Stalking The Stalker

Stalking the Stalker

Prologue

She woke up in the middle of the night covered in sweat, again. But this time it was weird... it was like, well it was like it wasn't sweat at all... like it was blood. She has had the same nightmare over and over again for the past year. It all happened when she and her partner were doing their usual rounds. Nothing seemed out of place but yet something felt oddly wrong. She always felt weird when something was wrong when something was going to happen. But she never felt it in her dreams, she never felt it this strong. Moriquea was always getting into trouble whenever she felt it. But she didn’t know that this was going to be one she couldn’t control.

Chapter 1

‘What is this thing???" Moriquea thought. It felt like there was an invisible force trying to push into her mind. ‘No’ she thought. It went away. It started up again… ‘No’ she thought again. It stopped again. ‘It finally went away’ she thought. And it did… but not for long.

The next thing Moriquea knew was that she heard her partner scream… she had never heard him scream before. She always thought that he was strong, funny, not scared of any thing. But she was wrong. He wasn’t scared of any humans. But this thing wasn’t human. She knew she felt something. But she didn’t know what. She knew she felt another like her.

See Moriquea was different. Not like any other human. Actually not like any one at all. She was different than your regular vampires, werewolves, and shape-shifters. She was a vampire and a shape-shifter. She didn’t know any one else that was one. But for the past month she had felt something like her. She had felt a different felling a different presence. It scared her. She didn’t know what it was. But she forgot the feeling and ran towards the noise.

‘Help’ she thought. Help. She knelt down by her partner, crying, he was covered in blood not only his but also the thing that attacked him. He was dying and there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t heal him even though she had powers that could. She couldn’t heal him because of what attacked him. She could only heal wounds made by human or by a knife. She couldn’t heal something that the supernatural did, even though they aren’t ghosts, or phantoms, or spirits; vampires, werewolves, and shape-shifters are also considered supernatural. He knew what she was and he probably thought it was her that did that. But he knew what she looked like. He couldn’t have.

He opened his eyes and her saw her. She was fully clothed but he didn’t know if it was because he was out long enough so she could get dressed or if that thing wasn’t her. But it had to be her. She had said that there was nothing else like her. That she was the only one. It didn’t look like her though. And she was crying. 'That thing was smirking when I went out. I don’t know what happened.' He thought to himself. He opened them just so he could see out. But she couldn’t see that they were open. Even though his hair covered his eyes he could still see her. She was crying and cursing. He didn’t know what she was cursing at it was like she was speaking a different language. That’s because she was speaking some other language! He remembered that she said that shape-shifters and vampires had different languages. But it sounded like she was speaking a mixture of them both. And he had only heard her talk like that once before… but he wasn’t even sure that it was her. ‘That thing that attacked me… is spoke in the same language.’ He thought. She had never spoke like that before… (Other than that thing that attacked him, which he wasn’t sure if that was her.)

Comments

Points: 769
Reviews: 17

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Fri Apr 05, 2024 4:04 pm

angelinamar wrote a review...

Okay. Wow. I know this a very old piece and I don't know if you have a continuing story going along with this piece but can I just say this is a really good short story right here. I really like how you made me picture what was going on in the story without even realizing I did. I really really hope you have more to this story. Also I don't know if you did this intentionally but, the cliff hanger is really eating at me. I'm sorry but I can't express this enough. I WANT TO SEE MORE FROM THIS PIECE.

Thank you for this read. It as really good.

Points: 890
Reviews: 85

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Mon Oct 02, 2006 11:53 pm

aeroman wrote a review...

Okay, well since I'm lazy in my young age I'm not going to give you specific examples for anything, you seem smart so I'll just be giving you my opinion.

Basically when I read this, I felt like you were rushing me through everything, it was more like you were taking me through a movie in fast forward.

Now your question is what do I mean by this? I mean, you didn't take time to really develop what you were talking about, a lot of what you said did not fit and you were just rushing through.

So what I would advise is that you take the time to really go over your characters, really learn who they are. Do some deep character sketches of them, so basically you will know how they will react to any situation you throw at them while you're writing. It will help you write about them better than ever. Also it will be more tangible for the reader and, it will slow down the piece. Making it so we feel like we're not getting rushed.

Also you need to give us more descriptions of the things that are happening, that is another thing that made it feel rushed. Adjectives are your friend and will add to your piece, how you wrote is very basic.

Here's an example...
#1- He started sweating.
#2- He started sweating profusely.

Which one gives you a better visual picture of whats going on? The first one makes you wonder, how bad is he sweating? The second one answers that question with profusely.

Another thing I would advise is proof read over and over. Nothing is ever perfect, everytime I read through my stories I always find another mistake it seems, and I've probably read through mine 20+ times...sad I know haha

Hopefully this helped, I'm not sure if it made sense, but I just got home from swimming so I'm tired...lol...but overall you seem like you have a good idea! You just need to develop it more you have the talent to make it great, just keep working at it!

Points: 1726
Reviews: 266

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Mon Oct 02, 2006 10:35 pm

backgroundbob wrote a review...

Alrighty, lass, we'll get down to business.

Firstly - never, never, never do this:

?!?!

Putting a question-mark and an exclamation-mark together is something that's very rare in professional writing: it makes you seem a little childish and juvenile in your work. There are occasional cases where it fits, BUT: more than one of each is an absolute no. It's bad grammar and anyone with any experience of novels will look at it and go "this is ridiculous". Just don't.
In the same vein, you use these a lot:

...

That's also a bad idea. Use them in very limited circumstances, usually only to indicate someone trailing off when they are speaking - NOT the way you have, to lead into another point. That's what new paragraphs, commas, semi-colons or connecting words are for, definitely not the ellipsis.

Now, onto the main stuff.

To start with, your sentence structure: it's extremely basic. Let's take the first paragraph as an example:

She woke up in the middle of the night covered in sweat again. {short, non-complex sentence} She has had the same nightmare over and over again for the past year. {another short, non-complex sentence} It all happened when she and her partner were doing their usual rounds. {once again, a short, non-complex sentence} Nothing seemed out of place but yet something felt oddly wrong. {and again} She always felt weird when something was wrong when something was going to happen. {and again}But she never felt it in her dreams, she never felt it this strong. {etc.} Moriquea was always getting into trouble whenever she felt it. But she didn’t know that this was going to be one she couldn’t control.

As I've highlighted, all your sentences are short and non-compound. They start, say one thing, and end; there's no use of commas, semi-colons, colons, hyphens etc. to lengthen them and turn them into compound sentences. The result is that it is not only very stop-start and choppy to read, but it sounds like very childish and immature writing - you need to use punctuation to turn this into a piece that flows better.

Next, your style of narrating - this is also extremely basic, and ends up confusing and annoying the reader more than actually telling them the story. Overwhelmingly, you're guilty of just telling us what you want us to know, instead of showing us, which is how a good writer usually gets information across. For example, we'll compare this paragraph of yours:

‘Help’ she thought. Help. She knelt down by her partner, crying, he was covered in blood not only his but also the thing that attacked him. He was dying and there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t heal him even though she had powers that could. She couldn’t heal him because of what attacked him. She could only heal wounds made by human or by a knife. She couldn’t heal something that the supernatural did. Even though they aren’t ghosts, or phantoms, or spirits; vampires, werewolves, and shape-shifters were considered the supernatural. He knew what she was and he probably thought it was her that did that. But he knew what she looked like. He couldn’t have.

with this section detailing some of the same ideas, taken from The Darkest Road by Guy Gavriel Kay:

She knelt on the ground beside him, and something, the intuitive awareness of her presence, caused him to open his eyes. By torchlight she met his blue gaze for the last time with her own. He tried to smile, to speak. But at the last there was too much pain she saw, he would not even be allowed this much, and so she lowered her mouth to his, and kissed him, and said, "Good night, my love. I will not say goodbye. Wait for me by the Weaver's side. If the gods love us--"

Now, note how you deliver information to the reader: everything is 'told' to us - she does this, then she does this, then she does that; she can't heal this, vampires are this, he knew this, etc. It just gets repetitive and boring, and there's no imagination to spark off an image in our head.
Now take the paragraph from Kay: starts off with the action, "she knelt"; the next piece of information does not read "he opened his eyes because of some intuitive awareness of her", it reads "something, some intuitive awareness of her..." etc - do you see the difference? Throughout the whole paragraph, Kay includes different ways of showing us actions, different ways of telling us information, and it's all extremely descriptive, detailing the pain, the light, the colours: if you're going to write well, you're going to have to learn to build up a picture in our minds through your writing, not just tell us "this happened, then this, then they felt this, then" etc.

Finally for the moment, your way of providing extra information that you think we should know. This, for example:

Even though they aren’t ghosts, or phantoms, or spirits; vampires, werewolves, and shape-shifters were considered the supernatural.

or this:

(Other than that thing that attacked him, which he wasn’t sure if that was her.)

Put plainly, it's a horrible thing to include in a story. You basically just abandon the storyline for a sentence and include a footnote of information. At the very least, you could write something like "she knew all about supernatural beings: ghosts, phantoms, sprits, even beings like vampires, werewolves or shapeshifters." That way you at least keep in character. With the current way you do it, it's as if you had a person's head popping up during a TV show to say "the character you're seeing now is a cross between a vampire and a werewolf" or "this character doesn't know who attacked him yet, but he seems to remember something about his partner." It just isn't done - you've got to find some way to include it in the story itself, without breaking away.

Overall, there are a lot of things that need fixing with this, and with your writing style in general. At the moment, it's very basic in all aspects, from your sentence structure to your method of telling the story. I would recommend you read more novels, or even just look at ones you've read before very carefully - study individual paragraphs with situations like action, dialogue, distress, and try and focus in on exactly how the writers get their points across. What you learn may come as a surprise - I guarentee it will be much different than how you write at the moment.

Hope to see you around some more!

Points: 890
Reviews: 90

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Mon Oct 02, 2006 9:36 pm

rosethorn wrote a review...

Hey, slow down there! You are writing too fast! There are plenty of errors in here that could have easily been caught if you took the time to proof-read.

And again, I'm noticing that you are putting in sentences that don't nessecarily fit in where you've placed them. It's like missing the punch line in a joke. Take the time to develop and you shouldn't have this problem. You have to know your character. You have intriguing ideas but if you don't take your time, that's all they'll ammount to.

What sort of inspirations are you using for this? How will you make it your own? Vampires are not nessecarily the most original subject out there so how will you make this yours.

Think about that one.

As always,

POKE

Points: 890
Reviews: 13

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Mon Oct 02, 2006 9:06 pm

ConformandObey_ItsFun says...

Hmmm, well, there are a few things I would change about it. Though, I must say, your writing is better than mine was at your age.

Good job.

Keep up the good work, kiddo!

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Stalking The Stalker

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