“Time to wake up buttercup. The anaesthetic should have long worn off already” I opened my eyes, but immediately squeezed them together again. The light was too bright. With my eyes closed I smelled the stench in the air, like something had been rotting here for weeks, together with the sweet smell of a burned stack of paper.
The smell made me sick for a couple of seconds, but then I became aware of the small sounds. Little echoes, something dripping in the distance. I also heard someone walking behind me.
“Where am I?” I asked.
I noticed my throat was soar, as if I had woken up from a wild party.
“Do you like what I’ve done with the place?” A somewhat happy voice from behind me asked.
I coughed with my mouth closed, it was really dry. My neck was stiff and I couldn’t move. I slowly opened my eyes to see what it was preventing me from moving. My feet and my hands were tied separately to the chair I was sitting on, as was my waist. A cord around my forehead was tied to the long back of the chair I was sitting on. It had to be a dining chair. Very strange for someone to tie someone else up this way, but it was effective. Beside wiggling, I was completely prevented from moving.
It was a bright place, white floor, white walls. The walls were paved with small white tiles, at least there should’ve been a time when they were white. The tiles were stained with brown and black spots as if no one had cleaned them for years. Yet, it was still a bright place. It made me think of an abattoir or something like that. But this abattoir was somewhat furnished. I could see an old and torn couch, a TV and a mattress. Judging by the dirty, yellow-like colour it had, it wasn’t very new and clean either. The room had no windows and I couldn’t spot a door either. Needless to say, I didn’t feel very comfortable.
I coughed again, “Where am I?” I asked the stranger behind me, a little more agitated.
He was still moving around, I could hear it. He didn’t seem to be doing anything, he was just walking around the place, but he suddenly stopped right behind me. I could hear and feel his breathing slowly building up and suddenly he whispered into my ear: “Do?....you?....like what I’ve done with the place?”
Now it was something else that made me unable to move. It was his voice and the sound his mouth made when he grinned. As he grinned I could hear his saliva escaping from the narrowing space between his cheek and teeth. It was a horrible sound. I wanted to move my head away from the sound, but the cord around my forehead didn’t let me.
His voice was a mix between a young girl and a grumpy old man. It was high-pitched, but it sounded really growling at the same time. He didn’t sound angry or grumpy though. He sounded like he was enjoying himself. Slightly nervous perhaps.
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125,024 Literary Works • 672,762 Reviews
Hi,
I liked the idea of the story and the first few paragraphs flow fairly well. I think there is a possibilty for a little more detail in the description rather than longer drawn out descriptions. You could tighten them up a bit by using shorter yet more effective words. There are quite a lot of punctuation mistakes (easy to make!) and I also spotted a spelling mistake; it's 'sore' not 'soar.'
I think the premise of your story is a good one and with a bit of editing it could be even better.
Hope that helps!
Becki
If I make any changes to the story, take them as suggestions. Punctuation errors should probably be changed though.
Try replacing the comma with the word "of"
May I point out that the first paragraphs of the story get tedious. It feels like you wrote down the senses of the human body, sight, smell, hearing, etc, and made a new paragraph about each of them. Setting up the scene is important in this story, that much I can see, but you can also develop it further later. Your protagonist doesn't need to hear everything in the room, or smell everything there is to smell right away. You could afford to spread this description around in the story.
This is worded awkwardly. I don't think you need to tell us that the person's mouth is closed.
I think this is a little odd. Surely the person can tell that they're tied up to a chair, or something to that degree, even with their eyes closed.
Tedious. We know that the person is sitting on the chair, you only need to tell us once.
Again, tedious description. Description is most effective if it's important or there's something odd about it. Saying the room didn't have a door or windows is probably going to be important for later, but describing every inch of the floor becomes boring.
I would suggest taking out that whole last half. We know who is talking. There's no need to always place a dialogue tag.
Very creepy. I would suggest taking away the ellipses though. Like so: "Do you like what I've done with the place?"
There's no possible way that the protagonist can know that he's grinning, the man is behind.
I agree with Tenyo, you have a lot of contradictions. Sometimes they work for you, but most of the time, it gives the reader a mixed image. I find it hard to take the man seriously if he has a high-pitched voice.
This doesn't work for the story. I would suggest picking one or the other. Either make him enjoying himself, or make him nervous. He can be both, sure, but pick one that is most important to his character and stick to it.
Hope this helped!
Hey Metal!
What struck me most about this piece was that there are a lot of contradictions. Like the smell of some thing rotting, and of something sweet. A capturer saying 'buttercup,' and the captive only feeling 'not very comfortable.' The idea of a voice being like a young girl and an old man at the same time.
I think in some ways it works. That bad guy creeps me out a lot, and I'm curious about this progragonist who hasn't completely freaked out yet. He's either an idiot, or frighteningly collected. I assume the latter. Even though the contradictions portray this fantastic sense of uncertainty, you're also at the danger of distancing your reader because it's too difficult to imagine.
The voice being of a young girl and of an old man reminds me of one of those scary posessed kids from the movies, which works, but then I'm finding it hard to attatch that voice to a man.
The other thing that could be added, in the case of what Joshuapaul said, is to show the thought processes of your character, that would bring him to life more. If there is a person he cares about then he might wonder where they are. Take parts of his personality and show them through his thoughts.
Overall I think this is good! It needs work, but you definately have a great scene and characters to begin with.
thanks a lot. This meant a lot to me.
Yes it is part of a bigger story and I hope the clichés will be gone after I posted some of the rest. I already have quite something written down, but I wanted some readers who would be willing to read the rest of the story.
I've got time. I'll be quick.
Okay, so this was pretty good. A little dark, a little eerie. But was it a story?
I really don't think it was and here's why, you don't take the reader from point A to point B. A story has to affect the reader in some small way for it to be a story, rather this was a snippet from a story, a prologue, a premise. I scoured this for any hint of a story, for an implication or a theme, but I found nothing but a scene. Perhaps this is a prologue?
Anyway to the writing itself, not bad. Not bad at all.
The best case for explaining the flaws of your style/writing is unequivocally exhibited in the above paragraph. There is no variety, all the lines are the same little observations, all rather extraneous, nothing that appeals to the senses. So how can you remedy this? Easy, tie sentences together. Break up the short descriptions with some figurative language.
You see. You need to get this flowing a little. There is a benefit to your style, you give the narrator a unique voice, but I get the feeling it was your voice and not his, that is to say, it wasn't intentional and isn't effective. For the most part this is the biggest issue. I think you conjure a couple of terrifying images, but the entire scene so far is a little cliche, I mean tied to a dining chair, hazy vision, confusion. There really isn't anything that sets this aside, apart from the eccentric and terrifying captor, of course.
Anyway that is all I have time for now, I may be back.
JP
I will be back for this after work