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So I think all of this was new material! It’s interesting, I liked how you made it so Ashe broke Zayn out. It was definitely a good idea to introduce him sooner in the story. I think in your other version it took several chapters before we first say Ashe.
However you hardly described him. It was a bit jarring when you mentioned he could materialize into black smoke, so it made it difficult to imagine his movement. Was he just kind of flying around Zayn? You said his face was next to Zayn’s, but it was upside down, so does that mean that Ashe was somehow clinging to the rope or ceiling? Or was he materialized into black smoke except for the shape of his head?… I don’t know, so that needs more describing. Also, I have no idea what his appearance is other than he has ‘amethyst eyes’ which is really not very much to go on at all. And for one of the main villains, you want us to have a good picture of him.
Alright, so the last section with Ira and Vanessa. Technically, there’s nothing wrong with it. But personally, I thought it was a weak introduction to their characters. There just wasn’t anything that hooked me or interested me about either of them. It’s hard to explain, but that’s really it. Ira seemed like a normal man, I would’ve never guessed he was the evil brother of Louis. The only thing different with him was that he thinks ‘yeah, I’m basically a monster but whatevs.’. But the way he treats and interacts with Vanessa says otherwise, and you make him seems just like one of the good guys.
Vanessa was uninteresting, but this was mostly focused on Ira so it doesn’t matter too much. I just don’t understand that if her character is truly the sweet gentle type, why in the world is she hanging around Ira? Honestly, if she had such a kind heart, wouldn’t she be sickened by his passiveness? It seems to me like she would despise Ira. Anyhoo, that’s really all I had to complain about there x)
Besides that, work on removing those ellipses.
Best of luck!
Hi Beil, It’s me again! I noticed quite a few errors, maybe a few that have already been pointed out, but who cares, right?
Your emphasis on dead animals and ice seems a bit too much, try toning it down a bit.
He was hanging from a rope…and he cut his wrists? I don’t get it, which way did he commit suicide. I can hardly imagine someone managing two ways of killing themselves.
That bit in italics doesn’t make sense to me, clarification?
One would normally use the toe of the foot to open a door. I couldn’t get the ball (or the heel) of my foot to open a door. In fact, you can even used the verb ‘toed’ like this: “He toed the door open…”
I like your take on the vampire smell. Is that what vamps smell like in other vampiric stories? I don’t read very many.
If it isn’t a clichéd smell, then you should definitely use it, it adds flavour to this vampire, however brief his scene is.
‘A door that was closed’ is passive voice, active voice calls for ‘a closed door’. Also, I would replace ‘a narrow hall’ with ‘the narrow hall’, just to make it read better.
This part doesn’t fit quite well. Maybe: “… and a gentle voice softly humming a familiar tune.”
Cut.
I don’t like ‘again’ right there, and ‘foot steps’ should probably be ‘footsteps’. Actually, I don’t even like ‘footsteps’. I feel that it should be “…vanished silently down the hall.”
Another note, ‘leaped’ could also be ‘leapt’. I think the difference is British-American English, but I’ve grown up with a mixed exposure to both (don’t ask) so I’m not sure which is which, or which side you’d want.
Gah, whatever, leapt just sounds better to me.
You need a space between ‘replied,’ and ‘I,’; ‘L.’ and ‘Graham,’; ‘aloud.’ and ‘Louis,’; ‘amusement,’ and ‘I’ve,’.
I love how you have two customs here, they obviously rose up shortly after Before. One is the fact that ammo is currency, two is that they all check each other’s ink for identification. Great culture for your world.
You need a space between ‘him,’ and ‘As,’; ‘nodding,’ and ‘But,’; ‘interrupted,’ and ‘I,’.
Also, you repeat ‘listen’ both in the satyr’s words and Louis’. Redundancies are my bane.
You see where I’ve underlined the ‘he’s? In one, you’re referring to Louis, in the other, the satyr. If you do not specify your pronouns, it can get confusing.
I don’t think this sentence flows very well, but I can’t explain why. Let me just give you my correction.
“He gestured toward the window. Louis followed his finger and saw the dark shapes of a coven of vampires as they came tramping up to the hotel.”
I also like your choice of ‘coven’ here. Normally it is defined as a gathering of things, but mostly a gathering of witches. [coven (kuv’әn) n. 1. A gathering or meeting, esp. of witches]
I think you should specify that it is the back door. That would be the door he would take to escape detection from the vamps.
Your new sentence here is abrupt. You should never start a sentence with ‘but’ or ‘and’.
Awesome aphorism.
Why would a trailer be attached to a diesel truck? You mean a big diesel tanker right? One with a metal cylinder on the back? Or did you mean a semi truck? Either way, you wouldn’t have a trailer attached.
Also, you’ve used a trailer already (although you said airstream) so why not switch now? Maybe an RV.
Here I was confused. How long ago was Before? Louis seems to remember it only through legends, so hundreds of years? However, there are skeletons here. Did they come from Before, or were they killed after?
Also, why aren’t they just frozen corpses like the farmer and his wife?
Oh wait, because they died a day before Louis got there, right?
I’m just a little confused as to your timeline. Info-dumps are generally bad, but I would like one right about now.
You need a space between, ‘pallet,’ and ‘It’s,’.
Right here, you shift scenes. However, instead of going back to the flashback, you use this shift to show that time has passed. You use the same ellipses that you used before, but you are not using them for the same thing. I suggest that you do not put an empty line right there.
Also, the way you’ve worded it, it sounds as though the Wolves got all the way up to the trailer before he woke up. I would expect him to be a little more vigilant than that.
You need a space between ‘shrieked,’ and ‘Help,’.
You say that his ‘inner Beast’ begins to rise, but you never mention him phasing. I was confused for a while there, and thought that he was fighting them in his human form.
Jaw and shoulder? Simultaneously? Man, those Wolves have one big bite! I think you should lessen the area this Wolf is getting his teeth into.
Cut.
Change the ‘an’ to ‘the’, also, cut ‘more’.
‘Steel-colored’, with a hyphen.
And his jaw, right?
Woah, wait, a suburban is a whole collection of houses. Did you really mean that? Or did you mean the Suburban car? I think you should specify.
‘swat’ seems a poor choice. Also, you said that Louis had more experience, yet here you say that the Alpha is ‘gnarled’ implying old age. How much older is this Wolf? Or is Louis older?
Insert ‘that’ before ‘this was’. Also, you alternate between capitalizing Alpha and not capitalizing it. Which is it, alpha or Alpha?
You need a space between ‘him,’ and ‘Get,’. Also, in what language is he speaking? English? Wolf?
Comma between ‘them’ and ‘having’. Actually, try reducing it, like this: “He wanted nothing to do with them or the responsibilities that came with being the Alpha.”
A river, or rivers?
You need a space here.
Why would he crawl? Is he that wounded? Also, you misspelled ‘frantically’. Where I struck out that ‘and’ is where you need to put a comma.
You need a space between ‘hand,’ and ‘Help,’.
Try some other verb here, maybe ‘jerked’ or ‘pulled’.
You need a space between ‘whispering,’ and ‘Shh,’. Plus, you say ‘gathered her up in his arms,’ as though she were small child. I was thinking she was a young woman.
If so, and if the baby was newly-born, then she should show signs of a recent pregnancy. Pregnant woman don’t lose the extended tummy immediately after birth. …unless she wasn’t Violet’s mother.
You need a space between ‘features’ and ‘Another’.
‘Feebler’
A few hours, no; a day, maybe. You just said the woman had died a day ago.
Newborns do not have much hair. In fact, it is very rare for babies to be born with a slight crop of hair, much less a full head.
“For a long time…”
Alright, I have to ask you something: do you use a word processor? Microsoft Word or something like that? If so, you should know that many of your mistakes (especially the ones about missing spaces) are showing up on my spelling checker. It’s a simple macro, but it looks like a red squiggly line under the misspelled word. For grammar mistakes, there is a green line.
If you set your processor to ‘check spelling as you type’ then the spelling errors will show up right away and be easier to get rid of. Also, before submitting a story, you should use the main checker on your work.
If you use Microsoft word, press F7 and the checker will begin its work, finding your errors and giving you correction suggestions. If you do not use Microsoft word, then YWS itself has a spelling checker, to the upper-right of the submitting box. It only does spelling, though, so you should try to fix the grammar yourself.
All I’m saying is that it should be mandatory and unconscious for you to perform your own corrections.
That said, I think you did very well here
Jenth
P.S. I recently found something called the ‘Grammar and Style’ checker, and it gives you several cool stats. Let me show you yours.
2% of your sentences are passive. (Good! Now if they would only show you the passive sentences…)
83.3 is your score on the Flesch reading ease scale. (Great! Better than my most recent short story)
4.5 is your grade on the Flesch-Kincaid grade level. (Not so good, but Isaac Asimov scored a 5.6 when I tested one of his stories, so don’t feel bad)
Flesch and Kincaid are obviously the guys who came up with the scale and grade levels, so that explains that.
Alright, so the baby is actually Violet? And I’m guessing her mom died in childbirth. Who put the baby in a basket? Why hadn’t the child frozen to death? Did Louis decide to name her himself?
Alright, so I think this chapter has a lot of work that still needs to be done.
First, what was the point of the entire first part in the barn/farmhouse? You go on about dead cattle and the supposed farmer who hung himself, and then there’s a woman humming in the back room who I guess runs and makes a break for it at the end before you leave it hanging. Was there a point to it that I just wasn’t getting? Was that a flashback? I get the feeling that all these sections are flashbacks but I’m still not sure.
In the second part, he’s obviously traveling with Violet somewhere in the Underworld. Why he’s in the Underworld, where it’s obviously very dangerous for both of them, I have no idea. It doesn’t sound like they have a destination they’re trying to get to, and it doesn’t sound like they’re trying to escape.
The fight with the wolves was probably the most interesting part, I liked how you explained the woman at the end who was being turned and Louis’s reaction towards her.
I’d still like to know Violet’s age. The way she whimpers and shakes all the time seems childlike, but for all I know she is some mentally troubled woman.
The third section is the most undeveloped here by far. And if this was the scene where he first found Violet, it should be one of the most important parts in the whole story. I only assume it’s Violet by the way he said she looked at him like he was her only hope, and that’s how he described Violet towards the beginning.
Why was the woman (Violet’s mother?) naked? If she had died in childbirth, she should’ve only been uncovered from the waist down or something, especially if it was so cold. You lack description in this part. Where was the house? How had he stumbled in? Describe the mother and the baby. Describe the room.
I mean, Violet is such a huge part of this guy’s life, you’d think the first time he saw her would mean a lot to him. I’m sure he remembers every detail vividly in his head, so you have to make sure that way feel the same way when we’re reading this.
So now that I’ve read the first four parts, I’m feeling a bit (just a bit!) let down. Sure, the way you use your vocabulary is definitely impressive, and the elements of horror you add are successful. But I’m getting a huge ‘lack of plot’ feeling. Do you know where your story is going? I’m feeling like it’s just going back and forth with flashbacks of two different characters that seem completely unrelated to the other. How are they connected? How did the world get the way it is? Questions like these really have to be explained, sooner rather than later. Otherwise, chapters later, a reader might become distracted from the amazing power of your words and think to themselves, “Wait, what’s really going on?”
So I hope this review helped, sorry if I rambled at parts. Let me know if I misunderstood anything obvious so that I won’t be lost in future chapters! Also, don’t hesitate to ask me questions.
Good luck with the next parts, let me know when they’re up, as always!
I just want to say your series is absolutely positively amazing! I could see this being published, no joke. The diction is high up yet not too elegant, which is a great simple style that's easy for a reader to read yet difficult for a writer to execute. PLEASE KEEP WRITING! I'm hooked, a definite fan!!!
Keep it up!!! =)
Wow.

This story was vivid, frightening, and amazing all at once.
You have this amazing eerie way of organizing your words; it really makes the difference between a semi-good story and A TOTALLY AWESOME (YOURS!) story. XD
As for grammar edits, I couldn't find many:
*Use "" instead of '' for quotations
*Make sure that you have appropriate spaces around your dialogue. For instance- "Wow," she sighed, "that's really wierd!", NOT "Wow," she sighed,"that's really wierd!" I noticed that a few times.
KEEP WRITING KEEP WRITING!
Taylor
Once again, nothing short of amacing. I only saw two things that bugged me.
Maybe this is just me, but either sounds a bit odd. Try a world like both, or maybe another word because both sounds odd in my sleepy brain too.
Also i got a little confused, who bit the lady? Was it a Vampire or a Wolf? And what was there with Violet when Luis found her?
Other than that, LOVED IT! Luis finding Violet was like one big awww moment. And now I have more questions for what happens later: will that pack come back at Luis's call, who is Luis, what happened to destroy that place, and is the lady going to join the pack as well?
Please update soon! I'm already adicted!