Pull the Trigger

http://i.imgur.com/BStxoUr.jpg

Hiya! Here's another review for you on this fine Thursday night!

*clears throat* *Morgan Freeman voice*

First of all, this is an awesomely-done suspense story. In my belief, the main object of a suspense story should be to create a suspenseful effect and to keep the reader on edge. (NAW, really?) You've done so flawlessly here through the use of the first person narrative as well as through your description of sensory details like smell and hearing.

With any type of short story, I think the first line should act as a hook of sorts to pull the reader in with more hooks placed throughout the body of the work to keep them engaged. Often with shorter stories this pattern doesn't manifest itself. (For the obvious reason that they aren't long enough for that pattern to develop) What's cool about this one is that you've been able to employ a number of hooks within such a short frame. Every sentence actually acted as a hook of sorts and made me want to keep on reading while keeping me engaged with the text.

Whenever I read anything in the first person, one of the first things I look for is a defined narrative voice. That's what I often try to develop within my own writing and what I think gives a narrator a whole new dimension. The tendency with first person narratives is to write in the way that you (the author) would think. That's not a bad thing or a good thing, it just is. I cannot even begin to tell you how many stories I've read (and even wrote myself ) where the narrative style doesn't line up with the narrator's background. Here, you seem to have mastered narrative voice. Now unless you've ever gunned down your best friend, I doubt you share the same thought processes the narrator does. What's cool about character design is the same thing that's cool about real life: everybody is different. For instance, the way you and I might see something may be completely different from the way Spongebob sees something. As writers, it's our job to develop characters' personalities and to make them unique and interesting. Within this short narrative, you've already painted a very defined picture of your narrator and the way they think. Good job there.

As far as constructive criticism goes, the only thing I would suggest is that you go back and add some more emotions to the mix. Don't get me wrong, what you have so far is awesome, but I feel like you could take it even further with the narrator's reaction to what they've just done. Instead of saying "...the realization that I had shot my friend took possession of me and I soon broke down" you could add some magic to scene and say "Upon realizing that I had been the cause of this horrible loss of life, I was overcome by an unrelenting wave of bloodthirsty guilt." Idk. Maybe it's just personal preference. I like my emotions served with lemon on the side. XD

I thought this was very well-written aside from some simple syntax and parallelism things. For instance, "the fresh smell of old blood". If you were trying to draw the contrast there between the narrator's perception and reality, cool extended metaphor with the oxymoron there. If not, I'd suggest saying the fresh smell of dry blood or something like that. (basically anything other than old.) Also, I feel like there's room fro you to expand on your description of the friend's body. To be honest, I was a little bit confused about it being "contorted in an awfully impossible condition-if he were alive." Just the structure of that sentence had me a little lost. I'm not really sure what you meant to communicate with this line, but I kinda just assumed you meant position instead of condition and that the body still seemed to be alive. If that's what you were going for, I'd suggest rewriting that sentence to make it a little less obscure. The ironic thing about it is that the vagueness and obscurity is what makes the second half of this story so awesome. That element acts as a very interesting parallel to the narrator's state of bewilderment and glassy-eyed guilt. That ending was super cool.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this and I think you have a very cool idea here. The concept of having killed your best friend and not even knowing why is especially captivating. Not to mention the whole dynamic of sanity versus insanity that I picked up from this story. Split personality thing goin' on maybe? Either way, it was awesome. Good job, buddy! I hope this review helps you should you choose to continue working on this one. Never stop writing! Ever!

Hi there, Gaurav here for a brief review.

This is pretty original. I loved the fact that I could predict the suspense, yet be engrossed enough to actually read it. Very few stories are written with such conviction! Kudos to you

What you need is proof-reading. As mentioned by previous reviewers, you need to correct few typos.

The hope I'd had in my heart for finding a way out of this ordeal was stripped from me the instant my own friend's life was taken from this world.

I have serious problem with this sentence. It looks really uncomfortable and broke the smooth momentum of your story. Replace 'instant' with 'moment' and break the sentence into two sentences [Personal opinion.]

Hello MooCow, I like this story and the images, very striking. Some smallsuggestions if I may. Second paragraph, take out the "had" from "realization that I had shot my friend" to separate the two time periods of '24 hours ago' and 'now.' "The body contorted in an awfully impossible condition" sounds clunky to me. I think it's the word "condition." Doesn't give any details. I know what you're getting at, but I think it can be worded better. "a scratching and moaning noise" would be better as just "There was scratching and moaning coming from the other side of the wall..." And "imminent demise" sounds just a little too dramatic. Hope that helps even a little.

hey Trina here to review

first thing, I dont know if it is meant to be there but you have repeated the word 'of' twice in the first sentence...
I think this is a good piece, just be careful about punctuation and your grammar choices

One last thing... I like the sentence "So the hand twitched nervously, the fingers shook with uncertainty" I think this is very cleaver, how you described the hands and fingers separately..
Good job, Keep it up!

Hello there MooCow! I am not accustomed to short story reviewing, so I will concentrate on pacing and SPG.
On the second sentence of the first paragraph "The" and "shell" should be sseparate words. Later on in that sentence I think you are missing an "as". Also I dislike the "--". I think a comma would work less clunky there. In the second paragraph I think the ellipsis should be replaced by a full stop. If you want to maintain the balance betwixt those sentences then a colon or semicolon.
Finally I dislike the first line of the final paragraph where it repeats "tunnel". I see this was done for effect but it doesn't work unless you were previously talking about the gun in minute detail, for instance "This handheld toy of mass destruction. A bullet. A trigger. A small dark tunnel is all that it takes to take him." (Except preferably better )
Hope this helps,
Take That You Fiend!