Warning: This work has been rated 18+ for language and violence.
“Hurry it up guys,” my cousin, Alan, rushed us. My brother, Owen threw a basket of random items ranging from potato chips to swimwear onto the back of the car. I was already in the car, sitting shotgun. We left early hoping to avoid heavy traffic on our way to the beach; sadly, our efforts were in vain, for when we reached the peak of the small hill overlooking the city, we could see a trail of cars packed tightly in front of us. Five hours later we checked into our hotel with minutes to spare for swimming. We stayed for three days, two nights. When we left, the process from earlier repeated itself. This time instead of taking the main road, we took the back road to avoid traffic. Each town that we passed through felt as though it had been abandoned.
“What’s going on?!” I shouted when Alan abruptly slammed on the breaks. “See that hobo, right there?” he pointed to a man in rags standing at the nose of the car. It was bizarre, because I did not expect anyone to still be in this deserted town. Alan pulled up to the man while rolling his window down. “Hey man I’m sorry. I didn’t see you” Alan apologized. I looked at the man, observing his peculiar characteristics only to notice the blood lust in his eyes. I had never seen something so sinister - so demonic. We waited for a response but nothing came out of his mouth. Although he said absolutely nothing, I could immediately sense a macabre aura emitted from his body, sending a chill down my spine. Just as we were about to drive away, the man lunged into the driver’s window, sinking his decaying teeth into Alan’s left shoulder. We all screamed - Alan because of pain, Owen and I because of the spontaneity from this gruesome event.
I kicked the man’s disfigured face in an attempt to free Alan. Upon Alan’s release, I pressed the switch that controls window, separating Alan and us from the flesh hungry man. To be continue...
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140,171 Literary Works • 673,032 Reviews
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,
Well, that was quite fast paced, I daresay its almost a little too fast paced there, you may want to slow that one down quite a bit, that's basically an entire first chapter's worth of stuff that is all being stuffed into the one paragraph. As it is now, it kind of shows these three randomly going to this place for a couple of days and just arriving all of a sudden. It just sounds far too rushed cause you do seem to be trying to bring across a sense of the kind of relationship these three share...and also about the whole getting late thing. You may want to look into slowing things down a bit here.
So, well, this is certainly a lovely note to end a first chapter on here, well, not particularly lovely for our main characters, but it definitely creates a lot of suspense there and makes for a wonderful cliffhanger. I loved the buildup there from noticing this strange person out in the street to noticing the weird details that alls spelt out something terrible was about and then the sudden action just happening with no warning whatsover. Its a pretty neatly done paragraph here and to be honest it does kind of make the previous one a bit unnecessary cause that doesn't quite seem to add much to the story...you could actually get away with shortening that entire paragraph into just these three being on their way home from a journey and then this happens...all that extra detail being rushed isn't required.
Overall, this was not a bad start at all, it seems like a story that I would read here.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Hi there! Here to review your chapter on this fine review day! Green Lantern style of course
I will review as I read so that it will make a little more sense to both me and you
Here goes!
The first thing I noticed about this piece is the length! I thought it was going to be a huge, great chapter! Let's see what it brings.
I love the way you've started your story - it's different and something that I don't often see here on YWS. I just wish you had added a little more description. Like how the sun shined off the car bonnet, or how the seats smelled of old fast food. I wanted to feel as though I really was inside the car.
You need to start a new line where you have a new speaker.
"I looked at the man, observing his peculiar characteristics only to notice the blood lust in his eyes." - I loved this description! It's short, snappy and straight to the point.
The final paragraph is like a gazillion percent improvement on the first one! You need to take note of your own writing in this part.
This story has so so so much potential and I'm excited to read more! Good luck!
Olive <3
What you've got here is great, some nice descriptions, a good sense of what's to come in the story. There are a few gramatical errors that I'll outline below that you should look at to polish your writing.
You need another comma after Owen.
This was a great way to describe it because those last to words give some good insight into the character.
This sounds like a list and it feels like there should be a third thing in the list but there isn't, so it sounds a little incomplete. I would swap the second comma for an 'and' because it just sounds less clumsy.
When a new person starts speaking you should start a new paragraph. If you don't, it can get a little confusing for the reader becaus, at first, you won't be able to tell who is speeking.
Appart from that the writing is great my only complaint is that there just isn't enough. You jump straight into the action and very little actually happens withing the chapter. I think this piece would benefit from putting a scene at the beginning to introduce the characters. Maybe they could be packing the car. And try to build tension withing this scene as well. Really stretch things out. This is a really good piece with a lot of potential.
Hi there!
Let me start off by saying that this story has got a lot of potential. I really like the idea of this whole chance meeting of a vampire on the street. I have to say it's quite original. I'm not one to read stories about vampires and all that, but you've caught my attention and now I'm interested. The suddenness of this event had me on the edge of my seat.
That being said, I have a few comments about your piece that you can think about for future chapters.
1. I feel like you rushed the story a bit. Now, sometimes it's easy to do this, especially because you want to get to the action. It's hard for me as well. There are times when I just want to skip over everything that happens in the beginning of the story just so I can get to the good part. But slow it down a bit. Take a walk, smell the flowers. Give us a little insight on the trip to the beach. Surely something exciting happened there. Someone must've gotten buried under a pile of sand, right? No? Am I the only one who buries someone at the beach...? All jokes aside, I really wanted to see more in the story about what happened at the beach. Not only does that give the story some depth, but it also leads to my second point:
2. Character development. I feel like I know absolutely nothing about your characters. Although I do feel like the vampire was described well. Since he's just a character thrown in there, I don't expect him to be developed perfectly to a T, but you did a good job with him. As for you main character, the narrator, I know nothing about them. I'm not even sure if they're a boy or a girl. Remember, what makes novels great is usually their character development over their storyline. It's important to introduce the readers to your characters and really get them to relate. I hope to see more of this in the next chapter!
Overall I really did enjoy reading this. It's very interesting and it's going in a good direction. I can't wait to read more!
Keep writing!
**Noelle**
Hi there, Nibf! I'm going to tell you beforehand, this is my first review on the site, so bear with me.
To start, I have to say this was overall a good piece. Wonderful description of the zombie (assuming he's a zombie and this is an apocalyptic story.) Also, the plot sounds like an interesting one and I'd love to hear more of this story. Now, onto the nit-picking.
First, this chapter went really fast. It was like, three days, zombies and story introduction in three paragraphs. I would recommend more description on the characters, explain where they're going and why they're going there. Show their relationships with each other through conversation. Give more detail on the three days they spent at the hotel, for example: did they go anywhere? How did the main character feel during the days? How has their vacation been going? Stuff like that would allow the readers a greater grasp of your characters and their situation, and start connecting to your protagonist before the danger starts.
Second, I found a few grammatical errors you might take a look at. In the first paragraph, you could take away the comma before Owen or add one after the name, to make the flow better. In the second paragraph, you should create another paragraph when Alan starts speaking. Also, after his speaking, the "he" should be capitalized. When Alan says "I didn't see you," put a comma after "you." Delete the space between blood and lust, since it's one word. Emitted should be emitting. In the last sentence of the second paragraph, "spontaneity from," should be "spontaneity of."
In the last paragraph, there should be a "the" before window. Flesh hungry should have a dash: flesh-hungry. And the last thing, make continue a past tense.
And that's it! Thank you for posting this story and I can't wait to read more!
--Blue