It was getting annoying, that damn knock on the door. I was in my fantasy world and that knock came and snatched me out of my world. I tried my best to ignore it, but it was so persistent, I finally got up to go just because it was “banging” for the past 7 minutes, it must be urgent but I don’t really care whether or not it was an emergency. I wanted one thing and one thing only, peace and quiet. You must be surprised, this coming from a teenager like me, a troubled one- emotionally that is. Yes, I am, emotionally troubled. Why? For starters, I live with my Aunt and Uncle and they have completely shunned me out of their lives.
They like to pretend I am not alive, why did they take me in? Only the almighty knows the answer to that question.
As many of the sad stories go, I am supposed to say my parents died in a car accident when I was 5 and left me to strive with my Aunt and Uncle. If I said that I would be lying. My parents died, yes but not in the way you would expect. My father shot my mother right in front of my face when I was eight and then he told me I was a worthless piece of crap then he did something to me a father should never do to a daughter. The old bastard then shot himself dead right in front of me. Now, can anyone relate to that story?
My life did not get any better, in fact it got so exciting that my Uncle took it to his privilege to follow in his brother’s footsteps and rape me, and I am supposed to silently suffer through it all. You may be wondering how I can tell my own version of a horror story without any emotions at all. That’s because the tears have dried up, dried up so much that I am almost immune to the pains that I must suffer.
There it was again, that bang! I opened the door ready to scream “What!” to the first shadow I see, but I was stopped short when I saw my best friend, Bethie who almost out of breath with blood all over her face. Bethie looked as if she ran a marathon then was beaten with a huge piece of wood on her head because she ran! She was out of breath and crying so painfully. The blood was dripping to every direction, slowly absorbing into her clothes. I suddenly began scared by seeing Bethie in this state.My eyes navigated to Bethie’s hand, it had a knife and right beside it was a child, a dead child.
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Sidenote-
It's kinda short, I know I do not know where I am going with this story, I need all the bad/ good reviews I can get. Thank You in advance!
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hello Monsterwriter! Sky here for a review.
I'll start off by saying that you've already told us you were in a fantasy world and was knocked out of it, so the 'my world' was not needed.
It seems you're abusing commas in here. You can use full stops and still keep them in the same paragraph, for this use of commas is way overdone.
Example:
In here, I fixed up a few things, because before it was awkwardly structured.
I got rid of the comma because you didn't start of the sentence in a way of a question (Adding What, Where, If, Why, How, etc) and so when you did ask the question in the same sentence, it seemed odd.
Um. Whoa there. Please slow down. This is valuable information to your reader. Try reading it out loud. I'm sure you get out of breath.
Periods and commas will help.
Example:
Overall:
This was a very interesting piece to read.
Take note of:
You need to work on your grammar, as in where and when to place commas, periods, exclamation marks etc. This is highly essential, because readers don't want to see jumbled up words with no periods or commas in sight, or too many commas that the paragraph seems choppy.
If you have any questions about this review, please contact me via my profile or inbox.
Keep writing,
Sky.
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It is getting annoying, that damn angsting of the viewpoint character.
All joking aside, I must say that the first thing that stands out to me is the character's pointlessly harsh backstory. Seriously. When I read this chapter I felt like I was doing a checklist.
Parents are dead? Check.
Death caused by murder-suicide right in front of her as a child? Check.
Living with abusive aunt and uncle? Check.
Is the uncle evil? Check.
Did the uncle rape her? Check.
Looks like that's al--oh wait. Best friend dies a bloody death under mysterious circumstances right in front of her? Check.
On the up side, with enough cliches I bet you could make a fantastic drinking game out of this story.
But what's the point of all this abuse? Why heap all this trauma on your character? Given just how much she's gone through it seems unrealistic and unnecessary, and that you're making life hard for her because that's what backstories do.
By the way, your viewpoint character's attitude? That's how I look at the world, and I haven't experienced any abuse. That kind of clues me in on the fact that you're not portraying a trauma victim correctly. In other words, she is an angsty teenager, not a trauma victim.
The psychology of an abuse victim is a very complex subject and should be treated with respect. If you want to have an abuse victim in your story, please do extensive research and make sure that the abuse is meaningful to your character and not just tacked on in an attempt to gain reader sympathy. Doing the latter is considered extremely disrespectful of real life abuse victims and can result in someone getting seriously offended. I cannot stress how important this is.
Before you write about abuse you must first determine whether or not it is necessary to the story and your character. How has the event changed your character? How is that change going to influence the rest of the story? Is your character going to have to overcome the trauma he or she experienced, perhaps even forgive the people who abused him/her? Is that what your story is all about? Or does the abuse have no bearing on the plot whatsoever and is just there because, well, because? If it's the latter then you're best off not using abuse in your backstory.
Also, I'd like to link you to this article written by a person known as Limyaael. It makes a few suggestions on how to treat abuse victims in fiction, so if you're dead set on having an abusive background I highly recommend giving this article a read.
I'd like to say more, but since this story is so short there's really nothing else I can say. The grammar can use a bit of polish since you sometimes use commas, periods, and conjunctions incorrectly, or not use them when they should be used. These are fairly minor mistakes and nothing a little review can't fix. Because of the unrealistic abuse of this character I can't exactly say anything good about this story since that's all this story is. Maybe if there was more content I could find something good, but as is I just can't get past the unbelievable backstory.
Ultimately I'd recommend going back to the drawing board and thinking about whether or not an abusive background is necessary for your story, and to make the necessary revisions depending on whether that answer is yes or no.
I hope this review has helped. You're welcome to contact me with any questions or comments.
--Dover