A boy and his sister had to stay home alone one night. Their parents were out at a fancy party for their father’s job and they warned the children not to open the door for anyone under any circumstances.
The kids were distracted by TV and weren’t paying attention to their parent’s warning. A couple of hours after the parents left, the children were both in bed asleep when they were woken up by a knock at the door.
The knock came again and they began to think it must be an emergency so the sister went to answer the door.
Her brother lay awake on his bed, listening for her to come back to her room – but he didn’t hear her return. He got nervous and decided to leave and wait for his parents to get home at the neighbor’s house. He got out of bed and headed out the back door, down the side of the house and across his neighbor’s lawn.
They told him they were glad to see him because they had just heard on the news that there was an escaped murderer on the loose and he was last seen just a few blocks away.
When his parent’s came home much later that night, they found his sister’s body dead by the front door and a discarded knife on the brother’s bed.
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125,007 Literary Works • 672,817 Reviews
Hi wannawrite2,
Mailice here with a short review!
Yes, I'm back. I think you've got a bit of a knack of giving a kind of shock moment for the reader. You keep it short and sweet on some points, giving the impression that everything is under control. I think I can call your horror genre urban legend horror, because it kind of seems that way. You start with a good shocker, and a little virtue, similar to fairy tales, then go on and give the big reveal with the ending.
I'm surprised, compared to your other story, that this one is even shorter. There are some points, in fact, where I think you would have been better off inserting some points, such as a bit of the brother's emotions. It seems to me that there is a lack of something tangible on the part of the reader, to feel the fear.
Also, with your sentence structure and construction, you create a bit of a feeling that you've left some things out, so a lot of things could happen in a minute, at least in the context of the reader.
I think you could definitely expand on some things to give more of the fear and panic, especially here for example:
I just miss this feeling as if something could happen to the boy, because you give me the impression that everything is safe. Is the murderer now in the house when the boy goes out? Why didn't he call? You're building up a bit of a gap here.
In general, it was a good story with a bit of a shocker, but you actually leave me more with answering the many questions I now have.
Have fun writing!
Mailice
Does that mean her brother’s the murderer? Wow! I didn’t expect that at all. How can he be so cold-hearted?
Despite the fact that I *loved* the plot twist, I think you made him the killer for the sake of it; perhaps you intended it to shock us, but it still felt quite abrupt. You didn’t give us any hints that it could be him and, thus, your readers are likely to feel cheated. To lead the clues to him, you might show us that he hates his sister because, for example, she’s always favoured by their parents. You could have used flashbacks to indicate his bitterness towards her – do anything to show us that he’s, well, crazy.
Moreover, you could have taken time to develop/flesh out the characters, and describe their appearance, thoughts and feelings to engage the readers into the story. You could have used descriptions to prolong the tension or suspense to create a mysterious atmosphere.
Overall, I loved your idea, but it needs some revision.
Well done, and keep writing!
Now this is a scary piece you have got here...but I think you took this too far...and as far as I can see...no brother is so uncaring about his sister esspecially at times like these...and also that supposed murderer ought to be in some mental asylum as no one simply knocks on someones door and kills..one hasto be pretty screwed up to do that.. and I think these stories are simply not convincing...these have a bit much of imagination...no reality qnd it would only intrigue a child who is of course being warned by his parents to do no such stuff and is telling him this types of stories...and since the possibilty of a three year old reading this is zero..I think you can start writing proper stories anytime...not that I hate these stories...the child in me loves it but my fifteen year old brain cannot help but notice how much logic this really has...anyways even though your style is like this..I think you can do much better and try and do some other stories or poems that are of different style...Overall I think this would be much better if if is written into a poem...otherwise the choice is yyours really..