Click, Click

*Edit: No longer for the September contest because I completely forgot it had to be based on a theme from the story generator. (I know. I'm special.)

Christian Haines had a score to settle. He wasn’t scared. He wasn’t nervous. He was prepared. Prepared for Jack and his continual yammering. He was done being the pushover—the spoiled kid who made empty threats. Oh, his days of empty threats were over.

Christian had a plan. It wasn’t elaborate, but it was well thought out. Simple and effective.

Jack came to Christian’s house every Wednesday afternoon. Like clockwork, he would ride up on his electric blue, three speed bike, abandon it in a haphazard heap on the sidewalk, and ring the doorbell three times.

Ding dong. Ding dong. Ding dong.

Christian smiled his shark-like grin. Showtime.

He opened the door with a flourish. For once in his life, Christian was happy to see Jack. “Come in,” he said.
Jack stared for a moment, seemingly confused by Christian’s sudden congeniality. Christian was never happy to see him. Some babysitter, Christian thought with a smirk.

“Why don’t we hang out in the backyard?” Christian said, already leading the way.

Jack looked around for a moment. “Did your parents get rid of the doghouse?”

“Dog house?” Christian repeated.

“Yeah, you know where you sleep.”

Christian felt his pulse spike. “Shut up,” he growled.

But he didn’t say anything more. No threat, no vicious name calling. He took a deep breath and thought about the pure ecstasy he soon feel—that unmistakable power. He’d felt it once and now he was addicted. Stronger than any illegal substance, power pulled at him, whispered his name. Seduced him the way a girl never could.

He chuckled to himself.

Jack cackled, unaware of the thoughts that swirled in little Christian’s head. “I think,” he said, pulling a hammer from the tool box behind him. “We should build you one.” By the dark glint in Jack’s green eyes, Christian knew that Jack had a new “game” planned.

Too bad.

“Really? I was thinking something completely different.” He circled Jack. He was a muscled kid, twice his size and four years older than him. Jack gave him odd look.

“Confused? Let me make this clear.” He pulled out his father’s gun from his waistband.
He wasn’t nervous. His hands we’re steady. The gun felt right in his hands. The 40 caliber felt like raw power. Christian laughed again. What a marvelous thing, that power. Christian savored the feeling for a moment, before looking over at Jack.

“Say something, say anything,” Christian taunted. “I dare you.”

Jack's breathing became labored. “Christian, man—“ In the course of all of forty five seconds, the bully had become the victim.

“Ah, ah, ah. The only words I want to hear from your mouth, Jack, are ‘sorry’ or some variation.” Christian clicked the safety on the gun.

Click. Safe.
Click. Deadly.
Click. Click. Click. Click.

“I’m s-sorry. Christian, look I’ll stop messing with—“ Jack was interrupted by a gunshot.

He looked down and screamed at the red spot slowly spreading down his leg. And then the pain set in and he barely heard Christian say, “I’m sorry. That’s not the answer I was looking for.”

But he wasn’t sorry.

What a twist ending man! Deffinately not expecting that! My one suggestion would be to have Jack say something more menacing than the joke about the dog house. That was mean and could get annoying over time, but it was deffinately not worth a gun shot. Besides that it was good. Oh, and read over your story out loud because you are missing some articles before nouns. Keep writing!

Whoot, another contest entry! I love them so

So this piece was pretty good. Grammar-wise, there were some mistakes. Story-wise, I felt the end happened way too quickly.

At the start, I wondered what Christian's plan was, who was Jack, why was he so angry. I got those answers, but they were pretty brief. I feel like you could expand on Jack's torment of Christian, show us why this kid would kill someone (how old is he?!). I was shocked when I found out his plan was to shoot his baby-sitter. At the start of this piece the tone felt light, and then suddenly, a-click-and-a-bang and oh-my-gosh-it's-murder! If feel like you could draw out the part where he takes out his gun and contemplates killing him. You have about 400 more words before the max, so try to up the tension. Right now, it's just happening too fast. Also, what did Christian want Jack to say? That was confusing.

Nit-Picks

Like clockwork, he rode up on his electric blue, three speed bike, abandon it in a haphazard heap on the sidewalk, and ring the doorbell three times.

Christian smiled his shark-like grin.

Bold is what you should change.

Also, I sometimes got confused about who was who, and what was doing what. I barely have time to know their names, and they're both males. For example:

He opened the door with a flourish. For once in his life, Christian was happy to see Jack. “Come in,” he said.
Jack stared for a moment, seemingly confused by Christian’s sudden congeniality. Christian was never happy to see him. Some babysitter, Christian thought with a smirk.

I had to read this a couple times to get it.

“Really? I was thinking something completely different.” He circled Jack. He was a muscled kid, twice his size and four years older than him. Jack gave him odd look.

“Confused? Let me make this clear.” He pulled out his father’s gun from his waistband.
He wasn’t nervous. His hands we’re steady. The gun felt right in his hands. The 40 caliber felt like raw power. Christian laughed again. What a marvelous thing, that power. Christian savored the feeling for a moment, before looking over at Jack.

And here it was confusing. Again, just slow down a bit, and most of these problems will fix themselves.

In conclusion, I really like the set-up for this idea. But it went by too fast. Work on building up the tension and it would be amazing. For tips on how to do that, I found this article extremely helpful: http://www.suite101.com/content/how-to-build-tension-in-your-writing-for-kids-a77424

One final note: I don't know if this is required, but it'd be nice to see what the short story generator gave you that made you think of this story.

Hey Lette!

So, here I am.
This is an interesting piece. Your plot was interesting but could've been executed better.

The first thing is since you aren't entering it to the contest, the 1000 word rule doesn't exist. I'd love to see what you can do with this if you spice it up. You started it off really well, but then you kind of rushed things up. And I did like the tone you used.
Description: There could be a lot more description. If you'd like to create tension, description and pace are very important. Also, the brief intro to the characters didn't really form them in my head. SO, as Wario said, some times, the reader gets confused. So, I'd suggest you spend some time on a wee bit of development. Another thing, is that you need to give us a little background info on why Jack feels this way. His age, and whether some particular incident drove him to this. The description you have is good, but you'll need more of it.

“Really? I was thinking something completely different.” He circled Jack. He was a muscled kid, twice his size and four years older than him. Jack gave him odd look.

Here, I am confused as to who is who.

Here:

“Ah, ah, ah. The only words I want to hear from your mouth, Jack, are ‘sorry’ or some variation.” Christian clicked the safety on the gun.

&

“I’m sorry. That’s not the answer I was looking for.”

Okay, these sentences conflict. It maybe intentional but it doesn't give a good effect. Once again, I guess it'd be better if there was a little background info.

But he wasn’t sorry.

This is like a sudden change of POV which I'm a bit iffy about. I'm not sure it does justice to the rest of the piece.

Pace: As I mentioned earlier, this could do with improvement. Besides, slowing things down will improve tension.

Another thing is, I find Christian's character/actions a little confusing to estimate his age. Maybe you could solidify his thoughts/dialogue so that it reflects personality. The lack of background info was just irksome to me especially when it ends like this.

Overall, this was a very good plot, which could be edited to get a really good piece.
Cheers,
~Lava

Heya Scarlette!

Sorry I'm getting to this kind of late... I'm here now though.

Jack looked around for a moment. “Did your parents get rid of the doghouse?”

“Dog house?” Christian repeated.

“Yeah, you know where you sleep.”

I don't want to sound dumb here... but I don't get that.

He took a deep breath and thought about the pure ecstasy he'd soon feel—that unmistakable power

.

Jack cackled, unaware of the thoughts that swirled in little Christian’s head. “I think,” he said, pulling a hammer from the tool box behind him. “We should build you one.” By the dark glint in Jack’s green eyes, Christian knew that Jack had a new “game” planned.

Okay, this whole dog house thing is creeping me out...

“Really? I was thinking something completely different.” He circled Jack. He was a muscled kid, twice his size and four years older than him. Jack gave him odd look. “Confused? Let me make this clear.” He pulled out his father’s gun from his waistband.

“Confused? Let me make this clear.” He pulled out his father’s gun from his waistband.

I moved this dialogue because when I first read it, I though that it was Jack whop was saying the second part. It might just be me being dull, but yeah...


Overall

Like the others have said, I think that this is a good plot idea overall. I do have a strange liking of things like death, drugs, violence and alcohol... but still, I think that this plot would be good, even if I didn't like death and junk. Another thing that I rather liked about reading this was your writing style. It flowed really smoothly and there were no awkward sentences, although there were some times where I got kind of confused in as of who was doing what. Lava has mentioned that to you though, so I won't repeat it all and go into detail. When it comes to your spelling and grammar, I was very impressed. There was only one error that I found in this, and it was a comma one too. I myself fail at using comma's entirely correctly. The same goes for your spelling. I didn't find any misspelled words and your vocabulary as a whole was good and varied.

I'll begin my critique with something that's actually already been said. The main problem I'm finding with this right now is that I'm not feeling, or seeing, any real emotions. The reason for that, I think, is because we simply don't know the character's well enough. From what I gathered, Jack was a babysitter and Christian was a babysittee... (I know that't not a word). I'm not sure if that's actually true though because you mentioned something about Jack being a babysitter, but I wasn't one hundred percent sure about that. Anyway, what I'm saying is that we don't know Jack or Christian well enough. To begin with, what made Christian hate Jack so much, he'd want to kill him? Plus, there was a brief comment about Christian doing it before. If he had killed someone before, I'd like to know more about that. You mentioned something about Christian letting Jack push him around, but if Jack is a babysitter, shouldn't he technically be doing that? What I'm basically trying to say is that I'm a bit confused about a few things. I'd like to see you giving us more details about the characters background. If you do that, you'll answer quite a few of my questions.

Another thing I'd like to mention is about Jack being a babysitter. This is something that I'm not sure is even true. I kind of assumed that because of something that was written in this, plus I couldn't think of any reason Jack would come to Christian's house religiously like that. Also, Christian seemed kind of old. Too old to be babysat. The main reason I thought Jack was a babysitter was because of this...

Some babysitter, Christian thought with a smirk.

This kind of makes it obvious that Jack is, in fact, a babysitter. It's just that because of the age Christian appeared to be, the way Jack was treating him, and the fact that him being a babysitter wasn't mentioned again, I have my doubts that he is actually a babysitter. If Jack is, in fact, a babysitter, I find it kind of weird. He's hardly a nice one, is he? Would a babysitter really tell a kid that they were going to build a dog house for them to sleep in? Well, one that wanted to keep their job, that is. I found that Jack acted like a bit of a weird babysitter, basically.

The only other little thing I'd like to mention is another thing that's actually already been critiqued. I'd like to see you drag out the ending a bit more. For example, you could describe Christian and Jack's body language. Don't tell us that Jack is scared and freaked out, tell us what his body language was like. By doing that, you're telling us that he is afraid, but in a more creative, effective way. I'd like to see you creating some suspense at the point where Christian is holding Jack at gunpoint. He is holding him at gunpoint, after all. It's a pretty suspenseful and tense moment. I'm not going to go into much detail about this because I'll only be repeating what's already been said.

Negatives aside, I did genuinely liked reading this. Reading over my critique, it probably doesn't sound like I did. I did though! I really loved the plot idea, your writing style is great, and even though we didn't know all that much about the characters, I did like them. They were interesting and fun to read about. All that you need to do is to edit this up a bit. If you do that, this could easily be a really good read!

Keep writing,

xoxo Skins