Freedom. That's all I want. I want to be freed from this living hell. I want to go back to the times where there wasn't man-eating zombies.When you could walk around your neighborhood without having to carry a gun and knife. When there wasn't an army stopping you from going to far. Mom used to tell me about times like those. Back when she was young. But that was over 30 years ago. 30 years of Hell. How could anyone want to live that long? She told me stories of blue skies, and times of joy. All I see around us now is gray skies, and misery. It seems to be everyone for themselves out here. If you want something, g find someone that has it and take it from them. Hell, kill them if you need to. As long as you get wat you need. That's what our world has come to. Kill one another until there's no one left. There are no rules here. Murder is a regular thing. But so is getting eaten by monsters. I remember reading a book about the human race and demons, and it asked, "Whose the real monster here?" I guess that's the type of question to ask now. Who is the real monster? The ones who have to kill the living for food in order to survive? Or the living who kill one another out of greed? It's sickening to think about. I was sitting by the window, and just so happened to look out by the wall. ( a manmade stone wall used to keep out zombies where soldiers re constantly.) A man was walking by, and waved hello to a soldier, who didn't respond. Another man ran at him, stabbed him in the chest, and took the apple he was carrying. As the old man layed there, he reached out to the soldier for help, his bood spraying all over himself. The soldier did nothin but wait... wait for the old man's body to go cold. He searched it for anythin valuable, then tossed it over the wall, where hungry zombies waited. When the man was over, they tor his body to shreads. Ripping limbs off, and feasting on all the little meat the man had. But that couldn't satisfy them all. They would still sit there and wait for the next meal. This is why I want freedom. To be able able to walk outside without the constant fear of who will try to kill me. But no. That is te world now, and like everyother citizen, I must obey the rules of a lawless world.
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139,388 Literary Works • 672,542 Reviews
Knight Malachi here to review.
So first of all there are typos galore, like all over the place. Examples:
If you want something, g find someone
Should be go, not g.
That is te world now, and like everyother citizen,
should be the, not te, and everother needs a space in between.
There were at least four or five other typos that I noticed.
Also, you posted this all as one big clump, which really makes it hard to read. In fact, when I read it, and then re-read it to find some of the typos, I found two sentences that I had completely missed before.
I don't care much for this type of story anyway, but I thought I would see what it was about.
Happy Review Day!!!!
Nice, I guess, if the point was to make me feel a bit diseased. I truly felt sorry for the man until I realized that didn't actually happen. Apocalyptic-wise it was great.
I was eating a sandwich while reading this, and when I got to the zombies eating the old man I felt sick. Haha, you should be proud you managed to get that kind of feeling out of me! Imagine what other readers would've felt!
Also, try not to rush maybe? ( if that's what you are doing) because there are a few little typos in your piece, and sometimes they can be a little distracting.
That aside, well done.
Hi Haley! Here to review this piece.
Okay, so what startled me at first is the fact that it's all in one big clump! And then when I read it I realised there were loads of times where there could have been more of a break. now, adding in paragraphs isn't just so it's easier on the eye, but it helps break up the story and lets us know when different things are going on.
Also, I think your characterisation is lacking! And as this already is rather short, there is space to do this. Firstly just think about who your characters are. Then, why are they there? Do they want to be there? Just ask yourself those kind of questions then try and write about it in your story. Trust me, it will add so much more depth to your story, and will be very effective!
Now, grammar/spelling seem to be a bit of an issue. I noticed these:
Should be 'who's' short for 'who is'.
the soldiers did what constantly?
Nothing, not nothin.
Right, overall this was okay. You have some interesting ideas, but they weren't necessarily put forward properly. Try and use some of the suggestions I and the other reviewers have said to add more depth to the story, because right now it does have lots of potential but it missing in quite a few things. I hope this review helped, please PM me if you have any questions or you'd like another review.
Keep Writing!
-Arc x
I really liked this piece. I thought it was well-written and it had me hooked.
There were only a couple of things that bothered me. Firstly, I think you should separate this paragraph into several smaller paragraphs. I think it will flow better if it isn't so condensed.
My second suggestion is that you slow the pace down a little bit, and include a little more information and memories. I want to know more. Describe the stories that your character's mother used to tell, describe the way the world used to be. Tell me more about the way the world is now. You say it's a living hell, but how did it get this way?
Other than that, I loved this. It flows nicely and if you continued it I would definitely love to read more.
Hi HaleyPenguin, I'm June,
To me, this read more like a diary entry of wishes rather than a story.
Time is a when, not a where, so it should be, "I want to go back to the times when there weren't man-eating zombies around" or some variation of the sort.
I get the feeling that this piece wants to examine the state of the narrator's humanity as a monster rather than the zombies that have taken over, but there isn't enough information here for the readers to sympathize with your narrator. A zombie apocalypse sounds severe, as does the murder of people you care for, and even though you tell us about some of the horrific images these people endure (ie, ripping of limbs), you're not showing us. There doesn't seem to be any emotional devastation from the narrator to any degree, save for his/her boredom with the current state of things.
Lastly! I noticed several grammatical errors throughout the story, and since Skins pointed out many of them, I'll refrain from repeating. I would recommend running this piece through a spell-check or just reading it aloud to identify the places where the story flows less smoothly.
Heya, HaleyPenguin, I thought I'd come and review this piece for you
Weren't instead of wasn't
To needs two o's so that it's too
You forgot the o in go
You forgot the h in what
It should be who's and you don't need to capitalise the w
You don't need a full stop/period after wall
Layed isn't actually a word, so you need lay. You also forgot the l in blood
You need a g in nothin, a g in anythin, an e at the end of tor, and you don't need an a in shreds
You forgot the h in the, and everyother is actually two words
So now for my overall view and opinion! I do really like the idea you have here as I am really into apocalyptic fiction, in fact I'm in an apocalyptic storybook right now. I also think that you've got a great idea with the whole questioning of humanity thing because I think you've given a good spin to the whole apocalyptic story. You pose the question of who is actually worse, the humans of this new world or the zombies. I love how you also portray that question towards the end of the story where that man is killed and treated awfully, and through that, you show us readers that humans can be horrendously inhumane in certain situations.
But anyways, onto critiques. I want to begin with grammatical, technical, punctuation kind of stuff, the first one being the layout and paragraphing of this little story you have here. You need paragraphs! At the moment it's just one big chunk of text, and in all honesty, seeing a big chunk like this can be very daunting to read. There are several areas where I think you could start a new paragraph in this massive one you have right now, so if I were you I would read over your story and try and split it up into smaller paragraphs. That way, your readers will be happier to read it, and it'll generally just look a lot tidier and cleaner.
The second thing I want to mention is grammar and punctuation related again, and it's that I noticed quite a lot of typos and some spelling mistakes as I was reading through this. I noted all of the ones I spotted and directed you with what to do, but from now on I would strongly suggest that you maybe run your work through a spellchecker before posting it online/on this site. If you have Microsoft Word then you can just use that, but if you don't have anything like that then don't worry, there are plenty of spellchecker websites online that you can use to run your writing through before you post it. Doing this is a really good idea because if there aren't any spelling errors or typos in your work then it will look a lot more professional and it will make the reader's job easier.
Now with regards to content, there is something I have to critique with this story. Characterisation. While I don't necessarily think you've done a really bad job or anything, I do think that there is so much more room for character development and a lot more room to further your characterisation of your main character. Right now, I don't really feel anything for her at all. I want to care about her negative emotions, her feeling of despair, her horror of being in a horrible world e.t.c. but I can't say that I actually do because I don't feel that I know her well enough. I mean, I know nothing about her. I don't even know her name or age. I don't expect to know every detail about her, don't get me wrong, but I just want to feel like I know her better so that I can truly empathise with her.
And now finally! My last critique is all about pacing and length because at the moment, this is a very short story, isn't it? There's nothing wrong with that necessarily but I can't help feeling that this kind of story would be a lot better suited with a lengthier prose. It's quite a complicated idea in reality and so with a short story like this one, it's an idea that can't be progressed too amazingly. Plus then there's the pacing. As this is a short story, the pacing is obviously rather quick... a bit too quick for my liking. I think that you should consider slowing this down so that you can add more detail in, and this would also help with my previous critique about characterisation because some of the detail you could add in could involve improving character development.
I think that's about it. Negatives aside I do think that this story you have here has a lot of potential, and like I said earlier, I love the idea you have here with the questioning of humanity because I think it's pretty original and definitely interesting. If you have any comments or questions regarding this review, just let me know because I'd be happy to help in any way I can!
Keep writing,
xoxo Skins
Thank you so much. This really means a lot. And the grammar issues mainly come from my keyboard. If I start typing too fast, it won't pick up all the letters I press. But thank you for this. It will really help me improve my writing.
I must say very good with the details. I could really get a feel for the main characters despair as well, like I was them and wanting so badly to be free. Plus the obvious monsters were the greedy one so maybe add some kind of though that the character might of had on that. Just so as to get a feel of what the character feels and thinks about all that's happened and what's happened to her mom you don't say much about her. Possibly include her or her whereabouts in this as well, like if she's still alive or dead or even a zombie(though she's probably not). I loved it either way though very much enjoyed the fact you chose a zombie apocalypse too. Anything with end of the world and apocalypses is a 10 in my books, so keep up all you're doing and like lioness said check those few spelling errors.
-Demora
Thank you very much.
I must say very good with the details. I could really get a feel for the main characters despair as well, like I was them and wanting so badly to be free. Plus the obvious monsters were the greedy one so maybe add some kind of though that the character might of had on that. Just so as to get a feel of what the character feels and thinks about all that's happened and what's happened to her mom you don't say much about her. Possibly include her or her whereabouts in this as well, like if she's still alive or dead or even a zombie(though she's probably not)
This is an excellent piece of writing. I . Love. It. There. You have a brilliant use if short sentences, but use some longer,more descriptive ones too. Your first person is written very well, and the blunt words that are used seem to make it as though the character is speaking. Quite a few letters are missing from words, but I am quite sure if you look back you'll spot these and change them. The storyline is great and to me, rather eerie.
Apart from that, this was really good. Keep it up!
Lioness
Thank you so much for the advice and compliments.