For some odd reason, I wake up and have a sneaking hunch that something strange is going on. I carefully scan my room in search of anything odd.
At first I overlook it, but I turn my head back and widen my eyes at what I see.
In front of me, a ghostly gray door lies in the center of my wall. It is about the size of the door to a crawl space. That isn’t even the weirdest part, the door starts glowing and a bright light flashes. When the light dims, I look at the door again. This time, I see a keyhole had been engraved in the round, golden handle, along with ancient hieroglyphics. I wish I could read them.
At first, I think this is a nightmare and try to wake up, but I can’t. Out of panic, I desperately scream for my parents, and they come racing in. To my surprise, the door disappears. When I tell them what I had seen, my father calmly tells that it was a nightmare and I should go back to sleep. But there was something off about his expression when I described the door to him. Attempting to take their advice, I crawl back into bed. My parents quickly tell me goodnight , and tiptoe out of my room without making a sound.
Once they are gone, the door reappears. This time, the door is calling for me. Creepy voices whisper my name. Terrified, I fall out of my bed and try to run, but I can’t open the door to my room. It is locked.
Instantly, I feel something ice-cold and paper thin around my neck. This sends a shiver down my spine. It tightens around me and I attempt to break free, but it’s grip only gets worse. I am immediately paralyzed with fear. After a minute of struggling with the chain, I finally build up enough courage to look down. I am not at all surprised by what I see, the chain of a necklace. Of course, the significant part, is what’s attached. On the center of the bronze chain, lies a bronze key. However, this particular key isn’t ordinary. It looks old and rusted, yet beautiful. The amount of effort put into this elaborate detail is astounding. You can tell that this key is of importance, for the same hieroglyphics that were on the door, are engraved in the key.
I begin to reach for the immaculate key, but before I can, it floats into mid-air and begins to pull me across the room with a sudden intensity. The kind of pain I feel right now, is something I could never explain . As the enchanted key drags me across my bedroom, I hear the clatter of books beneath my feet, my walls are shrinking in, and the floorboards around me are cracking and opening like they would in an earthquake. Finally, I manage to ignore the pain for a moment and look to see where it is pulling me.
When I look up, I see that I am being pulled toward the mystical door. The whispers I had previously heard, have become blood curdling screams. Slowly, my heartbeat begins to feel like I am being hit in the chest with a brick. I try to resist. Fighting with all the might I have, I know that I have lost the battle. The key continues to pull me towards the door. On the spur of the moment, I kick my legs up and push against the doorway. But the key fights back. The chain tightens and forces me to give up. I lean forward in surrender to the magic that lies before me. Still, barely believing what is clearly in front of me. The key puts itself in the door handle and unlocks the door. Slowly, the door creaks open, and the voices stop. There is a brief pause, as if the door wants me take this all in, but before any of this completely registers in my mind, I am pulled into the utter darkness that lies beyond.
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125,007 Literary Works • 672,815 Reviews
Hi! Cricket here for a review!
Thankfully, I didn't take as long as I normally would getting to this, so here goes.
One thing that I noticed about this, is that, if ever made into a movie, it would definitely be a thriller, right? Or a horror. Either one, it is pretty cool reading.
The first thing that I noticed was a little odd, is how on earth would somebody miss over a door in their room? Sure it is dark, and you did describe the door as being grey, but still? It's dark right now in my room (night still) and I know I wouldn't miss a door that suddenly appeared right in the middle of my room. Maybe when she's scanning the room, she see's something and even though she can't quite make out that it's a door just yet, you can have her lean forward and try and see what it is. And then from there she can make out that there's this door just sitting there in her room. Make sense?
Next, I would like to talk about how describe the door when she see's it. From the way she describes it, you would think that she is seeing a picture of it at a museum. There is no life to the description! There is no life to what is happening right now. And the reason for that is because you are telling this; and not showing it. What you need to do is examine your style of writing, or at least certain aspects of it. Look at how you describe. Do you think you describe in a way that would entice the reader? Little phrases like and that's not even the weirdest part ect.., didn't help grab my attention. Rather they ruined the effect, because you are just telling us it. Another little example would be her saying that she wished she could read them. Get rid of that. Instead of saying outright and blatant like that she wants to read them, give an example or a social interaction with somebody where she says that she wishes she could read them. See what I mean? If not, then I'd be happy to explain further.
The next little thing that I would to discuss, is how you do your action. Sure you explain step by step in a very neat process everything, but you forget some things. For instance, when she falls out of bed and onto the floor... does it hurt? Does she bang her shoulder at all? What exactly does her body feel like when she hits the floor? Little details like that matter, as your reader is experiencing what your character is, and if your character falls off the bed... then you need to give the reaction to the reader to experience. Make sense?
How does she try and wake up? Pinch herself, slap her face, how does she do it?
Show us that she's terrified, don't tell us.
No comma is needed after part.
I liked this description! Keep it up. ^^
Basically, just work on getting rid of the telling in your story, and try to put more show in. You have a lot of things at your disposal when it comes to this. Examples, dialogue, ect.., Examples, and description of what the character is going through is one of the best ways to do it. Dialogue is good when trying to get information across. You can always try and convey some of this information to us, by her giving it to her parents when she's telling them what she saw. That way we don't feel like the information is being shoved in our faces. Right? Just an idea. ^^
Okay, I believe that is all from me for now. I will move on to the next chapter now, and review it as soon as I can.
Keep writing!
~Cricket
Thank you! I will be sure to go back and edit my work.
Hey there, Lycando here to review!
I really liked how you started off with that air of mystery, it got me hooked up straight off!
But I agree with steampowered, it would be really hard to overlook a door that has just appeared in your room, especially if it's ghost gray in color
Also, I think the part where you introduce your character's parents were a little short. It's like her parents came in, told her everything was alright, and left. Make your character a little more scared, maybe he/she started crying and begging for her parents to do something. It's this kind of thing that gives you a chance to build your character up. It also allows the reader to feel for the character in a sense.
This part's a little weird. So, your character knows he/she is struggling with a chain, but then has to look down to really see it?
For the last part when all the chaos was happening, would he/she even have become more frightened and started screaming for his/her parents while trying to fight it herself? The first time he/she did call for her parents so it would kind of make sense for him/her to probably scream for help once more.
Other than that, I think this was a very good piece of work, and I'm looking forward to see where you take your character next.
Hope this review helped!
Thank you for your review and encouragement. That was very helpful
Hi, steampowered here for a review!
This was really intriguing, and I loved the concept of a door appearing in the wall. It was well-written, and there was lots of amazing detail. I definitely want to read on, and find out what happens next!
Now, your first sentence didn’t sit quite right with me. Your character has a sneaking hunch? A door has appeared out of nowhere, and they wake up feeling a bit suspicious? I’d have thought they’d have been a bit more nervous, perhaps with a spine-chilling feeling that all is not as it should be…
I know this is a first chapter but I don’t really know anything about the main character, and I think it would be nice if the reader could be given some clues. Perhaps their parents could mention them by name, so we at least know what they’re called, and if they are male or female. Maybe you could even add in the parents’ conversation in the form of actual dialogue, so there’s a bit of variation and it isn’t all action? You could also put in some more of the character’s thoughts, so we get a feel for their voice and the way they react in their head to certain situations.
There’s something off about the father’s expression? Going back to the idea of the parents’ dialogue and actually writing the conversation, I think would be really nice if you could show this rather than tell it. The father could give the mother a meaningful look, mutter something to her or give a false smile. There’s a real sense of intrigue here, as he clearly knows something about this door (maybe he’s even visited Arabeth before?) The question is: does he want his child to go through it, or might he try and persuade them to move out of their bedroom? Is he worried?
I also wasn’t sure if the present tense was entirely appropriate. Sometimes it works well. But unless your story has a lot of action in it, I’d consider changing it to the past tense. Obviously it’s just a suggestion, and it might be just that I have a personal preference for stories that are written in the past tense, but it might be something to consider. On the other hand, the present tense sets it apart from other fantasy stories, which tend to be in the past tense, but it’s really up to you whether you want to change it or not.
Overall I thought this was an amazing and very promising start, and I would love to read on and find out more about this intriguing world you’ve hinted at, and why this particular character was chosen to go through the door. Please keep writing!
Technically, this is chapter three of my book. I understand the confusion. Thank you for your helpful review!
Heya pretzelsing here for a review, I see that you are a very new YWS and I have to say welcome to out club, I hope that you like it here and here is my review.I LOVED this chapter.
First of all I have to say that I will follow your novel for sure and review every chapter. I have been searching to adopt a novel and I promise that I will review all of your chapters. With that being said here we go:
For me personally the off is unnecessary and it pops out of the text as weird and it halters the flow and the visual appeal of the sentence.
Here is another nitpick
Maybe you should use more descriptive words than cold and thin. What if you said: ice-cold and chilly or slim? Just work on using more descriptive adjectives in that particular quote.Also all a sudden is too cliche and common, write something more unique like in an instant, or the next moment.
Throughout your whole writing I have to say that you did show not tell.Awesome!That is just great. In particular I like this sentence;
My personal recommendation to that sentence to make it flow better would be to change it up and say: Slowly,my heartbeat feels like I am being hit on the chest with a brick. That is just a suggestion, so you could give or take but I'm just throwing it out to you.
Another thing here that I felt was unnecessary:
That word just isn't needed there in my opinion. Would you be shocked if you saw a keyhole in a door? I personally wouldn't.
Again here is another cliche:
Your last sentence makes me want to know what happened next, and what is beyond the darkness. I can't wait until your next chapter when it comes out!
I hope that this review helps and I truly encourage you to keep on writing.You truly have a talent. If you have any questions, please PM me.
-pretzelsing
Thank you for your help. I will be sure to make the changes!