The Evil Within (Please review)

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

Anyway let's get right to it,

Calvin Svensson was trying for once in his life to sleep in later than 5:17 am. Yawning, he blinked his eyes open to check the clock; ironically it was 5:17 am. Crap. To be honest, he would have been satisfied with 5:18; but no. He rolled over, facing his wife, Joy. The sheets were hanging on her vacant spot, the pillow slightly indented. Probably in the bathroom he thought as he rolled over and made an attempt at sleep. Nope. Not even an hour had gone by before he woke up again. He glanced at the clock that now read: 5:47, a full thirty minutes. He then noticed that his wife's spot was still empty. He sat up and looked into the hallway, he could see the bathroom door from here. There was a sliver of light coming out from under the door. He sighed, swung his legs out of bed and stood up, the springs in the bed squeaking as his weight left them. He stood, the floor boards groaned as he stood; they really needed to move into a better house because this one was old. He walked out of their dark, cold room and into the even colder hallway. He knocked gently on the door, "Joy, are you in there honey? Are you okay?" No reply. Now concerned, he knocked louder, this recieved no reply either. He banged, hoping that she had just fallen asleep on the toilet. Silence. He needed to get into that room, but how? Breaking down the door could work; but that was probably rash. He thought quickly about this. Nah, he'd break it down. Backing up as much as he could in the small hallway, he charged the door head on. The screws holding the door to the frame popped out and he fell. The door fell into the master bathroom with a crash, so did he. His momentum caused him to fly past the where the door landed, and onto the tile floor. He winced as he landed butt-first and...slid. The floor was slick and sticky. For a split-second, he wondered if he should be glad he couldn't see in the dark. He stood up and groped around for the switch, flicked it up, and yelled in surprise and horror. The bathroom was covered in scarlet, hot and smelly blood. It was everywhere, mirror, walls, cabinets, the ceiling, and the toilet...had a finger replacing the handle. The finger had a diamond ring on it, untouched, unscathed, it was his wife's. Choking back a sob, he turned his attention to the shower, the curtain was drawn so you couldn't see inside. Then he heard a soft, plink, of liquid coming out of the shower head. He thought he knew what he was going to see when he drew the curtain, but it was worse, much worse. There was a decapitated body with its limbs torn off, blood still trickling out. Calvin then looked up to the shower head, someone had removed it and somehow wedged his beloved Joy's head there. As he stared in horror at her face, a drop of water, clean and pure, trickled out of her gaping mouth.

Hey, Skye!

Here to review you. I hope I could be of some help.

Wow. This is trully horrifying. It kept me in the story though. Once I came towards the end, my heartrate picked up and my breathing did too. It scared the living daylights out of me. Great work! That's what makes a great horror story.

Thanks a whole lot.
Me and my cousin wrote this together, it was my idea...and he said I gave him nightmares. I just wrote this by memory. The real copy was better, yet worse if you catch my meaning.
I will work on it. I kind of speed-wrote this, because I was afraid that I was going to forget. I will take this, and revise it.
Thanks again for the tips!
~Skye~

Heya!

I had a couple of points in mind as I read this, but Metalmauzen went through them already. I'd like to emphasize the impact of structure though, even if he already adressed it. A clear division of paragraphs helps the reader a lot - it gives the story clear breaks and these can be used for dramatic enhancments.

For example, at the end of your story, when you write "...flicked it up, and yelled in surprise and horror. The bathroom was covered in scarlet, hot and smelly blood.", if you were to separate these into different paragraphs, the reader would be thinking "omg, something bad, because he yelled in terror", then there'd be a slight pause in the reading where that fact soaks in, and then the blood being everywhere would hit them with a bam. This is why I believe structure is such an essential factor. Play around with it, see what works, what doesn't; it's fun, I promise.

Metalmauzen also mentioned your slightly simplistic use of words, but as he said, only practice, practice, practice will help with that. Try checking out a thesaurus and learn what effects different synonyms have. There's a huge difference between using "dark" and "gloomy". They have different feels and it's understanding these 'feels' (or connotations) of words that create an interesting story.

As for the story itself (wow, those comments dragged on longer than I had thought), I liked the shocking quality to it. The ending is solid, the character's emotions are pretty realistic and the horror-factor is tuned just right. Just work on placing more meat over the bones and you'll be writing great stories.

Aaand that's all. If you don't like cussing, don't check out my work, just a head's up. But hope this was somewhat useful even if it was a bit repetitive. Keeeeep wrrrriting!

|Life|

Hey,
I tried to edit the paragraph problem, and it didn't change. I tapped 'enter' several times to create spaces but nothing changed...any tips?

(I replied, and it came out really small at the very bottom so I'm replying again to see if it came out bigger...)

Thanks for the review, I will fix the paragraph problem.
And yes, I will check out your work. Although I am into the horror genre, I do not cuss, and before I look at your work, I was wondering if there was heavy cussing...Thanks again,
~Skye~

Hey there,

before reading I noticed that this short piece is just one piece of text. Especially on this site it's important to space your text out in paragraphs to draw readers. It might not be a big deal with this story as it is fairly short, but keep that in mind in following stories.

You really got a story going on here. I liked it beforehand because I saw it was horror-story (I'm a horror fan, you might want to check out some of my work.) When I read it, I liked the story even more. The description at the end of the story was very vivid and that's what I like in a horror story.

You're writing is still very simplistic though. You write from one action to the next. When I started writing I had that same problem, but as you write more, and you pay attention to it, it becomes more fluent with every piece you write.

You could try to add some more details to what the protagonist feels and thinks for instance. Another good thing is to read some (real) stories. And with 'real' I mean from a real author, but some of the writers here are very talented too, there just aren't many writers in the genre of horror. And as you read those stories pay attention to what the author uses to keep the story flowing.

I hope I can call you my new colleague as I'm mainly writing short horror stories. We could help each other to the top.

- Metalmauzen