Young Writers Society

Leona sat in the middle of her room still as a rock,listening to the constant scratching on her window. Her parents were gone for three days. She gets out of her house and enters the foggy streets.
She followed a narrow path into the dark woods. It is now too dark to see your hand infront of your face. It took her awhile to realize she is in the cemetary. She feels as if someone is following her so she looks behind her at a tall dark figure. It corners her in to where the small house meets the trees. A few other dark figures appear in the dark.
The clouds uncover the moon and she is able to see what they were: zombies. They were taller than her and had big teeth. They look so hungry. She kneed one in the groin, slapped the other and pushed the last then ran towards the exit. More zombies came out of the ground. They surround her. Its a critical time and she does not know what to do.
Amanda searched her way through the train wreck and out of nowhere a female zombie jumped on her and attacked her. Amanda elbowed her in the face causing her to fall off. Amanda took her slicer and stabbed her through the shoulder and ran. She continued out of the train and the express and made her way to downtown New York where a big group of zombies came after her from the dark. She knocks one down then stabs it. The others get a fly kick.The side of her leg knocks them all down. Amanda went to all four of them and stabbed them as they struggled back to their feet.
Leona watched as the biggest one advances toward her, his eyes looking blank. He stretched out his arms trying to retrieve her then fell to his knees. Behind him was Amanda pulling the knife back out of his back. Leona felt gratitude for the help. The clouds covered the moon again. After the moonlight shined in the open again Leona saw Amanda taking on a bunch of zombies.
She tackled one and stabbed it in the face. Tripped another. Then next thing she is in a battle with two of them. When they all were gone. A guy came running out of the house right where Leona was standing
"Thank You!" he yelled
"Who are you?" Amanda asked
"I work here and i was trapped here for sometime."

Hello there, Hermes. I noticed right away that you have trouble with tenses, so let's have at it.

Her parents were gone for three days. She gets out of her house and enters the foggy streets.

Right here is where you starting switching. The first sentence is in past tense, while the second's in present.

More zombies came out of the ground. They surround her.

Again, you've switched tenses. In addition, it'd be easy enough to combine these sentences into one.

Hi Hermes92! Isha here to review!

The first thing I'll tell you is that this story does have a little bit of potential. Granted, it's potential to become yet another zombie-fight, Halloween cliche, but potential to be at least relatively interesting nonetheless. My biggest tip: if you're going to write a zombie story, at least make it an original zombie story, with a twist that you and only you could come up with. As far as this one goes, it's just another attempt at horror, and it isn't doing much for me.

I'll start by mentioning the quality of the writing itself. You had relatively decent descriptions, although they were very bland and repetitive. The word-choice and the way that the sentences are phrased pushing the lines of too simplistic, and there's really nothing that draws the reader in. This aside, this story just seems like a chronology of events. You tell us what happened and when it happened, and you do so in the most bland way possible, or so it would seem.

There is no emotion in the writing whatsoever, and nothing that really portrays how your character is feeling. Is she scared, terrified, gripped and held prisoner to terror and adrenaline? You never give us even little hints, and I think that I recall reading one what your character felt. And you stated it in a way that told us-- you didn't show us that she was feeling this or in what way . The lack of emotion creates a rift between story and reader because there's no reason for us to feel gripped by what's happening, and there's no reason for us to care about your character. 

Stori's already mentioned tenses, so I'll leave those be for now. 

The second aspect that I noticed here was your character. The fact that she just wandered into a graveyard seems unlikely. Okay, so it was dark out. Realistically, there would have been at least dim light. Even on the cloudiest nights, the moon and the stars give off enough light that your character would have been able to figure out that she's walking into a graveyard before she steps foot into it.

The fact that she was able to figure out what the zombies were by seeing them only proves my point. 

Now, that's one thing. What happens next is another thing altogether. She could single-handedly take out that many zombies? Without being afraid? (or that's how you made it seem, anyway) Plus, it would seem as though she escaped without a scratch on her. For starters, she still lives with her parents, so it's implied that she's still pretty young, and probably hasn't been trained in fighting zombies before-- so how the heck does she take down that many, let alone by herself? This is a classic case of Mary-Sueing: your character is too powerful and she's a cliche.

That aside, your transition between the graveyard scene and when she mysteriously shows up in a back alley or whatever it is behind a store is very messy, and it was like she was standing in one place one minute, and another the next. 

And then you went on to introduce your second character. Okay, good. We have a second person involved. Where did she come from, how does your MC know her, and what the heck is she doing out in the middle of the night fighting zombies? We need a little bit of information here, and you need to add it in as creative a way as possible.

And then there's the random man who had been locked up in his store or whatever it was, and that just sort of jumps out, and doesn't add anything to the story itself.

You've got a list of things that happened- give us some emotion to work with, add depth to your characters and then throw in a dash of explanation and creativity. THEN we'll see what kind of a story we have to work with.

I know that this was pretty harsh, but I'd honestly love to see you improve.

Keep writing, and let me know if you have any feedback or questions about the review.

~~Ish.

While there is definitely some potential in the story's idea, there are several things that could use some reworking.

First of all, as previously mentioned, you do need to watch your tenses. In places it felt like the story had been put through a translator prior to being published. Examples:

Leona watched as the biggest one advances toward her, his eyes looking blank

and

She tackled one and stabbed it in the face. Tripped another. Then next thing she is in a battle with two of them.

Even just changing the highlighted verbs so they are past tense would improve the story.

I also found that the tone was sort of inconsistent. Some phrases are very formal and others, such as:

When they all were gone. A guy came running out of the house

are very casual and read more like a conversation than narration. You also need to change the first period in that quote into a comma.

Now, looking at the story itself. I like the idea of a simple walk turning into a kick-ass battle scene, but the story isn't really long enough for you to see/feel/learn anything about the characters and how they are suddenly able to kill zombies with their bare hands. I'm all for short, concise stories, but this is pushing it.

We also have no clue as to where Amanda comes from. Who is she? Does she know the main character? Did they just meet? I'm not saying you have to include her whole life story, as this is the story story section, where minimal information is common, but you need to have some sort of explanation for your readers.

The story moves at a very odd pace too. Suddenly we go from our peaceful walk with Leona to on a train with Amanda, and then they're fighting zombies together. This needs some fleshing out.

Overall, this story needs a lot of work. I'm sorry if this review sounds harsh, but I think you have the beginnings of a much better story hidden in this one.

If you have any questions etc, just let me know! Keep writing.