A murder of ominous crows flies overhead, their shadows casting an eerie darkness throughout the trees above me. “Caw! Caw!” They roughly sing, and I watch as they hastily leave. The sky is as dead of a gray as the raven black trees. Dirt coats the ground beneath me, and I get the sudden sense I’ve forgotten to remeber something. A patchy black raven falls from the sky, landing in a pool of its own blood. I drop to my knees, attempting to comfort its beautiful pain. “Kill me,” it whispers hoarsely, life leaving its body slowly and painfully. “Since I do not know you, no suffering is needed.” I counter back, holding the creature carefully in my hands. “Now,” It gripes, it's eyes an image of pain. Crack! I twist its wringed neck and then its breath comes short. A feeling of happiness overcomes me as I wade in my good deed. Ruby blood covers my dirt smudged fingers, and I wipe it off on my shirt. A murder of a human lies on the ground beneath me, their blood now decorating the leafy ground.
When would I notice that I killed a person instead?
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137,484 Literary Works • 672,034 Reviews
It is about time that I start reviewing chapters of books. So, here I am. It is an it shorter than most. My apologies since I am really tired right now. Hope you can get some sort of direction out of it, though.
As an first chapter, I do love the vibe you are starting off with this story. It kind of reminds me of Edgar Allan Poe and an overall occult and paranormal vibe. However, I do think personally it runs an bit short for an first chapter. To me, this is more of an prologue than anything, and it could work like one if you wanted it to. If your goal is to write an piece that can work as an standard novel-length story, then I recommend that you try to flesh out your story as naturally as it can get for now if possible.
I am not saying you have to make an epic sprawling piece, but perhaps you could introduce us more to the character, their world, and an bit of their problems. For example, you could try and answer an few vital questions. What is this character? What is their world like? What do they believe and think about their world? What is their life like before the story starts? What is the problem they need to resolve before their end of the story?
These simple questions should be able to help you in an major way narrow into the story you are telling and better focus on what makes this chapter an chapter. Most chapters in novels are meant to better chunk into pieces what could be an difficult time reading alone without an break.
Overall, I think it is best that you consult your story first before taking on my advice. Its sort of personal, but I hope you got something out of it. Thank you for submitting and have an nice day/night.
Sincerely,
Purple67
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm Kate and I'm here to leave a quick review!!
Anyway let's get right to: Kate's Line by Line Reactions;
Well this is quite the horrifying start here and I love it. Makes for a wonderful note to start a novel off on. As far as first chapters go, this one is genuinely one of the shortest I've seen, maybe almost too short, but it definitely gets your attention and pulls you in effectively. My main bit of advice for this would be to try and maybe turn this into a prologue. I believe it would work a little better in that form as is. Or to make it a more substantial chapter, just by adding a bit more description for where this is talking place, how it takes place and maybe a bit more about the aftermath as well, just pad a little more content onto this.
I really love the flow of emotions here. The way it goes from the person's own desires, wanting to not cause needless conflict to how that never changes but whoever is doing this making the person think that help is what our protagonist is doing by committing this murder. I think it really shows something pretty powerful is making this deception happen and it really makes for a very powerful and intriguing moment.
The ending there is perfect I think, really echoes the main selling point there and hammers it home quite powerfully. Overall I think it lends itself very well towards being a really powerful first chapter.
Aaand that's it for this oneee!!!
As always remember to: Take what you think was helpful and forget the rest!
Kate
Hi, it's Serrurie! This is a pretty short chapter, but it packs a lot! Let's Dive In!
). This had a very intriguing twist that really gripped me at the end. You also have a very good handle on your adjectives.
The Good Stuff: Oh my gosh, that ENDING! That was not expected! I have a feeling this is either something all in their head or something paranormal (both would be interesting, but you have to keep writing for me to find out
Room For Improvement: I would suggest indenting and starting a new paragraph when the crow says 'Kill me,' just to make everything a bit more clear. That's really the only thing I noticed (not indenting when speech starts). Is it not being long enough an area for improvement? It should be! I want an entire chapter of this, not just a paragraph. You have so much to work with in terms of your descriptions being fused with action, I think this could clearly be converted into a full-length chapter.
Overall Thoughts: Please write more. I'm really hoping you do because I would really like to see more of your characters and your lovely descriptions (and I have a feeling you'd be really good at action scenes too!)
Thank you for writing the beginning of such a great story!
-Serrurie.