Young Writers Society

Chapter One - My Life's Goal

I let a bloodcurdling scream escaped my paled lips as I saw what was in front of me. They were coming, all I can see are their black bodies, and they seem to be digging through the atmosphere just to reach me. I see them growing faster and faster. As soon as my senses return to me, I leap to my feet and run. I’m pushing myself harder, determined to reach my home.

I keep going, the black streets seem to stretch before my ever going feet. I can barely make out my house in the distance; I focus on it as I run. Focusing on anything other than the road in front of me might not have been the best idea; I hold back a scream as I make a face plant on the sidewalk. I feel the gritty concrete scrape my skin as I slide to a stop, bloody and covered in mud, I pick myself up and keep going. Never stopping to look back, I make it to my house, sprinting through the yard desperate to reach the door.

It's locked. Tears begin to stream down my face. I have always hated crying. Not so much because it shows weakness, but because it makes me feel weak. Wiping my cheeks, I run around to the garage and throw myself through the dog door, wriggling widely, pulling my shoulders in. I am half way inside; I suck in my stomach and give it all I’ve got. I make it, taking no time to rejoice in my victory I close up the door. We don't have our German Shepard anymore so I lock it up with the key and then drop the key into my jeans pocket.

Dad likes to try to fix things, and make things and really, collect things. Momma makes him sort through his junk once a years and get rid of so many boxes full. Chains dangling from the ceiling, boxes piled up, giant saws and other painful looking items all around, I jump and squeeze and crawl under it all. Seeing the stairs to the second floor in front of me, soon sprinting up them the best I can.
My dad is off on a business trip, my younger sister left for vacation with some friends a couple of days ago so it's just me and Mom. I lock the doors on this floor as I go the third to wake momma. I find her asleep in her bed. "Wake up! Now! We have to get outta here!" I scream, scaring her to death.

She springs out of the bed. "What! What is it, Arabella?" She shouts back at me.
"Momma we have to go! They are coming!"
"I feared this day would come, explain to me what happened." She says with a long sigh.

"Well, I was at Liz’s house and I saw them coming. They were desperately trying to reach me. I backed up, fell, screamed, and ran home. On the way I tripped and scuffed myself up a little, I squeezed in the old dog door and locked up everything on the way to your room." I explain to her, what confuses me farther is that she seems to know exactly what I'm talking about.

"I hoped you'd never know about them. They have haunted me all my life, and my mother before me, so on and so forth. We called them 'the silhouettes.' They are after our entire family because of the knowledge we possess. If you trace back our family tree far enough you will find an Edward St. Clair. He, by some accident, discovered their existence. They aren't the brightest creatures, once they set their sights on someone there’s nothing that can stop them from going after it.

The creatures are dangerously stupid. They didn't get Edward, he ran from them all his miserable life, wishing he hadn't discovered what he had. When they never found him they got angrier and decided they had to kill all the St. Clair’s. When they go after younger generations like you they expose themselves in the process, you didn't know they existed until they came to get you, correct?" She explains, raising one eyebrow and looking at me.

"Correct. I see what you mean Momma, but what are they?"
"Some goblin hybrid, we don't know where they come from or really what they can do, other than track us down and scare us to death. Maybe kill us, if we let it happen. No one ever stuck around long enough to find out anything, and don't you even think about it Arabella! You'd get yourself killed for nothing!" She says, staring right at me. Knowing what's going through my mind.

I have always been the curious one, not on how things work mechanically but why they do what they do. What powers them and psychology of it. My favorite sentence, question, word, and letter is 'Why?'

"I'm not going to get myself killed, don't worry, getting on the same continent as them is a little too close for comfort for me." I tell her, secretly planning how I could find their weaknesses and use them to my advantages.
"How do we get rid of them?"

"No one has managed to find that out, the rest of us have just run, as far as we can, as fast as we can. Around the world and back if that's what it takes. There’s an old legend of a girl of about fifteen who got captured by them and I won't even tell you what happened. Just know that it's enough to make a full grown adult to run across the world from them." She replies, taking me by the shoulders, looking me in the eyes, only hoping she has scared me enough to discourage any curiosity I might have left. She failed.

"Then what do we do? I think running is out of the question, we need to get rid of them not delay them. We need someplace they cannot enter, like a home base for us to live in. This means installing some pretty serious security in this house without rising suspicion from the neighbors. Tiny camera's passcodes to enter plus a passcode to enter after your inside, maybe even a thumb print scanner to prove we are who we are. All this with a backup battery of its own that will run for a long time if our power should go out for a couple of days. We cannot afford to be exposed. Do we have an emergency fund?" I ask her, hoping it's a yes or we are all doomed.

"Um, yes dear. Of course, we have to, one for a real emergency and one set aside for this situation exactly. They always come so I thought I might as well be ready. Your dad has a gun collection under lock and key in the closet. You know how to use a gun Arabella? Not that I'm giving you one, but if you should need to." She tells me, obviously impressed by my plan.

"Yeah, dad has taken my shooting before. We need to lock up all the doors, barricade them anyway we can, tape black trash bags over the windows and pull the curtains as fast we can, now.

I don't know if they are attached to light but we don't need to risk it and we don't need to be the only house with all the lights on at three o'clock in the morning. We are leaving every light on everywhere, all the time so we can easily see. Let's go get that done." I tell her, I guess she agrees because she obeys.

After we blocked the doors and covered the windows and got the lights, we met back in the living room. "Okay, now that we have that done I feel a little safer. How long do you think this will hold them off?" I ask. "Thankfully the rain will have washed away your blood trail from your fall, they will have to track us down and then find a way in. We should hear that whenever they try something.

I am staying up all night, armed. We should be okay at least until morning. They usually don't show themselves in the daylight, if you should walk into a dark alley, they might be waiting there for you. I don't know if they can appear in the darkness anywhere. So I definitely agree, we will keep every bulb and lamp burning at all times.

Tomorrow I'll a security company over to install everything we need."
"Okay, we can research our options now and have the number ready for the moment they open." I tell her, already getting up grab my laptop from my room.
"Go ahead and start looking, I'm going to get one of your father’s weapons out of the safe and keep it ready. It is off limits Arabella, only in the case of emergency may you even think of touching it!" She shouts and goes up to her and dad's room to get it.

You would think I would be nervous walking around in my house alone, knowing what's coming to kill me. Nope, knowing something has been trying to kill of the St. Clair's for years and I have the chance to stop them. To kill them for all they have done, to save my future relatives from being attacked or killed. It gives me a certain type of rush! Everyone says that's what will get me killed, that I flirt with death on a daily bases. Think! To save all these people from them. The little children, their parents, and others my age, stopping their lives form coming to a torturous end. How amazing! It's how I want to be remembered. If I should die doing it, it's my life's goal to end this.

Hi Bells...
Wow. Huge block of text . CAPUT

Oh lookie. I found me in emot form.

Anyway.

Let's start with the title. See it? Up there? It needs to be bolded. Yep Yep.

there theirblack bodies,

digging through the atmosphere just to reach me

<33

and in painI pick m

You don't need to tell us she's in pain. We kind of got that. Sometimes, less is more. Take a step back and consider it. Does it really NEED to be there? I don't think so.

I have always hated crying.

In a way, this needs more words. It kind of felt fragmented to me. Like, you started a thought but didn't finish it. So, maybe you need to add another sentance. Like
I have always hated crying. To me, it makes you look weak, and I don't like to look weak.See?

crying. ENTER BUTTONI run

Around here is where you need a new line.

Mom.

Don't forget uppercase letters!

"Wake up! Now! We have to get outta here!" I scream, scaring her to death. She springs out of the bed.
"What! What is it, Arabella?" She shouts back at me.
"Momma we have to go! They are coming!"
"I feared this day would come, explain to me what happened." She says with a long sigh.
"Well, I was at Liz’s (my best friend sense pre-k) house and I saw them coming. They were desperately trying to reach me; it looked like they were digging through the atmosphere to reach me. I backed up, fell, screamed, and ran home. On the way i tripped and scuffed myself up a little, I squeezed in the old dog door and locked up everything on the way to your room." I explain to her, what confuses me farther is that she seems to know exactly what I'm talking about.

"I hoped you'd never know about them. They have haunted me all my life, and my mother before me, so on and so forth. We called them 'the silhouettes.' They are after our entire family because of the knowledge we possess. If you trace back our family tree far enough you will find an Edward St. Clair. He, by some accident, discovered their existence. They aren't the brightest creatures, once they set their sights on someone there’s nothing that can stop them from going after it. The creatures are dangerously stupid. They didn't get Edward, he ran from them all his miserable life, wishing he hadn't discovered what he had. When they never found him they got angrier and decided they had to kill all the St. Clair’s. When they go after younger generations like you they expose themselves in the process, you didn't know they existed until they came to get you, correct?" She explains, raising one eyebrow and looking at me.
"Correct. I see what you mean Momma, but what are they?"
"Some goblin hybrid, we don't know where they come from or really what they can do, other than track us down and scare us to death. Maybe kill us, if we let it happen. No one ever stuck around long enough to find out anything, and don't you even think about it Arabella! You'd get yourself killed for nothing!" She says, staring right at me. Knowing what's going through my mind. I have always been the curious one, not on how things work mechanically but why they do what they do. What powers them and psychology of it. My favorite sentence, question, word, and letter is 'Why?'

"I'm not going to get myself killed, don't worry, getting on the same continent as them is a little too close for comfort for me." I tell her, secretly planning how I could find their weaknesses and use them to my advantages. "How do we get rid of them?" I ask her.
"No one has managed to find that out, the rest of us have just run, as far as we can, as fast as we can. Around the world and back if that's what it takes. There’s an old legend of a girl of about 15fifteenwho got captured by them and I won't even tell you what happened. Just know that it's enough to make a full grown adult to run across the world from them."

Basically, when you're having a conversation like this, dialogue should start on different lines. Like this
"Hi," John said.
"What's up?" Avelyn asked, smiling sweetly at him.
"Not much, Star Eyes. What's up with you?" John said, smiling just as sweet back.See? It flows better, it's easier to understand, and if you have dialogue like yours, where there are lots of thoughts and actions along with it, then you NEED to do this. It also splits up the paragraphs better.

So, Bells. I liked this. It's going to be cool, and action packed from the looks of it. Your grammar and spelling was good, and you aren't in need of more thoughts or actions...
If I had any complaints, it would be that you're just too wordy. Sometimes, like I said, less is more. Sometimes you need to delete whole sentences for it to flow better. Just consider that next time.

And, we talked about this block of text... It's just hurtful on the eyes. It makes me want to CAPUT something. So, remember that please. it only takes a few minutes to put in paragraphs instead of blocks. Even if you have to count the sentences till you get to five and hit enter, it's okay.

Okay... That's all for now!
~IceIce

Hey there, Seshat, Firefly in for a review!

Alright, well for starters my first thought when reading your post was: "Whoa," and it wasn't a good whoa! Your chapter is lacking paragraphs, and the effect of that is overwhelming to the reader. A good story needs paragraphs in order to not only appear more clean-cut and organized, but also to give the reader's eyes a break! If a chapter is too wordy or doesn't appear to have any structure, the reader will lose interest and walk away, no matter how good the story is!

So, that's my first little nitpick. For the rest of this review, I'll just skim over the grammar and sentence structure. Until you get some paragraphs in here, there isn't much else I can do.

(Blue words) represent my personal comments,
Green words are corrections to spelling/punctuation/etc, and
Red words that are struck out should be removed entirely.

I let a bloodcurdling scream escape my pale lips as I saw what was in front of me.

These words were changed to avoid confusion, as this sentence was set up as present tense while those words were past tense.

They were coming; all I could see were their black bodies, and they seemed to be digging through the atmosphere just to reach me.

The corrections in that last quote were put in place because your sentence started out as past tense, when "They were coming," but switched to present tense when your main character began to describe how they were coming. Try sticking with one tense throughout a sentence, as switching between past and present tenses can confuse the reader.

I see them growing faster and faster. As soon as my senses return to me, I leap to my feet and run. I’m pushing myself harder, determined to reach my home. I keep going, the black streets seem to stretch before my ever going feet. I can barely make out my house in the distance; I focus on it as I run. Focusing on anything other than the road in front of me might not have been the best idea; I hold back a scream as I make a face plant on the sidewalk. I feel the gritty concrete scrape my skin as I slide to a stop. Bloody, dirty and in pain I pick myself up and keep going. Never stopping to look back, I make it to my house, sprinting through the yard, desperate to reach the door. It's locked. Tears begin to stream down my face. I wipe my cheeks; I have always hated crying. I run around to the garage and throw myself through the dog door (This may just be me, but doesn't this seem unreasonable? Unless she's a young kid, I doubt any grown person could fit through a dog door.), wriggling widely, pulling my shoulders in. I am half way inside; I suck in my stomach and give it all I’ve got. I make it, taking no time to rejoice in my victory I close up the door. We don't have a dog anymore so I lock it up with the key and then drop the key into my jeans pocket (If there's no dog around anymore, then wouldn't the dog door be locked to begin with?). Dad likes to try to fix things, and make things and really, collect things. Momma makes him sort through his junk once a year and get rid of so many boxes full (Full of...junk?). Chains dangling from the ceiling, boxes piled up, giant saws and other painful looking items all around, I jump and squeeze and crawl under it all. Seeing the stairs to the second floor in front of me, soon sprinting up them the best I can. My dad is off on a business trip, my younger sister left for vacation with some friends a couple of days ago so it's just me and mom. I lock the doors on this floor as I go the third to wake momma. I find her asleep in her bed. "Wake up! Now! We have to get outta here!" I scream, scaring her to death. She springs out of the bed. "What! What is it, Arabella?" She shouts back at me. "Momma we have to go! They are coming!" "I feared this day would come, explain to me what happened." She says with a long sigh. (Whoa, wait. What? The MC hasn't explained anything yet, and her mother already knows what's happening? Try building up to the mom's realization instead of it automatically being there.) "Well, I was at Liz’s (my best friend sense pre-k) house and I saw them coming. They were desperately trying to reach me; it looked like they were digging through the atmosphere to reach me. (Unnecessary. This is hardly how a child would describe anything scary, and you've already mentioned this the exact same way earlier on. Makes the reader think you just put it in as a filler.) I backed up, fell, screamed, and ran home. On the way i tripped and scuffed myself up a little, I squeezed in the old dog door and locked up everything on the way to your room. (The reader knows all of this already, and the mother doesn't have to know the details. It gets repetitive.)" I explain to her, what confuses me farther is that she seems to know exactly what I'm talking about (It confuses the reader, too!). "I hoped you'd never know about them. They have haunted me all my life, and my mother before me, so on and so forth. We called them 'the silhouettes.' They are after our entire family because of the knowledge we possess. If you trace back our family tree far enough you will find an Edward St. Clair...

After my last comment, the rest of the story was all just one giant info-dump, and to be honest I sort of lost interest. You need to lure the reader in, tease them with hints here and there, but never give away your full hand. Don't tell us the history of the St. Clair's right off the bat. Leave the reader in suspense and wanting more, and in return they will continue to read on.

My first suggestion, before you fix anything else, is to break up this chapter into paragraphs. Organize your story, and soon it will start patching itself together. Then you can focus on sentence structure, grammar, and the plot flow.

All in all, this story has promise. Keep working at it!
~Firefly

Seshat, your premise is interesting. I’m curious to know where these creatures known as Silhouettes come from, what their intentions are, and, namely, why they’re targeting the main protagonist. What is it about her and her ancestry that makes them so unique? These are the questions that hooked me in and kept my interest. I’m also curious to know why the protagonist says that she felt like the creatures were “digging through the atmosphere just to reach me.” I wish you would elaborate on that description.
The title of your story and a brief glance at Arabella’s plight caught my interest, and I felt a little bit for your characters because of the predicament they found themselves in. But other than that, I felt totally disconnected from them. You hurried through the events of this chapter as if you were brainstorming and trying to get your ideas down as fast as you could, and that’s what ruined it for me. In fact, I felt as though I were starting off in the middle of a story, not in the beginning. There were way too many revelations occurring – Her mom tells her what the creatures are, how they relate to her past, and the two decide how to best protect themselves. Too much was happening, and too fast. One thing I sometimes do with my own writing is picture how the events in the story would seem if they unraveled on the big screen. If you were watching a movie, would you enjoy a story that immediately begins with a protagonist who discovers the nature of his adversary? Who discovers the secrets to his past? Who is already formulating a plan on how to affectively battle against his enemy? ( These are all the things that the beginning of your story jumped into ). Or would you enjoy a story that starts out with conflict – which you did quite effectively – but proceeds to drag out the mystery – I’m not suggesting you sacrifice action and conflict, of course – and allows you time to feel for and get to know the characters? Take Stephanie Meyers Twilight, for example. Does Bella immediately discover that Edward is a vampire? Does she instantly know his background and how he came to be one?
No!
For nearly half of the story, she ponders why he seems so different, and we are held in a state of suspense, knowing revelations concerning Edward and his family will reveal themselves in time. Then, around halfway through the story, we find out that Edward is indeed a vampire, and the conflict of the story intensifies. Don’t worry, I’m not really comparing your story to Stephanie Meyers’ vampire saga, nor am I a Twilight fan. I’m simply using it as an example of what I’m trying to say.
It was also hard for me to read your story because of how you sometimes worded things. For instance:
“I let a bloodcurdling scream escaped my paled lips as I saw what was in front of me.”
“I hold back a scream as I make a face plant on the sidewalk.”
For the second sentence, maybe try: “I hold back a scream as I trip, my face planting itself on the sidewalk.”
And there was one thing that I had a question about. Arabella states that she’s always been the curious one – not curious about how things work mechanically, but why they do what they do. What powers them and the psychology of it. Isn’t what powers something and makes it do what it does the same as what makes it work mechanically? Maybe you can clarify your phrase so that I can understand it better.
And after Arabella and her mother discuss their emergency fund, her mom immediately jumps into “Your dad has a gun collection under lock and key.” To more smoothly transition into this new topic, I think you should insert the word “also” at the beginning of the sentence. “Also, your dad has a gun collection…”
A race of beings, ones that can reach through another realm to get at us, is a bizarre and fascinating concept. One worth reading about. If you were to clarify some of your sentences and revise your chapter so that not so much happens all at once, I’d be interested in proof reading it for you. If you write another draft, you can even send me a PM to let me know when it’s ready. I am a big fan of supernatural thrillers.
Keep writing, and don’t forget to read articles and study up on the craft as much as you can. I myself am still doing this, and I never cease to learn something new!

Thanks guys, for all the help on this. This chapter came from a dream I had, once I woke up it sounded like a good story so I typed it down but it needs a little work. I'm eager to continue the story myself it and see where it goes. Revisions are coming, I'll try to clarify the points some of you mentioned. I think I have all the grammatical errors covered.