Published August 27, 2013
Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for language and violence.
Chapter One
It had been five minutes. I’d wasted five minutes walking around in circles, doing nothing. I had been searching for a load of bs. And I kept finding dead ends. So after seconds of careful and thought provoking deliberation I turned the coms on and called Maria, my best friend and fellow hunter.
“Maria, No one’s coming, I’m gonna do a quick scout, I’ll find them quicker if they’re here and it will be easier, you know it. They won’t come to us believe me. They’re not that stupid, well some of them are”
“NO! All, you need to stick to the plan. If you don’t follow the plan then you’ll get yourself killed before you can do anything. You know that more than any-one of us.” As much as I hated to admit she was right, as always. I hated it when she used Logic.
“Stop using your brains. It makes me feel stupid and useless.” Her laugh echoed through the lines
“God All, you are not useless if any-ones useless it’s Tia.”
“I can hear you, you know.” Tia loved eaves dropping, no matter who it was, or what it was about. Apparently being the queen of gossipers meant you have a keen ear, obviously. “Alyson’s right Maria. We’re getting nowhere what so ever, either finds us something to kill or I’m going home.” As much as I loved Tia she had the patience of a two year old.
“Look just give me a minute they’re here, I know it but they keep disappearing. Just bear with me ok.” Maria’s amazing and smart, I’ll always love her for that but saying that made her the stupidest person ever. Saying wait to T was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. It was stupid and dangerous.
“Screw this shit, I’m gonna find them idiots if it’s the last thing I do.” She turned off her coms then disappeared, in search for monsters obviously.
“Nicely handled Maria” Maria liked to beat herself up but she couldn’t screw something up if she tried.
“Don’t beat yourself up, I’ll find her. Don’t worry.”
“I always worry, just be careful.”
“I’ll try. I promise.”
The best way to find Tia was to stay in one place and wait for her to come to me, otherwise I’d keep missing her or I’d always be a step behind her, which could never happen. I always had to be one step ahead, always.
“If you fall behind you end up dead, or worse.” I peered up at my brother. What was he going on about? Nothings worse than death.
“What’s worse than death?” Blue’s eyes shadowed over. Blocking me and the rest of the world out. Leaving me in the dark, again.
“A lot is worse than death trust me on that Al. Just trust me.” He knelt down to my level and looked me in the eye. “Promise you’ll always trust?”
“Course I will, why wouldn’t I?” He was so stupid sometimes.
“One day you might think I’m being stupid and that I’m not doing the right thing but you have to trust me, no matter what .Deal?”
“Deal”
“You found her yet? Please tell me you’ve found her!” Maria was desperate. She would hate herself for-ever if Tia died, or was seriously injured because of her.
“Calm down, god, you’re ridiculous sometime.”
“You’ve found her then, oh my god al you’re a life saver! Are you ok?” She kept talking shit for another two minutes. Damn it, I always said the wrong thing; I needed to work on that. A lot.
“Not yet M. I’m sure she’ll be alright.” As much as I loved Tia and I wanted her to be ok, I knew we had bigger fish to fry. “Have you been able to track ‘em yet?”
“Err… Sort of.”
“What do you mean, sort of?”
“I mean I’ve found two of them.” She had got to be kidding. “The other two are off the grid. They could be anywhere by now. Tia’s gone off the charts as well”
“Crap.” I pulled my bow out, loaded it then said one final thing to my best friend. “I’m gonna find them and rip their guts out.”
“Alyson! Think about this, don’t be…” I never did hear what she was about to call me, I’d turned the coms off and threw them on the ground before she could tell me or better yet, trace me.
I’d have to find a high place, one that was safe for me but deadly for any-one below me. I knew where I could find them; I’d just have to be patient, which unlike Tia I’d mastered a long time ago. Climbing trees had always been my favourite part of training. I loved it. It was one of the only fun things I’d been able to do after my dad had died and Blue had started training me non-stop. He actually pulled me out of school. Told them a load of rubbish that I was unfit for school at the moment because of my dad’s death or something like that. The best thing wasn’t the lame excuse he made up it was the fact that the school brought it and let me out of school for a year. I’d been trained non-stop for a year with Maria joining in after school or on the weekend. She was the only friend I’d had for a long time, so I never took her for granted.
Here’s a little tip, sitting in a tree for half an hour doesn’t help your posture, it does make your butt numb and your arms ache. Such Fun (!) Although I was sore in some pretty awkward place I knew that if I jumped down or made any large movements they’d show up and ripe to pieces. That was just about the only thing keeping me from climbing back down and putting an end to the pain. Luckily for me, I didn’t have to wait much longer because guess who came trotting by under-Neath my tree? The two missing vamps. I wonder which one I should kill first.
“Are you sure we’re safe man, I don’t feel like getting shot tonight.” Who did like getting shot?
“Nah, we’re good. Even if they do show up, they could never get us. They’re just humans.” I think I just figured out who I’m gonna kill. “Look, let’s try and find ‘em. Then we can kill them!”
“Not a good idea mate.” I stood behind them I was leaning against the tree I had just climbed down, which is tricky when you’re trying to be quiet. My face was cast down covered by the hood on my jacket and the shadows that crept along the forests floor waiting for the next death. “See I might be a human but I have adman good shot.” I pulled back the arrow aimed and fired in less than two seconds. It hit him just to the left of the heart. A perfect shot. To most people like me that would be a failure, a monster that would be able to kill me. But it wasn’t about the arrow; it’s about what it was made of. He looked down at his bloody shirt then pulled a face before yanking the arrow out of his body and throwing it to the ground as if it was a piece of rubbish, how wrong he was.
“That was your best shot?”
“No but this one is worse by far.” Remember when I said something’s are worse than death, this is one of those times. I pulled back my second arrow and released it, letting it fly towards the second killer. Unfortunately he was quicker and a lot more alert than the other one so he was able to run, it did scrape his arm luckily. So he was as good as dead. He tripped up on a tree root, allowing me time to catch up with the idiot. I jetted past the first one, not giving him a seconds thought, I flew past the trees and the branches that were clawing at me, trying to slow me down. I hated this place. Just when I was about to catch up with him, he disappeared.
“Damn it!” I couldn’t afford to go after him, not when Tia was still out there with two other vamps on the loose. I turned back and tried to find the first idiot that had gotten shot. But because of my luck when Iii finally got back to where he was meant to be dying he was gone. “Brilliant!”
“Alyson?” I spun around to find Tia.
“My god!” When I saw her I was amazed that she was alive then I realised that she was covered in blood and mud “What happened to you?”
“I ran into some erm, some, some vamps.” She was shivering, god, she was actually shivering.
“Tia, what did you. Never mind here have my coat, you need it more than I do.” I dragged my coat off of my freezing body and yanked it around my freezing friend. Hoping she would be alright, she looked scared…no more than that petrified. It was bad enough that she was covered in crimson and that she’d had to face them alone. She’d only been hunting for a year or two, she wasn’t good at holding back or waiting for the right time, she always went charging in head first, no fists first head later. Even though she wasn’t good at working as a team she was the best hunter I’d ever seen, she could kill anything that posed a threat without blinking. She was unbelievably ruthless; she could be a true killer, a natural hunter. She was like me, she made it her job to kill anyone who would hurt our town, or put our families in danger.
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137,562 Literary Works • 672,043 Reviews
Ok so I just went through your first section and I feel like you have much to work on. Basically its all phrasing an word use. There are just says of writing things that you have to smooth out and that section I just did is a small example. Please avoid use of colloquial language, proper nouns and specific things right away if you want the reader to know whats going on. I had no idea what was happening in that opening.
Later on you have a large section of uninterrupted speech, you should put stuff in between there to make it interesting.
I think you just need to go and read your sentences out loud and rephrase them where they sound sort of twisty.
Well, the description of your piece caught my attention, so I thought I’d check it out.
Nitpicks below:
Spoiler
Don’t use both “I had” and “I’d.” Pick one and stick with it, as the mean the same thing. “bs” should be “b.s.” Also, the sentence in the middle is awkwardly phrased there. I would suggest changing it to something like:
“So after a few moments of careful deliberation,” It’s more concise, and conveys the meaning without being redundant.
“Coms,” since we have no ability to relate to the story-world as of yet, should be “transmitter” or “receiver” or whatever. “Coms” was used in Star Wars as “com-links,” but it stands for “communications” in real life, which makes no sense.
Note: Usually I’m not this bad, but it IS the first paragraph, afterall.
The dialogue is a but stunted here, and that is purely grammatical. Try:
“Maria, no one’s here. I’m gonna scout around… I’ll find them quicker that way.” I said. “I don’t thing they’re coming. They’re not that stupid.”
(Also, try to separate her personal thoughts from what she actually says.)
Try to avoid all caps in dialogue. The exclamation point already suggests that she’s enunciating this.
I don’t know if you’re an archer or not, but I am. It’s generally a bad idea to walk around with a loaded bow unless you are about to come up on whatever it is you are about to shoot. Otherwise, well, there is always a chance of injury. Just saying. And one arrow won’t get you far. Just have her grab a quiver or something.
You should probably proof read your text before you post. “(!)” should not be used in prose, it belongs solely to the world of internet chat-speak. “Large movements” doesn’t make much sense, and it’s “rip” not “ripe” someone to pieces.
Two things here: “Underneath” is one word, and you switch from past tense (“I wondered which one I should kill first.”) Into present (“I wondered which one I should kill first.”) It’s fine if you’re using it as her internal thoughts, but otherwise, stick to past. (If they are her internal thoughts, they need to be in italics.)
EDITED:
“The hood of my jacket was pulled down low over my face. Shadows crept along the forest floor, as if preparing the ground for the next dead body.
“See,” I said. “I might be a human, but I’m a damn good shot.” I pushed another arrow onto the string and drew it back in one fluid motion. In less than five seconds I had fired the arrow and hit him just above his heart. Perfect Normally that would have counted as a miss, a failure that meant certain death at the hands of a monster. But it didn’t matter as long as I hit him. The arrow I had used made sure of that.”
Tips from the above example:
1. Break up the dialogue. Don’t throw everything she has to say into one sentence. You can make things more natural by adding pauses and breaks in simply the way the text is read.
2. You can add internalized thoughts, even in first person POV, to add more life to the prose. That’s all that stuff you read in the italics.
3. Try to achieve realism through clear action. Read what you write aloud when you go back and edit. If the sentence structure doesn’t sound right, it’s not going to make sense to your reader. I was personally quite muddled by that passage there, I don’t know if that was what you were trying to say.
Overall:
1. You need a lot more action in here. This is basically just a dialogue transcription. Characters talk, but there isn’t a lot going on. In order for characters to be dynamic, they have to act.
2. Add more description in here too. We have no context for where they are, what things look like, etc. They’re walking around in a white space, you need to give them a world that feels believable to the reader.
3. Don’t throw the readers into your story so suddenly. Give us some explanation as to what is going on. This really moves way to fast, and we are left wondering what on earth just happened, whether or not they will find whoever the “they” are that they are all looking for, etc. Clue the reader in as you go, try to avoid creating confusion.
4. Please, please, please, for the sake of all our sanity, edit this before you post. A spell-check doesn’t take that long, in the least. And looking over it once helps cut down on all the errors you might have inadvertently left in.
Good job on keeping things exciting, try to establish more of a connection between the characters and the reader. This means you need to round them out a little more, which means this really needs to be longer as a first chapter.
Keep writing!
~ED
That is the longest review I've ever seen. It brings up some good points and i get them. Thanks for the tips it's a first draft so i knew it wouldn't be brilliant. Thanks for the tips.
It was a good first chapter. This might become a good series. Your grammar and spelling could improve, but it was okay. It was a good piece of work.
thanks:D