Murder

The rain slammed onto the windshield like bullets as my mother drove me home. Thunder ruptured the eerie silence. The oncoming car swerved back and forth across the road. A shrieking sound filled the air and seemed to be coming closer with every passing second. My mother tried to get the car under control, but it was useless. The road to destruction had already been paved...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Willow brushed her thick black gangly hair and couldn't stop thinking about the event. She never let the memory progress to the worst part. She knew what she had to do. She slipped on her oversized sweatshirt and clunky military boots. She was determined and no one, no thing, nothing was going to get in the way of what needed to be done. She watched herself transform as she applied black eyeshadow, making her eyes the darkest shade she could.
She walked out to her black, low-riding car that sat in the otherwise desolate driveway. She stepped in and turned the key in the ignition with angry force. She was infuriated. Yet still, she knew what she had to do. The radio blared Pain by Three Days Grace and she began to sing along, her voice gravelly and rough. “Pain, without love, pain. I can’t get enough, pain...” She pressed her foot to the gas and began to drive the short way to his house. The soft hum of the motor seemed to calm her nerves. Then she saw it. The house. His house. Her singing stopped abruptly as she grew angrier still. She heard the screech, the pain, the rain smashing against the car, everything streamed back in vivid color.
She got out of the car. It was dark but the lights and sounds of big city Nashville were distant to the suburban house he lived in. She knew he lived alone. She stalked up the stairs that led up to his front door and knocked. She could hear his sluggish walk down the stairway and she prepared herself. She knew what she had to do.
The screeching of the brakes, the goliath rain pounding against the road, the car, the bone-breaking sound of the thunder raced through her head more vividly, clearer than ever before.
The door handle turned. He was coming. Willow wasn’t scared. She knew what she had to do. The door creaked open and Willow leaped forward and slapped a hand over the fighting victim’s mouth. She struggled to pin the man against the wall. With her other hand, she reached into her back pocket to pull out a small but sturdy handgun. Willow jammed the gun to the the side of the victim’s head.
“Damien, my dear, we meet again.”
She could hear the screeching as if it were again that night. She could hear the pounding thunder and feel the frigid rain on her pale skin. Damien kicked Willow in the shin forcing her to come back into the reality of the moment.
“Don’t worry. This will be quick Damien. It’s really a shame you’re so young and handsome. Such a waste of a good man.”
“Who are you? What do you want? What did I do?!” Damien managed to croak out through the cracks in the hand covering his mouth.
Willow placed her finger on the trigger of the small, loaded gun. Damien tensed and struggled in the arms of Willow but escaping was impossible. He thrust his free arm into Willow’s stomach. She lapsed and her hand slipped from his mouth but she kept his body pressed to him so he couldn’t escape.
The screech, the rain, thunder, lighting striking the soaked ground. Willow saw the car whip towards her mother’s side and smash into it with a crunch and crash. She saw her mother fly through the cracked windshield and land on the wet gravel. “Oh my god,” Willow thought. Her mother lay lifeless as Willow rushed out of the car to help her. She ignored the cuts in her side where crushed metal had sliced her skin. “Why didn’t I take the wheel and veer us away?” Willow thought, feeling blame for the whole situation. She saw the lights, the flashing lights of the ambulance cab. Then, she saw Damien trying to apologize to her which just filled her with anger. That was all she needed to see, to know, to know exactly what she had to do.
“You killed my mother!” Willow shouted at Damien’s silent, terrified face, “Killed her!” Tears began rushing down Willow’s blank face. The man in front of her had unintentionally murdered her best friend, her companion. It didn’t matter to Willow that the incident was unintentional, he had still committed it. She wanted Damien to have the same fate as her mother had. She placed her frail pointer finger on the seemingly large trigger and began to apply pressure hesitantly. “I don’t want to see you anymore. Never. Forever you will be gone.”
“Please, don’t kill me! I’ll do anything!” Damien screamed at Willow.
Ignoring his comment, Willow pressed firmly and heard the bullet rush through the barrel of the gun. She moved the barrel of the gun to his burly chest and once again felt the recoil of the bullet that rushed into the body of the young man.
He fell lifeless to the ground. She knew she wasn’t done with Damien. Not yet. He was still very much intact, while her mother had been
forcefully broken, shattered, cut-up and dead.
Willow exited the house with the tall, heavy man dragging behind her as she pulled him by his arms. Willow threw the man into her back seat and drove off towards her house. When she reached the house, she took Damien’s limp arms and began to once again drag him into the house.
The blood colored walls and curtained window of the her bedroom protected her neighbors eyes from what she was about to do. She grabbed the large butcher knife off of her bed stand and raised it above Damien’s body. She lined the knife up above his neck and swung it downward, squirting blood across the room. It oozed out from the slice in the neck of the horrid man. She once again swung downward, hearing a sharp snap and the bone broke and the head rolled to the side. She moved the knife over his legs and flung it into his fleshy thighs. She grabbed a serrated knife from the bed stand and began to saw at the thick bone, putting all the pressure she could to get through it. She sawed back and forth listening to the crunching and grinding sounds of the bone as she worked. Finally, it broke through and she sawed through the fleshy part of the leg, once again squirting the liquid everywhere. Then the arms.
The red flew and colored the white ceiling and oatmeal colored rug. She could see the blood being absorbed by the comforter on her bed. Pressure onto the bed spread provided pools of the thick crimson liquid. The liquid gathered together and dripped onto the floor gathering in a puddle. Willow rushed downstairs to get two large garbage bags. She threw the parts into the two bags She tied the tops of the bags as tightly as she could, making sure there was no opening. Willow knew what she had to do next.
She threw the bag of parts into the trunk of her car and drove off into the night. It would only be an hour drive to get to Mammoth Cave. There she could quickly dispose of the body and forget the incident, and her dirty deed. She thought she could hear the dead man’s beating heart pounding out of his cold body, but she knew she must be hallucinating. He was dead. He could not possibly have a beating heart. She heard a hesitant breathing and thought it was his, but realized it was her own. Only ten more minutes and this awful person would be disposed of and she would never have to worry about his haunting incident that killed her mother.
Finally, she saw the entrance. Mammoth Cave National Park. Perfect. She pulled into the dirt driveway and veered off the road into a shady patch of forest to park the car. She yanked each bag of parts out of her trunk and dragged them one by one to the entrance of the cave. On her way back from the car with her shovel, she saw a park ranger standing over the bags and examining them. “I’ll have to kill him.” Willow thought, her whole body tensing. She tiptoed closer to the ranger, lifted the shovel over her head and watched as it connected with the head of the man. The man fell to the ground but he wasn’t dead. Not yet anyways. Willow threw herself on top of him and beat him to his death. She hadn’t intended to kill him, but after the first hit, she couldn’t stop herself. It was as if she enjoyed the act of killing, of murdering innocents. As she thought more about it, she contradicted herself, feeling bad for the victim but she wouldn’t let this slight insecurity get in her way of her mother’s approval. She dragged the dead man to the side of the cave and left him in the cold for someone else to find. She had work she needed to do.
She traveled on into the cave until she reached a place hidden by the entrance light, a mysterious place. It was perfect for him. She began to hollow out the floor of the cave. Inch by inch, foot by foot, she kept on shoveling. The hole in the cave floor was about five feet deep now. “Good enough,” thought Willow and she stuffed the bags into the dug out. Willow shoveled the moist dirt back into the empty space of the hole and slammed it with the back of the shovel to pack it down.
The deed was done. Willow slowly walked out of the cave, thinking about her late mother. How beautiful she looked the last time Willow had seen her, at her funeral. She was happy to have satisfied such a great role model as her mother had been. “What have I turned into?” Willow thought. She knew her time as a free woman was limited. She knew the police would come soon. Truth was, hated herself for becoming a murderer but the pleasurable act of doing it felt good to her. In the moment she was brought a feeling she had never experienced before,she was satisfied, and she loved it. It was after that Willow had uneasy feelings. Yet still, she had done it, she had gotten revenge. Damien would face the future that her mother faced and that was what she wanted. She knew her mother would have been satisfied with her work. So, with a smile on her dirt-covered face, she drove off into the midnight skylight.

Well then. That was fast paced and dizzy with blood. Let's get down to it.

Thunder ruptured the eerie silences

"the eerie silence" maybe? Pluralizing "silence" is a very weird thing.

The oncoming car swerved back and forth trying to get themselves under control

"Car" is singular, so "themselves" is not appropriate. Reword.

Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech.

Kind of childish, really. It's been drawn out to the point of comedy, as if a child were telling a story about a sweet maneuver. Rethink how you can make this more serious. Either use a shorter onomatopoeia or tell us about the sound in words.

Brakes were pumping trying to get the car to stop but the effort was deemed useless.

This is a really weird passive sentence. "Brakes were pumping" is a strange wording as if the brakes were actively pumping themselves. And "the effort was deemed useless" is also rather detached and passive. It's like some guy standing on the side of the road saying, "Yep, braking's not gonna work. They're gonna hit. Yep."

She never let the memory get to the end but she knew what she had to do.

These two statements are not contradictory, and they are not connected in the least bit. So the "but" is unnecessary. Reword.

She watched herself transform as she applied black make up to cover her fleshy face.

"Fleshy face?" What else is going to have on her face? Very strange description. Is she making her whole face black?

She stepped in and turned the key in the ignition with angry force. She was mad. Infuriated.

Reword her "stepping" into a car. It's not really a stepping motion. And "angry force. She was mad. Infuritated" could use some work. So many synonyms next to each other that don't lend anything.

Then she saw it. The house.

Wait, when the heck did she start driving? You've gone through such detail to list her putting on her sweatshirt, her boots, her makeup, getting into her low-riding car, stepping in, turning the key...and suddenly we're at some guy's house.

She heard the screech, the pain, the rain smashing against the car, everything streamed back in vivid color, but not the event.

I see what you're going for, but you need to word it a little more explicitly. You need something that says the senses, the flashes of image came back to her...but not the...something else...the consequence, her mom's death, her mom's body, etc. Saying "everything came back" then "not the event" is just confusing.

She silently stalked up the endless stairs and knocked fiercely on the door.

I'm not really sure what the purpose of silently stalking up endless stairs (really, no need to call them endless if they end before the sentence is over) and then knocking loud and fierce on his door.

The screeching of the brakes, the goliath rain pounding against the road, the car, the bone-breaking sound of the thunder raced through her head more vividly, clearer than ever before.

That's a good line just before the action.

The door creaked open and Willow forcefully leaped forward and slapped a hand over the struggling victims mouth.

You have a penchant for adverbs. You need to consider taking some out, such as "forcefully" here. How else is someone going to leap at an obvious victim? "Willow apathetically leaped forward?" "Willow disdainfully leaped forward?" "Willow happily leaped forward?" Take it out as we can understand how she's leaping. And you're missing an apostrophe in "victim's."

a shame your so young

You want "you're"

but he was pinned against a wall

You probably should have told us this earlier so we can set the scene and believe that she has him in checkmate, instead of the reader picturing them just standing in the middle of the foyer.

She saw her mother fly dangerously through the cracked windshield and land flatly on the wet gravel.

Both of those adverbs (fly dangerously and land flatly) are killing this sentence. KILLING it. Get rid of them.

ignoring the slight pain of her left side.

Kind of silly comment. Of course if your mom is dead, you'll ignore a minor cramp. If you're going to make a point that she's disregarded her own safety for her dead mother, make it worth commenting on. "The pain in her side" "The cuts in her side" "The flag pole impaling her kidney"

once again felt the backfire

Backfire? Backfire usually means when something fails. You probably mean "recoil."

So...Damien was basically a ragdoll. Lifeless, uninteresting, and we can't care he's dead or that she's a murderer. It's as if she killed a mannequin. Or at the very most, a mime. At least let him say something. Scream. Shout. Bargain. Offer anything. Say, "What the heck, who are you, why are you killing me, please don't kill me!"

Willow quickly covered up any signs of suffering the best she could

Signs of suffering? Do you mean "struggle?" There probably wasn't much suffering, seeing as how he died instantly. And if she doesn't care if the police found out and found her, then why is she covering up the signs? You went out of your way to contradict yourself.

in tact

"intact."

she took the limp Damien into her arms and ran into the house and up the stairs to her bedroom.

Did she kill a child? How is she running from a car to the house and up the stairs with a dead body? A 140+ pound, limp dead body that lolls and rolls and swings everywhere and catches on door frames and drags its feet?

thrust it downward,

Thrusting is usually a stabbing motion. You probably want "swung." And I'm pretty sure it would take a girl at least a few swings to sever an intact neck (through the flesh, the muscle, and the rather resilient spinal cord).

She moved the knife over his legs and forcefully plunged it into his fleshy thighs.

Again with the adverbs. And again, plunge is a stabbing motion. But you're never going to use a blunt-tipped butcher knife to stab something. And again, you're cutting through the femur. The biggest baddest bone in the body. The kind you need saws to sever.

Pressure onto the bed spread provided pools of the thick crimson liquid.

What? That sentence makes no sense.

Willow rushed downstairs to get three extra thick garbage bags. Black ones of course.

"extra thick?" "Black ones of course?" You need to reconsider your word choice to set a mood. You've sunken into matter-of-fact, though this is a crime of passion.

mismatched parts

I'm pretty sure all these body parts match one person.

She put them inside of each other and forcefully threw each of Damien’s remains into them.

The bags inside each other? Three of them? So now she has one triple lined bag? Or one double lined and one single lined? You're putting in so many details that it's just confusing.

She yanked the bag of parts out of her trunk and slung them over her shoulder as she trudged through the entrance, a shovel in the opposite hand.

So now she has a 140+ pound man in 1 or 2 or 3 trash bags slung over her shoulder held onto by ONE hand? You're getting ahead of yourself.

She began to hollow out the side of the cave

So these Mammoth Caves are massive burrows made out of dirt? That's your prerogative. But all the caves I've been in are rock all around...or at least the walls and ceilings.

And then...it's over. No thoughts, really, except "He killed Mom, I'm glad I killed him." Nothing. No personality, either. No justification other than that. No hesitation except for her "hesitant breaths." No worry. No doubt. Nothing.

Willow is kind of a dead character. Damien is truly a dead character, even when he was alive. This story could use some sprucing up in the areas of mood, tension, and emotion. As I imagine she's an amateur at this, she would have all of the things I mentioned in the previous paragraph. So please do give her some human life.

Also, get a better title. Something not generic and slapped on at the last minute.

Lemme know if you have any questions.

First of all, I would like to thank you for such a detailed and helpful review. I am still a young writer and learning certain techniques and strategies. This is currently for a school assignment so I put up my first draft in hopes someone( such as you) would come along and help my in the editing process. Here are a few thing I would like to address/ask about your review of my rough story.

1. I have not yet come up with a title and that is why I have such a vague and unimportant title on this website. Do you have any title suggestions?

2. Do you have any specific suggestions on how to make the story better? I know you have mentioned many small and helpful tips to improve parts of sentences and paragraphs, but do you have any suggestions on how to change or alter bigger parts of the story.

3. I had already changed a few of your suggestions in a newer draft of this story. One fixation that I have made is with the sentence "She never let the memory get to the end but she knew what she had to do." I also thought these were contradictory and changed them right away.

4. Okay, I also thought the "fleshy face" seemed a little bit ridiculous but my Creative Writing teacher insisted that I add that in. I have no idea why. I'm considering taking it out again.

5. I agree on Willow quickly "driving" to the house. I never even realized that I had done that, but I will definitely fix it.

6. Do you have any suggestions on how I can make her flashbacks more explicit? I knew once I decided to have flashbacks within my story I was getting myself into a more complex story than I'm usually used to writing. Stepping out of my comfort zone a bit.

7. How should I make the characters come alive more? I know this is one of the basic steps of writing but I've never mastered it. I always have trouble making my characters believable.

8. "Pressure onto the bedspread provided pools of the thick crimson liquid" Okay, so this sentence made sense in my mind. Ya know how if you have an absorbent object, lets use a large sponge as an example, you soak the sponge in a liquid and when you apply pressure to the sponge water or whatever liquid it absorbed pours out. That's what I was going for here.


I guess these are the basic questions/concerns I have. I am still trying to improve this story to the best of my ability and I am very thankful you have given me these tips. I had a really important question to ask you while writing this and now I have completely forgot. I will send another message if anything else comes up. Thanks ALOT for the help, like I said before I am still young and learning to write, and write well. I will make changes and edit this story as much as I can and hopefully put a new version of it on here soon.

Of course, of course. I'll post some thoughts here. If you'd like to take it further, I suggest we take it to private messages so we don't keep bumping this topic.

1) Title? Hmm...I can't give you any specific suggestions. But I would say make it relevant to your character, Willow. Something that describes her motivation, her state of mind, her mission. Even though the plot is about a murder, the story is about Willow.

2) We'll get to that in later points.

4) Well, that's up to you. On one hand, he/she is your audience that you're trying to please with what you turn in (that is, what you turn in doesn't necessarily have to be the true version). On the other hand, some writers are very strict and will not compromise their belief to please a crowd. My thought? It's no big deal. Sometimes you gotta people-please, so if it gets you the grade, great!

6) I think your flashbacks are fine. You start out the story with something that seems confusing, but makes sense as Willow confronts Damien. However, to perhaps add another layer to the story, I might have a suggestion to make Willow's inability to cope with the memories more profound.
So, y'know, for first half of the story, she only remembers bits and pieces and she can't pull it together as a whole (as you have it). Then as she's cleaning up the mess, driving his body parts, and dragging him through the forest, she's slowly coming to terms with it. It's bubbling up, it's welling in her chest, it's clawing behind her eyes. She's grief-stricken. It's like in those movies when the main character is hugging the therapist and crying. Something is moving inside of her and it moves her to some deep-seated emotion.
And when she's finally burying Damien, the deed is done, and she's coming to terms with it. Everything is over. She remembers her mother's funeral or something. She remembers some childhood event with her mom. She's done what she has to and she knows her mom is satisfied. A reason that shows us: even though she thinks she'll get caught, she is satisfied on a deeper, personal level.
That is...flashbacks are good, but you want them to serve a purpose in a story. From it, we don't just understand what happened, we understand who the character is, too.

7) And on that note, this would make Willow become more alive. We'll understand where she's coming from as a person: what her motivation is (besides the straight-up-dead-mom thing), how it makes her feel (besides angry), and how it affects her behavior (besides killing the guy).
Right now, you have the A->B->C. But really, how life works is
A->Aa->Ab->B->Ba->Ac?->Bb->C! C! C! A? B? Bb?
So, in other words, you have
A) Mom is dead
B) Girl is angry because she loved her
C) She kills and buries guy
Which is a great start for a story. But that's just a skeleton, you have to fill in the meat and skin
A) Mom is dead and she is sad because she could have done something to save her, could have asked for a ride from the mall earlier, could have grabbed the steering wheel, could have called the ambulance earlier, could have, could have...
B) Girl is angry and she makes a plan. But she hesitates. She's just a girl, after all, who likes clothes, animals, science, law, and badminton. But she knows she has to do it for justice. A balance. It coincides with her love of law, of animals who have been cruelly treated, of objective science. Or she had some sick relationship with her mom, some kinda blood pact, some kinda idol worship. This is why. No one simply becomes a murderer because of loss but because of a desire.
C) She kills him, while having her doubts, while remembering her mom, while hating herself because she is a murderer society's evil incarnate but loving herself because she has gone above and beyond to do what is right.

So that's how you make a believable character. You should just try little exercises. Look at pictures, look at people on the street and think about the bare bones:
1) Name
2) What they do
3) What they want to do.
And then you build upon that:
1) What is their past (not necessarily in-depth, but just what major forces affect who they are now)
2) Why do they do what they do (should almost always be linked to their past because that's just how humans are)
3) How do they plan to do it and how will it make them feel?

As for Damien...well, it's difficult because he's so brief. Perhaps he could appear in the flashback: apologetic and trying to help...but she hates him. She can't get around the facts. And when she goes to kill him, he remembers her, he apologizes, he wants to make it up to her, he wants to live, he wants to fight, anything. As long as he wants something.

8 ) Okay, gotcha. Perhaps you might need to say in the first place that the sheets absorbed the blood. And we'll need to know where the pressure is coming from (I assume when she leans on the body as she works?). And the pools need to exist somewhere. Of course don't just say 1) They absorbed blood 2) She leaned on the body 3) It ran out onto the floor. (Or maybe you could, I dunno). Don't take that too seriously.

And I know you're young. In no way am I deterring you, and I'm probably actually pushing you too much because characterization is a hard thing to do. But I think you can handle it because your writing is mature, but it could be fleshed out. So good luck with that!

There exists the tricky issue of going back and editing and adding more content. It's easy to repeat ideas or use too many words. Comments in red.

...The oncoming car swerved back and forth trying to get itself under control. A shrieking sound filled the air and seemed to be coming closer with every passing second. Effort was made to try to get the car under control We just read "...trying to get itself under control" a couple sentences ago., but everything attempted was uselessTry "but it was useless." When you can, chop out the extra words that clog up flow. The road to destruction had already been paved...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Willow brushed her thick black gangly hair and couldn't stop thinking about the traumatic event"traumatic" isn't necessary. We'll understand from the tone what to think.. She never let the memory progress to the worst part. She knew what she had to do. She slipped on her oversized sweatshirt and clunky military boots. She was determined and no one, no thing, nothing was going to get in the way of what needed to be done. She watched herself transform as she applied black make-up to her eyes and lids she applied make-up to her eyes and lids? To me, that means her eyeballs and eyelids., making it the darkest shade she could.

...She stepped in and turned the key in the ignition with angry force. She was infuriated. ...The soft hum of the motor seemed to calm her nerves but not her anger. ...Her singing stopped abruptly as she grew angrier still.You talk about her anger a little too much and seems a little cheap. ...

...

...She struggled to pin the man against the wall few feet behind him."A few feet behind him" are unnecessary words that get in the way of the action. It's important to know what's going on, but we don't necessarily need approximate measurements when this kind of action is going on. It takes away from the adrenaline. With her other hand, she reached into her back pocket to pull out a small but sturdy handgun. Willow jammed the gun to the the side of the victim’s head.

...

“Who are you? Why are you trying to kill me? "Why are you trying to kill me?" is a strange question. Not sure why, but it's strange. "What do you want?" would be a more natural question. What did I do?!” Damien managed to croak out through the cracks in the hand covering his mouth.

Willow placed her finger on the trigger of the small, loaded gun. Damien tensed and struggled in the arms of Willow but escaping was impossible. He thrust his free arm into Willow’s stomach. She lapsed slightly and her hand slipped from his mouth to tend to her hurting stomach. She kept his body pressed to him so he couldn’t escape and when her stomach recovered she placed her hand against his mouth once again. This stomach thing is a silly little event. It's far too wordy and has no consequence.

...“Why didn’t I take the wheel and veer us away?” Willow thought, feeling blame for the whole situation."Feeling blame...situation" is unnecessary. She saw the lights, the flashing lights of the ambulance cab. Then, she saw Damien trying to apologize to her which just filled her with anger. That was all she needed to see, to know, to know exactly what she had to do.

“You killed my mother!” Willow shouted at Damien’s silent, terrified face, “Killed her!” Sobbing tears Tears don't sob.began rushing down Willow’s blank but angry face.How can it be blank and angry? ...

...

He fell lifeless to the ground. Maybe a new paragraph? Or any other thoughts? Any stillness? Give us a second to reflect on this.She knew she wasn’t done with Damien. Not yet. He was still very much intact, while her mother had been

forcefully broken, shattered, cut-up and dead. Whereas this new paragraph confuses me. But that's your choice.

Willow swung open the front door of his houseWhen was the door closed? (Now don't go back and put "she closed the door" in a previous paragraph. What I just mean is consider the scene and consider what's important.) and exited with the tall, heavy man dragging behind her as she pulled him by his arms. Willow threw the tall man repetition of him being "tall"into her back seat and drove off towards her house. When she reached the house, she took Damien’s limp arms and began to once again drag him towards the house. She entered her house and used every muscle in her body to haul the man up the stairs and to her bedroom. Stopping periodically to catch her breath and rest her tired arms. When I commented that you made it seem too easy, it was a passing comment. Now you're making it too hard and spending far too long on the sequence. See comment at end for further comments.

The blood colored walls and tiny window near the ceiling of the her room protected her neighbors eyes from what she was about to do What about, y'know, curtains? Blinds? That'd be much easier for her and for you.. She grabbed the large butcher knife off of her bed stand and raised it above Damien’s body. She lined the knife up above his neck and swung it downward, squirting a red liquid "...a red liquid"? We know it's blood.across the room. It oozed out from the slice in the neck of the horrid man. She once again swung downward on the exact spot "on the exact spot" is unnecessaryshe had before, hearing a sharp snap and the bone broke and the head rolled to the side. You're so passive describing, what I imagine, is her first time decapitating someone.She moved the knife over his legs and flung it into his fleshy thighs. She grabbed a serrated knife from the bed stand and began to saw at the thick bone, putting all the pressure she could to get through it. She sawed back and forth listening to the crunching and grinding sounds of the bone as she worked. Finally, it broke through and she sawed through the fleshy part of the leg, once again squirting the liquid everywhere. Then the arms.

... She made sure they were black, to hide any staining the blood would make. Far too many words to describe the unnecessary. Can't she just have the bags on hand?She threw the legs into one bag and the arms and head into the second Is she keeping the body for herself?. She tied the tops of the bags as tightly as she could, making sure there was no opening. Willow knew what she had to do now next.now next.

...

Finally, she saw the entrance. Mammoth Cave National Park. Perfect. She pulled into the dirt driveway and veered off the road into a shady patch of forest to park the car. She yanked each bag of parts out of her trunk and dragged them one by one to the entrance of the cave. On her way back from the car with her shovel, she saw a park ranger standing over the bags and examining them. She tiptoed closer to the ranger, lifted the shovel over her head and swung it at the man hitting him in the head. The man fell to the ground but he wasn’t dead. Not yet anyways. Willow began beating him again and again with the shovel until she was sure that he was not alive. She hadn’t intended to kill him, but after the first hit, she couldn’t stop herself. It was as if she enjoyed the act of killing, of murdering innocents. That's a very brief paragraph and whirlwind of events for...a rather horrifying, split decision.She dragged the dead man to the side of the cave and left him in the cold for someone else to find. She had work she needed to do. This whole paragraph is very matter-of-fact. This then that then that, like a recipe. You should consider your tone.

...

The deed was done. Willow slowly walked out of the cave, the shovel slung over her shoulder. She knew her time as a free woman was limited. She knew the police would come soon. This sentence needs to be grammatically edited (Truth was, hated herself...)Truth was, hated herself for becoming a murderer but the sweet act "sweet" is a rather empty adjective, especially if that's the only one you'll use to describe her attitudeof doing it felt good to her....

Footnote: The writing process is as such, after you've got the basics fleshed out. Make the distinction between what's important and what are the miscellaneous stepping stones (not necessarily important, but they need to be accurate). You'll show us what the important stuff is by the weight of the words you use and maybe by the time you spend describing it to us. And the miscellaneous stuff is just what we need to get by. The weather, the presence of windows, etc. If it's not important to the story or the character, then you need to spend less time, less effort, and less words on them.
So things like the fact that she dragged Damien and he was heavy. It needs to be accurate, yes. But it's not so crucial to the story to merit so many sentences of examination. Stuff like that.

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So in the end. It's an improvement! Willow has some more human thoughts (as human as a double homicide can be) and Damien is actually a character now. And we have a sense of what's going on and how.

Now you need to work on your pacing and tone. By pacing, I mean how long you spend on the important stuff and the unimportant stuff and how your wording controls what we think and feel and when we get to do it. And by tone, I mean the way you present the story. Right now, in some places, you're treating things that should horrify a first-time-murderer with a kinda mechanical flavor. "This happened then this happened so she did this" with very straightforward words. Your word choice needs to show us how we should feel.

Thanks, I'll work on it and post again soon...most likely tonight? I'll let you know.