Published January 10, 2008
so this is the first chapter and from now on all the thread titles for this story are going to be called, "MY BOOK" until i come up with something better, but ill let ppl know when i do that.
hope you enjoy!
p.s. although grammar and spelling corrections are always welcome, i would really appreciate people commenting on my characters, plot, etc. i want to know if the characters are believable, if the plot is making sense, if the story is working out logically....those types of things. so if anyone has any comments on those aspects, i would LOVE it if you could leave those comments!!!
Chapter 1: And the coastline is quiet. While we're quietly losing control. (Brand New)
When I "woke up", I knew that I was dead, as contradictory as that may seem. What I felt, or rather the lack of what I felt could only be described as death. I couldn't feel anything, not even the hard surface I was lying on, for surely it must have been hard because it was a stone floor. What I lacked in sensation, I made up for with my other senses. I could see and hear everything around me. After listening for a few minutes, I realized the room I was in must be under some sort of restaurant-- Chinese, if the smells and language of the men I heard above me were any indication.
I love Chinese food; my dorm was half a block away from the best Chinese place I'd found so far in the city. As I thought about my favorite item on the menu, Lo Mien, I found that I was extremely hungry, but also...repulsed by the idea of the noodle/vegetable combination that I so often craved. Besides that, I had more important things to think about besides my next meal. I sat up and looked around the crude room I now found myself in. I noticed a steep concrete staircase across the room from where I sat. I stood up with ease and made my way through the dark room, surprisingly having no trouble seeing where I was going despite the complete darkness I was in.
I stopped at the foot of the stairs listening to an impossible conversation upstairs. What made it impossible was the fact that I could hear anything at all. I slowly walked up the stairs, thinking through what I was about to do. I had always been the type to logically think through every aspect of a situation. Once I thought everything through, I made a decision and then quickly executed it. I was prepared for the men upstairs to be startled by my sudden appearance. I was prepared for them to be angry that I was trespassing in a part of the restaurant only intended for employees. I opened the door slowly and stepped out into the bright fluorescent lights of the restaurant's back kitchen.
I saw four short Chinese men suddenly stop whatever it was they were doing before, to stare at me. Yep, just as I thought-they were surprised to see me there to say the least.
The man closest to me stammered out "Wha...what you doing back here?!"
As the man spoke, I noticed the veins lined through his forehead. He kept asking me questions in his broken English, but I couldn't concentrate on translating what he was trying to say to me. After noticing the vein in his head my eyes scanned downward noticing all of the tiny wrinkles in the man’s tired face. Looking closer I saw that I could easily count the pores on his cheeks even though I was standing more than six feet away from him. I was strangely entranced by the man’s face. My eyes moved down the man’s face to his neck. If I thought I couldn't tear my eyes away from this small Chinese man before, I had no hope of it now. My breath stopped as I noticed the thick jugular vein that was throbbing with the man’s blood. His blood. I wanted it. I craved it. I had to get out of here.
All of a sudden I heard the sharp intake of the man’s breath and his pulse increased rapidly. My eyes darted up to his face and what I saw there was sheer terror. Slowly the man started to back away from me, all the while not tearing his eyes away from mine. I took one small step towards him and the man tripped over his own feet, sprawling onto the hard kitchen floor.
Suddenly my mind realized what my body was trying to do and I started to back away from the Chinese man that was still lying on the floor.
"Sorry", I apologized, "I'm leaving right now". Something was off though, my voice didn't sound like mine at all. I chalked it up to a long night of partying and continued backing away from the object of my frightening intentions. I finally tore my eyes away from the men and turned towards the other end of the kitchen. I began walking as quickly as possible towards the designated dining area. As I was walking past the shiny black tables with matching chairs, something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to see a wall, the top half of it covered in mirrors. For the second time in less than sixty seconds, my breath caught in my chest. I slowly walked towards the reflection I could only guess was my own. Although I knew that it could be no others, I still couldn't believe what I was seeing.
The first thing I noticed was my eyes. Where the normally hazel brown color used to be, a dark gray color stared back at me. After studying the new color of my eyes, I looked at the rest of my face. I had always been pale, but the now almost translucent color of my skin surprised me. Also, my freckles were missing, as if they were something that could just be misplaced. I remembered when I was little, complaining to my mother about the abundance of dark little marks all over my face. She had told me that when I got older they would fade and eventually I wouldn't have them anymore. It was now an inside joke between her and me because they never did fade, and I had always thought she didn't know what she was talking about. That memory brought a smile to my face. That was when I noticed my teeth. They were perfectly white, almost inhumanly white and the canines were just a tad longer and sharper than they had been last time I looked in the mirror. My hair too, had changed since the last time I had fussed with it. The natural light brown color was the same, but my hair had taken on an almost luminescent shine. I backed away from the strange reflection I saw in the mirror and darted out the front door of the restaurant.
Once outside I was glad to have the fresh air and some room to think through the incredible things I had seen and felt since...last...night. That was when the memory of the strange blond-haired man in the alleyway came flooding back into my mind. I remembered being hit over the head, hard, and falling on the ground before the man attacked me. I reached up slowly to touch my head where he had struck me, feeling the unfamiliar softness of my hair, and finding no such wound.
I suddenly looked around me, noticing for the first time my surroundings. The buildings on this street looked familiar and I started to head in the direction of my dorm. As I walked down the busy streets of Manhattan, I ran all of the newly acquired information through my already tired brain. As was usual on this busy island, I was bumped into by many strangers. The difference today was that every time a person bumped into me, I had a shock run through whatever part of me they happened to hit. In the fraction of a second that their body touched mine, I could feel the warm appetizing blood rush through their veins and throb through their hearts. Appetizing?! Ugh, I need to stop, I need to get away.
That was when I started to run. I had never felt so free in my entire life. The cool, polluted wind rushed around my face and through my hair. I looked around me and noticed that the people, buildings, and cars I was running by were all blurred. It felt like when I was younger, and I would take the Long Island Railroad with my parents into the city. I always loved looking out the windows at the trees and streets we were rushing by, making everything blur with our speed. That was how this felt.
I couldn't be completely free though. Not after what I had experienced in the past half hour, I would never be able to forgive myself for the thoughts I had had about those poor old Chinese men in that restaurant. Why did I have those thoughts anyway? I wasn't a cannibal; I didn't even eat my steak that rare. Ew, steak...what....the...hell...
Just then I felt a dull pain across the middle of my abdomen and suddenly the wind stopped. I was being ripped off the crowded downtown street and into an alleyway. Oh no, not another alleyway, this is what got me into all this trouble to begin with. I struggled to free myself from the iron bar that was wrapped around my torso. Wait, since when did iron wrap around people? I looked down and saw an unnaturally white arm wrapped around my waist. The arm was just as white as my skin was now. I looked up into the light gray eyes of an extremely handsome man, with an extremely frustrated look on his face.
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140,541 Literary Works • 673,412 Reviews
This was an almost exact copy (character wise) of Twilight. I just read it and... whoa. The plot is hardly different, and I just feel like... well, say we'd made Stephenie Meyer write those books about ten years earlier, when she wasn't as experienced as she is now, it would probably be a lot like this one was.
Flat dialogue/characters, really sweet, handsome guy, Bella-like MC, and Christopher and Diana are pretty much exact copies of Alice and Emmett/Jasper. I would be SO blown away if you'd never read Twilight.
The advice I offer you is this:
For now, stay away from vampire stories; try something else!
Go through your stories before posting them, as well as using the spell check.
And read things aloud before you put them in your story. Things like 'hearing someone laugh silently' are just contradictory.
Good luck,
-Sela
hahaha, no i'm 20 so i can pretty much read whatever i want. besides that i was reading Anne Rice when i was 14 and that can be quite racy as well. i would love to look into that author you suggested, especially because my vampires are pretty much set in stone at this point.
. these chapters up here definitely need to be edited more and believe me, i know that probably better than anyone else. i hope you keep reading!
also, YES i know about "towards" i just occasionally relapse like a recovering alcoholic. a friend of mine that was editing for me (slowly mind you) always yelled at me for that and a few other things im not proud to admit
"The first thing I noticed was my eyes." You need to change 'was' to 'were' since you have two eyes, not one.
Also, acording to Nate, towards is not a word. Lot's of people make that mistake, I used to. Think of it this way, you wouldn't write something like, "He was standing besides her," would you?
If you're writing about vampires you should look at some of Laurell K. Hamilton's works. Although, her books have quite a bit of smut in them so you might not be old enough to read them.
thank you very much for your review. i agree that giving vampires new qualities keeps it interesting and fun. i know many of the stereotypical vampire characteristics and chose to not use them. i hope you enjoy the rest of the story.
as a side note, after looking back over what i had written, i realized that Charlie could have stopped once or twice and freaked out over dying. i plan to go back and add a little more "flipping" in later. thank you
I disagree with Aedomir. I think think that you should be able to give your vampires any qualities that you like. Folklore aren't rules and I find that many vampire stories I have read don't conform to the set 'guidlines'. That's the beauty of fiction, see?
Is it the combination of danger and love? Blood and beauty? I don't know... Anywho, I'll finish my rambling and move on to chapter 2
The first line drew me in straight away. Brilliant line. Though I noticed that your character seems remarkably untroubled by the fact that she is dead. Hmm... a little unrealistic, no? Other than that, your description is excellent, as is your use of language and I think this should prove interesting. A vampire romance. My favourite
hey, thank you SOOO much for your critique. i'll hold on to your comments and definitely put them to good use when i go back through this story and start doing HEAVY DUTY editing. thanks again!
Hey again! I'll not critique grammar and such as I'd probably only be pointing out mistakes that have already been acknowledged or changed but you said you wanted comments on your plot and characters so...
Your persona needs work. At the moment, her personality is a little flimsy. It's only the first chapter so that doesn't matter too much but you could develop her further. The thoughts in italics and the little information on Chinese food help to define her but there could be more. You briefly touched on how she is cautious - show it. If she's cautious, why doesn't he hesitate for some time before going up into the restaurant? Why doesn't she look for an alternate exit or try to sneak up? Just something for you to think about.
Also, one aspect of her character I find strange is that, at the beginning, she accepts that she is dead and knows it and yet she is surprised by the change in her reflection and her fixation for veins. Why? Why does she not realise she is a vampire? For a story set in model times, I'd expect the character to recognise the signs and she takes her death so calmly that it just seems a little strange.
The Chinese men are generally realistic though I think you should vary their reactions more. I'd expect at least one to try and help her rather than one backing away and the others fading into the background. You don't have much character interaction yet so maybe expand on that part?
The plot is good so far. I like the inclusion of reflections so early on because it shows a move away from the stereotypical vampire which is good. It moves at a reasonable pace, there' enough action to keep a reader interested and generally I think it' developing well.
I currently have quite a list of critiques to do but if I get a spare moment, I'll take a look at your other chapters. Hope this helps a little,
Heather xx
thank you so much for the review. i will definitely use your critique to change my own copy, although i probably wont change it on here. i am not necessarily AFRAID of commas
its just that i'm not good at grammar at all. i know nothing. i just had a story in my head and wrote it down. from there, i let microsoft word tell me what to do and then other people have helped me edit it to a degree. in the future try not to let my grammar upset you (if you plan to keep reading that is) because it will be a very stressful read for you 
. again, thanks for the review and i'll make the changes.
okey-dokey...
comma there, and the second 'upstairs' is just redundant.
...
or not. >.>
you could use a more descriptive word, like crept.....or floated, seeing as he's dead and most likely a ghost. ~_^
commas where needed (you seem to be afraid of those!!) and the bold parts are where you are a little redundant. no need to refer to 'the Chinese man' more than once in the same paragraph if he's the main point. but if you are switching back and forth from one person to another, it's ok to keep calling him 'the man.' and the blue part, you just kind of stuck that in there. >.>
'never' would be a better word here. ~_^
COMMA!!! and the ellipses are...somewhat...unecessary.
once again, unnecessary....ellipses.....
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pretty good start, just work on your COMMAS!!! ha. i always like vampire stories, so i went soft on you. ~_^ keep it up.
it's a very good beginning, if a little rushed. but i like the description of how the character feels. it's very informative.
good work!!
~enjeru
hahaha good i'm glad you like it!
Ahh so yes, I'm reading it(:
And I LIKE ITTTT!
thank you very much for your review. i have another 5 (?) chapters posted on this site so please read more whenever you get a chance. if you do happen to think my story falls apart at any point please let me know what that point is and what made it fall apart. thanks and keep reading!
IT was a great start, this could be a great story or it could fall apart but it has great potential. WRITE MORE!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you both for your comments. I have tried my best to make these vampires my own and yes they do have reflections. As you read more, more of the vampire folklore will be proven wrong when it comes to my vampires. Also, I have corrected the mistakes found by others in my original copy and not on here. Again, thank you all for commenting and I will try to get another chapter up soon.
Heya!
Yep, I have to admit, that is one of the most ironic things I have read. But that's good because it was in inverted commas and the way you challenged it...
That wasn't you, but I would reccomend not worrying about this too much. It is your story and you should be able to create your characters how you like. However, I would then say that perhaps you should rename the race or whatever it is;
Other than that one point I quite liked it. Just a few 'errors' that I should hope you will change, they have been mentioned already so went dwell on them...
Well done and Keep Writing!
~D'Aedomir~
ps: wen u write messgs plz dont use chat speak like dis!!!
Wait. She's a vampire, no? So how can she possibly look in the mirrror?! I was under the impression that in folklore, it's common knowledge that one of the most foolproof ways to spot a vampire is by checking for a reflection. Ummm, yeah, other than that detail that confused me, I loved the story!
thank you sooo much!! and believe me I KNOW i can still use help. i'm not too modest to say that i think i have a good story here or too proud to say that i could still make it better. thank you for the advice and i hope you keep reading!
Wow! Great! Fantastic! Awesome!
I love it! Abosolutly positivly love it. However I feel that you are telling, not showing. Also get a stranger to read it outloud. This will show you shakey parts. But other than that, I see nothing wrong with it. I beleive this has the potential to be published. Just remember that even the best writers can improve their writeing if they ask for help.
ahh vampires are my fav characters
great idea making a story about a girl who changed
=P I'll try not to die from anticipation.
Ooooooh. If you're super bored you could look at some of the things I put up. Only 2 recenly I think. I've out of practice since I haven't been on this site for a looooong time and need to brush up on my writting. *managed to get distracted by being hooked on reading stories and commenting*
yea thats what i was thinking too *sigh*
ill wait till tomorrow or the next day to put it up then...im just wicked excited i have at lease ONE person who likes them and is looking forward to more chapters!!! its very flattering
so make sure you look for chapter 2 in two days at most i guess
*wants to say she shoukd post it*
>.< You probably shouldn't. Think of all the poor people who haven't seen what you've already put up! Flooding the boards will probably overwhelm some people and also bump other people who have just put something up out of sight (which would make them sad if they have no comments yet =P)
Yay! Romance. *huggles*
yea i can see where those two statements could seem confusing....she doesnt feel much and they will explain it later on
also i think i kind of reveal more of her character as the story goes on, but i like to think shes not a complete stranger from the beginning...
and dont worry there is PLENTY of romance
would it be bad to post two chapters in one day? because i do have chapter 2 done....
Can't feel here.
And here...Oh wait. =P You dont' actually say she feels the wind. My bad.
Also, just saw the preface. I take back what I said about not knowing the character, I suspect I should have read that first to get a full picture of her. >.<
Looking forward to chapter 2.
(FYI: if there is no romance at all in this story I will be heartbroken. Just so you know =P)
um...i dont understand your question, maybe quote the part(s) you're talking about and i can explain or fix whatever it is.
and THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH i love that YOU love my story
ill be posting chapter 2 tomorrow or the next day!
A chapter per thread is a good idea. I always find when people post long stories it's harder to convince myself to read because it seems so daunting and it's hard to find your place again if you stop reading.
*huggles vampire* You win! I am completely in love already. Great story!
I'd like to offer you constructive crit, but it's very very hard. Your plot is good, you don't let us know everything right away, slowly building up the story until we start to see a full picture. Nice.
Description: good. You described everything really well, not too much and not too little. Here and there phrases stuck out at me because of phrasing and stuff, but I was so absorbed in readin the story I completely forget which ones. Not many, anyways.
Characters: Vampires = awesome. End of story. But I'll admit you show us who your character is, but at the end of what you've given us I still feel like I don't know her entirely. But maybe that's just me, because you do show us alot of things, some in context about who she is.
Question: If she can't feel the floor, how can she feel the wind?
I love him already. You have me hooked. ^_^ Please write quickly so I can find out what happens.
oh man!!! i have no idea how to do that...i think ill just take your advice and post a chapter per thread...thanks!!!
Well, you can do that, but I think that has the potential to get messy.
Like, you post part 5, but some comes in and wants to crit part three, and the person after that wants to crit part one, and after that...
Why don't you just post your story a chapter at a time?
Or, if you want your whole story to be in one forum, I think there's a forum for that, too...
Edit: Yeah, here it is.