Tallis realised it was a mistake as soon as she turned the corner. But she had heard that blood curdling scream ricochet throughout the neighbourhood and being the curious soul she was she had run from her house, darting to the epicentre of the sound. The whole world had blurred around her, completely focused on that one cry. She new she was nearing the scene, unable to control her body, her pace slowed. She was running through the nights events so far in her mind. The scream had been unique to her, only one person in the whole world would have made that particular noise; he was in trouble. She could almost picture his perfect features. His rustic blond hair tousled back just covering his eyes. Those intense blue eyes that you can get lost in forever just peeking out from beneath his magnificent mane. His skin just tanned enough that it illuminates his features. And that radiant smile that warms my heart even from a distance. He is perfect and amazingly he is mine, or was.
The houses innocently line this Parisian street. She saunters as if all is okay, taking in her surroundings. The deep iridescent sky at twilight is the perfect back drop for the scene. The wide, quiet street is completely empty, asleep and unaware of what is happening. The regal looking town houses stand to the side lines watching the world go by in merriment all blind to the real world that surrounds them. They say that ignorance is bliss and i guess they are correct. A street light is positioned every few hundred yards. They line the streets like soldiers, protecting and faithful always knowing when they are needed. But this dazzling scene is soon destroyed. A second yelp slices through the air like a knife through butter. Her worst fear has been confirmed; she darts off to where the noise came from, her vision now clouded by a tsunami of tears that cascade down her cheeks. The world around her turns to one solid grey colour, his yelp is all that she can hear. Cars are passing her as she thunders down the path but she is totally oblivious to them. The odd dog walker wonderers aimlessly into her path but are soon pushed aside as she barrels down the street at the speed of light. Tallis rounds the corner with hope that she was wrong. But before her is a scene that she knew deep down she would find. She can’t seem to find the words to yell, all that escapes her lips is a meager whimper...
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140,110 Literary Works • 673,017 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
Anyway let's get right to it,
Well, that's a pretty intriguing start there to this scene. It looks like a situation where this person is hearing the screams of someone that they seem to care about quite a bit there judging by how this first paragraph ends off....aaand well, that certainly does manage to get our attention here, a solid thing to get a story started, although I will say that the descriptions of this person that made this scream is a bit too long, it kind of takes away from the excitement and horror of the situation when the pacing is slowed down as much as it is here just to describe this man.
Well that seems to indicate that he fears were in fact true and something quite horrible has ended up happening there. A powerful end there at any rate, to really drive home that a proper tragedy is happening here. And the description in this paragraph of the world around here is done much better. It showcases sort of how the world continues to move forward normally around her as she spirals into sadness and she can feel that this terrible act is in progress...its a lovely contrast there. All in all, very solid scene her, besides that tiny issue at the start, this is a great first bit here, and it seems like a story I'd read at any rate.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Tallis realized it was a mistake as soon as she turned the corner. But she had heard that blood curdling scream ricochet throughout the neighborhood and being the curious soul she was she had run from her house, darting to the epicenter of the sound. The whole world had blurred around her, completely focused on that one cry. She new she was nearing the scene, unable to control her body, her pace slowed. She was running through the nights events so far in her mind. The scream had been unique to her,only one person in the whole world would have made that particular noise; he was in trouble. She could almost picture his perfect features. His rustic blond hair tousled back just covering his eyes. Those intense blue eyes that you can get lost in forever just peeking out from beneath his magnificent mane. His skin just tanned enough that it illuminates his features. And that radiant smile that warms my heart even from a distance. He is perfect and amazingly he is mine, or was.
The houses innocently line this Parisian street. She saunters as if all is okay, taking in her surroundings. The deep iridescent sky at twilight is the perfect back drop for the scene. The wide, quiet street is completely empty, asleep and unaware of what is happening. Woolgathering houses stand to the side lines watching the world go by intergovernmental blind to the real world that surrounds them. They say that ignorance is bliss and i guess they are correct. A street light is positioned every few hundred yards. They line the streets like soldiers, protecting and faithful always knowing when they are needed. But this dazzling scene is soon destroyed. A second yelp slices through the air like a knife through butter. Her worst fear has been confirmed; she darts off to where the noise came from, her vision now clouded by a tsunami of tears that cascade down her cheeks. The world around her turns to one solid grey color, his yelp is all that she can hear. Cars are passing her as she thunders down the path but she is totally oblivious to them. The odd dog walker wanderers aimlessly into her path but are soon pushed aside as she barrels down the street at the speed of light. Tallis rounds the corner with hope that she was wrong.But before her is a scene that she knew deep down she would find. She can’t seem to find the words to yell, all that escapes her lips is a meager whimper...
I went through and edited the story, lots of missing spaces, lots of misspelled words, but you did do good on describing things
Hello there! I'm Dover, and I shall be your reviewer today. I have quite a bit to say here, so if you want the short (and more merciful) version scroll to the bottom. I'll list all my major points down there.
Interesting choice of words here. Unfortunately, "epicenter" is most commonly associated with the origins of an earthquake. Now, if this scream was, say, causing buildings to fall down and the earth to crack open, then I may like it better. But right now how about we stick to synonyms of the word "origin."
So this guy is a horse?
Oh, hi there, love interest! Thanks for breaking the flow of narration!
I'm sorry, but I simply don't understand why the narrator felt the need to emphasize how perfect her love interest in considering she's running to save his life. I think there would be much bigger priorities on her mind. You know, ones above repeating to herself just how perfect he is. How about figuring out the fastest route to her destination? Maybe she's thinking about that instead. Or maybe she's trying to formulate a plan to flag for help if needed.
Now I don't expect your viewpoint character to be completely rational in this situation. I doubt most people would be. But I would expect her to be focused on what needed to be accomplished in order to remedy the situation, even if she is highly emotional. You're trying to establish a suspenseful moment, suspense that dies the moment the narrator talks to the audience about how perfect her boyfriend is. It's like she got sidetracked, and when we do get back to the suspense it feels less like a continuation of the plot and more like, "And now we return to 'Darkness isn't forever...' brought to you by Needless Infodump Inc.: We explain it so you don't have to!" It's like there was some commercial break right in the middle of the plot, and, like commercial breaks, it's incredibly distracting and can make you forget what you were watching. Or, in this case, reading.
Okay, big glaring issue addressed. Let's look at the rest of this piece.
Wait. So one moment she's running due to an obviously urgent situation, and now she's all of a sudden walking? I'm confused.
Sudden shift to first person here. Fortunately this is minor and the only example. Just thought I'd point it out.
Is that why you used a geology term in describing the scream earlier? It was so powerful that it literally caused a disturbance in her tear ducts?
By this point in the review you may have noticed that I've picked out a few sentences and commented on certain words in those sentences. What I'm trying to do is highlight an issue with your vocabulary. Now it's great that you're trying to have vivid description in your writing. But I want to emphasize that it's important to use not only vivid words, but the right words to describe the images in your head. For example, using the words "magnificent mane" to describe hair makes me think of a horse, not a person. Similarly, the word "epicenter" makes me think that the scream had seismic implications, as if the sound waves were like shock waves and could be, I don't know, weaponized.
Now I'm sure it wasn't your intention to make these things pop into my head. But that's why it's so important to choose the right word in your description. Really analyze what image you want to communicate. What's most important about that image? Then figure out the precise words needed to communicate that idea. Be exact along with being vivid, and you will go far with your writing. You're already off to a good start with being vivid, you just need to be more exact with your word choice.
The last thing I want to address here is the fact that this really doesn't go anywhere. Now I know this is listed as a novel, so I'll assume that it'll pick up later. But I just don't feel enticed to follow the story, mostly because I'm not really introduced to this viewpoint character. There's someone in danger and she needs to go save them. It's too late by the time she gets there. And there's really not much more to say. Now maybe if you built up the suspense a bit more this can be enticing on its own, but right now the combination of an infodump at the beginning and awkward vocabulary undermines the potential.
So, to sum up my review:
- Get rid of the infodump about the perfect love interest at the beginning. It slows your narrative to a crawl and kills any suspense you had in the beginning. Instead replace it with something relevant to the immediate situation, something the viewpoint character would be focused on in this context.
- Work on your vocabulary when it comes to description. You already have a good start on vivid description, but you need to be more precise with your word choice so the audience truly understands what you're trying to say. If you're not precise then your audience may get really weird images in their head, just like I did.
- As a first part to what I assume to be a novel, I don't find this piece very interesting. It has the potential to be interesting, but the awkward vocabulary and infodump really hurt this piece. I think you should focus your efforts on maintaining suspense in this narrative. How you do this is up to you, but I would suggest focus on the urgent situation to the exclusion of everything else, and emphasis on location and distance (exactly how far is your viewpoint character from the scream?), and sharp description. Also make the changes I suggested in points one and two.
Hopefully that helped. You're free to PM me with any questions or comments.
--Dover
There are only four mistakes i see
"She running..." i think you missed a preposition
This sentence is awkward i'd consider revising
"He is perfect and amazingly his mine, or was."
There should be a comma put between wide and quiet.
"The wide quiet street..."
Again this is an awkward sentence because you are stating twice , in the same thought, that she has come to a realization.
"She instantly knowns that her worst fear has been confirmed;"
Othere then that your sentence structure and atmospere of your work is quite impresive. Thank you for the great read
thank you for a great review