Green = Comment
Blue = Suggestion
Black = Review
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SMASH!
This is really up to you but I’ve never liked onomatopoeias unless they belong it stories for younger audiences, better to describe the sound before the character announces what smashed.
Carefully, he crept out of the small kitchen and into the hall. It was quite small, just a staircase[ ] a table and three doorways.
Commas are your friends, use them please!
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I’ll review the sections separately.
Russell confuses me as he seems to be afraid of what he’ll meet and when he does, the man-like figure as you call it, he loses his fear suddenly and goes for the kill. I’d have liked to have seen, or rather read, about his feelings when he sees the intruder: does he wonder how it got in?
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“Alright,” May mumbled, “I’m leaving.” She got to her feet and shuffled out of the black tent door into the clearing.
Not too sure what kind of a tent this is but they don’t really have doors, do they? I’ve never seen a real tent to know how big they are. Anyway I think the appropriate word would be: flap
[…] Sherman was just outside of the clearing and between some of the many trees that surrounded them.
I think I know what you want to say here. Suggestion: Sherman stood between a few trees along the border of the clearing.
Or just re-arrange the words you’ve used.
“Glad to see you’re finally up.” Christina [s]was looking up from the saucepan at May[/s] looked up from her work to see May.
^^^ See quote
“Well I needed some beauty sleep after the other day. You know, when somebody said to go and check out the 'deserted' barn.” There was a hint of sarcasm coming from May, but not quite enough to make Christina feel comfortable. That had been the day when the group had lost Greg. [ … ]
Perhaps here you could have played on one of the characters feelings, or all other theirs, just so we can see how much this missing person played in their group.
May turned and began to walk to where Sherman was slowly pacing the ground, checking here and there for ensnared animals.
The ‘turned’ was repeated here from May’s earlier action. Also, this could be improved if you split the sentence in two: one for Sherman and then have May walk up to him.
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I don’t really have anything to say about this chapter, what I’d really like to see is a lot more character interaction: we only have Richard and May, Christina has only one line and Sherman has yet to speak.
.:
Hello!
As a whole it is hard to say much on such short extracts which have got me hooked even though it was a little slow to begin with, but this seems to me a sort of 28 Days Later-style of work [love the movie so this is a compliment!] and I hope to read more. Though I’m left wondering why they’re outside when the prologue mentions people living in holes.
Myth
Points: 890
Reviews: 820
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