The girl actually put up quite a fight. She kicked and pulled, yelling her boyfriend’s name as she clawed at Night’s face. Night dodged her blue nails and yanked at the shoulder bag. The girl tugged back.
“Andrew!” she screamed, gripping the thin straps. “Andrew!”
Night hooked his foot around the girl’s ankle and gave a sudden jerk. The girl screamed again and teetered backwards, catching Night’s arm as she fell. The sharp nails bit into his skin, forming red welts on his forearm. He snatched his arm away from her and kicked viciously, finally loosening her hold on the bag.
He turned to make a run for it.
Something slammed into Night’s back. He lost his balance and fell flat on his stomach. The bag flew in the air and landed a few feet away in the middle of the trail. Fingers grabbed a handful of his hair, pulled back his head, and smashed his face in the dirt. A knee was pressed on his spine, preventing him from getting up. The fingers pulled his head back up again and smashed it down in the dirt.
Night flailed his arms, trying to knock his opponent off. Instead, Andrew caught one of his wrists and twisted the arm behind Night’s back. The pain was incredible.
“Stop! Stop!” Night yelled at the top of his lungs. He gritted his teeth to keep from screaming.
The pressure lessened.
“Little twerp. You apologize to Rebecca right now,” came Andrew’s voice. It was deep and firm, surprising for such a scrawny looking guy.
“Get off me!” Night tried to roll over but was met with another wave of pain in his shoulder.
“Apologize!”
“Ok, I’m sorry, all right?”
Andrew only twisted Night’s arm further.
“You don’t look sorry.”
Night shut his eyes and winced. Pain. Unbelievable pain. His shoulder was going to crack.
“Get off me,” he hissed under his breath, his voice barely a whisper against the agony.
“What did you say?” challenged Andrew, eyes burning.
Night took a deep breath. He couldn’t take it much longer.
“Speak up, thief!” Andrew shouted. He gave Night’s shoulder a sudden jerk.
Night’s hand moved involuntarily.
Suddenly, the pressure was off his shoulder. His hand vibrated as a sudden wave of energy spread through his fingers. Night turned his head just in time to see Andrew blasted ten feet into the air. His skinny shape somersaulted and slammed into a tree trunk, still a few feet in the air. Then his body tumbled in a heap on the ground. Wispy, black smoke rose from his shoulders and back as he lay, moaning, at the foot of the tree.
Night moved his twisted arm gingerly to a more comfortable position. He rubbed his throbbing shoulder and stared in wide-eyed amazement at Andrew’s motionless form.
He looked down at his hands. Thin black trails of smoke identical to the ones rising from Andrew’s body encircled his fingers. They pulsed an eerie white, then slowly, gradually faded away.
Night looked up. Rebecca stood a few feet away, staring at Andrew’s body, then at Night, then back again. Her mouth was open in a silent scream. Only when their eyes met did she let that piercing shriek fill the crisp, morning air.
He ran.
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140,766 Literary Works • 673,687 Reviews
Hey NightKaizer,
First Impressions: I quite enjoyed the story, and the little chunk of banter between the two boys was a good addition.
Positives: You have all of this formatted into a very clean, short paragraph style. I like that a lot, and it really means something when you've taken the time to block things out in a correct way, rather than just slam-wiching them all together in one big piece so you can pack more words on a page. It makes it easier to read, and remember where you're at when you stop, and it also helps the reader to feel more comfortable with tackling a big book. We're also given the satisfaction of reading pages just a few seconds faster than those other books, so we feel empowered.
This is a tactic rarely used by writers, especially those of a bit older generation. Isolating single sentences and strings of text, or even single words, has been called bad grammar and bad writing. Why would you waste all that time and all that space, when you can just leave it where it was; at the ending of the last sentence? But it does something to the reader when they look at it.
It speaks.
It lets them know that all that they've read so far was in building to this one, culminating point, and now they're going to be taught something. Good job, and keep looking for good places to do this effectively.
Negatives:
It's never really good when you use pronouns, especially proper pronouns, in a row or in close vicinity with one another. Here you have "Night" twice, one right after the other. It's a simple thing, but it can mean that you don't have a free flowing rhetoric going.
Remember this, "it's no so much that we want longer sentences, but how we make them longer that's important." (Just paraphrasing here from Building Great Sentences, which is a course from The Great Courses. Pretty good, and really informative.)
While this might be personal opinion, I'm honest in saying that I feel that what would make your writing better is to think about that quote above, and study into how you can apply that principle into your writing. My reason for saying this is because, why would you reuse "Night" to start the next sentence, when you can apply the simple principle of making your sentence longer, and more full, but just taking out the name and replacing it with "who." It will sound and look much better.
There are other parts in your story like this, whether or not it's pronouns concerned, and by finding them and replacing them with some more skilled prose, you'll bump up the level of this writing by a lot.
Here you have stated that she's screaming, but just in the paragraph before, only two sentences ago, you've already done that very thing by saying, "yelling her boyfriend's name." It's like an echo, and you want your reader to have an unending, uninterrupted flow of thought. If they've already gained a bit of information, then restating it will just bore them. Or possibly even confuse them.
Here's a tip for how to not overuse pronouns too much: try to use them all in as many ways as you can. To talk about Night you have his name; he; him; his; the man; our subject concerned; though guy; etc. etc. The list goes on. If you try to branch out only a little, you'll get big results. If you can tap into the well of vocabulary that never runs dry and learn how to pull from it, then you'll see great things.
A second thought on this sentence is how you have all of your writing in a very strong, third person, past tense, "you're listening to the narrator tell a story that happened before," kind of voice. This isn't bad, by any means, but you might consider breaking it up a little. Here's how I might rewrite the above sentence to give it a little bit more of a fresh feeling;
[quote]Hooking his foot around the girl's ankle, he gave a sudden jerk. She screamed, again, and caught the man's arm while teetering backwards."
While the overall scene is still in past tense, there for a few moments in a few places we get a glimpse of what it's really like to be there, in person, watching this fight happen. It draws your reader right into the pages and slaps them into the world of your story. It makes it real. And definitely not bland.
Overall: Well, if that wasn't the longest review.... Hopefully some of this helps, I sort of just put my thoughts down. But I feel that you have a great story going here with so far an interesting fight scene to get me going, and seeking more ways to improve in your skills as a sentence builder will make all the difference.
I give it:
I didn't expect the story to take this turn. I do like the 'powers' element but I think its happened too fast. We don't really know your character yet and you are already changing him. It would be useful and make the readers connect more to Night if we knew his life before this revelation and then we can fully take the journey with him as his newfound abilities reshape him.
I felt like the dialogue was a bit... off. The boyfriend - Andrew - is protecting his girlfriend by knocking down Night. In my opinion, he would not say her name. He would probably say, 'You apologise to my girlfriend right now'. He is being a good boyfriend and sticking up for his lady. He's showing Night who's boss. He's protecting her. It would make sense that he would make it known to Night that she is his.
I liked the description of the smoke coming off his fingers, I could picture that perfectly and was pretty cool.
Despite the nit-picks, I'm interested in where you take this story.
Hope my review helps
I mentioned the girlfriends name because I thought it would be confusing just saying "the girl" every time.
I didn't mean in the narrative, I meant in the dialogue. And using 'the girl' in the narrative would probably work better in my opinion. It would show Night's lack of connection to her. Seeing as he was trying to rob her, it would make sense that he wouldn't really see her as an actual person and more of just a means to get what he wants.