The Beast Within

Hello there. I'm Jayleigh.
First off, I feel like you make it too obvious that your MC is 'the beast'. If he isn't, there are ways you can tell the reader without, well, telling the reader. For instance when he's leaving the bar, you can have him thinking about where he is going, how he will protect himself. He seems like the the type to be sitting in an old leather chair with a double barrel shot gun across his lap with a Jack Daniels bottle in his hand. You know? And even so, if he is the beast, you can give your readers clues to think the opposite and then BAM! Beasty. You know? Am I making any sense?

I'm confused about something here. The first guy, Herne. He was found? Why wasn't the bar owner found as well? Herne was found within a week or so. Why is there a difference with the bar owner? And Evelyn? Maybe talk about her at some point? Doesn't have to be here, cause that's a lot. But maybe have some clue as to who she was?

What kind of dog is Dusk? And I'd seriously give Lawerence a good talking to if he just left his freaking dog outside. Like, c'mon man!

I like this, and I am interested in where you take it. I just think the building of tension happened too soon. We, as readers, are just thrown into it, which can be awesome. Some pull it off, some can't. I think I'd have to read the entire thing at once to really know for sure.

You have a great set up here. I would love to see more when you're finished with it.
--Jayleigh

Hey there!

Seeing as this is the first piece you've written in a while, I'm going to do my best to give you my thoughts.

So, firstly, I think you've set the scene quite well. It's obvious to the reader that something's going on in this town. There are mysterious disappearances going on, leading to pretty gruesome murders. This is good. It hooks my interest.

You do a good job of using sight and sound and smell, making it easier for me to imagine myself in the bar with the characters. The descriptions are nice. The one about Alice's lips and hair, stuck out to me.

The title makes me think that the beast attacking the towns peoples could be Lawrence. This line - 'but we were running of time' -made me think that Lawrence could have been referring to himself and the beast inside him. I don't know what the beast is though, so I'm curious to find out.

I did notice that you had a bit of trouble when structuring the sentences with dialogue.

'"Pour me another one, love." I managed as' - The full stop should be a comma.

The same here -

'"It's late, Lawrence." She said, placing'

It should read as - '"It's late, Lawrence," she said, placing' - with the full stop a comma and 'she' with a lower case 's'

http://www.be-a-better-writer.com/punct ... logue.html - Here's a link to a helpful artical on using punctuation when writing dialogue. I'm not saying you have to read all of it, but I know articals like this have helped me in the past

I noticed that you switched tenses a little throughout the piece, too.

'Strange, I hardly recall telling her my name' - 'recall' should be 'recalled'

'and I remember drinking' - 'remembered'

'and now the bar is all she' - 'is' should be 'was'

There are a few more cases where you switch from past to present tense in the piece, but I won't patronise you by pointing them all out. They'll jump out to you when you edit.

We don't get to know a whole lot about the characters, but then this is only the beginning I guess, so we'll have time to learn a little bit more about them. This is only a short story anyway, so it's not usually as important to know a lot about the characters, compared to if this were a novel.

I'm intrigued to find out what happens next. I'll be looking out for part two

I hope this helps and if you have any questions, post on my wall!

xDudettex