Trev

Hi, Cspr :D you always remind me of the friendly ghost lol.

Love took in the cemetery

This really threw me for a loop. It took me quite a while to realise that Love was the characters name, and that you weren't referring to the emotion. Perhaps it might be worth using a different name?

The beginning seems to move very fast, is there a world limit for the contests you're entering this for (I did get a prompt from Azlia, but I've not had any time to have a bash at it ;___;) because it seems quite jumpy and disorientated. We're at a cemetery and then -- seemingly all of a sudden -- we're at a motel. It's not a very clear transition and seems a little all over the place, with little linking all the pieces together.

I'm not really sure that I quite understand the part about Trev being petite, naturally I assume that you mean short but it just doesn't seem quite right? I guess I feel like petite is quite a feminine word. I don't know how old kids are in high school, but he does seem quite young. Also, for somewhere that Love seems to be so terrified of with regards to her siblings, she doesn't seem too concerned about her own safety as far as I can tell.

You've got a chunk of dialogue, there Love and Trev are drinking fanta and talking about monsters, but it reads a little strangely. I think we all get it into our heads at some point that more descriptive dialogue markers are better, but often just plain old said works wonders. Unlink blinked, or chocked, or grinned, which we properly process, said' just skipped over, almost like an invisible word. At the moment, for what little the two are saying to each other it seems like there's an awful lot of action going on. Personally, I think you could do with a few more said in place of the other, more descriptive, markers, which should improve the flow a little.

I'm not sure that I quite understand the last section, with the monster. I think in your original version it makes more sense because you actually explain what's happening a little more, whereas in this version it all seems a little muddled. It does remind me of a series of books by Scott Westerfeld, called the Midnighters Trilogy, as part of it involved the protagonists fighting dark beasties with metal weapons. I'm not sure if you've ever read the series, but Love with her copper pipe reminded me of it.

I hope that I've been of some use to you! If you have any questions or anything, feel free to shoot me a PM or whatnot. :D

And good luck with the competitions!


-- Tinny

Hey Cspr! You don't have any reviews yet! :O Let me fix that

Red will be nitpick edits.
Blue will be comments.

Love had taken in the gated cemetery, tombstones with familiar names. The town and streets shared names with those dead. She’d grasped the bars and felt the cold of the metal seep into her joints then continued on. She’d kicked beer cans and the hems of her jeans brushed the cracked sidewalk.
I find the tense here to be weird. Everything is had [verb]ed, but sounds like it should be simply past tense in context with the rest of the story. It might work better to change this to past tense and connect it directly to her going into Moe's.

When school was out, you had few options of pastimes in deep land-of-the-mosquitoes. If you lived here, you probably didn’t want to go home, either. So you walked.

High school was about finished for her. She’d be moving on soon, leaving this place behind. Here's probably a place where you could cut words. It doesn't really fit in with the rest of the story, so it's not really important. I can see how letting the reader know her age by saying she's just finishing high school would be important, but it could probably be said in fewer words and in a way that connects to the rest of the story better.

But now, sitting in Moe’s with its killed game on the walls and unique sandwiches, she felt regretful. Of course, that had nothing to do with the cluttered place. It had more to do with the boy out the window, him across the road. He was by the gas station and motel on the curb. It had more to do with the boy out the window, sitting on the curb by the gas station and motel across the road.Those two sentences are worded awkwardly, and the information given in both of them really worked a bit better in one sentence. This is another way to cut word-count, cut out wordiness and give descriptions in shorter bits that won't bog down a reader but will still keep them interested.

Trevor had always been special. Not boyfriend material; he was practically jail bait now. Why? Of course, she didn’t know how old he was. She just knew he went to the high school and was jittery and nervous as a new race horse. These two sentences could probably be combined in the same way, something like: She didn't know how old he was, just that he went to the high school and was jittery and nervous as a new race horse. Also, I really like that description. Oh, you could probably cut either jittery or nervous as they mean essentially the same thing. All wide eyes and fear.

That scared her. She was meant to protect people and she knew it. She’d protected people before. Yet, she never seemed to do Trevor any good. Why? It seems there should be a bit more insight into this character. The reader essentially knows nothing at all about her, yet there is never any really good explanation about her or her past.

She sighed, put down what remained of her sandwich, and slapped some money onto the table. She breezed past the owner of the shop, Al, without a word.

For the sake of word count and story coherency, this is a pretty good beginning but it could be trimmed down. When writing something as short as 500 words, a lot of the more flowery stuff in a story is sacrificed to word count. That being so, it's still important to get all of the need-to-know information into the story. Just because it's short doesn't mean it can forget some of that important story-telling stuff that longer stories have too.

What's really missing here are only a few things:
A. Who is Love? We know that she is just out of high school, good. But we also find out that she is responsible for "protecting" people, and never get a good explanation as to why that is. Since this seems to be an integral part of her character, it's something the reader should be told at some point in the story. Maybe not exactly there when it's said she feels she is a protector, but at some point.
B. Who is Trevor? I really like the description given of him. It give the reader an idea of his character without being overly wordy for your allotted word count. What we aren't told, though, is why he is "jail bait". That also seems to be an important part of his character that the reader could use a few words on.

She’d bought Fantas. They rotted your teeth, but Trevor liked them. Standing in front of him, she knew she’d needed a peace offering. His eyes were vacant black pools. The same thing here as at the beginning with the weird tenses. But especially here, this bit happening here is directly before the dialogue that follows, so it should have the same tense.

“What’s up?” she asked, holding out a can for him.

He blinked. “I’m hunting.”

“Hunting?” she asked. There wasn’t much to hunt here, This would be a good place to add a few words setting-wise, to ensure the reader understands it's an urban setting for the sake of the contest. unless you counted rabbit-sized sewer rats.

He hummed. “Yeah, you want to see?”

He stood up, not taking the drink, and went down an alley. She shivered again and, remembering she had fricking bear spray This doesn't make sense to me. Why is it important that she has bear spray? Are they in a place where bears are wild? In that case, what exactly is this "urban setting" they are in supposed to be like? like a smart individual, followed. Trev was small, anyway. Tiny for this world they both lived in; this town. This makes it seem like their world is not our world. In which case, a few worlds explaining what is different about this world would be beneficial for a reader.What could he do?

This is the strongest part of this story. It's apparent that it gets across the most important plot building elements, and the most important information surrounding that plot. I would change much here, other than to clarify a few things for the sake of coherency.

She barely had a chance to move away the second she stepped into the dark to avoid the black mass. There's a lot wrong grammatically with this sentence that makes it really hard to understand. First, it should connect better with the sentence above it, as it at least seems to directly follow the previous action in the story. Second, there are a good bit of coherency problems. I think what makes it most confusing are the words that I've bolded. I don't really understand the motion in that portion, and think the sentence would be overall stronger without it. So:
She barely had a chance to move to avoid the black mass.
Short, sweet, and to the point

A black mass that landed heavy on Trev.

She did something irrational then. She picked up a piece of pipe and swung. It hit home and then the thing was just gone.

She blinked.

The place seemed brighter--bright enough for her to see Trev and his bloodied lip flat on his back.

“W-what was that?”

Trev smiled. “You wanted to know what I was hunting. Now you know,” he said. “Monsters.”

She knew in that shudder-inflicting moment that getting out had suddenly become out of the question. I think this would make more sense if she had expressed thoughts of "getting out" previous to this. Or maybe she did, and I just don't understand here. Does she mean getting out of the city? If so, it could be clarified a tad She didn’t know how but she knew.

She felt along the copper pipe she still held and felt awe like she never had before. For the sake of word count, you can cut copper from the sentence. It doesn't really matter a whole lot in-context.

“What did you do?” Trev asked.

She couldn’t find a suitable response to that.

Alright, now this last part is also pretty strong except for the very end. There needs to be a better connection between what just happened and Trev's question.

He's asking the question, I assume, due to how she hit the monster and it disappeared. But first they had a whole little conversation about what he was doing. This question, in the way it's worded now, doesn't really fit into the context of their conversation. It might work better if there was some description showing Trev looking at the pipe, or to where the monster had seemingly disappeared, and then asking her how she managed to get rid of it. Then it might be good to have some description showing Love as confused herself, and then throw in the "she couldn't find a suitable response to that" bit, because it's really a good line.

Now, overall, I think this story could benefit from some re-plotting. Or, not re-plotting, but it could be better fit on a plot scale. Because even though it's short, it's still a story, and should have those same elements of plot that longer stories have in order to be effective. That being: introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution.

For the sake of word count (but really, for any story) it's best to start as absolutely close to the action as possible. In the case of this story, I think you could really slim down that whole first part. Anything excess can be cut. My suggestion would be maybe to have Love go from walking down the street to finding Trev sitting on the curb across the road (cutting the whole bit in Moe's). That cuts a lot of extra words, since that scene didn't really give much to the overall story. Instead, maybe she could stop in someplace to buy the fantas as a peace offering. In essence, your introduction should be short and sweet, giving only the information the reader needs to start the story (i.e. who is Love, who is Trent, where are they, what are they doing).

The rising action would be their conversation before going into the alley, which is good. Then, climax, when the "black mass" attacks. Falling action would be their conversation after Love makes the thing disappear. The resolution would be those last few lines. Everything you have from rising action on is already pretty strong, and just needs a bit of tweaking. In the end, what really needs work is the introduction.

Oh, also, this story can really do without the breaks (#) and would benefit from just being one flowing piece. Those breaks are only really needed when skipping a large amount of time.

So, wrapping it all up:
Cut excess words
Improve coherency
Clean up the introduction
Tweak the rest

You have a really good start here, especially for something so short! Hope you made it through this unexpectedly long review xD Good luck with the contests! If you have any questions or anything, feel free to shoot me a PM or something!

Keep writing!

-Lauren-