Young Writers Society

Thank you both for your comments. I have tried my best to make these vampires my own and yes they do have reflections. As you read more, more of the vampire folklore will be proven wrong when it comes to my vampires. Also, I have corrected the mistakes found by others in my original copy and not on here. Again, thank you all for commenting and I will try to get another chapter up soon.

IT was a great start, this could be a great story or it could fall apart but it has great potential. WRITE MORE!!!!!!!!!!

thank you very much for your review. i have another 5 (?) chapters posted on this site so please read more whenever you get a chance. if you do happen to think my story falls apart at any point please let me know what that point is and what made it fall apart. thanks and keep reading!

Ahh so yes, I'm reading it(:

And I LIKE ITTTT!

hahaha good i'm glad you like it!

okey-dokey...

I stopped at the foot of the stairs, listening to an impossible conversation [s]upstairs[/s].

comma there, and the second 'upstairs' is just redundant. You could use something like 'wafting from above.'

...

or not. >.>

I slowly walked up the stairs,

you could use a more descriptive word, like crept.....or floated, seeing as he's dead and most likely a ghost. ~_^

As the man spoke, I noticed the veins lined through his forehead. He kept asking me questions in his broken English, but I couldn't concentrate on translating what he was trying to say to me. After noticing the vein in his head, my eyes scanned downward, noticing all of the tiny wrinkles in the man’s tired face. Looking closer, I saw that I could easily count the pores on his cheeks, even though I was standing more than six feet away from him. I was strangely entranced by the man’s face. My eyes moved down the man’s face to his neck. If I thought I couldn't tear my eyes away from this small Chinese man before, I had no hope of it now. My breath stopped as I noticed the thick jugular vein that was throbbing with the man’s blood. His blood. I wanted it. I craved it. I had to get out of here.

commas where needed (you seem to be afraid of those!!) and the bold parts are where you are a little redundant. no need to refer to 'the Chinese man' more than once in the same paragraph if he's the main point. but if you are switching back and forth from one person to another, it's ok to keep calling him 'the man.' and the blue part, you just kind of stuck that in there. >.>

Slowly the man started to back away from me, all the while not tearing his eyes away from mine.

'never' would be a better word here. ~_^

Once outside, I was glad to have the fresh air and some room to think through the incredible things I had seen and felt since...last...night.

COMMA!!! and the ellipses are...somewhat...unecessary.

I couldn't be completely free though. Not after what I had experienced in the past half hour, I would never be able to forgive myself for the thoughts I had had about those poor old Chinese men in that restaurant. Why did I have those thoughts anyway? I wasn't a cannibal; I didn't even eat my steak that rare. Ew, steak...what....the...hell...

once again, unnecessary....ellipses.....

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pretty good start, just work on your COMMAS!!! ha. i always like vampire stories, so i went soft on you. ~_^ keep it up.

it's a very good beginning, if a little rushed. but i like the description of how the character feels. it's very informative.

good work!!

~enjeru

thank you so much for the review. i will definitely use your critique to change my own copy, although i probably wont change it on here. i am not necessarily AFRAID of commas its just that i'm not good at grammar at all. i know nothing. i just had a story in my head and wrote it down. from there, i let microsoft word tell me what to do and then other people have helped me edit it to a degree. in the future try not to let my grammar upset you (if you plan to keep reading that is) because it will be a very stressful read for you . again, thanks for the review and i'll make the changes.

Hey again! I'll not critique grammar and such as I'd probably only be pointing out mistakes that have already been acknowledged or changed but you said you wanted comments on your plot and characters so...

Your persona needs work. At the moment, her personality is a little flimsy. It's only the first chapter so that doesn't matter too much but you could develop her further. The thoughts in italics and the little information on Chinese food help to define her but there could be more. You briefly touched on how she is cautious - show it. If she's cautious, why doesn't he hesitate for some time before going up into the restaurant? Why doesn't she look for an alternate exit or try to sneak up? Just something for you to think about.

Also, one aspect of her character I find strange is that, at the beginning, she accepts that she is dead and knows it and yet she is surprised by the change in her reflection and her fixation for veins. Why? Why does she not realise she is a vampire? For a story set in model times, I'd expect the character to recognise the signs and she takes her death so calmly that it just seems a little strange.

The Chinese men are generally realistic though I think you should vary their reactions more. I'd expect at least one to try and help her rather than one backing away and the others fading into the background. You don't have much character interaction yet so maybe expand on that part?

The plot is good so far. I like the inclusion of reflections so early on because it shows a move away from the stereotypical vampire which is good. It moves at a reasonable pace, there' enough action to keep a reader interested and generally I think it' developing well.

I currently have quite a list of critiques to do but if I get a spare moment, I'll take a look at your other chapters. Hope this helps a little,

Heather xx

hey, thank you SOOO much for your critique. i'll hold on to your comments and definitely put them to good use when i go back through this story and start doing HEAVY DUTY editing. thanks again!

I disagree with Aedomir. I think think that you should be able to give your vampires any qualities that you like. Folklore aren't rules and I find that many vampire stories I have read don't conform to the set 'guidlines'. That's the beauty of fiction, see?
The first line drew me in straight away. Brilliant line. Though I noticed that your character seems remarkably untroubled by the fact that she is dead. Hmm... a little unrealistic, no? Other than that, your description is excellent, as is your use of language and I think this should prove interesting. A vampire romance. My favourite Is it the combination of danger and love? Blood and beauty? I don't know... Anywho, I'll finish my rambling and move on to chapter 2

thank you very much for your review. i agree that giving vampires new qualities keeps it interesting and fun. i know many of the stereotypical vampire characteristics and chose to not use them. i hope you enjoy the rest of the story.

as a side note, after looking back over what i had written, i realized that Charlie could have stopped once or twice and freaked out over dying. i plan to go back and add a little more "flipping" in later. thank you

"The first thing I noticed was my eyes." You need to change 'was' to 'were' since you have two eyes, not one.

Also, acording to Nate, towards is not a word. Lot's of people make that mistake, I used to. Think of it this way, you wouldn't write something like, "He was standing besides her," would you?

If you're writing about vampires you should look at some of Laurell K. Hamilton's works. Although, her books have quite a bit of smut in them so you might not be old enough to read them.

hahaha, no i'm 20 so i can pretty much read whatever i want. besides that i was reading Anne Rice when i was 14 and that can be quite racy as well. i would love to look into that author you suggested, especially because my vampires are pretty much set in stone at this point.

also, YES i know about "towards" i just occasionally relapse like a recovering alcoholic. a friend of mine that was editing for me (slowly mind you) always yelled at me for that and a few other things im not proud to admit . these chapters up here definitely need to be edited more and believe me, i know that probably better than anyone else. i hope you keep reading!

This was an almost exact copy (character wise) of Twilight. I just read it and... whoa. The plot is hardly different, and I just feel like... well, say we'd made Stephenie Meyer write those books about ten years earlier, when she wasn't as experienced as she is now, it would probably be a lot like this one was.
Flat dialogue/characters, really sweet, handsome guy, Bella-like MC, and Christopher and Diana are pretty much exact copies of Alice and Emmett/Jasper. I would be SO blown away if you'd never read Twilight.

The advice I offer you is this:
For now, stay away from vampire stories; try something else!
Go through your stories before posting them, as well as using the spell check.
And read things aloud before you put them in your story. Things like 'hearing someone laugh silently' are just contradictory.
Good luck,
-Sela