Night of the Black Moon

Night of the Black Moon

*squints at title*

*turns to work*

*shrugs*

Well, I've never cared much about titles relating to works anyway so

Introduction

Horror is a difficult genre to pull off well, at least for me. It falls into the same pit traps as comedy does, because people have different levels of being scared, just as people have different levels of humor--except, it's usually a wildly different experience for everybody. For example, most people are scared of Stephen King books, but personally, I don't find the excessive language and imagery frightening. Some people aren't afraid of horror movies, whereas I'm sticking knives in my eyes and cotton in my ears because I do not handle jumpscares well.

This is why it's difficult for any reviewer to lay down the common principles of horror, or what makes a good horror story. Personally, I think it's not the monster that scares people, but the shadow of the monster. It's the idea behind a sickening beast, the subconscious fear planted by years of running around in the dark woods hiding from beasts larger than us. It's the internal conflict faced by normal human beings, put into a physical form (see: every single Silent Hill monster).

Which is why, to me, stories like these feel a bit shallow. Because they're basing their spooooookky factor based entirely off the look of a creature, how it moves, how it sounds, how it is, instead of basing it off of a reputation or something the reader might be familiar with. It doesn't have to be a physical representation of repressed memories to be scary, mind you. But there has to be an air of mystery to the beast, a question mark that the reader may or may not want answered.

Which brings me to,

The Beginning

The night was as black as ink and a deathly silence hung in the damp air. The ancient trees towered over the jade green dragon padding through the forest.

On an entirely unrelated note, I feel like at this point describing colors with gems is a bit of a cliche. Not necessarily bad, mind you, just something I've found is way too common nowadays, and has no real deeper intention other than to look cool. It doesn't foreshadow what the character might be like, it isn't a common motif in the story, it's really just there as a crutch. I'm not saying "Stop That This Instance", I'm just saying maybe think about it later if you have to use it.

Onto the beginning: I like how you start out with the environment, as that's generally a good idea. It sets up the mood, and therefore the entire story, which is a good idea. Though I will say it doesn't exactly mention the main conflict, which is a problem, but not necessarily a big one. I would've liked it better if you made it clearer that the dragon is scared, or have him cowering under the ancient trees--basically, throw in a scared verb there, it'll work itself out.

The Protagonist

One of the main reasons why I think this doesn't entirely work is because a) it follows certain tired horror tropes without adding anything to it, ie THE DARE, and b) you really have no reason to root for the main character. See, that's the problem with most stories; they forget that the reader doesn't automatically know how to feel about a main character. Now this isn't as big of a problem, as long as the monster is a more powerful piece and compensates for the lacking protagonist, but I'm going to talk about that later. As it stands, the reader has no reason to root for the protagonist. We don't want to see him get out alive, there's not enough satisfaction out of that. After all, he just took a dare, that's stupid enough as it is--what reason are you giving us to root for somebody whose stupid enough to take a dare like this, especially in the horror genre?

That doesn't mean the main character must have redeeming qualities. More likely, it means he has to have entertaining qualities, something for the reader to chew on. If he makes snappy and witty remarks, does clever things to avoid the monster instead of immediately getting killed, if he's an active part of the story, the readers want to see him succeed because he's worked so hard--which is why it'd be more impactful when he doesn't succeed. Right now, he's a passive character, and there's no other element to compensate for his passiveness. He goes into the woods because his friends dared him to, he gets himself killed. He's not really made responsible by the story for anything, he isn't a critical part of it, which is a great weakness in a protagonist.

But it's not nearly as weak as,

The Monster

Let's bring back what I talked about in the beginning. You know, about how it isn't the monster that's scary, it's the shadow of the monster? I'm not talking literally here. I'm not talking "Oh, you shouldn't talk about the monster until the end, otherwise he won't be scary." No, really, it's the exact opposite. I want you to talk more about why the reader should be afraid of the monster, but never really answer what it is . I would've liked to hear more about what this 'Dragon Slayer' has done to deserve his reputation. Left a bunch of dragon bones? Mentally scarred surviving dragons? The usual "If You Go In You Never Come Out" drabble? Anything to suggest that this entity is threatening, but nothing to state what the entity is clearly. Some exaggerated physical descriptions are allowed, but you can't have anything clear cut. See, the point of this is to give the readers a bunch of question marks that makes the reader both want to answer the question, yet simultaneously not to answer the question because they're afraid of what the answer is.

And that's the problem with the Shadow Stalker. There's not much detailing why the reader should be afraid of him, other than, "Oh, he's a Dragon Slayer." So? Why should we be afraid of that? What does he do to dragons that's so scary? You can't just give us "Oh, he's a Dragon Slayer" and expect us to immediately be afraid, especially if we aren't sure if we like the main character. You need to give us more question marks, a longer shadow to stare at. The physical description in the end is pretty cool and nice, but it feels hollow without the reputation behind it.

And I think that's generally all I have for this story. It's an interesting Halloween choice, but I think it could be better executed.

Humbly,

--Elliot.