Shadows

I liked the idea that there is a lot of things that the reader can interpret from it but at the same time I feel like I don't really know who this character is. Whenever you write a story that is this short, you have to at least give us a clue to who this person is. As a reader, I can't develop this story in my mind without knowing a little bit about the main character. To me, it felt like she or he was a complete stranger. Considering that you put a 50 word limit on it, I would have spent less time advertising what was going on in the scene and more time introducing the character. Also, I'm a little confused as to the genre of the story. When I was reading it, I thought that the thing attacking her was a wolf or a dog but then I looked up and saw supernatural. I don't think supernatural or fantasy are genres to use in short short stories because they require you to use a lot of words to paint the image that your seeing in your mind into the reader's mind. They're just way too complicated for a story this short. Other than that I thought it was okay. To be honest, it's not that bad, it just lacks substance and detail.

I would say, you need to put more, lines. More of a taste of the story.
And is sliver silver? And, I'm confused by him. Is he an orb or a person?
Its a story, it just needs some TLC (Tender Loving Care) to get it going. It seems to give us the visuial. We just need maybe some mental idea. Like, 'And I thought of myself, lying in a pool of rose red blood, my life draining away, slowly.' Its up to you, but, I think it needs more mental detail.
And one last thing, how do you grin and snarl at the same time?
Remember the TLC.

It's been pointed out that this doesn't quite bring across a story, but I beg to disagree. There is a story - there's clearly a conflict, a beginning, some characters, and some semblance of an end.

It's just not a very well-executed one.

Given a limit of fifty words, I'm surprised you spent as much of them as you did on adjectives. Cut them down to give you more wiggle room for the story - or, if you've nothing more to add to the plot, emotions. Make us feel what your protagonist feels. This is first person, so try harder to immerse the reader in the world of your narrator. If you can't do this, change the POV to third person. No point in first person if you can't bring the reader closer to the narrator - that's the main advantage first person offers.

Also, silver orb? Kind of overdone. Try moon. It's of particular importance in flash fiction that you don't use any more words than you absolutely have to.

Another thing to note - Have you tried grinning and snarling at the same time? No? Try it. It's no means an easy feat, and I doubt your antagonist would be focused on positioning his lips that way when he's got a warm meal (or so I assume) right in front of him. I also doubt your protagonist would be thinking of pungent smells and silver orbs and malice of shadows while a beast intent on harming her - and this is me being optimistic - lunges at her. Her thoughts would either be a. I can handle this, or b. Oh God I'm going to die. Focus on those to make the story feel more solid.

I can't say I'm a fan of hanging endings, but I'm definitely set against ellipses that go with a hanging ending. No. Just no. Ending it with an ellipsis kills any tension the final few words might deliver. On the topic of final few words, try to make them have more of an impact. They're weak and make me go, "Meh." I assume you'd want the reader to worry for the character.

To make us worry for your character, you need to do a few things:


1. Establish a connection between your reader and your character.

Make us care. So there's this random chick who gets mauled by something with fangs. Okay. What's so special about her? Hundreds of chicks in countless books have been ripped into pieces by similar creatures. Your character will be a statistic until you make her different for the reader.

2. Emotions and Thoughts

Put more of them in. This is a first-person POV piece, isn't it? Emotions are key to first-person. So are thoughts. The reader is basically in the protagonist's head. They need to know what she's thinking, what she's feeling, and what she's seeing. If she doesn't think of something, then don't put it in there.

Another reason to change your wording: do you really think "yearning for flesh" when something is trying to eat you?

3. Make the danger feel real

This one is up to you, but I suggest you expand past "pungent smell" and "menacing fangs". It's difficult to visualize anything that'll strike fear in the reader's heart given just that. You don't necessarily have to describe the creature - you can just describe his other victims - the ones whose intestines are half-eaten - and that'll be a good enough clue for the reader. Or you could describe him. Either way, strengthen the fear.

Lastly, end on a stronger note. You want your last sentence to hit the reader with everything you have, especially since this is supposed to be a hanging ending. Remember: no redundancy, no extra words, and no ellipsis.

Azirah

Hello, Angelrose! I'm Rose, and I'm here to review this piece for you today.

First, welcome to YWS. I hope that you like it here as much as I do. There are an incredible amount of incredibly talented people on this site; they've helped me grow as a writer and kept me passionate about writing since I've joined. If you have any questions about the site or anything at all, please feel free to ask me or any of them and we'll help you out, okay? Cool. Now, on to the review.

I love the idea of writing mini-fiction. From experience, I know that condensing a short story into a paragraph is extremely challenging. In my opinion, it's much easier to write a thousand-word story than to do what you've done here.

"The sliver orb glinted in the sky above me. Stepping cautiously out between the trees, I faced him. Grinning and snarling, he charged towards me, his pungent smell in the air and menacing fangs yearning for flesh. As he came for me, he unleashed the malice of shadows with him..."

This is a good piece. It makes me think of a wolf - possibly a werewolf - hunting its prey. I'm a fan of wolves, so I like this. I don't see any grammatical errors. The only thing I'm not sure about is the use of the ellipsis at the end of the paragraph. Personally, I would've ended the paragraph with a period instead of an ellipsis to lend a sense of closure to the piece, but that's merely a personal preference. If you like it the way it is, don't change a thing.

Overall, this is a good piece. Again, welcome to YWS. I look forward to seeing more of your work.

Always keep writing!

-Rose

You caught my attention. Very interesting and splendid. I enjoyed.

Okay, let me say this. I've done quick fiction before and it isn't supposed to be like this. You have a really good image and an interesting story with some characters that could quite possibly be interesting, if we knew them better. I like the image of the animal or whatever the "He" was. The issue definitely isn't in the idea, because the idea is pretty cool.

The issue lies in the fact that this just isn't what quick fiction is. The point of quick fiction, or hint fiction or whatever you call it, is to get across an entire idea, an entire plot line, in less than 50 words. Here, you only focused on imagery. Imagery is good, but when you are doing quick fiction, imagery is more of a no-no. Imagery is not the flesh and bone when it comes to Quick fiction, plot has to be the flesh and bone. And yes, I know how hard it is to create a plot and resolve it in less than 50 words but it IS possible.

Let me give you an example of one I wrote a little while ago.

CYSTIC FIBROSIS
20 years from now, he’ll probably be dead. For now, all he does is laugh. She loves his smile.

DO you see how it is the story that brings the reader in? Its the plot, the way you show your characters quickly but fully. You have to be able to get to the heart of the idea you want to convey quickly and NOT in a subtle way.

As well as being bold and quick about it, you HAVE HAVE HAVE to choose a title that works. Your title is cliched and frankly, it doesn't get across what you needed to get across. The title is the most important piece of quick fiction. It is the first thing you read, and so you have to choose it so that it really fits and moves your fiction forward. Did you read my title? It makes you think of medical stuff, and if you know what cystic fibrosis is, then you already know that it is a fatal disease. Using that as my title causes the reader to already figure out that whatever the character is dealing with must be illness. It helps the reader to understand whats going on. Use the title to your advantage. Its the most important part of quick fiction, and obviously, i can't stress that anymore.

If you have any questions or would like me to help you fix up your quick fiction, just PM me.

EMMY

This is a very good mini saga! Your description was excellent and I like the language you used. I.e. pungent, yearning, malice. You have left the readers to paint the scenery and imagery and have left me wondering what happened after the events described in your mini saga. I think this could actually be changed from a mini saga into a novel and be very successful.

Well, for one, this is very short..like some random lines written...you should post something bigger than that...

Well..it sounds kind of very interesting lines for a start of a story which I liked..though, as I said..more would've been better..these are like three lines, so not much to point out in the mistakes department..though, these lines forms a mental image which makes me thing about it..so good job!