TITLE: Marbles
GENRE: Urban Fantasy
Info - Ari is exploring her aunt’s strange house and discovers that
the shadows that lurk over balconies and in corners are quite real and
alive.
I tried to keep my movements controlled as I sorted the papers. Out of
the corner my eye, I saw the shadow crossing the room. By now, a
second one had stepped out of the wall and joined the first. Two
shadows. Crap. Frick. Damn. They wandered around Toddle’s room,
drawing closer.
My hands shook as I brushed as much of the dust back onto the papers.
I tried to ignore the shadows and remember the original order of the
papers. Forget it.
“I’ll have to confess,” I said aloud, creating an excuse for my
trembling hands.. “How bad can it be… telling Toddle her writing
sucks?”
I kept my eyes as blank as I turned, allowing them to trail across the
shadow guys. Tall, looming, and not my imagination. I moved towards
the door and pulled it shut behind me. Outside, I felt an
uncomfortable reprieve from a nightmare – like a commercial break.
Then I mentally smacked myself for waiting for the shadows to glide
through the door after me.
I hurried down the hallway and made the turn down the main staircase.
The air felt like it was getting heavier and combined with the feeling
I'd slipped the noose but temporarily. Get out of the house
immediately.
Too late. A hefty shadow arose before me and reached the height of a
hefty man. I could smell his breath burning into my face, or perhaps
my nose imagined that. Because how could a shadow have bad breath?
Miss Snark's First Victim
You have good imagery and down-to-earth dialogue... but one bit on constructive criticism: if I saw shadows come alive and step out of a wall, the last thing I would do is stand around and handle a bunch of papers. Also, "commercial break" diminishes the suspense, at least for me.
ReplyDeleteGood luck and thanks for sharing.
First, I know these 250 words are occurring, so there's a lot that I don't know that probably happened way before this scene. With that in mind . . .
ReplyDeleteIf the shadows are dangerous, which is the assumption, then why is she sticking around trying to put the papers in order? Is her fear of Toddle's anger greater than her fear of these mysterious shadows? Could any fear be greater than moving shadows? I know my butt would have been out of the chair and out of the house the minute I saw the shadows moving. To me, it's as if the MC is familiar with the shadows somehow.
How does a nose imagine something? Since this isn't MG/YA fiction, you might want something different. The language - to me - seems a bit simplistic.
Hefty twice in one sentence is too much.
Burning breath? Perhaps "acrid stench" instead.
I'm definitely interested. What/who are these shadows? Are they dangerous? Why would the MC risk the danger just to read a manuscript that sucks? Still, you've intrigued me, so that's a good thing.
S
This seemed to have a slight bit of humor to it, in some of the remarks your MC makes, and that takes away from the terror a bit.
ReplyDeleteAs she leaves the room, perhaps you could have the shadows do something threatening. At that point, they're just there.
The shadow rising up in the ending parg. brings the suspense back, but then it lessens again when your MC makes the comment about bad breath. If this is going to be a bit light-hearted,it works fine, but if you're going for darkness and terror, perhaps the MC could have more dire thoughts. It would strengthen the spooky factor.
This felt disconnected to me. I know I don't know anything going on around it, but if she's just discovered the shadows are alive... Well, I wouldn't make comments about people's writing. Tension dropped right there.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, you have some really nice images, and the writing is clean.
I didn't care for the commercial break line either, took away from the tension.
ReplyDeleteI thought the reason she was shuffling the papers was to pretend she didn't see the shadows so she could escape without alerting them.
Which would explain why she was making the comments aloud about the writing.
I would change the nose imaging sentence too. Like a previous comment said, the nose can't imagine.
The bad breath line breaks the tension- if that is what you want. It's hard to read this little snippet. I can see if this fits with the rest of the book.
Overall I think it was good. The shadows would have scared the heck out of me! If I read this late at night I would be a little nervous looking around the room at the shadows. :)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhat movements is she tring to control and why?
ReplyDeleteDon't get why the swear words are there; they take me out of the story.
She can't see her own eyes unless she's looking in a mirror.
This could be scary, but needs some work.
You have an extra "as" in the second paragraph and the fourth paragraph.
ReplyDeleteI would like more description of the shadow guys.
Vary your adjectives in the last paragraph--you have two hefties. Also, what exactly did his breath smell like?
I like the last line. It's funny.
This one leaves me shrugging. Nothing particularly wrong with it - but nothing particularly great. The tension's there, but it's not compelling me to find out what happens next.
ReplyDelete(I, like Mystery Woman, was also a little weirded out by the curse words, particularly the fact that one didn't seem to suffice.)
Perhaps blank is a confusing description for the way the MC's eyes are. Unfocused? It would be good to choose a description that makes it clear that the MC is controlling where the eyes are going rather than what they look like, which the MC wouldn't know.
ReplyDeleteThere are a couple of places where a different word or phrase might help.
Also, the sentence length for pacing is good but the commercial break and the dialogue do seem to break up the flow of the scene.
The swearing broke the tension for me. Those words together didn't seem like something you'd say if you felt you were in mortal danger. I also felt the tension break when she left the room and mentally slapped herself for thinking they'd follow. It seems like she's making the shadows out to be a bigger danger than they are, which makes me think the same. Also, be careful of using the same word twice in succession eg. hefty in the last part.
ReplyDelete