Dark Secrets prologue

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

Anyway let's get right to it,

Tonight wasn't just another night for Annie Marie who was lounging around by the hotel pool; tonight her fiancé had something important to tell her even though since the day she said yes she's been regretting it, regretting him and what he stood for. She had a bad feeling about tonight the wind was blowing her Raven black hair in every which way the waves crashed against the sand angrily, today felt like hell. Her new boss came in yelling looking tomato red at her for not bothering to introduce her to her colleagues, but who could blame her? He was an ass who gained no respect through the way he yelled only enemies. She stood up glancing up at the hotel which was named Hunt's Castle finding it rather amusing that she was at a hotel named after her soon to be wed. A chill ran up her spine causing her to sit up straight, her spine like a ruler that caused catholic children everywhere to run and hide. She looked at the gate of the pool seeing a dark figure standing there with Hatred filled eyes that seemed to penetrate her very soul. Her heart picked up its lazy speed fighting the urge not to scream at the way he seemed to watch her like, like the way a predator watches its prey. She hated the feeling of being stuck in the pool with her only exit blocked by the figure that seemed intent on staying there. working up the courage she stood up showing the arrogance that made kings proud and walked directly at him frowning as she saw the glint in his eyes that made them go startling red for a minute. She stumbled back reaching out blindly for something to stop her fall only to have the man reach out and pull her into his cool arms. She shivered he was colder than most people she met in her life much more terrifying up close as he smiled and pulled her closer in a grip that had her gasping for air filling her throat with his sweet scent. "P-please.." her cry was cut short with a sting to her neck that sent such ecstasy to her she nearly blanked out, clutching him closer to get more of the feel and then as quickly as it begun her mind went blank and she could no longer see anything just stuck in the dark oblivion she would come to know all to well, she was dead.

OKayy...well, before I can dive into how I felt about the content of this story here, I'm gonna start out by talking about the formatting for a bit, cause this at the moment, is a really big bunch of text and that just does not lend itself very well towards being easy to read. At the moment, this is a big ol' chunk that ends with a messed up flow and its just a bit hard to follow as a reader. So I'd suggest breaking this up into quite a few pieces considering how big the paragraph actually is and the number of things that happen here.

Moving onto the piece itself, I think you manage to convey this growing sense of unease and horror that eventually leads to this character's death quite well here...you've really built up a very good sense of tension from the first few lines itself and you slowly build it up quite nicely throughout the piece until the whole thing comes to a proper climax towards the end. The atmosphere that you manage to create is truly chilling here.

Overall, I think this is a pretty well executed piece right here. I actually liked it quite a bit and I think its definitely interesting enough here that I'd certainly want to read more of it but there's just this tiny issue with the formatting of things.

Aaaaand that's it for this one.

As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.

Stay Safe
Harry

Hey DarkShadow!

Got a few bits of critique for you here. Fortunately, they're pretty easy fixes and come down to two words. First word: paragraphs. Second: punctuation. Right now it's hard to read your story because all the text is in one fat word blob, and without any punctuation...well, it's a fat word blob oozing everywhere. (Sorry for that image... gross.)

Anyway, paragraphs. There's no rule on how or when to make a new paragraph, and you generally just get a feel for it. But, look at your favorite book and see when your favorite authors split their paragraphs. Also, technically speaking, paragraphs are cohesive units, so whenever a sentence doesn't tie in with the other sentences, it's new paragraph time. So, to give an example...

Tonight wasn't just another night for Annie Marie who was lounging around by the hotel pool; tonight her fiancé had something important to tell her even though since the day she said yes she's been regretting it, regretting him and what he stood for.

She had a bad feeling about tonight the wind was blowing her Raven black hair in every which way the waves crashed against the sand angrily, today felt like hell. Her new boss came in yelling looking tomato red at her for not bothering to introduce her to her colleagues, but who could blame her? He was an ass who gained no respect through the way he yelled only enemies.

She stood up glancing up at the hotel which was named Hunt's Castle finding it rather amusing that she was at a hotel named after her soon to be wed. A chill ran up her spine causing her to sit up straight, her spine like a ruler that caused catholic children everywhere to run and hide.

She looked at the gate of the pool seeing a dark figure standing there with Hatred filled eyes that seemed to penetrate her very soul. Her heart picked up its lazy speed fighting the urge not to scream at the way he seemed to watch her like, like the way a predator watches its prey. She hated the feeling of being stuck in the pool with her only exit blocked by the figure that seemed intent on staying there.

Besides being useful to split the text into manageable chunks, paragraphs can also make things seem more intense or faster-paced or dramatic. Again, it all takes getting used to, and it's an art not a science. What I did above was just what I would do, to give you an idea of the options out there.

On the note of punctuation... you have run-ons and missing commas and missing periods galore in here. Again, looking at your favorite book will help you. Turn on MS Word's spelling and grammar checker. Most of all, proofread. Read things aloud to help catch mistakes. And if you don't know the rules, look them up. YWS has a good resource on some of the trickier bits of punctuating: forum151.html

Now, on a story note... I like that Anne Marie isn't going to be a main character, and I also like that she gets killed at the end of the prologue. (That makes me sound so cynical. Oh noes.) The fact that we get to know Anne Marie a little bit and then she dies... makes for a much more compelling prologue than just some random girl getting killed by a vampire. Also, you do a nice job of letting the reader in on information that the character isn't aware of--dark creature, she's not so much for her fiance, hotel is named after that fiance, mwahahahaha.

Anyway, let me know if you have any questions! I'm always here to help

Rach

Woah, really good! I like the part when you wrote,

DarkShadow wrote:caused catholic children everywhere to run and hide.

It was pretty funny. Great job! I really like it.