's dealing with her own anxiety, but as a reader, I don't think that's quite clear enough. I think the big issue is that we're not one thousand percent sure that he's not real; because, yes, she turns on the light and he's not there but he is, after all, a "nightly terror" and that sort of makes sense in the pseudo-surreal setting that you've established. And because it's through her first person POV that we see the entire story, we believe her that it exists, particularly because the evidence against his existence is not as big a part of the story as her absolute conviction that he is there and he is out to get her.

Which is good, in terms of your writing and your ability to create atmosphere, because we totally buy into her fear and her belief that there is someone out there, even if he doesn't have a corporeal body. But if you do in fact want to establish the sense that he may not be there, there has to be something more. Maybe not something that flat-out tells us that he's not there (in fact, that would kind of suck, don't do that), but something that really gets us wondering whether he's there.

One of the easiest ways to do that is to skew her mindset a little, make her a little more unstable. Not in a foaming at the mouth, spitting-up-crazy sort of way, but in a way that suggests to us that her state of mind is really screwing with her, that she's obviously not herself, that what is going on is seriously compromising her ability to think rationally. Because then, we start to question her POV; we're seeing everything from her eyes, sure, but is it real? Is she telling the truth or is her brain just messing with her?

Another thing that might help is to make him a little less real. For example, his laugh in paragraph two really makes us believe that he's there, which isn't really a good thing because he's not. Because it's distinct evidence that something is out there interacting with her, messing with her, that it's not all in her head, which it kind of is. There's other moments — when he watches her trying to figure out what she's going to do next, right before she turns on the light — that give too much three-dimensionality to a character that shouldn't really have too much of it. So I'd suggest going through, finding those moments, and either taking them away altogether, or maybe weakening them, or maybe use those moments as moments when she goes off-kilter (and for example, starts imagining that he's laughing at her, and freaks out).

Anyways, overall I love the idea and the way you've presented it, I just think it needs a bit of tune-upping before it's seriously awesome. If you have any questions or need me to clarify anything — or anything else, really, send me a PM and I'll do my best to help out.

Good luck! : )

Hey,

This was sick- in the good sense of the word. It reminded me a lot of Lullaby by The Cure. I loved how you made the character hear the um.. presence.. for lack of a better word, it made me feel the anxiety too, just like the character, because i wasn't sure if the person was actually there or not.

There was only one thing I caught that was a little confusing:

Hearing her weak cry he lets out a sharp laugh.

I actually thought there was a real person in the room with her who was also scared. It's just a simple little problem that can be fixed like that.

Wonderful piece.

~Dommy