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Alice's Adventures in Zombieland



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Thu Sep 01, 2011 5:09 pm
Roza says...



Hello everyone. I was recommended here by a friend saying this is the best place to get opinions on written works seeing as I hope to become an author at some point. I got the idea when we were set the task of creating an original piece based of either 'Harry Potter and the Philosophers/Sorcerers Stone' or 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'. I chose Alice because everyone else selected Harry and I wanted my work to stand out. The idea came from a friend who had recently watched the movie 'Zombieland'. I may plan on continuing this work and submitting it to a publisher. But untill then this is what I came up with. It was written in quite a short time to be honest but I'm not sure if that has worked to my advantage.

Alice’s Adventures in Zombieland

Alice was falling. The rabbit hole led to a great drop, either the hole was extremely deep, or she was falling very slowly. She passed many bizarre things on her descent, such as cupboards and other furnishings, Alice was also very certain that she saw an empty jar labelled “ORANGE MARMALADE”. After what seemed like forever, Thump! Down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.
Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment: she looked up, but it was all dark overhead: before her was another long passage, but the White Rabbit was nowhere in sight. “I should think that my fall must have slowed me down a great deal” Alice thought to herself. She hurried down the passage, there was not a moment to be lost, she needed to catch up with him, “and when I do I shall have to ask him where on earth I am!” Alice said aloud to herself “And I should be quick about it too or I may miss supper to-night” she added. The corridor went on for some while, but the queerest thing about it was the smell, it was the aroma of rotten fruit. Alice was not familiar with it but she knew it couldn’t be coming from something pleasant. It was at this moment she realised that there was absolute silence. The passage was decorated with such elaborate designs, there were the most beautiful paintings you could hope to see and elaborate ottomans next to grand sideboards. There seemed to be an ominous atmosphere in the passage which made Alice very uneasy. She walked very cautiously in case something jumped out on her “You should know that there are no such thing as monsters at your age!” A voice inside Alice’s voice told her. This didn’t ease her thoughts though. As she made her way down the exceedingly long passage she heard a faint sound in the distance, and she was certain it was someone playing the piano. (Alice wasn’t very knowledgeable in music but she was sure it was one of Ludwig van Beethoven’s pieces, possibly the “MOONLIGHT SONATA” but Alice could only guess). She decided she should go and find the source of this noise at once “My, that music does unsettle me so!” she thought.
She made her way through the hallway which ended at a large door. She approached the door and slowly opened it. As she entered the room she saw him, the White Rabbit was with his back to her playing a grand piano, decorated with elaborate golden designs and made of such beautiful dark oak, she approached him and said quietly “Excuse me sir?”, the moment she ended her speech the music stopped “well at least I now know where that music was coming from” Alice thought, and he turned to her with an expression of absolute terror on his face. As he saw Alice his eyes widened and he let out a terrified yelp causing him to fall off the chair (and Alice to jump). He stumbled awkwardly to his feet and Alice noticed that he was shivering “maybe he is cold, with him wearing so little I ca’n’t understand whom wouldn’t be” Alice thought. The Rabbit spoke quietly and with a stutter.
“I-I d-didn’t think an-nyone w-was l-left.”
“I’m sorry” Alice said as politely as she could “but I haven’t the slightest idea what you are talking about!”
“G-gone, all g-gone” it stuttered
“Please, you are starting to frighten me, what is all gone?”
“Ev-veryone, I must g-go now, before those things g-get to m-me” he added as he paced to the door. He reached into a small umbrella stand next to the door which Alice hadn’t noticed as she came in and pulled out a stuffed, pink flamingo and handed it to Alice “Use it to f-fend them off, I’m dreadfully sorry but i-it’s too late” (he pulled out he pocket watch as he said this and Alice was positive it was broken) “Just find a w-way out” and on these words he left in a run leaving Alice frightened and confused. “What on earth was he talking about” she asked herself “I should follow him” and she did just that, she left the room and headed down the corridor and heard a blood-curdling scream, The White Rabbit was in trouble she ran still clutching the Flamingo and saw the most horrifying sight she had ever seen. There was a man wearing a tall top hat, he was uttering a depressing soulless moaning sound, his arms were outstretched like some sort of ghoul and his eyes, they were misted over with a milky whiteness, Alice screamed in absolute terror but this got the attention of the man. He started towards Alice, slowly; his arms still out stretched like some sort of hungry ghost, his fingers were clenching like he was trying to grab her, without thinking, Alice swung the flamingo…
  





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Thu Sep 01, 2011 9:21 pm
Blues says...



Hi Roza!
I'm here to review as requested :)

Before I go on, I'll say that this was a little bit hard to read because there was no space between the paragraphs. Usually on YWS people separate the space between the paragraphs even though there's already a gap if you've got line spacing on (like me). It just helps readability a little bit :) Don't feel discouraged though! :D

And before I go on, if you haven't introduced yourself in the welcome area (community>welcome area on the black bar), do it! I've been on YWS for a month and I already have quite a few friends which I met when I introduced myself :D

Things I liked

Alice’s Adventures in Zombieland


Yes, you read it. That is the title, which is a good sign! I know it's a parody, but I know that the original title is 'Alice's adventure in Wonderland' (let's call it some sort of heaven). This one is set in some sort of... hell ;)

There seemed to be an ominous atmosphere

Please... don't scare me! XD

This didn’t ease her thoughts though.

Uh oh... this must be a gut feeling... and that's not good...

As she made her way down the exceedingly long passage she heard a faint sound in the distance, and she was certain it was someone playing the piano.

You've got all the kind of things that would scare me here! I'd like to see a bit more emotion though. I want to FEEL that she's scared and I want to see how it affects her. Freak me out... you've got all the things that can, just expand on it! :D

decorated with elaborate golden designs and made of such beautiful dark oak,

Nice description!

pulled out a stuffed, pink flamingo

I feel like shouting WTF and laughing XD I can't swear on YWS (except when one of the characters are talking) though.

here was a man wearing a tall top hat, he was uttering a depressing soulless moaning sound, his arms were outstretched like some sort of ghoul and his eyes, they were misted over with a milky whiteness

Lovely!

Things that need to be improved :)

Before I begin, apologies if I'm a bit harsh. It's unintentional XD

I notice that you make your sentences way too long. Try and vary them - especially in a scary scene, it can work wonders sometimes. For example:

“Ev-veryone, I must g-go now, before those things g-get to m-me” he added as he paced to the door. He reached into a small umbrella stand next to the door which Alice hadn’t noticed as she came in and pulled out a stuffed, pink flamingo and handed it to Alice “Use it to f-fend them off, I’m dreadfully sorry but i-it’s too late” (he pulled out he pocket watch as he said this and Alice was positive it was broken) “Just find a w-way out” and on these words he left in a run leaving Alice frightened and confused.


If you want to know if a sentence is too long and you can't tell, try saying it aloud. You could just add some punctuation to help too :)

-

As I said before, I would like to see a little bit more emotion from Alice. Not what she's thinking, but how she's feeling and how she's reacting to this. For example:
She walked very cautiously in case something jumped out on her


I think that last bit of the sentence is unnecessary. It's pretty obvious why she's doing that, but remember, it could also be fear as well too. We don't need to know everything, just enough to understand most things and fill the gaps where needed (although the answer to fill in the gaps should be pretty obvious) :)

-

“You should know that there are no such thing as monsters at your age!” A voice inside Alice’s voice told her.

I can totally understand this but... I think what would've been better is if she's thinking 'Monsters... don't... exist' but yet she's frightened. It'd give a little more suspense to it too :)

-

(Alice wasn’t very knowledgeable in music but she was sure it was one of Ludwig van Beethoven’s pieces, possibly the “MOONLIGHT SONATA” but Alice could only guess)

Unneeded. It doesn't really add much and not everyone knows it. If you want to keep it though, it could be 'an eerie piece of music' or something. I don't know the piece myself so I can't tell how it adds to the atmosphere, know what I mean? :)

-
I'm beginning to worry the above sounds harsh... if it is, I don't mean it! :) Anyway:

She approached the door and slowly opened it.

Let it creak open. We want to know what she can hear, taste, smell and feel as well as see in the description. You don't need to add it all the time, but where appropriate so it can add to the atmosphere :)

-
Finally:

without thinking, Alice swung the flamingo…

I know that she did it without thinking, but my instinct would be to run for it. Literally. I don't know how old Alice is supposed to be, but I think she'd run away too (along with many adults!). If you're not sure whether that's how they'd react, try imagining you're in their shoes and think about what you'd do (of course we'd like to think we'd do something as brave as that but most of us would be freaked out! We don't know where he came from so we'd want to run away.)

Overall
Overall, I think this has a lot of potential. It needs some work, but I think you can pull it off :) I don't recommend sending this to a publisher because it's not your own characters (fan-fiction in away) so it'd be pretty hard and you'll have a lot of legal stuff.
I pointed out where you need to improve up there, but feel free to PM (private message) me if you have any questions about my review. If you rewrite this, you can post a reply on the same page as this if you want. Just let me know if you do so that I can give you my thoughts.

Keep Writing! I hope I helped!
Mac (on behalf of Ahmadblues Reviews. Yes, I only said that because it just sounded cool and professional XD)
  





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Thu Sep 01, 2011 9:53 pm
Roza says...



Thanks for your opinions. Alot of the negatives I can explain.
I had to keep my writing style true to Lewis Carrolls so I couldn't use too much of a modernised feel in writing. And the spacing was because I wrote the original piece on MS Word but re-opened it into OpenOffice Word to copy-paste it in. The concept of Moonight Sonata was a small Zombie joke I put in as a reference to Resident Evil where you play the song on a Piano to unlock a door. Alot of things you mentioned I originally used but changed so it was closer to Alice's mindset in the original. I will see what I can do with most of your reccomendaions and may upload an update at some point. I'm working on a novelistion for Left 4 Dead at the moment to see if Valve are interested. Thanks alot for your opinions. :)
  





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Fri Sep 02, 2011 11:04 am
Blues says...



You're welcome! I'm glad I could help.

Ah, that makes sense then. Thanks for the explanation :)

Left 4 dead? All I know about it is that it's to do with zombies. I'd like to read it though! Can you post some? (Looks like you'll need a few reviews to post it though - you know about the points system, right? It costs 100 points to post a work and a maximum of 50 points when you review :) )
  





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Fri Sep 02, 2011 11:56 am
Roza says...



Yeah, my friend told me about it before I joined. I'll read through a few pieces and post a few replys. I'll wait untill the 'intro cutscene' section is written before I submit what I have so far of Left 4 Dead. I'm about half way through it in the concept of the videos length. I may be about a third through the written version due to description edits and speech. Strangely the piece corrected it's self in spacing in the repost (due to me accidentaly posting in the wrong section)
  





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Fri Sep 02, 2011 1:14 pm
Jas says...



Hi guys!

Welcome to YWS. Unfortunately, you have this in the wrong forum. Try PMing one of the guys with a green or red name and they can help you put this in the right place, so you'll get more reviews.

~jas
I am nothing
but a mouthful of 'sorry's, half-hearted
apologies that roll of my tongue, smoothquick, like 'r's
or maybe like pocket candy
that's just a bit too sweet.

~*~
  





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Fri Sep 02, 2011 1:24 pm
Roza says...



jasminebells wrote:Hi guys!

Welcome to YWS. Unfortunately, you have this in the wrong forum. Try PMing one of the guys with a green or red name and they can help you put this in the right place, so you'll get more reviews.

~jas


Yeah I realised not long after posting. I've resubmitted the story into the correct forum now though
  








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— Hijinks