crescent Moon Chapter 4

I stood up and shook the snow of my stomach and turned around to see what the girl was staring at. Another little girl stood in the middle of the snow her red eyes glinting off the snow. The girl on the lake skated to the side of the lake and took her skates off then replaced them with her boots. Her red coat blowing in the snow she made an attempt to leave then she was stopped by the red eyed girl. The red coated one stared at her quite defiantly.
"Who are you? Why are you annoying me like this?" The red coat snapped. The red eyed girl smirked revealing her milky white fangs. All the wolves eyes widened and then stepped back a step. It was a vampire, something we hadn't encountered since 5 years ago. The vampire eye's shifted back to us and her smirk got bigger and now it was evil. Dylan charged at her snarling and growling. The vampire hissed and shifted up to a tree. Dylan went after her jumping on her attempting to pin her down and show her she was not wanted. The vampire child's hisses became louder and little red coat stood there in awe. I didn't know what to do with Hunter so, I made a drastic decision and ran after Dylan. The vampire tossed him into a towering oak tree. He hit it with a loud slam and whimpers. A loud growl erupted from Dylan and he popped right back up and plowed her over with ease and rage. I was about to jump in when I realized the red coat was still frozen in fear so I ran toward her and put my muzzle in her hand. She looked down and retracted her hand up into her coat. I made a low noise and pushed her toward the right with my paw, swatting her. She got the idea and followed me. Hunter was still looking to Dylan to me and back. He finally ran after me and walked parallel with me. He nuzzled my neck, which I found adorable and licked his muzzle. I could tell red coat thought it was adorable and cooing.
"Aw.. How sweet." She awed. I let out a low growl indicating I didn't like her being all cute and lovey dovey. When we reached the edge of the forest Hunter was slumping behind us obviously tired. He shuddered and I fell back next to him. Red coat watched us from her deck, obviously intrigued by our way of life. Hunter shuddered for violently this time and red coat had a questionably at him and stared,hard, at him. I snarled, showing my teeth and backed up. Her eyes lit up and she looked frightened so she retreated back to the house. Hunter backed up into the dense forest and shivered back into a human. I guessed I should too.. But it was cold. I whined in my head and then became human once more. Hunter shivered the snow lightly falling now fell on his bare back. I smiled at him.
"T-that was s-s-so c-cool." He chattered through his lips. I smiled a frozen smile and nodded.

"It is isn't it?" I agreed. He smiled.

"I mean why didn't you tell me?"

"Well I mean..." I trailed off.

"It's complicated."

"Not really. I would've understood." He said dryly. I snorted at that statement. He shot me a look and shuddered again.

"N-not again." He grumbled and shifted into the gray wolf. I also shifted and instantly was much warmer surrounded in my fur. I trampled through the snow to see if Dylan was okay with Hunter right by my side. It was amazing to run in a light snow, with my werewolf boyfriend. It was a dazzling dream. I barked happily and ran faster. Hunter ran as fast as me, trying to run parallel to me. He barked in unison with me. We barked together and jumped and danced and frolicked in the snow. When we reached the icy lake Dylan was sitting proudly by a tree his copper smudged with red and white. His eyes shot over to us and he turned his whole head and gave a little, low bark. I shifted back and stole the red coats clothes she'd left here. There was only snow pants and a big, ugly, old brown jacket. It would have to do. I was warm in this suit of tattered memories and good times. Dylan's caramel colored swept hair covered half his face and all the scars on his back and abs told his life story: pain, loss, sorrow, despair, and just flat out damaged. He always brought clothes and we didn't know if Hunter was going to change back or not before we got back to the house. As we walked Dylan pouted, obviously thinking in his own little broken world. The snow got heavier as we got closer and we were more on the outskirts of the forest were the tree's weren't as dense. Hunter happily walked by my side, occasionally licking or nudging my hand, letting me know he was there. When we reached the house it was early afternoon maybe 3 or 4 o' clock. I slipped into the packs own little cabin. Well it wasn't little but, it was just our home if we needed it. I slammed my hand on the radio's power button and flopped on the couch and just listened. Dylan was sitting next to me , promptly sitting up staring out into empty space. I wished Hunter was normal so we could talk and cuddle. Serie walked in calmly as if she'd just stepped out for a moment.
"Hey."She said bluntly. It wasn't like her....

"Hi." I replied awkwardly. She sighed.

"I saw Austin." She blurted out with no emotion still looking down. Now Austin was the one who had raised us almost like another dad. He taught us and helped us whenever we needed it. He had been presumed dead after 5 years missing.
"But he's dead." Dylan stated.

"If dead if another word for in traffic on the freeway then yeah he was so dead!" She snapped, obviously trying to piece it together herself.

"Well what did you do?" I asked.

"I got out of my car and consulted him." She confessed.

"Did you two converse at all?" Dylan asked coming out of his daze. Serie nodded.

"He asked me what was I doing here. And I answered truthfully and then some other stuff and now we'll be seeing him tonight at 7" She babbled. My jaw dropped. Austin was alive and coming to see us. Wow.

Because you haven't had a review for this chapter yet, and you had left a lovely one of support on mine... I thought maybe to return the gesture. I know you didn't specify, but I assume you're open to all kinds of constructive criticism? After all, how else is a writer to grow, right? I sincerely hope this helps in some way.

I stood up and shook the snow of my stomach and turned around to see what the girl was staring at. Another little girl stood in the middle of the snow her red eyes glinting off the snow. The girl on the lake skated to the side of the lake and took her skates off then replaced them with her boots. Her red coat blowing in the snow she made an attempt to leave then she was stopped by the red eyed girl. The red coated one stared at her quite defiantly.

First bold: "Of" should be "off". You might have just overlooked that in your proofreading, but I wanted to bring it up just in case.
Second bold: Some unnecessary repetition in the first sentence with the word "lake". Also, some punctuation could clear up the run-on-esque feel of that sentence. (This is just my own preference in punctuating hopefully without butchering your voice: "...to the side of the lake, took her skates off, then replaced...") As for the second sentence, it's a fragment and quite a bit of a run-on. I would give a suggestion, but I don't exactly understand where you meant to go with it, so I'll just leave the thinking to you on that one.

On to a slightly more in-depth critiques...

Perhaps this is only because I haven't read the whole story up to this chapter, or perhaps it's really just confusing. The pronouns in this paragraph mix up the reader. I feel the references are too ambiguous and directed toward too many different characters. I know you specified where the girl(s?) were, and that should distinguish enough... But it just doesn't. Perhaps specify even better? Like, mention a description of their physical appearance or something. (i.e. "...the little red-headed girl stood in the middle...") This whole paragraph made me wonder if there was more than one girl in the setting (are there? ...very confusing narration.)

I can't very well go through the rest of the chapter giving you just as detailed a review as this particular paragraph, so I'll try my best to just summarize my points.

Be careful of punctuation and typos (or perhaps their misspellings, but what I found simply seemed to be missing a letter at the end).
The next paragraph after the one I had quoted was extremely long. Don't be afraid to divide the prose from the character analysis/thoughts, the quotes from the scenes. After writing a quote and the short description (? for lack of a better word) after it... You can go ahead and start a new paragraph describing the scene or the character. And once a character has a singular thought, that can separate as well.

For example:

"Who are you? Why are you annoying me like this?" The red coat snapped. The red eyed girl smirked revealing her milky white fangs. All the wolves eyes widened and then stepped back a step. It was a vampire, something we hadn't encountered since 5 years ago. The vampire eye's shifted back to us and her smirk got bigger and now it was evil. Dylan charged at her snarling and growling. The vampire hissed and shifted up to a tree.

" 'Who are you? Why are you annoying me like this?' The read coat snapped.

The red-eyed girl smirked, revealing her milky white fangs. All the wolves's eyes widened as they took a step back.

It was a vampire, something we hadn't encountered in five years. The vampire's eyes shifted back to us, and her smirk got bigger, more evil. Dylan charged at her, snarling and growling. The vampire hissed and shifted up to a tree."


I had also taken the liberty to do some grammar/mechanic beta-ing in the above quote. Hope that's alright.

And... I think this is all I have time to get to for now, I'm sorry. But I hope this was of some help. You're welcome to pm me for anything - especially if I had overstepped my bounds at all in my manner of reviewing/offering critiques and suggestions. If I had, I'm dearly sorry, and I give you full permission to cuss me out in a pm anytime. Haha (But I hope you don't. That'd be a whole other layer of stress for both of us. haha)

-gummies

Hey there

I won't pretend to know your story, but I have noticed that there are some grammatical and punctuation-related things I could help you with, so I'll probably end up sounding very pernickety but hey, that's me

So, to business my fine friend.

Another little girl stood in the middle of the snow her red eyes glinting off the snow.

Firstly, you generally want some more punctuation in here. Secondly, "of the snow" and "off the snow" sound more or less identical, and as they are in the same place in each clause of the sentence (i.e. the end bit) it sounds very samey and makes the powerful image you're suggesting fall quite flat. Might I suggest something like this: "Another little girl stood in the middle of the white expanse; the bright snow glinted in her gleaming red eyes."

Her red coat blowing in the snow she made an attempt to leave then she was stopped by the red eyed girl.

Again, punctuation. You don't seem to like using it much! And perhaps I overuse it a little, so maybe together we can find a happy medium. How about something like this: "Her red coat blowing in the snowflake-filled wind, she made an attempt to leave, but then she was stopped by the red-eyed girl."

He hit it with a loud slam and whimpers.

The way you phrased this made it slightly unclear what exactly happens: does he hit the tree with a loud slam and then whimper, or does he hit the tree with a whimper? Either are possible to understand from this. I know it's a small difference but being clear and precise is very important, and can make the reader forget that they're reading and just flow with the story. Like this: "He hit it with a loud slam and (a) whimper." or "He hit it with a loud slam and whimpered in response."

"Aw.. How sweet." She awed.

This is a very common mistake. When the text directly outside the speech marks describes the speech - typically "he said" or "she whispered" or "roared the monster" - then there's no capital involved, and the punctuation inside the speech marks is a comma, not a full stop. So this should be: ""Aww... How sweet," she awed."

I hope I've been of some minor-detail help. Most of these things I was never taught, just picking them up by osmosis when I read books and seeing all the techniques in action (and it always makes me feel smug when I spot a mistake just like these in a published novel!) But otherwise, nice work and keep trying out all your ideas and enjoying living in these fantastical, private worlds. Ooh look, I got all poetic

~*Cotton*~

Hey there

I won't pretend to know your story, but I have noticed that there are some grammatical and punctuation-related things I could help you with, so I'll probably end up sounding very pernickety but hey, that's me

So, to business my fine friend.

Another little girl stood in the middle of the snow her red eyes glinting off the snow.

Firstly, you generally want some more punctuation in here. Secondly, "of the snow" and "off the snow" sound more or less identical, and as they are in the same place in each clause of the sentence (i.e. the end bit) it sounds very samey and makes the powerful image you're suggesting fall quite flat. Might I suggest something like this: "Another little girl stood in the middle of the white expanse; the bright snow glinted in her gleaming red eyes."

Her red coat blowing in the snow she made an attempt to leave then she was stopped by the red eyed girl.

Again, punctuation. You don't seem to like using it much! And perhaps I overuse it a little, so maybe together we can find a happy medium. How about something like this: "Her red coat blowing in the snowflake-filled wind, she made an attempt to leave, but then she was stopped by the red-eyed girl."

He hit it with a loud slam and whimpers.

The way you phrased this made it slightly unclear what exactly happens: does he hit the tree with a loud slam and then whimper, or does he hit the tree with a whimper? Either are possible to understand from this. I know it's a small difference but being clear and precise is very important, and can make the reader forget that they're reading and just flow with the story. Like this: "He hit it with a loud slam and (a) whimper." or "He hit it with a loud slam and whimpered in response."

"Aw.. How sweet." She awed.

This is a very common mistake. When the text directly outside the speech marks describes the speech - typically "he said" or "she whispered" or "roared the monster" - then there's no capital involved, and the punctuation inside the speech marks is a comma, not a full stop. So this should be: ""Aww... How sweet," she awed."

I hope I've been of some minor-detail help. Most of these things I was never taught, just picking them up by osmosis when I read books and seeing all the techniques in action (and it always makes me feel smug when I spot a mistake just like these in a published novel!) But otherwise, nice work and keep trying out all your ideas and enjoying living in these fantastical, private worlds. Ooh look, I got all poetic

~*Cotton*~