A Dangerous Dream

First story in a long time. I need some feedback please!

It started out with a dream. We never imagined it would go this far, become this dangerous.

My name is Zac, and I have come to tell you the truth.

Chapter One:

“Zac, hurry up!”

It was a relatively cloudy day, the type of day that makes you want to curl up under your bedsheets and never come out. The type of day where you can almost expect something bad to happen, a day where there is no sunshine.

It was this day where my foolish child-hood memories end.

My brother and I were running home after a school, racing as we did everyday. He was the jock of the family, but I faster. The cold wind scraped at my face and I dodged past old Ms. Henderwick’s house. It was only later when I remembered the shadow at the doorway, a shadow that distinctly didn’t match Ms. Henderwick’s bent self.

We finally reached home, gasping for air. My mother opened the door, a look of slight disapproval on her face.

“Come in, both of you! Zac, we have visitors whom I’d like you to meet.”

I cautiously entered the living room, where two large men, dressed in all black, reclined on the sofa. They both held sleek leather briefcases, had the exact same watch, and gave me identical evil smiles. I shuddered softly, knowing at once something was not right.

“Zac, I’d like you to meet Dr. Eric and Mr. Davis.”

hmm.

write more.

im not exactly intrigued - its a bit cliche.

im sure if i had read more, there would have been something better quality there.

Oh dear, there is not a lot to go on at the moment and I must agree it is somewhat cliche but thats not to say it won't become more original as the piece progresses.

There are a few words left out in a couple of sentences (writing while tired? just read over and you'll see them) and I'm going to assume this is set in modern days (?), if so then the mothers speech is. . . well odd. If however its set in 'ye olde times' or its another world (like with wizards and elves and so on) it'd make sense, so far I'm a bit confused on that front.

I do like the discription of the old ladies shadow (could use a rewrite though) and the set up where everything sounds so ordinary and standard you could expand on that a lot more, to make the presence of those two men seem out of the ordinary, that way you wouldn't have to spell it out to the reader.

Add to it and see where it goes, think outside the box and inject some personality into it. Good luck and keep writing !

It's an awfully short chapter- not much to go on. I did like the two sentences beforehand, but the story is sparse. The two dudes in black with briefcases was the big cliche, I think- maybe you could change it up a bit so it's not so... well, cliched. More description can help.
Some nitpicking: childhood is one word, no hyphen.

My brother and I were running home after a school,

take out the a.

He was the jock of the family, but I faster

It should be I was faster.
I like the suspense at the end- just add more to it!
Good luck!

I would have to agree with everyone else. I got to the end, and I was thinking, "What?? that's IT??" I didn't particularly like how it started out with explaining how he didn't want to get out of bed, then all of the sudden they were racing home from school. I think it would be funny if it was a really happy good day and nothing could go wrong until all of the sudden there's these scary guys in the house. It's not my work though. Other than that it SEEMS like a really good story.

Hey Zoe. ^_^

So, this was rather short, ya? I think a bit too short for us to get a real idea of what the story's like, or how well the characters are developed. There's not much I can tell you.

It was this day where my foolish child-hood memories end.

Should be, It was the day where/when my foolish child-hood memories would end.

I think either 'where' or 'when' would work fine, so just giving you those two options.

Also, though, one recurring problem I see here is that you seem to be trying to make everything deeply profound. Have you ever read My Sister's Keeper, or anything Jodi Picoult? If so, you'll know that she tends to end every paragraph with some deep or intense statement that's supposed to make the readers think about their existence or something. The sentences themselves are interesting and cool to read, but after so much of this, it gets irritating. I think you're endangered of falling into this trap. A lot of your statements are like, "Dun dun dun, this was the day my life ended." Just something to think about,

I shuddered softly

Since shuddering isn't really a verbal act, try another adverb. Or just put, "I shuddered a little." Because I don't really think the verb agrees right now. ^^

My brother and I were running home after a school

Hrmm, you need to remove the 'a'.

but I was faster

And add that 'was', or you're missing a verb.

So, all in all, short! xD I don't have much else to say. My main suggestion is make it seem less like you're trying to instill great terror and fear into your readers, and explain a bit more what exactly is going on. It's all a bit abrupt. Do the brothers have a conversation on their way home? What is their mother's expression as they walk through the door? Is it fall, or spring? Right now you're rushing into the introductions (which fall slightly flat, since the names of the men don't mean anything to us right now) and not setting up the scene well enough.

A promising start-- just flesh out the story some more. PM me for anything!

~Evi

Blue my friend. I just figured I would check in on you and drop by with a review…so here I am. How’s it going??

Opening

“Zac, hurry up!”
It was a relatively cloudy day, the type of day that makes you want to curl up under your bedsheets and never come out. The type of day where you can almost expect something bad to happen, a day where there is no sunshine.

Okay, since we only just went over this in my English class yesterday, I want to talk to you about parallelism in writing. You have a very rough form of parallelism going on right now in your opening. Check out this example:

When, at the conclusion of a prolonged episode of agonizing thought, you decide to buy this car; when, after a hundred frantic sessions of begging stonefaced bankers for the money, you can obtain sufficient funds; and when, after two more years of impatience and frustration, you finally get a driver's license, then come see me and we will talk about a deal.

Example from Virtual Salt’s ‘A Handbook of Rhetorical Devices’

Do you see how each phrase has a very similar structure? The same goes for your opening. This means you want the three ideas in that opening paragraph to all be written with the same structure.

Look at it this way:
It was a relatively cloudy day, the type of day that makes you want to curl up under your sheets (I don’t think the bed part was necessary) and never come out. The type of day where you can almost expect something bad to happen. The type of day where the sun just doesn’t want to shine.

By changing the structure of that last sentence, can you see the difference? Hope so.

It was this day where my foolish child-hood memories end.

I know Evi touched on this sentence already, but I figured I would touch on it again for two different reasons.
Firstly, I’m pretty sure ‘childhood’ doesn’t require hyphenation. It’s just one word. Second, I think that maybe, stylistically, you should open this sentence as: “It was also the day when my…” and then change ‘end’ to ‘ended.’

My brother and I were running home after school, racing as we did every day.

Okay, we get to know this old Ms. Henderwick’s name but we don’t get to know his brothers name. I’m not sure if that’s right. Do you?

My mother opened the door, a look of slight disapproval on her face.

You say, ‘my’ but if he’s with his brother, wouldn’t it be ‘our’ mother.

They both held sleek leather briefcases, had the exact same watch, and gave me identical evil smiles.

Here again I want to talk about parallelism as well as word choice. In order to acquire parallelism, all you’ll really have to do is omit ‘both’ at the beginning.
Now, as far as word choice goes, I think you need to worry about your three verbs: ‘held,’ ‘had,’ and ‘gave.’ Try using stronger verbs like: ‘clutched,’ ‘wore,’ and ‘shot.’

Characters
Obviously, Zac is going to be a very important character. But right now he’s falling flat. The only really impression we get of him is that he can run fast. You’ll obviously have time to add more, but don’t take too long or your readers won’t be able to feel connected to him.
He needs to have flaws and dialogue (which this whole scene did seem to lack, especially for Zac) in order to make him more lifelike.
Dr. Smith and Mr. Davis seem like they’re going to become key players in the story. The thing is that when you write characters who seem so similar, it’s important to also make them seem like individuals. Something even as simple as giving Davis a limp that he’s had sense he was nice after he fell from the neighbor’s oak tree and it never healed properly. Or maybe Smith, an ex-war doctor, is missing half of his left ring finger after an accident mid-surgery when his entire camp was fired upon and his scalpel slipped. Little things. And you don’t even have to tell people these things. Something simple like: “I looked at the man I’d come to identify as Dr. Smith, looked the squared off tip of his left index finger, and I couldn’t help wondering where the other piece was.”

Pace
Right now, you’re rushing the story. If you slow things down, tell us a little more, than we’ll have a chance to better know you’re character before we actually begin the story. Tell us a little more about the house, about the brothers and their mother. And you definitely need more interaction between the characters. This will help bring them to life. Take a look at Snoink’s article for more help on pacing.

Whenever you post something, feel free to PM me blue.

~lilymoore

Okay, so, as everybody commented - it was short.
But I liked it. People tend to think there is something wrong in cliches - this was not, however, a complete cliche. It was close, but I consider this a good thing. It's written well except for that typeo, the pace is fluent and great. I liked it very much - the situation is a bit cliche, but the story itself doesn't seem to be - see, you put your MC's thoughts into it. I liked the introduction a lot too. I don't know your MC well enough to critique, but I think it's a boy, right?
If you keep going, please PM me.
Good job
Ofir

Okay, I really like this. I love the way you describe the weather. I adore your writing style! Write more! It is rather short. I don't have much critique, except for a few grammatical mistakes.

I think this was on the verge of being very cliche but i still liked it. Mr.Davis and Dr.Smith have that familiar feel of evil villains. I, personally, think that if you named Ms. Henderwick then you should name Zac's brother too. I liked this story, although it needs more. Something to get us feeling the character better. Something that sums him up for us readers and makes him relate to the readers.