Young Writers Society

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,

Just a typical old Friday night. Nothing new. Fully immersed in sleep, after a long shitty day. "Aaaaaaaaaaagh!!!!" The scream pierced my ears like a dagger, waking me up instantly. Annoyed, I attempt to go back to sleep, but after a few minutes, "Aaaaaaaaaaaagh!!!" For fuck sake. What's going on? I get out of bed,slightly concerned about what might be happening. I dress myself, grab a coat, get my shoes and walk downstairs to see what's going on. The screams keep coming back again.

I already start shivering as I open my front door, the cold piercing through my jacket, already proving the point to myselfthat I should go back inside. No one around, nothing but trees swinging from side to side in the night's breeze. Another scream. Louder than the ones before, I better hurry to help, but I hesitantly walk to towards the direction. Getting closer and closer to the screams, I see no one coming to help, no one peeking out of their windows, just emptiness in a cold night. I hear another loud scream.I start to pick up the pace.

I'm close. No more screams. I haven't heard any in around a minute. I approach the location of the scream. Just a set flats. As I approach I see a dark alleyway close to the flats. Heart beating fast, I'm starting to become afraid of what's to come. I probably should have stayed at home. I approach the alleyway. I gasp as I see a large pool of blood. Some of it soaking my shoes. A blonde woman, perhaps in her 30's, sprawled out in the pool, with lifeless eyes. It wasn't a pretty sight. My heart pumps even faster as I see a hoodied man, wielding a blood soaked knife, standing right over the blond woman's body. I probably don't have to tell you what my first instinct was. In an instant, I'm gone. I run as fast I can, speeding through the alleyway and set of houses, eager to get home as quick as I can. I look back and he's chasing me, blood soaked knife in hand. The fear is building up, I need to get away.

Still running for life, I'm close to home. My fear intensifies as I feel he's catching up to me. He manages to trip my leg. I try with all my effort to get up, but I scream with extreme pain as he stomps my thigh. I try to get up. I can't. The feeling of defeat already starts to crawl over me. He stands over me, with an intense look in his eyes. It's clear what his intentions are. There's no point trying to fight what's to come.

One. Two. Three. Four. I gasp in agony as his knife pierces through my back. Another one. And another. I'm losing the fight in me.

I look up at the sky to get one last look at the stars. Suddenly, the whole world turns to black.

This is a good short story, to say the least. I love how you avoided a cliche by saying " I probably don't have to tell you what my first instinct was" instead of something similar to "Run, I thought." The main problem is all the typos, which make things slightly stressful to read (but better than people who don't capitalize the first letter of a sentence). I like how you did the slightly less common thing by killing the protagonist. You decide to use a more detailed death, which helps with the tone.

I quite like your writing style! You have a realistic voice and the way you write sort of comes cross as the way thoughts come into people's heads. However, I do agree that there are lots of typos and sentences that don't make a lot of sense and think that this piece would really benefit some proof reading.

Wow, this is.... dark. Twas not expecting that, to be honest. I like it, but it seems a little choppy. Maybe try varying up sentence lengths a little bit? Like at the chase scene have sentences either be short, as your main character is short of breath, or even long and winding like a stream of consciousness? Also maybe don't tell us exactly what happens, but show us. I really really like imagery and metaphors, and I felt like, well, I was reading. Take us somewhere with this short story. This has the potential to be great. Make it great

I think this story could be a lot better. You used a fairly average premise and executed it fairly averagely. There are a lot of ways you could have revved up your writing.

1) The first thing you could do is edit this more. I'm not sure how critically you looked at the final product, but I found several errors and typos. Another problem that could be fixed by just reading over it and fixing things is the awkward wording. There were some words that simply weren't needed and a lot of strange choices on where you ended your sentences. Fixing this would really help the flow of reading; these little mistakes can sometimes be jarring to the reader.

2) You seemed to do a lot of telling and not a whole lot of showing. I know that you've probably heard the same thing before about show don't tell, but it really is important. Instead of telling up that the narrator is scared maybe say that he started to sweat or that he got a bad feeling in his stomach.

3) Word choice is also very important when you write. Choosing the right words in the right combination can really set the scene. I find that using colors can be a great way to help visualize a scene. Humans are very visual creatures so a great description can really make or break a story. You used the word blood a lot, but why don't you describe the blood. The readers already know that it's blood you're talking about so you could go crazy with making us really see what's happening.

I'm sorry if this seemed harsh. I'm not trying to be mean. I'd enjoy seeing a revamped version of this sometime.