A Bloody Un-Fairytale.1

Hi!

Firstly, I would have to say that I think this chapter is full of could-be useless information. I think you should concentrate more on the important things.

As she ran farther, the fading sunlight was replaced with the harsh glare of the first streetlights turning on, casting bright pools of light every one hundred and fifty metres or so. The city council was working on installing better lights in the Old City, but until then, the lights remained few and far between. The sparse illumination gave the night an eerie feeling, and shrouded the limestone buildings in mystery. Cornella passed the ancient clock tower and sighed. She was late for class - again.

Cornella was a student; she worked at a small cafe by day and took night classes at RTU (the royal Terageon University). She had recently graduated West Praile High, with top honours and a grade point average of 3.6 of which she was extremely proud. At seventeen, she was a few months younger than most of her friends but she liked to think that she mostly made up for it in maturity.

Also, I think that these two paragraphs are too abrupt. One moment, I am reading about the city and the next thing I know, I'm getting a huge dose of information about the girl. In my opinion, the scenes changed too fast. Also, I think that the part where she mentioned her GPA is kind of useless. I think its enough that you mention that she recently graduated with top honors.

Although she had only been going to RTU for a few weeks (it was the end of September), so far her schedule had been okay; except for this week. One of the other waitresses at the café was on vacation, so Cornella was working a different shift, leaving her little time to prepare for class.

The sentence that is in bold is, I think, wrong grammar. If it isn't, the way it is constructed makes it seem odd. Perhaps you could do it like this: Since she had only been going to RTU for a few weeks, her schedule should have been okay. But because one of the other waitresses at work was on vacation, Cornella was working a different shift, leaving her little time to prepare for class.

Cornella slowed down to pass through a particularly dark area, looking to the street signs for guidance. She huddled into her sweater; even though it was barely autumn, the temperature was unusually cool. As she passed the next street light, she stopped to adjust her skirt- if only she had had enough time to change, she hated her work outfit – not only was it unnecessarily slutty, but it was tacky, too.

Instead of a semicolon, you should put a period in between.

She was so concerned with her appearance and punctuality, that she barely noticed that the streets were deserted. Although Old Praile wasn’t exactly downtown New York; at this time of day in early autumn, there should have been plenty of people passing through the streets of the Old City on their way to nightclubs and galleries - after all it was only three minutes past nine.

I think there shouldn't be a comma between 'punctuality' and 'that'... Also, change the semicolon to a comma between New York and at this... One more thing... why is there a mention of New York in a fantasy world? (this is a fantasy world, right?)

Glancing down at her watch she saw it was now 9:09. She was nine minutes late for class with a good eight and a half blocks left to the building her class was in.

I think you should eliminate the 9:09 thing... It seems pretty useless... maybe you could say: Glancing down at her watch, she saw that she was nine minutes late for class and she was still a good eight and a half blocks away from the building her class was in.

Suddenly she saw something flash across the street, out of the corner of her eye. Whirling around, her heartbeat speeding up, she caught the image of a dark figure, just before it disappeared. Cornella continued running, more quickly this time, though she was gasping for breath.

In this paragraph, I'm kind of confused.... If she saw something flash across the street, wouldn't she be able to see a blur? So when she saw something flash across the street, that wouldn't be at the corner of her eye... Also, if she saw something flash across the street, why would she be whirling around? Also the last sentence of the paragraph, although grammatically correct, sounds awkward. Maybe you could rephrase it to something like this: Cornella ran faster, her breath coming in gasps.

“Don’t move and I’ll kill you quickly.”

Also, there seems to be something wrong with this line. Do you mean it to say, Don't move or I'll kill you? Because if the answer to my question is no, then I think it would be useless for the killer to say that. Useless in the sense that if I were the girl, and I heard that line, that wouldn't stop me from moving at all. I think that you should rephrase the last line if you want it to sound more like a threat.


Overall, I think that improve could be made on the way the story was written. Your character seems to have come off as a Mary Sue, and if that wasn't what you wanted her to come across, then maybe you should change her a bit. I really think you should make your chapter one written in a more interesting way. After all, it is the first chapter that hooks the reader. As for plot, I can't quite offer any criticisms since not much of the plot has been revealed.

Alright! Overall nitpicks first!

First off- The chapter is packed! Way too much descriptive detail. While generally that's good, it doesn't have to be all packed into one chapter. I would cut some descriptions.
The beat of the whole chapter is decent, but the ending was iffy. First off, you don't want to plunge into the action right away. Wait another chapter or two, give us some back story on the city, and some detail. (Cept then it should be more spread out). Then get to that.

One last thing, You said,

Don't move and I'll kill you

It was a bit sloppy, but it has decent potential as a story.
7.4/10