Registered: September 08, 2003
Posts: 2181
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***The lands shine with new life in the bright daylight. But dark shadows stalk the jet-black night***
This is a little over descriptive…not everything has to be dramatic. You’d set a better mood if you picked and chose where to use metaphors and hyperboles ect.
***Kat frowned. The realization dawned on her that she was talking to a grown man and not a child, that she could not and should not expect him to obey her like her son.
She began to admire Damion. He was towheaded and very muscular, and seemed to have a kind of animal strength.
Damion looked out the window and saw the light growing darker. “You said you have a child?”
“That’s right. He’s outside playing.”
“You should tell him to come in,” Damion suggested.
“Why?”
“Do it.”
Kat looked at him, slightly worried, and nodded, walking away. She opened the back door and went out into her yard to find James. She was curious as to why Damion wanted James inside, but decided that he must have some good reason.***
This struck me as very fake… She basically went, “Oh, he’s a man, not a kid… now isn’t he just oh-so-handsome. He's so strong, I'd better do whatever he says." It kills the tension you could build between them. Right away, you get the impression that they’re going to end up together by the end of the story.
***It was a semi-automatic twelve-gauge shotgun. The wood showed its age but was strong nonetheless. It was long, had a padded butt, and on the end of the fore grip read “Beretta.”
He pulled back the slide, exposing the breach, and slid a shell in. He closed the slide and thumbed shells into the bottom. He set the shotgun down and pulled a Colt 1911 from his saddlebags, pushed in a full magazine of .45 ACP bullets but did not pull back the slide. He put the put the pistol in a brown leather holster and the two magazines in his belt, and picked up his shotgun. He walked into the house and lay in wait for the evil that accompanied the nightfall.***
I know guns. I’m assuming you know guns, or you’ve done some reading. But most people don’t care if it was a semiautomatic twelve-gauge shotgun or if they were ACP bullets or not. In fact, most people probably don’t know what the heck you’re talking about. I think you’re trying to fit in too many details.
***The hearth’s warm, glowing blaze held the pitch-black night at bay, and it threw shadows on Damion’s face, sharpening his ominously thoughtful features.***
Too much description again. It makes it awkward to read. Cut out a couple of adjectives, and it would be good.
***The howl was too high-pitched for any normal human to hear… any normal human.
Damion had heard the vampires’ shrieks. He felt their presence, their hunger. He was one with them, and was about to destroy them. Though monster blood did not run through his veins, it was caked on his hands. Adrenaline surged through him.
He had killed thousands of the foul creatures, with their hunched backs and broad shoulders and their purple, lizard-like skin. He had killed thousands and would kill more tonight. They would come and he would kill, for he had but one purpose: to slay.***
This sounds cliché. "Look at how awesome Damion is. Look how dark and violent he is. Look how lost he gets in the killing." You’re telling too much and not showing enough. Let the way he fights speak for him. When you tell us how deadly he is, we don’t really care; when you show us, it can be pretty cool.
Also, Kat seems very weak in this part of the story. She listens to Damion for no real reason, cowers under the floorboards, and stares at her burning house in a daze. It’s not going to make for very interesting character development.
On the other hand: I think that you could write very well, but you have to remember that this stuff has to go somewhere. If you spend all your time making your main character look cool, you’re not going to have much to write about later. Your descriptions are good, but you need to be more selective, and find some new adjectives instead of using pitch-black, jet-black, shadowy, ect. It makes it look like you’re trying to hard to give the story a “dark” mood. This may sound really critical, but I think you could be really good. The fact that you’re even writing says a lot. Don’t give up; the more you write, the better you get, and this story isn’t bad. Just remember that you’re writing for the audience, not yourself. You have to keep them interested and write stuff that will appeal to a wide variety of people, not just people like you (for instance, the stuff with the guns). Wow, this is long; and after what I said about this not being the place to post long stories like yours. Oh, well. Love, and best wishes, Jen.
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