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125,005 Literary Works • 672,805 Reviews
This was very well written. You could be a horror novelist easy. And ignore those others who say your words are cliched. Cliches are good. Cliches are FRIENDS.
I thought this was very, very good. The descriptions were wonderful! I could almost see it myself. I liked the idea that he knew he was dreaming - one thing bothered me though, didn't he wonder what or who killed him? I liked the forshadowing too. I have no real critisism except that I loved it. Write more! Ofir
This was very short, and because of how short it was, I'm not sure what to make of it. Also, since this is just an excerpt, it's difficult to critique anything since we readers have no grounding provided by the rest of the story. How does this dream sequence relate to the rest of the story? How does the narrator know it's a dream? Is it a recurring dream? Was it supposed to be scary to read?
If it's a recurring dream, and this is the reason why the narrator knows its a dream in the first place, mention it. Since this is just an excerpt, you may have mentioned it earlier in the story, but it isn't mentioned here.
If the dream sequence was supposed to be scary, it wasn't for me. Personally, I found it quite predictable and lacking in important details. Why does the narrator find the dream scary? Describe to us just how scared the narrator is. Right now, the narration feels too detached and matter-of-fact, no hint of the panic or terror they felt. "Show, don't tell" is something that should almost always be applied to emotions; all you did was tell, and telling is nowhere near as effective as showing.
Nitpicks:
These two sentences are a bit repetitive. I'd suggest combining them.
Cliche description much?
You've already used "silent" in the sentence just before. Also, the "almost lovingly" bit is extremely cliche.
Does your mouth breathe? The way you have this written, it seems as if your mouth breathes on its own. Also, the adverb is both unneeded and inappropriate. You don't say "I was certainly being choked," as if someone wrapping their hand around your throat could lead to anything but choking, do you?
Thoughts should be italicized. I realize that posting this here probably ate all your formatting, but you should still go back through and reformat things. It's much kinder on your readers.
How was the pain insufferable? What kind of pain was it? Also "who's" means "who is" while "whose" is the possessive form of "who".
Tense shift. Are you using past tense or past participle (was verb-ing)?
This could be incorporated much more subtly into your story. As is, however, it just screams "I'M SPESHUL!" because it is so blatantly unsubtle and comes out of apparently nowhere.
By the way, I was wondering, why post just an excerpt? In the future I'd suggest waiting until you have at least a fair part of the story written out before posting anything for critique. It makes it much easier for the critquers to give useful critiques.