She seeked revenge and she got it. she stood next to the body of the girl who had been her best friend. To look at the body of the girl, beaten to death by her own best friend, even the girls family would find it very hard to recognize her. beaten to a bloody death, her face didn't really even look like a face anymore. What had once been a beautiful young girl was now a victim of the most brutal murder scene possible.
How the murder happened was simple. sleeping over at her best friends house, Saige waited until Gabby fell asleep and then she beat her to death with a hockey stick.
Gabby's parents weren't home. They were on vacation with some friends. Perfect timing for Saige to go through with the plan. There would have been no way that she could have done it had they been there.
Gabby's screams echoed throughout the house. The darkness swallowed them before the neighbors could hear her.
I wonder about the thoughts that had to have been running through her mind before she died. I wonder if she was regretting what she had done to her best friend; she must have been regretting it. It was so wrong. Best friends don't take each other's boyfriends. Especially when they already have one. Or maybe she was thinking about what a great friend Saige was. Saige had been a good friend to Gabby. Gabby had made a huge mistake. Little did she know, she wouldn't only regret making that mistake, but she'd never get the chance to make another mistake again.
Even more so, I wonder of the thoughts running through Saige's head. So full of emotion, overloaded with so many thoughts. I wonder of exactly what she was thinking the moment that she gave Gabby the last blow to the skull. One last breath. Then nothing, but silence.
A cell phone rang. She picked it up. "Hey, Mom."
"Hey, sweetie! Just wanted to say goodnight and make sure that you girls have all the doors locked and everything since Gabby's mom and dad aren't there with you, kay?"
"Okay, Mom."
"So... what have you girls been up to? Having fun, I hope. And you're not going to stay up too late or eat after midnight. You know what I tell you about eating after midnight."
"Yeah, Mom. I know. It becomes a habit," Saige answered.
"Alright, well, I love you honey!"
"Love you too, Mom," she replied.
"Night," they said in unison.
Saige hung up the now-bloody cell phone and threw it to the floor. She had other things to worry about. She had just murdered her best friend. She realized what she had done. She sat on the floor, indian-style, next to Gabby's lifeless body. She began to cry, furiously. I knew it would hit her eventually.
She was a killer.
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hey hotthang! I'm Saint, and I'm sure Monki has mentioned me once or twice.
Like Alianna said, there is a rule here that states you must do two reviews for every one piece of work you post. Here's a link to the site rules, so that there's no further confusion: topic714.html
Also, it *is* good to space out your paragraphs, much like I'm doing now. It makes your work easier to read and attracts more critiques. It's not a *rule* per se, but it is common courtesy. ^^
Onto the critique!
This could be worded a bit better -- we've established that she's dead, you don't need to repeat it. You could try something like "Her face was beaten beyond recognition, to the point where it didn't even look like a face anymore."
Eek! This could be *so* much jucier if you were to show instead of tell. You don't want to just inform your reader of what happened -- you want to make them live it. You want to put them in the moment, make them see, hear, smell every detail. Make them hear the girl's screams as she died. Make them feel the terror that she felt. To do this, ask yourself little questions about the scene -- what were they wearing? What was Gabby dreaming about? What did Saige feel when the hockey stick hit Gabby? What was going through both of their heads? You want to describe the scene in detail. Put your reader in the moment. Use sensory description (sight, taste, feel, etc), strong verbs, stuff like that. That kind of thing is what makes stories juicy. ^^
This, you're slowly teetering towards what I just described in that pain-in-the-neck paragraph above. Her screams and the imagery about darkness swallowing them? Brilliant. More of that. But the bit about the absence of her parents? Not so much, but not terrible either. It may or may not be necessary, and you could always include it later -- maybe in some dialogue or something. It goes back to showing versus telling -- you're telling us her parents are gone. There's probably a better way to do it.
You continue to teeter towards some good description below, and I'll point out some of the better bits at the end of this ramble.
Grammar edits are below:
Sought*
She*
girl's*
Also, this sentence would flow better if you changed the comma after "friend" to a hyphen. A harsher stop makes for more of an impact.
Get rid of "scene."
Now! Continuing my ramble from before...
You have potential here. *Real* potential, not just the "I'm-trying-not-to-make-you-feel-bad" kind of potential. Killers and murders are always fun to write about -- there's so much juicy stuff that goes on in their heads. And that's *exactly* what you want in your story. Describe what's going on in their minds. What are they feeling? Are they nervous? Are they thinking into the future or for the moment? Did they plan what they're doing? What are their motives? What is fueling their fire?
You want to show your reader exactly what's going on in their head. As my English teacher puts it, let us crawl around in the minds of your characters for a little while. Let us get a real feel for what they're thinking, believing, experiencing. Let us in.
How do you do this? Descriptive language, sensory verbs, and a bit of practise. The quickest way I've found to do this is to pick out a few of your favourite books and *really* study the way the author portrays the character. We learn best by example, so next time you read, don't just read, analyze. What did the author do to make you feel this? What did the author do that put you on the same brainwave as the character? What sucked you in? What put you in the moment? Stuff like that.
Some of your better moments for showing over telling:
Personally, I could do without the first person, but that's just me. But other than that, this is a pretty good example of showing rather than telling. Of course, you could always expand on it -- put in some of her actual thoughts. Did she hesitate? What *precisely* was she thinking? What was going on?
You've got a good start here, and like I said earlier, you have *tons* of potential. It takes practise, but I'm sure this piece will be pretty amazing one day. ^^
PM me if you have any questions, comments, or chocolate pudding! And, of course, I'll be glad to help you through every stage of editing this. ^^
Best of luck!
-Saint Razorblade
The Official YWS Pirate
Okay, first of all, in this paragraph you repeat a lot of words. Like, “she” and “girl”. This sometimes makes it hard to figure out who you are talking about. Also, you basically repeat the second sentence in the third sentence. Perhaps it would be better to incorporate that information together in one sentence, instead of two. For example, “Saige looked at her best friend’s body, beaten to death with her own hands.” You could possibly add to this how Saige is feeling at the time.
“her face didn't really even look like a face anymore” You use the word “face” twice in one sentence. Maybe you should change that. Perhaps to: “her face didn’t resemble much of her old features (anymore)”.
The first sentence is a bit… well, non-active. Was, the past singular form of to be, is a non-active word. It doesn’t describe much of the situation.
You use “beat her to death” a lot in your description, perhaps you could think of a different wording? Or explain the emotion Saige felt while murdering her best friend.
You use a lot of short sentences in this paragraph that could be connected with each other, like I showed in the quote above.
Also, how could Gabby scream if she was already dead? Was it a flashback or something? This doesn’t make much sense with what you previously said.
Who is the “I-person” in this paragraph, and why hasn’t he appeared before?
I don’t really get what’s explained in this paragraph either. Apparently, they took each other’s boyfriends, and that’s why Saige killed Gabby? You could go into more detail with this, and instead of using the anonymous I person, look into Saige’s head. Or even better, Gabby’s head moments before she was killed.
On another note, I really liked the last sentence of this paragraph. It shows how real the situation is, it gives me the feeling Saige is actually quite a bitter person. Is this true?
If you crawled in Saige’s head instead, this entire paragraph wouldn’t be necessary.
Quite a casual phone-conversation, for someone who just murdered their best friend.
Again, you use a lot of short sentences here that could be added together.
If you change the point of view from the “I” to Saige, I think this piece would have a lot more impact, especially when you realize what Saige must have feeling while doing that to Gabby.
Overall, the concept for this was good, a girl killing her best friend is really quite disturbing. However, you could have worked out the details a bit more. Not just using what Saige is seeing, but also what she’s hearing, smelling, etc. Use all your senses for this piece. It definitely has the potential to become good.
Hello there and welcome to YWS.
We have a rule here that you have to critique at least two works before you post your own.
I also suggest that you head over to the Welcome forum, say hello and check out the FAQ's and Guide.
As to this piece of work itself, you need to space it out so it is easier to read and fix all your capital letters and other punctuation mistakes. If you would like a full critique then please pm me and I would be happy to once you have critiqued some work.
~Alainna