Vampire+Hunter Chapter 1
Vampires... Humans and hunters worst enemies. Their red eyes, pale skin, skin so cold, and their fangs make them hideous. They don’t burn or glitter in the sun. There are two different types ones that are mortal and ones that are immortal. The immortal ones burn in the sun and the mortal ones can walk in the sun but it’s painful it feels like their skins are on fire. The Immortal don’t eat, sleep and they don’t have feelings, but the mortal ones can eat, they can’t sleep and they do have feelings
Hunters... slayers. Their strong, fast, and warm blooded and their figures makes them blend in with humans more easily. They don’t hunt vampires like you hear about those mythical hunters that kill vampires for a living. Hunters were made by using vampire DNA, most of their body is made with vampire blood and the rest human to keep them from being inhuman. Some Hunters let the vampire blood take over but are soon taken down. Every one hundred a hunter is born to take down the princess or prince of vampires
Head ache. People say that I get headaches all the time and it’s true, standing there looking at my own refection. I pulled out a bottle with tiny red tablets; I dropped one into my glass of water. The tablet turned my water into what looked like wine I took a large sip and another in til there was nothing left in the glass.
Putting the glass down I felt stronger again, my headache was gone, which was good. I exited the girl’s locker room door and walked back to class. I’ll have to talk to my mentor these headaches are getting worse I’m getting them every half an hour.
Opening the door to the classroom everyone turned and stared I sat back down next to Kim. “Riona are you okay?” Kim whispered in my ear but it sounded loud. I covered my ear to stop it from ringing. “My head hurts all the time, it feels like the tablets aren’t working anymore” I answered back, she looked around to see if anyone was listening “if there not working then tell your mentor about it.”
I put my hand on my head and nodded my head. Sir was going through some lecture which was giving me another headache. We walked out to the cattle area and we put there harness on as we walked down to the orchard, I felt sick and dizzy. I looked around at other people they were busy with the cows.
Suddenly I felt myself fall to my knees and vomiting blood. It was unnatural I felt a hand on my shoulder; I looked up to see sir. “Leon, can you take her up to sick bay” but when we turned to look at him he was gone. What was his problem as soon as he see’s blood he runs for it. I sat back against the fencing “sir I’m fine” as I got up I fell straight back down.
I groaned it was painful to stand up; I grabbed the fence for support. “Ash, we’ll take her” I turned to see three... Tall guys. Shit my mentor. He helped me to my feet and started to take me up towards the office but then he took me to the car park. He helped me into the car, and then he got in the driver’s seat. Driving down the road off towards the training centre, I was feeling a bit better after a while. I felt my eyes closing slowing, and then I was asleep.
I woke to found myself in bed; I swung my legs out of bed and sat on the edge of my bed, I looked at my bedside table to see a wine glass with water and my tablets sitting next to with a note. I picked it up and read it
Try having two at a time it’ll make it stronger for you
I picked it up the tablets and dropped two tablets in and then drunk the water in one gulp. I lay back against the bed head. I closed my eyes, but the door flung open and my eyes flew open. My hand flew to my head because the slamming of the door made my head ring.
I sat up and looked at the person who had come into the room and it was my mentor. “Nathan, what do you want” I growled, he sat at the end of my bed. “Riona, can you tell me what happened at school?” He asked, I looked away the curtain was tight shut but the wind was blowing.
My eyes wondered back to Nathan “I took a tablet because I was having pains in my gums again and then at the farm I felt sick and dizzy and the next thing I know I’m vomiting blood.” My hands clenched to the sides of the bed.
Nathan put his hand on my hand; I looked up at his eyes. He leaned down to my face, he titled my head and I felt his breathe on my neck. But I quickly pulled away from him, I swung as quickly as I could, I slapped him across the face. He didn’t flinch but instead stood up and left the room. I lifted my legs and put my head in my lap.
Crawling under the quilts I felt myself falling into a deep sleep.
I woke when I heard someone knocking on the door; I sat up and looked at the door. “Whoever, it is please go away at the door. “Whoever it is please go away “I covered my head with the blanket, but I heard the door, “I said go...” I cut myself off when I realized who it was “Mother, I didn’t know it was you.” I though the quilt covers back and swung my legs out of bed “how you feeling honey?” She touched my forehead. “Riona, you need to start getting ready for tonight, you have 1 hour” I tilted my head. She pointed at the clock and then I realized that my mother was wearing a ball grown. I groaned “Do I have to go to this stupid ball?” She nodded. I groaned and fell back on my bed no way did I want to go to this stupid ball I wish that my mother was a Queen .
After my mother left my stylist came in to do my hair and make-up, and help me with my dress. I wasn’t allowed to look at the mirror until he was done. He did cherry blossoms lipstick, pink eye shadow, blush and foundation. I felt sick in the stomach about this. My hair was put up into a half updo, it was wavy and curly.
My dress was red it floated against the floor it was silk and it felt like it was sicking to my skin. It trailed behind me about three feet. Walking down to the ballroom my mother was at the double doors waiting for me. “You finally decided to show” she said, I stood next to her. “Please, welcome King Richard, Queen Lillian and Princess Riona the Royal family, the rulers of the Vampires.”
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140,522 Literary Works • 673,294 Reviews
Hi there, Stella here!
Alright, so on first readthrough:
Your first paragraphs are what we at YWS call "infodumps". That's where you tell your readers everything all at once under no disguise of story. They're not a healthy way to start a story, or to tell the audience anything. If I were you, I'd start instead at the beginning of Riona's perspective. Bleed this information to us slowly throughout the piece. We're more likely to remember it that way too.
they're
one hundred what? Days, weeks, months, decades, millennia?
Okay, so your premise seems interesting, with the single vampire and single hunter. Hm. I wonder what's going to happen.
Alright, so first of all, this is in serious need of proofreading. Punctuation and grammar are the boring parts of writing, yes, but they exist for a reason. Without them done properly, this reads like something that the cat chewed up. Even if you don't like it, tough, you have to do it right. YWS has some really helpful articles on this in the Knowledge Base and I strongly urge you to take a look at them and pay attention to your punctuation if you want to be taken seriously as a writer.
Secondly, I don't really follow this at all. Where is this set, when is this set, why does Riona go to a normal school? Why does the school have lockers and then... a cattle area? Like, what do you do in a cattle area. That just seems like a weird thing to have anywhere but an agricultural college. What are the tablets, and what are their purpose? It's a little all over the place right now, and rushed. So first I'll say that you need to work on your pacing. Have things happen at a normal speed, don't rush through the boring bits. If you don't want to write the boring bits then don't bother, but if you do, you have to do it naturally. My advice is always to go and read a few of your favourite books and see how it's done.
So this needs some work. Polish it up and it'll be great!
Hope I helped, drop me a note if you need anything!
-Stella x
Hello there. I'm Dover and I shall be reviewing you today.
First and foremost, I'd like to suggest that you proofread before you post. I found numerous grammatical and spelling errors, repetitive sentence structures, rough transitions from scene to scene, and spots where the narration outright contradicts itself. Allow me to elaborate.
The parts in parentheses are contradictions of each other. The first sentence says that these vampires don't burn, but then the narration turns around and says the immortal ones do burn. Please make a decision on which you want to be true for your story and remove the conflicting statement.
Also, the "glitter in the sun" part is a very obvious take that to the Twilight Saga, and I think this does more harm to your story than good. To me it comes across as a big flashing sign that says, "Look! I'm different from Twilight and I want you to know it!" As a reader I want to pay attention to the story you wrote, not a story somebody else wrote and how yours compares.
As for sentence structure, you story reads the same way throughout. "I did this. Then I did that. Character X walks in the room and talks to Character Y. I feel this way about the situation. Then I throw up blood and pass out." There's no variety, so I felt like I was reading a very dry book, and that's not very engaging. This is a situation where the "show don't tell" guideline will really help out. Instead of saying that your character isn't feeling well, show us. Does her face feel cold? Is she unable to keep her balance? And since you're writing in first person you can go even more in depth about how your character feels. Is her headache a dull throb, or does it feel like that she's being stabbed over and over again? If the latter, what does it feel like is stabbing her? Daggers? Stakes? Toothpicks? How is her vision? I she having trouble seeing because of her headache? Does that cause her to bump into things? Is she even aware that she's bumping into things, or is she numb? The possibilities are endless.
And while I'm on the subject of sentence structure, I think you'd do yourself a favor if you reviewed how to use commas, conjunctions, and independent clauses (i.e., words that can stand alone as their own sentence). Here's an example of how this information can be applied to this story:
Both these phrases separated by the semicolon are independent clauses, but we can make this sentence read much smoother if we replaced the semicolon with a conjunction (and).
Not only does this link two related ideas together, it also gets rid of the "I did this. Then I did that" sentence structure.
By the way, it's also a good idea to become familiar with when to use semicolons, conjunctions, and periods. All of these are meant to show the relationship between the ideas of two independent clauses. You use a period between two independent clauses if their ideas are unrelated. Like this.
You use a conjunction between two independent clauses to show that the ideas they express are closely related.
Finally, a semicolon is used if you want to demonstrate a relationship between two ideas, but not as closely as a conjunction would. For instance:
If you're not sure which one to use I'd suggest using either a period or conjunction since semicolons are very easy to mess up.
I also noticed that you're having some issues formatting your dialogue. Now I'm not really sure if it's the result of YWS murdering your story's format, but I'll give you the basics just in case.
When writing dialogue a new paragraph begins when a new character speaks. Also, if a character says something that is not a question or exclamation then you place a comma before the final quotation mark. Like this.
This only applies if there's a dialogue tag after the quotation (e.g., she said, he said, etc.). If there is no dialogue tag then you use a period.
Also, I highly recommend reviewing apostrophes and contractions, as I've noticed that there are some issues with there, their, and they're. Also review how to use the possessive case.
Perhaps the best and easiest way to proofread your work is to read it out loud. Listen for anything that sounds unnatural, repetitive, contradictory, or confusing. Determine which spots could use more or less punctuation and where, and which clauses you should combine and which ones you should separate. This story has a lot of technical issues right now, so you can probably improve your writing by leaps and bounds just by sorting those out.
Now that I'm finished with the technical aspects I can focus on your actual story and characters, which is probably what you're interested in hearing about.
Your story opens with an introduction on the definitions of vampires and hunters. Now this information may be important to your story, but starting with an infodump may not be the best approach. Some readers want to meet the characters right away and learn about your world through them. I am that kind of reader, so I think that infodump hurts more than helps your story. I have no idea on how this information applies to the world, plot, and characters yet. Furthermore, it's written in an omniscient voice while your viewpoint character (who I assume shall be staying with us for the entirety of the story) is written in first person. The switch from an all-knowing to a potentially biased point of view is a jarring one, and it's generally not a good idea.
My suggestion? Convey the same information as your viewpoint character sees it and how it's relevant to her life. Most importantly, only write about this information when it becomes relevant to the character, not when it would be convenient for the narrative. In other words, give you viewpoint character a reason to think about this information. Otherwise you'll usually end with an infodump that doesn't fit in with the context of the story and your character, and it can pull a reader right out of your story.
Now let's talk about your viewpoint character. I don't really know what to think about her since there's not much personality to go on. She has an impatient and snappy personality, but she's sick so maybe that can be excused. After all, who isn't cranky when they're sick? But this also poses a bit of a problem. The first chapter of a novel is generally the time to establish a character, and I'm not given a lot to go on. Right now I don't see much personality outside of being cranky, and given the context of the situation I have no idea if this crankiness is a normal part of her personality or if her true colors are on the other side of the rainbow. Long story short, there's not much to keep me invested in this character and I'm not really motivated to follow her along.
I'd suggest hinting at other aspects of her personality. While most of us may be cranky when we're sick, we often deal with the situation differently. How does your character deal with it? Right now she shows quite a temper, but you can add more. Does she have a wry sense of humor and crack deadpan jokes at her misfortune? Does she strive to look on the bright side no matter what? Does she try to convince herself that her situation isn't as bad as it is? Or does she go the other way and make a mountain out of a molehill? Another great thing about first person writing is that you can explore your character's personality in more ways than action and dialogue. Maybe she insults other people, but only in her head. Maybe she describes something to the reader but corrects herself. Or she could be incredibly precise in her descriptions to the bane of other characters.
This is a situation where word choice and sentence structure will have a huge impact on how your character comes across and whether or not they are engaging. This is also the biggest reason why the repetitive sentence structure I mentioned before is such a huge problem; it limits your ability to express the finer points of your story and characters, which are often what makes a story more interesting.
As for the other characters, I'll just come right out and say it: they're not interesting, and if you intend for these characters to not play a major role for you can get away with it. However, if some of these characters will be important to the story later then you need to put some effort into making them more interesting. Like I said, first chapters are often character establishing moments, and you can use similar techniques to the ones I recommended for your viewpoint character. Their word choice for their dialogue is very important and can convey a lot about their personality, and body language can do the same.
I've probably written enough text up there to make your eyes pop out, so I'll put my major points down here in a nice list.
- Vary your sentence structure to add interest to your narrative.
- Show, don't tell.
- Review rules on how to use conjunctions, semicolon, and periods.
- Review how to use apostrophes, contractions, and the possessive case.
- Reading out loud will help you catch most of your problems.
- Figure out how to convey information as it applies to your characters without infodumping.
- Add more depth to your viewpoint character by determining her overall personality and using the appropriate words to convey her character.
- See if you can add depth to supporting characters through their actions and word choices, especially if these characters will become important later on.
- Finally, keep working at it. It takes a long time to become good at something, and writing is no different.
If you have any question or comments feel free to contact me.
--Dover
*looks up* I probably made a mistake somewhere in there...